Another Catch Up Post: Valentine's Day Weekend

Matt works four 10-hour days, so he had Friday off, and he took the truck in to get the oil changed and other mechanical maintenance stuff. I'm glad he keeps up with it because I would (and have) let an engine seize up from not maintaining it. At the 2-hour mark, he called me and I picked him up. We took him to a burger joint for lunch (I wasn't hungry) and he said the burgers were too expensive and tasted just like In-N-Out Burger. The fries were better than In-N-Out though (I stole quite a few from him).

We then stopped off at one of the realty offices that has a "free foreclosure list." The Realtor was chatty, so we talked with her for a while, took the list and drove around looking. There are no likely prospects in our price range, so we think it is best we have to wait out our lease. Like I have mentioned before, we have a list of wants: 1) room for a "pony" (shop); 2) 1600+ square feet; 3) big garage. Believe it or not, the price is going UP for houses like that. Everything else is spiraling down, down, down. We picked up his truck at 4 and went home.
We went shopping for groceries. I made fried green beans, boiled potatoes, and bananas and strawberries for desert. We then watched the new version of Persuasion, which is awesome. I then watched Humboldt County when Matt went to bed. The fireworks went on until 10 PM.

Saturday was Valentine's Day, and we kind of lallygagged in the morning. However, there was a Rockabilly Reunion that day. Matt was also excited because the local museum was showing Casablanca at 1:30. We planned on going to the Reunion and then head over the see the film.

Are you familiar with Rockabilly? Let me tell you, it comes out of the music from the early 80s (the Stray Cats comes to mind--awesome) and for some reason became stuck in Orange County. The Motorhead and the Betty emerged from there. Do you know who Gwen Steffani of No Doubt is? She is from Orange County, and she is a Betty. A Betty is a woman who plucks her eyebrows, puts on her makeup, dresses, and styles her hair like a woman from the late 40s until the early 60s. Think Betty Page only with way too many tattoos and piercings. Quite fascinating. The guys all wear hats like the men wore back then but have lots of tattoos and long, long, long goatees. They wear the casual/Hawaiian/bowling shirts from that era over shorts. They also drive hot rods or motorcycles. It is quite a fascinating subculture. At first it was kind of fun to see, but after a while the over-sexed and over-motored vibe became very grating.

A Betty (I took this photo from Erick Wunstell's website):


Car show guys (I took this photo from Flickr):


We then walked over to the museum to see Casablanca. Matt was so excited to do something romantic on Valentine's Day. We got to the museum and asked the man at the door, who was an elderly volunteer and did not know about it. He was so befuddled. Anyway he finally pointed to a room up front that had a TV and VCR and waiting room chairs and said that if we wouldn't mind waiting until the tape about LHC history was finished, he would gladly start the movie. What? We have the DVD at home! Why would we sit in the front of a museum and watch a romantic movie? Big disappointment to Matt. We then drove around looking at some of the houses we liked the day before. We went home and watched Persuasion again. Funny thing: We opened the mailbox and there was Humboldt County. One of us (neither one knows who) had ordered it.

Sunday I went to another church. Did not like that one. I will cross that off and move on to the next.

When I got back, Matt was still moping about the day before, so we drove to an art show and swap meet. The weather was cold and wet and just awful, so we were kind of mopey. It was just too uncomfortable to hang out at the art show, so we left. Talked to Chip. Things are going well for him. That night we watched Oliver Twist on Masterpiece Classic. Tres good!

Monday was another day. It is also my laundry day, and I didn't have to drive to a laundromat! I actually did the laundry in the privacy of my own home! Woohoo! I made cornbread, fried potatoes, and beans. Matt wanted chocolate pudding, but I put the kibosh on that. I made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies for desert instead.

I stopped by my neighbor's house to chat with her. She is having a very hard time. I tried to cheer her up, and it did not work. Bless her heart. It was a long, lonely weekend for her. So today, I took an empty candy heart and put a bunch of positive quotations in where the chocolates go. I'll give it to her when she gets home tonight.

Finally, I watched The American Experience last night. It was about lobotomies and the man who brought them to the US and performed them. Scary how he ignored the scientific method of inquiry and just started doing them!

I might add that in between all this we played video games and laughed, etc.