Away too long

Whew. It’s been a busy time here since the start of the year, between various houseguests, and GaFilk, and general sickness around the house. I keep thinking “Boy, I need to catch up on LJ”, and then I think about how much there is to write, and I think “Maybe later.” So, without further ado, let’s go back to just before GaFilk weekend and see if we can’t get caught up. 🙂

Monday, January 05, 2004
This was supposed to be an uneventful day. And it was until about 3 o’clock, when I ran over to the post office to see about getting a proper post office box for GaFilk. The mailbox place we currently had out box at was inconveniently located to most of us and didn’t have 24-hour access beside, making it nearly impossible to actually check the mail. It was raining, and on the way, my driver’s side windshield wiper suddenly decided that it was tired of operating properly. It started by failing to stop at the edge of the windscreen, shooting past it and thunking around onto the side window. Then, after stopping and trying to readjust it, it simply stopped moving altogether. I called into work and told them that I was having car trouble and would simply have to miss the rest of the day, then drove over to the nearby Ford dealership to drop the car with the service department. While they have it, I ask them to service the rear brakes, which were overdue, then walk across the street to the bus stop.

The bus doesn’t actually go to my house, you know. My various British guests can tell you all about it. There are three bus stops within walking distance of my house, but walking distance in this case means “about 1 mile or so” in any given direction. So I waited for the next bus to come along and asked the driver how far North he was going. It turned out he was passing two of those 1 mile away stops, so I hopped on and rode up to the end of Henderson Pwky, then walked the rest of the way home.

Tuesday, January 06, 2004
I ended up having to leave a bit early from work on Tuesday, this time to pick up my car from being serviced. About $250 in repairs, and “by the way, you really need to replace those two rear tires”. *sigh* So I stopped at the Goodyear place and spent the next hour waiting for new tires to be put on, which was another $250. Of course, on reflection, it’s nice to realize that five years ago, $500 in unexpected car repair bills would have sent me into a blind panic, rather than simply being a case of “Ah well, such is life.” I rather prefer it.

After finishing with car repairs., I swung by to pick up plaid_dragonand we headed down to the airport to pick up callylevy from the airport. The original plan was to take her to Bedlam House, where she was to be staying, but as we were waiting, I got a call from kitanzi. Unfortunately, no one had remembered that plaid_dragon had her house key, meaning she had no way to actually get into the apartment. As a result, we changed plans, and after collecting the lovely Mich and her luggage, we headed back to Alpharetta to let poor Kit into the apartment. We sat around and chatted a while, and eventually it was decided that Mich would stay with us that night and go over to Bedlam House the following day.

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

I had actually taken the Wednesday through Friday of GaFilk weekend off, in order to a) spend some time with plaid_dragon and b) get the myriad things I needed to get done for the convention done before the convention actually started. We had considered doing Zoo Atlanta and the Cyclorama on Wednesday, but found out that bardiclug and pafuts were thinking of taking Zoë the following week and decided it would be more fun to go with that large group. So instead, Jessica went off shopping with telynor, filceolaire, pola_bear, and mokatiki, while I took khaosworks shopping for his big dinner. Terence and I spent a couple of hours wandering around Harry’s Farmers Market as he collected his ingredients, then I dropped him back off at Bedlam House and went home to enjoy a solitary afternoon.

Thursday, January 08, 2004

This was a quiet day for the most part, in preparation for what was sure to be a busy night. Jessica and I went shopping for some various supplies that we needed for the evening. I printed and sorted all the membership badges for the convention. Then, I puttered around making notes and preparing for the My Filk game while Jess entertained herself with our graphic novel collection. Finally, kitanzi got home from work and we headed down the hotel.

To be continued…