Failed expectations

Well, after our little talk the other night, S made a point of including me in her announcement of a karaoke outing at the bar tonight. While it was nice to be included, I know now that S was right about me not being included since I haven't been making an effort all month. I got there, and the whole gang was standing clustered around one little table. After a bit of hanging around at the back, without anybody making a move to include me at the table, or even acknowlege my presence, I wandered off to shoot darts. After 2 games, Joe, one of the occasional crew, asked if I wanted a game, I said sure. And after skunking me, he wandered back to his girlfriend at the table. Each time S or one of the other actors would sing, we all would go over to listen. There really are some painful singers out there, so it was quite refreshing to have people with voices sing occasionally. I hung out around the table for a while, but the group had by now gravitated to two or three seperate clusters, one playing pool, one hanging out in quiet conversation by the table, one over by the stage. Since none of our group was singing, I decided to call it a night (I had promised Wife I would not be too late, though even she was surprise at how early it ended up being.). I said goodnight to the one friend I had there, S, and left.
I don't know what I expected, but that sure didn't feel like it. So, with all this going thru my head, I'm not sleeping well tonight (hence the hour of this post), even though I only had two beers at the bar.

My big achievement today was fixing the sink drains at home. The kitchen sink and the bathroom sink share a wall, and over the weekend the kitchen sink drainage slowed, then stopped. Sure enough, bathroom too. All weekend it was persistantly resisting any draino liquid or gel treatments. It needed to be snaked. Monday I brought one in from work, and tried it thru the bathroom drain. It didn't work past the trap and into the wall, to make the right angle down the main. The only way to get to the downpipe was to take the bathroom pedestle sink OUT and run a snake directly into the wall and down. In short, it was a pain in the ass, but I managed it without too much hassle. Getting the sink out was harder than getting it back in. I even tracked down a leak in the bathroom faucet (tracked down, not fixed. The water is coming down the drain lever. I'm not sure how the water is getting to the drain lever, it's inside the faucet. That's another repair for another day). At least now we can do Christmas dinner dishes. Finally.

I know it's late when the bread machine I set to be done by 8 am kicks on while I'm still trying to sleep. Oh well, at least it's in the rise mode now, and not chugging away on the other side of my bedroom wall.

Looking back at some old posts, I realize I've been neglecting my bookmark sharing. Here is one from my museum files (filed under Travel/Leisure). The Vasa was a Swedish ship built in the 1620s. It was a large and very imposing warship, with three gun decks, and lots of carved details and gold trim. It sailed from it's dry dock across Stockholm harbor to it's berth, but a mile from it's berth, a gust of wind caught it just right, and it tipped, putting the lower gun ports below water, and it sank. So much for the future of viking seafaring. It was found in 1961, and slowly raised and housed in a museum built especially for it. (When my dad visited in '72, it was still not totally out of the water yet.) They're doing total preservation, and partial restoration on it.