A few days in January

New Years
Jan 1st, 2009: The New Year, it is not nearly as much fun as it used to be. We slept late, watched the Rose Parade on TV in bed. Once we were up I cooked food in preparation for our annual Rose Bowl (football game) feast. Sandra/Jim and Stephanie and Sandra and Tyler came up to eat and then left, Jim to watch more TV at home, Sandra and Tyler left to play Frisbee golf. We had way to much food and the game was dismal at best. Late in the evening Jeff started feeling ill again.

Dec 27- Jan 4th
My company closed down for this period of time. At first I was not happy about using my vacation for the closing but came to think of the time off more positively when I created my ‘to do list’. This list was to be completed at the end of the 9 days. On Friday the 2nd I was depressed, my list had way too many things not crossed off. Is this what being retired is like? You think you have lots of time to do ‘everything’ and the days just pass you by?


STOMP
Jan 10th, 2009
Music can be made out of Anything. Today we went to see Stomp – a musical production. I have wanted to see it for quite some time and through work was able to get discount tickets. Debbie and Dan went with us and while I thought I knew what to expect, what we heard and saw far surpassed any thoughts I had. Did you know that you can make music using brooms, rubber tubes, sticks – anything you can tap, thump, strum, pound or scrape? For 1 ½ hours we were entertained not only with the music but also the interplay between the performers. Then there was the clapping. It started out with a simple, double clap, just now and again during the show – I have no rhythm, but even I can do that. Then at times the clapping sequences became more complicated. I tied to keep up, but couldn’t, Jeff didn’t even try. We all enjoyed ourselves immensely.