Genevieve
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	The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

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Brute force and finesse
2001-09-24 - 2:51 p.m.

Hey gang!

So, this weekend was ...um...interesting.

Friday night was the last BBQ of the season at our place. Of course the sun is going down sooner and sooner, so it was dark pretty much for the whole thing. But we had tiki torches and lanterns in the backyard and the house for some to retreat into. Of course, since I had errands to run after working until 6, I didn't get to my own party until after 7. oh well, it was in full swing by the time I got there. I love the fact that my friends are close enough to just make themselves at home. There were burgers, dogs, chicken and steak on the grill. yummm.... chips, dip, veggies, etc. and a few of us had ice cream later in the evening. Of course that means that my yummy peanut butter/chocolate icecream is all gone... thanks to Rags, Roland, and Theo. oh well, time to buy more! :)

One of the things I liked about this party is that we had a nice cross section of folks there, and all seemed to have a good time. If you are local, please don't be upset about not being invited, the house is small and we are blonde. But we had some folks from Gardiners: Jimmy, Sandy, Carla, Bob and Laura. There is something interesting about a woman drinking her dinner in alcohol and a man cooking on the grill with a gun strapped to his side. Safest place for it likely. We were also graced the the prescence of Matt and Susan. I think he wants my wingback chair. Kelly, Os, Gina and Shane came over and I think had fun. I remember torturing Os and Shane's soul with Kelly's help. QPM and Q made an appearance, and she tried to get folks to hem her cotehardie, but honestly honey, you gotta make the first move. If she had brought it out and started working on it, then others would have chipped in. Roland and Theo spent a lot of time with Rags and Kyna in the study. They came out to deplete the ice cream supply and then went back to the new comfy sofa. Did I forget anyone? Naturally part of the party was a bit of a blur since work paged me and I had to get online, check some things out, page a few other folks, take thier returned calls, figure stuff out, and call back Level 1 to pass on the info I had gathered. Like I said, a bit of a blur. Dude, 19 folks, that's shocking considering the size of the house.

Laura said that the wicker love seat is going to start growing skin so it can blend in with the leather furniture in the room. :)

Saturday Gen was a brute. There really is no other explaination for it. Saturday, after Alan hooked the trailer to the truck, and left for the event, Gen got in "Let's get rid of this shit that ain't ours" mood. I watched an episode of Trading Spaces that I had seen before and yet was still riveted to the comfy chair. Then I loaded up the truck and trailer and got on the road. I took Beth's stuff to storage. Traffic on the northern ridge of the Beltway sucked a monkey's ass. When I got to Beth's storage unit, I had to evaluate the situation in order to figure out how to best put stuff away. I figure it only took me a half hour in the end, so not too bad. And nothing came crashing down on my little pudding head. yay! Sorry Beth, you just have too much stuff. Time to throw away and simplify. really... :)

After the dumping of K's stuff, I head off to Reston/Herndon to give Kev back his trailer. While he said he was in no hurry to get it back, I was in a bit of a hurry to get it out of my driveway. And I know that Gwen wants it for the removal of brush from the yard. I don't envy them that project. So when I got to the house, my original plan of parking it on the side of the road was a wash since there were cars parked there. sigh. I imagine they belonged to scadians who all met together to go to the demo they were holding in Fairfax. So, I muster up a bit of courage and gusto and decide that despite the non straight driveway, I'd try to back the trailer in. How hard could it be? Well, there is really no good way, and I'm already bad at having an articulated ass, and the problem that when I want it to go one way, I have to turn the wheel the opposite, ugh, issues, no wait, ... subscription! I also have this fear of scraping Jake's car which is occupying the other half of the driveway, so I end up getting it good enough and have at least the butt of the trailer in the driveway, and I put the truck in park. Not wanting to be rude about it and leave it there, I unhitched the trailer from the truck and do my best female wrestler impression and push the trailer, up the slight hill, into the spot in the driveway, and manage not to scratch Jake's car. I was at least smart and placed the bricks at intervals up the driveway so that I could grab them if I needed them. After lots of pushing and sliding back a little and pushing some more, I finally got the trailer in a good enuf position and chocked it in place. whew. Afterwards I was absolutely filthy and sweaty, but kinda felt good in that I did it by myself. I know I could have planned to be there at a time when others could have helped me out, but then I wouldn't have gotten the rest of the stuff I accomplished that day done. I also swear I communicated that I'd be dropping the trailer off, and it would have been nice to just pull it up to the curb in front of the house, but oh well. I guess I wasn't clear. I also could have waited until later and done dinner etc with the NoVA crowd, but ditto about all the stuff that I got done afterwards, and the original plan was to do dinner with Rich and Gabby while they were in town-ish. Ah, best laid plans.

So with trailer in place, I went to the Exxon around the corner and washed my hands and face and got some Diet Dew which tasted soooo good. Ah, almost heaven. I got back in the now empty and unencumbered truck, yay! happy dance!, and made my way home. Once home I took the canvas of the 16x20, that Kev and Gwen are letting us borrow for Crown, up to the attic where it can be stored high and dry. That's a lot of canvas. whew. I also discovered that I forgot to throw in Beth's fly and ground cloth for her regent, which is no biggie since I'll have to head back out there eventually to put in storage her big top's top and a newly contructed ridge pole, thanks to Alan's desire to try out his router. So, the carting of stuff is not over, but the pile is significantly smaller. After hefting canvas up a flight and a half of stairs, I then put the non-light T-bone tables and benches in the bed of the truck to take over to Rob and Wen's for use at her event in Oct. (Subliminal message: everyone who's cool will be there, don't you want to?) Everyone would have been proud of me, since my arms are neither really long nor really strong, to get those tables in the truck, I used my knee to kick it up to the level of the bed to slide it in the truck. One moment of genius in my brute-like mentality day.

So, I have Beth's stuff back at her storage place, trailer back at Kev's, Kev and Gwen's tent stored upstairs, tables and benches in bed of truck, what else is there? Ah yes, our own tent had been up in the back yard for two weeks after Pennsic to air out and hopefully a lot of the dust would either be blown off or rained off. Well, when it came time to take it down, I wasn't there to help, so Alan balled the top up and left it dry in the garage. So, inspired and not quite out of wind, I pulled out our top and a broom and swept and folded the entire top so that not a bit was left un cared for. I then took our top and floor upstairs to the attic to be reunited with the rest of the canvas. After the day's activities, I had finally soaked through my clothes, and ran out of energy and changed into my bathrobe and collapsed in the comfy chair of doom and watched a bad movie and drank liquids. Ah, Sobe Lean....

Afterwards, we took the tables and benchs over to Rob and Wen's and unloaded them, hung out for a little, and then Alan and I left them to their pizza and went out on a date to Hard Times Cafe and then to a little bit of running around Target. I got a clock for the sewing room so I don't get completely lost in time. yay! I also got a spooky glow in the dark halloween t-shirt. ;) hee hee hee Alan and I eventually crashed and crashed hard. Sadly we ended up not doing dinner with Rich and Gabby since they wanted to head on home after the event, which I totally understand. Maybe next time.

Sunday was a much more low energy day. I pretty much watched TV and did the hand sewing on QPM's sideless all day, with a few breaks to chat on the phone several times with Theo and stretch occasionally. I got all the hand sewing done of tacking down the white part, neckline and the scoops to define them a bit. I also pinned the hem based roughly on the one she loaned me that I did at Pennsic. I pinned it an inch longer in the front and a little more than that in the back just for kicks. I'll have her try it on before I actually sew it first. Next is tackling the wavy stripe around the knees, and then passing it off for roses around the stripe. This will be way cool. I did watch Pride and Prejudice, and Alan even watched a few hours of it, and I dare say liked it. I was under the impression to not subject Alan to Jane Austen after watching the icky Gweneth Paltrow version of Emma. I usually only watch Jane Austen movies when he's not around. I offered to turn it off when he was taking breaks from working in the shop, cleaning the gutters, doing yard work... He declined. I told him that Cuan and Anton willingly sit and watch it from start to finish. He said that it much be the manners that they like. Quoth the Alan: "I'd rather watch Jane Austen than read it." He's so cute.

We retired to bed knowing that we had a nice productive weekend behind us. I didn't get any more work done on the hoods, quit bugging me about it Theo, nor my own sideless, nor any other of the projects I have lining up behind me in the queue. Of course I have to add to the queue the item of garb I need to make for Q as the Sorry-I-scratched-your-truck present. One of these days...

sigh, very tiring weekend. my back and muscles are a little sore, but nothing I can't live with. I just hope my sweetie is feeling better. His back was all sorts of sore so that he was teleworking today and planned to go by the Chiropractor as soon as they opened today. I gotta run back by Target on my way home tonight and then hopefully QPM will come on by for a fitting and eyeballing on the surcote.

And the fun never stops...

Love you guys...

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