I have had a fantastic weekend!

Leaving out the fever last night with the really bad aches, pains, and chills, that is. So if we cut the weekend off at around three o�clock Sunday afternoon, I have had the best weekend in months.

Friday night I had a three and a half hour dinner with MLG at Hurley�s. Not only was it not crowded, they actually had cider this time! We had a window seat so we could watch the funny people outside, the sun go down and the stars come out. We talked and talked and talked about all sorts of stuff – I haven�t felt that comfortable and carefree in quite some time. I laughed a lot too.

Three hours into the evening I confessed that I had thought this dinner meeting had been to plot in further detail the return of my original RSW character in the next day�s NSW game. (MLG is, of course, the brilliant architect and GM of NSW.) Struck by the coolness of this idea, he paid the bill (for which I thank him yet again) and we went back to his place to game for almost two hours. Bliss!

This being married thing is okay � it has its pros and cons � but one of those dual pros/cons is that constantly have someone to do stuff with. Hence you don�t necessarily go hang out with someone else for six hours on a Friday night very often. (Particularly the ending up at his place bit � I know that a lot of people would have gone ballistic over that part. Even though there was a net-fest going on in the next room.) I have, however, decided that I will indeed do this more often. It felt glorious to know that I didn�t have to be somewhere else.

The secondary bonus of having Friday night out with MLG is that it made the return of Ambassador-Jedi Saiyedra Dubh a complete surprise in Saturday�s game. Okay, it was a desire expressed by three of the five players at different times, but no one technically knew it was actually going to happen other than myself and the GM (who had asked me privately to bring the character back). As wonderful as it is, I�m a bit miffed and amused that the game took a sudden shift earlier in the session and I actually began to enjoy the pilot character I had been having difficulty playing. An added and unexpected bonus! All in all, a wonderful session.

Saturday night we went from the game to my in-laws� place for dinner: barbecued ribs, red wine or Alexander Keith�s (depending on your preference), and East Coast music. Divine! I fell asleep on the couch an hour or so after dinner, and we went home.

Sunday morning I had that guest speaker spot at a local group�s brunch meeting. Designing Rituals went as well the second time as it did the first! Lots of very interesting discussion, a wonderful cat, good bacon (I�m really picky about my bacon), mini quiches and apple muffins. The time change played a bit of havoc with the starting time, but everyone was nice and relaxed. A wonderful experience, and a terrific group of people.

We then came home and curled up with good music and books. I started to get stiff and a bit cold, so I decided to go lie down for a while. When my husband woke me up two and a half hours later to get ready to go to the ritual scheduled for last night I couldn�t move without severe pain, couldn�t stop shivering if I wriggled out from under the pile of covers I had on top of me, and couldn�t string three coherent words together. So he called our host and sent our regrets, which really annoyed me because I�d been looking forward to this meeting. Instead, he made me chicken noodle soup with crackers, and he even got me ice cream later. At 9 pm I felt better enough to get out of bed and curl up under a blanket to try to watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it came on, but not well enough to watch it past the point where they entered the cloud. The commercial breaks every four minutes were driving me insane.

So I slept good and hard, woke up this morning, changed more clocks (how many clocks do I have, anyway?), made a pot of peppermint tea. My day�s schedule includes correcting exams and assignments for tonight�s class, and most definitely a nap.

I have a lot of people to thank for such a fun-filled weekend. Thank you, all!