A (Somewhat Tardy) Reckoning

Now we are 33!

Friday was my birthday.  It followed a very busy (but fun!) week and is followed by a very busy (but not fun!) week, so I am a bit late and a bit rushed with my annual reckoning.

Thank you, everyone who wished me a happy day via text, email, card, Facebook message, or in person.  I am not being trite nor am I generalizing when I say that they all meant a lot to me.

Friday was a Teacher Work Day, so I spent the first part of the day in faculty meetings, then three hours hanging and focusing the lights in the auditorium, then two hours grading and entering data (end of first term!), and then I dashed down the mountain to hang out with my family because, happily, my parents came over to visit!  The last time they were out my home was a literal disaster, so I showed off my new floors and walls before we met up with Rachel, Ben, and Jack for dinner.

Birthday Sushi!

We went to Kobe An and enjoyed a mostly private room with Japanese-style seating, delicious sushi, and very large servings of noodles:

Dinner was followed by ice cream cake and presents at Rachel's place.

Saturday morning we headed to Rock Creek Farms up near Thornton to pick some pumpkins,

visit farm animals,

bounce in an inflatable castle,

and run around on a hay bale maze.

(My use of the plural in that sentence may be an exaggeration.)

This was followed, like all proper Waterhouse weekends, by an afternoon and evening of shopping and eating.

Sunday everyone came over to my place for bagels and visiting before heading to various homes.  Then I took a much needed nap (I was fighting cold #3 of the past few weeks).

This week I'm putting on the Advanced Drama class play (Twisted Tales of Terror, a Halloween-themed spoof) and taking the speech team on an overnight trip to Gunnison (3.5 hours of twisty roads), so things are a little crazy at the moment.  If I can just get through to Sunday afternoon, I should have a relatively easy week after that. ("Relatively" being the operative word)

But before I dash off to put together the soundtrack for the play and pack for the next three nights, here's my 33rd year in list form:

No. of Books Read: 101 (a bit more binging than the previous years)
No. of Blog Entries:  453
No. of Plays Produced: 7
No. of Performances Attended: 54
    Movies - 22
    Theater - 25
    Operas - 1
    Ballets - 1
    Concerts - 4
    Whatever The Lord of the Dance is - 1
No. of Encores by Juan Diego Florez Seen Live: 1
No. of Christkindlmarkt: 1
No. of Students I Took to New York: 10
No. of Students I Brought Home from New York: 10
No. of Floods in My Apartment: 1
No. of Hours Spent Dealing with the Flood in My Apartment: (still counting)
No. of AIDS Quilt Panels Mended: approx. 15
No. of Nights Spent in the Sahara Desert: 1
No. of Camels: 3
No. of Carpets: 2 (+ the new carpeting in my apartment)
No. of Michelin Restaurants: 7
No. of (Non-Speech-Related) Trips: 14, as follows:

• Paris/Strasbourg, 
• Grand Junction, 
• Seattle/Mt. Vernon, 
• New York, 
• New York (encore!), 
• Grand Junction, 
• DC, 
• Spain (Pueblo Ingles),
• Morocco, 
• Spain, 
• Assateague, 
• & Grand Junction

32, you had some definite highlights, but I can't say I'm sorry to see you go.

Hurrah, 33!