Weekend

[lodessa]

At 9AM in Friday power went out at my apartment complex; at about 10:15 it went out at work. I came home, took a nap until 12:30 and hoped the power would come back on too late for me to go back to work but before it got too dark. A few hours later I broke my own rules and went to Carl's Jr (one of the only places with power in the town). It was actually really tasty but my conscience won't let me go under normal circumstances because I care about women's rights. Also I hate their ad campaigns. Sadly we could not find a camp stove at any of the places in town with power, and the idea of getting on the freeway was too nuts to consider. So sophia_helix and I purchased things that could be eaten without heating or cooling (fucking electric stoves) such as cheez-its, nutra-grain bars, nilla wafers and nutella, and canned fruit (also more alcohol and mixers). We went home where the boy was home sick and played drinking Life with my brother and Steve. Kyle had all the stocks (and we had to drink every time someone spun a stock), also Steve (being the doctor) was doing under the table sex change operations. sophia_helix went to pick up actoplasm and check on Lily and I started drinking Kyle's Gin and Tonics instead of Tequila Sours (having finally run out of Vodka and being low on Rum). We were fortunate enough to have the shabbat candles sophia_helix purchased accidentally instead of Hanukkah ones as well as all the scented ones and the billion tea lights i got from IKEA a while back. We were having trouble coming up with an activity though, since no one really felt like board games anymore. sophia_helix suggested reading outloud but it seemed too passive for most people. Then, while looking at my duplicate copies of many Shakespeare plays (how did I end up with 3 copies of Antony and Cleopatra?) she struck a genius idea. Why not do a play reading? We settled on Much Ado and at first it seemed like it was not going to take off, but then accents began and the hilarity of Kyle playing Leonato, Don Pedro, and Don Jon. More importantly, it became a drinking game. Specifically, That's What She Said: Drinking Shakespeare. There is a hole in the carpet where one of the candles burned through the cup it was sitting in, but otherwise things went smoothly. By the time we finished it was 11:30 and times for everyone but Kyle and Steve to go to bed, expecting the power to be back in in the morning.

It wasn't. I had never before woken up to the power still being off the next day in my whole life. Mom had power (although the threat of the levees flooding her area was considerable) and wanted us to come sit by her fireplace. Jeremy didn't want to go anywhere though. We compromised and went to Denny's (where sophia_helix chatted with the people next to us about The Office and pimped 30 Rock). We then planned to head to mom's when Alex went to work at 3. The power went on shortly after we got home though, so Kyle and I departed alone to mom's. Unfortunately... the power went off again 5 minutes later. At mom's Sunny the dog was happy to see us, as was Mr. Ernest Worthing (who I think misses my sister). Kyle wanted a milkshake so we went and got him one, went grocery shopping, and then looked at candles at Marshalls and tried to keep mom from buying everything. Jeremy called at about 5 to say the power was back on for real (after 32 hours) and after getting back to mom's we headed home. Where we proceeded to play a ton of Soul Calibur III. I played until 1:30 AM, took a shower, tried to go to sleep and finally gave up when Kyle got back home with Steve and Paige Deshanel (who had previously been stuck in the mountains). The boys wanted to watch Stardust but we girls started chatting and they passed out. It was 3:30 when they left and we had arranged to do a reprise of That's What She Said: Drinking Shakespeare the following Sunday because Paige was sad she missed out.

Sunday I played some WoW and Jeremy came home from work early again because he was still really sick. He wanted pizza (which was a challenge since some of the places had no ingredients thanks to the power outage) and we waited impatiently for that for an hour and then devoured. After that, Kyle and I departed for our intended shopping trip at the outlets (Kyle was hoping the Burburry outlet would have boxer briefs in small... he's really into designer underwear right now). We went to BevMo! first and bought more Gin and Tonic Water (after considering various other options). Then we went to J Crew where I got a tank top and nice new black pants that actually fit correctly(mine are dying) for $30 combined. We had a map and a plan. A lot of stores didn't pan out but I also got a pair of kitten heel moccasins that will be great for work at Nine West for $30 and A pair of navy pinstriped slacks at Banana Republic for $30 (yay for having work pants again). I was about 6PM when we got home and I played WoW some more with Jeremy and then we took a shower and went to bed (where the cat was our friend).


Summary:
*Power was out for a day and a half.
*That's What She Said Drinking Shakespeare.
*Shopping


After much discussion with hamsterwoman


[Poll #1117123]

Comments

[hamsterwoman]

Oh god, 32 hours without power! >:(( (I think we've had a power outage that lasted longer than one day, back in the absolutely crazy storms of 1995(-ish?), but that was about it.) Sounds like you found ways to have fun, though -- the Shakespeare play reading/drinking game sounds awesome!

Also, yay, the ASoIAF/HP house poll! I'm amused by how unanimous most of the votes are, with the exception of Martells who are all over the place and Targaryens who we can now confirm as "too crazy to sort" :). Well, yes, and Greyjoy and Tyrell seem to be bimodal, but that actually makes sense. Arryn's hard to sort, since Jon Arryn is dead and little Robert has been so thoroughly screwed up by Lysa that you can't tell what kind of personality is under there. I went with Ravenclaw for pretty much the same reason you mentioned -- the heraldry, mostly, plus it sounds like Jon was supposed to be a pretty bright guy (or at least the only one with any understanding of genetics in Robert's circle...:P)

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

We did manage to keep ourselves entertained. The Shakespeare reading/drinking game was so much fun that we are going to try it again even when the power is on.

Yeah. I always got the impression that Jon was a really calm, levelheaded, intelligent, guy. Robert Arryn frightens me, but I think that's mostly his mother's doing.

[hamsterwoman]

Robert Arryn is a scary little kid (and I find it interesting that a twisted kind of maternal love made him that way. I mean, you kind of have the same argument with Joffrey, but almost all Lannisters seem a bit dysfunctional, most in fairly scary ways, while Jon Arryn and most Tullys seem like normal people, so it's almost certainly all nurture in little Robert's case). He is almost certainly going to get killed off, if he doesn't sicken and die on his own, but I kind of wish he would get a chance to grow up and have Sansa reform him into a human being of average decency for ASOIAF (which isn't even that high a bar to set, honestly). (That might just be the parent in me talking. I'm so a priori mournful over Tommen and Robert Arryn because they are surrounded by crazy and/or unscrupulous people and are in the way of more crazy and/or unscrupulous people, and I just don't see them making it through alive. :( )

Also, I have to remark that your icon wins for the enormous difference between what it looks like if you don't know what it's referring to and what it actually is. Clouds and innocuous words... yay?

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

Indeed. Of course Lysa was batshit crazy (in her own way but just as much as Cersei). Sweet Robin is sort of a tragic figure because it seems like nature and nurture combined to ruin him (after all the Arryn line is all but dying out and I suspect that Lysa was messed up biologically from the moontea or something else... I mean there were a lot of miscarriages). Also I honestly think Joffery's being a jerk is nature as well as nurture, because he strikes me as kind of just having been a bad seed to begin with... since Tommen and Myrcella seem like such totally sweet kids (and I mourn for them all the time).

Yes I love the incongruity of appearance and meaning in that icon so much.

[hamsterwoman]

Oh, I fully agree on the Lysa craziness -- she was just less... active in it than Cersei, but every bit as nuts.

Also I honestly think Joffery's being a jerk is nature as well as nurture, because he strikes me as kind of just having been a bad seed to begin with...

Agreed here too. Although I do think that part of his screwed-uppedness relative to his sibs is that he bore the brunt of Cersei's crazy attention and love and hopes. I get the sense that she pretty much ignored the younger kids -- I mean, she is grief-stricken, obviously, when Tommen becomes king, but the way she treats him does not suggest a whole lot of maternal affection. While Joff was always going to be her golden puppet-king, so it looks like she paid all her attention to him. (But he could very well be just a bad seed, too. I forget, is Tywin the eldest of his sibs? Because if he is, there seems to be a pretty good case for eldest Lannister child (at least in Tywin's line) = sociopath. And Joff's not even a competent, useful sociopath like Tywin, nor a pathetic one like Cersei -- he's just utterly hate-worthy.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

It is definitely true about the focus Cersei placed on Joffery... but there is something about the way he genuinely enjoys causing other people pain that just goes above and beyond being a spoiled brat. Cersei and Tywin and Tyrion even do things to achieve an end (or at least that is their motivation) whereas Joffery just gets off on being horrid.

I think Tywin is the eldest. He would have to be unless it was the sister for inheritance purposes and psychologically it makes sense as well.

[hamsterwoman]

I keep thinking of Tywin as eldest, but I can't actually remember if Genna talks about his as a younger or older brother... He certainly *acts* eldest, but that could be just the force of his personality. (I should know this, dammit! What kind of Twyin fangirl am I, really?)

I do think Cersei has a bit of Joff's sadistic streak, too -- the scene with baby!Tyrion, for instance. Granted, she had just lost her mother and had her father lock himself away to mourn, so it's not like she was torturing Tyrion for *fun*, but still, that aspect of her personality always made me profoundly uneasy. I suspect she could've turned out as bad as Joff if she'd been allowed free rein (or reign, heh) and had her psychosis mistaken for strength and encouraged, the way Cersei seemed to be doing it with Joff.

[lodessa.livejournal.com]

I will be very very glad when Cersei is also dead and gone.