![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spritechan) wrote2017-10-17 01:09 pm
Weekend
So I started that last journal entry on Friday, and I added in the UTI stuff, which I dealt with this weekend. So — on to the weekend!
Friday Haley came over and did laundry and we went out to eat at a new vegan restaurant in Saint Paul, and I did my Cafetalks while she messed around with my phone (hers broke this week).
Saturday I picked up Grandma Ann and drove us down to Red Wing for the Arts Festival. Red Wing used to be known for its pottery, and its shoes, and so art is a big part of its history. She told me all manner of stories and reasons why she loves Red Wing. Because I know Haley dumps all of her crazy on grandma, I knew she'd be able to handle me having a mini panic about death. This led her to talk to me about how she "tries on" various belief systems — that she immerses herself in methods of being, or religions, or culture for a year or two — most recently, experimenting as a Jehovah's Witness. I told her she's a cultural anthropologist: she immerses herself through participant observation to collect data. lol. But she said what stuck with her the most and makes the most sense to her are the writings of Zecharia Sitchin. Look him up, he's FASCINATING. Honestly the way she told it, it sounded a lot like Stephen King's writings.
Now, I will remind my dear readers that my family is like... out there. In some ways, WAYYYYY out there. My grandpa was a true Scientologist. Part of my family believe in many things: in tarot and vibrations/energy and ghosts/angels and god as the goodness in humans and crystals and numerology. My grandma believes in the works of Mr. Sitchin. And that's just the tip of the iceberg! Regardless, it was really cool to hear her views and be happily passionate about something instead of beaten down by the world.
She also told me stories from when she was a teenager, like the time she and her friend were 14 and were driving with 15/16 year olds and they got sideswiped on the highway we were currently driving on (61), and her friend had accidentally started her jacket on fire by putting a match in her pocket that wasn't completely out — and their parents didn't know they smoke OR had snuck out. Lmao. Or the time she got caught smoking at school and she begged them to call her dad instead of her mom, because her mom was always in and out of the mental hospital and any negativity would send her into a mental tailspin (mental illness out the wazoo in my family, on all sides), and her dad just told her not to get caught again. And how much she loved her dad, and being an only child, and how much MY mom loved HER dad, even though he never had her back. He died a little over a year ago and she is still very broken.
Aaaaanyway. It was POURING rain when we got there, and therefore freezing, so we opted to each lunch at one of her old haunts (food was very meh imo) and chatted some more. By the time we were done the rain had let up, which was awesome, for just enough time for us to make 2 laps around the fair. I was very interested in some paintings, but they were far too expensive for me, at least at that time. I took several business cards just in case. I did, of course, end up buying several gorgeous pieces of pottery — a yarn bowl, a Minnesota mug, and a bowl from the most beautiful pottery artist I've seen in a long time:
After that I got home with enough time to help Steve clean a bit, because Mike, the one who donated the ITG machine to us, was coming over to play. That was a lot of fun, but since I haven't played much over the last month and a half, I'm out of shape and out of practice. We rotated turns and it was great! Steve passed his first 14, which has really spurred me to try to pass my first 13 and continue passing 12's.
Out of the blue, our doorbell rings and it's BEN AND SEAN!! They were in MN for a night to help with moving something and wanted to see us quick before heading home. Awwww. Ben played a song or two and complimented how nicely we'd modded the arrows for actual competitive play. I believe his exact words were, "I could reasonably see myself quadding multiple songs on this machine."
On Sunday, Steve and I continued "Get Rid of Half Our Stuff 2017" and finished everything in our room except for our old paperwork and Steve's t-shirts. We also finished the hall closet, which desperately needed attention (hoodies and extraneous kitchen appliances). After that we played like 4 hours of ITG (while streaming to no one), wherein for some reason I decide to play the 12 chart of 10 Minutes (Nightcore) right when the stream starts, and then pass it, which really encouraged me to keep practicing for the 13 (which is like my life goal). The 12 has 16/8/8 which means it has 16 measures of stream with no breaks (then 8 and then 8). The 13 chart of this song has 24/16/16 I THINK. 24 for sure at the beginning. I BARELY made it out alive with 16 straight measures of stream, I'm not sure I've ever done that before on any song of that speed. Slower streams of course aren't AS bad. But I had a really good ITG day, so surprising after not having played in awhile. It was reassuring that not all is lost and I can actually keep improving.
Oh, for posterity, I got my first traffic ticket in my entire life a couple weeks ago. They put in these new weird crosswalk lights and it is hard for me to notice them because they're lights but not traffic lights, and they set up a sting and I completely fell into the trap. I was leaving Nokomis and getting my stuff settled and I just did not see the guy planted there. So I got a "failure to yield at a crosswalk" ticket. The undercover guy was fighting with the officer for a good 20 minutes because he wanted me to get "running a red light" too, but I'm guessing she ultimately decided against it because I've never ever had a moving violation and she thought it was unreasonable. But it took FOREVER. He like climbed out of his car into her vehicle and everything to try to convince her.
no subject
no subject