Living Dangerously

Living dangerously today was not my immediate plan when I got up this morning.

I had a simple plan for the weekend. Lavie and I were going to concentrate on taking down all the Christmas decorations (finally!) around the house and get the rest of our Spring-cleaning taken care of. Well, you know it wouldn't turn out that simple. First we slept late. I stayed up too long last night watching "Go, Johnny, Go (1959) on Turner Classics and was dead-tired. It really was pretty cheesy. But getting a chance to watch some of the great early rock and roll artists couldn't be passed up. Chuck Berry, Ritchie Valens, The Cadillacs, The Flamingos. The lines some of them had to deliver were pretty off, and the social customs were so different but that was part of the enjoyment. I'd have to give it 3 out of 5 stars. So I got up, got some breakfast (I've lately taken to mixing granola cereal with my Cherrios) and brought in all the Christmas storages boxes. Well, in doing that I had to pull out the lawnmower. Having dug out the lawnmower I also realized that the back yard was looking in need of attention. So, since Lavie was still in bed, I decided to run a quick pass over the yard and pick up leaves.

Well, that meant getting the rakes out and raking all the leaves up from the side of the house/fence-line Eventually I got it going and got the yard cleaned up. In the process I almost cut two cable coax lines running from the junction box in the ground that had worked their way up from where they had been buried. It was a miracle that the mower didn't clip them as they had been hidden under a pile of leaves. Ok. So that meant a call to the cable company--only they don't have an option in their phone system to pick that. After 35 min of doing my civic-duty to report the exposed utility line I finally got a live person who took my information. By this time I needed a haircut which I ran out to take care of.

Upon my arrival back, Lavie was up and stirring so I cleared out of the way and turned my attention to the bedroom. Last week we bought a new mattress set on sale (since our old one was almost as old as Alvis). We have a European bed frame, which is to say it is framed and doesn't need a foundation piece. Well, we bought the set with foundation and that meant the new mattress left us almost a foot and a half higher in the air than before. It was very weird after you have spent so much time sleeping just above the floor. I keep feeling like I was going to fall off. So, I decided to take off the lath and just drop the foundation onto the floor, thereby letting the bedframe "float" around the mattresses. However, that meant I had to pull some 1" strips of wood off each bedrail so the foundation piece could drop down between the rails (and I haven't even mentioned cleaning out the underside of the bed that we used for storage). Eventually this was successfully done and looked really good, except for the storage contents now needing relocation. Lavie had come in to help now (Christmas decorations cleanup long since abandoned in place!).

The contents of several of the boxes needed disposal were found to contain "marriage-memory" material. These being several boxes of custom printed napkins from our wedding over 14 years ago, lace and doilies from the reception tables, thank you cards, the wedding planner book, etc. Also found were some of Alvis's baby dresses. (Alvis came is once to see what was going on, spied the contents and high-tailed it out fast--smart one, she is.) Needless to say, this diversionary walk down memory lane took more time as we "negotiated" what needed to be kept and what could be "permanently-retired." (We kept most everything, surprised?) By this time I had spent so much time in the bedroom on the floor, I was able to see the decor from a different perspective, and the decor just plain looked tired. (Maybe I've been watching too much Home and Garden TV on cable...So a quick dash was planned out to Pier1. We found a pair of oriental-style tiered shelves to replace the mixed pieces we were using for nightstands. I also picked up a rattan chair with seat-cushion so I don't have to sit on the bedroom floor during our nightly family novel-reading sessions. Comfy!

On the way home from the store, we stopped in for dinner at the local Japanese restraunt. I tried a new sushi roll containing smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese. Yummers. Alvis liked it as well. Lavie doesn't do sushi, yet. We had some grilled terriaki dishes for the main course (Lavie-beef, me-shrimp) Alvis ate miso soup and rice and picked at ours. For dessert, Lavie really wanted to try a sweet dessert fruit sushi like she found in one of my sushi books, but the sushi chefs hadn't made it for a long time and since it wasn't on the menu, didn't want to try without seeing a picture first--so we promised to bring it in next visit. Instead we tried the tempura fried green-tea ice-cream. The tempura was lightly sweet and was a wonderful compliment to the green-tea ice-cream. It was almost wasabi-green in color. Very bright, but the flavor was light and delicate, slightly bitter and complimented the sweet tempura batter nicely. Nothing was left.

When we got home we finished putting the bedroom together. Hours later we are very excited. It is the first time our bedroom has really looked balanced and warm to fit our personalities. We still have a lot of work to do, but the bed is back at a "normal" height, I have a reading chair, we have matching bookcases for nightstands with room for all the manga and anime statuettes. All is well.

And the Christmas cleanup? Well, tomorrow is another day!

Tomorrow, I will catch you up on the world of tech....lots to see! Been an exciting hunt this week. Got some goodies for you all!

See you in the skies,
--Claus