One of My BEST Weekends EVER!!!

Oh, doe. I thig I hab a code in by dose!

Seems like I picked up a little cold over the weekend, so I'm taking the day off work and resting and drinking lots of liquids. (NONE of them alcoholic. Bummer.)

But this is a great time to catch up on my blog!

So I got to hang with Tisha Saturday!!! Got to spend more time with her than I imagined I would!!!

So I met Tisha around 4:00 or 4:30 pm and we listened to SOAD's Mezmerize from Georgetown to the mall by my casa. We elected to see WAR OF THE WORLDS at the mall, so that (1) we can buy the tickets immediately -- no risk of selling out, even though this was the second weekend it was out -- and (2) we didn't have to worry about leaving the mall in time to get to the other theater to buy tickets and find seats.

We dragged each other into our favorite stores: She had me cruising through girl clothes stores and I had her cruising through dvd stores. Thanks to Tish, I now know that Fast Forward sells skateboard decks!!! (I did not know that before!) I never skated -- I wanted to, I tried to, but just never could -- but I was pleased to be able to pass the info along to Brian, who still pulls out his board from time to time.

In fact, not long ago Kelly was in town. And when Tommy and I were terrorizing the street of Odessa in Tommy's '72 Javelin Brian and Kelly were terrorizing the sidewalks, parking lots and public fountains on their skateboards. And just for old-times' sake, Kelly brought his board with him. He and Brian busted out some old-school moves, and I was impressed that after so long, with no practice to speak of, these cats still OWN the boards!

But anyway, back to MY day!

So after a while Tish and I started thinking about food, and decided on Fazoli's Italian style. We had to venture outside the mall, but just a few minutes down the road.

After TOO MUCH TASTY FOOD we headed back to the mall to watch the very badass WOTW!!!

I dug it! I love the way they adapted the novel, and I love what the movie was about! And it's probably pointless to say that the effects were great, but they were!

I gotta tell ya, though, after a summer of THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, BATMAN RETURNS and STAR WARS III, this movie feels a little slow. Not long or boring, but it's just got a much slower pace, it's a more intimate story (if you can believe that) than those other movies. (BATMAN is also a pretty intimate story, but on an epic scale.) Now, I don't believe that the slower pace is a detriment to the movie at all!!! In fact, I'm sure I'll be watching WAR OF THE WORLDS over and over again for the rest of my life! And I think it will be one of those that gets better and better with repeat viewings. But it's just a bit of a shock to the system to have my senses devoured from all directions by every movie I've seen in the theater since April, then to dive into a world in whcih humongous things are happening, but in a story about a man and his relationship with his kids. You know?

But to be clear, I LOVED THE FLICK!!! I'm just saying that I can understand how some people might be the slightest bit disappointed with it, coming out in the middle of one of the BEST summer blockbuster seasons we've had in a long, long time.

Koepp and Spielberg RULE!!!

So after the movie Tisha and I swung by the appartment (a) so she could see the pad -- though Brian was at work, so she didn't get to see him, which disappointed her -- and (b) so I could burn a couple of discs for her.

Brian has this life-sized pirate zombie in the hallway, so that every time you walk to the back of the appartment to go to our rooms, or to the bathroom, you have to brush past him! I don't know if Tish was a big fan of that.

At one point I was nicc-ing, so I offered to let her man the computer as the second disc finished burning for her while I adjourned to a different room to smoke and her response was "Don't you leave me alone in this house!"

Poor girl; she's staying with her aunt in Georgetown, who just moved into this SUBURBAN PALACE!!! I'm talking this place is YOUR dream home! (I don't care who you are, YOU WISH YOU LIVED IN THIS HOUSE!!!) I'm talking 2 storeis of all the space you could ever want, upstairs deck that spans an entire side of the house... just GORGEOUS!!! And that's where Tish was sleeping while she was here.

Then there's Brian's and my appartment... 2 beds, one bath. It's cozy, but it's small. I mean, it serves us very, very well! It's HOME. For US. For everyone else, though, it probably fits a little snug.

That being said though, Tish made herself right at home. This chick is COOL! She can just fit in ANYWEHERE SHE IS! She even left a great message for Brian on the dry-erase board in his room.

By the time we were done here, Tish was jonesing for a white-chocolate foamy thing at Starbucks. So I called up Traci -- she and Tish hadn't yet met face-to-face before, though they had talked on the phone and knew tons about each other through me -- to see if she could meet us there, and she did!

DUDE!!! How Heavenly is this: Me, Tisha, Traci, and strong coffee with mocca in it?!! Does life get any better?!! SERIOUSLY!!!

And it was really cool that Tisha and Traci seemed to hit it off right away! (Kelly and I talked last night, and he mentioned some amusing similarities between Tisha and Traci. For instance. they're both hot chicks who can hang with the guys, though they're both plenty girly, and they both have this boisterous-but-loving sense of humor, and you will ALWAYS laugh when one of them leaves you a voicemail!)

So that was a blast! But Tish had a midnight curfew, so we didn't spend a ton of time at Starbucks.

But females and the way they communicate! Just before we left I went to the rest room -- five minutes, tops! -- and when I came back, Traci informed me that Tisha had totally filled her in on her boyfriend! If a guy leaves a couple of ladies at a table FOR FIVE MINUTES, they have this whole other, insanely-detailed, conversation in his absense! It's nuts!

I mean, it's cool! But's it's nuts!

So then Tisha and I head back to Georgetown, where everyone is asleep but Tisha's aunt/sister (that's part of the long story I'm not telling you about) and my ex-sister-in-law, Kathrine. And Kathrine isn't ready to go to sleep yet. So the three of us sit out on her front porch and talk and laugh and catch up... until 3:00 am. And I'M the party-pooper! The ladies are still chatting and laughing as I drive off.

I gotta tell ya, Saturday was A GOOD DAY for Ray Jay!!!

And Sunday didn't suck, either!

Brian and I did our weekly dinner-thing with Mom. She took us to Joe's Crab Shack, which was TASTY!!! I ate my own body weight in shrimp!

Plus, Brian and I tossed around a couple of creative ideas (that I won't elaborate on at the moment) having to do with his recent experiements is Html and JavaScript.

Then the lovely Traci called me up to see if we wanted to watch SUPERSIZE ME at her place. (This chick lives in a palace, too!!! If I haven't mentioned it before. I seem to know a lot of people who live in these great houses... I wonder what that's about.) When I get toTraci's, her very cool sister, Julie pulls up right behind me!

So the 3 of us hunker down for some education and entertainment about the effects of consuming fast food, then get into a lively discussion about health and eating habits and economics and all that afterward.

But the conversation doesn't go on as long as conversations with Traci usually do because Julie is dog-tired, Traci has to get up early in the morning (she's back on what I call Normal People Hours, poor thing!) and tonight turns out to be one of the nights I'm allergic to Scooter and Harpo.

I maybe should explain: Traci has these great cats! They're really cool and really pretty and sometimes surprisingly sociable! But from time to time, and with no logic or reason that I can see, I'm really allergic to them. The back of my throat get's all itchy and I become all runny, and breathing sometimes becomes a little bit more of a challenge. Lats night was just the itchy and the runny. But still, a fun as the night was, it was over too soon.

And that pretty much puts me here, now, in my room, drinking non-alcoholic liquids and hoping I'm back to Good by Wednesday -- the next day I'm scheduled to work.

However, if a slight cold is the price of a weekend like this past one, I'LL TAKE IT!!!

YEAH, BAY-BY!!!