Activity and Relaxation

 

Activity and relaxation was what this weekend was all about.Saturday, C and I were up and out pretty early and got a lot of errands done. So that was busy, but satisfying. In the afternoon I went for my walk but had a very rough time; my left foot was hurting again, but what really stopped me in my tracks was an odd twisting pain below my right knee, like my leg was somehow lacking in nerve signals or circulation or something. Nothing made it feel better; not standing with my weight on it, or off it, or sitting with my knee bent or my leg straightened. It really hurt and the pain seemed to come in waves. I was very upset indeed.

Saturday evening we went off to K&D’s house on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, on Kent Island. We bought with us half the makings of a dining room picnic-various lunch meats, rolls, cheeses, crackers, pickles, and sodas, and K&D provided the other half, and we enjoyed a nice dinner. While I was sitting on their sofa, the twisting pain came back, twice; I had to move to a hard seat to ride it out. Again, it came in waves. My Godson J was very charming – he’s a good kid.Apart from the pain, it was so much fun listening to old Bob Rivers twisted Christmas tunes that we wound up staying until nearly three a.m., and didn’t get home till nearly four. Which was very late.

Which is why most of today I spent lazing on the sofa watching Bear Grylls in “Man Vs. Wild.” Rather a nice way to spend it as Mr. Grylls has seemingly no problem with stripping off all or most of his kit – a quality I like in a man, (and a bit of a problem with veracity), but C & I were a bit snippy with each other for a while. Click on this pic of Bear on a hot lava flow in Hawaii to see him in all his survivalist toughness, but please keep in mind he looks better in person, with his sexy upper crust accent, than he ever does in a still picture.

Grazed on bits of lunch meat and bread and potato salad and things. Got a phone call from my mum relaying an invitation from my brother to go to their house for dinner; this was the first time I’d seen it. It was very nice, very comfortable and tasteful. My sister-in-law cooked a good meal and there was a somewhat late cake for my birthday last month. We watched their Christmas tree go up and get lit, and I got to read my niece and nephew a story which I think they enjoyed — I know I did. C made me so proud helping my dad get a big table in from the garage and playing with the kids. When I see him being such a fine, marvellous, all-around worthy man, I know 100% that I’ve made the right choice in my life. As I often tell myself, I never ever dreamed I’d be as happy or as proud to be with somebody as I am with him and I have no doubts at all that we’re right for each other. I adore him. Even when we’re a bit irritated with each other, I always know that he’s the goal of my life and everything I do and I wouldn’t have it, or him, any other way. Why alter perfection?

All in all a good, semi-productive weekend, but still dreading meeting with Neal on Wednesday. But looking forward to our troubles with our super-duper DVD equipment being solved. First problem was that the DVD player was a dud. That’s been sent back; the company, One Call, was very good about it. The new one arrived this week and C hooked it up and for one brief evening was able to watch DVDs in enormous 52″ grandeur. But since that one evening, the ground-fault interrupter type plug that this is all connected to waits four seconds or so, and pops out and won’t pop back in again. The company that did the basement finishing is coming back Tuesday to see what they can do. I’m really getting browned off about this. I have my mum & dad coming over for Christmas (God Help Me!) and my good friends the Kolbs coming in January, and I really want to have K&D over to see the new equipment very soon after Christmas, and my brother and his family, and one equipment issue after another keeps popping up.

Speaking of popping up

Our underlying obsession Carlos Ponce pops up all the time; here he’s covering the Emmys for People En Español and here he is on The History Channel En Español. This last one is a bit distressing – Mr. P’s hair pops up so nicely and lushly that I can’t understand the appeal of this buzzed cut. As always, if you mouse him, he will become bigger.

And here he pops up in a commercial for a Cadillac CTS (Carlos, Take me Soon?). Would you like to take him for the ride of rides?

(All fixed now! – Ed.)

Not Forgotten the Mystery Mini-Obsession

And how could I ever forget Brazilian model and surfer Rafael Branciforti; how could I? Ever since that false start so many moons ago nearly every day somebody pings on my blog looking for him. He’s handsome enough to be a main obsession but apart from looking good, surfing and doing one photoshoot I could find, courtesy of CisotoFotos, he doesn’t seem to have actually done anything for me to put up as more than a mini-obsession for your viewing fun. Now, even if he doesn’t do anything net worthy, he apparently does read; here’s some shots of him enjoying himself in the world of geography. More of him to come…

(A fine magazine can be so stimulating, can’t it?)