Rochester Life

Today is a sad day for me. It is officially the last day of my February Break. 

All you non-teachers that had to work all week, quit your sassing.  I get it. I’m lucky. I get vacations all the time-during all of the peak travel times. 

And please don’t give me that lame old line “it must be nice to have your summers off.” 

 My response to you: “it must be nice to pee whenever you need to and not just during 5 minutes of passing time.”

The truth having the summer off is nice.  Its fantastic even.  Oh yeah, I teach summer school.

As for this vacation, here’s a run-down of how I filled my days.

Monday: My first official day-off.  Lets be honest, I did a lot of nothing.  I got up late, and I watched DOOL.   

The most productive thing I did was to purchase and to install a new toilet seat and a new toilet paper holder.

Tuesday: Tuesday held so much promise.  It was scheduled to be my Eden Home Cleaning visit.  Oh how I love returning home to a organic chocolates on my pillow.  Alas, my appointment was canceled because of equipment issues. 

So instead I spent the day applying wood conditioner and the first coat of stain to my future sink stand.

Wednesday: My day started early with a less than stellar turn as #1 Health Care worker.  Honestly, I thought I was going to have to relinquish my title to MHG. 

After a brief visit back to naps-ville, I finished my second coat of stain and the first two coats of polyurethane. 

The highlight of Wednesday was definitely a visit to Lucky-Simon.  Every girl could use a little face-time with that nugget of love.

Thursday: Yesterday was all about straightening up. 

First, I had to straighten up, fly right and focus on being the best damn ‘rent-a-shot’ progesterone deliverer this side of Strong Hospital. 

After that, I was off to tackle the box of old bills sitting in my office.  (Yes, I said box of bills– JYIII would not be proud) Two hours later, chronologically sorted and filed, my bill-work was complete.

So I headed to the kitchen where I was faced with the rather unwelcomed task of cleaning out my refrigerator.  I always feel better when its done, but it has to be one of my least favorite tasks.  The result, a sparkling (though not KAY quality shine) food storage device filled with…. almost nothing. Who knew I had nothing to eat.

Friday:So here we are back at my depressing last day of my precious time off.  I made my last visit to Casa de Crosman this morning with positive results.

A quick stop at Wegmans for some MeowMix for my starving kitties and I was back in bed. (I do not usually recommend a diet of kitty treats and tuna but in a pinch it can appease the furry loves of your life and earn you an extra hour of sleep in the morning.)

I just finished ordering my brand new vessel sink and who knows what the rest of today will bring. All I’m wondering is…

…when is my next day off??

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Makin’ your way in the world today takes everything you got…

Thursday night is dance-class night.  JAY and I are trying our hat at an Adult Dance Sampler class as the Hochstein School of Music and Dance.

Takin’ a break from all your worries sure would help a lot…

We started back in September learning the fine points of Jazz dancing.  Tori, our fearless leader, choreographed a routine for us to “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”  Though we never could quite master ‘the turn,’ we were sad to see the Jazz portion end and the tap portion begin.

Tap was not as much fun.  There was no routine–just a lot of fa-lapping around and maybe a buffalo or two.

Wouldn’t you like to get away…

We are now into our 3rd Quarter of dance class.  In this, the Musical Theater dance, portion we are revisiting some of our old moves.  In fact, so far it seems very much like the exact same dance with different background music.

Sometimes you wanna go…

The best part of dance night, however, does not involve dancing at all.  After each class JAY and I stop by Acme Bar & Pizza for pizza and beer.

And finally, this Thursday it happened…

…where everybody knows your name…

We officially became regulars.  Our fine waitress, who’s served us many a pizza and pitcher, showed us the on-tap list without us even having to ask.  I’ve never been a regular anywhere before.  Quite honestly, I’ve never that cool.

But now that I am.  I’d like to speak to the manager about how they’re always out of broccoli.

Okay–so maybe I’m still not that cool….

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Recently I acquired my own Nike Plus running system. However, I, like many of my fellow runners, do not have the fancy shoes with a built in recess under the insert.

So, when I first received my tiny little running partner, I tried several different methods to circumvent my “wrong shoe” problem.

I have heard rumors of people carving up their Reebok’s and Asics just to have the chance to track their runs with this exciting technology. Not so easy I’m afraid.

STRIKE ONE.

Someone advised me that he put it in his pocket while he runs. What kind of clothes is he running in? I don’t own any winter running gear with pockets. Actually, I don;t think I own any exercise clothing with pockets. Besides if I had the money to buy new exercise-wear with pockets, I’d just buy the Nike shoes instead.

I do wear gloves!

So, I tried putting the sensor in my glove… 1 hour and 20 minutes later… according to my running sherpa… I had cruised my way to .24 miles (that’s not TWENTY FOUR miles…thats POINT TWO FOUR miles). Thats right friends, that sensor in my golves tracked me as running a 339 minute mile….WOO HOO.

STRIKE TWO

I knew I wanted to attach it to my shoe somehow. If only it came with a miniature zip lock that could be threaded through my shoe lace. The best alternative was to jam it precariously in between the tongue of my shoe and the laces. And…

…victory was mine. Though I was extremely preoccupied by the thought of my precious sensor flying out of my shoe lace along the way, I finally received an accurate reading and a fantastic greeting.

Upon completion of my run Lance Armstrong himself congratulated me on my longest run ever. I nearly peed my pants. Little did Lance know that head to head in a marathon we might actually be close competitors… nonetheless he wanted to personally wish me well.

Miracle of miracles, today I had another record breaking day! Lo and behold, another legend, Joan Benoit-Samuelson informed me of my fastest “per mile” pace EVER… well two days worth of forever.

So I was curious, does everyone get such high power athletes to reward them with motivating mantras at the end of their workouts??

The answer– NO. HELL, NO!

While I can’t say why, JAY has only been congratulated by Victoria Something-or-other. MHG, well, he hasn’t been congratulated by anyone.

At this rate, someday soon NIKE’s gonna be asking me to supply the encouraging voice to aspiring runners.

“Hi, This is SKY. Congratulations, you’ve just completed your fastest run ever. “

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This is the weird time in the Project Runway season where we don’t know who makes it to Fashion Week in NYC, but last week was Fashion Week in NYC. If you can’t wait to see the collections, check them out at New York Magazine’s site!

From New York Magazine

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This Sunday’s dinner include bacon-wrapped meatloaf, spaghetti squash, 10-vegetable salad and banana cupcakes. I still didn’t finish in time. But at least we finished before the Grammys. And lucky for MHG, Tina Turner performed the song for our Adult Dance Sampler Jazz number. So he got a special show!

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I’ve always been a believer that a girl should dream big. 

So I was shocked at MHG’s response to my musings about Heaven.   I simply mentioned that my Heaven would come complete with a mattress made of hamburger patties topped with a banana xango pillow and a cheese-stick blanket.  To which MHG responded “well then I hope I don;t go to Heaven.” 

Since when did my Heaven have anything to do with his??  Don’t I get a personally designed space in which the spirit of me gets to live out eternity?  And shouldn’t that magical place be able to break all earthly conventions of bedroom furniture?

I sure hope so. 

In fact, come to think of it, I’m not sure there’s room for ‘haters’ in my heaven…

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JAY, as I’ve mentioned before, is full of great ideas. What I need to be clear about is that sometimes her ideas involve a lot of work for MHG and me.

Case Study: Strawberry Picking

I like the idea of picking my own strawberries, I do. I like it even better when it comes with a fantastic, if not appropriately sized, cowboy hat to protect my youthful skin from the sun.

(Note: MHG likes the idea of picking OUT his own strawberries — driving up to a stand, pointing at the ones he likes best, paying and driving away.)

So last summer when JAY suggested a trip to Bauman’s Farm Market and Cider Mill, I agreed to be a part. When we arrived, JAY selected 9 empty quarts and we set off into the fields….and by we I mean MHG and me.

Snippity-snapping away, JAY spent the first half-hour taking photos. It was only after I had nearly filled 2 full quarts that she began to contribute to her 3-quart quota.

Migrant Worker #1 (that’s me) outperformed the rest. Efficient as ever, I loaded up 4 brimming quarts. I swear, I don’t try, these opportunities to shine, these chart-topping performances just fall into my lap.

Here are some of my other un-sought-after crowns:

Health-Care Worker #1— based on the quantity of blood loss or lack of blood loss in my case.

Adult-Dance-Sampler Tapper #1— although I do not have moves named after me like Juanita, and Emily did temporarily play the part of dance class nemesis, at least I’m not ‘Simply the Worst.’

Eat your heart out Gu-ass…

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