We had a wonderful weekend, all around. I went and got myself a massage at Massage Envy on Friday after work, which was wonderful and refreshing; I hadn’t actually been since June, as I had been saving my July appointment for after the move and then I promptly fell and hurt myself.
wheezinggirl and oneandonlymatt came over for dinner Friday, since they were unable to come to our housewarming. We had a lovely dinner of baked chicken spiced with a blend we picked up from Alpharetta Spice, a local concern run by a man and his wife right here in Alpharetta. Very nice folks, and they make some wonderful spice blends. I’m particular fond of their Garlepeno Salt. I believe the chicken that night was the Rusted Roof Border Blend. The meal was rounded out by a bacon and spinich pasta dish and a potato-and-sweet-potato medly, all courtesy of kitanzi, who had the audacity to tell me when we first started dating that she wasn’t much of a cook.
After dinner, we sat and talked for a good bit, before moving into the computer room to share some music with one another on the computer, starting with an old Firefly fan video set to Leonard Cohen’s “Halleljuah”, and then they directed me to Emerald Rose’s hysterical Never Split the Party, done in stop motion LegoMation, leading me to play them bardiclug‘s “Secrets”. My memory leaves me at this point, but we had a great time, and made plans to get together again soon.
Saturday, Alice came over to bring us some shelving unites from Ikea she no longer needed, and then we went and met up with hilfy to see Stardust. What a fabulous movie. I’m a huge fan of Neil Gaiman already, of course, so I was prepared to like it, but it managed to exceed my expectations. Robert DeNiro absolutely steals every scene he is in, the chorus of ghostly princes is delightful, and every single thing about the movie makes me happy. There are some changes from the original novel to the movie, which is inevitable (Gaiman has some interesting things to say bout that process), but it has been so long since I last read the novel that I didn’t notice them overly, and in fact even managed to be surprised by some things in the film that, in retrospect, I knew were going to happen. Positively five stars; go see this film in the theatre.
Unfortunately, my back had been bothering me all week and wasn’t getting much better, so we opted to skip the Atlanta housefilk that evening. I hope everyone had a good time — we missed being there. I managed to finally find a solution for what was causing my pain by putting one of the memory foam pillows kitanzi got a while back and put it under my back. I expect that once we get the new bed broken in it won’t be a problem, and meanwhile I’ve found a way to sleep comfortably and not wake up in excruciating pain, so that’s a win.
Sunday was a quiet day. I spent a good deal of it playing World of Warcraft, but over dinner we finally got around to watching the finale of Heroes. Yes, we’d actually managed to not watch it all this time, and even more impressively we’d managed to avoid all spoilers. I won’t include any here, in case someone else has been living under an even bigger rock than us, but….wow. What a great ending for a great season. Interestingly, I read a fanfic back around the first of the year which ultimately predicted what would happen with Peter…I wonder if the author of that fic was as chuffed as I was? (If anyone feels like helping me out on this, point me to your own reaction to the finale, so I can go back and read it.)
Tonight is gaming night. We’re about to start a brand new AD&D campaign from level 1, with what’s left of our current group. bedlamhouse‘s cruel and heartless desertion moving away marks a huge change in the dynamic of the group, but we’re determined to carry on. I realized recently that I’d been playing with this group, through various iterations, for eight years, which is pretty much the longest I’ve ever been with a single group of people gaming. There was the group I started with (1983-1987), the East Carolina Gaming Club (1986-1990), Jim and Steve in Athens (1990-1993), asynaka1 and his friends (1993-1998), Craig & Co (1994-1997), and then a gap until I joined up with Bill and Don. (Yes, several of those dates overlap. I’m polygamerous. I’m not even trying to figure out all the various places I dropped into and out of hejira2006‘s Doctor Who and Star Trek RPG campaigns.)
The people at the table change, but the game is forever. And so it goes.