Rounding things up

Is it normal to think that I am a slacker for not being in lab on Sunday? Even after being on vacation for a week or so, I don't think I should feel obligated to go work on a Sunday. It's not even that someone is making me do so, it's something inside me, this weird anxiety that I feel when I am at home and not particularly busy. Well, I could just go to lab... there is always something to do. Today, I made myself stay. I would have only had a few hours in the middle of the day to spare and I just made myself do nothing: watch a couple of silly chick-flicks, read a chapter or two in a book for fun, write, bum around. And as I am sitting here writing this, at 10pm on a Sunday night, and I look across to the building next to mine, which has labs just like mine, and I can see 3 people just across from me. I guess I am not the only one with this problem :)

So instead of going to work this evening, I went to a fencing party. Something I haven't done in some time. It's funny how this came about. Yesterday, I was at the Met and randomly ran into 2 fencers - who didn't even know each other - at the same exact spot and time and they both used to go to the club where I now fence every once in a while. One of them mentioned that there was gonna be a party tonight. I hadn't been to the club in a couple of weeks so I didn't know about it. They are also just really bad with organizing, I heard that half the people didn't get invitations. In any case, I hadn't seen this girl in a year or so and we didn't really have a chance to catch up at the museum, so I decided to go to this party.

Fencers are an interesting bunch!

One of the coaches I am pretty friendly with wasn't there. He is currently riding his motorbike across the country, to make it to Nationals in Texas by next Friday. He's this shorter kinda balding middle-aged guy who always wears a pair of cowboy boots, no matter what season we're in. He's sort of a loner and pathologically afraid of any kind of commitment, so I guess it's not so weird that he's on his bike crossing the country instead of flying with a bunch of his students.

I was introduced to a very fancy looking lady (Burberry coat, high heels, beautifully done hair and make-up) whose son is a really good fencer and I have refereed for him this season. We had a great conversation, her parents had come from Austria and her Mom used to cook a lot of Hungarian dishes so we talked endlessly about chicken paprikas and gulyas and stuffed peppers and cabbage. I told her about a Hungarian restaurant she might like in the city and I think she was trying to set me up with her son by saying that him and I should go there sometime together. Heh, funny. Parents always liked me. He must be quite a bit younger than me considering I reffed him in college this year... not bad looking though, I recall. :)

And then there is my favorite club Mom - her and her daughter let me keep my weapons in their locker for which I am eternally grateful for - who actually fences too and goes to the veteran world championships. She's gotta be one of the funniest people I have ever met. Makes incredible jokes about her hip replacement and about getting old - although she's one tough cookie who will probably be fencing till the very end, not that that's anywhere near - and encourages me to lie about having been on the Hungarian national team - she calls it rounding things up - to show off. Hehe! What a group of people! I miss them! I am very glad I went and that my lazy unproductive day ended on a high note.