NYR 2-9-14

Jimmy took Mac and his friend to see the new Lego movie this afternoon.  I was going to go but ended up bailing. 

And do you know what I did?  

I stretched out on the couch, pulled a nice warm blanket on top of me, turned on the Olympics, and snoozed until I woke up to see snow falling.  It was blissful and I am so thankful for a little Sunday afternoon nap.  I felt like my Dad!

NYR 2-8-14

When Jimmy and I lived in NYC 15.5 years ago, we went to see Stomp on Broadway. This show birthed the latent percussionist in me. I loved the syncopated rhythm and the transition of "noise" into music. For Christmas that year, the first of our marriage, Jimmy gave me a practice drum pad which was a much better alternative in our tiny NYC apartment than a full-blown drum set.

Fast forward more than a decade.  When Mac started school in Bogota, he had to choose which musical area he wanted to pursue as part of his curriculum.  The choices in the 2nd grade included violin and Stomp, among others.  Mac really wanted to play guitar but that wasn't offered until the 3rd grade. So he chose violin with the thinking that the violin was fairly close to the guitar and he could switch to guitar in the 3rd grade when it was first offered to students at his school.

I pleaded with him to choose Stomp.  I sang the virtues of percussion.  Beating on trash cans and making noise.  All to no avail.

He was adamant that he wanted to learn the violin.

I would love to believe that my son was a violin prodigy, but that was not the case. Playing the violin and practicing the violin was a torturous experience for those 9 months for all of us.  He wanted to switch to "Stump", as he called it, nearly from day one.  

He stuck it out but chose to do Stomp for the next two years.  He really seemed to love it, but maybe it was no practicing at home that he loved.  Or wearing jeans and t-shirts for the concerts. It was a much less traumatic experience for all of us involved, even if the musical education wasn't superior.  I'm sure he learned rhythm and who knows what else, but when we attended the concerts at school, it felt kind of like we were the bad kids who sat on the last pew at church to be as far away from the preacher's eye as possible. Our kid wasn't playing the violin or singing like an angel.  He was the one who looked like a thug beating on a bucket.  

Fast forward to now and Stomp came to DC.  We took Mac to an afternoon performance, and I do believe he was riveted by it if seeing him leaning forward in his chair for most of the show was any indication. If nothing else, I think he finally got the concept of what Stomp can be and for that, I'm most thankful. 

NYR 2-7-14 - my new car!!!!

Now that I have your attention, I really don't have a new car. Just a loaner car, but still.

It turns out that our Corolla has a recall issue.  Apparently there's something wrong with the airbags that can cause them to deploy at any moment, thereby causing risk of wreck and/or injury.  The car is 11 years old so the way I look at it is that if it hasn't happened yet, odds are in my favor that it never will.  BUT I'd hate to have a wreck because of malfunctioning airbags and have to explain my logic behind ignoring the recall notice I got in the mail.

So I made my appointment and off I went to the Toyota dealership this morning.

And wouldn't you know that they found some other things wrong with the car. 

This is why I HATE taking the car to the dealership for service: they always find something else wrong with the car. 

And it always involves a lot of money.

Sigh.

Today's bill comes to about half the value of the car.  

So I went in for a free service and came out with half a car.  

Hurray!

Of course they gave me the option of not fixing the problems (oil leaks) but what was I going to do?  Well, I did call Jimmy for support and when he have the green light, I signed on the dotted line.

I asked the service guy if he wanted the left kidney or the right kidney, and he very kindly asked if we were military or government.  I normally steer away from that loaded question, but I could smell a discount coming so I quickly answered "government" and we scored a 10% discount.  So it really came down to 40% of the car's value. Double hurray!

What I got from the deal was the use of a fabulous Prius while my car's being worked on.

The lady in charge of paperwork got me all squared away and took me out to this car that required lessons on how to use it. There's no keyed ignition and there's no gearshift.  There's a button to turn it on and a button to put it in park and this cute little mechanism to put it in drive or reverse. Adorable. ThIs is not your mama's 2003 Corolla. 

I've run errands that I didn't even need to run, just so I could drive the car.  I love and am so thankful for driving a new car that smells new and whose brakes don't announce your arrival from a block away.  This car is so quiet you can't even tell it's on!  

You're allowed to keep the loaner car for 24 hours after they call to tell you your car's ready. I pray it takes them 1.5 years to fix my car.  

NYR 2-6-14

It was report card day today.  Things were looking iffy for Mac in the math department but he pulled it out. In fact, all of his grades improved. 

He thought we were going to the dog shelter as soon as school got out to pick up his puppy. 

Um, no.

I believe the deal offered was improvement on two report cards, not just one.  But as we have another math test tomorrow and I don't want him to slam off to his room before he takes the practice test I've made, I'm not addressing that little sticking point yet.

For a good report card complete with improved grades, I am truly thankful. 

NYR 2-5-14

We went over to visit one of Jimmy's college friends whose wife just had a baby less than 2 weeks ago.  It was a lovely visit with a sweet, sweet family. 

(Mac's photo of new baby S.)

Baby S is beautiful and calm, and she smells sooooo yummy.

Thankful for getting my baby love on. 

Sad news

On Sunday morning we woke up to find our poor Glebe no longer with us. Glebe, you may remember, was Mac's fish.  

Mac got Glebe in October and he seemed to flourish for awhile.  

Then we went on an overnight trip in November and left Glebe for one night on his own.  Don't freak out - Betta fish only require food every couple days.

Well nutritional requirements are completely different from personality disorders.  

We came home to find he'd copped an attitude with us, as if to punish us for leaving him alone.  He didn't eat as much and appeared to be losing his orange color. I went to the pet store and bought him fancy food - a so-called dial-a-treat of dried blood worms, mysis and daphnia.  I have no idea what any of those things are, but the pet store man told me Betta fish love these treats. 

Glebe did not love them. He refused to eat the treats and so after feeding them to him, I'd have to later filter the uneaten floating detritus fromthe tank.

We hauled him to SC for Thanksgiving in a Rubbermaid cereal box that we bought just for him. He hated it.  He apparently was not a rambling fish.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Glebe was listless and didn't eat much. We moved his tank to a busier area of our apartment in case he was missing the action.  But that didn't bring him out of his depression.

We hauled him home again for Christmas and again, he was miserable. He didn't take advantage of the vertical space in the cereal container. 

After Christmas vacation, Glebe took to sticking his head and sometimes his full body into his fake aquarium trees or laying listlessly on the rocks or just floating, suspended, in the water.  It's winter and I sort of feel like sticking my head or my body into the covers most days.  Maybe Glebe, like me, had a touch of the winter blues so I installed the light feature of his tank so he could have some light therapy. We tried different colors, different rotations of the colors, etc. We turned the lamp on next to his tank so he'd have nice bright light. All to no avail.

 (Early in January)

(The day before he died)

(The day before he died)

He hung on until sometime on Saturday night.  Mac acted devastated for about 28 minutes, gave him an appropriate and solo send-off (complete with a rousing rendition of the "Hallelujah Chorus") and then got over it.  He wants a replacement already, but I am diverting requests to go to the pet store.  

No New Fish!! 

NYR - wayyyyy behind

I'm really far behind on blogging my attitude of gratitude, but I have been very thankful for so many things over the last week:

1.  I had the horrible sinus/cold crud and had a bad couple days late last week. I'm very thankful I came out on the other side because it felt a little touch and go there for awhile. 

2.  I tried to make potstickers, aka pork dumplings, for the first time and they were delicious. Honestly I might could open a potsticker food truck.  Except that people might get tired of eating only dumplings all the time.

3.  We got to catch up with a friend from our first tour in Guadalajara over the weekend.  I love reunions. 

4.  We found a copycat recipe online for our most favorite wings in the world which are served at Home Team BBQ in Charleston and made them for the Super Bowl. Holy moly they were so good.  They required brining, smoking and frying so it was a labor of love, but they were worth every bit of the work. I shall add those wings to the potsticker menu at the food truck.  I think if Peyton Manning had eaten some before the game started, the outcome would have been entirely different. He would have been that inspired. 

5.  The temperatures got into the 50s this weekend which was heavenly. We only got a short, non-sticking snowfall for about an hour yesterday which made me so happy.  Tonight they're calling for freezing rain but I'm not entirely convinced it's coming and if it doesn't, that will be more than okay.  I am feeling positive that this interminable winter really will end at some point. 

6.  I stopped in at our neighborhood locally-owned coffee shop the other day.  As I pulled into the metered parking spot, this man came up to me and gave me his meter receipt to use as he'd paid for longer than he needed.  I'm so thankful for random acts of kindness. 

I hope you're warm  and well in your corner of the world!