Labor Day Has Nothing To Do With Labor.

Labor Day is preventative to labor. Or at least to employment. Namely, mine. Having found one or two walk-in opportunities, needing to stay on the trail of professors who have promised recommendation letters, and various of a similar nature seemed to fall pleasantly into this weekend where no one could be contacted or generally anything accomplished in this vein.

So I took to accomplishing things of a more domestic and leisurely nature. I didn't want to. My spider senses tingled at the notion of not being forward-pointed in action, even if I was in thought. But I did.

Friday was my first visit to the gym. Work-out's qualities are determined by how sore you are the next day, and given my desire to not move my arms over my head Saturday, I consider it a success. When I came back, I served up a pork roast from the slow cooker that had been cooking for nearly eight hours. Attempts to carve it went poorly, as it fell apart if you so much as looked at is crossly. Jess (Tyler's Mom, Sam's Daughter, Requirer of the Spongebob Cake) brought me the materials with which to create it. I attempted to do so that night, hoping to get it out of the way for the next day, but the VALU-BRITE cake mixes were... unsatisfactory. The horrible, goopy, mutant mess of sugar and sweet could not ever conceivably be turned into Spongebob. Or anything else.

While this was going on, the world Descended Into Madness. Along with Tyler and Jess's visit, Steph's sister and her husband came up, with their five children, to stay the night. This was the first time I spent considerable time in my room, because I felt, as wonderful as these people are, that this many would be overload, and that I was, at best, a non-essential piece of their family reunion. This being the case, I politely retired to the quiet room upstairs, and caught up on True Blood.

While I've mentioned it, True Blood is an excellent series. It's well acted and well written. The attitude and kitsch is great and sets it apart from other vampire series. Some of the characters are so strong willed that it borders on being a little two dimensional, but the solid acting makes it worth it, and some (like Lafayette, Tara, and Terry, mostly the non-vampires) are done in such a way that make them really interesting to watch, without the mechanisms of the central characters. It's also based off a book, like Dexter is, and I'd heartily recommend both. Dexter I probably like a little better though. The inner monologue is great and Michael C. Halle owns that part in a way that's scary.

As soon as I got up Saturday, I resolved to fix the cake issue. First I had to make sure that after offering the family to take a piece of mutant looking but thoroughly edible cake, that someone had put it out of the way of any enterprising dog who could eat himself to illness. After making sure of it, I drove without the GPS to the grocery store to get cake mix from a brand with a real name. Having secured some help from Ms. Betty Crocker I returned home. The significance of travelling without the GPS is important, I get to know the area far better that way. However, one way streets need to be better marked.

The rest of the day was spent in the kitchen, exhausting myself with culinary experimentation. My normal dinner of three at five or six or sometimes eight got moved up to four and expanded to a party of seven. A monster-sized Caesar salad, a fresh loaf of italian bread, a tray of home made meatballs (for which I had no recipe and totally winged) and an enormous pot of penne arabiatta thoroughly impressed our guests, satisfied my roommates, and really hit the spot when I finally sat down to it later that night (I didn't eat with them because I had dirtied nearly every pot in our possession and wasn't going to truly enjoy my dinner until I had cleaned the kitchen. ) That being done I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of my evening after they departed for a family birthday party by showering and enjoying some relaxation.

Sunday was an easy day for me. Steph and Sam left shortly after I ate lunch, and were gone for several hours. I played some PS3 (I've played almost no video games since I've been here, it's been kind of nice actually) and went to the gym again. I didn't even have to make dinner, as they decided to eat some of the leftovers that night. We got a layer of the floor down in the basement, which made me feel great, and if that had been the only thing we got done all day I would have considered it a success.

I'll cover Monday and Tuesday tomorrow... the hour grows late.