Category: Friends

Time Flies By

I can’t believe how fast this weekend went by. How fast? Well, it’s already Tuesday!

Friday night we finished watching season three of Doctor Who, as I posted a few days back, but that was just the warm-up.

Saturday afternoon we went to a baby shower for Susan and Subrata, who are expecting their first in a couple of months. It was a lot of fun, with about 30 people there and lots of good food. Our friends Chad and Camille hosted at their house, and everyone ooh’ed and aah’ed over their remodeled kitchen (we’d seen it before, but it was new to a lot of people).

Of course, we also ooh’ed and aah’ed over Susan and Subrata, who had a blast receiving gifts and seeing friends. Subrata’s parents also attended, having flown in for the weekend. They’re very excited about having their first child and have been getting their house ready for the new arrival. So everyone had a great time.

Then Sunday we got together with S&S and Subrata’s parents to go to the double feature at the Stanford Theatre: North by Northwest and The Trouble with Harry. NxNW as I’ve said before is one of my very favorite films, maybe my favorite. I’ve seen it so often that I’m well past the point of getting something new out of it on each viewing. This time around I think I enjoyed the scenes with Martin Landau in them the most, although the airplane scene is always terrific.

I thought I’d never seen The Trouble with Harry, but it soon started to seem very familiar. In fact I saw it back in 2000. It’s what passes for a comedy in Alfred Hitchcock’s oeuvre, and it’s certainly one of his lesser films. Pretty to look at and with snappy dialogue, but it moves too slowly and the ending is just too unbelievable. Shirley Maclaine does a perfectly quirky turn as the female lead, and John Forsythe reminded me strongly of George Peppard for some reason. Not exactly essential viewing, but a nice try.

We went to P.F. Chang’s China Bistro for dinner, which we’d never been to. I guess I’d always suspected it was overpriced mediocre Chinese food, but it’s actually tasty, Maybe slightly expensive (though in the Bay Area who knows what that really means?), but it has just a hint of fusion flavor while still being essentially a Chinese restaurant. We consumed everything in sight and had a good time. And celebrated Subrata’s mother’s birthday, to boot.

All of that explains how the weekend could fly by so quickly. Since then it’s been work, bill-paying, ultimate and preparing for our fantasy baseball draft which has occupied my time. No doubt it will be Sunday before I know it!

Mini-Birthday Party

I decided not to throw myself a full birthday party this year. With everything I’ve been doing, I just felt like chilling this weekend and watching the football playoffs rather than putting in the effort to host a party. (Maybe when it gets warmer I’ll throw a “just for the heck of it” party.)

However, since my birthday fell on Wednesday this year, last night a bunch of us gathered at Subrata and Susan’s house for gaming night, and Debbi went by the Prolific Oven and picked up a couple of my favorite cakes, as well as ice cream. Chad’s wife Camille brought some homemade ice cream as well. Ten people showed up and we polished off most of the cake.

I bought a copy of Blokus a week ago, having enjoyed playing it on New Year’s, and I brought that along and we played a round before cake. Despite having not played it before, Chad ended up running away with the game, making some excellent blocking moves. (I came in third, not being helped by the fact that the other three players all seemed to make blocking me out a priority. I do well at seeing available moves, but I don’t have the blocking part of the game down.)

After cake we played a game of Union Pacific, which I often term “The best game I own that Subrata doesn’t also own.” I somehow managed to pick up the majority stake in the Union Pacific “super-railroad”, which ended up being enough to claim overall victory despite Chad making a late run and nearly catching me. The final scoring-round card ended up being on the very bottom of the deck, probably making this the longest UP game we’ve played. Nonetheless it’s still a nifty game in that it only took 2 hours for us to finish (maybe less).

Susan also gave me a birthday present: A print of a painting in a series by Sarah Clemens, who is doing a series (and writing a book) about a couple raising a cat and a dragon together. (Specifically, they gave me a copy of Shaking Hands. They have a copy of Joyride themselves.) I’ll have to frame it and put it up.

This was just the sort of birthday party I wanted this year, something low-key and simple with my friends. I’ve thanked Debbi repeatedly for putting it together. I really appreciated it.

Getting Some Perspective

So on the one hand, I’ve been astoundingly busy as usual. I came back to work on Monday from my two weeks of vacation and have been hip-deep in everything, so much so that I spent the morning thinking, “Wow, it’s Friday already? How’d that happen?” It hasn’t been a bad busy, just a “no time to concentrate on other stuff while at work” busy. Which some people might argue is how work is supposed to be anyway. 🙂

There was no frisbee on Monday due to the rain drenching the fields. But I did go to gaming on Wednesday, and tonight I’m hosting a poker game, which looks like it’s going to be a full house. So that should be fun. Hopefully I won’t come home and developing a splitting headache like I did last night, which Debbi thinks was because I didn’t have any caffeine (at all) until dinnertime yesterday.

So I’ve been running around and getting frazzled with all of that. Meanwhile I learned that a good friend of mine was diagnosed with leukemia (specifically chronic lymphocytic leukemia).

And boy does that put things in perspective.

Jim and I have been friends for about 15 years now (we met through an APA when I was in grad school, and he was instrumental in my attending science fiction conventions), though I think we’ve only seen each other once since I moved to California, at Worldcon Boston. Which is, you know, not often enough. So now I’m thinking I should make time this year to go visit him and his family (especially since his daughter apparently doubts my existence), or at least, y’know, call more often.

It’s thinks like that which make you put the other things in your life into perspective. Not in the “at least I don’t have that problem” way, but in the “some things are more important than figuring out which bugs I need to fix today, like my friend, he’s more important” way.

Welcome to the World, Isabella!

Yesterday we went to the hospital to visit our friends Lisa and Michel, since Lisa gave birth to a baby girl named Isabella! Isabella couldn’t wait, since she arrived about two weeks early – on the day that was supposed to be Lisa’s last day at work. (A friend of mine – who’s a mom herself – says that the last few days of waiting for the baby are the worst, so maybe this is all for the best.) Lisa’s tired (Isabella showed up not long after midnight), but she’s in good spirits.

That I can recall, this is the first time I’ve had the opportunity to see a baby this tiny, less than a day old. (Well, I can always just walk into a maternity ward and look at the newborns, but that’s not what I mean.) She was pink and purple, she had a head of black hair, and her eyes were just barely open (she was sleepy and had just eaten), but her eyes tracked me as I moved side-to-side in front of her. She was perfectly happy just being held by her daddy.

I said to Isabella “Today really is the first day of the rest of your life!” And she didn’t start crying, so I guess she’s go a good sense of humor!

Partytime!

I think we spent nearly the whole weekend at parties, and the rest of the weekend (well, maybe not that long) taking care of a friend’s cats. Busy weekend!

Friday night I had people over to play poker. So there were six of us, and Debbi came down to say hi occasionally, but otherwise spent the evening up in the study. Poker went well, although I played fairly poorly. People joked that our table had a tendency to make the chips rolls when they tossed them – probably just dumb luck. And everyone enjoyed having the cats around when they finally came down to check everyone out. Ironically, Andrew’s girlfriend Lindsay was suffering from allergies to the cats, but ended up cleaning up when it came to the chips!

Saturday my friend Lee hosted a birthday party, with a gaming theme. We went out beforehand and I picked up a copy of The Great Dalmuti as a gift. We headed over and hung out for most of the rest of the day. I did a little gaming, and we chatted with some friends we hadn’t seen in quite a while. Pizza was ordered from Patxi’s, which was pretty good even though I’m not a big fan of deep dish (give me thin crust pizza any day), as well as cake from the king of local cake bakeries, The Prolific Oven. Mmm-mmm!

In the evening as people headed out, we convened another poker game. I took Debbi home first and then came back to play. I had another mediocre session (weak cards/bad luck/not aggressive enough; I still need to work on that last point), and ran out of energy around midnight and headed home. James told me today that the game lasted until 4 am! Yow! I definitely wouldn’t have been making good poker decisions that late into the night.

Sunday we went over to my friend Ray‘s apartment for a birthday/housewarming party for him and his wife Sarah, as they have the same birthday. I haven’t seen Ray in a while (since he no longer works with me) and had a lot of fun nattering with him. I should invite him to dinner sometime for more of the same. I didn’t know the other guests who came, but it was generally a lively and fun bunch. I think Debbi was experiencing some geek overload after a whole weekend with many of my programmer friends, so we headed out after a couple of hours, and eventually came home to collapse on the couch for the rest of the day.

I’m not generally a really social creature, but I had a lot of fun hanging out with everyone, even though I was pretty exhausted by the end of the whole weekend! I think I’ll need a nice lazy weekend soon. But it was worth it.

Now I just have to plow through the books for the book discussion group next weekend…

Various Friends

I’ve had a week of seeing several friends. Which is a good thing!

First, I have a cow-orker from Sweden, Joar, who just moved to America last weekend, so I invited him and his wife out to dinner with me and Debbi Tuesday night. They met us at our house and we drove downtown to have dinner at Amici’s and then walk down and back through downtown Mountain View. I can’t remember the last time I met someone who had just moved to America, so it’s been very interesting learning about the immigration process and all the things they’ve had to adjust to. For instance, living in a suburban environment where cars are a necessity, rather than in a city where you can just use public transit. So I’ve been giving them some advice about traffic patterns and distances and weather and so forth (and was up-front about the fact that I’m something of a snob about living on the peninsula, as I didn’t care much for living in the valley proper).

Even though Joar’s come out to visit several times since he started working on our team, I figured they might enjoy a night out and away from all the tasks they have to tackle this week.

Wednesday evening I felt like I had the beginnings of a cold, and it got worse as the night wore on, so I called in sick on Thursday – a rare day when I felt like I didn’t have anything pressing so I could stay home without any worries! So it was a nice quiet day of watching DVDs and reading – and blowing my nose a lot.

Friday I felt better and headed back into work. In the evening Subrata and I headed over to Superstars for their Friday Night Magic draft. I drafted a somewhat unremarkable white-black deck, although that’s a big step up from my last two drafts, which were awful! I felt like I was competitive in most of my games, even though I lost more than I won, and at least two of my games were lost more due to bad luck than bad play. So that’s a step forward, right?

Saturday we drove down to Los Gatos for our friends Lisa and Michel’s baby shower. It was in a nice little park off a main park, and although it was a little chilly, it was otherwise a very nice day (perfectly clear and sunny – our party’s campsite just happened to be in the shade) and everyone had a very nice time. I was able to reacquaint myself with many of Lisa & Michel’s friends and family, whom I only see every couple of years, it seems like.

Unfortunately, Debbi ended up catching a cold of her own (or maybe she caught my cold, except mine didn’t come with a sore throat like hers did), so today we had a fairly quiet day, other than a run to the supermarket and to get my hair cut. I cooked Indian food for dinner (Debbi says it helped clean out her sinuses! And I got to use our new food processor to make cashew nut butter) and I did some work in the yard.

Only a little to report on the cat front since Tuesday’s trip to the vet: Jefferson has been taking antibiotics for a few days (which he hates) but he’s still having his bathroom issues. Newton apparently has a hyperactive thyroid, which is not unusual for an older cat, so he’ll get some medicine of his own soon. But otherwise they’re both in pretty good health.

My goal for October is to feel like I’m not stretched as thin. August and September just flew by with everything I’ve been doing! (Or do I say that every month?)

A-Little-Labor Day

We had a good weekend, thank you very much.

We saved a lot of our fun for Labor Day itself, yesterday. We got up early(ish) and went for a bike ride, stopping for breakfast along the way. The awful heat we’ve had for the past week broke yesterday and we had a nice cool breeze for the ride, along with sun.

After we got home and read the paper, we prepared for Subrata and Susan to come over and hang out. We went a little overboard: I replaced the cats’ litter, swept the back patio, prepared cucumber sandwiches, and added herbs (parsley, onion, rosemary and thyme – the “slightly twisted Simon and Garfunkel herbs”) to hamburger meat and made patties out of them. Debbi prepared corn to grill, checked the potato salad she’d made the night before, vacuumed, and did dishes.

S&S came by around 3 – and Subrata promptly turned around again because they’d thought we had a copy of Clue which Susan and Debbi wanted to play. Which is to say, Debbi thought she had a copy in the house, but it must be in storage – I’ve never seen it in the house. Once he got back we got down to some not-at-all-serious gaming: Two games of Clue (I won one), and two rounds (of 7 games each) of dominoes. Subrata and I both prefer “skill” games, while I think Susan and Debbi like much more casual games. Clue and dominoes are kind of in-between, with a lot of luck but some skill, too. I hadn’t played Clue in probably decades; it was pretty fun, as a change of pace. Dominoes actually is fun, but it works best with 3 or more people; 4 is a good number, because there’s lots you can do. Oddly, Subrata turns out not to be very good a dominoes, something he knew ahead of time. I don’t know why that is, as I felt like I picked up the nuances of it fairly quickly when I learned on our trip to visit Debbi’s family last spring. I won both rounds of dominoes, but certainly not every game (and I had one game where I committed a real boner play).

We grilled hamburgers, sausages and corn around 7 pm, and it all turned out quite well. The potato salad was excellent! I managed to get almost everything off the grill at the same time, and certainly close enough for our purposes. We topped it off with Computer Chip ice cream from Rick’s and another round of dominoes before calling it a night.

So a fun time was had by all. Even the cats had a good time, with Blackjack and Newton hanging around with us all day, and Roulette perking up her ears when Susan pulled out the treats. It was a little work to put it all together, but it was worth it.

Cheering Up

At the end of the work-week I was feeling decidedly glum. I was getting frustrated with my current project at work (which isn’t my favorite sort of project even when it’s going well), and I’d tried and failed – twice – to organize a Magic draft, but not enough people were interested. So Saturday morning I was feeling lethargic and not enthusiastic about anything we might do that day. (This despite an impromptu trip to the coast to see the sun set Friday night.)

After going out for lunch, though, I motivated myself to go down to Bay 101 to play some low-limit poker. And although it took more than an hour to get seated, I ended up having my best session in many months, and coming away feeling considerably cheered up!

Not only was it a fun and profitable session, but it was also memorable. Some notes:

  • I came in on the big blind when I sat down, and then got dealt crappy hands for the whole first orbit of the table (oddly, I got dealt Q-5 four times in those nine hands). At one point, worried that people would see me as an extremely tight player (and thus not want to play with me), I idly said, “Someday I’ll get some high cards…” The guy on my left commiserated with me and said that he’d learned that Hold ‘Em is a game that requires patience.

    My big blind came back around and he said, “Okay, here’s your high cards. Now you gotta play ’em!” I said, “I will, if no one raises me!” He laughed, and the woman on his left said, “Well I’m going to raise you!” So she raised and four people called. And I looked at my cards… and had two Aces! So I said, “Well I’m going to re-raise you!” Everyone called, and five opponents isn’t a great situation for pocket pairs unless you hit a set (three of a kind), but the board was an innocuous collection of low cards. I bet the flop, and everyone called. I bet the turn, and got two callers. And I bet the river, and only the original raiser called, and then mucked when I showed my Aces. So I won a huge pot!
  • About 15 minutes later I got Aces again in my big blind – the two red Aces, this time. I raised, and got 5 callers again. And the flop, the flop was… A-A-9. Yes, I flopped four Aces. Everyone checked the flop, everyone checked the turn, so on the river I hoped someone had hit something, so I bet, and everyone folded. “You guys are No Fun At All,” I said as I showed my Aces. Everyone groaned, and one person said, “Well at least you got your preflop raise in!” Not a huge pot, but not bad at all.

    Afterwards I said, “I do actually raise with cards other than Aces,” just in case anyone was wondering.
  • An hour into the game our table got broken up. The casino wanted to reclaim one of the low-limit games for a high-stakes game, so they waited until there were enough open seats at other tables and then we got dispersed. I learned that – at Bay 101 at least – if you get moved, then you come in after the dealer button has passed and effectively get to play a round without posting the blind. So that was nice. The new table was a little tougher than the first table, but I also got a little luckier, so it worked out.
  • At the new table, I got dealt Kings twice, and won once and lost once. I lost most of my winnings to the player on my right, who was both playing well and catching a lot of cards, but then I managed to chip up again over the course of several pots.
  • The most memorable hand at this table involved playing a trick on another player. I played Q-Jo from the big blind, and the betting went like this:
    • Five players, including the woman who played the whole hand, limped in. I checked my blind (Q-Jo isn’t a hand I’m thrilled to play for a raise against 6 players, although maybe I should have).
    • The flop was Q-8-3 rainbow. I bet, and the woman calls. Everyone else folds.
    • The turn is another Q. Now I have trip Queens, and I’m thinking, “Hmm, if I bet, she’s going to assume I have a Queen and fold. So maybe I can be sneaky to get one more bet out of her. Better yet, she might bet into me!” I check, and she checks.
    • The river is an 6. No flush possibilities. I bet, and the woman thinks for a bit and calls. I win with my trip Queens (she didn’t show her hand).

    I was a little surprised this trick worked, and actually felt a little bad about it (but only a little). I assume she had middle pair or maybe Jacks, Tens or Nines, or maybe even two pair (she might have been playing 8-6, for instance, though that’s not very likely as she was a moderately tight player). I’m not sure what she put me on, but it’s not she might have thought I had the same sorts of hands.

    Several other players declared they were suspicious of my check on the turn, but who knows what they might have done in her place!

So I left feeling considerably cheered up, and better about my poker playing than I have in a long time. Okay, I know I had a bit of a lucky streak, but it seems like it’s been a long time since I’ve had a lucky streak. It made me happy.

The rest of the weekend was also fun, although not something conducive to deconstruction: Saturday night we joined some friends for bowing at Strike, an upscale bowling alley in a nearby mall. The food and drinks were good (if a bit slow to arrive), and bowling was fun – always kind of entertaining to play a game that I’m not much good at, and don’t have much interest to get better at. My friend Josh cleaned up, but then, I think he’s bowled more than the rest of us.

Sunday morning some other friends came over and we went to the farmer’s market, and then for a bike ride, stopping at the Shoreline Cafe for lunch. It was just about a perfect day for a ride, and we had a good time. Afterwards, Debbi and I went out for coffee, and when we got back I spent some time working on some Magic decks for a constructed game another friend hosts each week.

So all-in-all it was a good weekend with friends and relaxation and some good luck. And maybe it’s recharged me enough to tackle the new week head-on.

Minigolf Outing

Saturday we went on a long-planned “fun day out” excursion with Subrata, Susan, Chad and Camille. Our original plan was to play minigolf at the Putting Edge indoor glow-in-the-dark course at the Great Mall, but when we got there it turned out that the course has gone out of business! The web page for this location still exists, but I suspect it’s an oversight that they haven’t removed it; the location was locked up and seemed to be empty when we arrived mid-afternoon.

Remembering that we’ve driven past a golf course off the freeway over there that I’ve never played at, we retargeted ourselves at Golfland in Milpitas, which turned out to be a fine choice: The course is fairly challenging and interesting to play, and was in good repair overall. The only downside is that it was quite hot out and we all got a little bit dehydrated by the end. We had a good round of golf, with several holes in one (Debbi and I both got ones on the same hole). Competitive fellow that I am, I worked to catch up to Subrata, but he beat me by one point. Sigh!

Afterwards we drove back to the Great Mall for drinks and games at Dave and Buster’s. Debbi had some cards for the games which still had a significant number of credits, so we played a bunch of games, won a bunch of credit tickets, and we were all able to end up with some prize toys to take home.

We wrapped up the day with dinner at a Mexican restaurant near home, which was yummy and filling as usual.

It was nice to relax with friends and just have a good time with no worries (especially since I ended up going in to work today to try to finish up a project), and to play some games that are completely different from my usual strategy-oriented games (like Magic, poker, and board games). We ought to do this more often.

An Unusual Day Off

I’m home today on a sick day – even though I’m not sick. No, I’m not abusing the system: Debbi had oral surgery this morning, the second of three she’s having this year. The first was to remove her wisdom teeth and a baby tooth that never came out, the second is a bone graft to build up the jaw under the removed baby tooth, and the third will add an implant to replace the removed baby tooth.

Since she’s being put under for these surgeries, she can’t drive herself to and from the surgeon, so I drive here there and back, and then I stick around for the afternoon to make things easier for her during her first day back, when she’s in the most pain and probably the most exhausted as her body gets over the shock. And taking care of a family member is a legitimate reason to take a sick day.

Debbi really hates going to the dentist, but we have a terrific dentist (who came highly recommended, and to whom we’ve sent many of our friends), and her oral surgeon – she says – is just as good. So she’s been very brave going through all of this. I think the experience has not been as bad as she’s feared; it’s not pleasant, but she’s able to take care of herself after the first day. She’s taking most (maybe all) of the week off anyway. She’ll certainly be out through Thursday, based on how the first surgery went. It’s just a lot to recover from. Plus she has to stick to liquid and then soft foods for several weeks, which might be the worst part of the whole thing. Over the weekend we stocked up on yogurt and fruits to make smoothies.

It’s sometimes hard to believe that those tiny things in our mouths can require so much care and be so expensive to care for, and yet we certainly want to keep them in good working order.

Anyway, Debbi’s on the couch listening to a book-on-CD through the stereo (she’s finishing up the Sue Grafton mysteries). She’ll probably be zonked until the evening. I’ve been puttering around and keeping the cats more-or-less entertained (they’d probably tell you “less”, but they are unreliable witnesses and are not to be trusted).

Couldn’t ask for a nicer day to take it easy, though: It’s sunny and about 70 out right now, with an occasional breeze. I might go read up on the porch this afternoon.