Sometimes the smallest things can be very special when it comes to being with the ones we love. Saturday morning I slept in late, and Tara came over while I was still in bed. She buzzed my phone so I could let her in the front door, entered my apartment with her key, and crawled into bed with me. Given the fact that we have spent the night together in the same bed only once before (and that was either a year or two ago, I can't remember precisely) this was a nice treat to wake up on a weekend morning with my mate in bed with me, even if she did had to drive over to be there.
Friday afternoon I got a haircut for the first time since November. My hair grows really slowly, so length wasn't a problem, but it was starting to lose its shape and texture because of the weight. I go to a guy named Edison in Chinatown who was recommended by a co-worker, and he does a really fine job. Plus, he's a super-nice guy, and rather good-looking, although way too young for me (he's 23, I think). But he spends a lot of time on my hair, and does a very nice job making my hair look the best it can. Because of the way my hair grows, I don't have a lot of style options, but it feels nice to have some layers and texture back in my hair. Sometimes you just have to trust an Asian person to cut Asian hair.
Saturday afternoon after Tara and I got out of bed we went to Costco, looking for a new television to replace the one that I smashed several months ago. We looked at a couple of contenders, a Philips, a Vizio and a Panasonic plasma TV, and decided on the Philips LCD. Unfortunately, the last one in the box had just been taken by another shopper (I saw them taking it, but figured there must be more in the store). When the clerk said that was the last one and they were sold out, I half-decided that I should just give up and stick with my broken Vizio (it's still watchable, but about 15 percent of the screen at the bottom right is blanked out). But Tara said we should check with the other Costcos nearby, so we went over to customer service to inquire stock at the other store about 15 miles away.
When we got to the customer service area, I spotted one of the Philips TVs on a cart, new in the box. I quickly inquired if it was being held for someone, or if it was a return waiting to go back to stock. The clerk asked another employee, who looked at me and said, "take it!" so we did. Apparently someone bought the TV and got buyer's remorse or something and returned it without opening it, so we managed to snag the last TV in the store. It's a Philips 42-inch LCD with 1080p resolution and four HDMI inputs, for you tech heads out there. We brought it home and installed it behind my drop-down movie screen and moved the damaged Vizio to the bedroom, which replaced a 20-inch CRT unit that came with my apartment's furniture.
Speaking of furniture, on Thursday I finally found a nice footrest for the living room, a long, low padded footrest suitable for me, Bee and Tara to rest our feet on during movies (Bug sits on the loveseat). What I like about it is that it's not a straight rectangle, but a curvy rectangle, which gives it an organic, feminine feel. Plus the upholstery is a neutral beige with a subtle floral embroidery and dark wooden legs that matches well with my existing furniture. With this, my new full-length mirror and the new TV, I feel like I'm done nesting with this apartment and probably won't make any other major furniture/electronics purchases until I move into a house, perhaps next year.
Saturday night all the girls came over to coo over the new TV, and admire the hyper-realistic 1080p HD picture of the Yankees baseball game. We had a nice dinner together and watched The Mummy on the front-projection big screen, followed by a re-run of Saturday Night Live. Sunday I went out to run some errands, and met Bee and Tara back at my place so we could go swimming for the first time this year. The water was really cold, despite the warm sun, and we spent some time back and forth in the hot tub.
Afterwards, we had watermelon before Bee left to attend a yoga meeting, so Tara helped me take out all my trash, including the big TV box that I'd filled with garbage, then we went back to her place to eat an early dinner and watch the baseball game she had DVRed earlier in the afternoon. I dozed off on the couch while Bug wandered in and out of the living room from her newly renovated studio. After the game and when Bee got home, they did a little gardening and Bee, Tara and I went out to the Dairy Queen for ice cream. I haven't had a dipped cone in many years, and it was as good as I remember from my childhood.
All in all, this was a very nice weekend for everyone, probably the best in a few months. We didn't really do anything special, but what we did do, we did well and with peaceful intention. We didn't need to talk about the big things, or the heavy issues. We just tried to cultivate a healthy, quiet space where everyone could enjoy each other's company and still do what we wanted to do individually. That, in a nutshell, is what our family is all about.
