Home > Rayne > Last Saturday

Last Saturday

June 30th, 2017

When we moved here, we left our grill by the road at the old place because it was super greasy, so we didn’t want it in the U-Haul, or our car. Plus, parts of it were rusting out, and the burner cover basically disintegrated when we tried to take it out to clean it. I’m pretty sure the neighbors we liked grabbed it despite the fact that it was falling apart. M says K probably just got some scrap metal and rebuilt the parts that were rusting. He’s probably right. K’s that kind of guy.

So on Friday, we bought a new grill. We actually bought it before Friday, and drove into another Middle of Nowhere town to pick it up at the store on Friday because they have this sweet discount if you do that. And the grill was on sale. After the pick up discount and sale price, we spent $20 more than we did on our last grill, and $20 less for the grill cover than we did for the last one, and they are both a hundred times better than the old grill and cover. I love it when that happens. It happens to us a lot because we wait FOR-E-VER to replace things, so by the time we do, everything is manufactured better for less money.

When we got home, we put the grill together. It took over an hour because some of the screw holes weren’t lined up correctly, and the parts weren’t all labeled. It was frustrating, but we threw teamwork at it, and got it done. Then I threw together some really amazing blue cheese burgers, and he cooked burgers on the grill for the first time in nine and a half months.

I’d say I may never go out for burgers again, but beef of any sort is rarely ever cheaper than $4-5/lb out here, so we’ve cut back our beef intake by a lot. It’s weird how much cheaper food is in the city. You’d think it would be cheaper in the country because, theoretically, it doesn’t have to go as far.

We didn’t stay out long, Friday night, because I am a freakin mosquito magnet, and I have a tendency to dig my skin off when I get bitten.

On Saturday, he really, REALLY wanted to kill zombies.

I’ve mentioned before that we play this zombie survival game called 7 Days to Die (if you’d like to join us, it’s available here on Steam. Our server is Allanthya. And you can friend me here, if you’d like). It’s still in early release, and they’ve recently released Alpha 16 (a16). The changes they made are many, and pretty huge. Since we bought it, game play has changed immensely with each new version, which, for us, is a huge draw. I’ll be simultaneously excited and sad when they finalize the game for that reason.

This time, they put sleeper zombies in the buildings, which has added an extra bit of difficulty. Before, if you killed all the zombies that were coming out of or already outside a building, you were probably safe until they respawned. Now, you have to be wary of sleeping zombies in each room. We’ve each broken a window to get inside a building, only to find we’ve broken in right over a sleeping zombie sitting crosslegged on the floor.

We haven’t played as much as we’d like since the release of a16. It’s harder to get a base built, so we didn’t have one, yet. And so, on Saturday morning, he really, REALLY wanted to kill zombies.

And then he looked outside and saw that it was a beautiful day.

“You’re gonna be mad if we spend the whole day inside playing zombies,” he said.

I insisted I wouldn’t. I wanted to kill zombies, too.

But also, outside of his wants/needs, rules, and set tasks for me, I’m pretty much my own boss, so I have none of the stress of working for someone else that he does. Because his job is incredibly busy, right now, his stress is at least doubled. So when he has a day off, even if I wasn’t the slave, I would still want to do whatever he wants to do so he can actually destress, and not spend the whole day trying to make me happy. Besides, I’ll be happy regardless, just as long as we’re able to spend time together.

“Well, I’ll be mad if we spend the whole day inside playing zombies,” he said. “What do you think about bringing the cats outside, and playing board games?”

I liked that idea way better than playing zombies.

We’d finally gotten around to getting the cats a playpen, and even though Priss immediately jumped out of it when we were testing it, and threw a fit the whole time it was on the deck with a tarp keeping her from jumping out, I really wanted to give them another chance to get used to it. Plus, they hadn’t had a chance to try it in the grass, yet. I expected them to like it better in the grass.

Bash did. Priss still did everything in her power to try to get out. She even climbed the sides like a monkey trying to find a weak spot in the tarp. It was hilarious. And frustrating. But mostly hilarious.

We made up our minds to ignore her, and played games. Backgammon, Chess, and Dominos, because it’s really windy here (pretty much all the time) and they’re the only games we have that don’t have paper or cards. Priss eventually calmed down and laid down.

The playpen we got is made specifically so you can buy a bunch of them and connect them to each other to make a bigger space, so we plan on getting at least one more. We’re hoping that she’ll like it more when she has more room to move around. She really, really wants free range privileges, but we’ve seen way too many animals dead on the side of the road. I’m not willing to take that risk.

We ended up spending the whole day out there, only looking at gadgets when one or the other of us was occupied with something (going to the bathroom, cooking, whatever). It was really nice to just have face time with each other, no gadgets occupying our attention. We spend far too much time with gadgets between us. That’s something we’re working on. It’s hard, though, because we’re both gamers, and gaming together is a large part of what we consider “quality time.” The key is balance.

Eventually, he made dinner. We had grilled chicken thighs, and store bought potato and macaroni salads. It was delicious! And I wasn’t even mad when he stole the one with the best looking skin.

When the day was over, we were content, happy. It was nice to just enjoy each other’s company. I still suck at Chess, though.

He’s got big (kinky) plans for this weekend, but we’re also hoping to have another day like last Saturday. I’m excited.

How’ve you been? 💜

Comments are closed.
%d bloggers like this: