Social Weekend

My weekend was much more social than usual, possibly to make up for the bitterly cold outdoor temps (I didn't keep track, but I think it didn't go above -10 all weekend, plus wind chill.)

Friday night d. and I hung out with J. and L. at an Elora pub, with musician-friends of theirs. The conversations were fun. And in the end, the music and folky music conversations made me nostalgic for Bound for Glory, the Ithaca live-to-air folk show I briefly volunteered with as sound guy in the mid 90s. It's the closest I've come to being involved with professional live music, and you never knew whether the artists would be transcendently beautiful-sounding or maybe just middle-of-the-road.

Saturday afternoon d. felt like staying home, but I went out to increase my pub quotient and meet up with J. and L. uptown, along with J. and P., a gay couple who we *might* actually see more of, since P. lives in town.

And d. made us a very tasty leek/potato soup and roast chicken and roast beets mmmmmmm. I feel incredibly lucky that when my sweetie feels antisocial he prefers to shut himself away in the kitchen! :)

Sunday was a pileup of Quakerness: regular Meeting, then Business Meeting (extra-long because December's was snowed out), then potluck lunch, and finally after a break I chaired a Wedding Clearness Committee. (I could talk more about the Quaker weddings process, but for now I'll just say there's a committee struck to meet with the couple before the Meeting will agree to undertake holding the wedding under its care). I feel grateful to have been part of this- it was a totally new experience for me, and we had one very experienced Friend who made things easier, though it wasn't at all what I would consider easy.

Then I went home, said hi to my sweetie, then shut myself away and played DDR for an hour.

Yup, here we have life with a pair of social introverts. :)

Movie Reviewlet: Barbarian Invasions

Les Invasions barbares rates five out of five stars. I think I should see this again eventually; the longer version next time (we had the choice between 99m and 112m; we took the shorter one).

So much nuance; and the wonderfully clever dialogue between old friends and exes. It skewers nationalized medicine, Quebec hospitals, American culture, and probably our attitudes about families as well. Much of the the film just felt comfortable- they could imply volumes just with a single visual element (a glance; a long shot through the hospital's corridor). Some of the comfortableness feels uncomfortable- how the son used his money and privilege as a lever to work through bureaucracy, a perfectly obvious decision that I would probably make as well, in the same circumstance as him.

And all of this feels comfortable even though I've never helped a close friend deal with a terminal illness. Though, of course, I know people who have, and I suppose the story arc in the film is somewhat cathartic.

I need to see The Decline of the American Empire, its predecessor. (Don't yell at me for not seeing it yet! I only have so much time for movies! ;)

A mixed day

When I went to get lunch, the discounted-movie table was in the Student Life building, as they occasionally are. I'm glad I waited to buy Doctor Who Season Three- I saw it on a Boxing Day sale for $80. Today I was going to buy it for $60, and he said he had a damaged-box copy for $40. Score! (This fits my half-hearted strategy to only buy DVDs for under $10 a disk- it's kept me from buying a pile of movies in the last six months!)

Also, the sushi vendor gave me an extra piece of nigiri.

I was able to help a student with a Mac/X11 problem this morning, but otherwise I'm not very excited with work. I'm trying to use lint to report programming mistakes on the code I'm rewriting, but it gets hung up on the LabView libraries before it even gets to the code I'm responsible for. So I'm probably going to give up with automatic checks on how much I have done / have still to do, which is a shame. (I wonder if there's a lint option for "disable just enough checks to give me something to start with." I've disabled what I can, though!)

And my head has been pounding all day.

Tomorrow I'm starting an Assertive Communication Skills workshop, and I'm cautiously optimistic about that. And I'm looking forward to skiing tomorrow after work. (Hm, I wonder what the wind-chill will be? I wonder if I can locate my face-mask and goggles?)