Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Made it out to Bowie to help my brother with math. Was amused at how some bits I hadn't thought of for a decade or two sprang back into my head daisy-fresh as soon as the relevant vocabulary was mentioned. Even more amused when my explanation of how the easy way to calculate something (instead of going for an approximation) required calculus and then the next paragraph of his textbook said the same thing parenthetically. Relieved to notice that some calculus I hadn't used for a long time turned out to be like riding a bicycle -- as long as I didn't ask myself whether I was sure I was remembering it right, it just worked. But I wasn't teaching him calculus, just using it to sanity-check what his fancy graphing calculator (TI-uh-83-I-think?) came up with. Spent way too long hunting for the comma key on the darned thing (kept looking at the blue (alpha and punctuation) marks and the yellow ("2nd function") marks, completely overlooking the fact that there was a comma button with the comma as its main function (next to the parentheses). Sheesh. Should've been the early warning that I was overtired, but ...

Stayed too long, body started hurting very badly (ow, my ribs, dammit), got dizzy, had to lie down for a while before I could drive home again. Perrine was very hungry by the time I returned -- enough so to be down to mere crumbs in her food dish. (She hates to eat the last bit of food.) After a couple of bites she started saying, "We have to play! I missed you a lot! We have to play now!" and has been zoom-kitty, trying to get me to run around. Alas I've barely the energy to throw a few toys past her, but at least she does seem cheerful. And very interested in one of the spots on my arm that one of the dogs licked while I was resting up for the drive home. Going to go fling toys until I run out of them (gotta convince her to bring them back to me -- I know some other cats do it, but the ones I've met seem to have taught themselves) then crawl into bed. Found out the "universal" prepaid-wireless phone card that lists Verizon on its web site does not in fact work with Verizon. It takes a really long time to reach a human at their customer-support phone number, too.

On the way to Bowie, in heavy traffic for eight or ten miles of the trip, both drivers who wound up behind me maintained a safe following distance. This in a crowd. Refreshing. On the way home, as one of only four cars on the road, one driver engaged in tailgating, riding the blind spot, and improper lange changes for ten or twelve miles in order to wind up one car length ahead of his initial position relative to the rest of us. (There were traffic lights involved in that segment of the journey.) Idiot.

"I said I wasn't gonna write no more songs like this. But I was mistaken." -- Gil Scott Heron (thanks to holzman)

Got to the gig in Frederick late because my body wasn't cooperating. Three bandmates were even later because of foul traffic around DC. The sound system was about 70% set up when I got there. We started playing about five minutes past the official start of the event, and most of that can be blamed on electrical problems (discovering at the last minute that there was enough power available to run the monitors but not the mains (Allon punted the monitors and used the monitor amp to power the mains, and I just had to listen really well)), so the multiple tardiness was not catastrophic. *whew*

Gig went well, if a mite chilly (fingers started slowing down after the sunlight started fading). Felt better at the end than at the start, physically, but still wound up tired enough to be confused by one-way streets and got lost in Frederick looking for my way back to the Interstate. Got to see a poodle with a variation of the standard poodle-trim that didn't look cartoonish, froofy, or silly. Also saw a dog in a skunk costume, a dog dressed as a NASCAR driver (with fake arms holding a steering wheel!), a dachsund dressed as a Tootsie Roll, a mer-dog, dogs in Hawai'ian shirts and grass skirts ... a bunch of costumes that probably sound terribly dorky, but many of which were actually adorable, impressive, or both when seen in person. Need to find out what breed that was that looked downright feline to me except for having such a distinctly canine snout.

The band got fed leftovers at the end, including vegetarian spring rolls, a yummy artichoke dip, and a cool goat-cheese platter ... there was non-vegetarian food as well, but I didn't pay enough attention to remember what. Gotta remember to keep Zip-Loc baggies in the guitar cases.

Am no exhausted, as expected, and will to lie down as soon as Perrine lets me out of this chair.