Fun times

[professionalhenchman]

So, it's been a busy but fun week. Friday night involved going down to kay_gmd's dad's place and spending the night so we could catch our plane to Seattle the next morning. The flight was uneventful, and despite a not-very-promising official policy on the size of the musical instruments allowed as carry-on for Southwest, there was no trouble getting on the plane with the fiddle & mandolin. We dropped one of the rental cars and our stuff off at the motel, and went to lunch with kay_gmd's grandma, which was interesting as she speaks almost no English, and kay_gmd and I don't speak her languages. Still, it went well, and we had good Chinese food. By the end of the trip, I'd had quite enough of such, as the M.O. for a get-together with kay_gmd's dad's side of the family involves going to a Chinese restaurant and spending 2-3 hours there conversing. That was basically how I spent Saturday and Sunday, with a brief excursion to attend church with one of kay_gmd's cousins on her Mother's side, and a little time after church photographing said cousin's new baby girl - much cuteness.
Monday, we were free except for lunch with more of kay_gmd's relatives - it was nice to get to know people I'd only met at the wedding a little better. We wandered down to the Utilikilts store that morning, and I left with a couple of pairs of socks and a new kilt. It's a more useful sort of souvenir than many, I expect. It was discounted in the "scratch and dent" section due to being the old version of the Survival model in Basil, which is a discontinued color, and the detachable pockets were missing. They were willing to sell me a pair of the pockets from the current model of a similar color, and I still came out ahead as far as the cost of a new current one is concerned.
Monday evening, kay_gmd and I got to catch up with dgenerator, who I hadn't seen since we were in High School together. It was great to catch up, and he kindly treated us to dinner at a quite good Greek restaurant in the area. We'll have to return the favor if he makes it down this way.
Tuesday was the flight home, with some excitement on the way back - a woman on the plane passed out ~25 minutes before we got into San Jose airport. I was quite impressed with the Southwest staff's handling of the situation, and with the EMTs at the airport. By the time we made it off the plane, the woman was recovering, though still surrounded by EMTs who were making sure she was all right. We made it back in time for me to make game that evening, and I was even not at all late, which surprised me.
Wednesday was my birthday, though I didn't do much to celebrate, as kay_gmd has a Wednesday evening class. I did get sung to by ailurodragon on his radio show, and as a result finally was sucked into playing Kingdom of Loathing.
I also spent Wednesday looking into things to spend the economic stimulus money we'll be getting,since we can afford to be good little consumers, with the result that today I ordered one of these: http://www.spadepot.com/shop/Spa2Go-P909C305.aspx So, in a couple of weeks, we'll have a small hot tub in the back yard. Reading the reviews, it's very much not a party tub - max capacity is 4, and that's likely a real maximum, but it will allow a nice soak in hot water, which will make my shoulders very happy. And for parties, we'll just have to keep going down to masterfiddler's place. Oh the horror. :) Tomorrow, I go shopping for a new clothes dryer with the rest of the money. The one we have is ancient, and has been known to make really annoying noises on occasion.