This and That, continued

I know, not very original. Oh wait...I think the TV game show Jeopardy would call this "potpourri."

It's been a while since I've posted and I know I said I'd do a better job at posting regularly. I'd like to say that I've been busy but I just haven't been inspired to write. There just hasn't been a lot to talk about. But, I've got some stuff so we'll just go with it.

A couple weeks ago, Denise informed me that her television broke. Not good, knowing that the Winter Olympics were fast approaching. She was going to make it happen, work some magic and have a new TV by the opening ceremonies. Polo came up with a great idea, he suggested that we all buy Denise an early birthday gift. So we pooled our funds and surprised Denise by presenting her with a new televsion set. We all went out to dinner and as nearby table was celebrating someone else's birthday with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday" we sang along and Tina threw a card at Denise, confusing her. The timing could not have been more perfect. We celebrated with delicious food and margritas.

Unrelated, a couple days later, I found myself sick in bed with food poisoning. I say unrelated because there was too much time between that dinner and when I got sick. I'm attributing it to a jar of preserves that I had in the pantry. It was sealed when I opened it but perhaps the batch was not properly preserved. All I know is that I don't recall ever being so sick. No details, but it was UGLY. My knight in shining armor, Dan saved the day by bringing me Gatorade, which was about the only thing I could stomach for about 36 hours. I was in recovery mode most of the week.

By Friday I felt fine and I'm glad because I got to enjoy an evening out with my dear friend Steve. Since he travels back and forth and spends half of each month out of town, we get to go out a couple times while he's in town. It was a fun night, but because Steve knows a lot of people and doesn't see them very often, much of the evening was spent watching him socialize and catch up with people. I get it, I don't mind it, I enjoy watching him having a nice time, but something about Friday night left me seriously feeling like a third wheel. I would wander away for a while, seeing who I could find to chat with and I just had this overwhelming feeling that people were looking through me and not at me. It was one of those night where I felt completely invisible, to the point where if I didn't leave, I was going to lose it. I said my goodnight to Steve and I came home.

Saturday was a better day. I ran some errands and had some me time at Starbucks. I ended up not going out Saturday evening because I decided I wasn't up for a redux. Knowing that the following day was Valentine's Day, I wasn't in the best frame of mind anyway.

I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day. I'm sure I've blogged about it in the past. No, I don't feel like looking at last year's post, I'll bet I was pretty bitter. This year was no exception and I wasn't looking forward to the day. I got up early, went to the gym, then went to Crate and Barrel. Wouldn't you know it was filled with happy couples doing their bridal registries? What was I thinking? Okay, maybe the cute gay couple wasn't registering (not legal, ya know) but they were having a nice time shopping together. Needless to say, my visit was a quick one. I ended up stopping off at my friend Cyd's house to help her clear some things out of her apartment. She's moving next weekend. Afterwards I came home and prepared a delicious shrimp stir fry. I was celebrating Chinese New Year.

Over the weekend I got new tires on my car. The original ones were still on the car, they were over 5 1/2 years old but only had 38,000 miles on them. However they were showing their age so it was time. Next up will be brakes. Those will happen in the next month or two.

I mentioned the Olympics earlier. Did you watch the opening ceremonies? What did you think? I thought they were great. How exciting was it to see the team from the United States enter the stadium? I love all of the pageantry. I couldn't help but tear up when the team from the Republic of Georgia entered. They were solem and wore black arm bands out of respect for their team mate who had been killed during luge practice earlier in the day. Aside from the glitch with the lighting of the torch, I thought this opening ceremony held its own without trying to compete with the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

So that's what I've been up to? What about you?