How I 90% ruined "date night"

DH and I don't do a whole lot. Oh we go out for dinner, either with friends or just the two of us, once in a while. We order Indian take-out every so often. Once in a very great while we might go see a movie. But sadly we've gotten to the point in our lives where we're just as happy hanging out at home as we are doing anything else, and the effort involved in getting ready to go out, parking and driving and yada yada yada (not to mention the fact that people, in general, are total boors).

So last night was a big deal; we had plans to see Todd Barry at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse. We went out for dinner first at Thai Farm, where I had my favorite mussels (Hoy Obb) and a glorious Thai Farm Duck. DH had the even more glorious Honey Shrimp (which were a religious experience in seafood form). Anyway, after an incredible dinner, DH and I drove the 45 minutes to Arlington and waited 30 minutes in the freezing cold to see Todd Barry.

Now, I had plenty of opportunity to buy tickets online, but I didn't do so, figuring that we'd likely punk out of going for some excuse or another. DH had bothered me on numerous occasions to order tickets, but I kept checking online and it seemed that they were still available, so I thought it wouldn't be necessary.

And that's how I ruined date night. We waited 30 minutes in the freezing cold on one of the rare occasions that we go out and do something, and the tickets had been sold out.

This is the second time I haven't ordered tickets for something online that I wanted to do (the first time was to see "Lunch" during the DC Fringe Festival, where we got in by the skin of our teeth after I "offered" to sleep with the writer/director/someone connected with the play) and I can assure you that it will be the last time.

Of course, I consider myself only 90% at fault. There was nothing stopping DH from using his better judgment and ordering tickets himself.

Housecleaning to the 80's

In order to be really effective at cleaning (not just arranging, I mean really cleaning) the kitchen, I need loud music, and lots of it. I turned on the TV, which with our digital cable comes with an assortment of themed music channels. I switched on "The 80's" and, about 4 minutes later, they played "Sweet Child O' Mine" by GnR. Awesome.

I ran downstairs to grab DH's Appetite for Destruction CD (I only had the cassette as a kid) and ran back up to the kitchen. Seconds later, the wildly overplayed but still awesome "Welcome to the Jungle" was blasting and I was a cleaning fiend!

The thing that surprised me the most was, considering that I hadn't listened to the entire album for at least 10 years (maybe I listed to it in college, but I don't think so), I still totally knew the words to most of the lyrics. Especially songs that don't get any radioplay, like "It's so Easy" and "Think about You"; the only way I would have known those lyrics was from the 100s of times I must have listened to the album when it came out. When my friends were listening to New Kids on the Block and New Edition and whatever fluffy pop music was the thing in the late 80s, I was listening to GnR and stuff like that. I was a weird kid.

Funny enough, I remember listening to "It's so Easy" with my childhood best friend and roaring with guilty laughter at the blatent profanity. Hey, I was like 11-12 years old. Profanity was brand new to us then; I don't think that it was as commonplace as it is to kids that age nowadays. Certainly not the F-word. Anyway, it's a funny memory.

My Valentine's Day

It's sleet, not snow. And ice, not road

Ah, what can I say. It was a typical, but no less wonderful, Valentine's Day. Woke up at 4am to see whether or not the Federal Government was going to shut down, which would have allowed me to turn off my alarm and sleep in. Stupid government - only "allowing" a 2 hour late arrival. When I turned my alarm off at 630 and peeked out the window, our road was utterly impassable. Heh. There was no way I was going to risk my neck to get to work.

I turned my alarm off.

So I spent the day working from home (at least one agency is telework friendly), shoveling 5-6 inches of sleet. ice, and snow off the driveway and sidewalks (so heavy and backbreaking), and just chillin'.

As for Valentine's Day-type activities, well I made a small dinner of gnocchi with olive oil and cheese and topped it off with the most unbelievable Blackberry Crisp, made from blackberries picked last August and kept frozen until now. Amazing.

DH and I will top off the night with me watching my favorite show, "Friday Night Lights," him watching his favorite show, "Lost," and both of us collapsing into bed because we know our backs and legs are going to be really sore and killing us tomorrow.

From the shoveling, you people with sick minds! From shoveling!

As if there wasn't enough other stuff going on...

Last night someone broke into the house (basement, really) while Ray and I were upstairs. I discovered it this morning after running down to the basement to get some stuff out of the dryer. Now, my first trip down I didn't notice anything except that it was really cold down there in the basement, but it's a basement, so it's supposed to be colder than the rest of the house. My second trip down I realized that there was glass all over the floor, the window was wide open, and a chair had been dragged over to the window. (How I didn't notice this on the first trip down I'll never know). I ran upstairs yelling for DH, who was in the shower. We called the police, and a day of chaos ensued.

So, now we've activated the security system that we had but hadn't used since we moved in, I took the window to a glass shop to be repaired, the police have come and gone. Phew. It's been a long day, and goodness knows what havoc the weather will bring for the next couple of days.

Of course, this was going to be my first day on rotation to my dream office, so isn't that just lovely. What a start.

I love golden Chinese gooseberries..

AKA Golden Kiwifruit. I've had a hankering for kiwi lately. At my local Trader Joes, I grabbed a bag of regular green kiwis and noticed a mesh bag of smaller, "golden" kiwi in the same bin. Hmm, I thought, I wonder what they are like.

Well, I'll tell you what they are like. Little bites of heaven, that's what they're like.

They taste like regular kiwi, with less acidic bite and a little more melon flavor. And they're AMAZING. They we're only 20 cents more expensive than the regular kiwis (of a bag of six) and, sadly, I've eaten four of them already. This is going to require a trip to TJs for another bunch.

Soooooo goood. I highly recommend picking some up if you have the opportunity. And don't waste time peeling the skin off; just cut a little bit off the top (like from the stem end) and scoop out the flesh with a spoon (like you would with a soft-boiled egg, if there is anyone left in the world who eats soft-boiled eggs).

I might have to go eat another one right now.

Get ready for the... PUPPY BOWL!! (and Kitty Halftime, too!)

There are three reasons I love Super Bowl Sunday:

1) Commercials

2) Puppy Bowl!

3) Kitty Halftime!

So I will have my TV tuned to Animal Planet today to watch the Puppy Bowl, and flip over to CBS once in a while to check out the commercials. If I miss a commercial - no worry - I can catch it on YouTube or the myriad shows that will talk about the best commercials of the Super Bowl. But I won't miss one moment of puppy action!

All the animals featured in the Puppy Bowl (including all the kitties!) came from the Washington Animal Rescue League. What a great place to find a new friend!

Oooh.. kitchen nearing completion

So here we are.. a mere 4-5 months after this whole process started, and the kitchen is truly nearing completion. The pendant light above the island that I broke has been replaced, the backsplash was installed today (we took the easy way out and went for a simple 4 inch matching backsplash), and now all I have to do is paint, repair a small ceiling spot, and get a new table and chairs and it's done!

Wow.

I'll post pictures soon. Dh and I are preparing for our next major house improvement. It looks like this year will focus on the outdoors areas - wrapping the soffits and facia in vinyl (no more painting!) and possibly re-landscaping the backyard. But - beware - 2008 will be the year of the master bath!

I hope.

Interesting reading...

This morning I was pretty desperate for something to read on the train. I've already devoured this week's Economist, and I've not ordered any new books from Amazon in some time. I ran downstairs to see if I could find anything that, even though I had already read it once, I wanted to read again, or to see if I could discover something I had overlooked before from DH's collection (his treasure trove of Soviet/Russian history books just isn't that appealing, I have to admit)

I spied one of the older books that my grandfather had given to DH and me. It was called "Hiroshima Diary," and was written by a doctor who was in Hiroshima and was injured by the atomic blast. He survived, and his diary (not written with any intent of publishing) was translated into English and published. I grabbed it yesterday with a thought in the back of my head that I had recently read something suggesting that it was a good read (maybe I read it somewhere online, I can't quite remember where).

Needless to say it is a fascinating personal account of what this doctor experienced immediately following the Hiroshima atom bomb. It's a little graphic, but in a very clinical way that doesn't bother me too much (I'm a bit sensitive when it comes to stuff like this, although really, who isn't). I find myself eagerly waiting for my train rides so I can read this book - and again almost missing my stops since I am so engrossed in the material.

I really, truly believe that books like this and movies like "Threads" and "On the Beach," and "The Day After" should be mandatory material for all, just to convey the gravity and the perilous and precarious position that we, the human race, are in with respect to our long-term survival. India and Pakistan, Israel and Iran, China and the US: these are all sparks that could ignite decisions you can't take back, with consequences far outweighing the nature of the conflict behind them.

It makes me want to buy a sailboat and spend my life at sea, far from any "civilization," a term I use here very ironically.