Kid-Free Dates

Monday night MS watched K while J and I saw Warm Bodies at Joy Cinema.

-Warm Bodies is my new favorite movie, I told J twice during it ‘I LOVE this movie’
-the Joy is only $1 on Monday nights
-there was a snack special: two medium drinks and a large popcorn for $8
-date night for $10 ♥

On January 19th we saw Django Unchained at the good theater. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. There’s one part where I looked away and wouldn’t watch, but the rest of the movie was excellent. J might see it again with a friend that hasn’t seen it yet.

On Valentine’s Day we went to the free play night at Ground Kontrol, a 21+ arcade. It was 2-for-1 cover until 7p and we were the last ones in the door that got the deal. For $5 we got to play all the games we wanted for free. We were both hungry when we got there, so we started out with food – nachos for me and a personal pizza for him. After the food we went upstairs and played pinball for a bit. Then we played a couple of classic arcade games, but we quickly realized we weren’t as into it as we thought we would be. We left after an hour and went to Chevy’s for dessert. He had fried ice cream and I had a very large pineapple coconut margarita. Of course, prior to finding out about the wee one.

I seem to have a problem remembering to post to this goal!

On December 7th, his 37th birthday, we dropped K off at the rec center for Parent’s Night Out. Then we headed over to Bridgeport Village to see Silver Linings Playbook. We were early, so we looked around the Apple Store, then shared a burger and fries as we huddled next to an outdoor heater. The person that thought up a Southern California-esque open air mall for a state that gets rain over half of the year has a good sense of humour.

The movie was very good, but we had to pick up K at 9p and we knew we would be cutting it close, so we were checking the time frequently. We pushed it as long as we could, but ended up leaving about two minutes before the movie ended. Then we literally ran for the car park, he much faster than me with my asthmatic lungs. I think that was the best part of the whole night. It made us feel a bit like kids again.

On Sunday we went to Mississippi Ave to check out the shops. We had lunch at Miss Delta – a southern cafe. Their fried okra is very good, though not nearly as good as the fried okra at the LA Farmers Market. After that we stopped into a shop called Zahara. There was a pair of heels on a table outside that caught my attention, so we went inside to find out just how astronomically priced they were. Surprisingly, they were only $20 on sale, so I bought them, a tank bra and a dress for my cousin’s wedding in August. After a little more window shopping, we drove over to Hawthorne to do some more window shopping. Then we went to Cold Stone and shared an ice cream while we went to Powell’s and I bought a copy of The Man Who was Thursday so I can return the library’s copy. I’m pretty sure I convinced the cashier to read it – he seemed impressed that Kingsley Amis is a fan. Next was a stop at Old Navy and finally a stop at Target. It was a very good, though expensive, date.

I’ve been afraid to post on 43t for some time, but I think I’m ready to give it a shot again and see how it goes.

On July 18, our eight year anniversary, I asked my husband for a separation. I don’t want to go into the details here, other than to say that for financial reasons we have to remain living together and he wants to get to know me again and try to make things work. That means that we have found a babysitter and we are going out once a week, just the two of us.

Our first date was last weekend. We saw The Dark Knight Rises at the nice theater, the kind that has screens larger than IMAX. This was our second time visiting this theater and it didn’t disappoint. We ordered garlic fries, which aren’t garlicky enough, but the fries themselves are really good. The movie was great! It didn’t feel like we were sitting there for almost 3 hours. He says he likes The Dark Knight better, but I loved Bane as a villain and like this one better. There were two downsides to the movie: 1) we saw it two days after the shooting in Colorado and we couldn’t help but think of that during the movie, there was an older couple that got confused and opened the exit door and stood there for a few moments trying to get oriented – I couldn’t take my eyes off the exit door, plus there are scenes in the movie that make you feel kind of sick after what happened. 2) In the row ahead of us, which we could see clearly due to steep stadium seating, a couple of idiots had brought what looked to be their five-year-old daughter, she was in the aisle crying, asking to leave during the movie and they kept her there, her crying wasn’t disruptive, but my heart broke for that little girl and the nightmares that she would surely have from the movie. I am so angry that those parents put their selfish desire to see a movie on opening weekend over the welfare of their child and that the movie was rated PG-13, which caused there to be quite a few young children in the theater. One girl a few rows back said more than once “is he going to come back alive, mommy?” Who does that to their child?!

Tomorrow we’re having a different kind of date and I’m excited about it. Hopefully there will be lots of fun things to post.

J and I read the Hunger Games trilogy the summer before last and have been waiting for the movies to come out ever since. We planned on seeing The Hunger Games as soon as it came out, but our trip ended up preventing that. I emailed our babysitter a few days ago to see if she would watch K today so we could go, but she never emailed me back. Our other go to babysitter’s birthday was yesterday, so I didn’t want to ask her to watch K this weekend. We could have waited until next week, but we really wanted to see the movie. For various reasons, we haven’t let MIL and FIL babysit since they moved back to Oregon, but we thought we’d give it a shot today. FIL said yes and we dropped K off after her egg hunt. We were both surprised that we really liked the movie, because we normally don’t like film adaptations of books. The things that were changed or left out seemed minor, unlike other movie adaptations, like The Help and The Time Traveler’s Wife. When we got back to the house, FIL reported that everything went well and K didn’t get into any trouble. K loves spending time with her grandparents and their dog, so we’ll have them babysit again the next time we want to go out. It will really be nice for her as the weather continues to warm up, because they have a fenced in yard that she can play in.

We took a vegetarian Indian cooking class at the rec center this morning. I think we’ve had our fill of cooking classes now, at least with this instructor. The food wasn’t very good at either class and the instructor is kind of rude at times. Still, it was nice to spend a few hours together trying something new.

We went down to Eugene on Jan 28 to see Bill Cosby. My cousin lives there, so she watched K for us. We had great seats that we bought from someone on Craigslist for a steal and the lady sitting next to me was really friendly. The show lasted two hours and was hilarious. Cosby is extremely funny, though he was sometimes hard to follow. He jumped around a lot and didn’t always go back to finish a joke that he started. But when he was good he was good.

After the show we called my cousin to see if there were any diners in the area where we could stop for dinner and while I was talking to her I spotted one. We went to Dickie Jo’s, which we had never heard of before, and enjoyed our kid free dinner. I had the biggest BLT I’ve ever seen in my life and J had a vegetarian burger. Then we went back to my cousin’s house to stay the night.

Last night J and I took a cooking class at the rec center for the first time. There were eleven students and the subject was Hearty Soups. For soups, we made vegetarian chili, tomato bisque, Hungarian mushroom, and lentil. We also made fried pickles, cucumber sandwiches, mozzarella pesto dippers, and a chicken broccoli braid. It was a lot of fun and we’re really looking forward to taking the vegetarian Indian class on February 5.

On December 4th we got a babysitter so J and I could go out and celebrate his birthday. We went to Cinetopia for the first time and saw Hugo in 3D. Best thing about Cinetopia: garlic fries. Worst thing about Cinetopia: the popcorn. Really, the popcorn was awful. It was a little bit better after adding flavored butters to it (they have a butter bar!), but it still wasn’t great. The movie was good, but the 3D glasses were annoying. On the way to pick K up, we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. After we got K, we stopped by Five Guys and brought dinner home to eat.