.jeri.

I'm sorry, I've been so busy lately that I've forgotten the blog a lot. Bad me. I will start posting more often, hopefully, now that vacation and jury duty and physical therapy are all over and done with! I'll be around more regularly now.

Last week I only worked three days, and got called for jury duty in Compton on Thursday. Of course, I forgot my summons at work and at 7am I was running out of the house, speeding to work, running in to pick up my summons, and hitting the road for the courthouse, which involved getting slightly turned around and winging it on my way through Compton. Yay. Thankfully, the flustered lawyer for the defense didn't take a liking to my answers and dismissed me, probably because she knew I would be a good juror for the prosecution's case. Phew. If she hadn't dismissed me, I might have had to request a sidebar with the judge to tell him that her crazy methods and lack of knowledge of general court processes were making me want to side with the prosecution.

I was on my own for the weekend. Ric decided to relieve his aunt and uncle who have been the sole caretakers for his grandparents the last couple of weeks. I just didn't have the energy for it. Friday I got to sleep in, which I needed. My body has taken a beating lately. Before my vacation I was determined that it's high time I start getting in better shape, whether my back is ready or not (or I was hoping my back would get stronger as I worked out), so I was walking regularly but also using the Wii Active a lot. I wore myself out, and Ric told me I had to stop it and take it easy. So then I went on vacation, and whatever I did there triggered all sorts of pain, and my numbness and tingling in my leg returned. I'm not happy about that. Things are a little better with that now that I'm at home, but not as good as they were for the first few months post-surgery. Then running back and forth to my office for the jury summons hurt a lot too. I guess I just want my body to kick in and be strong, but it's not ready to, and I'm not sure it ever will be as recovered as I'd like. It's disappointing.

I decided to hit up the dollar theater and see something Ric wouldn't want to see, so I ended up at 17 Again. I'm not sure what was more amusing - the movie or the three individuals with mental problems who blurted out anything that came to mind while watching the movie. More on that later. I went shopping at Target and Payless and somehow killed a few hours doing that, then came home and hung out with Ric, and in the evening we went to see Transformers 2.

Saturday I drove to Pasadena with my sister to see Kurosawa's High and Low at the Laemmle theater. They're having a series of Janus films all summer long. We went shopping and had a snack on Colorado Boulevard, then returned home, and I promptly headed out to the Andersons' parents' home to celebrate the fourth of July with them. We had barbecue and there was far too much food for anyone's good. We did the street firework thing, which was pretty low-key.

Sunday I went to church and then drove up to uptown Whittier on a whim looking for an interesting place to eat. As it turns out, death is slowly eating its way through Whittier, and so many places I had always intended to check out were out of business. One building was even knocked down that I didn't know about! There are a few new businesses, though, and I'll have to come back some time with friends to check those out. No interesting new eateries, though. I spent the afternoon watching The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, a lesser-known Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers flick. Then I met up with my sister and we drove to Brea to see Public Enemies. We topped off the night with dinner at Spadra in Fullerton since we'd never been there before. We thought it was a new restaurant, but turns out Il Ghiotto just changed its name. Good food, medium-to-expensive prices, and as always, the guitarist with interesting selections such as the theme from Green Acres. I would rather go to Roman Cucina, probably, for something a little more striking to the palette.

Medical updates:
I am done with physical therapy. Am I ready to be done? Not quite, but 8 weeks is 8 weeks, and I'll be having an appointment soon with the orthopedic doctor about my hip, which started acting up a little more the instant I finished therapy. The good thing about being done, though, is that I will have a regular work schedule and don't have to work late to make up for my appointments. So I'll be able to get out of here around 4:30 each day, and I can go down to the fitness center and continue doing some strength exercises before my regular walks on the track.

Ric's grandma is having surgery to remove a tumor about the size of an egg from her brain tomorrow. He and his mom are driving up to keep grandpa company. We'll have to wait to find out if it's malignant or not. If it is, she may have only a few months left. We have a family mini-reunion scheduled for the end of the month, which is the grandparents' 67th anniversary. We're hoping we'll still be able to have it with everyone present.

Ric's grandpa has regained pretty much all of the use in his right arm that he had lost after his stroke. That's the little bit of good news going on around here.

Okay, movie reviews coming ASAP!