Sushi To Go

Just got home from a quiet-but-busy day. Stopped on the way home at Sushi Totoro, so I am now sitting here with a bowl of miso soup, California rolls and Philadelphia rolls. We have a cold front rolling in with the promise of showers over the weekend so I am looking forward to a nice quiet weekend spent - hanging out and just enjoying the quiet things in life. I have a couple of new books to read, I have a couple of loads of laundry to do, and I have a collection of movies from which I may take my choice. This weekend I have planned to have no plans - just take things as they come.

I spent most of the work day troubleshooting a problem that cropped up earlier in the week and they (meaning the developers) thought they had found the root cause - except - it turned out to be not the root cause. LOL - not only not the root cause, but at the end of the day I am pretty convinced it had nothing to do with nothing. (I did find the root cause after a couple of hours of methodical testing). I always like when that happens. Even though as a manager now my role is no longer purely technical it is nice when I put my technical skills to work and out perform other people. That is the part of me that is inherently competitive - it is good to be good.

I am almost finished reading Jack Higgin's "The Killing Ground", a Sean Dillon novel. It is decent, a well plotted if formulaic thriller that I latched onto when I was visiting my folks. Next up (novel wise) is "A Painted House" by John Grisham, which I also pinched from the folks. I tend to like John Grisham novels and my step-father Bill recommended this one very highly.

My mother was in and out of the hospital again, this time with a bleeding ulcer. She is now back at home. After she was released from the hospital they spent a couple of hours in a furniture store looking a new chairs (my sister and I offered to buy them new chairs for Christmas). My mom say's that they tried about twenty different chairs - but still have not decided on what to get. They both have features that they want in a chair and they could not find a chair that met exactly what they wanted so my sister is going to take them up to Pierre, SD in the next couple of weeks to look at another furniture store. (That is the challenge of living in rural America - many of the things we urban dwellers take for granted - i.e. multiple furniture stores - simply are not there.)

There was an amusing exchange - my mother is trying to convince my step-father to get one of the chairs that has the automatic lift - that eases them in and lifts them out of the chair. My step-father refuses, because he's "not that old yet". My mother thinks he is. And immediately after telling me that she told me "but, I am not old enough to need one yet, but Bill is". My mother is actually older than my step-father. I suspect she conveniently forgot that.

I am planning on going out with friends on Sunday morning to see the Keanu Reeve's remake of "The Day The Earth Stood Still". Like me, my friends are huge Sci Fi fans, so whether or not the remake is any good is not particularly relevant. We will see it because it is. Zen Sci-Fi. After that the plan is to go to Hawg's in Campbell for lunch (an excellent sea food restaurant). Saturday is pretty wide open, beyond our routine breakfast at the Hickory Pit, also in Campbell.

I am of half a mind to sort through my CD collection this weekend - I have a new CD bookcase (have had it for a while) and I think the rainy weather might be a perfectly good excuse to spend the day indulging in music. My mood is good tonight, so who knows what sort of things the weekend will hold. I've been meaning to set aside some time to write, but just haven't been able to get to it, and this weekend might turn out to be the perfect time for it.

So, I am slipping into this Friday evening in a good mood, with excellent sushi and miso soup, with the Christmas tree twinkling, with Annie Lennox playing (Bare), and with the heater keeping the apartment nice and warm against the encroaching storm front. And I happened to notice that Charles Bronson "The Mechanic" is on TV a little later tonight...