Sheep Guarding Llama

Today the Grices and the Millers are all in San Antonio watching Madeline’s band compete in the state championships.  It was a long day for them but they got some adorable pictures of Liesl and Luciana cheering her on.  They had a lot of fun out there today.  It was a very long day of marching bands all day.  Unfortunately Madeline’s band did not make the finals so they headed for Houston on the early side.

Today is my final day at home alone.  Dominica and the girls are getting on a plane from Hobby airport early in the morning and should be touching down at JFK at half past eleven.  I cannot wait to see the girls again!  I have been so lonely.  It has been a really tough few weeks.

Today was my cleaning day, all day.  I spent nearly the entire day working on cleaning up the house which has been nearly untouched since Dominica and the girls left.  Toys are still all over the floor and the house is effectively unusable from the mess.  So today I focused on getting it as clean as I could on my own in one day which included three trips out to the trash area!  The only major things that I did not manage to do were the dishes and the laundry.  Otherwise the house looks pretty decent.  The living room is all cleaned up.

Stayed up watching some movies tonight.  The main one was The Sum of All Fears which I have not seen in a very long time.

Busy day of posting today.  Got up and got right to it this morning.  Kept myself pretty busy all day.  Today I was supposed to get the phone call with the details as to the next steps for everything at work.  Well, no call on Friday and I waited all day and no call today.  This is ridiculous.  This is a one day process, at most.  It’s been like seven weeks of procrastination and stalling.  The waiting and waiting is getting very tough.

Only two more days, after today, without the family.  I can make it.  Only a little longer.

The family all drove out to San Antonio late this morning so that they could get there with a nice, daylight drive and get into their hotel and relax this evening so that they would be prepared for the state marching band competitions tomorrow at the Alamodome.  Everyone is pretty excited.

This evening, rather late after it was dark, I went downtown and got Subway again.  I just ate there tonight.

Once it was late I bought the recent release Sex Tape on Amazon VOD and watched that.  Dominica has been wanting to see it too and it has a good cast so I figured that it was a good purchase.  It’s so hard to know when it is worth buying something and when it is not.  We buy very little these days but rentals are so expensive. Of course, we rent very little too.

Got up this morning and played a little Saints Row 2 before going down to Subway to pick up lunch and grab something for dinner as well so that I would not have to worry about it later.  There is basically nothing left to eat in the house so I am down to eating out to get anything.

This evening I watched some movies.  I have had Australia’s Muriel’s Wedding on my “to watch” list since the late 1990s but just never got around to it.  I always meant to rent it on LD.  Dominica had watched it recently but I was not aware of that.  It is a good film, very well done and obvious why it is a classic.  Not exactly a comedy, as it was touted, but a good film.

I also watched the Irish film The Stag which was excellent.  Funny and poignant.  I really liked it and it has the bad guy from Sherlock starring in it.  I also watched the Korean classic 200 Pounds Beauty, which I think is a mistranslation.  It is the biggest box office hit ever for Korea.  That was quite good, however I think that they were trying to deliver a message and I never figured out what it is.  It kind of just ended up being a commentary on the obsession with beauty and plastic surgery in Korea.  Basically the moral of the movie was “plastic surgery is horrible, but if you are ugly that’s worse, so suck it up and get plastic surgery because beauty matters more than anything.”

I rounded out the night with the Canadian film The Movie Out Here which was pretty good and shot in British Columbia.  More or less a stock low budget comedy but well done for what it was.

I FaceTimed with the girls for a while this evening.  They were very excited to get a chance to talk to me.  Luciana still struggles with having anything to talk about when on FaceTime but she is happy to see me and says “I love you” and “I miss you daddy” over and over again.  Liesl, as always, is full of news and tells me about anything and everything.  Only a few more days until they are home.  They are leaving for San Antonio tomorrow.  Madeline’s marching band competition is no Wednesday.

As yesterday was Halloween I decided to avoid going out because it would just be crowds and I certainly did not want to get dressed up or anything like that.  I knew that there was a holiday pub crawl down town and it sounded interesting but I decided against it.  But I figured that I would probably go out tonight, at least.  Tonight is “fall back” so we get that extra hour.  Might as well take advantage of it.

I went downtown and got some Subway for lunch today.  Not great for the diet, but not all that bad either.

I started playing a new video game today, Saints Row 2.  It was pretty good.  It is pushing my PC completely to its limits.   I am seeing the game slow down to some degree.  When I was playing KOTOR it really ran completely smoothly.  With this it is still not bad but not as good as it should be.  I so need a new computer.  I just keep putting it off to save money, though.  Just not the right time yet.

I played quite a few video games today.  Then around eight o’clock I walked downtown and checked out The Hudson Room.  I had met some of the folks from The Hudson Room the other night at The Quietman Pub which is right down the street from it and they had told me that I had to come check it out.  I had looked on their website and an interesting Gypsy Jazz trio was going to be playing there tonight at ten so it seemed a perfect time to go check them out.  It is very rare that I get to go see live jazz anywhere, especially within walking distance of home.

It was cold out tonight, in the mid-forties, but the walk was nice.  I listened to some podcasts.

It was close to nine when I got in to the club.  I was shocked at how busy it was.  They were quite full.  The tables were all full and the bar was standing room only.  It is a very large venue, I had no idea that it was so big in there.  I sat at the bar after waiting a bit to get a seat and ordered my customary side car.  I ended up getting to meet the owner this evening and someone at the bar shared their truffle oil fries with me, they were amazing.  I ended up ordering the tofu stir fry for dinner which was excellent.

The band was really good.  Totally my type of music and great for an evening out.  I believe that the band’s name was Tre Gypsy Jazz.  I heard that they had come up from Brooklyn.

I stayed until the band shut down around twenty after one.  Then I followed some of the HH staff to the Birdsall where we hung out till the second 2am.  From there, the long, cold walk back up the hill to the house.  That was not exactly fun.  Lower 40s and a lot of hill to climb.

Only four more days until the family comes home.  Into the home stretch now.

Happy Halloween!

I have a feeling that some of my back and neck pain is from being at my desk so much the past three weeks (this morning marks my three week point of being home continuously!)  So I found a large book and put it under my non-adjustable monitor to see if that would help by having me look more forward facing and less downward.  My desk was set up more for casual use than for regular use.  Unfortunately I really needed my new desktop prior to this long stretch at home but now that I am home there isn’t time to get it and make use of it, and we don’t want to spend that much money unnecessarily and we have no idea if I am home for a long time yet or just another day or two.  So, I am stuck with what I have.

Around five or six this evening I got the first of my trick or treaters.  I quickly discovered that the candy that Dominica had bought was nowhere to be found.  I searched all over and could not find it.  I had to turn away the first people that came to me door because I had nothing for them.  I knew that she had picked up candy for me to give out because I told her that I had to have something (she wanted me to give out regular food!!)  I had not turned the lights on yet so they could only be so upset, I wasn’t advertising that I had anything.

So I called Dominica and she explained that the candy was hidden in the cupboard under the coffee maker back behind the normal stuff in there.  Um, how was I ever supposed to find that?  Often these things are just “Scott doesn’t look for things like normal people.”  I understand that I am not good at finding things.  But this was a bit crazy.  In a cupboard where that stuff doesn’t go, in front of which is stacked boxes so I wouldn’t even know that that had been opened recently, back behind the things that normally go in there so even if I looked in there I would not find it…. wow.

After that point, I got a lot of trick or treaters.  More than I have ever gotten, anywhere, before.  Including the two that I had to turn away, I got 82 total before I turned off the lights and acted like I wasn’t home because it was dark, late and we were out of candy.  That is a lot of kids.

Liesl and Luciana had a great time dressed up as princesses and they collected a lot of candy.  They always have a great time going around in Houston.  Luciana fell asleep before they were done, she just couldn’t take anymore.  Liesl could not walk by the end and Dominica had to carry her on her back for the last mile.  At least Dominica got some good exercise out of the whole thing.  At least I got to see some pictures of them trick or treating.  Madeline went as a weeping angel, which is awesome.  I am very sad to not get to be out with my girls tonight 🙁

I had to set up a new community tonight for Reel Fishing.  If you are into fishing, which I am not, check it out.  Once I was done with that I played maybe half an hour of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2.  But the game crashed after not too long and I wasn’t feeling much like going back and doing it again.  I had saved not too far from where it crashed.  But I did not have a lot of energy.  So I called it a night.

I went to bed quite early, for me, tonight.  Decided that I was just not going to be productive and felt like getting some rest.  So I did.  It’s nice having no schedule.