The best-laid plans of mice and men…

As you can tell from the title, this weekend didn’t look much at all like I’d envisioned it. Amorphous, in fact, doesn’t even begin to describe the feats of laziness involved in making things “work” in any sort of by-the-clock fashion. The only thing that Orpheus says that literally makes me set my teeth is “Let’s play it by ear.” This weekend was very much played by ear.

Friday night, we ended up unable to attend the Goldberg Variations, as said event was sold out. Therefore, we ended up having to ditch the Mac movie to do it on Sunday. We ended up spending Friday night downtown at O’s place, and he was kinda crabby. Crabby to the point that he snapped at me several times, and ended up taking a log shower, then a long walk by himself to maintain some semblance of humanity. (Note: I really wasn’t aware there was so much bitterness regarding this episode until the preceding slipped my fingers.) We didn’t end up seeing any movies at the film festival at all, and we couldn’t even really settle on anything to watch except a pretty lame-o Woody Allen film that only seemed to annoy O. more. The sleep was atrocious, and Orpheus was a touch crabby the next morning, too, mostly because he had to work wicked-early.

So, on Saturday morning, we got ourselves fed, and I had to drive to the other end of town to pick up a package that came early from Amazon.com containing two super-cool cookbooks. One was the Top Chef coffee-table cookbook, and coffee-table book or not, it has some kickin’ stuff going on. The other is the Culinary Institute of America’s intro textbook for professional chefs. It is full of some very basic teaching recipes for ten, and has great teaching sections re: kitchen tools, veggies, cuts of meat, culinary science, etc. It weighs more than my LeCreuset skillet, if that tells you anything. It’s “smashing.” ;-) After the post office, I picked up BakedAlaska, and went to roleplaying, where we got a ton of stuff done. Cunegonde, my dwarf, ended up hitting the proverbial jackpot after we “killed” a lich, and walked away with a magical library that includes every single spell in the players’ handbook. Dorkalicious, yes, but very sexy. Later on, after I’d dropped BakedAK off back at his apartment, Orpheus and I hung out with Basso. We went to a nice newer kind of a hippie bar on his side of town named “Alchemy” or some such, walked around a bit, and saw his place for the first time. We then did the Mercury Lounge downtown, which is his normal hangout. It was an OK night, I think we were all a little distracted. Fortunately, there was some really nice non-penetrative sex on Saturday night between just O. and I that left both of us smiling. Otherwise, I’d call the day a total loss relationship-wise.

Sunday was pretty chill. We rose quite late, and Orpheus was very helpful in terms of reminding me gently to do some stuff that just plain needed getting done. He was also very nice in terms of helping me with said tasks. We did a really big shopping trip to Woodman’s, the local super-duper mart, and on our way to the Goldberg Variations, checked out a wonderful little place called Brennan’s that BakedAK let me know about. When we cooked at their place last weekend, the loganberries in the freezer had been sourced from Brennan’s. O. and I were quite impressed. It’s a gourmet market with awesome produce, kickin’ cheese, decent wine, great meat and fish cases, and generally a beautiful atmosphere with helpful employees. From there, we got downtown absurdly early, and hung out at a little place across the street from the First Unitarian Society called “Booked for Murder.” They are a small local bookstore specializing in the sale of mystery novels. We ended up walking out with a couple books, one of which is a Patricia Bond novel. Patricia, apparently, is James Bond’s lesbian twin. I’m looking forward to that one.

The concert was awesome. The First Unitarian Society owns what is probably the nicest harpsichord in the state of Wisconsin. It isn’t actually a period instrument (I was horribly wrong on that point), but is, in fact, an artful copy of a French two-manual model built in the late 18th century. As such, it was one of the more complex examples of its’ type, and had quite a few neat bells and whistles, including four stops that could variously change the sound of the instrument. (Fortunately, it didn’t have one of those weird gliss-bars that let it almost sound like there is dynamic variation to the tone.) As such, it was certainly the most aurally varied performance of the Goldberg Variations I’ve ever heard on what was, apparently, the instrument for which they were written. I had a wonderful time, as it was an excellent performance, but the experience left O. a little cold. It also brought up a question that I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer to… If old people are wont to nod off in the middle of eating, why the hell would they attend a two-hour concert of thematic variations on a single-line melody on what may be the world’s most tonally challenged keyboard instrument? If they were recording, and I think that they were, then the tape will have to be ruthlessly edited for old-man snoring.

Last night was very long, but neat. I cooked my ass off. I made Coq au Vin from the Top Chef cookbook… It didn’t quite work the way I wanted it to, as the sauce didn’t reduce properly without a little more chicken in the pan, etc… However, it worked well enough. I also made enough of my faux-Chinese chicken (also wine-boiled, but with “Chinese” spicing) to eat for lunch for a few days. That’s pretty much my weird-ass weekend in a bucket, except that I didn’t get laid at all! I’ll tell you what… O. spends every Monday at my place, and he’d better be showered and naked when I get back home, today… ;-)