Well, some things are actually happening, so this blog entry ought to keep the passing interest of the two or three people that actually view it.

First up, this past weekend was Orchid Ball. This was an event put on by Phi Sigma Rho, the Engineering ‘Sorority’ that Anastasia is in. This marked the first formal occasion that Anastasia and I could finally get to attend together. My series of near-misses with her dances, prom, etc was becoming somewhat comical and this was certainly a wonderful thing for us to finally get to do.

I didn’t want to see the dress or the getting ready or anything, I wanted to get to do what I didn’t get to do much earlier on in the piece. Anastasia went shopping with one of her friends and found everything, I made sure my nice clothes were all dry-cleaned and that the tie I was going to wear wasn’t wrinkled or anything silly. On the day in question, I dropped Anastasia off to get her nails done then took her to the hair place later, but after that, her friend came and picked her up and finished getting ready at her place.

I had a bunch of little things to do around the house and some emails to write, so I busied myself doing those for a while. When it was time, I got into my gear – black suit, shimmery dark blue tie, hair in braid, freshly shaved face. I had to re-do my hair three times and re-tie my tie about the same number of times… I kept screwing it up somehow, and I wanted to look just right. After I (finally) got myself sorted, I hopped in the car and head over to pick her up. After a quick phone call to make sure I was in the right place, I got there. Anastasia walked out, all dressed up… absolutely stunning! She was wearing a long blue dress with some dark, thin patterns on the front, her hair was up, but mostly down in lots of curls… all in all, she looked beautiful. I’ll try and see about getting a pictures section to this site or something so you can all see how beautiful she looked. For those of you on Facebook, there are already photos of the event posted up there.

From there we rushed off to the ball, which was a little smaller than I was expecting. An awful lot of girls (it was a sorority event, after all), and the partners of those that had them and/or wanted to bring them. I think there were maybe 10 guys and probably 60-odd girls. I dunno, I’m not very good at judging crowds.

Anyway, the evening started off with dinner and conversation at tables arranged around a dance floor, with a couple of DJs handling the music. After dinner the DJs turned some of the lights down and started playing “dancing” music… some people started dancing, the numbers increasing as time went on the other lights went down. Most of the music they played was music that I’m not particularly fond of, let alone would dance to. My reluctance to dance and sing (to things I would otherwise avoid) is well known, particularly when there is no alcohol involved at the event. Get a few drinks in me and it’s a whole different story. ^_~

After a while however, we did get up to music that was less bad (I never thought I would miss New Zealand hip-hop so much…) and away we went. We danced on and off for the rest of the evening. Anastasia even tried to teach me some dance steps (the salsa and the cha-cha?), which I somewhat got the hang of, but would certainly need a bit more practice with.

A good time was had by all, the food was ok and the company excellent. The DJs certainly had a good sense of humour, if somewhat questionable taste in music. After the ball was over, Anastasia and I drove around for a little while looking for Wendys (that’s what she wanted…), but couldn’t find one and instead went through Taco Bell. Always hilarious (and somewhat of a tradition) to go to fast food places when dressed to the nines.

From there it was back and crash.

In other news! We finally got our bedroom furniture delivered and it’s very nice. We probably don’t have enough drawer space and may need to get some more, but for now it’s very groovy and we like it very much. We’ve got the dresser and end-tables set up, but we held off on setting up the bed, since we heard that the landlord was (finally) going to replace the crappy windows on this place (some of which you couldn’t actually open, anyway). This involved a great deal of shifting everything around, again. Today it also involved a lot more work than the window guys had anticipated, since the frames weren’t square and they had to make them square, or something. Lots more work, noise and so on. They didn’t get nearly as far as they thought they would either, so they’ll be back tomorrow to keep going and we’ll be sleeping in the living room and leaving the bedroom covered up in semi-storage for now.

Tomorrow they’ll be back and hopefully they’ll get everything done, although given the trouble they’ve been having, I don’t know if they will or not. They’re coming pretty early, so I hope so. Anyway, it’ll involve an awful lot of cleaning up.

Tonight the television also fzzt’d out. The screen no longer works… sound is fine, picture is not. Looks like we’ll need to get a TV repair guy out or something tomorrow. Very frustrating, since we only just got the damn thing.

Just to make matters that extra bit more interesting, Anastasia’s mother is due to come stay for a few days starting tomorrow as well, so she’ll be arriving in the midst of the madness, instead of the finished apartment. C’est la vie.

All this, along with doing little bits and pieces around the house, has kept me pretty well occupied over the last several days. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to work and get some things done (like I have tonight) starting tomorrow. I know there’ll be plenty of cleanup and other stuff, but I should have some time to work as well.

Also also with: my report on Bluetooth Security from when I studied at UW. It’s now approved and up online for the world (ahem) to see!

Anyway, more on events as they unfold! Will the TV be fixed? Will the windows be all shiny and new? Will Anastasia’s mother be able to find a spot to settle amongst the furniture boxes and plaster-dust? Will Leith give up his futile effort at being interesting? Stay tuned until next time, dear reader, stay tuned…