I’m still alive, and still around. Things are busy at work, where I’m juggling several projects, and at home, where it’s premiere season on the broadcast networks and finale season on cable, meaning there’s been lots of great stuff on like Burn Notice, Heroes, Eureka, and more. Still, I wanted to write about our amazing weekend.

We had originally planned to go see E.T. and Jaws at the drive-in theater on Saturday evening, but no one could really muster too much enthusiasm for E.T., and Jaws was the late show. We elected instead to drive up to Madison, Wisconsin, a town I had never actually visited. And so it was that roho, genet, linnaeus, takaza and myself set out on Saturday morning. The two-hour drive was uneventful, though Dan wasn’t feeling his best. We parked and walked over to the Dane County Farmer’s Market on Capital Square. The market itself was great, but insanely crowded.

After seeing about half the tents we struck out for the outer perimeter of the square to visit Fromagination, a fabulous little cheese shop. We admired (and sampled!) the selection of cheeses for a bit then Paul and I bought some interesting candidates. We were all feeling a bit hungry, so we decided it was time to walk over to the nearest brewpub, Great Dane Pub and Brewing.

Lunch was outstanding. We started out with some samplers of really good beer. I ordered the lager sausage platter that featured a sauteed mix of mushrooms, carrots, greens, and garlic that was just excellent! Alas, when the food was gone and we were running out of beer, it was time to head out, but not before checking out their merchandise, including a shirt I wanted and one that was amusing, even if I wouldn’t wear it.

We left Great Dane feeling very full, and ready to walk off the meal. We strolled back to Capital Square to find the market completely gone without a trace. We stopped to take a silly picture at the Capital, then got some pictures of Roho and Genet and Linnaeus. We walked down State Street Mall, admiring the architecture and stopping for ice cream.

The ride home was mostly uneventful, though we stopped at what we nicknamed The World’s Saddest Orchard. They had been hit hard by spring floods, and when we walked in they had a mostly-empty room with a banner proclaiming “WORST HARVEST IN 32 YEARS!”. We did pick up a big of Macoun apples, which were tasty, so it wasn’t a wasted stop at least.

Once we got home everyone reconvened at our place, where we watched some shows off the Tivo, then played some Apples to Apples while snacking on the cheese and apples we had purchased, accompanied by a lovely prosecco. It was an excellent end to the day.

Here is the entire album of pictures from Saturday.

Sunday was a bit more low-key. Dan and I watched a little Tivo, then there was the online Midwest FurFest staff meeting. All seems well on that front, which is good news. I’ve got several interesting projects in the works that I think will make this year’s convention spiffy for a lot of folks.

In other random news: I’m still coughing, which is no great surprise. These bouts with bronchitis usually last about two to three weeks, unfortunately. The downside of this is that I haven’t slept well for the past week and a half or so, which means I’m generally pretty sleepy during the day. Bah. This too shall pass. The other good news is that our shiny new bed is coming tonight! We took apart our old bed to make it simple for the furniture guys to haul it out. I’m just glad we’re not the ones carrying everything up and down the stairs!

OK, back to work with me…