Wild Weekend Is OVER!!

Whew, it's been a long weekend. And it is over! Yahoo! (Jeff would next utter, "Google," and irritate me, but I am taking back the word "yahoo").

The movie (Pan's Labyrinth)we went to with the Younger Son was certainly violent, but the special effects were incredible, and the story was very good--more realistic than many "fairy tales," but quite beautiful. The effects' main wonderful feature was that they were so good you didn't notice them. All the bizarre characters looked so real you didn't think about the effort it took to get them there. The most funny part was that, because the movie was in Spanish, it was really about a "Fauno" not anything named "Pan." I guess folks worried that Americans would think the labyrinth of the faun was about a deer. At the end of the movie, we heard two girls asking each other which character was "Pan," and was it like Peter Pan? A great deal of self control was needed from all three of us to not die laughing. Younger Son said, "I think they missed the point of this movie." He was amazingly good through it--violence that made me sick he coped with fine. I do believe the Older Boy would have had more trouble with it.

Saturday was long and busy. I taught knitting, as usual, in the morning. I enjoyed the class, but missed seeing Jody or Katy. I had to leave as soon as I was done for one last rehearsal with the singing boys. They had the sound system all set up by the time I got there, and it went remarkably smoothly. Lee's sound system worked well, in conjunction with the Coffeehouse equipment. It really felt good to hear that we can sound quite good now, really. For some reason my voice is in great shape now. That feels nice. Jeff suggests it is a lack of stress. Heh, could be.

After all that rehearsing, we raced home to clean up, because people from work were coming by for a party with a Greek theme. (I must point out that my precious children cleaned my family room up and did a SUPER job.) It went pretty well. Work Boy #2 was disappointed that Younger Son was not there (he went to spend the night with a friend), but his spouse was thrilled to see Rose the Puppy again. Mostly she fed our dogs food from her hand all night. Sigh. The party went pretty well, though it was not overly exciting. New Contractor Girl brought her very nice boyfriend, who is also a writer, so everyone bonded, especially the novelists. Genia made a really good Greek cake that I hope to get the recipe for.

Today we got up at the stroke of 6 and were at the site of our singing by 7:30. It was so freaking COLD. None of the guys could feel their fingers, which made playing guitars and keyboards difficult. But I was proud that we did a good job, and certain usually nerved out members of the band were just fine. I got all congestitated from the frigid weather, but still sang pretty darned good and was pleased. And it was fun. We were at the 3M half marathon, and lots of the runners waved and did thumbs up at us. That was really nice. And we got PAID. And some coffee and breakfast tacos. We were in front of the Amy's Ice Cream HQ on Burnet, and we weren't too loud for the neighbors, which was a first for them (couldn't have been too loud--for half the time Bill's guitar did not amplify. Lee did a good job on his solos for someone with frozen fingers, too. If it hadn't been so cold, I'd have sung all the songs we know!

But we made it to church in time to sing there then suffer through a long congregational meeting. I feel like a Good UU again. We came home and then intrepidly drove out to fetch Lee's poor lonely Scary Motorcycle, so it lives here now, too.

The big excitement was that Jeff finally got the Older Boy his precious Wii item. He had been diligently haunting stores that might sell them, and at last got a tip at Wal-Mart that they'd be in at 8 am today. There were 5 of them and he got #5. I was so proud of him for going to all that effort, and relieved to get that task off my list of things that need to be done.

This evening we relaxed, ate pizza and watched Fox comedies with the kids. It is so, so nice to just sit around and laugh. The dogs even calmed down a bit so we could hear the shows. It felt so family-like. Ahhhhh.

Still dealing with dog stuff--Rose peed on the floor in front of all the party guests (typical), and "someone" got a lovely cat poop nugget out of the litter box today. Lee picked it up, thinking it was dirt. ICK ICK ICK. So, I blocked access to THAT. We are sorta worried about the cat, anyway. He was making a funny noise last night, according to Jeff, and we have not seen him today. We already saw the cute kitten next to Lee all mangles (looks like someone ran over its leg). Too much cat sadness.

On that perky note, I guess I will stop typing. Lee has some work class next week, so I am on my own doing a really, really boring task. Ah well. It pays. I hope you all are doing well. Say hi if you have time to comment!

PS: I get peeved at the Blogger spell checker, which sometimes does not remove yellow text when you change a word. Grr.