In Which I Had A Good Weekend

The interview seemed to go well, but we all need to remember that every interview I've gone to and thought went well (or great) I still didn't get hired.

The whole thing was very déjà vu-y. It was in a room I've been to before with two people who have interviewed me before, sitting in the same seats as before, who asked me the exact same questions in the same order as they did before for the same job I interviewed for before. My answers were different though, and they weren't wearing the same clothes as before.

The last question they asked was what teamwork means to me. I said, "It's like Mike Brady says, we're like sticks, together we can't be broken easily, but by ourselves, it's easy." Immediately, I wasn't sure whether it was smart to refer to The Brady Bunch at this interview, but it was too late to take it back. The woman sort of laughed and the guy smiled. Still...

After the interview I was off to my grandparents' house for a cousin's birthday. She turned 17. It was pretty nice. The food was good. Some of the conversations were interesting. I told my cousin, who was opening her gifts, that the way to get one gift out of the box was to lick it until it deteriorated. That earned me dirty looks from her and some of my grandma's friends, buy my grandpa had a huge grin on his face and my great uncle gave me a smile and a nod. Also went down the hill to an uncle's house and met the new kittens.

On the way back to my parents' house, I noticed a cat laying in the road and told my mom about it. As we passed, I noticed a long line of drool coming out from its mouth and knew that it wasn't warming itself on the asphalt. I stopped the car, backed it up, and parked in my uncle's driveway. We got out and saw that it was the daddy cat. My mom went to tell my uncle and I wrapped it in a sheet from the back of their car. It couldn't have been hit too long before because it was still really loose. My uncle, who had gotten some of his spine fused a week or so ago, really couldn't come out and deal with it, so we ended up taking it up to the grandparents' where my grandpa said he'd take care of it in the morning, which he did.

Saturday morning, my mom introduced me to a new form of entertainment for her and my dad. They have two humming bird feeders hanging outside of the dining room window, and they sit and watch the humming birds (here are some pictures, at times there are fifteen to twenty birds out there) and listening to Bach's Little Fugue in G minor (hear it performed on organ by Ian Tracey here) sung by The Swingle Singers, off the Thank You For Smoking soundtrack. It's really fun because the humming birds swoop in and out and dart around and it meshes very well. Mom and I think it would make a fun YouTube video. Too bad they can't record digital movies, yet.

After my mom left for her watercolor class, I headed over to the house of Heels and Johnny Logic. There I spent an hour, or so, rolling up a D&D character. Not only has Mr. Logic gone easy on the rolling since I last play, but I rolled some awesome numbers. I didn't even have to think about fudging. How often does a person get to place two 17s on their stat sheet? Not very. (When we played, that night, though, I didn't really play my stats, except for the intelligence, Raede is a wizard after all, so I'd be okay if his stats, other than intelligence (I earned that roll and that number! And I'd sort of like to keep the high charisma, too.), were bumped down a point or two to even him out some.) When I was finished, Johnny, Heels, their kid, Kamice, and Elex all headed off to a Mootown for some shopping and then a work related BBQ and baseball game.

While they were out, my mom and I saw The Simpsons Movie. I liked it a lot, but, then again, I like The Simpsons, a lot. The plot was wonderfully absurd, with touches of heart through out, just like the best episodes. The beginning makes fun of us for watching the movie, which was great. And we all get to see Bart's doodle. It was fun seeing it with my mom, who laughed nearly as much as I did.

Around nine, I got a call from Mr. Logic telling me that they were nearly back and I headed off for the Logic/Heels house once again, this time with Snapple, soda, and homemade caramel corn. I showed up around 9:30 and we played until a bit after 1:30. I haven't had that much fun in a long time. I got to be someone who's both annoying and useful to the party. We laughed. We argued. We fought barbarians. And I caused a moment that dropped DM Logic's jaw a little bit. (A huge guy, like seven feet tall, who carried a six foot sword covered in runes showed up in the camp and stared stomping toward the fighter-guy of the party. (I decided early on that my character was bad at remembering names, so I didn't think I'd have to.) Raede had been sleeping under a wagon and after the alarm was sounded he crawled out and forgot his weapons, but still had his (few) spells. After the big guy took a huge chunk out of the fighter guy, Raede cast the spell Open/Close on the big guy's hood and closed it. DM Logic looked surprised, a little angry, and surprised again before he said, "Okay, the hood is closed and the big guy is blinded." Best feeling a player can have.)

Sunday, I had to drive back, but "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!" was on NPR and when that ended I plugged in myPod and sang along with The Producers, The Rocky Horror Show, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wicked, and A Little Night Music.

Today, I'm back at work hoping that soon I'll be living in Cowtown so a game of D&D with really excellent people can become a (semi-)regular thing because I need more good weekends in my life.