Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Goodbye, Green Monster

Augh! Attack of month-end!

Anywho, last Thursday night we went to see Cinderella. We stopped for dinner at O’Charley’s. I ended up taking most of my meal home. I got soup since Adam didn’t want the option that came with his. Their bowls are huge! We stopped at Walgreens on the way downtown since Adam had managed to spill part of his dinner on his shirt and wanted to get Tide pen to keep in my purse. We got to the PAC soon after the doors opened. Adam headed to the bathroom to apply said Tide while I enjoyed the new couch on the third level. In observing our fellow audience members, I was none too surprised to see numerous little girls all decked out. Nothing brings them out like ballet.

We sat down in our usual box seats. The first thing out of my mouth was “there’s no orchestra.” They danced to canned music, which I guess is ok since the music from Cinderella is not as well known as, say, Swan Lake. Still, it took something away from the overall performance since you could hear the transitions between tracks. The role of the stepmother is played by a man in drag, which was obvious the second (s)he set foot on stage. And they played that up many times. It was disturbingly hilarious. This is much more a comedic ballet than Swan Lake, so it was definitely a different viewing experience. Also comedic was the badly translated synopsis in the program. I've tried to scan it so everyone can have fun reading it, but the scanner is being moody. I'll keep working on that.

Friday morning I was up bright and early, exceedingly happy that for the first time in months, inventory day hadn’t been plagued by horrible weather conditions. I got my monthly bribe of donuts for my counters and so began another month-end. After the deadness out in the plant of the past two months, things were definitely a lot busier this month. Which is a good thing since you can’t make money if you don’t produce anything. Both Adam and I left work a little early. Adam because he went over his 40 hours for the week and they kicked him out and me because I felt like it. Aaah, the life of a salaried employee. :) This confused the cats, as they are programmed to begin stalking me and meowing for food the second I take my coat off. Totally Pavlovian. For dinner I made Crabmeat Scramble for Adam and Turkey and Bow Ties for me. We watched Tropic Thunder. Strange movie, but not horrible.

Saturday morning we had every intention of getting out early to get our shopping done. As Adam came out of the shower the phone rang. It was the furnace guy. He wanted us to take the furnace off the sump pump circuit and give it its own circuit before he would install the furnace. He was coming to install it on Monday. Nice. So Adam went downstairs to see what he could do. I once again became his tool girl. Eventually he came up with a way to make it all work without having to go out and buy more wire. He’s so handy. We did have to go get a circuit though. So after he got things prepped we headed out. We went to Menards, picked up a $4 circuit... and another toilet. Adam came down with a case of toilet envy after he saw and heard how cool my new toilet was. They were on sale (and as we learned later, his toilet was a mess and had actually cracked at some point), so we decided to go for it.

We did the rest of our shopping and then headed home. We unloaded and Adam finished up installing the new circuit while I put the groceries away. Then he set about installing his new toilet. The old one just didn’t want to leave. The tank refused to come off the bowl and ended up cracking into pieces. The floor bolts wouldn’t come off and Adam ended up having to saw them apart. It was a lot more work than I think he anticipated it would be. And he did this one alone (well, without his dad. I shuttled tools and towels for him.) He finally got it done and took it for a test drive. He got the tall, elongated version of my short, round toilet.



His parents came over and we went to dinner at Solea. This time I got the Chicken Fajitas. Adam’s mom and I actually split a two-person entrée. We probably could have gotten a one-person and been fine. Huge portion sizes! Still very good.

Sunday morning Adam cleaned out the firewood bin and we refilled it. Almost all of the wood in the garage is gone. It’s amazing how much we’ve burned through this winter. I did some cleaning, Adam vacuumed. We watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Ok movie, although I have the distinct feeling that I’ve seen it before. Or at least the major plot points. Not to spoil it or anything, but it’s pretty much about a summer two friends spend abroad, life-changing opportunities present themselves, but they go back to exactly their same lives at the end. It’s one of those “why did I waste 90 minutes watching this film when they ended up doing absolutely nothing?” films. This brings my total up to 9 award nominees watched.

Adam’s parents came over to watch the first half of the Super Bowl. Adam had picked out some recipes he found online and I spent most of the first quarter finishing up dinner. We ate, watched the 3D commercials before the halftime show. I was unimpressed, but I think my glasses messed it up a little since everyone else thought it was cool. Adam’s parents left at halftime, I cleaned up, did some catch-up online (obviously not here though. Heh.), and went to watch TV in the bedroom. I had over a week of Rachael Ray and Conan’s to catch up on. I flipped back and forth to keep an eye on the game and cheered when the Steelers got that last minute score. Adam had been rooting for the Cardinals, but seeing as how both my parents are from Pittsburgh, I figured I should probably stand on the other side of that fence. Plus, I like being contrary. (see: my favoring of the Vikings.)

Monday morning I was up as usual and off to work. Adam had the day off to oversee the installation of our new furnace. He called me off and on during the day to keep me updated. They were actually early, finished on time, and it seemed to be a generally pleasant experience. Except for that bill they left us. *sigh* I went straight from work to bell practice so I didn’t see the new furnace until I got home later in the evening. Gone is our green monster, replaced by a much smaller, much quieter, much more efficient brown guy.



Seeing as how we had our first gas/electric bill over the $300 mark this past month, it will be interesting to see how this new furnace affects that.

We were missing a person again at practice (I don’t think we’ve had a full rehearsal yet this year) and that always makes things interesting. Things began somberly with an update on our member who continues to battle cancer. She’d taken a turn for the worse earlier last month when they found tumors in her brain. They began to cause her to have troubles moving the opposite side of her body and when she had a nasty fall they decided to put her in a nursing home for a few weeks. They have been doing more radiation, but the tumors appear to be growing regardless. It’s a difficult situation. We pass around a card each week, but really, what can you say? All you can do is offer your support and (if it’s your thing) pray for them. It’s heartbreaking.

Whoa, talk about bringing things down. In any case, the rest of the week is pretty empty. Adam’s dad will be taking my car in to get fixed tomorrow, even though the check engine light went off last week. I’ve got some new recipes to try for dinner every night. Not much else going on.

I was going to post some cute cat pictures to try and end this post on a lighter note, but my computer freaked out and turned itself off, Norton freaked out and stopped working for a while, and I freaked out trying to delete a form from our state taxes. Note to WI DOR: your new e-file site SUCKS. And now I'm tired and crabby and really don't want to sit here and wait for pictures to upload. So sorry. Look for cute pictures later though. I've got an adorable video of JC and the water dish.

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