Week. End.

It was a nice long holiday weekend here in Smallville, and it was fun and relaxing and stressful and someone got yelled at, although someone else will not admit to being the yeller.

Saturday was SC Pride, in Finley Park in Columbia, so Carlos and I made the trek from the country to the, ahem, city.. But it was a gorgeous day and thankfully not as hot as we'd been experiencing.

We circled the park and checked in with various vendors and picked up flyers and baseball caps--Rainbow Kitties!--talked with an old friend, Mattushka, who works with the South Carolina LGBT Business Guild and is the unofficial queen of all things gay in Columbia.

We also talked with our Green Party candidate for Senate, Tom Clements, who listened to Carlos rant about both the federal and state funds for ADAP [AIDS Dug Assistance Program] being cut. Clements told Carlos there wasn't much he could do at the state level, but he'd be willing to work for additional funds for South Carolina at the federal level.

I don't think Clements has much of a shot at winning--Jim DeMint, Resident Redneck has his ample ass glued to the seat--but I admire Clements because he was the only politician of any party at Pride.

Several people Carlos has met through his job were there and we stopped in to say Hello, and then I spotted a pair of Lesbians--Go figures, lesbians at Pride!--that I'd seen around Smallville, and went to say Hi y'all! One of the women, Candace Chellew-Hodge, is an ordained United Church of Christ minister, and has started her own church, Jubilee! Circle. We had a lovely chat with Candace and her partner Wanda, about religion and politics and being gay in South Carolina of all places! Carlos jokingly said that we should have a Smallville Pride Parade and both Candace and I said we were shocked--pleasantly shocked--at the number of gay people in Smallville.

Maybe one day: Pride Smallville!

We were going to chat more, but then I heard some bits and pieces of an announcement coming over the loudspeaker:

Drag Race.......RuPaul.......LOGO TV's Drag U......Funny Lady.........Pandora......

Boxx! I grabbed Carlos' arm.

What?

Pandora Boxx!

Who?

Pandora! Boxx?!?

I dragged him to the main stage in time to see her.

Fab.U.Lous.

What a great fun, funny show she put on, and what a way to get the crowd moving. Even Carlos was dancing, and not his usual showgirls at the Riviera in Vegas kind of dancing but the kind of dancing that didn't make me hope that no one was looking at him.

Love him. He's no dancer.

We stayed and danced and sang with Pandora until it was time to leave, and then we made the journey back home, with a Domestic Goddess type of stop at Kroger along the way. Later, we ate dinner at one of our local Smallville hotspots with one of my favorite Fag Hag bartenders--though she slept through Pride and I had to pull some strings with Homo HQ to let her keep her Hag Card.

Sunday was a CostCo day, and lists were made and the car was filled with gas. We joined CostCo about five months ago, and make the trip up to Charlotte--the closest CostCo--about once a month. That would be, let's one...two...three...FIVE trips.

Five trips and Carlos still does not remember how to get there.

Five trips and I have to point out where to turn and which roads to get on.

Five trips where I get to drive home and he falls asleep before we're out of the parking lot.

This time I suggested he drive home, and do so without my GPS-capabilities. We got to the end of the parking lot before he asked, Which way?

Right.

We drove about a block before he asked, Which way?

Left. And, um, sweetie pie? That's the last direction I'm giving.

Well, he made it to the freeway, because a big sign that said "Columbia" appeared before him, but on the freeway I saw the sign for our exit "2 Miles" and then the next sign "1/2 Mile," followed by one last sign "521 South."

Carlos whizzed right by. I said nothing.

Then we got to another major highway and Carlos finally said, Where's the road, I don't want to take this way, it's too far out.

I said, Our turn off was back there, before the traffic jam.

YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME!!!

Yup, Sweetie Pie yelled.

I closed my eyes, reclined the seat back, and said, Wake me when.....or if......we get home.

In case he's reading this: You did SO yell!

Monday was gutter day, after all it was Labor Day.

Our house is surrounded by trees. Dogwoods and Crepe Myrtles and Crab Apple and Eucalyptus and Pine Trees. So our gutters are always full of leaves and needles and twigs. Well, we bought this spongy stuff, that you set inside the gutters and it keeps the leaves and needles out of them. Monday was the day we decided to try it out. We'd bought enough for a small run of gutter, and we cleaned out the leaves and the downspouts and then wrestled the spongy stuff into them.

Now, we wait for rain.

Until then, we went back into Columbia for some antiquing. We're looking for something to either set the TV on, or something to set it in, and to also hold all the equipment that you need these days. Whatever happened to just having a TV? Now there are DVRs and DVDs and Receivers and Surround Sounds. It's madness, and it needs a special place.

We found this old Deco-looking armoirs that we both liked, and it's strong enough--no particle board here--for shelves to be added to hold all the equipment. At one point, the doors were replaced so the wood doesn't match, and it's pretty banged up, so if we get it, we may have to strip and sand it and stain match the whole thing, or perhaps just find a funky color to paint the whole thing.

Then the bad news.

It was sold.

Then the not-so-bad news.

The buyer had left it there for over a month and hasn't been seen or heard from since. So, we'll make phone calls to the seller, and work with the antique shop, and see it we can get it.

We also found another antique shop that has some architectural salvages pieces. Victorian brackets and stained glass from churches. Old rusted sculptures for the yard. I saw a five-foot tall iron statue of the Hartford Elk or Moose, or, maybe Reindeer? I instantly saw it spray painted bright yellow and nestled among the trees in our garden.

There will have to be some bartering, though, before that happens.

Fingers are crossed.

How was your Labor Day?