A week of dog days

Last Friday qbear and I trekked up the hill to keanubear and Greg’s for a showing of the never-seen-by-us 1981 film Xanadu. My first reaction as we settled in to watch it: What a stupid piece of shit! I knew a lot of people hold this movie dear to their hearts, and it took me a bit of creative thinking to get some enjoyment out of it, since there’s just so much “so-bad-it’s-funny” I can take. Eventually it dawned on me that the music was pleasant enough, Olivia Newton-John looked pretty and skated nicely, and most importantly, the movie was a vapid little slice of late ‘70s sunshine immediately prior to the dark-tinged Reagan years. Watching the happy, leg-warmed disco skaters singing and dancing on the bustling Venice Beach, all I could think was, “Laugh it up now, because you’ll never be that naïve again.”
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Saturday, we took a drive up to Guerneville to spend the day at Lazy Bear. Our friends John and Frank (sunbeam_bears, now back on Live Journal!) were staying at the Highlands all week, so we joined them there for an afternoon of swimming in the buff. Saw a few other Live Journalers there, like hotelbearsf, bigreddee, cadwallin and arkanjil. Around 5 we dried off, put on our clothes and wandered down the hill to find some dinner, running into a few other friends along the way, like iberianbear.

At one point we were running into so many guys we knew, which of course we had to hug and kiss, that Frank started to say, “We should have a game, where we take Steve and Jack to a strange city to see how long it takes for him to find someone they kn—“ but before he could finish, someone else we knew came by. So we hugged and kissed them. Perfect ironic timing!

We came back well before the bonfire (usually our favorite part of Lazy Bear), but overall it was a great day, full of relaxation and beautiful weather. We like the Highlands because it has a quiet, non-attitudey vibe – no musclebears preening by the pool, no omnipresent thumping disco music, lots of man-nudity without it being sleazy. My summer tan is also coming right along – here’s a shot from the end of the day of me slouching on the couch in John and Frank’s cabin:

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Sunday, we went to Costco and found to our dismay that their DVD selection is continuing to shrink. At one point you could depend on Costco to have all the new DVD releases and box sets, but now it’s much more limited. From two full aisles, to one aisle, to half an aisle. What a drag. In the evening, we met up with John and Frank again for a dinner of Polish food before their flight back home.
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Monday, we had profkampf and poohbearjim over for dinner and conversation. We made “white trash chicken parmesan” – cook some pasta, mix with mozzarella, place in baking dish, cover with (here’s the white trash part) pre-breaded chicken patties from Costco, cover with a jar of pasta sauce and then more mozzarella, and bake. It came out very tasty and I think we’d make it again. Certainly easier than the usual pounding, breading and frying of the chicken. Rachael Ray would be proud of us.
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Tuesday we were prepared to go to squaredancing but instead went out to dinner with our friend Dave, who had new kittens to show us. We ate a bizarre Mexican restaurant in the Mission, while the owner’s children played in the dining area. I felt like we were intruding in a private home. Food was tasty enough, but we feel there’s no need to go back. Plus, qbear thinks it’s a front! For what, we're not sure.

Dave’s kittens were delightful, although not as affectionate yet as I’d prefer. I like a kitten or cat who'll crawl onto your lap and commence to a-purrin', and these are at the awkward half-grown age where they're just bouncing off the walls. Both would be appropriate candidates for this website. Dave was trying to think of names for them, so I came up with several suggestions: Groucho (for the moustache) and Carlisle, so you could say, “This is my kitty, Carlisle.” Likewise, Stevens and Mandu, so you could say, “This is my cat, Stevens, and my cat, Mandu.”
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Wednesday we just stayed in and watched TV in the evening, so no big whoop. Dave came over Thursday and we watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica. We’re trying to get all caught up before the new season starts in October, and have six more episodes to go.
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In other news, furrbear recently linked to this music video, done by various bears in Manchester. Look at that cute singer! I know him! I used to talk with Gazza online quite often, mostly on icuii, ispq and other web camera programs. Good to see he’s still as woofy as ever, and his singing isn’t bad either.