Beth and I went to see "Wicked" on Friday. We've wanted to go see it for a while now, and it seems to be leaving everywhere very soon. In fact, the only place we could find it to go see it this weekend was in Goshen, so we did a road trip. There were only a couple other people in the theater with us. Anyway, both of us really liked it. Beth had really wanted to see it for a while and she loved it, and I liked it a lot better than I thought I would. 

Saturday, we all went to Fort Wayne to get Beth's cross-stitch cross framed. She started work on that floral cross several years ago, worked on it off and on for a few years, then washed it and the red dye ran. The red stained the fabric around the edges where it ran off from some stitched flowers, and Beth was so upset and disappointed with it that she put it away for another 2 or 3 years. On the sly, I fixed it as well as could be done by stitching some more flowers or improvising some other background to cover up the red stains, and in the end you basically can't tell that that ever had to be done. I gave the finished stitching with the red stains completely covered for Christmas. She loved it...I think it was a good move to give it to her for Christmas and call it a present so she wouldn't be mad at me for messing with her stitching, even though I think she never would have gone back to it. Anyway, we picked out some really nice framing and matting for it and can pick it up in a couple weeks. 
Secondly we went to Three Rivers Running Company because I got a gift card for my birthday a year or two ago from Laura and found it recently, and thought maybe I'd find a good new pair of running shorts there. Not really, everything there is pretty expensive. So I took a flyer and bought one of those not-quite-fanny-pack phone holder running belts, and a bunch of goo packets with the balance of the card. Now if I can only get past the looking ridiculous with the thing on. 

More tire drama with the truck this week. Last Wednesday the right front tire was pretty darn flat when I got out of work, and I no longer have a working inflator. So either roll the dice and drive to a gas station or call roadside assistance again. I took my chances on the road, and drove very gently to Monteith Tire on Detroit Street where they have a free air hose. And guess what, it didn't work! I got a little air but not enough, so I drove even more gently (on US 30) to the Family Express across from Medtronic, and guess what, it didn't work either! So I drove as gently as possible back past home to the other Family Express and inflated there where it finally did work. I was afraid I'd destroyed the tire altogether but a few days later it still seems to be holding air again. 

Update on Monday this week because it's a holiday and I'm off work. It seems a little bit close to Christmas to give everyone another day off already, but I guess I'll take it. Beth, however, did have to work. So I mostly stayed home and got a few things done. Dishes, laundry...that sort of thing. It's been too cold to do anything outside. 

We got a pleasant surprise from the Amish cow people today. I almost gagged when I was told how much the cost of the quarter cow was this year, but I sent the check in because we already had the meat. The cost was almost 4 times what the cost had been last year. Apparently they under-charged everyone last year, but even with higher costs this year I couldn't imagine that it was so much. But as it turns out, we were accidentally given a hanging weight for a half cow instead of a quarter, so they apologized and refunded us about half of what we'd paid. Whew....

Saturday Beth and I went to see "Hotel California" at the Honeywell Center in Wabash. It's an Eagles tribute band, which seemed like a good alternative to the real Eagles farewell tour that stopped in Indy last year. We thought at the time that we should go see them no matter what it costs, until we found out how much it did cost. Seats started at $450 for nosebleeds. So we passed on that one, but WOW the band we saw was amazing. I was incredibly impressed by how good all of the band members are as musicians. Blown away. They didn't have a voice sound-alike, but musically they could hold their own with anyone. They did most of the Eagles big hits, plus a few Don Henley and Joe Walsh solo songs, plus a few country and gospel songs done bluegrass style to close out. They also did "Seven Bridges Road" bluegrass style which was awesome. Great show, 10/10, would recommend. 

Sunday was the FCC annual meeting and soup/chili cook-off. Beth was planning to make her Dutch meatball soup and I was making a lasagna soup (last minute decision) but then Beth wasn't feeling good so she decided not to make it. Several people that had signed up were no-shows, flu is going around. But I made my soup from a recipe I found online that seemed yummy, and it was! As I was in the line, I could see people taking ladles of it and by the time I got to it, most of it was gone. I talked to another guy who said he didn't get any of it but he heard other people raving about it. And it took second place in the soup category! I've never won anything like that before. The same lady won the overall voting with the same soup that is a multiple year overall winner now. 

Got the truck tire fixed on Monday. I called roadside assistance and a tow truck came to the house. The guy had an inflator and was able to pump up the tire long enough that I could back it out and he could roll it onto the bed of the truck, and it stayed inflated long enough to handle that. He took it to Discount Tire, where they repaired the valve and cleaned up the rim a bit, and the tire held air just fine. I was afraid that the tire had been ruined by sitting so flat in the cold, but it seems fine. I was just glad I didn’t need $1500 worth of new tires, but I will soon enough. The fix was free since I’ve bought so many tires from there over the years.

Beth finally got a new temporary crown this week to replace the one she broke weeks ago. It has been disintegrating ever since she first cracked it, but she didn’t want to call people in off their vacation (probably would have been expensive to do that, too) so she said she’d wait. It wasn’t painful, but it was uncomfortable and weird, so I’m glad she finally made it to the appointment.

I called in to Pulse FM in the morning for ‘Fresh Out of Bed and Head to Head’ again this Thursday. First time in a while…they were giving away tickets to a new comedy club in Goshen for the weekend, which sounded fun. I got through and dispatched my opponent fairly easily. Same for Friday morning, so I get to keep going next week. The comedy club is brand new, only been open a few months. The place is set up in the Old Bag Factory, and I hope it catches on and stays in business (the place was only about half full) because we had a lot of fun. There was a local kid as the opening act, and headlining was a guy named Adam Minnick who’s done Dry Bar comedy shows and such. 

 Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans, they say. So anyway, this morning while everyone was at church, Alex and I got text messages saying that his flight back to Seattle had been cancelled due to the weather. We knew that the heavy weather was coming tonight, so the plan was that right after church, Missy and Beth would drive the van back to Muncie and Alex and I would follow in the car, then Beth could drive if Missy got nervous driving in the weather, and we would leave her in Muncie with the van, head to the Indy airport, leave Alex there for the flight back and head home. Instead, I spent most of Sunday school time on my phone with the airline looking for a plan B flight. The agent did much better than I could, as it was really looking like there was nothing available to get Alex there until maybe Tuesday. But they got him onto a plane leaving Chicago O’Hare at around 7pm, which was actually about the same time the flight from Indy was leaving. So then, Missy was going to have to brave the weather by herself because Alex was now going in the opposite direction, and Beth wasn’t going to be able to go with her because there was no extra vehicle for her (since the truck had a flat tire, which I haven’t mentioned yet). Missy was pretty nervous, but we helped her get ready to go as quickly as possible so she could hopefully beat the weather, and Alex and I left as soon as we could so we could do the same and leave plenty of time for bad traffic, bad weather, and huge lines at security if people were being diverted there a lot. And Beth stayed home. In the end, Missy got back to school just fine without encountering any bad weather on the way at all, and Alex and I had little traffic, no bad weather, and there were literally 6 people in line for security when Alex got there. So he then had about 4 hours to kill until departure. I thought I should stay close just in case something happened and flights out of Chicago started getting cancelled too, but there was hardly even any wind. But since I had time to kill too, I went over to the IKEA in Schaumberg for a bit. I spent a couple hours wandering and picked up a cutting board and some cookies and chocolate, that was it, before deciding Alex’s flight was pretty safe so I headed home. Alex’s flight left on time and Scott picked him up on time, so he’s back for his final semester now. 

Judy and Neill came by this week. They wanted to take Alex out to dinner to celebrate his finishing college (early, but they may not see him again for a while) so as they passed by on their way to Birmingham, they stopped in to take us (Beth and me too!) out to dinner at the Boathouse. It was nice to catch up with them for a while. 

Saturday was the annual ritual of driving up to Wakarusa to pick up our Amish cow. Well, only a quarter of a cow for the past few years since fewer people are eating it at home now. We’re starting to wonder if it’d be better for us to keep getting that quarter cow every year, or just go to the meat shop every so often to buy a few weeks’ worth of meat at a time. It seems more expensive this year, but buying in bulk is probably cheaper. No brisket this year, we got a hind quarter. I still have the giant brisket from last year in the freezer, still not sure what to do with it but I do want to try some things this year.

So yeah…the flat tire on the truck. Well, I asked if everyone wanted to go to the hockey game in Fort Wayne on the last weekend for everyone, which was Friday the 3rd. Alex was into it but Natalie didn’t know what to do about Churro, and Missy started not feeling good during the day and asked if it was all right if she stayed home. Beth stayed behind too, so it was just the guys. But as I put some air in the tire of the truck which had been showing low pressure for a few days, the air valve stuck (or froze) open so the tire wouldn’t hold air. I couldn’t get it to seal so we just went home quickly and left the truck in the driveway because it seemed like a bad idea to take the truck to FW that night. We took the car instead. I brought the jersey Beth got me for Christmas and was able to exchange it for the next smaller size, which fit a lot better, and the game started off well as the Komets jumped out to a 2-0 lead, which they blew for the remainder of the game and lost to the Walleye 4-3. When we got back home, the tire on the truck was flat flat flat, so leaving it at home = good call.