.jeri.

This weekend was a lot of fun and plenty busy. On Friday after workout (which is now reduced to light weightlifting and walking thanks to my disc issues) I went out shopping at Lowe's and Walmart and got money from the bank. I met up with Ric at home, and we went out to BevMo to buy some goodies for Saturday, and then we headed over to the Wine Stop. I think most of the wines were a miss for me, but I still had a good time, and we managed not to spend an arm and a leg this time around. Friday also marked Jon's graduation from college after beginning several years ago. We're proud of him for working so hard and finishing. I went to see Jon's art show with Brendan on Monday, and it was awesome.

Saturday Ric and I went with my family to Benihana to celebrate Mother's Day. We all had a good lunch together. I think I like Benihana's food better than Karuta, but it's more expensive, and our Japanese food chef was named Jorge, which was odd. We left straight from there for Yo's house in Crestline. I finally got to drive the Mini up mountain roads, and it was fun to see how the car's center of gravity was able to handle the curves so nicely. Even still, I think I worry too much while driving roads like that, so it's not all that fun because all I'm thinking about is how one wrong steer of the wheel could end up with the Mini plummeting off the side of the mountain (also, it's not good to watch The Wages of Fear before taking a drive like that).

Ric and I arrived at Yo's home in only an hour. His house is surrounded by trees, and you can see a tiny bit of Lake Gregory from his deck. The house is awesome and Yo's doing all sorts of cool things to it. We were there to celebrate his 40th birthday. Yo and I met in person on his 30th birthday, so it was a special day for me too. If any of you don't know the story, he and I met online in 1997 on a Morrissey music bulletin board. A lot of us on there were local, so we all decided to meet in person at Yo's 30th birthday party. And the rest is history. We're probably one of the oddest pairing of friends a person could think of, but it works for us. Anyway, we hung out, had some drinks, had some food, watched some videos, and played (or observed) some poke r.

Sunday, we puttered around the house. I kicked it into gear in the afternoon and spent several hours with a heat gun in our office. The original decoration of the condo included a very lame idea - flowery wallpapered wood paneling glued (industrial strength) to the sliding closet doors. Here's a bit of it from a photo back in February. No, it wasn't that color scheme before - it was ALL yellow - we painted the walls blue, and then the trim got painted white after this photo:

The closet is the entire length of the office, which means I need to remove an entire wall of paneling. The only way to do it without breaking the actual doors is to use a heat gun (think: really hot hairdryer) and a hammer. Heat, then pry, then heat, then pry. It was hot, difficult work. And I only got one door cleared with about four hours of work! Underneath the paneling is the glue, and under that is a layer of paint (that's why the weekend was only sort of paint-free). So once the paneling comes off, the glue and paint need to be heated and scraped off. Then the doors need sanded, and then they can be painted. It sure is a heck of a lot of work, but a heat gun only costs $35 and new doors would have been a few hundred bucks. Next time I'll have to wear gloves, because my right hand got really sore from using the hammer and prying the paneling.

I was so wiped out and tired from that that I was starving, so Ric and I made an Arby's run, and then we watched some tv together. I spent the last couple hours of the night reading Prince Caspian, in preparation for the movie coming out this weekend. I'm about 2/3 done right now, so I'm pretty sure I'll have finished it by the time we see it.

Tonight, Brendan and I are headed to the Oscar headquarters to see a screening of Fargo at the Samuel Goldwyn theater. There's going to be a panel of people who worked on the film afterwards. This is the first time we've tried going to the theater, although we both have passes for their summer series, so I'm hoping our first trip out there will go smoothly with traffic and figuring out where to go.

Other than tonight, this week should be quiet. Hopefully that will give me time to do some errands and chores.