A whole week

without blogging, wow! Somebody spank me!

Last week, G lost his coat for the second time. It is labeled, which is good, but this time, it was still on the fence by the play area, where he left it; last time, it was in the Lost & Found box, which, 1 month into the school year, is already overflowing. Yoiks.

Had a good rehearsal for handbells (which sounds snotty and uptight but is actually challenging and fun) and choir. From now 'til Christmas, we'll be rehearsing from 6-9, a change from 6:30-8:30. Feels drudgelike, but the rehearsals themselves are fun, and I have a soft spot for Christmas music. I'll be playing flute for one of the pieces in our Christmas concert. The concerts are free and usually just an hour, so if you're interested, I'd love for you to come. This one is December 18 at 5PM at First Congregational Church of Alameda, United Church of Christ ("church isn't so churchy any more!").

Friday, I watched "Paycheck" with Samantha, while we ate Pad Thai and knitted. It was not bad; Sami caught on to the twists before I did, a common theme for me. Nancy (first gf) used to figure out movies WAY before I could. She's incisive that way.

Saturday, we lazed around the house till Allison came and the four of us headed off to the Alameda Marketplace to have our knives sharpened "for free" (which for me meant buying a $25 kitchen scale I had wanted anyway). I had the best roasted veggie sandwich with pesto; yum. G had the mac & cheese which wasn't Kraft and was really good.

Then we lazed around the house some more till we packed up & headed for Great America to buy our 2006 season passes for $60 each. We used this year's probably 4 times at GA and once at Bonfante Gardens, which is better for a kid G's age but takes 1 hour 20 mins to get there (sigh). We got to GA at 5PM, 1 hour before it closed, and the photo booth was closed. Turns out I could have bought the tickets online and had them processed in 2006, but it was fine--this was their Diwali celebration, so they had booths of Indian food (swoon) and a terrific fireworks display! We gorged on samosas, did a little end-of-season sale shopping (20% discount on everything with our VIP passes at certain shops!), and toodled on home for a relaxing evening.

Sunday, we headed out to Trader Joe's first thing to buy the food for the coffee hour after church. I'd signed up a while ago, when I thought I'd be hosting a Tupperware party the night before, but couldn't secure Phranc and waited too long to contact our local TupperDealer to get a local TupperPimp. But I do have a good one in the wings for the rescheduled party!

I bought what I thought was a lot of food, but everyone came down to coffee and were like locusts on the food. Seriously! I couldn't believe how fast it disappeared. I was feeling bad that I didn't have anything big & sweet, but a gal from church walked in just before church with a sheet cake for her husband's 40th. That went away completely, too. (Often, we have half of the cake left over!) I packed up the (very few!) leftovers and we went home.

I did a little knitting and a little laundry, and packed up my gear and stuff for G, and headed off to my hockey game a little early, even, which was good for getting G settled with the scorekeeper's daughter, who watched him while I played (and forgot about him completely). Had a great game--we lost, but who cares? I did some good stuff, made some dumb mistakes, laughed a lot, said "Outta my way, you big lug" to a bunch of players, and skated hard. Was skating backwards to cover Andrea at one point and when she passed me, tried to transition to skating forwards and nearly fell flat! Lovely. Andrea, Cheddah, and Tiffany were an unstoppable line and made lots of great plays together. Tiffany is one solid player now--that was quick! (Cheddah, your ankle seems to be working just fine, 1 year post break--great to play with you again) Liz was kind enough to leave her sweetie's team and come coach us, and she did a great job, even if we hardly shot the puck at all (2 shots in each of the first and third periods, yoiks).

Went out to IHOP with a crowd, where Liz held court, cracking one joke after another. I'm surprised no one had root beer coming out of her nose. My cod was not bad, thank you, at least the piece that didn't resemble a large eraser; so it isn't IHOC, you can still order cod and have a reasonable dinner. And the baked potato was perfect. Yum.

I put on my "Go to sleep" iPod playlist on the way home and G was out in 1.5 songs. Yippee!

Lucky not to throw my back out carrying first him, then my hockey bag, then the other bags o'stuff into the house. Too tired for swim class today, and besides, it looks bleak out there. I'm going home to knit for lunch. Then after lunch, more bug crunching.