Dingers!

Quite an exciting Home Run Derby last night - Bobby Abreu hit a total of 41 home runs thus shattering the previous year's record number of 27. Watching him hit all those long balls had me wondering if his arms feel like jelly today. And he is leading off the All-Star Game tonight for the National team.

This past weekend started with a movie-watching, game-playing evening with Kate & Matt, the night before he was to finally 'meet the parents' - it was amusing to bring up this looming meeting at various times throughout the evening. You know, "want another beer, Matt, maybe if you drink enough tonight, you'll still be drunk tomorrow when you meet Kate's mom" - good stuff.
The movie we watched was The General with Buster Keaton, a movie that Bryan and I saw just before compiling our movie lists and which impressed us both so much, that it made it quite high in our top 100. Bryan even purchased a copy of the film for his very own. However, upon a second viewing, of a DVD apparently distributed by a different company than the first viewing, I was disappointed by the music. It was really synthesized, sounding like a computerized organ or something that is laid over video game scenes. Next time we watch it, we'll have to mute it and hire a piano player to accompany the movie in the original fashion intended. Guess we won't be watching ol' Buster ditch that train too many times.

After traveling to Bryan's aunt's house on Saturday evening to meet another visiting aunt (the 5th and final of his father's sisters), we then spent a lovely, if buggy, night in New Hampshire eating meat and listening to some of the best improv singing around a fire. The weekend tried to end with me doing some gardening and washing my car for the first time this season in my very own driveway, but weeding is evil and it did me in - I pulled my back again in a somewhat less violent fashion than at Christmas, but badly enough to halt all gardening efforts. Instead, Bryan and I went to his cousin's house to meet a visiting cousin (catching a theme here?), which, in the end, was way more fun than gardening ever would've been.

I owe birthday shout-outs to Colleen (the 5th), Laura and Jason D (both the 9th). Hope they were happy and that the birthday suit still fits as well as it did last year.

And RIP Kristie L - it was one year today that we found out you were gone too soon. If there is some sort of consciousness after death, I'll bet you're laughing your ass off at the plight of the "library". For you, we'll drink a gimlet and talk about Chadwicks and the shitty state of the world. And we'll smile.