Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Mar 19 2006

I was over at JB’s on Friday night after work, hav…

I was over at JB’s on Friday night after work, having some really salty steak-and-ale pie with some friends when Matthew Lien walked in. Apparently he’s a friend of Dean’s, and we got to talking about the local music scene, as he’s looking for local musicians. He and Darrell got into a rather animated discussion of the technical aspect of a performance as opposed to the emotional aspect. I say animated because Matthew is very passionate about his craft, especially when he’s had a few. He asked when we our band was playing next, and I told him I didn’t know, but we were getting together the next evening for some music at my friend Chris’ birthday party at Bitan. He said he’d try to make it.

I opened my balcony doors on Saturday morning to discover it was a balmy 25 degrees out, quite a surprise after temperatures in the teens. I decided to take advantage of the weather by going to retrieve Gendoyun, which was still at the shop as the guy there couldn’t find any new shocks for it. I rode to another, larger bike shop on Beixin Road, the place where they have all the beautiful bigger bikes in the window upstairs, but they, too, said the RZR model has been out of production for so long, no parts are available anywhere. So I guess I’ll just have to keep riding it the way it is, for now, at least until I can scrape together enough disposable income for another bike, or even a car, at some point in the future.

The weather was so nice, I took a spontaneous jaunt up up the river and into the mountains on nice, smooth, winding roads. Gendoyun’s engine is just fine, and it was a great little ride. At one point I crested a ridge only to find a shocking site: suburban sprawl, apparently. Stretched out before me, almost as far as I could see, were new developments consisting of identical tan dormer-roofed, three-storey houses with winding lanes, parks, and small lawns. I wonder what it would be like to live in a place like that. Not very suitable for someone living alone, I’d guess, since it’s too far from the city for easy access.

Later, Darrel came over to check out the Water Curtain Cave and help me install some new software as well as some old hardware. By the time I walked him out downstairs, the sky had become quite a bit cloudier, blocking out the sun but making for a nice sunset later, as I watched from the roof.

Chris’ birthday party was supposed to start at around 8, so I took my camera down under the suspension bridge and took some pictures while I waited for Chris and Slim to come down to dinner.

We ate at one of the places that line the river below the bridge. It wasn’t too bad; good veggies and somewhat soggy fried rice. The weather was clouding up, but Bitan was still busy with swanboats. We went up to Chris’ pad, and not long after the whole band had arrived, we started playing some music.

The place filled up very quickly; I don’t quite know how so many people could fit in the tiny room and balcony, but they did. Chris’ cat, Rusty, flitted around between people’s legs and up into the foliage of the mountainside next to the balcony.

It began to drizzle around 10, and it soon became uncomfortably cool considering we were all dressed for the sudden onset of summer, yet the weather didn’t seem to have any effect on the crowd. The Saltwater Crocs (or rather the two remanining members) gave a little show, as well as one half of the former Incriminators. I found out that the baritone does quite well on solo work as well as standard oompha duty.

Slowly the weather worsened, and the crowd began to thin early in the morning. Matthew didn’t show, but then again I didn’t really expect him to, and in any case it was probably too crowded for him. I left around 5:30am, arriving home and getting out of the shower to find the sky lightening to a dull, cool grey outside. I heard later that things got a bit out of hand at the party after I left. Apparently I just missed a fight.

Sunday was a listless recovery day for the most part. I went out for rhoti and brought two tiny fish in a tall glass container back from Chris’ that she got for her birthday but couldn’t keep because Rusty, as cats are wont to do, eats any fish she can get at in the house. The fish got back ok and are still alive, but bored.

posted by Poagao at 5:28 pm  

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