Lazy ass update post about memorial day weekend.

Snoozer of a day today folks. I've spent roughly 5 hours of my day watching the blue windows status bar creep onward, bringing me closer to nirvana one little blue rectangle at a time.

I had high hopes for this day, thinking "ooh, setting up virtual machines on an external spindle. this should be fun" but I was wrong. It was horribly tedious amounts of grunt work and no installs in the end! I hope tomorrow is more satisfying than today.

The first thing I did this morning was get stuck in an endless setup loop, which underlined my special gift of causing STRANGE software problems. This ability to break anything anytime is partially why I'm so good at my job, but when I'm trying to get stuff done, it can be a real pain.

Well I made it through that trial and am now setting up all drives to be configured tomorrow so I thought would catch up on blogging while the status bar creeps. Here's a little summary in pictures.

Saturday started with a ridiculously victorius trip to the thrift store for super saturday when everything is half price, and then in the evening I went to the Cat's Eye pub (again, yes I love it!) and saw this band. Another little gem, they were very lively and I was even moved to dance a little SOBER which is rare for those who know me.

Sunday was a planned hike with the climbing girls, and started out with Kitty being extra super special- more so than usual. He was playing naval commander or something from the sink

Here's ding dong hanging out in the bathroom sink for reasons unknown to me. Kitty is his own special kind of special. To put it mildly.

Then the girls picked me up and we headed west to the woods. Our rough plan was a 6-8 mile hike of decent difficulty. We were all basically looking to end the day tired. The trails were blaed excellently at first and we made it 3 miles before discovering the route we wanted to take was closed. We regrouped and decided to wing it, that we would keep hiking until we hit a junction point then check on the map and decide where to go next. This plan went ok until the blazes ended. Could get a little weird, but it still looked decidedly trail-y in spots so we felt safe continuing. We went down a really steep embankment, which according to our map was a "shortcut" pass between two trails. Shortcut my ass! We get down this ridiculous hill, which we all took turns sliding and falling down and hit this spot in the woods where the trail ceases to look "traily". Apparently they have a deer problem and the deer have eaten all of the undergrowth. Result? IT IS ALL SMOOTH AND FLAT. hahahaaaaaaa. You know where this is going.

We decide that 1) we are not walking back up hill. Turning around is for pussies and besides it was treacherous and looked hard. and 2) we know we need to get to the road and the river and we can hear them, so we will just continue on downhill and orient when we get there. Which we did, and when we finally found the trail again for some reason they asked me what I thought we should do, so I said "go left" because it looked leftish on the map (even though I didnt know where we were) and also, my brother told me once "when in doubt go left" so I did. We walk roughly 1 mile and Christiane and I come upon a sign which indicates the ranger station we think we are looking for is 1.1 miles back in the opposite direction. Now, she and I found this absolutely hysterical. We had plenty of food, water and daylight left so what's to be concerned about. Katie however did not see the humor. She's not much of a hiker and didn't (IMHO) eat enough so she was kind of grouchy and getting tired, but she was a trooper so we did an about face and headed back in the other direction, stopping for a photo op along the way.

Here is a pic of Catherine, Katie and myself. This picture is particularly funny to me because Katie looks so happy. Within 30 min she would be pitching a fit and threatening to defect from us in the woods.

Despite our faces, we are all actually happy to be in the woods. We would remain this way throughout the trip.

So after the photo op, we kept going and pushed on another mile to the ranger station, only apparently there is more than one in the park, because we were in the *wrong* place. Again ensues raucous laughter by C and I, and Catherine is just sort of neutral and Katie is not neutral and not laughing. She was hurting by this time and needed a way out. I thought she was going to hitchike as we were on a road by this time and the options for getting back to the car were walk 1.5 miles down the road and hike 2.5 miles back or hike 5 miles back. I hate road walking, but frankly she was getting scary and I have been where she is and so we decided to risk it and cruise up the road and get back on track (or trail if you prefer). 1 mile cruise up the road, easy 2.4 back to the car and call it a day. Overall we were at about 10-11 miles for the day, which was about what I was looking for. The car ride home was quiet, we were some tired bitches! I got home, had a beer (we had talked about beer and cheese all day in the woods) and showered up, thinking I would pass out but I couldn't. I was just that kind of subdued tired where I can't sleep but don't want to do anything so I went visiting to a friend's house, where he fed me leftover quiche (I made a quiche saturday! and it was good!) and made a strawberry rhubarb pie, which I had never had before. It was delicious, and a new notch in my "exotic cuisine" belt. I am getting to be quite worldly.

Monday was fantastic, and lazy. Drove around looking for a parade and didnt find any so I took books, food, blanket and chairs to a park nearby and spent the day lolling about. and good thing too, since I would spend Tuesday on the road and Weds being aggravated by Microcrap! I think had I not filled up my reservoir of calm and chill on Monday I might have lost it.

Shangri-la in baltimore. I spent roughly 9 hours under this tree with good company and a book. No better way to spend a sunny day I think.

The moon over the park as we were leaving at the absolute last minute before they close the gates. I think I am in love with the moon. Platonically of course.