measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gamers in Love... a Valentines Recap After my day off from work, I came into my cubicle to find a ripped purple flower box, and a bundle of beautiful purple and white flowers (still rubberbanded) in a vase with water. No, not from my dear Erich, but from two fellow journalers who have quickly become friends, and dammit, we live entirely too far apart from each other. Finn? Hooligan? Thank you. They're absolutely lovely, and are brightening up my cubicle. I got your message, Hoolie-- one of my friends had stopped by yesterday morning to use my computer for some job-searching, and I happened to be out of my apartment at the time when you called on the phone, but she was a good friend and gave me a black-papered stickie note with "oooh... flowers for you at work!" with all sorts of frighteningly Valentinezey hearts and balloons scribbed on it. :) My boss and a couple other co-workers opened the box and got them in water for me and added the plant food, so no worries. I trimmed them and arranged them this morning. Of course, everyone thought that Erich had sent these, which made it that much more amusing... when they saw the card, they were asking um... who's Finn? And um... who's Hooligan? (real names inserted, of course). It was interesting. ;) Hopefully rumors of me two-timing (or would that be three?) don't start spreading! I discovered this week that shopping for Valentine's Day is hard. Damned hard. What the heck do I get a guy for V-Day? Sure, I could go easy and get him a copy of the most recent gaming books... but that's too easy. Instead, I headed to his Amazon wish list and ordered a couple of the Red Dwarf tapes that have been sitting there "unavailable" for a while. They haven't come in yet, but he now has them. :) Erich went above and beyond and put me in the cosmos... literally. There is now a star near Vega named "Melisa Kathryn Kent" in the sky, and I have the certificate and map to show for it. Quite a nifty little romantic gift, wouldn't you say? :) As a lover of astronomy, it made it that much more special. Erich and I wound up having a nice, relaxing day. He had a few errands to do in the early afternoon, so he got to my place a bit after 2, and had managed to find a priceless Visitor Parking space on my street, so we decided to leave the car there and take the bus up to Harvard Square, rather than drive and drop XX dollars for parking. For those who have never been to Harvard Square, I should elaborate on it a bit-- yes, it is actually where Harvard University is. The center of what is Harvard Square is off from the original Harvard Yard (oh, sorry... let me get Yankee... Hahvahd Yahd.) It's actually a curved triangle shape of roads, with the main entrance to the subway station and a cute little trolley filled with international magazines sitting in the center island. Once a mecca of tiny little used book stores and Mom and Pop diners, it's become sadly "mall-ized" in the last few years with Abercrombie & Fitch and such taking over the shop fronts. (I have no problems with these stores, but they don't belong in this setting. Really.) Despite all of the "urban renewal," I still like, and will forever like, going up there for two reasons: 1) Pandy and 2) The House of Blues. The House of Blues in Cambridge is a cute little two-story house on a side street. I'm not exactly sure when it opened, but it was long before the craze started with the televised rock concerts and such. To give you an idea, I was going there in 1993. It's good southern cooking, and during the day it's a wonderfully low-key, relaxed place and rather cheap for the city (we got out of there for lunch, including drinks for $17 and change). It's gotten a bit more glitzy since I first started going there, but for the most part, the atmosphere is still pretty much the same-- after you pass through the doors, you're in a rustic old blues bar with Gullah and Bayou region artwork all over the walls, and classic blues music playing in the background. Nice and laid back in the middle of the chaos. After a long lunch, we headed across the little park nearby to The Garage, which is a cluster of trinket shops for the stuck-in-the-60's-meets-Anim� generation. (no really!). On the top floor is Pandy, also known by its full name, Pandemonium Books and Games. Geek shop central. *drool* Erich wants a picture of the Knights of the Dinner Table display in the front window. :) Pandy, like House of Blues, is difficult to get to... if you're driving. If you're coming by the T, no problem. Just grab a decent set of sneakers and walk a block from the subway, and you're set. Since leaving college and that blissful allotment of afternoons with no classes so I could go ANYWHERE, I haven't gotten up to Pandy as much as I used to, even though the trip up on the bus is much faster than what it was for me during college. This trip to Pandy did have a couple of missions-- to see if Masters of the Wild, the newest D&D supplement, was out (it wasn't), and to get Erich his very own black d20 (twenty-sided, for you non-gamers) die, because he was insanely jealous of the high numbers mine routinely rolls. He wants me to bless it for him before he uses it. And yes, this little witchie actually DOES have a dice-blessing ritual. And has used it, and will vouch for the results... on her black d20. :) They had one, he got it. He forgot to give it to me to bless, so hopefully it's still in his coat pocket, and I can get it from him tonight when I pick him up. Yes, I know... true geekdom at its scariest. But as Hoolie and Finn will likely attest... if it brings the natural 20s on the die, it's worth it. :) And gamers can be an awfully superstitious bunch, especially when it comes to gaming dice. So after Pandy, we went down the street a bit to one of the remaining used bookstore buildings, where two different shops happened to reside. The first had some beautiful old volumes, including a first (1863) printing of Henry Wadsworth Lonfellow's Tales of a Wayside Inn in beautiful condition for $125 (drool), and also several books that were dated in the 1600's for much higher than $125. I was in heaven, particularly since one of my dreams is to someday have an antique books collection in one of those grand old private libraries. Unfortunately, I was also rather broke, and no books were going to be coming into my hands that day. We headed up to the third floor to a much less organized and relatively more modern bookshop, where Erich found a set of turn-of-the-century Geneology books that he bought for $5, which he plans to give to his dad who has an interest in the hobby. The spines were in rough shape, but otherwise the books seemed in decent condition. It looks like they were too close to either a heat register or in a damp basement, and were damaged by the elements. But even in their disrepair, the bindings of those books is in a style that would never be duplicated, so it's probably best to leave them as they are. He lugged those back on the T in a box, and put them in his car. So with our outing to Harvard Square ended and the bus ride back to my place uneventful, we got into the car and headed to his place for the evening... some cuddling and such followed by a laid-back evening of burgers, WWF (mostly Erich's interest, although I find it amusing at times) and Olympics. :) He drove me home a bit before midnight, and I collapsed from the events of the day. A happy, long-time-coming Valentine's Day. Who'd a thunk it? 4:12 p.m. - 15 February 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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