Kia Ora--

Despite my aversions to conversation this morning and denying that anything eventful happened this weekend, it was in fact quite a busy weekend. Let's recap...

Friday: I had Friday off, continuing the sting of Fridays where I won't have work proper (two training days, a Saturday weekend, and a holiday), so I took my mom out to lunch and shopping for her birthday (it's acutally Saturday but since I work this was better). Of all places she wanted to try Sonic for lunch and I happily obliged. We shopped, dodged the constant rain, and shopped more. That night Mr. Eric, et al., had talked about seeing Hulk but it was also the night of the release of Harry Potter & The Order Of The Phoenix and of course V had sights on that (and actually I'm really in no rush to see Hulk). We ate at Mimi's Cafe and then headed over to Barnes & Noble for their big celebration. The place was insane! It was kinda like a lock-in and we were there from about 8:00pm until 12:30am. I just found a corner and read the Freddie Blassie autobiography. Everyone was dressed up as characters and witches and whatnot, and at one point I found books on Exorcism and the Salem Witch Trials and went up and down the aisles exorcising people. Suffice it to say, V got her book and has been reading steadily ever since.

Saturday: I worked, but spent a good part of the day on Harry Potter message boards posting false spoilers and pissing people off majorly. But the big event of the day was that Kirk got rushed to the hospital because of concerns over his health. Long story short, he's got diabetes. It's not a huge surprise since it seems to be quite prevelent in his family, but it does suck. At the moment though they are controlling it through diet and I said that I would go on it with him. V and I went over that night as we all had planned and had a great dinner (this diabetic food ain't bad at all!) and hung out for a while. Oh, and it still rained.

Sunday: Sort of slow. It's raining still and things are getting very drowsy in the sense of reality. Shopped a bit, ate lunch with my folks, then visited with Mr. Eric in the evening (he had just gotten back from South Florida for his niece's birthday, and we were pretty concerned because the area he came up from just had a dam burst because of the rain this weekend). We watched a bit of NASCAR, the Arena Football championship game (Tampa Bay won!!!), the banned episode of Family Guy, and played a little bit of the ol' PS-2. Eric sent me home with this brilliant Buffalo-style enchilada for lunch that he and Phil had made--it didn't make it to lunch, but it was amazing! After, that I went to V's and V, Sofi (Howdy, Ma'am!), and Christel were huddled around their respective books. I hung out for a while and headed home to catch the last hour of Scarface ('Say hello to my leeetle freng-d!!!')

Also, Tim and Mike asked me to play with Midnight Bowlers League at Skipper's on Saturday 26 July for the Gimme Shelter: Rolling Stones Tribute concert, so tonight I'm heading over to sort of forge a gameplan. Gotta knock the stage rust off. I'm looking forward to it.

Oh, and it's supposed to rain. That's about where we are now.

Keep the faith.

-N.