Long-Ass Post In Which We Play Catch Up (With Photos!)

In case you hadn’t guessed based on the lack of posting, as of this morning before I left for work my shitty cable company still has not fixed my Internet connection.
When I last called to get a status update, there wasn’t one.
I said, “It’s been out for eleven days now. It’s getting ridiculous.”
The rep I was speaking to said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
“It’s not that I feel that way,” I countered, “it’s how it is.”
She then informed me that I would be credited for the time I’ve been without service. She said this in such a way that it seemed she thought I would be impressed by their magnanimity.
I wasn’t, and told her as much.
Of course, my calling and complaining and being snarky isn’t actually accomplishing anything. It’s not even making me feel better.
In any case, now I’m at work with time on my hands (gave the busy station to the new intern, who is much more intelligent and capable – by default if nothing else – than the last one), and am taking advantage of the much faster than dial up network connection to write up an entry (or two).
On Saturday night Scott and I went to see Stardust (unlike the rest of the movie-going public, apparently) and thoroughly enjoyed it (Despite the fact that I really wished they’d included one of the best parts of the book, Yvaine’s softly muttered F Bomb, which they could have included, as PG-13 movies are allowed one instance of the F Word so long as it’s used in a non-sexual way. So, “Fuck you, Charlie,” would be acceptable, whereas, “I want to fuck you, Charlie,” is not.). My thoughts on the movie pretty much mirror Scott’s, so you can read his review of it to get a more in-depth understanding of what I thought of it.
Getting to the theater was a bit of a challenge. It’s a relatively new theater located in a relatively new development which I’d never been to before. I tried to map the route via Google, but found myself skeptical about the directions provided, as Google was placing it somewhere in Ashburn Village, which I was pretty sure is not where it’s located. The directions on the theater’s site contradicted the directions Google was giving.
Apparently the theater’s address is too new to appear on maps, and Google was just defaulting to some random address in Ashburn.
Eventually I took note of the fact that the theater was located “behind Harris Teeter’s,” found the address to the Harris Teeter’s in that development, and then mapped to that address. The directions on the theater’s site would have been enough to get me there, but I wanted to have it mapped as well.
Sunday I didn’t do much, as I felt more than the usual amount of lethargy. To be honest, I felt rather the way I felt when I was in jail. I had absolutely no interest in doing anything. I took a 3 hour nap (after 9 hours of sleep), and still felt tired.
In the evening I ended up doing some writing for Kathleen, who wants me to do some freelance content writing for her new business.
On Monday I had the home inspection of the house I’m going to buy. Everything went pretty well, with no major issues found.
Before that, I met Kathleen for lunch, during which we agreed upon the payment terms for my content writing. I bought lunch, but pointed out that she should have done it, as she could have written it off as a business expense.
She came with me to the home inspection so that she could check the place out.
Here are the pictures that it occurred to me to take while I was there:

Here's a view of the back of the house.




Here's a shot of the rather large backyard.



Here's a blurry shot of the eat-in kitchen that shouldn't be an eat-in kitchen, as the table makes it a little cramped. There's actually a dining room that's been turned into a family room that I will be turning back into a dining room.



Here's a shot in the living room in which a blury Kathleen can be spotted. It's not because of the camera; she is actually blurry in real life.



And here's another shot of the living room from the other side.


I didn't take any shots of the front or the upstairs. Why? Because I'm like that.
Yesterday I met Scott at the comic shop. He’d brought the girls along to pick out comics for themselves, as he’s hoping to help create a new generation of comic geeks. Stacy waited in the van with Scarlett, and after we were done we all went over to the brick oven pizza place to eat. The pizza place was my suggestion, as last week when I stopped at the comic shop there were some extremely appetizing smells emanating from the place.
At one point while we were there I stood up to allow Stacy to get out of the booth to take the girls to the bathroom. While I was standing there, Vicki randomly head-butted me in the stomach. It barely registered as a tap, so it wasn’t painful at all, but it seemed odd, so I commented on it, saying, “Your daughter just head-butted me in the stomach.”
I was prepared to just write it off under the category of “Kids are Weird,” but when they got back from the bathroom Stacy wanted Vicki to apologize to me, per the conversation they’d had about it. Vicki didn’t want to apologize, and her continued refusal to do so led to her being taken out to the van by Scott.
I always feel awkward in those kinds of situations. I mean, I didn’t feel any particular need for an apology, but on the other hand I understood Scott and Stacy’s position as parents, so I had to rein in my tendency to just dismiss the whole thing with a joke, which is my default response to, like, 90-99% of the things I encounter in life (well, at least the non-annoying things, though I even joke about annoying things eventually, if not immediately).
Eventually she did apologize.
The whole thing reminded me of the time many years ago when I was living with my mom and dad. I was the only one home at the time when the Principal of the grade school came to the door with a very embarrassed-looking girl. It turns out that at some point my mom had bought some raffle tickets for some school function from the girl in question. It turns out that the girl had pocketed the money from selling the tickets and spent it on herself.
As punishment, she was being brought around to explain and apologize to everyone she’d taken money from.
I remember thinking that it was kind of funny and admiring the sheer audacity of someone who thought she could get away with something like that in such a small town, and then noticing the hopeful expression on the Principal's face as she waited for me to heap scorn on this girl who had undoubtedly been sufficiently humiliated already.
As the default adult, it was up to me to take this seriously, even though doing so went against my basic nature.
The best I could manage was a weak, “Well, as long as you learned your lesson.”
I had thought about laying it on thick and adding, "Now go forth and sin no more," but decided against it.
Anyway, the head-butt to the stomach was one more instance of Jon struggling to be a Serious Adult™ and struggling to keep a straight face.
Hopefully, like the young thief, Vicki has learned her lesson (I don't know if the thief learned her lesson or not, but let's say she did for the sake of argument. At the very least, I'm sure she learned that if you're going to steal money, be less obvious about it. That counts as a lesson, I think.).
I think she did.
Unless she’s formed a sub-conscious connection between Jon and punishment and will begin to harbor a deep-seated resentment of me.
Meh, either way.