Last Weekend for August 17-19: Busy Saturday, Calm Other Days
This past weekend M went to the Canadian side of Niagra for the bachelorette party of one of her college classmates. I did very little Friday and Sunday and quite a lot on Saturday.
Friday night the extent of my effort was reading another book by Junot Diaz. This time I read through his short story collection Drown, which precedes This is How You Lose Her. I didn't like it quite as much, but I'm not sure if that is because it is a less mature earlier work by Diaz, or because I read it all in one sitting as to a story or two a night as I read the other collection, or for some other reason. It was still pretty good, but I'd start with the latter book. Although it's about the same family, the order won't matter.
On Saturday morning, I did something I have not done in a great many years and helped someone move into a new residence. My friend and fraternity brother John's mother retired and bought a condo near him (and actually, quite near my old Coventry apartment), and I and a small assortment of friends and family helped get two U-Haul loads and a few car loads into her apartment. We were rewarded with the traditional pizza and beer.
After some errands and an afternoon nap, I headed out to North Olmsted to a BBQ that was hosted by the owners of my CrossFit box. There were a lot of people I recognized, and we had something in common so it was a pleasant evening talking mostly to people I don't really know.
From there, I headed off to the monthly or so poker game I play with a bunch of current and former WRUWites, mostly metalheads. On my $2.00 buy in I came home with $2.07. Victory!
Sunday I slept in, and then did a radio show that was primarily focused on the recently passed Aretha Franklin. For the first 90 minutes of my show I pulled every piece of vinyl we had by her and focused on songs that were not on her greatest hits album, grouped roughly by "Live", "Columbia", "Atlantic", "Arista" and "Gospel". In the last thirty minutes I gave away Barrence Whitfield tickets and hit the radio encyclopedia project.
M returned Sunday night somewhat exhausted, and that was the weekend.
Friday night the extent of my effort was reading another book by Junot Diaz. This time I read through his short story collection Drown, which precedes This is How You Lose Her. I didn't like it quite as much, but I'm not sure if that is because it is a less mature earlier work by Diaz, or because I read it all in one sitting as to a story or two a night as I read the other collection, or for some other reason. It was still pretty good, but I'd start with the latter book. Although it's about the same family, the order won't matter.
On Saturday morning, I did something I have not done in a great many years and helped someone move into a new residence. My friend and fraternity brother John's mother retired and bought a condo near him (and actually, quite near my old Coventry apartment), and I and a small assortment of friends and family helped get two U-Haul loads and a few car loads into her apartment. We were rewarded with the traditional pizza and beer.
After some errands and an afternoon nap, I headed out to North Olmsted to a BBQ that was hosted by the owners of my CrossFit box. There were a lot of people I recognized, and we had something in common so it was a pleasant evening talking mostly to people I don't really know.
From there, I headed off to the monthly or so poker game I play with a bunch of current and former WRUWites, mostly metalheads. On my $2.00 buy in I came home with $2.07. Victory!
Sunday I slept in, and then did a radio show that was primarily focused on the recently passed Aretha Franklin. For the first 90 minutes of my show I pulled every piece of vinyl we had by her and focused on songs that were not on her greatest hits album, grouped roughly by "Live", "Columbia", "Atlantic", "Arista" and "Gospel". In the last thirty minutes I gave away Barrence Whitfield tickets and hit the radio encyclopedia project.
M returned Sunday night somewhat exhausted, and that was the weekend.