home for an island

Spoony turned 23 last week, and a few days later X turned 24. Spoony's party was on Thursday but I was unable to attend due to illness. Apparently Spoon won his party, despite early reports that Mark had won. X's party was Friday night and even thought I wasn't much healthier I went out anyway. We went to some bars downtown and ended up at some weird, loud, dance club thing. X had fun, I had fun, and I think everyone else had fun so it seems like a successful birthday weekend.

Saturday saw Spoon, X, Laura, and myself finally putting the apartment in order. We moved boxes and bags out of the kitchen and hallways and down to the basement. The place looks much better with all of the open space and it feels more like someone lives there with all of the boxes gone. We bought a bench for the foyer and then instituted a no shoes in the house rule to keep the floors clean.

Laura, Spoon, and I fired up the grill Saturday night. We made beer burgers (and beer veggie burgers for Laura), and grilled peaches and red peppers. The peaches were interesting, but the real winners were the peppers and beer burgers. Both of those experiments turned out to be delicious, and they were even better when combined. After a hurried dinner we rushed over to Kennmore to see the Kingdom, which was a very intense, very good movie.

On Sunday Laura and I went bouldering at Hammond Pond. We didn't do a whole lot of climbing (bouldering outside without a pad is pretty scary) but it was fun to be outside for the afternoon. Afterwards I went home and built a nightstand / cabinet thing and watched football with the roommates.

Also, Halo 3 is phenomenal.