Weekend
Kam and I flew up to Washington on Friday.
The original plan had been to attend J&S's wedding on Saturday afternoon (more on that next entry), then spend Saturday evening and most of Sunday visiting my friends and family in the area.
But about a week ago, Kam and I looked at each other and said "Wouldn't it be better to come home on Saturday?"
So we changed our flight home, and her father picked us up at SFO late Saturday night. And it was really nice today to have a day when I was at home and didn't have to be up at any particular time, and didn't have to go to work, and nobody was coming to work on problems with the house, and so on.
It wasn't quite as nice as I'd hoped. I got a lot of sleep (with the help of NyQuil), but woke up groggy and out of sorts around 11 a.m. My neighbor was playing piano (loudly enough to be audible everywhere in my house) from around 11 'til around 4 p.m. I considered going by and asking them to quiet down, but this only happens every few weeks, and I'll be out of town the next couple weekends, and I suspect it's only a problem on hot days when they open windows or doors. So if it keeps being a problem, I'll stop by and talk with them, but for now I'm gonna wait and see what happens.
Anyway, I played my own music, and read submissions, and did a few other assorted things, but I was kinda headachey and muzzyheaded all afternoon, and not very productive.
But around 4, I discovered that I finally qualified for the full discount pricing on the iPhone 3GS, so I got showered and dressed and took an Advil and headed over to the Apple Store, and now I'm the pleased owner of an iPhone that can hold all of my music (instead of only half of it), and that has a built-in compass. Nifty!
Got food to go at Hyderabad House in Palo Alto, which I don't recommend. Guy behind counter was surly and spoke too quietly given the loudish music that was playing; they were out of samosas, and don't serve sweet lassis (they do have mango ones); the guy said, after I paid for my order, that it would take 25-30 minutes to prepare (it was really 20, but even so); and the chicken tikka masala had a thin and watery sauce. The chicken jalfrezi's not bad, though. Oh, and they use cheap Chinese-takeout containers, but they realize that those containers will get soaked through with sauces, so they shrink-wrap them in hard-to-open plastic wrap.
Anyway. The food and Advil and water cleared my head a bit (I may just have been dehydrated), so had a reasonably productive evening, but still didn't get done most of the things I'd planned for today.
But it was nonetheless nice to be at home. I'm sorry not to see y'all Washingtonians, but I wouldn't have had enough social energy to be good company anyway. Will try and make it up there again sometime in a couple months.
Next: four days at work, then flying to Boston; thence to Maine for a week's vacation; then another week in Boston. Not sure the latter is a good idea—I reserve the right to give up on socializing midweek and fly home, if there turns out to be a flight available. But I'm gonna give it a try, especially 'cause I don't know when I'll next get to visit Boston.