And So Am I

I think it's been two whole days since I bitched about the new building, so I think it's time for yet another complaint. This one isn't actually about the building. It's about my 1.7 mile drive to work in which my car doesn't even have time to warm up (and if you think I'm sitting in a cold car for five minutes to drive 3 minutes, you're all high) and in which I have to deal with…are you ready for this?...six traffic lights. Now if I leave before 6:00 a.m. two of them are flashing yellow, but three of the remaining four (the fourth doesn't really affect me as there's a cut-through so I don't even have to stop turn right on red) serve literally no purpose at that hour of the morning (or at any point other than maybe 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Monday through Friday) except to impede my drive to work. And I'll argue the necessity of those lights even during workday hours.

Okay, so this week started the Champ Car season off with testing at Sebring. Sebring is an old airport/air force base and holds the prestigious 12 Hours of Sebring every year. Camp Car doesn't race there but for some reason we always test there. My friend Box was there and called me on Tuesday so I could hear the incredibly beautiful sounds of a turbocharged Champ Car going past at full song. Oh, it was moving. I wished I were there. He took a bunch of pics including one of My Beloved Oriol sitting in the grandstands looking for a ride. Well, yesterday somebody put him in a car and he topped the charts for the entire week! Woohoo! Now someone sign him, dammit!!!

I had a great weekend which is weird since I spent Saturday and Sunday cleaning the apartment which was in dire dire dire need of a cleaning. It was mind-boggling how messy my apt. was. I had to scramble to find someone to go to the symphony with me on Friday because of the predicted weather. The forecasters (yeah, I know, why listen to them?) said we were going to get 1-3" of snow followed by freezing rain. Egads. I didn't want my friend Marianne driving the Southfield in freezing rain with her two kids in the car (her son Jesse was supposed to go with me) and then hanging out in my part of town until after 10:00 waiting for us to be finished being all culturised. And she was thinking the same thing, so we decided that I would take Jesse this coming Friday instead. When I e-mailed her to see if Jesse wanted to go I said, "Why does it seem I go out with your son more than you?" She replied, laughing, "Because you do!" I'd take Marianne to the symphony but she has the kids every Friday night and it's too much of a pain getting her ex to switch days and besides Jesse loves it!

I called a bunch of people but last minute notice is tough. My friend RE had nothing going on, though, so he drove in from Ann Arbor and after the Brahms, Haydn and Dvorak, we went to TJ's for a snack. They have the best potato-leek soup which they don't seem to make very often (it might have been 2003 since they last made it), so I had that and then followed it with a tin roof sundae made with caramel instead of chocolate sauce. Oh so yummy.

I spent a good six or so hours cleaning on Saturday. I started with the kitchen and got all the returnables and recyclables bagged up (they're now in the car as I have to find people who will take the recyclables – my city has curbside recycling but not for "multi-family dwellings" and I refuse to put bottles and cans and papers into landfills if I don't have to. I then moved everything and scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees!! I started on the dining room (the biggest problem there is that I use the dining room table as a catch-all), but I had Knitting Club on Saturday night, so I had to stop and get ready for that.

I hadn't eaten all day (except for some steamed broccoli around 4:45), so I was really looking forward to the pizza we always have at Knitting Club. EGC is the best and always has salad and then dessert as well. It blew my diet all to hell as she had gumdrops and those really yummy chocolate éclairs that you can buy in the frozen food section and they're two-bite-sized. Oh, so good. I won't say how many I ate. The highlight of Knitting Night, however, was this new yarn store, Artisan Knitworks near EGC's house. The yarns were GORGEOUS, and if you read the article, you know they're all either hand-dyed, hand-spun or both. I was bad and bought yarn, after just saying to julieu that I wanted to go to Threadbear aka The World's Greatest Yarn Store but I knew I didn't need any yarn and it's hard to go there and not buy (although I did do it once), but it's just so fun there. I haven't seen The Boys since June, I think. Anyway, I picked up this beautiful superfine alpaca hand spun and dyed by a 19-year-old woman up in Northern Michigan somewhere. EGC had been admiring it, so I picked it up to make a scarf for her b-day which was a couple of weeks ago. The rest of the yarn I bought is for me. I got two skeins of this orangey-brown alpaca (it's much prettier than it sounds, I might have to take a picture) to make myself a large scarf/shawl. It'll go perfectly with the coat I've been wearing. I got this old vintage coat years ago (when I was in college, I think), it's hard to describe (possibly another picture to be taken) but has lots of colors in it, including the orangey-brown stripe through the plaid. And then there was the silk yarn with all sorts of sweet colors which will also go perfectly with the coat. Now to find the time to knit for myself. I started the scarf for EGC last night after spending a good hour winding it into a ball and getting superfine strands of alpaca in my eyes. I also started (last week) my cousin's afghan (I bought the yarn for it the last time I was at Threadbear back in June). I finished up two Champ Car scarves (black with orange stripes) for two racing friends, HRH & Chan, and another scarf for my good friend Sal, and all this means I have to get to the post office, an errand I dread with a passion as it doesn't seem to matter what time of day I get there, it's chockfull of old people who don't know what they're doing. So frustrating to stand there waiting for people who seem never to go to the post office ask a myriad of stupid questions when I know I would be done in three minutes. Ah well, patience…

Sunday was Mass as usual which lasted as long as ever, but I vented at one of the choir members who is in complete agreement with me re: length of everything they do. They brought out the Alleluia from last year's Lent/Easter season and it sucks so badly, it's not even funny – besides lasting a good five to ten minutes. I told Mom that I would come back after Easter was over, as I hate that Alleluia so much. I'm having a really bad attitude toward church lately and it's all related to the choir.

After Mass I met my Older Brother, SIL and the Terror Children for breakfast at Denny's. OB was offering me some iPod accessories that didn't work with his MP3 player (I think they didn't work because they're cheap, because the one item I tried – car transmitter – didn't work, it was all staticky). I'm thinking that there are times it's good to buy brand names and not off-brands.

Oh yeah, latest update on this shitty building? The one and only coffee room is non-functioning today – no hot water which means I can't even get tea. So, now we need to go downstairs to the cafeteria to get coffee (for those who drink coffee that's $0.94 vs. $0.25) which isn't completely helpful since it closes from 10:00 – 11:00 and then again after 1:00. And yes, for those of you wondering, chili lovers are in like Flynn – every day again this week. I made a comment about how chili every single day isn't necessary when I walked in, but I don't think the worker who overheard me cared. I brought cheese & crackers with me today. If I can cut the spaghetti squash open tonight, I'll be having spaghetti squash with sauce leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

Oops, back to Sunday. I finished cleaning the dining room, spent way too much time on the living room (which was beyond words for messiness) and got it all done in time for the Libertarian to come over. We were going to go to a movie, but I was exhausted by this point and suggested we just stay in and watch a movie. I had just gotten Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest from Netflix, so we watched that. Dear heavens, it was not what I would call child friendly. I liked it, but there was definite ickiness involved. A few times when I had to say, "Eeeeeewwwwwww!" My original plan had been to cook dinner as well, but I didn't finish cleaning until 30 minutes before he showed up, so that went by the wayside which was fine as he had had a late lunch and wasn't hungry. Not that I wouldn't have minded ordering a pizza. Damn, I love pizza.

And there ya have my weekend…is it bedtime yet? I've been fighting bronchitis for at least a month now and I wish it would just go away (preferable) or come on full bore (not really what I want, but at least then I could go to the doctor's and get antibiotics and it would go the hell away). I'm tired of feeling not quite myself.