Slothville, Circuitry and Good Friends

I spent the weekend in Slothville. I was off from the day job on Friday and Monday and the kids were both out of town with their grandparents so we had a very quiet house. We didn't watch The Disney Channel at any point the entire weekend. And at our house, that's an accomplishment. With a 3-year-old and 8-year-old, I end up having annoying theme songs to stupid Disney shows stuck in my head all day long.

I did play a little with my new electronics toy from RadioShack. It took me a little while to decipher what I needed to do, but eventually I ended up with this:

See that little LED light? It blinked when it was supposed to, which is totally awesome. There's a capacitor in there, an integrated circuit, three resistors and lots of wires. I was really proud of myself. At least, I was until Rain came home from my parents' house and we attempted a more complicated circuit together and couldn't get it to work. But fear not, I can be a stubborn little wench when I need to be and plan to try and try again until the damn speaker beeps when it's supposed to. I'll keep you posted.

On Saturday night our good friend Rocky came down from the boondocks and we indulged ourselves with a rare dinner out. Steaks and burgers and beer and margaritas with all the fixins. It felt great to go out with friends (and without kids) with nowhere to be afterwards so we could take our time and just enjoy each other's company. I found myself sitting around a table with my husband of 15 years and two girlfriends I've known for longer than that and I realized that I've known and loved these people for half my life. We have a solid history together. Through divorces and addictions and financial problems, we've always had each other with no judgments or accusations or drama. Rocky lived with us for a while a long time ago and Nanook currently lives with us, so we've all grown accustomed to each other and to say that dinner was relaxing is an understatement. It was just what I needed to rejuvenate myself from the stress of work, school and life in general. I'm sure those of you out there who have friends like these would agree that it's a special kind of blessing.

Rocky's an awesome girl. She's offered her ex-girlfriend's car that's currently dead in Rocky's driveway to me as a project car (a '94 Honda Prelude) and I'm really thinking about taking her up on it. Plus, she came over Saturday with her hands all busted up from changing her own ignition coil, spark plugs and wiring in her truck. It didn't solve her problem, but still. She did it herself and that's a little bit of wonderful. I want to be like Rocky one day. Well, except for the gay part since I'm married to a man and all.

In Monday night's class, we went to the lab and I created this little piece of awesomeness:

That's a 1.5" square piece of metal that I hacked off from a larger piece of metal (with a hacksaw, no less. It might have taken me a really long time, but I kicked that metal's ass eventually). That's also a 2" long 1/4" diameter metal post that I threaded myself with a die set. I ran out of time (did I mention that it took me a long time to hack through that metal?), but next Monday I'll drill a hole into the middle of the block and tap threads into it so that my new fancy bolt can screw into the block. Mr. Forrest called it quits right after I'd tapped "H O" into my block and I was seriously tempted to leave it like that so I could go around showing off my "HO" block, but The Mumbler finished it off for me.

Brooklyn (the guy who sits to my left) came into class on Monday with an awesome "How to Avoid Getting a Job" t-shirt that I now can't find anywhere on the internet. So I'm reminded of one of Rocky's old t-shirts that I always loved and thought I would share it with you guys:

I don't give a rat's ass.