Saturday, February 23, 2008
Weekend Update
- I didn't post a weekend update last weekend, so I'm playing catch-up. Story of my life. At least lately.
- This is the first time in four years that Carl's actually been home on Valentine's Day--the last three years in a row, he's been at a conference in the States, and has spent the holiday with Dagny, which she wasn't terribly thrilled about.
We didn't do a lot. Small gifts: candy all around, of course--it's traditional. I gave Carl and the boys each T-shirts from despair.com (I'd sent Dagny some Bittersweets and a mug from there earlier), and gave Carl a couple of DVDs and the new Eagles CD (thank-you, Amazon.de). Carl gave me 2 dozen roses--a dozen each of pink and red, which were lovely, and which I stupidly did not take a picture of, and a moonstone bracelet.
Since Valentine's Day was on Thursday, we waited until the weekend to go out to dinner. - Friday was a training holiday, but because of the upcoming JHACO mega-inspections, Carl had to spend the morning at the office. Which really didn't change our plans any, because having the day off, he'd probably have slept in longer than he was at the office, anyway. (He wasn't too amused when I pointed that out, but had to admit the truth of it.)
Once he got home, we went out to lunch (Thai-Vietnamese restaurant, again--I did mention it's our favorite, didn't I?), then off to our test drive appointments.
First up was the Audi A4. The nice thing about that was this was a car that someone had ordered and then changed their mind about, so if we wanted it, we could have it right then. Black, black leather interior, it's a gorgeous car. A couple of things were a bit irritating: adjusting the passenger seat back was a shoulder-dislocating exercise in frustration, and the between-the-seats arm rest was positioned perfectly to make it impossible to shift gears. It was also narrower inside than the Volvo had been. It handled well on the Autobahn, better than the Volvo, but it was fairly noisy, both the engine noise and the wind noise from outside. The trunk was incredibly roomy, but when I got into the driver's seat, I had to pull the seat up so far that the steering wheel was nearly poking me in the chest (and no, I'm not that buxom). Still, despite those few disappointments, we liked it better than the Volvo.
Then we went to Mercedes. We were a little early, so they gave us cappuccino while we waited for the one US-spec C300 they had available for test drives (shared between their 3 branches). Ergonomically, it was superior to both the Audi and the Volvo. There was more elbow room, and the arm rest was perfectly positioned, and the driver's side fit me much better--particularly since the seat could also be moved vertically as well as front and back, and the steering wheel was far more adjustable as well. Before we even got on the Autobahn, I was asking Carl what options he wanted. I'd definitely fallen in love; Carl was still trying to take his time. But the Autobahn drive sold both of us. It was a better ride than even the Audi (unsurprising, as it's rear-wheel drive, and a larger engine), hugged the road, and was very quiet. Again, the larger V6 was naturally quieter than the Audi's 4-cylinder, but there was less wind noise as well.The salesman had told us we could keep the car for a couple of hours, but we were back within 20 minutes to place the order. Black, black leather interior. We'd ordered standard, but Carl's mom and brother talked him into changing to automatic. I'm not sure if I'll forgive him for that--it just seems so wrong.
- Friday evening, we took the boys to see I Am Legend at the Hercules. Review to follow, eventually.
- Saturday night, Carl and I went out for Indian food for our Valentine's Day dinner. We had a nice time afterward, too, but you don't really need to know about that.
- Sunday, we met Carl's brother and our nieces at his mom's, since everybody had the day off, and we told her about Heidelberg. It took her a while to believe it, given Carl's penchant for practical jokes/tall tales (can we say "the boy who cried wolf?" I've mostly broken him of the habit, because I refuse to fall for them, but his mom has a good memory.), but she was, understandably thrilled. It also took a little of the pressure off what looked to them like conspicuous consumption when we told them about ordering the Mercedes. I'm still not sure if they believed us when we told them it was about 20,000 euro, rather than the 35K they'd thought.
We brought the camera along, but left it in the car. Too bad. It might have been nice to have some pix of us all together, particularly of Camden playing chess with Emily. Went out to dinner afterward, and had a very nice time. I could tell I'm slowly improving with the CFS, because I actually carried on conversations without zoning out. - We've been watching the BBC miniseries of Neverwhere in the evenings, since Camden's currently reading it. It's very cool, but I can tell it's been a very long time since I read it. I'm going to have to put it in my TBR pile once Camden finishes it.
- I've been cooking more lately--curried butternut squash soup and homemade bread (Carl's mom tried to talk me into buying a German mix instead of making that icky plain white American bread--I ignored her and made a honey oatmeal bread with a whole bunch of seeds and grains. Heh.), green chicken enchiladas, barbecued beef sandwiches (shredding beef is a PIA, btw) on homemade onion rolls, Thai-marinated pork ribs with garlic-lime glass noodles, etc. I'm definitely on a roll. We'll see how long it lasts. It's a real challenge in the teeny-tiny kitchen. The nice thing is, the kids eat about twice as much when I actually cook, versus when we just throw something together, like bratwurst or hamburgers. (The kids are skinny--this is a good thing.)
- My alarm clock broke, which has been a pain all week. It fell off my nightstand on Monday, and the hour hand was wonky--about a half hour behind--but I tested it and thought I had it figured out... until Tuesday morning it went off at 6, though it was set for 5:30. For Wednesday morning, I borrowed Carl's alarm clock, which worked fine, but was a pain setting and re-setting it. I had a bright idea Wednesday night and set one of the kitchen timers for Thursday morning. It worked great, and Carl hadn't been able to fix my alarm clock as he'd thought, so I repeated the process that night. Friday morning, it went off at 5:10, which I didn't notice until I was downstairs brushing my teeth. This weekend, I'm definitely buying myself a new alarm clock.
- Best news of the week: the Mercedes should be here April 25, a whole month earlier than we'd expected. I'm psyched. I'll try really hard to avoid being too annoyed by the automatic.
- Only pix of the past two weeks: Diva sleeping curled up with her squeaky hamburger.
Categories: WeekendUpdate, AboutMe
Labels: about me, weekend update
And I didn't cook while you were here because I wanted to spend time with you, not waste it cooking. (plus, I didn't have the energy, but the first reason sounds nicer, don't you think?)
Good luck on getting your new alarm clock and your new car. I hope it turn out the way you want/like it :)
Happy Belated Valentine Day!
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