Working can wait, this is paradise

An idyllic weekend. SuperGirlfriend has touched on it a little on her own blog, which I know you're reading if you're reading this one. Still, it was truly lovely, and as I wasted much of the spare time I had this weekend doing the first part of a goddam endless Infinite Crisis post that no one is ever going to read or comment on, I may as well take what time I have between Monday calls to note some highlights here:

I had Friday off, which was nice. I slept in until, oh, about 8:30 -- which may not seem particularly late to any readers who don't have kids, but trust me, when you have a six year old who wakes up, on her own, at around 6:30 to 7 am every morning, and then wants EVERYone in the house to get up, sleeping until 8:30 is a rare treat. I got up, did a few chores around the house -- unloading and reloading the dishwasher, taking the garbage out, taking the laundry out of the washer and dryer in the cellar. While I was down there, I played out another turn of the OMACs vs. Society HeroClix game I have going on the basement gaming table (Mr. Freeze froze 4 OMACs in blocks of ice, while Black Adam came up and beat the snot out of another one; meanwhile, Dr. Psycho blew his Mind Control attack roll on the same OMAC, The Mad Thinker -- subbing for the Calculator -- gave him a reroll, and he blew it again, and Deathstroke similarly blew his own shot at that particular OMAC -- all this, even after Luthor had used Brilliant Tactician to Perplex up everyone's attack, what a bunch of blithering dolts).

SuperGirlfriend only works until 11:30 on Fridays (she works 9 hour days the rest of the week in order to get that half day off) so she came home about then and we did a little of this and a little of that, some of which involved going out to Mark's Feed Store for barbecue, which we brought home and ate while watching one of my NYPD Blue tapes, and then wound up taking a nap until the kids got home around 3:45. There was no sleeping then, though; both older SuperKids were yowling at each like caged cats when they came into the house. So we got up, and then had to field a minor crisis when Super Dependable Teen discovered wrappings from Mark's Feed Store in the trash can and threw a major hissy because we haven't taken HER to Mark's Feed Store in over a month (she's usually nowhere near this spoiled; she's been under a lot of stress lately). At which point, SG and I left to go get SuperAdorable Kid at her daycare, hoping Super Dependable Teen would chill a little while we were gone. We got home, ate dinner, took all the kids with us to get SuperAdorable Kid's nearly waist length hair cut back to just below her shoulders (SuperAdorable Kid wanted it, SG was nearly in tears). Then, as a surprise for the kids, because it was my first anniversary with SuperGirlfriend, I took them all over to the HomeMade Pie Kitchen, a nearby place pretty much legendary for its desserts. (I got the double crust apple pie, Super Drama Teen got chocolate chess pie, Super Dependable Teen got cheesecake, SuperGirlfriend got pineapple upside down cake, and Super Adorable Kid got an ice cream cone.)

Saturday the kids went over to their dad's for a weekend overnight visit. By the new visitation agreement, we have the kid for three weeks, then he has them for one, but the first weekend of our three weeks, they go over there Saturday at 10 am and come back Sunday at 6 pm. We've only been doing this since the start of this month, but it seems easier and more workable for everyone.

Left to our own devices, SG and I decided to rent a few movies, and ended up buying a used copy of Jumanji when Hollywood Video didn't have a rentable to go along with the Zathura DVD we rented. Both movies are essentially silly, senseless excuses for a lot of not particularly good special effects, although I'd say that Zathura was the better of the two, despite the fact that no one involved in its script seemed to understand that in space there is no gravity, no warmth, and no air, so, you know, when the kids set fire to a couch and shove it out their front door to distract heat-seeking lizard-aliens, the couch should stop burning pretty much immediately. (I'll accept that somehow the Zathura game is magical and it keeps the atmosphere, gravity, and other living conditions inside the kids' house intact, although that's a stretch. But accepting that it somehow fills outer space with burnable atmosphere is a leap I'm not willing to make, sorry.)

Saturday evening I took SG out for our anniversary dinner. That I was taking her to dinner wasn't a secret, but I'd kept where we were going on the lowdown. See, 8 months or so back, we'd been walking around the neighborhood and she'd commented, as we went by a restaurant no more than a block from our house, that it looked like an interesting place. This was one element in my nefarious scheme. The other goes back even further; when SG drove down to Florida to rescue me from the shithole I was inhabiting then, I took her out walking that one night she spent there with me, and wound up that walk by surprising her with dinner at a favorite local eatery of mine that I wanted to share with her.

So, we went out to get the videos, and the plan (as far as she knew) was, when we got back, I'd tell her where we were going so she could drive us over there. This caused me to scramble, because my real scheme was to just happen to walk by Diamante's, the restaurant I actually had reservations at, and surprise her by simply taking her inside. At the last minute, SG announced that she had one pair of shoes she wanted to wear for our walk, but another pair she wanted to wear when we went out to dinner. Fortunately, she then went into the bathroom, so I managed to grab her dinner sandals and stash them in my bag. So, when we got to the restaurant, which has an outside area with a picnic table, I sat down on the bench and said I needed to rest -- then dug out her sandals and told her we were here.

She seemed very pleased with my surprise, even more so when it turned out the place not only was nice on the inside, but actually knew how to prepare food, too. I'd stopped in a few weeks before on one of my random weekdays off to check it out, and they'd made me an excellent cheeseburger, but I'd had no idea they could do such a good job with a rib eye.

Then home, where we watched Jumanji and she went to bed, while I continued working on my seemingly endless Infinity Crisis blog entry. By the time I got to bed, she was utterly crashed.

Next day, we both slept in until probably 9:30, then watched Zathura while still in bed, which is one of the nicer ways to spend a lazy Sunday morning, even if the movie did mostly suck. Then we got up, did a few chores around the house, I played a little more of the clix game down in the basement (Mr. Freeze got KOed, and Black Adam took a pretty bad beating, when the OMACs responded) and we got the kids back at 6. A fabulous spaghettin dinner, then some watermelon on the porch when SG's parents came over for a while, a little Soul-Calibre 2 with Super Drama Teen, where I was pleasantly surprised to find myself holding my own against her (since she started playing the game last week she's discovered a brilliant talent for it, and has managed to beat virtually every aspect of it, running every different character and unlocking a great many new features over the past six days or so) in the VS. feature, although, admittedly, I had to play Kilek, the quarterstaff guy, who is very hard to beat, to do it... whenever I tried to play Spawn, or Mitsurugi, she kicked my ass all up and down the screen).

An excellent weekend, all the way around. But, you know, the past is a bucket of ashes, especially from the bottom of the Monday-pit. Still, today I'm working 8 to 6:30, so I'll be home a little earlier and have a little more time with the girls before they go to bed tonight. All told, life is pretty sweet, since I met the love of my life.

Oh, yeah, in clix -- while we were running around Friday, I picked up the last three boosters I saw of ARMOR WARS over at Comic Book World, and snagged a Veteran War Machine... not one of the biggies still missing from AW (that would be Vet Captain America or Vet Ultron) but still, I'll take it. And Super Dependable Teen traded me her Monsieur Mallah & The Brain for my extra Kalibak, so now I have a complete REV of Monsier Mallah, the Brain, and, you know, Monsieur Mallah AND The Brain. Which is cool.