Last Week of April...

Thursday April 28, 2016

Tonight was my last pottery class. Like the previous two evenings, it was sunny and warm, so grateful for nice weather to walk there and back (though it’s not that far). I was the second to arrive and received the usual exuberant greeting from Jennifer’s Yorkie, Joy, who was sporting a cute OSU doggie sweater.

Our pots and saucers had been fired, so now all we had to do was paint them. There were so many choices of colors, and not knowing how they would look after they were fired made it difficult to decide. I knew I didn’t want a base color of yellow or green since the other two pieces of pottery I've made previously are already that color. Hence, I chose a blue called, “My blue heaven” which has little speckles in it. Because I had to work around my owl, coils and squiggles, it was a bit fiddly, so I only did two coats (two or three coats was what Jennifer recommended) and am pretty pleased with it. The only odd bit was my two coils that turned out with a matte finish, as opposed to the rest of my pot which was glossy. I ended up painting those two coils a Tiffany blue, but I won’t be able to display the pot outside since the new paint is only interior paint and might run or chip if it gets wet.

I am sad the class is over now, but looking forward to future classes at Cross Studio on Wenwood Drive.

The finished product:

 

Friday April 29, 2016

Tonight we went to Yellow Brick Pizza and Camelot Cellars in Olde Towne East. We had a Groupon for Camelot Cellars I bought for Andrew at Christmas that was expiring soon, so we thought we’d finally use it (also, Camelot Cellars recently relocated, so we wanted to make sure they were all settled in). Since we weren’t scheduled to visit until 7:30pm or so, we decided to have dinner somewhere close and Yellow Brick Pizza is literally catty-corner from the winery. We decided to split a chicken parmesan pizza and enjoyed watching an old movie on the TV over the bar while we waited for our pie. I love the décor (bumper stickers on the back of all the bar stools), but found the large tribal head mounted on the wall a bit off-putting, but it’s certainly a conversation piece.

Our (medium) pizza was quite delicious and very filling, so I was full after a couple of pieces. Plus, I wanted to save room for our wine flights. I need not have worried since we didn’t actually get as much wine for sampling as we’ve received at most other wineries. The attendant gave us two pours in each of  three glasses, which is probably only about one or two ounces each – the equivalent of perhaps a small glass of wine total. I selected the rainbow flight (two whites and a rose I think) while Andrew got a flight of various reds. When we were done we had a look at the collection on the wall trying to select a couple bottles to take home. We asked if we could sample any and the attendant said it was $1 per sample, and the samples were about the same size as our flights. When Andrew did the math he determined that it was more cost effective to just do random samples (depending on how many you’re allowed). We ended up selecting a Gewürztraminer and a Chilean red to take home. There were a few others that intrigued me, so I hope we can come out for another pizza and wine evening.

Saturday April 30, 2016

I made my semi-annual trek to The Andersons to get some different kinds of meat and wine, since that’s sort of their specialty. For being a bustling Saturday the service was really good. I ended up not having enough time to look over the whole meat counter before my number was called. I decided just to get our usual, which is several sticks of city chicken and some sausages to try (2 mild chicken sausages and one spinach and feta chicken sausage).

I especially enjoyed my time in the wine cellar area, and ended up with about half a dozen rather cheaply priced wines (which I hope will be okay for being bargains). I asked them if they had a box or a wine bag they could give me for my purchases, so I got a box to use. My favorite section is the little sampler sizes like you get on an airplane. They range in price from about .99 to $2.99, so I picked up an assortment. My best buy was a four pack of White Russians for $6 (cheaper than a bottle which is around $15-$20 I think).

Not sure I really saved any money by going to The Andersons rather than Whole Foods (or Whole Paycheck), but as we rarely ever visit, I think it’s justifiable. Next weekend or sometime soon I plan to visit Marc’s, and they should be quite a bit more inexpensive than either of the above.

Shortly after I got home and scarfed down some of our leftover pizza, Karen and Mom arrived to pick me up and take me to a local church rummage sale going on in the nearby vicinity. Even though there’s nothing I need, I reluctantly agreed to go along (because I had promised Andrew I wouldn't buy more second-hand stuff after my spending spree last month). I figured since it was already 1pm the sale would probably be over in an hour or so, so I probably wouldn’t come home with much. As usual, I think I bought more than both Karen and Mom (though Karen filled a bag and mom bought a comforter set) as I had the equivalent of about two bags of items and a framed Jackson Pollack poster. My favorite purchase was the last piece of peanut butter pie they had. That really hit the spot! Still, all total, I only spent $5 as it was $1 per filled bag (and I threw in a little extra as a donation).

Here are photos of some of my purchases:

In the evening we were invited to Karen’s house for a lovely meal of lasagna, salad and dinner rolls with wine and mom’s brownies for dessert.

After dinner we piled into our vehicles and made our way to Darby H.S. for their second performance of “Into the Woods.” Having not seen the movie last year, I was glad not to have anything to compare it to. Ashley worked behind the scenes and we were later told she was one of the stage crew who helped move the giant story book sets.

We were quite impressed by the first half and all the happy endings for the characters. Part of me thought that maybe they forgot to give us an intermission and maybe that was it. Sadly, no, there was still more play to come. Those familiar with the story know that not all the characters get their happy ending, so things took a rather downward spiral in the second half with various characters getting killed off by the giant.

By the time the play was finally over, around 10pm, I think the consensus seemed to be that, “it was rather long.” Mom summed it up best for all of us saying she would have been happy if the play had ended at intermission.  If I had known it was going to be three hours, I might have drank a bit more, or brought a snack to eat at the interval, because I was definitely getting a bit antsy as the play dragged on.

I can say the kids acted their hearts out and the quality of singing was fantastic. However, like with “The Sound of Music,” some of the kids’ lines got drowned out by the orchestra, so a little more volume and projection by the young actors would have been a good idea (or have a microphone on stage they can each use).

I am grateful to my sister for getting us great seats in Row H, which made the whole experience a lot more meaningful being so close. I don’t ever remember being able to reserve seats before, but I think it’s a good idea (also so you don’t have to arrive as early to try and get a good seat), and they were only charging an extra $2 per ticket for that privilege.

Ashley was in good spirits when we saw her afterwards mingling with the cast (and she introduced us to her “boyfriend”). I remember those happy, mostly carefree days in high school drama club, especially the night we all went out to see “Nightmare on Elm Street” after our first performance of "Guys and Dolls." I love that Rhys wants to join his junior high drama club next year. Maybe Carter will too when he’s a little older.

Have a good week everyone!