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Apr. 29th, 2017 07:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jianantonicBirthday week has been fantastic! Let's back up to last weekend. On Saturday, Toby and I went to Seaside and played a weekend of bridge. The weather was crap, but the tournament was a good time. It was Toby's first real bridge against decent competition, and we did about as well as a pair can be expected to do in such cases...45% and 41%. Sure I'm disappointed we didn't scratch on Saturday, but that wasn't really even remotely expected. On Sunday, Joe and Amy joined us for the Swiss teams. I have too many points for the team to compete in the limited games, so we were in the A/X field, which was 6 9-board rounds. Any bozo can win short rounds, but 9-board rounds are pretty tough. It's generally long enough for the better team to win, and with one complete novice on our team, the expectations were not high. But we won 3 out of the 6 matches! And all but one of our losses was a close one! All in all it was very good, and we actually tied for 2nd in X, which was worth a little more than our match awards were. So Toby has his first silver points and I'm very proud :)
On Wednesday, I had one of my biggest crowds ever at trivia -- it was standing room only at the Jolly Roger with 10 teams playing. It was awesome to have such a big crowd, and it meant I actually got some kinda decent tips.
Thursday was our birthday. Toby went to work, and Nick came over for our weekly nap, lunch, and board games. I felt like walking up to Rainy Day Games just to see if there was anything new I should buy myself for a birthday present. $100 and three games later, Nick and I came back to my place to test one of them. It's called Castles of Caladale. It's Carcassonne-ish. A little faster and lighter than that. I've only played it as a 2-player game so far, but it plays up to 4. I like it. I also picked up two new expansions for Mystic Vale. It's a newer game we've been playing with our game group, and I really like it, but it's not very well balanced. It's the kind of game where a bad bit of luck can get you irretrievably behind, and then it's just a slog until it's over. But the guys at the shop said the expansions help balance it a lot, so I'm excited to try them out. Hopefully we'll give that a go at our game night tomorrow. Toby had a work team thing after work, so we moved our birthday celebration to Friday night. I'm glad it worked out that way, because we ended up getting to do a little extra partying.
Toby made reservations at Epif, a vegan South American-inspired restaurant in NE (not that there are any vegans in South America, but the food was good!). We dressed up all fancy and took transit out there so we could get our drink on if we decided we wanted to. There was a gelato place right next to the restaurant, so naturally we went there for dessert. We decided to go back downtown to the Barrel Room, where I used to host trivia, for some drinks before heading home. It's a really fun dueling piano bar on weekends, and the show was just revving up when we arrived. We didn't really intend to stay long, but we got sucked in -- it's just such a fun atmosphere. I texted our friends Jared and Auburn, who are usually out on the town on Friday nights, and sure enough, they were nearby and were happy to join us.
For some reason last night, the bar was serving all cocktails in solo cups, so I got a nearly-full solo cup of martini. Hilarity ensued. Well, really just a lot of drunken dancing. But then at the end of the night, I made out with Auburn a little bit. I'd never kissed a girl before. Felt like the thing to do. :)
Toby and I rode the last Max home, and we did the things couples do when celebrating birthdays, followed by sleep.
I had plans to play bridge with Joe today at the club at the south waterfront at 1, but I had no intention of waking up sooner than noon. Somehow, though, both Toby and I were awake by 10, and the weather was splendid, so we decided to go for a bike ride. We rode a few miles and got breakfast, then rode to the train. We trained into Portland, and I rode another couple of miles from the Max stop to the bridge club, all along the river. It was beautiful. Joe and I had a nice game, and I reversed the ride for the way home. Lots of good exercise on a beautiful day. I've been super tired since bridge, though, and will probably fall asleep early tonight.
Also yesterday, I made it back to Weight Watchers for my first weigh-in since returning to the program a week ago. I was down almost 3 pounds! I gained a frightfully discouraging amount of weight in the clinical drug trial I was in, so I've got a long way to go before I'm happy with my body again, but it was nice to start with a good week. I hope I can keep it up! Toby and I are sticking with the 100 pushups program, too. I've repeated a few weeks along the way, but will be starting week 5 tomorrow. I can definitely see a difference in my arms. Just gotta keep on with it. Tomorrow will be a running day. After sleeping in.
On Wednesday, I had one of my biggest crowds ever at trivia -- it was standing room only at the Jolly Roger with 10 teams playing. It was awesome to have such a big crowd, and it meant I actually got some kinda decent tips.
Thursday was our birthday. Toby went to work, and Nick came over for our weekly nap, lunch, and board games. I felt like walking up to Rainy Day Games just to see if there was anything new I should buy myself for a birthday present. $100 and three games later, Nick and I came back to my place to test one of them. It's called Castles of Caladale. It's Carcassonne-ish. A little faster and lighter than that. I've only played it as a 2-player game so far, but it plays up to 4. I like it. I also picked up two new expansions for Mystic Vale. It's a newer game we've been playing with our game group, and I really like it, but it's not very well balanced. It's the kind of game where a bad bit of luck can get you irretrievably behind, and then it's just a slog until it's over. But the guys at the shop said the expansions help balance it a lot, so I'm excited to try them out. Hopefully we'll give that a go at our game night tomorrow. Toby had a work team thing after work, so we moved our birthday celebration to Friday night. I'm glad it worked out that way, because we ended up getting to do a little extra partying.
Toby made reservations at Epif, a vegan South American-inspired restaurant in NE (not that there are any vegans in South America, but the food was good!). We dressed up all fancy and took transit out there so we could get our drink on if we decided we wanted to. There was a gelato place right next to the restaurant, so naturally we went there for dessert. We decided to go back downtown to the Barrel Room, where I used to host trivia, for some drinks before heading home. It's a really fun dueling piano bar on weekends, and the show was just revving up when we arrived. We didn't really intend to stay long, but we got sucked in -- it's just such a fun atmosphere. I texted our friends Jared and Auburn, who are usually out on the town on Friday nights, and sure enough, they were nearby and were happy to join us.
For some reason last night, the bar was serving all cocktails in solo cups, so I got a nearly-full solo cup of martini. Hilarity ensued. Well, really just a lot of drunken dancing. But then at the end of the night, I made out with Auburn a little bit. I'd never kissed a girl before. Felt like the thing to do. :)
Toby and I rode the last Max home, and we did the things couples do when celebrating birthdays, followed by sleep.
I had plans to play bridge with Joe today at the club at the south waterfront at 1, but I had no intention of waking up sooner than noon. Somehow, though, both Toby and I were awake by 10, and the weather was splendid, so we decided to go for a bike ride. We rode a few miles and got breakfast, then rode to the train. We trained into Portland, and I rode another couple of miles from the Max stop to the bridge club, all along the river. It was beautiful. Joe and I had a nice game, and I reversed the ride for the way home. Lots of good exercise on a beautiful day. I've been super tired since bridge, though, and will probably fall asleep early tonight.
Also yesterday, I made it back to Weight Watchers for my first weigh-in since returning to the program a week ago. I was down almost 3 pounds! I gained a frightfully discouraging amount of weight in the clinical drug trial I was in, so I've got a long way to go before I'm happy with my body again, but it was nice to start with a good week. I hope I can keep it up! Toby and I are sticking with the 100 pushups program, too. I've repeated a few weeks along the way, but will be starting week 5 tomorrow. I can definitely see a difference in my arms. Just gotta keep on with it. Tomorrow will be a running day. After sleeping in.
