Crunching the Numbers - Review to Follow

23 - the number of screens at Lennox theater
1 - the number of screens playing "The Twilight Experience"
287 - the number of seats in the one screen playing "The Twilight Experience"
13 - the number of those seats filled by guys (4.5%)
3 - the number of movies involved in "The Twilight Experience"
7:03 - the on-screen time it takes to show all three Twilight Saga movies.
9.5 - the number of hours I spent at the theater last night

23 - the number of screens at Lennox that had a midnight showing of Eclipse
6601 - the number of seats that were available for Eclipse, assuming my theater was the average size. It seemed from the lines and crowds that most of these theaters were full

Then there is the kicker - the fact I am going to see it again tonight. Guessing I will end up in the theater for about three hours tonight, that would mean that in a 26 hr period, I spent 12.5 hrs at Lennox. Thats a bit much.

I think that they are right when they say this movie might break some opening weekend records...

Twi-nerd

It's another Twilight post. I'm sorry, I can't help it. Loads has happened that I have not had a chance to post about. I have been very busy w/plans every night for the last 10 days.

June 19/20th I was up in Burton with my sister
June 21st Beading with J
June 22nd Book Club (Regular)
June 23rd Trivia
June 24th Out to dinner with R
June 25th Bar Crawl (GOOD time)
June 26th Wedding, then sister came into town
June 27th Grandma's for dinner
June 28th Shopping & Beading w/J

And then comes tonight. Its the Twilight Experience. So, they call really die-hard Twilight Fans Twi-hards. I love fan nicknames, they are always so great. For example, I used to be an X-Phile. Anyways, I would not really consider myself a Twi-hard because there are just fans that are SO much more obsessed than I am, as much as I am obsessed. I decided a more appropriate title would be Twi-nerd. I love Twilight, but I also recognize how ridiculous it is. I decided that if I am going to go all out and spend 7 hrs tonight with a bunch of Twi-hards and Twi-nerds I mine as well go the extra mile and get a Twilight t-shirt to wear to the event.

I am super excited. Can you tell?

In the meantime...

I am writing this while on hold with a hospital in Phoenix. I need their Tax ID number and they can't find someone to give it to me. Meanwhile, I am stuck in the case unable to work on anything else on my computer until I finish up this item on this case, so I figured, why not pull up a notepad and write that long overdue blog entry?
I wrote a blog entry last Thursday or Friday, but Blogger ate it. It went something like this, only more eloquently: "I am pathetic. Watching New Moon w/friends on Tuesday totally cheered me up and turned around my bad mood. And, I am ridiculously excited about attending the "Twilight Experience" on June 29th, a 7 hr movie marathon culminating in the midnight showing of the third, new movie, Eclipse. But hey, whatever makes you happy!"
The weekend sped by in a sort of ridiculously fast manner. I drove up to see my sister on Saturday morning. She only has one week (now less than one week) left here in Ohio, and then she is moving home to Minnesota. I arrived to some chaos with the practice she is working for and we ended up driving in circles for a bit, then we had some good Italian food (yummy cheese ravioli!) and finally made it to our goal for the day: The Garfield Mansion, where President Garfield lived shortly before and while he was president. Of course, he was only very briefly president before he was assassinated, so many changes were made to the house after his death. It is the home of the first "Presidential Library" so to speak, when his wife added a beautiful library in memory of all of his work. It is home to a ridiculous number of antique books that I longed to touch and peruse. It was very difficult to keep my hands off!!
After that we headed to the fabric store and I bought fabric for my first sewing project on my new machine that my MIL got me for my Bday (thanks!!!). My sister taught me how to use it. We spent the rest of the weekend, until Sunday around 6pm, sewing, eating, sleeping, watching New Moon, and above all, enjoying one another's company.
It was a good weekend, it just went SO fast. And now I am in the midst of a busy week. Last night was beading at J's house. Tonight is book club. More thoughts on these things later perhaps, but the call is up and I need to go do some work.

Unexplained Blahs, and a Rant

Despite plenty of good things, I have just been sort of blah for the last few days. The plenty of good things include:

- Going out to dinner on Friday and then to see Chicago (the musical) - the off broadway production. I have seen a lot of musicals, mostly movie versions though. I have been to a few live, but never professional (school and college productions, community theater productions, etc). It was cool to see a professional one, it was a lot of fun. This was my belated birthday present and celebration and it was nice to have a night out with the hubby without him worrying about work. (He has been on call almost non-stop due to a combination of it being the end of the fiscal year and us having lots of July plans that he is saving up time NOT on call for).
- Singing on the Rain on the big screen at CAPA Classic Movie Series on Saturday night
- Spent an hour Saturday, and hour Sunday reading in a coffee shop (caribou coffee, my favorite)
- spoke with my family a lot
- I was actually productive on Saturday, got lots of little housework related things done
- had a very efficient and pleasant shopping trip for some small errands on Sunday

Despite all of these nice things, I am just in a bad mood. I have tried a hot bath, a latte, bad television (watched Transformer's last night on TNT, it was horrible!), a massage (thanks DH), productivity, reading. Nothing has kicked it yet. Have to give something else a try tonight. Any ideas?

Now for the "and a rant" section. Saturday night -Singing in the Rain - lots of fun. We were supposed to go out to dinner afterwards. It was like running my head into a brick wall. Here is how the conversation went:
Us (DH and I) vs Them
Them: Why don't we go to Elevator or O'Shaunessey's
Us: Great! We can walk over there!
Them: We don't want to leave the car. Why would we walk?
Us: There is not much parking up there. I wouldnt know where to park up there.
Them: We don't want to leave the car, I am sure there will be parking, there is always parking.
Us: Why don't you park in DH's garage, it is closer and no worries about getting out afterwards.
Them: Oh we don't want to mess with your garage. Why don't you two walk and we will meet you up there, just pick a resteraunt and call us, they are right next to each other.
Us: No, they are not right next to each other.
Them: I am pretty sure they are, atleast in the same block. How far apart do you think they are?
Us: no, they are not in the same block, I am not positive about the location of the elavator but its not realy in the arena district, whereas O'Shaunessey's is.
Them: I am sure they are really close to one another, like no more than a block apart.
Us: We will go to o'shaunessey's and get a table

-We part ways. DH and I walk the 7-8 blocks to the Arena District. O'Shaunessey's is about 4 blocks from the Elevator we discover. We get a table. DH orders a drink. We get a call. They can't find parking. They want us to leave and go somewhere not downtown. We have to tell the waitress we are leaving and I feel very rude, and very pissed. I have the strong urge to shout "I TOLD YOU SO!!!!" but we don't. We go eat dinner at Cap City Diner. It is subdued and slightly awkward. Then we go home.

I enjoy these CAPA movies a lot, but the logistics have been a nightmare. We are supposed to do another on July 1st, and I swear if the others don't agree to meet and walk the whole way, to the movie and dinner, I am not going.

The end.

Rain Rain, Come and Stay

Rain, Rain come and stay,
Please don't ever go away,
Amanda likes a shady day,
rain rain, come and stay

The weather has been listening to my desires and it is a rainy day again. We have had a lot of rainy days lately and I had heard we were in for heat and sun coming up, but apparently thats not today and I couldn't be happier.

Five simple reasons I love rain:
(1) it usually means its not intolerably hot
(2) water is always refreshing
(3) i don't have to water the garden
(4) the sun doesn't hurt my eyes and head when its raining
(5) it reminds you you are alive

In other news, my social interaction at work has increased sharply with the third girl from our unit leaving. Apparently when there are only three of you in a unit, everyone counts. All of the sudden I am being included in gossip and called over to look at funny cases. While I did not really miss/desire it before it started, I kind of like it now.

Already? Thursday?

I have been working on this post all week and now its almost the next weekend before I post about the last! What a rat race. LOL.

This past weekend consisted of two distinct periods - one of absolute craziness, and one of absolute exhaustion.

Friday night, as planned, I headed out with a couple of friends to attend my first CAPA Classic Movie. We were going to see Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock) at the Ohio Theater in downtown Columbus. DH was supposed to go as well, but he had all sorts of work issues and had to stay home by the computer. Anyways, I headed off, picked up J and D, and then headed to T's house, who promptly announced his plans had changed as well, and while he could do the movie still, dinner was out. We headed downtown and parked near the theater. Ohio Theater is absolutely gorgeous for those of you who have not had the chance to see it. The movie was interesting, not nearly as dark as I had imaged it would be, and very theatrical. After the movie it took us almost 20 minutes just to get out of the parking garage. We headed back to T's house and switched back to my car, and then debated the options for dinner. By this time it was past 10:30pm and we did not know where kitchen's would be opened. We started talking about what resteraunts we used to go to late night in high school and college, and before you know it we were headed for Perkins, my late night highschool stand by. Ah, the memories. Now, the thing is, J, D, and I hanging out together without others is sort of unprecedented and I was not sure what to expect. Ultimately there were some awkward moments, but we had some good conversations as the evening went on and I would not be afraid to do it again. I dropped them both off and arrived home around 12:30pm.



Saturday morning I was supposed to go to the farmer's market with M. At 7:20am a thunder storm right overhead with torrential down pour woke me up. At 7:40am I got up and called M, cancelling the trip due to weather. The storm went on for another half hour, it was quite impressive. I love big thunder storms!! It was good we cancelled for another reason - I had a horrible headache, so I took drugs and went back to bed. I was woken up at 10:30am by DH telling me M and T were trying to reach me. I called T back first and found out that we had forgotten that it was the day of the Victorian Village Garage sale. He invited me to come down and join him. I sprinted out of bed, headache gone, and threw on some clothes while calling M back, who apparently had decided at like 8:30am that maybe we should try the farmers market after all, of course by 10:30 it was pretty much too late. Anyways, I drove down and met T on Neal Avenue and we spent 2 hrs wandering the area and finding some select treasures. It was so nice just hanging out with him and chatting. T is one of my favorite people I met in my program, since the first weekend I visited Columbus. He is just so easy to talk to and I very much enjoy his company. After were were tired of walking and had covered most the area we grabbed lunch, then I headed home.


Saturday evening we had a birthday gathering to go to. We met at M's house, where they all surprised me embarrisingly with a large cutout of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). They could have at least got my Jacob! The funniest part though is that I had been plotting to do the same thing to J, another Twiligh fan. They beat me to it. After a photo op that turned out shockingly realistic we headed for gallery hop, where we browsed the galleries then settled in at MoJoe's for drinks. It was a nice evening, and again a late one, made even later by the fact that when we got home the puppy was wound up, despite having been only crated for 4-5 hrs all day (normally she is crated 10 hrs!). She kept me up all night pretty much, I got probably 4 hrs of interrupted and very spotty sleep. In the morning I felt like jello, but I couldn't really sleep either. I spent the day alternating between reading and sleeping until dinner time, at which time I finally bucked up, cleaned up, and took the dogs for a hour walk out by Westerville Community Center, hoping it would help River reset her clock and sleep through the night. It worked. Sunday night was relatively peaceful.

And that was the weekend. Other random things I feel the need to post about, now that its Thursday -

-- Another person from my unit at work left. That puts us from 6 newbies to begin with down to 3, with three months until probation. Apparently my class of 52 has lost 17 members already. We may have 50% attrition before the probation is up.

-- Since June 1st we are watching our budget, and I am watching my waistline - counting dollars and calories. It is going relatively smoothly. I actually am surprised how easy it has been to eat an appropriate ammount of calories, I hardly have felt deprived at all. Now its just persistance. I am using http://www.livestrong.com to track calories, fitness, and weight.

-- Earlier this week I reached the half way point of my reading goal for the year, slightly before the year is half up. In other words, I have read over 20,000 pages so far this year.

-- I am trying to figure out what I want this summer, you know, what I want to get out of summer. I am not getting very far and summer is already racing by. It does not help that so much of summer is already planned for me!! This weekend we have Friday night and Saturday night plans. Next weekend I hope to visit my sister. The weekend after that we have a wedding and my sister might visit us. The weekend after that is the fourth of July - we are headed to Illinois to celebrate with a friend from college. Then weekend of July 17th we head to New Jersey to see friends. August brings my little sister for a visit, and before I know it, the summer will be over. Now, all of these things are fun! for sure. But they don't leave much time for any other goals or smaller activities - like getting Grim trained up to go to the farmer's market, or finding a good pool to visit around Columbus, host BBQs with friends, try new summer recipes based on local harvest finds, or anything like that. The only thing I have come up with that would be really nice to do this summer that is not already planned is go to Cedar Point. We went two years ago and it was SO much fun, I would love to go again.

At least if summer rushes by, I won't notice the heat too much. I have loved the recent rain, and am said that we are not supposed to have a hot streak rising to 90+. Boo.
We will see what happens.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

It is really hard to believe it is June already. Five months of the year gone. I am starting to think organization is impossible. For my birthday cake I had another three-trip to the store mess to get it done. So, the bad part about it being June is that there are some things I wanted to do this year which I have hardly started, so its bad to approaching the midpoint. The good thing about it already being June is that we are that much closer to football season. But we are not quite there yet, so I will have to settle for baseball.

Last night DH and I went to the Clippers. It is the first time I have been to their new stadium in downtown Columbus and have to say I think its genius. It is so open and casual, with so many options about where to sit and how to experience the game. I love it. And the vending selections are great to so that eating out at the game seems like a treat rather than a chore, even with the slightly elevated prices you would expect. We were there with DH's coworkers and it was a lot of fun. We only stayed for seven innings, but I look forward to going again. Now if we could just manage to make it to a Crew game, summer would really be in full swing.