Toretto in a Ford with a Lead Pipe

It’s Sunday afternoon and it’s been a relaxing day and as you might’ve guessed from the title I’m watching some movies in the Fast and Furious franchise. I almost went with “is that lead in your pipes or are you just happy to see me” as a title, but let’s enjoy some drinks and we’ll chat about the week and then you can tell me which title you prefer.

Work went well this week, even if it was a little weird. Well, maybe not weird, but odd? It was one of those weeks where thanks to a federal holiday we worked on Monday, had Tuesday off, and then worked Wednesday-Friday as usual. So Monday both felt like a Monday and a Friday, and then Wednesday felt like a Monday and Friday felt like a Wednesday even thou we only work until noon on Fridays. At least next week will be normal before Thanksgiving break makes for another weird week. Monday was also the last day for a coworker I’d worked closely with for the last four or five years; her supervisor brought in donuts and pizza as we said goodbye and good luck.

I spent Wednesday – Friday pulling data and felt very proud that I was able to get all my data via one report. I don’t know how much experience any of you have with reporting software, but even when working with the same system you sometimes have to run multiple reports since not all the fields will talk nicely with each other. I even had two fields that I knew should exist but couldn’t find them, and when I reached out to IT for help, then let me know that I was right, the fields should be where I thought they should be, but they were so new that I was the first person who actually tried requesting them for a report – so huzzah for me!

Apparently I also had a very good hair week, as it seems a lot of people went of out their way to compliment it. Even total strangers! I had one person I was assisting in o person that started our conversation with “First of all, your hair is amazing and I think you should know that” – why, thank you, random person.

Here’s the best photo including my hair from this week:

At some point this week I made hamburgers, resulting in about half a pound of leftover hamburger meat. I also had some leftover tomato sauce from making pizza on Halloween and some beef stock from somewhere and a can of veggies that was nearing its expiration date, so I made a pot of vegetable beef soup and it was glorious. I love Soup Season, and my Mom pointed out that I’d made “never again” soup , which was

the best kind of soup. “Never again soup” because never again will you have the exact same leftover ingredients to use. 😂

Krystal is not as big a soup fan as me, so while I’m all happy making my soup like a potion in a cauldron when I present it to her it’s more like this photo:

To which she has also laughed and said “yeah that’s about right” when I showed it to her.

After watching Frankenstein last week, I spent some time considering what four movies would best describe me as if they were the Big Four of astrology. What I settled on was:

• Sun: Jurassic Park
• Moon: Fantastic Mr Fox
• Rising: Pan’s Labyrinth
• Venus: Scooby Doo and the Witch’s Ghost

And, in tribute to the last penny coming off the press this week in the US, here’s one of the most unique pressed pennies in my collection. It reads “Wallace is out so let’s stick with Nixon in 1972 he ain’t so bad” and is pressed on a 1972 penny from the Denver mint.

This week I received two rather interesting emails. One was about an issue with my Ford’s backup camera. Now, I had experienced issues since June but chalked it up to aging electronics and made do with a sporadic backup camera. Turns out Ford is aware this is an issue for a wide variety of makes and models and is working on a solution but doesn’t have one yet. When there is a fix, they’ll send me another letter. I mean, I guess they’re just COA, but I’m chuckling at sending a letter that says “we know there’s a problem and there’s nothing we can do right now so just drive safe” – – as if that’s what we all weren’t supposed to have been doing this whole time?

The other letter was from our municipal utilities letting us know that they were conducting a survey of it systems, specifically trying to identify if any of the system still contained lead pipes, and apparently our pipes are considered “unknown material” – which they say means they can’t say whether they’re lead or not, but wich I’m taking to mean it could be made of copper or vibranium or even Flubber – the possibilities are endless! Well, maybe not gallium or any of the more radioactive elements, so probably not endless, but . . .

But anyway, Friday was pretty interesting. After work I swung by the local goodwill and I was looking thought the DVDs when I heard a voice say “excuse me, but you might be untested in this” and I turned around to see a goodwill worker pushing a cart full of DVDs! I had first pick of the new offerings and I got a copy of a movie called Skeleton Key, along with War of the Worlds:

Ironically, Skeleton Key is a “previously viewed movie” while War of the Worlds is still in the shrinkwrap!

I also found Jurassic Park, Jurassic Park: The Lost World:

It’s true that I have copies of them already. But they’re also the kind of movies I will buy no matter what. I have the original on VHS even though I no longer have a tape player. I’ve also been on something of a quest: you see, when The Lost World airs on TV, they show scenes that aren’t included on the DVD version, and I’ve never been able to find a DVD with those scenes on them. They are known as The Boardroom and Roland and Ajay Meeting and apparently comprise an “extended version” that is sometimes shown on cable but has never been released on DVD. But the thing is, I didn’t even have those scenes as possible bonus material on my DVDs – UNTIL NOW!

That’s right; these scenes are included as Bonus Features on the Lost World DVD that I got from goodwill!

And then I found a boxed set of the Fast and Furious movies:

Now, am I a fan of Vin Diesel or those movies? No. Am I looking for more movies to provide background noise? Always.

And so even as I type this I’ve just finished “watching” Fast Five and I didn’t remember that The Rock was in this movie but once again I remind you that The Rock is best suited to comedic roles, and when he’s cast as serious-action types his acting leaves much to be desired. But again! He’s stellarly fantastic in things like Jumanji and Jungle Cruise – casting needs to put him in roles where he can’t take himself too seriously and watch the money roll in hand over fist.

Friday night Krystal and I went on a date to see Spamalot. Many of our friends were involved with the production!

And then, perhaps ironically, I got a spam call while waiting for Spamalot:

I had two arge popcorns and an orange creamsicle cider before the curtain went up!

Last night my friend Rosie sent me a photo of a drink called a Garden Bee, essentially a Bees Knees with an egg white float. This is the second year in a row that we’ve shared a drink on November 15; last year was in-person and this year was digitally but if it happens next year it’s officially a tradition.

This morning I woke up and had some coffee and a piece of pumpkin pie.

Since then I’ve cleaned up in the kitchen, tootled about on social media, and figured out lunch with Krystal using only gifs and memes. I’ve made a batch of sweet tea and I’m wondering if I’ll use the pound of beef in the fridge or if I need to put it in the freezer.

And now here at the end I’m also remembering that this week we continued our Magnus Archives campaign, in which our party was divided into three parts. We survived, but my character Willow did sit down on the floor and scream curses at the walls at one point.

She felt better afterwards.

What about you? What have you been up to?Doing good, I hope?