Evenings in Contrast

In my heart of hearts, I still sometimes find myself doing things and looking at them from the perspective of "well, that's what grown ups do". Being a grown up is something I hope I will never become fully accustomed to,and looking at my past blog posts, I don't seem to be in any danger of that. Still this weekend's activities show the varying maturity indexes that we latter day Peter Pans need to roll between.
On Friday, we had a new furnace and hot water tank installed in our home. This is a bit nerve wracking. As it involves making a significant change to your domicile and the expenditure of not insignificant amounts of money. In fact, you can't help but feel a little cheated, having forked out thousands of dollars, and not being able to call up your mates and say, "hey, why don't you pop by and check out my new central heating unit?".

Still, it is a relief having removed our home's original 1978 model furnace, and to have replaced it with a newer, more reliable and more efficient model. And if you should want to come over and see it, you need only ask.

Tonight highlighted the other end of the spectrum, as I finally sat down and diligently applied the basecoats to two dozen Battletech figures.

I've painted a lot of different models over the last two decades, but I believe this is the first time I've put a brush to a 'Mech since about 1990, so it felt a little weird. This is strictly a practical exercise though; I don't have to worry about specific livery schemes, camo patterns or regimental insignia, and they dont have to look like a coherent force (unlike, say, a Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine army) so this is just about getting a few different colors on them and making them look distinct. And to do so as quickly as possible, as G&G VII is only a little more than a month away.

Even when working under a deadline or sense of obligation, I have always found this kind of painting to be relaxing and rewarding, and Audrey and Fenya did some sewing and laundry while I studiously applied pigments to toy robots, and we watched a couple of episodes of Magnum p.i. Thinking back, it might have been a similar scene when I lasted painted models like these, except for the company...

Last night bridged the gap perfectly between my grown up and not-so-grown-up selves, as Pete held his third ever Geekquinox in honor of the (official) beginning of spring. His theme this time around was 'butter', and as usual, he outdid himself.

Even better than the food was the company and conversation; we are a pretty diverse group in many ways, at least if you look at our beliefs or incomes or whether or not we have children or what we might do for a living, or who we might vote for in the next election, but we can all get along and share our wonder and appreciation of the good things we have in our lives. We can share some wine (or not) and allow ourselves to get silly like kids while talking about furnaces and parenting and what the future might hold.  How silly?  I might be setting us up in a dodgeball league later this year, how's that for silly?

A fellow I once worked with said, "Most people think that being mature means acting like an adult, but I don't think that's right; I think maturity is knowing when it's acceptable to act like a child". I think he was absolutely right, and splitting the difference between toy robots and furnace purchases are evenings of fellowship like Geekquinox. Thanks Pete!