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

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Deck the halls...
2001-12-17 - 3:15 p.m.

So, somehow my one year anniversary on D*land was anticlimactic. Oh well, certainly no big. What did I expect, a party or something? Oh wait, there was a party, but it was most certainly not for my D*land anniversary.

Friday night I zoom out of work at 6, swing by the chiropractor, grab a bottle of wine for the Meng, and run upstairs to try on many different outfits before I settled on something that would do for the party. I have two different skirts, and like 6 different tops, and did the nothing long waisted with the ballgown skirt, and nothing short waisted with the little velvet skirt, and what is more appropriate, etc.. Oh, and when I did decide on a look, then what oh what to do with my hair. Luckily we were sort of waiting on the cable guy who was supposed to come and hook up digital cable between 5-8pm, so I figured I had until 8 to figure something out. 8:05pm we left the house for dinner, giving up on cable guy. We went to Harry's for dinner, Theo talking about telling our waiter to move with alacrity, and the rest of us laughing at her overestimation of her common man saying that the likelihood that whatever server we got knew the word alacrity was 1 in 10. As it turns out, our waitress was exceptionally clueless, and although normally generous folks, we left a below normal tip due to her piss poor service. I asked for steamed broccoli instead of fries, got fries. Kirsten ordered a glass of wine, it didn't come until after the food. We were also a little overdressed for Harry's but we wanted substantial food in stomach before anticipated drinking. On a side note, after dinner we got a voice mail message giving us instructions on how to reschedule the cable guy. bastard

Brian and Nancy-Ellen's party was a blast. There was a little buffet of snacks, Brian mixing the ever popular Red Bull and vodka, oh my! there was also Champagne tasting with Tonton, which I think I like #1 the best. Well honestly I liked the asti best, but probably not with cake. There was drinking and hanging out, everyone looking fine, except of course, Brian in a T-shirt, Bob, Matt and Q in Hawaiian shirts. Ilse was definitely striking in the short green dress and red heels and wrap. Ryan looked smashing in his tux as well. Meng even already had her tree up and trimmed for the party. I swear, she is psycho decorator lady. I have a hard time trying to find a place to put everything away and she has time, space and inclination to get extra decorative chachkas for the tables and top of kitchen cabinets. Stuff I'll never really understand. I get the jist of an uncluttered decorative lifestyle, but to me, I live too much in my spaces to bother truly decorating and putting knick knacks on the side tables. Does a lamp count as a knick knack? Anyway, the place looked fabulous, the food and drink was nice and the company was without equal. We were there until 2:30 in the morning so didn't get home until 3am. I'm not used to late nights and the conflict between the caffiene and alcohol was rough to deal with in the morning.

I forgot to mention though, a couple of weeks late, but Kirsten and Wendy gave me belated birthday presents that I absolutely adored. I got fluer-de-lys and rose stamp and ink from Kirsten as well as PPG steering wheel cover for Scarlett. It's only a little disturbing...
Wendy on behalf of Rob, Mel and her, gave me Clerks and Mallrats on DVD! How totally awesome. I spent most of the rest of the weekend resisting watching them. Thanks guys!!! Now I just need Chasing Amy to round out the collection and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when it comes out on DVD on Feb. 26th. tee hee hee...

So Saturday we slept in late, all of us, I think I finally dragged out of bed by 10am. Then we pfutzed around a bit before I headed out to brave the shopping center scene in Rockville to grab a few presents and go on a gift certificate acquisition run. Not as bad as I thought it would be. The lines were short, the stores weren't too crowded, it was just the traffic and parking that was a bitch. Then we went over to Wen and Rob's to hang out, oogle the machine, Alan sat transfixed like Cuan watching it do an entire design. We played with fabric a bit, traced out a G63 pattern for Kelly to use for Os, and had yummy pizza and a general lazy night on the whole. Quite a contrast to our bustling Friday night.

Sunday was brunch with Laura where they have stopped giving out one free mimosa or bloody mary per person at the Ram's Head Tavern so we'll have to search for someplace else with free alcohol on Sunday mornings. Also, while I hate to bust on my kind, the waitress truly lived up to her obviously naturally blonde roots. sigh, this was the weekend of poor waitstaff. Then Alan and I went to check out a couple of houses in the neighborhood before making a Target run and decking the halls. One was listed as a four level split level home which peaked our curiousity. It turns out to be a normal split level home but with an additional level down for a basement from the lower half of the split. weird and perfectly useless place for a shop. There was no good way to get a 4x8 piece of plywood down there, much less use it for normal SCA and stuff storage that needs to go in and come out often. That and I hated the closet doors all over the house. They had those cheesy 70's metal sliding closet doors all over that are not only unattractive, but heavy and cumbersome, although when open at least they don't take up too much space. And the bedrooms were too small. So then we run over to Target so that I can do some shopping for toys for the nieces. I purposefully didn't grab a cart hoping to limit my shopping, but instead I just loaded up my arms and they started spassing while I was in line. eh.

Afterwards we ran home and I got the decking the halls bug. I pulled down all the Christmas stuff, not that there is much, cleared off a place for our sad little Charlie Brown tree, and put down a drop cloth. I put up the little artificial tree, decorated it with all sorts of crazy mismatched ornaments, and put the wreaths on the doors. They are pretty cool for being fake and all. What we still need to do is put up the candles in the windows and lights outside. But Alan is best at stringing lights outside, and now he's sick. But I have wreaths on the doors and my sad little tree up, so it's at least a start right?

Aside: Why the hell is it 79 steps from the basement to the third floor? What an odd number. That means 13 steps for each half floor, and that's just a little spooky. All the injustice in the world, the basement level vending machine is out of Diet Coke again, and the only other machine is on the third floor and it has cans instead of 20oz bottles. So, I had to run upstairs for more DC and then it is 79 steps and when I finally get my tubby ass to the top I am wheezing like I'd just run a marathon. Time to get my fat ass back on the diet and perhaps this time into a gym. 79 stairs! shit...

Oh, yeah, Alan's sick. I think the plague has finally hit him, you contagious bastards! He had all sorts of trouble sleeping last night and is miserable. He's staying home today, and hopefully that will help. As will the five day weekend he gets over Christmas, but I hope he's not still sick by then. Even more selfishly, I hope I don't get it.

So after trimming the tree, I sit back to enjoy it, listening to a bit of Christmas music and also watching the fish in the tank, and the funny snail, and I drift off to sleep for a nap on my comfy couch. Ah, sleep, it was very restful, I didn't stir for an hour, an hour of solid sleep. Afterwards I succumbed to the urge and watched Clerks and Mallrats, including the deleted scenes and the alternate ending for Clerks and stuff, back to back. It was great, fulfilling, wonderfully decadent. I loved it. Then I sat down to read a chapter in my book, but it ended up being a long chapter and Lestat is such a seductive bastard that I couldn't put it down. I finally put it down around 1:30am and then tried to go to bed, but didn't actually get to sleep until after 2. So, I'm a little tired today, but on the whole, not too bad, had a nice wonderful weekend.

Tonight maybe I'll tackle the candles in the windows...
Have a holly jolly christmas, it's the best time of the year...

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