weekend: life outside of blogging

If you haven't heard much from me lately, it's not because I'm the Powerball winner. It's because several projects have jostled their way to the front of my priority line, including...

1. Buying a sofa / loveseat combo. President's Day prices and financing, combined with a sore posterior from too many nights of The Sopranos on an uncomfortable all-too-permanent "temporary measure," equal a new look for the living room. (Our version is sexy red microfiber.)

2. Cleaning house apartment. I'm on midwinter break. No better time to throw away all the junk that has accumulated in the storage room, an annual ritual. Sentiment versus sanity: sanity wins every time. Goodbye, Lou Piniella commemorative pin. Goodbye, Beanie Baby bear. Goodbye, expired coupon stash. Hello, carpet!

3. Revisiting Pomodoro. This time, pork chop in honey sauce with garlic potatoes (me), chicken piccata on a bed of noodles (wife). Happy again, except for one problem: their portions are so large as to make dessert an impossibility, especially since bread and salad come standard with entrees. Oh well.

4. Watching Capote. Yes, the second coming of Truman Capote should earn Hoffman best actor, by far. But the film itself feels like retread--if you've seen In Cold Blood, every scene will be familiar, and the violence and tragedy won't be as shocking or compelling. Philip Seymour Hoffman, though... ¡Caramba!

Props, incidentally, to former student Kalister Harmon for taking second at state in diving in only his second year of competition.