Archive: Weekendery

In the grand tradition of Isabel and Mrs. Squirrel, I present all of the new things I have done since Friday:

Saw a movie at the Back Alley Theater
Last week, a friend e-mailed me to see if I wanted to come along to see Amelie at Kennett Square’s Back Alley Theater on Friday, and maybe get a drink or dessert afterward. I had no other plans, so three of us girls met up for a quiet night. None of us had ever been to the Back Alley Theater, which shows older films just once a month, so we approached it with an open mind.

We followed a trickling line of older folks to the back door of a downtown restaurant, where a nice elderly lady took our five dollar admission fees, and gestured us downstairs to get popcorn or a snack. To our surprise, popcorn and candy were free! “But water is a dollar,” the concessions lady said apologetically. We exchanged incredulous glances, grabbed some goodies, and headed to the theater. By “theater,” I mean a large meeting room with one wall covered in mirrors, rows of the stiffest white chairs I had ever had the displeasure of inhabiting, and a viewing audience where at least sixty percent of those seated were senior citizens. The opening screen of the Amelie DVD gleamed on a long wall from an LCD projector, with one-third of it spilled onto the ceiling, and I was not certain that I had not entered into (and willingly paid for) an illegal movie showing.

Uncomfortable seats aside, Amelie was charming, and I enjoyed it much more than my first viewing about five years ago. The older audience made the movie even more humorous with their constant murmured questions about the plot, retelling of action, or translation of French signs. Afterward, the three of us stopped at a bar for dessert and drinks, and we had a lovely night for under $20.

Grilled pizza and made a caprese salad
After salivating over Deb’s guide to pizza-making, JG got it in his head to grill pizza sometime. Ever the supportive wife, I printed out Ina Garten’s instructions that coincided with an episode of Barefoot Contessa that I have seen at least three times. I made a half portion of the dough easily enough, despite the horrendously vague instructions (for shame, Ina!), and we pulled the rest of the ingredients together while the three little dough balls I formed waited under a damp towel. JG manned the grill during the proceedings while I stood by and marveled at things like puffy crust and grill marks. When the crusts came off the grill the first time, we made quick work of adding sauce and toppings, and mere minutes passed before JG delivered the charred, cheesy goodness to the table. If this inaugural batch is any indication, our summer will be full of grilled pizza. In a pinch, or for a crowd, we’ll probably just use prepared pizza dough, but the yumminess will still prevail.

Oh, and I made a caprese salad, too. I looked around for different takes on this dish, but they all essentially said to put the tomatoes with the mozzarella cheese, rip basil around everything, and then scatter olive oil around. So … that’s what I did. And it was delicious.

I wasn’t sure if the pizza and the salad would qualify for my resolution to try two recipes each month. For the pizza, we only followed Ina Garten’s dough recipe and grilling method, and JG manned the grill; I didn’t even follow a recipe for the salad, and wasn’t it more assembly than cooking? I conferred with OPH as to whether these two dishes counted, and she gave hearty approval for including them. Well, then! So it must be.

Went for a run in my neighborhood without wanting to die
Last week, thanks to everyone’s enthusiastic props for my attempts to become a runner, I printed out the Couch to 5K workout schedule and stuck it to the fridge. I thought the steps might be a good way to get acclimated to running outdoors, you know, at some point.

Yeah, or maybe the very next day. I covered the afternoon walk on Thursday for JG while he was out golfing, and I decided to take Ted with me and try out the first C25K workout: alternate 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking for a total of 20 minutes. I thought I could handle that, even if staring at the second hand on my analog watch was not ideal. Thanks to the killer hill that runs the length of the neighborhood, I only lasted for ten minutes. Oh, failure! There I was, all confident about my sixteen minutes of running! On a treadmill! With zero incline! It was hubris, truly.

JG suggested that I run along the top of the hill, rather than up and down it, at least to start. Then I’d get used to the terrain without feeling as though my lungs were about to mutiny. On Saturday morning, I took the morning walk from JG, which was amazing in and of itself on a weekend, and Ted and I got through the entire workout! The real clincher is that today, I got up early, and did the workout on my own before the dog walk. I, a self-proclaimed, anti-cardio, night person got up early on a Monday to run/walk for twenty minutes! What the heck?

This morning, when a co-worker asked me how my weekend was, I tried to recall what I did, but I could not remember anything for the life of me. The only thing that sprang to mind was that I finished The Other Boleyn Girl, but that was it. How does that happen? And why does it seem to happen every week? Am I really that old?

Flustered, I looked at my calendar to see if anything would jog my memory. Oh, yes! We went to dinner with JG’s teacher friends after the high school graduation! That’s right. We had a nine o’clock dinner reservation, which kind of blew my mind, because that’s about time to wind down for some shuteye, at least according to the teacher hours we keep. No, on Friday, nine o’clock was time to order up a calamari appetizer and a rigatoni dinner and then proceed to eat myself into a carb-loaded food coma. Fortunately, my dress was made of jersey, so there was no visible ill effect.

Hm. Nothing on Saturday except a tentative friend over for dinner. Right, JG’s old high school friend came over. That was after I slept in until the ridiculous hour of 11am and then stumbled out to the back yard to help JG wash the cars. Ted had fun scratching up mud puddles in the yard and running away from the hose, and now Walter is much cleaner, although the windshield is a bit streaky. That was probably my fault. I flexed my improving knife skills by being JG’s sous chef for dinner preparations, and he grilled up a beer can chicken for his friend and us. The two of them reminisced about high school and caught up on what everyone was doing while they duked it out on the Mario Kart racetracks, and I finished my book and kept Ted occupied.

The calendar showed nothing for Sunday, but that didn’t seem right, either. Ah, that’s because I made dinner that night and prepped chili to go into the crock pot for the next night because JG had plans to play golf after work. Yes, that rings a bell. That’s all I did? But I distinctly recall not getting a nap that day, so I have no idea what I was doing when I was not cooking.

I think I’m still drowsy and punchy from when I was up and awake at 3am on Monday morning. My mind gears were spinning, so I got up and spent the next three hours editing pictures, because that is the normal behavior of an early riser, or something. Bah. It’s just another sign that weekends are too short, and the workday comes too soon. It’s almost vacation time. Almost!

I figured out how to knit a ribbed pattern! It’s probably only big news in my world, but now I do not have to condemn myself to hours of monotony while I enter the world of knitting volleyball scarves. JG assures me that there will not be nine seniors this year, but I am not leaving anything to chance, and I am determined to have four scarves finished by the time the season starts. I have not yet settled on a pattern for this year, but my knitting repertoire has doubled, and I am psyched.

- - - - -

On Saturday morning, JG and I made a grocery run, and I scanned the floral section, as always. I don’t always buy something, but I like having fresh flowers on the table, especially if I have the satisfaction of a low price. I spied spray roses on sale for $4, so I selected a bunch of deep pink blooms and added them to the shopping cart. I am not exactly a roses girl; they seem kind of pretentious and overdone to me. I prefer wildflowers that will stay with me for a while and aren’t quite so — oh, I don’t know — stuffy. Spray roses may have won me over with their sweet fragrance and petite scale. I am hopeless at flower arranging, but with those four stems in a vase on the dining table, I had a dozen roses, minus the monstrosity of a full-sized arrangement. Plus, they were only $4! Lovely.

- - - - -

Two Fridays ago, Nancy Pearl Wannabe graced us with a guided tour of her library domain. She IMed me in a panic that morning, all verklempt because her text showed up as erroneous hyperlinks, and she could not figure out why. Finally, we guessed that Internet Explorer was to blame, and I could almost see NPW shaking her fists at not being able to use Firefox. She sent me her login information, and I went in and quickly deleted the extraneous code from the post. It was the work of two minutes, but NPW declared, “I’m buying you a present!” Well! Okay! On Saturday, a manilla envelope arrived at the house with the postage canceled suspiciously by the swipe of a permanent marker (instead of, say, a postage cancellation stamp), and I pulled out a thin parcel of colored printer paper. There was a thank-you sticky note and look! Lip gloss! I tested out the shade right away, and it was shiny and sheer on my lips, despite my thoughts at first glance, which were something along the lines of, “Vial of blood!” Thanks, NPDubs!

We had a lovely long weekend.

With Ted on my lap, JG and I drove up to New Jersey on Friday night to visit my in-laws. It has become a semi-official tradition now to spend a couple of days with them, dip our toes into their frigid pool water, and dare everyone else to go in, when we really intend to sit on lounge chairs and read magazines. We usually go out to eat for one night and grill back at the house for the other, and JG makes a shrimp appetizer by special request from his sister. This year, we enjoyed reasonably pleasant weather and spent most of our time outdoors. When clouds threatened and wind blew, JG and his siblings battled it out over Mario Kart, while I listened in on their banter. I upheld the natural order of the universe by losing at mini-golf and almost falling out of the hammock. Ted received lots of loving from JG’s entire family, and he was so tuckered out by the end of our stay that I held nothing but a limp pile of sleeping puppy during the ride home. When we were ten minutes away from our house, I saw a burst of light in the distance. Fireworks! Longwood Gardens was firing off their annual Memorial Day display, and we could see it for the remaining minutes of the drive. Cheesy to be sure, it was kind of magical, too.

Yesterday, we slept in until the luxurious hour of 8am, and then headed out to meet friends for the local parade. I love that Kennett Square is such a small town that the major traffic arteries close for three parades each year that are all exactly the same, and people flood the streets to look on. This custom fills me with so much small-town charm that I can’t even stand it. Plus, our friends snagged a coveted grassy corner for our viewing spot, and Ted enjoyed his first parade in shady style. Of course, our peaceful serenity of saluting veterans and clapping to military themes was shattered when groups of reenactment folks starting firing their muskets. I clapped my fingers over my ears so as to prevent myself from being startled, but Ted was shaking like a leaf from the blasts. Thankfully, vehicles from half a dozen fire companies in the surrounding 20-mile radius toned down the end of the parade, and he recovered nicely.

Afterward, we went grocery shopping, unpacked, and cleaned up the general debris of being away, but the rest of the day was ours. JG grilled burgers, hot dogs, and corn, so we had our own quiet cookout, and then sat outside with Ted. He was still fairly exhausted from the weekend, so he just rolled around on the grass and pounced at sticks while JG surfed the web and I worked on crosswords. There was a hint of charcoal and freshly-cut grass in the air, and a round feeling of contentment settled on my shoulders.

This morning is humid and rainy, as if to fully hammer home the point that the weekend is truly over. Sigh. It’s not that I minded coming in to work today, but the weekend was so nice. JG has hypothesized that, with three-day weekends, he could teach all year long. What about the rest of us, I ask? I propose that extended weekends are instated from here on out so we have a day each for fun, accomplishment, and recovery. There must be a congressman somewhere who would get on board …