there are no calories in this post

Because this one isn't about food.

My weekend plans got fairly thoroughly rearranged today, thanks to a message from friend M* who lives in Atlanta, and to the weather forecast.

Originally I had planned to use this weekend to work on painting the living room and hall in my apartment. I didn't know whether I would finish them -- they're not large but they will require a fair amount of time and attention to prep. But at least I intended to make a good start.

Then I found out that the weather forecast has us slated for rain. All. Weekend. We need it; our drought level was terrible, and we simply skipped the rainy season last winter. So I'm not kvetching about the rain. Not even a little bit. It's been raining off and on for about 36 hours now, and according to my local paper's website it's supposed to keep raining through Sunday. This is good news overall, though bad news for would-be painters like myself.

Since it makes no sense to try to paint while it's raining, I will just not paint this weekend. I may spackle and sand, if the mood strikes. I will also not paint next weekend, since I will be running up to the Bay Area to see friends and plays. And as La Jersild always said on her blog... don't come burgle my house while I'm gone, it's all boobytrapped, you will die a horrible tortuous death and thereafter be eaten by the attack cat, etc. etc. and so forth.

(No, I don't have a cat at all, let alone an attack cat.)

(No, you don't need to try to remedy this situation.)

The second and happier reason to revise my weekend plan was the email I found from M* this morning, saying she is coming to this conference. I've gone to the first two iterations of this conference, last year and the year before. When info started circulating about this year's edition, I farmed it out to a bunch of friends (including M*), inviting them to stay at my place if they decided they wanted to go to the conf. Nobody took me up on that, and I let that plus the prospect of painting woo me away from planning to go myself.

I haven't seen M* in about a year and a half. So the prospect of her visiting a 90 minute drive away, instead of being a 5-hour flight away, means I shall go!

I have to work tomorrow, of course, and I have plans in the evening that I don't want to miss. Then on Saturday I have an appointment at noon for a badly needed haircut, but I can call to see if there's any room in the schedule to shift it earlier. Once my hair is cut, I'll go up to the conference and kibitz for the day. I have tentative Saturday night plans, but I haven't received confirmation and it's been weeks since I last saw the person supposedly throwing this party, so I'm sort of doubting it's going to happen at all. Another person mentioned a different party on Saturday night, but hasn't called to confirm either. That makes it easier to consider skipping both erstwhile options to hang out at the conference for a bit longer.

I have a 9:30 a.m. call at the COWHN on Sunday to rehearse the Mozart we're singing during the service. But maybe I'll take M* up on her offer of hotel room crash space at the conference site, and drive down early in the morning. It would be a nicer drive in the daylight, even if it's rainy dreary daylight.

So, to recap, the original plan was --
Saturday: prep to paint, go get hair cut, paint paint paint, go to one or both potential parties
Sunday: breakfast at home, Mozart, service, farmer's market, paint paint paint

The new plan looks like --
Saturday: get hair cut as early as possible, go to conference, hang out with extremely cool people I rarely see. Probably stay overnight.
Sunday: breakfast in the car while driving back down for Mozart, service, farmer's market. Maybe spackle and sand. Maybe make pasta sauce? I've used up the last of the batch that was stashed in the freezer.

See, the food snuck in there after all.