Le Weekend
Friday:: Went to RenCon during the day. Saw 
parrish_relics & medievalmuse, among other friends and lovelies. Bought some costuming before it was pawed over by the masses. Was sad that the Gypsy Nomads were apparently doing sound-check during the entirety of my stay. Bumped into members of Woodland & Estampie. Hung out with Craig and Margaret, who are awesome. Lamented I had plans and thus could not go to the ball. Then, dinner with Jason's parents, which was nice, but was not a ball. Honestly, Jason is gone for weeks and then schedules a family dinner on the night where I might actually like to do something? BALLS. At least I love his family.
Saturday:: Up early to have breakfast with my family. From there, J & I and my brother Matt & his gf Deana metroed down to DC to go to the Smithsonian natural history museum. The butterfly gardens were lovely!
Also saw much of the gem collection.
I would like this for my birthday, please.
Flawless turquoise.
The many shades of Beryl, incl. emerald, morganite, and aquamarine.
Tsavorite garnet!
A spectrum of grossularite garnet.
Blood-red pyrope garnet, my favorite. They also had almandine, but it was too dark to photograph.
Labradorite!
Hollandite, which looks like it should be from space, but is not.
From there, we went to meet up with Jess & Heather at the Cherry Blossom street festival, which was ostensibly a celebration of Japanese culture, but instead was mostly Food! Food! Food everywhere! And also some terrifying J-pop with little lolita girls running about with stuffed animals and bunny ears and frilly knickers and faux-childishness that was basically a big neon bullseye to draw in pedophiles. YICKY. I just don't get the lolita thing as an artistic presentation. I mean, I don't get it as a kink, either, but I don't mind it as a kink because people aren't generally doing it in public. Acting like a five year old in public when you're an adult is all sorts of squicky and I don't get how that's art.
Dinner was found at the Mongolian restaurant in Chinatown, and it was delish.
Reasons I love my brother? He can rattle off Henry VIII's wives, in order, complete with accurate historical information and death dates. Not something you usually see in 23 year old boys who otherwise love football and first person shooters. We passed the time with hysterical poo stories, only to come home to our non-hysterical poo-mergency, starring Olive. Poor Bean had stepped in a fresh one, then panicked across the carpet. J bathed the cat, and I scrubbed with enzyme cleaner. By 10pm, I was asleep.
Sunday:: Brunch at Anna's, where we hung out with Agnes and Melissa and her little kids. I swung on the swings and ate nommy foods. We got home around 4 after running errands, then no joke, we passed out until 11pm. Uh. Yeah, so that was our Sunday.
Today:: Finishing taxes. Blech.
parrish_relics & medievalmuse, among other friends and lovelies. Bought some costuming before it was pawed over by the masses. Was sad that the Gypsy Nomads were apparently doing sound-check during the entirety of my stay. Bumped into members of Woodland & Estampie. Hung out with Craig and Margaret, who are awesome. Lamented I had plans and thus could not go to the ball. Then, dinner with Jason's parents, which was nice, but was not a ball. Honestly, Jason is gone for weeks and then schedules a family dinner on the night where I might actually like to do something? BALLS. At least I love his family.Saturday:: Up early to have breakfast with my family. From there, J & I and my brother Matt & his gf Deana metroed down to DC to go to the Smithsonian natural history museum. The butterfly gardens were lovely!
Also saw much of the gem collection.
I would like this for my birthday, please.
Flawless turquoise.
The many shades of Beryl, incl. emerald, morganite, and aquamarine.
Tsavorite garnet!
A spectrum of grossularite garnet.
Blood-red pyrope garnet, my favorite. They also had almandine, but it was too dark to photograph.
Labradorite!
Hollandite, which looks like it should be from space, but is not.
From there, we went to meet up with Jess & Heather at the Cherry Blossom street festival, which was ostensibly a celebration of Japanese culture, but instead was mostly Food! Food! Food everywhere! And also some terrifying J-pop with little lolita girls running about with stuffed animals and bunny ears and frilly knickers and faux-childishness that was basically a big neon bullseye to draw in pedophiles. YICKY. I just don't get the lolita thing as an artistic presentation. I mean, I don't get it as a kink, either, but I don't mind it as a kink because people aren't generally doing it in public. Acting like a five year old in public when you're an adult is all sorts of squicky and I don't get how that's art.
Dinner was found at the Mongolian restaurant in Chinatown, and it was delish.
Reasons I love my brother? He can rattle off Henry VIII's wives, in order, complete with accurate historical information and death dates. Not something you usually see in 23 year old boys who otherwise love football and first person shooters. We passed the time with hysterical poo stories, only to come home to our non-hysterical poo-mergency, starring Olive. Poor Bean had stepped in a fresh one, then panicked across the carpet. J bathed the cat, and I scrubbed with enzyme cleaner. By 10pm, I was asleep.
Sunday:: Brunch at Anna's, where we hung out with Agnes and Melissa and her little kids. I swung on the swings and ate nommy foods. We got home around 4 after running errands, then no joke, we passed out until 11pm. Uh. Yeah, so that was our Sunday.
Today:: Finishing taxes. Blech.