Whew

I don't think this has ever happened before, but as I sat in my desk chair this morning, I heard myself utter an audible sigh of relief. More than I knew, apparently, I was happy that the weekend was over.

Not that it was bad. It wasn't.

Not even all that extensive in activity.

I was just ready to be at work.

That's probably because I have a shit-ton to do and the mounting backlog has started to invade my quiet times. Sort of like when you are super broke and it stresses you out all the time, even when you aren't thinking about it. So, yeah, I'm in a bit of a hurry to reduce that mountain to a series of molehills. I hope.

On Friday, as promised, I went to the duct tape festival at Avon. What more can I really say? It was a duct tape festival. It was muggy and carnivalish, but with a gazillion free rolls of duct tape being forced into your hands every time you paused. Still, there were some impressive duct tape sculptures and even more impressive duct tape dresses and tuxedos. All told, it captured my life for about 35 minutes, including the walk to and from the parking area.

Afterwards, we went to Henry's at the Barn for dinner. Pretty and well-appointed inside, if a little bit too refined. The cuisine is good, and the chef deserves major kudos for presenting authentic middle-class cuisine that is still funkified a bit (examples: Meyer Lemon grits). The beef medallions were AWESOME, the most tender I've had in memory. The peel-and-eat shrimp is a good bet, too, especially if you go with the house red horseradish sauce. I'd happily go back, if I found myself in Avon or somewhere nearby, though I can't see making another special trip out for it.

After a night of tossing and turning and cursing myself for having the AC set so low yet too lazy to get up and change it, I woke up, went for breakfast at Michael's in Shaker Square, and then headed over to Voodoo Monkey for my crisis-driven tattoo consult. That was a snap, then over to Visible Voice in Tremont to hear a friend give a reading about his new book about New Orleans, race, politics, and jazz. Afterwards we had coffee and cake at Civilization, then went to the amazing Loftworks building on E 40th and Payne for a going-away party for a guy I didn't know (though he made killer caipirinhas) that is setting off for a 2 month hike across Iceland. The live-work loft where the party was held was AWESOME, from the tiny curving staircases to the recessed bedrooms to the roof-top garden and grill area. That is seriously a place I'd think about living in, even if the immediate surrounding environs define sketchiness.

After that suaret with artists and intellectuals and top-shelf violinists, it was off to Lyndhurst for a backyard bbq, complete with full pig on spit action, and the most citronella candles ever assembled on one quarter-acre. That was fun, though I was beat, and I headed back home, with a stop in the heights that became an overnight layover.