Listening: Steel Battalion
Mentally Replaying: This entire weekend
I'd rather be: not facing going back to work tomorrow *shrug*
Enjoying: remenents of holiday

I don't feel like I have all that much to say the moment. I think I'm still digesting.

But I owe it to my wonderful hosts, Sergei and Faith, to at least state unequivocably that they were wonderful hosts. They have a lovely little home in Squirrel Hill/Pittsburgh and I'm thoroughly envious of their view. (In my perfect world I would live in a cottage tucked away on a hillside overlooking losts of greenery and wildlife and driver around the corner or off the hill and come to a large city.)

Pittsburgh is surprisingly scenic, in no small part, I imagine, since steel is long gone from the area. The architecture is frequently nothing to sneeze at - they really love castles out there. I got to hang out with a couple of days with Rabbit and La Rorita and all three days with Molasses' brother. It drizzled a little. We sampled the local cuisine (which seems to be primarily German and Jewish). We visited the Natural History Museum which was neat though I couldn't say I hadn't seen it at the LA NHM.

The only thing that was different was they had a lab attatched to one of the main rooms with a big windows so visitors could see scientists/technicians/Faith working reconstructing dinosaur bones, which sounds (and looks) incredibly tedious but Faith claims to love it. I got some really cool pictures all around town and the offices are the ones I like best after the pictures of people.

On thinking it over we didn't actually do all that much. But honestly, it was exactly perfect. I feel completely relaxed and happy at getting time to spend with friends and chat about whatever came to mind, discussing the world at large, and debating literary and cinematic tastes. In my perfect world this is what my friends would do first and foremost and then we'd fall back on gaming if we ran out of ideas, rather than the other way around.

We stayed up late (even for us west-coasters) on Saturday and watched Dude, Where's my Car and remembered just how insanely funny everything is when one is sleep deprived. (The movie is acutally quite hilarious simply because it's so nutty, but I was working on 20 hours up with about three hours of sleep.) On Sunday Rabbit split after dinner and we took Tha Brutha Man to see X2. I realized the nice thing about the movie is that even if it's not your cup of tea, at least it moves quickly and smoothly.

Though I still don't get why Wolverine didn't go ahead and get with Mystique when he could....

On Monday we drove around and I went crazy with my camera taking pictures of churches and temples and school buildings. I didn't get a good picture of St Paul's. I probably should have gone ahead and tried for pictures from the car but didn't, and I don't know why. I also didn't take any pictures of houses. I don't know why on that either, except so many of the houses are so amazing I would have never been able to get all of the ones I wanted. Which is really kinda lame.... I also completely failled to take a picture of the view from the porch of my hosts' house. But there I totally don't know how I would have gone about capturing the images. The only thing I truly wanted a picture of and just couldn't get my camera out and ready for was a cardinal. I'd only seen them in books and was realtively unprepared for just how *red* a cardinal is. }:P

But anyway. I finally got to meet Ellie, Merlin and Luce. I was afraid I might wake up in the middle of the night and look over and see Luce moving around (his terrarium was in the guest room), but a combination of him remaining perfectly still nearly every time I looked at him, my utter exhaustion at night and the thorough darkness of the room didn't let that happen.

Oh - and before I forget - Sergei makes *excellent* coffee. Yay!

Monday night we wrapped up by watching Secretary. I was the only one who had seen it before. Sergei and Tha Brutha Man stayed quiet on their take on it, Molasses said it was "interesting" and "neat," and Faith was ..um... speechless. I'm still waiting for a review from her...once she gets her thoughts in order. };>

Today we spent the day travelling home. Then we wasted the evening hanging out with Agent Orange as he played (well, learned how to play) Steel Battalion. It's sorta cool (for a video game). The cool bit being that it has a complete arcade set up with two joysticks, three pedals and lots of buttons and switches taking over his coffee table. Apparently it originally retailed for as much as a PS2. For just this game. Now copies can't be found easily, though the Agent got his off of eBay for a more than a hundred dollars off the original price....

Well, tomorrow I have to back to facing reality. I don't relish it. But it has been a most excellent vacation.