So how did house sitting for Dayle go?

Gah. Two weeks with no journaling.

Dayle's dog survived my house sitting gig. So did the turtle, but it was a near thing.

See, they have this little turtle in a gold fish bowl in a corner of the dining room. There's a couple of big rocks and some piece of machinery with an electrical cord dunked in the bowl as well. My instructions were to feed the turtle twice a day.

One day, I came back to find that there was no turtle in the bowl. I looked everywhere in the dining room and the kitchen, but couldn't find it. I called Dayle to find out if this was a common occurrence, but it turns out that the turtle has never made a jail break before. However, Dayle assured me that there was very little emotional investment in the turtle's continued well-being and just told me to keep an eye out for it. I never saw the turtle again.

Dayle tells me that it turned up about a week later. The dog trotted out of Dayle's home office with the little turtle in his jaws. Alive, believe it or not.

The dog nearly didn't survive either, as he was in the habit of going out half an hour before I was in the habit of getting up each morning. That wasn't so bad, but on the last day I had to return the rental car, so I set the alarm half an hour early, which should have coincided with the dog's clock. Instead, the dog woke me up a full hour before the new alarm, which worked out to be 4:30 a.m. That was the day I decided that the dog was evil. I much prefer Jim's cats.

Commuting from Dayle's house to the office each day immediately became a chore, although I enjoyed driving around to the shops and restaurants in his neighborhood. Still, I much, much, much prefer my city life where I can walk to everything and let someone else take care of ferrying my body to the office each morning.

Despite the happy ending for all of the animals in the house, I'm not sure that I'll be house sitting for them again. Dayle reimbursed me for the rental car, but he was surprised that the supplemental insurance I had to buy because I have no car insurance of my own inflated the total cost by another 200%. He wasn't upset, just surprised. If I do house sit again, there will be different arrangements, I'm sure.

Remembering is hard, part 1

I'm going to try to reconstruct the past two weeks for my own benefit, but it's going to be spotty. I have a hard time remembering what's going on in my life. The journal provides some needed continuity, but that's only when I remember to update it.

This past weekend, I left the office early on Friday to meet Doug M. in Baltimore. He was visiting for Artscape, Baltimore's annual arts festival. We wandered through the artist booths with Mark L., enjoying all the very different works on display and for sale. Oddly, there was also a booth of old science fiction books for fifty cents each; I picked up five and they tossed in another one for free. It seems the publisher gave them two thousand copies and they just wanted to get rid of them. The booth also had a bunch of old sci fi magazines in the small format for free, but I already have a stack of those someplace at home so I passed them by.

The three of us had dinner at the Mt. Vernon Stable, then drove back to Mark's house in Dickeyville. We watched the theatrical cut of Donnie Darko, which wasn't as good as the director's cut. Doug and I stayed the night in the guest room and Mark prepared a nice little breakfast for us Saturday morning.

Dickeyville was apparently a little factory town in the early 1900's that made clothes for Dickey. It sits at the end of the new Gywnns Falls hiking and bike trail from Baltimore City, and Mark led us on a little walking tour through his neighborhood. It seems that all of the houses date from the 1700's or the 1800's, and many of the residents take pride in beautiful gardens.

Sunday, I traveled to Silver Spring to spend the evening with Eric. We had a nice lunch at an Irish pub, then watched most of one of my favorite movies, Fire. We had dinner, then went to bed. It was just a quiet little evening at home, except that it wasn't my home.

Remembering is hard, part 2

The previous weekend, Doug M. turned forty-one. He hosted a pool party at Bill's house on that Sunday, then a potluck at his house. Eric and I attended both.

Because I was house sitting for Jim at the time, I didn't have a towel or bathing suit with me, so I dove into the pool in my underwear after slathering on the sun screen. If I had thought about it, I would have realized that sheer underwear is not going to protect me from the sun. Most of my skin didn't even pink, but the photo-sensitive skin got a slight burn again. I'm really going to have to take care not to expose that to the sun from now on.

The pool party was lots of fun. The day was warm and humid, so the pool was a great relief. At one point, we made a run to the 7-11 for slurpees, then reassembled at Doug's house for the pot luck. Lots of guys, as usual. We spread sheets out on the lawn in the courtyard behind Doug's house and laid there under the trees and clear blue sky. Lots of what fritterfae calls "casual intimacy". Eric had a great time. At one point he enjoyed getting various parts of his body handled by three different guys at once. :-)

I got handled too, but not so casually. I met a guy named Dean. At one point, he picked me up and put me over his shoulder to carry me into the house, where we smooched a lot. I eventually lost my clothes. It was a good time.

I'm having a hard time remembering what I did that Saturday. Maybe I'll figure it out.

Remembering is hard, part 3

That's right -- Eric and I went to the Phillips Gallery in DC to see the Phillips collection, which has returned to the gallery after traveling around for the past four years. We also saw the Klee exhibit, which had a few pieces that I really liked.

I enjoy visiting art museums. I enjoy the feeling of reverence that I get there.

I think we went to a Chinese restaurant in Wheaton for dinner that night, after napping at his house that afternoon.