Lovely Weekend

I'm gonna write this now instead of getting ready for bed because I'm not tired at all, and I'll regret it tomorrow morning.

Friday night I made two more converts with Betty Crocker's veggie lasagna recipe. They enjoyed it so much that I only had one serving left over... which actually suits me just fine. It's good, I just don't want to eat anything three times in a row.

Saturday I went to a makeup tennis lesson and reinforced my preference for playing at 7. When our group was discussing options last Wednesday, my instructor referred to his open time as "high noon," and yeah- good grief. There's some conditioning for you.

I've been playing better since Kristen taught me how to bat. When I find myself screwing up, I return back to the primary advice and watch the ball all the way to the connection, which is less instinctive than it sounds. Don't swing back too far, plant my feet, drop the racquet down, swing low to high, follow through... these are all important steps, but secondary to watching that ball. It feels more import to watch where you want it to go, like when riding a bike, but that leaves too long of a moment and too much of a guess about the meeting of the ball and your racquet. Watching it all the way to the connection is both satisfying and successful. Kristen says if you watch the ball, you'll hit it. It may not go where you want, but you'll hit it. I hit it over and I hit in in when I watch the connection. It's interesting, because it is the same problem I am encountering with diabetes: I am trying to anticipate the future. I am often watching where I think the ball is going to go instead of where it is.

I spent the rest of the afternoon running errands to complete my costume for the Superhero Crawl that night. Sarah talked me into going, and made so many suggestions for characters I knew nothing about that I started wracking my own brain for superheroes I loved. I kept coming back to Unbreakable, a movie by my beloved Shyamalan. Sarah wouldn't let me be Security (Wo)man, whose costume was a poncho, so we concocted a female version of Mr. Glass. For his glass cane, I went to a plastics company I knew of in the industrial part of Sparks, and sure enough, they had plexiglass rods. I got a piece cut, found a cane tip at Walmart, then went to Home Depot to find a handle. I originally thought an antique store doorknob would be neat, but had no idea how I would attach it. At the Depot, I saw this one employee and felt like he was the guy to ask. He was helping someone else, so I kept walking and took a loop through the store for inspiration. No doorknobs or curtain rod ends were cheap enough to consider, and I ended up back in his area. Feeling less than optimistic, I followed intuition and told him what I was up to. Turns out he makes costumes. Thinking out loud, he led me towards the doorknobs, but stopped at the drawer pulls, where he found a nice lucite option. He had suggestions for how to attach it. When I confessed that I don't own a drill, he led me back to his area, pulled out a toolbox, cut the head off the drawer pull's screw, drilled a hole into the plexiglass rod, and screwed on the mini doorknob. Done.  How awesome is that? This cane, which is the most identifiable piece of the costume, cost me less than $20. I bought the skirt at the thrift store for $3.

I had a blast at the crawl. A bunch of us met up at Harrah's, and you should have seen the getups. There was the Duff beer guy, lots of Captain Underpants, lots of Jokers, Flo from Progressive, a green and very buff Hulk, Iron Man complete with lights, Jabba the Hutt, Boba Fett, Princess Leia, tons of Ninja Turtles, male and female Wonder Womans, a Ghostbusters crew complete with Slimer and the Stay Puft marshmallow man, and of course, more Poison Ivies and Harley Quinns than you could shake a plastic cane at, but a noticeable dearth of Batmans. There was one girl who made a concerted and disgusting attempt at Two Face, and I did see Bane somewhere. Power Rangers, Star Lord, the dude from God of War, at least 30 Captain Americas, and one very sexy, shirtless, and painted Deadpool. And that's just what I remember. There were a ton of people out, and we only hit five bars (and the Gold & Silver: an all-night, casino diner well-known as THE place to eat when hammered).

My own group included a Ninja Turtle, Lara Croft, the Winter Soldier, Loki, some other villain from the Avengers, and the Princess of Power herself, She-Ra! Doesn't Sarah look great? She found the dress and boots at a thrift store, painted the boots gold, bought a plastic sword, and made the rest. Natalia did an awesome Tomb Raider, and Amanda said she assembled her costume five minutes before leaving the house.

I was delivered back home around 3, slept in until 1 this afternoon, hit IHOP and have been relaxing ever since, which is why it doesn't feel like a huge priority to get to bed. Of course, now it's way later than I expected, but I don't mind because you get to see our fun costumes and our pretty sunset and the 1500 piece puzzle that will be the death of me. I have had that thing for at least 5 years and never even opened the box. No wonder, huh?