Not Restful – Ragtime!

As you know, after last week’s non-stop activities, I was looking forward to a restful week. At least in the evenings, since work is unfailingly crazy during the day.

No such luck. But it’s not so bad.

On Monday, we took an evening trip to Wal-Mart where I remembered everything we needed…except for my nylons. Why would I need those? Oh yeah, I wear them to work everyday! I was so mad at myself when I got home!

Actually, we had a pretty funny moment in Wal-Mart (where we otherwise had the typically terrible customer service we have come to expect from Wal-Mart). Brett and I were wandering down the picnic aisle, which also included the alcohol selections. Brett stopped to look at one of the labels, and I teased him (since it had been an especially tough day at work for him) by saying, “C’mon honey, you know we can’t drown our sorrows in alcohol.”

“I know,” he said. Then he looked down the next aisle, which happened to be dairy products. “But can we at least drown them in ice cream?”

I was like, “You bet we can!”

We took home a lot of ice cream.

Things went downhill after that when the entire deli staff went on break at the same time and the unshaven, bearded guy “from shipping” took forever to get our lunchmeat ready. There was a crowd of us waiting, and he kept saying, “Hey, I just work in shipping. Everybody else is on break. Geez, I’m just nice guy who offered to help. How do I run this thing?”

Yeah, I’m not ripping into that lunchmeat right way.

The shopping trip combined with washing and preparing the rabbit’s veggie mix had me crawling into bed at around 11:30 p.m.

The next day (Tuesday) I spent the morning – 2 hours worth! – preparing our fruit mix. It takes SO LONG to chop up all that fruit and put it in containers, but we both love having fresh fruit salad, so it’s worth it. It’s especially worth it for Brett who absolutely LOVES it! He’s always so much happier when we have fresh fruit in the house.

This time the fruit salad contained strawberries, grapes, cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, and frozen raspberries. Brett also bought mangos, but I couldn’t figure out to chop them up…so he can just add them to HIS fruit salad!

I had planned to hit Weight Watchers after work and then head home to relax. BUT…one of my girl reps called and told me she had reserved two tickets for me and a guest to see her perform in Rock Valley College’s Starlight Theatre production of Ragtime. Well, I could hardly say “no,” because:

She’s one of my favorite girl reps.
I love musicals.
I love plays.
I love Starlight Theatre.
She’s an amazing performer, and I wanted to be there for support!

So, I had to find a date. I called Mom, and she was up for the adventure!

The play didn’t start until 8:00 p.m., so I was able to hit Weight Watchers after all. Much to my delight, I had only gained 1.8 pounds in my three week absence! Yea! I can get THAT off pretty quickly.

I stayed for the meeting and got to see an old friend from high school, Tancy, and her mom. They sat by me, and we had a great time. Tancy was still as funny as I remembered, and now I’m not scared of her anymore.

Tancy was ahead of me in high school by two years, and I always thought she was SO popular. She was actually pretty nice to me, but those older high school girls always seem intimidating.

Tancy looked great! She’s lost over 60 pounds on Weight Watchers and still has that great skin tone she did in high school (curses! :-). Her mom looked great too, and the three of us joked through most of the meeting. Mostly about how a talkative man in the back row needed to put his leg down so we could stop looking at pasty white middle-age “man-thigh.” No thanks, buddy.

After the meeting, Mom met me in the parking lot. We shared dinner at Wendy’s where Mom managed to spill chili on both her shirt and her WHITE pants. I’m definitely NOT adopted as I do that all the time! After consuming dinner and forcing a Frosty on Mom, we headed to the theater for Ragtime.

It was the largest production Starlight Theatre has ever done. The hard work and long hours the actors put in – 8 hour days, six days a week, plus performances – definitely showed in one of the best plays I’ve ever seen. Congratulations to director Mike Webb on this production. Kudos! Applause!

My girl rep shone on stage as one of the Harlem group dancers and singers. Her grandfather and her mom sat next to me and Mom during the performance. Her mom told me this was actually a special preview night for family and friends and that the play actually “opens” today (Wednesday). I was taken back and honored she had given me two tickets of the four allotted to her for the play. It made me feel good about the relationships I’ve established with my girl reps and their amazing parents.

The only bad thing about the play was a little rain – okay, a lot of rain – but they closed the roof in time, so we primarily just got dripped on.

After the play ended, at 11:00 p.m., Mom and I headed to our respective homes, tired but happy. I went to bed around midnight. Brett resurfaced from sleep long enough to say that he loved me and then instantly fell back asleep (how does he do that?!) while I heard the amazing music from Ragtime still ringing in my head.

So, it has not been a restful week, yet. Wal-Mart, Ragtime, and tonight – Kids 4 Truth! But, like I said, it’s not too bad. At least I’m having a great time NOT being restful!