Weekend Roundup

Ahhh. Four whole days of nothing in particular to do. Four whole sunny, warm days reminding me of why I chose to move to Austin. Four whole days of not being at the office. Four whole days of freedom.

It was glorious while it lasted.

Even if it was mostly uneventful.

Thanksgiving day was relaxed and fun and exactly right. I went to my friend A’s house for dinner, and I somehow managed to take only one serving of each item and stopped eating before I got uncomfortably full and I even only ate half of the piece of cheesecake she served for dessert. So proud of myself! After dinner, we talked crafts and watched Shrek 2, which I hadn’t seen before. I love, love, love the scene where they play “I Need a Hero.” And Puss in Boots is hysterical. Every time he made with the big kitten eyes, we all went, “Awwwww.” But I realized just how annoyingly persnickety I’ve become when I found myself upset that Princess Fiona’s diary was tiny when Shrek was reading it and normal size when she picked it up, and no, it wasn’t just a perspective issue. The animators screwed up.

Through the weekend, I did some light housecleaning and discovered that I do indeed have kitchen counters and a dinette table.

I watched many, many DVDs. Homicide: Life on the Street is and always will be the best show that ever aired on television. And it’s fun to play “Hey! It’s That Guy” while watching because so many of the guest stars have gone on to become bigger stars (Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Rock) or have been on The Wire and Oz. Undeclared, so far, is better than Freaks & Geeks, but the episodes seem to be out of order so that things are happening in a weird jumbled chronology. And the stunt casting (Ted Nugent, Adam Sandler), while perhaps fulfilling many a fanboy’s fantasy, is bothersome. Alias: Season Four is living up to its reputation as a stinker. Although I love that Greg Grunberg is getting more screen time because he is so adorable and funny. But he's no Bradley Cooper. Gilmore Girls is awesome. I want to live in Stars Hollow and be best friends with Lorelai and Sookie and work at the bookstore. Fame is hysterical in its 80s-ness. Coupling, the UK version, is Friends without the U.S. censors. The first couple episodes were uneven, and the laugh track is annoying. But overall very funny.

And while I was watching those many, many hours of DVDs, I was knitting away! I finished the fourth panel of the afghan. One more to go. But I took a break from it to start on one of the scarves---the one for my future brother-in-law. It has a cable pattern in it, which makes it a little difficult, but I’ve only made one small boo-boo so far. And I’m about a quarter of the way through it. I finally figured out to use stitch markers to mark off sections of the pattern so I don’t have to count so much. That is helping tremendously.

I also started on Case Histories. I’m about halfway through and loving it. Although there are so many intertwining stories that I sometimes feel like I need to start a chart to keep them all straight. I keep getting names and dates confused.

And, because the weather was fabulous (80s and sunny), Rowen and I went to the dog park three of the four days. We only had one bad incident in which a human was being stupid and Rowen was being a puppy and the park was its usual chaos so the whole situation got bad quickly and no one handled it well. And I’m not excusing what Rowen did---she was naughty---but if you only want to be with perfectly behaved, calm dogs and don’t want to get dirty or be bothered, then stay in your own backyard.

I stayed far away from the stores, except for a stop in the bookstore for a magazine fix: ReadyMade, Bust, Cooking Light, and Time (which has an excellent and necessary article on how bad things still are for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina). And thanks to the magazines, I now I have three more books on my wish list and I'm trying to decide whether I should allow myself an end-of-year book splurge before I cut myself off in 2006. Added to my list:

Super Crafty by Susan Beal et al.
Bazaar Bizarre by Greg Der Ananian
Knitorama by Rachel Matthews

Now, today, it’s back to work and routine and other people’s personality disorders. Yucko.