22 February 2010

Third Week in February 2010

Well hello there, this is perhaps the busiest week I will have this year. Something to do every single day, and all of it full of changes ... so in other words, I'll be talking a lot about food.

Monday was the slowest day of the week. I went to work, worked a busy day, and then headed to Chipotle to meet Troy for dinner. Troy had two new card games, Zombie Fluxx and Let's Kill. After bashing Monty Python Fluxx recently on these pages, you'd think I'd give a similar review to Zombie Fluxx, but instead, I kind of liked it. Let's Kill was entertaining, but I don't think it would stay that way, after several replays you'd have seen all the cards and the entertainment value might go down.

After this I headed off to my guitar lesson. I am fairly amazed at how fast I am coming along. Ben and I didn't chat as long after this lesson as the last one. I also found out he meant ALL the chords, not just the easy ones.

Tuesday was busy too. I dropped off my car at the shop on the way in to get the wheel bearing replaced, the last of the repairs to make my car "like new" again. At work, Mardi Gras (what happened to all the parties?) was celebrated with a food day. I ate too much and too many sweets, but it is a day of indulgence after all. At lunch Troy picked me up and we went and got lunch at Subway, then he dropped me off to pick up my car ... NO MORE WHEEL NOISE!!! I had to drive around just a bit to enjoy it, then I went back to work.

After work was the toughest thing I have done in a while. I took Sierra to her new home. This event has it's own blog posting. Things went better than I thought they would, yes, she hid under the strange bed, but Nathon said she came out from under to investigate. Sarah's dog completely ignored Sierra. Thank you to VK for coming with me, and Sarah and Nathon for making it easy.

I actually was hungry, even after shedding a few tears. VK and I went to Schlotzsky's for sandwiches. Mine was excellent, VK must have liked hers too, she didn't even share. I like Schlotzsky's because you can get your sandwich on pumpernickel.

After VK and I went in different directions, I decided I still didn't feel like being alone, so I went to the ending of Kaleb's movie night. It was nice to be around friends. We had the added entertainment of Kitty Ping Pong.

Ping Pong Cat - Me
Surprisingly, she never whacked the ball out of mid air.

On the way home, I saw a shooting star. I got home and went to bed quickly.

When I woke up in the morning it was Ash Wednesday and the start of Lent. In case you've missed it, I am making a Lenten sacrifice. I did have a funny moment in the morning, Danny wanted to share his apples with me, but he couldn't get them to me, so he took off a sock and put the apple slices in there and carried it to me, cute and gross.

I went to Ash Wednesday mass over lunch. I met Brianne there, but Frank and Joe had other plans.

After work I met VK at LaMesa for dinner. I was jonesin' for a soda, but I didn't have one, because a) that would have been cheating, and b) well VK was sitting right there. Then we ran some errands for me at Walgreen's where I had a very nice customer service moment. We then went over to No Frills where we discovered ... duh ... that men and women think differently about body soap. I am pretty sure that Axe Snake Peel is the exact same as one of the girlie brands, but hey, my nose is not always the best. We then moved about a car load of new things over to the new place. It was VK's first time seeing the new digs, she put stuff into my closet, do I reorganize myself? Or just go with the flow?

Thursday after work I went to game night at Kaleb's house. I brought salad, which was a "European" blend, this was quite amusing to many for some reason. I appreciate that Tom is consistent and brings pie every time, apple and cherry, I like pie. Angela, who suddenly is named Susie or Susan, brought something chocolatey for dessert, and Kaleb supplied the usual pizza. If this sounds more like it's more about food than games, you would be more or less correct, at least for the first part of the night. After I stuffed my face, I we played one game of Ra, which I won using the monument strategy, although playing with three of five newbies helped. We then played two games of Chrononauts, I won one game and could have won the other. We finished up with two of the funniest games of Lupus in Tabula we have ever played. The villagers won the first game (me). I'm unsure of the results of the second game, as soon as I got killed (I was the 'zombie'), I went downstairs and we started playing ping pong (what? no link).

On Friday after work I met VK at the house, did a little packing and we watched the Olympics on TV: saw the USA men's curling team beat the French (it's like a double, my two favorite nations, the USA team and whoever is beating the French) and a little bit of the Latvians and the Czechs play hockey. I was on the clean up volunteer for J.I.V.E. and JNO, so VK left to go home and I went downtown, getting there about 2230. I danced a bit, but I was so tired that I mostly sat and waited for the thing to be over.

Saturday morning I was up at the crack of 0815, and ready to move stuff. The first thing that happened was I found out that Tim and Robin didn't get a truck on Saturday. So that left me scrambling for a way to get my bed moved. I took a load over while I was figuring out what to do, then came back for another load. I would have been a lot faster on it, but Danny was watching "Monsters vs. Aliens" and I got hooked in ... silly Aliens.

I eventually contacted Brianne, she came over with her SUV, and we stuffed my mattress in and took it over. There was no way to get the box spring in, so the only other thing that we took was the deck chairs and gas over to Matt and Vivian's. In retrospect, I should have moved my bicycle too.

I took one more load over, and then VK met up with me to help, but it started with some shopping, first at WalMart, then over to PetCo. PetCo may be the place where the pets go, but it's not going to be where I go, I could not believe how much they wanted for a small kitty litter box. We left there and went over to the bed store, and to make a long story short, I bought a new bed. I am replacing a bed Serta bed that I bought in 1990. It was a mid-range model then, and it really did last twenty years, it would probably be good for another few, but it's beginning to sag towards the middle, and it's not comfortable on my back. A wise person once told me "don't be cheap about beds!", and it's true. I've had that mattress twenty years, and I've probably spent between six and seven years in that bed. So I just went around laying on different beds until I found the right one, then haggled (look at me sounding like the deal maker). I get that delivered on Tuesday.

We then headed over to PetSmart and I got the exact same item that was at PetCo for $8.00 less. We got back to the new place, set everything up for the cat, then went and met Sarah and Nathon back at the old place to give them my old TV and DVD player. We grabbed Zeke and made the meow filled trip over to the new place. He crawled out of the cat carrier, and right under the blankets and stayed there the whole night.

I punched my man card and figured out how to use the remote for the TV upstairs, and VK and I watched some Olympics: The Women's Super-G ... I think they hit terminal velocity going downhill, Men's Two Man Bobsled ... did you see the size of those guys, and we also watched the Men's 1000m Short Track Speedskating ... wow! Earlier in the day we caught the end of the Men's 30km Pursuit Cross Country Ski race, it was quite compelling TV. I went into the Olympics not figuring on watching any of it, with the possible exception of either (men's or women's) gold medal hockey game. However, I have watched a lot of it, and it's been quite enjoyable.

Sunday morning I woke up after my first night in the new place, but I didn't feel refreshed, I felt exhausted and nauseous. I got up and got moving. I ended up going over to the old place and gathering up a carload of kitchen items. I headed from there to the grocery store and back home.

The next few hours were an odd combination of eating everything in sight, then napping, repeat ... this was broken up with one more trip to the house. I ended up falling off of the wagon, and having a soda after 1400, but I'm back on the wagon today. I guess I picked a hard thing to give up for Lent. Later in the afternoon, Zeke started eating, yes! He seems to be adjusting fairly quickly.

In the evening I was still hungry, so I went to the store and got ice cream. When I got back Frank and Joe were there and we talked and played a game of Zombie Fluxx, then Troy joined us and we played two games of Zombie Fluxx, which I won the second one on a strange play. It was barely 2130, but I was so worn out that I headed to bed.

Next week: Monday dancing, Wednesday cooking, Friday fish, and a lot of weekend sleep!

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