24 October 2001
Last year: Last night, in light of the discussion, I fired up the browser to check them out a little early.
So we went out last night to have dinner with K.T. and Kevin and Colleen and Carl. (Wow, I just realized we have some alliterative relationships here... But I digress.)
After they got their check from the settlement, K.T. and Kevin put a little more than half of it into a money market account, which I thought was wise - I know if I have "extra" money laying about, I'm that much more likely to spend it. Most of the rest got put into their bank account, to be used for paying bills; and then K.T. took a certain amount of it and went on a shopping spree, as a sort of payment to herself for nearly six months of pain.
She got some very nice clothes - later this week, I think, we're going to go shopping because otherwise I'm doomed to months of lusting after her new sweater. (I'm not supposed to buy anything this close to my birthday, I know. But I very much doubt that anyone is going to be giving me even a gift certificate for clothing, much less specific articles. I'll save my receipts.)
And they got some DVDs, and some nifty Lego sets. And they took us out to dinner, at the Samurai, which is a Japanese hibachi restaurant.
We had a lot of fun. We drank plum wine, tried to teach Carl how to use chopsticks, told stories, and generally were extremely silly.
K.T. found the wine at her grocery store later - for $5 a bottle. Five dollars a bottle. The restaurant had marked it up to $17 (or $4 a glass). That's a 340% markup - and that's assuming the restaurant paid retail prices for the stuff! Sheesh!
But I'm glad she found it; Matt and I had been keeping an eye open for it ever since our last trip to Samurai, but hadn't seen it. And I really like it - unlike most wine, which is too astringent for me to enjoy.
(I'm so abnormal. Normal people drink beer; I can't stand the stuff but will happily swig hard cider. Normal people drink wine; I choke on even the sweetest varieties but develop a yen for plum wine. Ah, well, at least my abnormal tastes are relatively inexpensive.)
So anyway, barring an incident that has guaranteed that I will never again tell Matt any secrets about my Hall characters, I had a lovely evening. (And even that one incident wouldn't have been so bad if 1 - he hadn't smirked about it so much, and 2 - the Mutant Worrybrain hadn't had an opportunity to make things worse. Stupid Mutant Worrybrain.)
A couple of weeks ago, the skin on my hands - especially around the natural wrinkles and creases in my skin - started peeling. I noticed it in the shower. The skin felt thicker than it needed to, and in the heat and steam of the shower, would turn pale, like dead skin. I reached for my scrubby, and an almost alarming amount of skin sloughed off.
Yeah, I know; skin renews itself all the time. I'd just never seen it quite like this before.
My amusing conceit is that I'm shedding the skin of my youth as I move toward my thirtieth birthday. Maybe my pinata party will actually be symbolic.
Or maybe I should just start using hand lotion.
Word of the Day:
gravitate - 1: to move under the influence of gravitation; 2: (a) to move toward something (b) to be drawn or attracted especially by natural inclination
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Kris' afghan
- Hall stuff