OutdoorType

And only a day or so late…

 

JOE
You believe that?

ANN
I do if you do.

Pause.

 

JOE
But it’s absurd.

 

ANN
So is our electoral process. But we still vote.

Friday… Every Friday is pay day for my company and I’ve come to appreciate the clockworkness of things. Come Friday, you login to your bank and waiting for you is the same amount you got last week, and the week before, and the week before that. Last Friday I logged into my bank, clicked on my account, scanned down to the direct deposit entry, and freaked out a little bit. It was about $100 less than I’d expected. I quickly realised though that this being the first pay check of the year, our new benefits must have kicked in and so this was going to be the new amount. Thanks a lot rising health care costs!

I pulled up the spreadsheet that is my budget and changed some cells to reflect the new lesser amount. Then I started marking things that would have to be cut back in the year 2008. Spending was going to be be seriously curtailed in order for me to get some free samples at the doctor’s office. Damn it! Well, I figured things out and then decided to go out with a bang… dinner at my favourite tex-mex restaurant! How fiscally responsible of me, right?*

Anyways, I called up Jessica and we had a nice meal and then came back to my place for cookie baking and movie watching. I introduced her to the fine art that is my chocolate chip cookie baking technique and Jess watched helped a bit and provided running commentary comparing my exacting and measured style to Erica’s, um, less than exacting and measured style. Then while cookies baked we watched one of my most favourite movies. Not everyone likes this particular movie, but I had a feeling that being such a big Sorkin nerd Jessica might like it.

Saturday…

I woke early (8ish) from a dream (nightmare?) about the winner of the Republican Iowa Caucus (Mike Huckabee) so I could go help a friend move and also test my plumbing skills (such as they are). The move went well enough and I got to practise city driving and parking and was more or less successful as long as you don’t count that one time I ignored Prudence (more on her in a later post) and turned down a one way street. Turned down the Wrong Way. Oops. The guys in the car where either too stunned at the move or not at all paying attention because they were pretty quiet on the whole affair. Of course, I’d just met them all for the first time not more than a couple hours earlier so maybe they were just being polite. They kept getting into the car with me so who knows…

Anyways, I got one of two toilets installed and it seems to be leak proof at this point so that’s a good thing. The hot water heater is another story, but that was a last minute troubleshoot anyways.

So then the other little thing happening Saturday was the closing reception of my art show. Again, I’ll have to blog about that in greater detail tomorrow… I will say though that it was another successful event and it was great seeing everyone who came out, especially those who came for round two! Thanks again!

Sunday…

I slept in and it was great. I had turned off all alarms but one (Julia), and as if set by the nuclear clock, she was knocking on the door at 11am sharp just like I’d told her to do. She was in town for the show and to play tourist for the day and boy did we ever play tourist. We crammed in the following activities:

- National Building Museum (two exhibits)
- JMW Turner at the National Gallery
- The US Botanic Garden
- Skipping along The Mall
- Late lunch on 7th St.
- Kogod Courtyard

Photographic proof of this fun day downtown is on Flickr.

*so about that $100/week for increased health care costs… Um, yeah… I’m an idiot who should not be trusted with counting and/or analysis of numbers of any kind. The reason I got $100 less in my last pay check? As good of a story as it was, it wasn’t because of rising health care costs. The last week of the year I was out of vacation and so on Christmas Eve Day I had to work several hours without pay. That’s where the money went. So woohoo! Look out unbridled spending, here I come!