Friday Mrs. Ha was observing/helping at a blood drive until late, so I had the girls all evening. We wanted to make a cake to celebrate Mrs. Ha's first week of work, and we tried two scratch sponge cake recipes from Fanny Farmer, one vanilla, one chocolate (we searched through two Nigella's and the Joy of Cooking before sticking with Fanny Farmer). They were okay for a first attempt, but the eggs were too cold to mix right and we ran out of confectioniers sugar when making the frosting. Ten year old did have a blast playing kitchen chemist, amd Mrs. Ha was touched by the effort.

Wait, there's more cake content. Saturday night ten year old was invited by newspaper mom to go to a native American gathering nearby (newspaper mom had a front page story on the native
Americans and a full page inside the front section). We sent ten year old out late, with seven bucks for raffles and whatnot.

It took her a while to get home, and I was a little anxious, especially since we were watching Kinsey (you don't want her to walk in on an awkward scene). She did get home around 10:30, bearing a cake. She won a cake in the cakedance competition. By the time she had the requisite piece, it was 11:00, and we were all tired and just went to bed. And there's still more cake content to come.

We had to wait to finish Kinsey until Sunday night. I liked it, it was well done, and Lithgow's performance was very good, considering his usual roles. I also liked the way they made Laura Linney look attractive for a woman of a certain age. Kinsey's speech about America without the Puritans was pure trolling goodness.

This weekend was SimCon, a gaming convention at the University of Rochester. I went to SimCon once or twice back in the mid 80's ('83 or '84 most likely), and there was a slight possibility I would go this weekend, as Mrs. Ha had made tentative plans to get together with a mom from five year old's class. I'm not sure what I would have done there, I had no desire to dress up as I did as a teenager (not LARPing, just dressing as a character, it was either a D&D due with a mace, sword and plastic horned helmet, or a Traveller FO with laser rifle and camos, I forget which con was which), maybe spend money I don't have on deals in the dealer rooms, or look for a quick hex and counter wargame.

Those plans got changed as the mom has lots and lots going on in her life, instead Mrs. Ha volunteered to host a playdate for her kid, and volunteered me to watch (not totally, but she had a few errands to run, and a prospective kitten to look for). It worked out okay, Saturday was a good day for my physically, and the girls had fun. They played in the front yard for a while in the cold and sun (and even turned invisible) while I brought out the bistro set and played Panzer Grenadier on the porch, and then they moved indoors while I did dishes. When Mrs. Ha came home I went out back and depooped the yard (two saxoshit worth), put away the light up animated reindeer from Christmas, started a wood pile, and generally started making the back yard more liveable.

Since I didn't go to Simcon, I decided to join Consimworld, it has much more hex and countery goodness than boardgamegeek, even if I had to pay to join.

I am feeling better, maybe because I switched from Mobic to Celebrex. It is making me feel better, I haven't done any significant yardwork since last fall, and I can almost see myself riding soon. Oddly enough, I tried Celebrex a year ago and it did nothing for me. I still want to go to a rheumatologist though.

Yesterday was tough, we went to Buffalo (nearly to Lockport, in North Tonawanda actually) for a birthday party for Mrs. Ha's mom at the nursing home. There was the usual stressful family dynamics, the pain in trying to set up the portable DVD player for a 1 1/2 hour drive, and the anxiety of the disappearing brake fluid. We didn't really bring anything to eat, so I volunteered to get a sheet pizza (too much cheese) and antipasto. I should have gotten a salad or veggie tray, the food was mostly meat or refined flour based crap. My brother in law did make some good smoked salmon, and I had some pineapple, but I was so hungry for something good for my body I made a salad when we got home at night. I expect the crappy food made me feel crappy in the afternoon, it almost felt like a blood sugar issue. Of course, I skipped the birthday cake, too, I didn't need more refined sugar.

I have many calls to make, I'm becoming the health and child care coordinator while Mrs. Ha is in full day training. She's looking forward to some big paychecks, I'm looking forward to not paying all the bills.