I'm going to miss seeing trees

The new view from the windows, with the construction in progress.

We're adding on to our building at work. I know that is a good thing, and that the company is prosperous. In the old days though, in the midst of a really bad day, I could at least look out the window at the bank of trees and weeds outside, and remember there was an outside world. I work in a gray box all day. Now, when I look out the bank of windows, all I'll see is more gray walls.

Back to work

I got caught back up from being out, which was a good thing. Tomorrow is Wednesday, and I know I'll spend the day doing the reports. There won't be time to catch up anything tomorrow.

I had an appointment with the attorney today to have my will re-drawn (because I'm single now, and because of the pending surgery), so I called Michael and my mother to ask about stuff they wanted out of the house. Michael surprised my by saying he wanted the cats. I didn't realize how fond he was of Jinx. When I got to the attorney's office, though, he kept me waiting for a half hour. Since I was out yesterday, and my lunch hour was now used up, I left. They told me I could just email the details to have the will drawn, and I'm thinking "Why the hell didn't we do that before!?"

I just read tonight. I'm reading the last of the "Thursday Next" series by Jasper Fforde, called First Among Sequels. It was written later than the rest of the series, but it is just as excellent, although in this one, for some reason, Thursday and Landen are inexplicably poor. Still a ripping read though.

It stormed tonight. Tumultuously and gorgeously. I left the front door open to get all the lovely ozone-laden air into the house that I could, and to be able to watch and hear better. The porch keeps it from raining in unless things are really windy. It was great. I set the watering can out too, to catch some rain for the porch plants. It was as much an excuse to get out in it a bit and get damp with rain as anything. I love a good storm. Made me wish Dario had been around...

I'm runnning out of books again. I need to order some up from the library. I may start on Charlaine Harris's "Teagarden" series. I have finished the "Shakespeare" series, and can't continue in the "Sookie Stackhouse" series until the next book I'm waiting for becomes available.

A "Dom Drop" day

I woke up this morning feeling terrible. I don't know how much of it was allergies and how much of it was just camp out withdrawal, but I just felt like crap. Also, I was exhausted from sleeping so poorly for the last week. I usually schedule a day off after an event like that to give me some time to get things back in order and make the transition, but I have been saving all my vacation time lately for the surgery. Surgery or no, I didn't make it to work today.

I mostly slept, although I did get some laundry done, and finished putting away all the things I took for dessert service to the camp out. I also made some veggies that were left over into some soup to eat on. That was about all I could manage today.

There is an actual name for withdrawal from BDSM after an event - it's called "Dom drop" by the community. It's partly your body's withdrawal from the endorphins that BDSM stimulates (you have a lot of them, and kind of "fly" on them during an event, especially during a scene), and partly depression about having to go back to the "real" world. It used to be REALLY bad when I first got into the scene - it was like the aftermath of stuffing yourself on something really rich and overly sweet. That's the best way I can describe it. But it hasn't been that severe the last couple of things I've been to. Either that, I have planned better in the past. Either way it was a bad day today.

A most interesting evening*

I decided I needed to do some cleaning up, since I didn't do anything all week last week except cook desserts. I dropped a book by the library on the way home from the camp out, and had every intention of hauling off the tons of recycling choking my kitchen right now, but ended up not having the energy to do it. I also need to mow my grass, but that involves fixing the lawn mower and going to buy fresh gas, and suddenly it just seemed too involved. I did start on the mounds of laundry that need to be done, then ate something and took a nap.

When I woke up, I felt blowsy and worthless. I did a bit more wash, and washed and put away some of the Tupperware and dishes that I took for desserts this weekend. Then I cleaned up the kitchen some.

Russ had said he would call this evening if he felt like doing anything (he and Billy usually crash after the camp out), but I didn't hear from him. I drifted over to the computer, and started talking to this guy name Dario. Dario is really nice looking in his pics, be we had never met before. He is Hispanic (and I just love Hispanic men), plus he's local. We had tried to set up a meeting before, but it didn't work out. He was supposed to be doing this yard sale, and I was going to go by to see him, but I couldn't find it, and spent all this time on a wild goose chase, wondering in the back of my mind if he had really wanted to meet me at all.

It turns out he did want to meet me. He wound up coming over to hang out for a while. He is a very nice guy, and is just as good looking in person as he is in his pictures. He's also very modest about it, apparently not realizing how nice-looking he is. After we visited for a while, I suggested we go get some dinner, which we did. We had a good meal, and I enjoyed talking to him. He is from Colombia, and his whole family is here. He lived in LA for a while, but didn't like it. I hate LA, and since my sister Angela lives there, I was able to compare impressions with him. He was there for eight years though.

He got fed up with LA too, it just took him a bit longer, LOL. So now he's here, and seems to think I'm purty. And good for me! After dinner, he came back to the house for a while and we watched some of The Simpsons, which was on by that point. It was a really nice evening, and he is such a sweetheart. Russ called about dinner as Dario was leaving, but by that time it was after 8:30pm, and I was going to bed.

My parents are going to shit when they find out I'm seeing a Hispanic guy though. I'm going to wait a good bit to see where this goes before I say anything about it. For some reason, I just have this feeling we'll see each other again.

Sigh. It's all over.

I kind of delayed going to bed for a while last night, because I didn't want the weekend to end.

I woke up early again, but couldn't start packing up since Russ was still asleep, so I slipped off to the lodge. By the time I got over there, the dungeon was already torn down, and people were packing up to go. Breakfast was just muffins, so I got a coffee and headed out to the porch. There is usually a group hanging out there on Sunday morning, sorry to see the weekend over. Today was no exception, and we had a nice little joke session before going off in our separate directions.

I ran into Billy, and he said he had been in twice to wake Russ up. He gave me full permission to go in and start packing up - as loudly as I wanted. Steve told me he had already packed my stuff up too. When I went to collect my dishes, I found that every bite of the desserts I brought had been eaten. That is a first, and made me feel good, although I know of at least one couple who would be unhappy with that. Apparently they took home one of the left over pies from Fall camp out, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

When I got back to the cabin, I saw that Steve had neatly folded my blankets and piled most of my stuff in one area. I started putting the window shades up, and was re-rolling my sleeping bag (it's a bit weird) when Russ started moving. I couldn't get my car in to load up (since everyone else was doing the same thing) anyway, so we sat on the little porch of the cabin, smoking and talking with Joanne and the guys as we waited for things to clear out some. We really didn't want to go yet anyway. Joanne invited us all to Savannah. I hope we go. That would be fun. I'm going to make them a Welsh Rarebit for breakfast if we go down, I've decided.

Eventually, things started thinning out. Billy and I helped some folks clear out their cabin, and I was able to get in and load up. We had to be out by 11am. I left at 10:50. I headed home in the quiet, turning the weekend over in my mind, and fretting about pound cake and recipes to take to Savannah, and whether or not I should pack my waffle iron if we go.

More camp out happiness

Well the rest of the afternoon passed easily, as it always does when friends get together - laughing, talking, teasing, and just enjoying each other's company. Before I knew it, it was time to get ready for the banquet at 6:30.

Russ brought a camo kilt for me to try on. It was pretty cool, but a bit big on me. The best thing about it was the pockets. It's a utili-kilt so it's a bit more user-friendly than a regular kilt. I have a sport kilt that I love, but this one has belt loops and pockets. It was really nice to have some place to carry my smokes.

While the announcements were being done, I sneaked out to the screen porch and sliced the desserts so they would be ready to serve when we were through eating. My pound cake seemed to have a good crust, and the icing on the flourless chocoloate cake had softened up, thank goodness. By the time I got the chocolate sprinkles on it, and dusted it with sweetened cocoa, it looked pretty impressive, I have to say.

Dinner was good. Eric takes that on every time, and God bless him for doing it. It is a TON of work, and I personally love to cook, but I'd rather spend the time having fun than be in the kitchen all afternoon. Plus I don't cook meat, so they don't ask me to do the dinner part. I am really grateful for Eric.

After the dinner dishes were cleared, I put out the desserts. They went over very well. The flourless chocolate cake disappeared almost immediately (there were only 16 pieces of that, and it was my "feature" this time). I tasted the pound cake later, and I think it was one of the best I have ever made. The texture was perfect. I only got two negative comments. Russ said he thought the new recipe was too lemony, as did Lady Beth. Personally, I thought the flavor was wonderful. A lot of people don't realize that "plain" pound cake has lemon flavoring in it, but Lady Beth has asked me about it this afternoon. I don't "sneak" things in people's food, because I don't want them sneaking things in mine. This recipe does call for more lemon than my other recipe does, but it didn't taste strong to me. I did have a two different people tell me how wonderful it was too. So now I don't know what to do. On the one hand, I suspect that if they hadn't known that the lemon was in there, they wouldn't have made that complaint. Also, I don't believe in fiddling with the classics. When I do something unique, I play with it, but when you make a classic dessert, people want it to taste the way they remember it. I'm afraid the cake will taste "flat" if I take the lemon flavoring out. Not sure what I'll do about that. I did notice that every piece was eaten though.

The dungeon was really busy tonight. Seems like everyone wanted to play. Most of the time there were people waiting for a place, or watching other scenes. Russ did a really cool scene with our friends Miss Heather and miles. Miss Heather had been telling miles she was going to brand or mark him for years, and their 20th anniversary is coming up, so she told him tonight was the night. She had Russ get a brand all ready, shave him, etc, while miles was blindfolded in the sling. He had seen the branding iron Russ made, and saw it heating up when he came over to start the scene. But Miss Heather wasn't really going to brand him. Russ did the whole scene, then put the branding iron in ice before he touched it to miles. When he did it, we threw a handful of ice into a hot frying pan for sizzle and everyone screamed! It was SO funny, and miles was a really good sport about the whole thing. I think he was very relieved.

Russ also did fire play with a new guy who was there with his girlfriend. He is totally new to the life, and she was surprised he was open to doing as much play as they did this weekend. His name is dan. I don't remember hers. But they were really nice, and I hope they'll come back. Sadly, dan is suffering from Parkinson's Disease, which has apparently struck him very young. I'm glad he's still out doing new things and enjoying life.

Miss Kat came too (shooting sparks as she walked through the door), although sadly, dana didn't feel well. But she played with lori, and they had a really good time.

There were floggings, and needles, and all those delightful little evil things that make hearts pound. It was a great evening. I didn't get to play tonight, and I would have liked to, but Billy was all worn out by the time there was a place to do it. Plus he has done a lot of work putting this together, since he's on the board. Miss Kat was still too keyed up to play with me (I still kind of need training wheels), and my nipples were still too sore from last night to play with Mz Kytten again (her dance card was full anyway). Sometimes that's the way it goes. I still had a lovely time.

Lynnett's Ass

There is a beautiful, beautiful girl here named Lynnette. She is a tall, leggy, wasp-wasted yet busty light-skinned African-American girl. She's young, I'd say in her early 20's. Her skin is the color of fresh-baked bread. Brown sugar. Sunlight through maple syrup. She is an absolutely yummy color, and just looking at her makes me want to taste her. There are very few women that I notice in a physical way, but lordamercy.

She has been walking around today in this beautiful Asian-looking ivory colored silk jacket, covered in a riot of flowers in the glowing colors that you only get with silk. It looks like the top to a really nice pajama set. It's just long enough to crest the widest part of her hips, and is showing the bottom of her perfect, perfect ass. I don't know how the straight guys are handling it. I'm finding it distracting. They must be ready to howl like cartoon wolves.

She is one lovely girl.