Double Feature on the Cheap

My self-imposed goal is to clean one room each day until I leave. Today's assignment was Sofia's room, which was probably the easiest. So after work I stripped her bed, washed the sheets, dusted off her ceiling fan and vacuumed the floor. I was going to shampoo the carpet, but I realized I had left dirty water in the shampooer, so I've got it soaking in a tub of water to loosen up the dried sand and grit. I'll get it all spic-and-span before I shampoo the carpets.

I decided to treat myself to a double feature tonight. I have an educator's pass for the IMAX theater closest to our house. This means I can get into any IMAX movie for free. But I rarely use it because 1) they don't always have the most appealing choices there (usually it's the nature-themed, made-for-IMAX films, and 2) I don't usually go to the movies by myself. Normally, using my pass would mean someone else would have to pay the overpriced IMAX admission. And it's 11 bucks for an adult. Ouch. There's too many things I want to see int he regular theater to burn a trip tot he movies on Under the Sea 3-D.

But sometimes when I'm home alone, I'll break out the old educator's pass and go watch something just because I can. And it's free. So at 7 tonight, I'm going to see Monsters vs. Aliens 3-D. I'd wanted to take the kids to see this, but hadn't gotten around to it yet. So I'll be previewing it for them. Alex will be so jealous.


Then, I'm going to walk over to the Harkins Multiplex (it's right beside the IMAX theater) and see Drag Me to Hell. I love a good horror movie, but I rarely watch them these days because no one I watch movies with likes horror movies. Least of all my wife. And I don't think my friend Peter cares for them either. I've heard good things about this one. And it's Sam Raimi. And he's been itching to get back to his horror roots after making three Spiderman movies, so I expect a lot of pent-up horror filmmaking to come exploding out on the screen.


I'll have to pay for this one, but I'll wear my Harkins t-shirt and get free popcorn. And I'll take my Harkins cup and get a $1 refill. So total cost for the evening's double feature, including popcorn, and soda...$8. That's what I call a cheap date.

The house is so quiet

My family is in an airplane, heading to Denver.

In case you're not a frequent reader or you're not privy to the details of my life, I should explain that my wife and children are heading to Costa Rica. It's been 3 years since Cristina last saw her dad. I decided to teach summer school to help finance this overdue trip to Costa Rica, but there's no reason why the rest of the family has to hang out here in the sweltering desert while I teach. So they headed out tonight (via Denver...don't ask...it was cheaper). It's a red-eye, which Cristina was less than thrilled about, but after living for 16 years on student loans or a teacher's salary, she's used to taking one for the team in order to save money.

My last day of teaching is Thursday, June 25. The bell rings at 2:15 and my plane leaves at 7:40. So I'll be joining them as soon as humanly possible.

We come back together on July 28. That's 6 weeks for them, 4 weeks for me.

So we had all weekend to pack, but Cristina procrastinated as usual (I can totally blame this on her, since I'm not leaving yet!) With everything packed but Cristina's stuff, I finally went to bed around 2 am (in Bella's bed, since Cristina had clothes all over our bed). Cristina finished her clothes and carried me to our bed around 4:45. OK, she didn't actually carry me, but I thought that would be a funny image. And then my alarm went off at 6:15 for work. Here's the funny part: I just re-read my 2006 blog and we stayed up till 4:30 packing back then and the alarm was set for 6:15!

We don't have many plans for while we're there, other than a few little things (get eye exams and new glasses--where it's cheaper--and renew Cristina and the kids' Costa Rican passports, etc.) I know we're going camping at a fish camp in the mountains, where you catch the trout yourself out of a stocked pool, they clean them and cook them for you, and you're eating fish that were literally alive less than an hour ago. Now that's fresh. That's a fun spot. And beautiful. We visited there once in 2006 for dinner, but this time we're going to stay a couple of nights.

And I'm sure we'll hit out favorite relaxation spot: Tabacon.



Yes, that's an active volcano in the background. Yes, that's a water slide that comes from the restaurant. And all the pools (there are about 10 of them) are filled with mineral waters warmed by the volcano. It's totally decadent and tourtisty, but it's one of the few splurges we usually take.

I'm also seriously considering taking a zipline canopy tour. Also a very touristy thing which we've never done because--except for my first trip in 1994--we've always had a baby or very young one. Now our youngest is 5 (the minimum age allowed). Bella probably won't want to do it, but the two older kids will. I think this might be the summer. We'll just have to figure out what to do with Bella.

In case you don't know, I'm talking about a thing where you ride along cables strung up throughout the canopy of the rain forest. Something like this:


It's kind of expensive, but so is Disney World, and Lord knows we've done that plenty of times. We have to do this at least once. I've been to Costa Rica 6 times and I've never done the ziplines. It's time.

In 2006, I blogged our trip. That was a first. I've always kept a journal and it has evolved over the years. The first one in 1994 was written longhand (egads!) on a tablet of lined paper. As the trips continued, and laptops entered the picture, I typed up my journals (much preferred) and emailed them to select family members that wanted to keep up with our exploits. So the blog was a natural progression (with photos to boot). But now I've been a bona fide blogger for over a year. The question is do I do this summer's Costa Rican journal on my regular blog, or do I create a special blog just for the trip? I decided that I would journal right here on this very blog. Better than making my regular readers have to check a new one.

And now my 4 hours of sleep are catching up with me, and though it's weird to go to bed in a silent house with no one here but a dog and 2 cats, I must do it.

Miscellanea

• Today I made a chicken pot pie, one of my family's favorites. It requires a moderate amount of labor. Although it isn't difficult, I like to carve out a few hours to spend working on it. While I prepped the ingredients today, I realized how much I enjoy afternoons like today: puttering around in the kitchen, some good music playing, snacking on this and that. I didn't eat lunch today, but I grazed all afternoon while I cooked. A celery stick here, some chips and salsa there. A hunk of sharp cheddar, a whole wheat English muffin, an iced coffee...whatever strikes my fancy. Anyway, the chicken pot pie turned out great. We really should do it more often.
  

• Sadly, we lost a tree in our front yard today. We only had two trees (our front yard is tiny). A few days ago, some stormy weather caused one of the trees to lean. Over the next three days it slowly kept leaning until it was practically on the ground. The landscapers came today and chopped it down and hauled it away. I hope they plan to plant another! We lost some vital shade on that corner of the house.

• The shaggy head experiment is over. Alex had been growing his hair for the past three months or so, with the intention of letting it grow really long. I needed a haircut, and a couple of days ago when he heard that I was planning to go get mine cut, he said he was ready for one too. So I gave him a trim in the garage with the electric razor. I didn't go as short as I did last summer (Cristina thought that had been too short) so his scalp has a little bit more coverage this time. But it's definitely still a buzz cut, which makes hair labor (shampooing, combing in the morning) much easier. If my hair was as thick as his, I might give myself the same kind of haircut. But I think I'll stick with Great Clips. Although it really should be called Adequate Clips, because it's not that great.

• My conversion from PC to Mac is almost complete. Yesterday I switched the printer over to the Macbook. So now there really isn't any reason to keep using the PC. Yet, I'm typing this blog on the PC right now. Because it's still here, still works, and it has the big monitor. Soon, I'll switch the big monitor over to the Macbook as well.

• I just killed a fly with my bare hands. We have heavy white curtains that can close off the computer desk and I just saw a fly land on the curtain. He wandered inside the folds, so I clapped my hands on the curtain where he was inside. When I opened up the curtain folds, the dead fly fell out. Score.

• I can't seem to fall asleep. Which is why I'm blogging.

• I just killed a second fly using the same technique! Why are there so many flies upstairs? And why do they keep wandering into the Curtains of Death?
  

Sofia's Birthday Pool Party

On May 16, Sofia invited some friends over to our community pool for a celebration of her 13th birthday. Here's a little taste of the afternoon...

Sofia's Spring Piano Recitals

The backlog of videos I've been meaning to post continues...

Sofia had her Spring duet piano recital on her birthday, during school. I took the day off of work and my parents were visiting, so the three of us got to be there. There weren't very many people in the audience, but that allowed me to get a good shot. The second recital (same song) is the ASA 6th, 7th, and 8th grade honors piano recital. It took place in the evening and was very well-attended. Thus, not as good of a shot. But the audio is the important thing anyway.

Alex's Spring Performance

On May 2, Alex and his 2nd grade class performed at Desert Marigold School's Spring Performance. They did a recitation, a song, and "Jack and Jill" in Spanish.



The snazzy outfit was Alex's choice. He's a dapper dude.

Mother's Day Song

It's not too often I have my wife and mother here at the same time for Mother's Day. And since that was the case, I did Mother's Day up much bigger than usual.

One thing I did for Cristina is re-write the lyrics to the old 20's song "Tonight You Belong to Me." The kids helped me record it. All three are singing. I'm especially proud of Sofia's trumpet solo. And she got it on the first take!

Anyway, I know it can be hard to hear the lyrics sometimes, so I put subtitles on the video. Enjoy.



By the way, I made the gifts in my ceramics class.