The 4th of July! Whee!
Today Eli and I did fun 4th of July stuff.
We woke up around 11 when Bayani called. Then we got up and ready and went to Oakmont for![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sorakirei's birthday party. It was fun, it was like one of those birthday parties I haven't gone to since I was like ten years old. You know, where you go to the person's house, and their parents buy lots of food and cake and stuff, and you sit down at their dining room table and eat stuff, and go downstairs and watch movies, and go out back and swim in their family pool, and come inside and eat cake and ice cream and then open presents and take lots of pictures and hang out and stuff, and there are party favors.
Okay, I guess I just sort of summed up the party. But, it was fun to see people, and I was really psyched about swimming (since I went and got a bathing suit on Tuesday or whenever that was). It was a shame it got cut short by the awful Pittsburgh weather though - Joanna had just gotten used to the water temperature when we all had to get out! And we gotsk4p and bredmold to swim, which was entertaining in its own way. The funny thing is, I didn't feel anywhere near as self-conscious as I am used to feeling in bathing suits. So maybe I should start swimming again. Hopefully I can go with Megan in Seattle. That would rock. And Bayani brought this episode of Eltingville, "Bring me the head of Boba Fett", which was a lot more entertaining and accurate than one would wish it to be. (Well, whatever. I mean, Evan Dorkin. Duh.) I dunno, it's funny because I am a big geek, but in general I found myself strangely outside most of the geek conversations, especially the anime/tv/pop culture/etc ones. (People often assume I know a lot more about anime than I do, probably because I studied Japanese and because I have some old manga lying around my apartment.) Eh, it was still all entertaining, especially realizing that Eli had never actually met Shawn before. Whee.
So anyway, we left around 4pm because, despite that it was raining, we had planned to go downtown for the fireworks, and dammit, we were going to go downtown for the fireworks. We relaxed at home for a little bit first, and drove downtown around... I forget, maybe 5:15? We got to station square and parked, and then went to the Cheese Cellar, which I wanted to go to because I hadn't been there in like 4-5 years (the last time I seriously remember going there was in November 1997 for Cort, Babailey, and Bolson's birthdays (along with Ken, Elaine, Charlie, and Nat, when all of the above were freshmen and I was a senior. Hehe). They have fondue there. Yay, fondue! So Eli and I had the cheddar/beer appetizer fondue and it was yummy and fun! Then we had normal stuff for dinner - I had a burger and Eli had a swordfish burger.
We got out of there a little before 7 and had time to waste. I was very very full though, so I wanted to just sit down and rest for a bit. Eli wanted to go use up a roll of normal film before taking fireworks pictures, though, so I agreed to sit on a bench and just hang around for 30-40 minutes while he would go find stuff to photograph. In the meantime, I rested, very restfully. I got out my cellphone and made a lot of calls - called my grandpa and talked to him about stuff (namely the issue of what he thinks of Eli and I not getting married in Philly... my grandmother won't be able to go anywhere, but he basically said "I don't know whether I would be able to leave your grandmother long enough to come out to a wedding on the west coast, but don't get married in Philly just for our sake."), and called my mom and left a long message, and called my brother and left a long message, etc. In the midst of calling people I noticed that there was a familiar person standing about ten feet away - namelydemonlurking. So I said hi! It was good to see him in person because I honestly can't remember the last time I did, especially since he moved out of techstep and visionline's house. A bit after that, blackpaladin showed up. Apparently they were all supposed to get dinner at the Cheese Cellar, except that by this point it was hard to get a table due to the crowding factor, and they were also waiting for wanderingpixie and some other people I don't know. Anyway, I chatted with them for a while until Erin showed up, and then started reading a book until Eli showed up a little while later. (For the record, I am reading "Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot", so I can give it back to ralphmelton. If anyone else has lent me books and you want them back, you ought to tell me before I leave Pittsburgh! Although in some cases, like random_boy, who lent me Into Thin Air over two years ago and then left Pittsburgh himself, that offer is null and void.)
Eli came back and we wandered around a bit looking for a good spot to view fireworks from. We tried out the Smithfield bridge thingy, but it didn't seem like it'd be comfy in the long run. So we went down to the railroad tracks and sat on the cement wall thingy. That was pretty comfy. We played Boggle for around half an hour while it was still light out (I brought our 4x4 set because it's "expendable"; we only play 5x5 now), and then a little after 9 Eli started setting up the tripod and all, and eventually the fireworks started. Oh, and I put my glow sticks I got from Rebecca's party into my hair on a braid. That got me a lot of weird looks.
The fireworks were decent. Hopefully Eli took a lot of good pictures of them. I guess we'll see in a few days/weeks/whatever.
Afterwards, we hung out in Station Square a bit longer because we were freaked by the sheer amount of cars in the lot. We went and got ice cream, and I called my brother (who had called back right before the fireworks started) and chatted with him. He is both into the idea of visiting me on the west coast in a few months and is also into the idea of me visiting him at the end of July, namely, for Otakon. He lives REALLY close to the convention center (like 20 minutes in normal traffic), so assuming I can go to Otakon, I'm going to stay with him for an evening and we'll hang out and it'll be cool. While chatting with my brother, Trey and Alisa and Zhenya and their posse came by, since they were on the way to eat dinner at the Cheese Cellar (go figure). I said hi to them kind of, and stuff. Whee.
Eli and I gave up on the waiting thing after a while (It was funny, the bathrooms in Station Square were all closed so we snuck into the Sheraton to use their bathrooms. The Sheraton is really nice!) and got into our car and drove out looking for adventure. We figured we'd take the West End bridge and a weirdo route, except... I missed the turnoff for the bridge. Then we ended up in the middle of nowhere, where I turned around. On the way back in on Carson or whatever it becomes down there, I saw a "detour fort pitt bridge" which I declined to take. This is a shame, as it would have gotten me home in approximately ten minutes from that point. Instead, ten minutes from that point, I was almost past the intersection of Carson and the Smithfield Street Bridge. Oh well. After we got past there, getting home was easy - we took 10th street bridge to 2nd Ave and it was pretty simple. I told Eli I would put this in my LJ - so - "Ten years from now, we'll be driving home from stuff like this with awful traffic with kids in the backseat going 'I HAVE TO PEE! NOW! WHEN ARE WE GETTING HOME MOMMY?' and crap like that, so we should take advantage of this adventure opportunity now!"
That's my day. It was exciting. I was proud of myself, too - I wore my Scotch'n'Soda Assassins shirt (it's blue with an american flag on the front) and I wore red and white socks with blue chucks. I am so patriotic! Unless someone knows that Assassins is a musical about lots of people who killed or tried to kill the president...
Tomorrow will be even more exciting, in a meta-life-decision sort of way. We're going to start calling apartments and crap, and maybe even some movers. It will be joyful.
We woke up around 11 when Bayani called. Then we got up and ready and went to Oakmont for
sorakirei's birthday party. It was fun, it was like one of those birthday parties I haven't gone to since I was like ten years old. You know, where you go to the person's house, and their parents buy lots of food and cake and stuff, and you sit down at their dining room table and eat stuff, and go downstairs and watch movies, and go out back and swim in their family pool, and come inside and eat cake and ice cream and then open presents and take lots of pictures and hang out and stuff, and there are party favors. Okay, I guess I just sort of summed up the party. But, it was fun to see people, and I was really psyched about swimming (since I went and got a bathing suit on Tuesday or whenever that was). It was a shame it got cut short by the awful Pittsburgh weather though - Joanna had just gotten used to the water temperature when we all had to get out! And we got
sk4p and bredmold to swim, which was entertaining in its own way. The funny thing is, I didn't feel anywhere near as self-conscious as I am used to feeling in bathing suits. So maybe I should start swimming again. Hopefully I can go with Megan in Seattle. That would rock. And Bayani brought this episode of Eltingville, "Bring me the head of Boba Fett", which was a lot more entertaining and accurate than one would wish it to be. (Well, whatever. I mean, Evan Dorkin. Duh.) I dunno, it's funny because I am a big geek, but in general I found myself strangely outside most of the geek conversations, especially the anime/tv/pop culture/etc ones. (People often assume I know a lot more about anime than I do, probably because I studied Japanese and because I have some old manga lying around my apartment.) Eh, it was still all entertaining, especially realizing that Eli had never actually met Shawn before. Whee.So anyway, we left around 4pm because, despite that it was raining, we had planned to go downtown for the fireworks, and dammit, we were going to go downtown for the fireworks. We relaxed at home for a little bit first, and drove downtown around... I forget, maybe 5:15? We got to station square and parked, and then went to the Cheese Cellar, which I wanted to go to because I hadn't been there in like 4-5 years (the last time I seriously remember going there was in November 1997 for Cort, Babailey, and Bolson's birthdays (along with Ken, Elaine, Charlie, and Nat, when all of the above were freshmen and I was a senior. Hehe). They have fondue there. Yay, fondue! So Eli and I had the cheddar/beer appetizer fondue and it was yummy and fun! Then we had normal stuff for dinner - I had a burger and Eli had a swordfish burger.
We got out of there a little before 7 and had time to waste. I was very very full though, so I wanted to just sit down and rest for a bit. Eli wanted to go use up a roll of normal film before taking fireworks pictures, though, so I agreed to sit on a bench and just hang around for 30-40 minutes while he would go find stuff to photograph. In the meantime, I rested, very restfully. I got out my cellphone and made a lot of calls - called my grandpa and talked to him about stuff (namely the issue of what he thinks of Eli and I not getting married in Philly... my grandmother won't be able to go anywhere, but he basically said "I don't know whether I would be able to leave your grandmother long enough to come out to a wedding on the west coast, but don't get married in Philly just for our sake."), and called my mom and left a long message, and called my brother and left a long message, etc. In the midst of calling people I noticed that there was a familiar person standing about ten feet away - namely
demonlurking. So I said hi! It was good to see him in person because I honestly can't remember the last time I did, especially since he moved out of techstep and visionline's house. A bit after that, blackpaladin showed up. Apparently they were all supposed to get dinner at the Cheese Cellar, except that by this point it was hard to get a table due to the crowding factor, and they were also waiting for wanderingpixie and some other people I don't know. Anyway, I chatted with them for a while until Erin showed up, and then started reading a book until Eli showed up a little while later. (For the record, I am reading "Extreme Paranoia: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Shot", so I can give it back to ralphmelton. If anyone else has lent me books and you want them back, you ought to tell me before I leave Pittsburgh! Although in some cases, like random_boy, who lent me Into Thin Air over two years ago and then left Pittsburgh himself, that offer is null and void.)Eli came back and we wandered around a bit looking for a good spot to view fireworks from. We tried out the Smithfield bridge thingy, but it didn't seem like it'd be comfy in the long run. So we went down to the railroad tracks and sat on the cement wall thingy. That was pretty comfy. We played Boggle for around half an hour while it was still light out (I brought our 4x4 set because it's "expendable"; we only play 5x5 now), and then a little after 9 Eli started setting up the tripod and all, and eventually the fireworks started. Oh, and I put my glow sticks I got from Rebecca's party into my hair on a braid. That got me a lot of weird looks.
The fireworks were decent. Hopefully Eli took a lot of good pictures of them. I guess we'll see in a few days/weeks/whatever.
Afterwards, we hung out in Station Square a bit longer because we were freaked by the sheer amount of cars in the lot. We went and got ice cream, and I called my brother (who had called back right before the fireworks started) and chatted with him. He is both into the idea of visiting me on the west coast in a few months and is also into the idea of me visiting him at the end of July, namely, for Otakon. He lives REALLY close to the convention center (like 20 minutes in normal traffic), so assuming I can go to Otakon, I'm going to stay with him for an evening and we'll hang out and it'll be cool. While chatting with my brother, Trey and Alisa and Zhenya and their posse came by, since they were on the way to eat dinner at the Cheese Cellar (go figure). I said hi to them kind of, and stuff. Whee.
Eli and I gave up on the waiting thing after a while (It was funny, the bathrooms in Station Square were all closed so we snuck into the Sheraton to use their bathrooms. The Sheraton is really nice!) and got into our car and drove out looking for adventure. We figured we'd take the West End bridge and a weirdo route, except... I missed the turnoff for the bridge. Then we ended up in the middle of nowhere, where I turned around. On the way back in on Carson or whatever it becomes down there, I saw a "detour fort pitt bridge" which I declined to take. This is a shame, as it would have gotten me home in approximately ten minutes from that point. Instead, ten minutes from that point, I was almost past the intersection of Carson and the Smithfield Street Bridge. Oh well. After we got past there, getting home was easy - we took 10th street bridge to 2nd Ave and it was pretty simple. I told Eli I would put this in my LJ - so - "Ten years from now, we'll be driving home from stuff like this with awful traffic with kids in the backseat going 'I HAVE TO PEE! NOW! WHEN ARE WE GETTING HOME MOMMY?' and crap like that, so we should take advantage of this adventure opportunity now!"
That's my day. It was exciting. I was proud of myself, too - I wore my Scotch'n'Soda Assassins shirt (it's blue with an american flag on the front) and I wore red and white socks with blue chucks. I am so patriotic! Unless someone knows that Assassins is a musical about lots of people who killed or tried to kill the president...
Tomorrow will be even more exciting, in a meta-life-decision sort of way. We're going to start calling apartments and crap, and maybe even some movers. It will be joyful.
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his advisor (roger dannenberg) had something in the concert, as they are both big computer music geeks.
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I was late too. Yeah what Dee said.
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P.S. Yeah, fuck parking anywhere near that joint! I was lucky I even found it!
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You have to go to the 8/10 concert. Eight Songs for a Mad King will make your head implode.
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heh heh heh heh heh ;)