jeffbalke.com - words.pictures.music

It has been a very busy couple of weeks for Jeff and his house of merriment. Last week was full of rehearsal, work, photo gigs and more work. The week before was similar and included all kinds of nutty stuff, meeting great new people and…um, work.

So, by Friday, I was looking forward to some fun and needed home cleaning/repair.

Friday

Had lunch with a friend and spent the afternoon doing laundry. Come to think of it, I spent most of the weekend doing laundry. I’m apparently filthy (you heard me). Friday evening, my good friend Kymberlie and I had dinner and then went to Joystix. For a child of the late 70’s and early 80’s as well as a giant arcade game nerd, this was like heaven.

This place is a bar with an adjoining arcade. For $15, you play all the games you want as long as you want. All the classic arcade games are represented plus air hockey, pinball, you name it. I set the high score at Galaga - my all time favorite (oh, yes, I will have a full size Galaga in my house one day) - and even coined a new sex euphemism in the process: banging the Galaga.

Saturday

I spent much of the day Saturday doing more laundry and running errands. I’m about to replace the horrid floor in my bathroom, so I’ve been getting prices for that. I also picked up some things from Target I’d been needing. It was all very domestic.

Saturday night, I was invited to walk in the Gay Pride Parade with Planned Parenthood. I have been to the Pride Parade once before - a nighttime event like no other - but never walked in it. I thought it would be a blast and I was not disappointed.

I met my new friend, Nicole, early on and she, I and some of the PP folks cooled off at Firkin and Phoenix before the parade. Before we even managed to get started walking, a large black man put beads around my neck, called me sugar and kissed me on the cheek. I new from that point on the night would be a rousing success.

We walked the parade, handed out condoms to the adults (candy to the kids) and I took pictures. We laughed and had a really good time. At the end of the parade, several of us went to So Vino, a wine bar and bistro on lower Westheimer near the end of the parade route, which was excellent.

Overall, I had a blast. The crowd was a riot and the company was excellent. I would do that again every year.

Sunday

I’ve mentioned here before that I tend to be a bit lazy with the domestic issues. For over a year now, I have had a bed sitting in the corner of my bedroom that just needed to be assembled. Today was the day.

I lounged for a while early, but started in the afternoon on it. It’s a platform bed frame that I got from Ikea. Of course, I got most of the way through when I realized I was missing two critical parts no one at the store told me were extra. I also discovered the side table was not the same color as the bed frame. Yikes.

I ran over to Ikea, got a partial refund on the side table and went through the store to pick up the stuff I needed. About an hour later I was back home finishing up. My bed looks killa.

On a side note, I considered making a list of all the things I found under the bed when I removed the old box spring and bed frame. I decided against it when realizing it would reveal the following:

1. I’m a lazy slob.
2. I’m apparently pretty damn weird.

Not that you guys didn’t already know those things, but I’ll just leave it at that for the purposes of this post.

Thus concludes my weekend of fun, frivolity and domesticity (I used that word the other day and felt so good about it, I decided to use it again). Next week is a long weekend thanks to the 4th. Woo hoo!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS