Monday, August 10, 2009

We actually went to the movie yesterday

Yes, we spent about fourteen of the hundred dollars we have left going to a movie and eating dinner. What were we thinking?

Let me back up a bit.

About a week ago, my husband asks me if I want to go out of town with him for a few days. He says he is scheduled to work in Amarillo. (Sorry to have been unclear about that earlier, but I don't like blogging about where we are going. I like blogging about where we have been once we get back, but I know that there are weirdos out there, so it doesn't seem like a good idea to tell the whole world where and when I will be. Maybe that will land me right in the weirdo's backyard, and he will make plans to meet me. See?) Anyway, I haven't been to Amarillo in a long time, and I don't think that I have been there as a destination since I was very young. We have been there a couple of times on our way to New Mexico, Arizona, or California and have stopped there to eat lunch or something, but I don't think that we have ever stayed the night there. So that would have been interesting, and I was sorry that we didn't have time or money to go there a few extra days to look at stuff.

But as it turns out he was not scheduled to work in Amarillo, he was scheduled to work in Abilene. He claims that is what he told me, but I know that isn't what he said. We have this joke about Abilene, and if he had said Abilene I would have immediately started with the jokes. I am quite sure that he did not say Abilene.

Anyway, Abilene is not as far away, and probably not as interesting either. On the other hand, it would not be this long drive, and there weren't as many things to do, so maybe there would have been less temptation to spend money. And as it turns out Abilene has some cheap things to do and even a free museum, so going to Abilene might turn out to be a good thing.

So I was starting to look forward to going to Abilene, until I realized that we probably wouldn't have enough money left to make the trip. We thought that we would have two hundred dollars, and it turns out that we had about half of that, which probably wouldn't be enough for gas and the minimum two nights at a motel. So he called to say that he couldn't work out of town unless they could advance him some money, which he already knew that they wouldn't. His boss said that the Abilene schedule looked light, and could he work it if it was cut back to just one day? It is hardly worth the effort of all that driving and all that work for just one day, but yes, he could work just one day. We waited for them to call back and say either which one day it was, or that they were leaving it two days and got someone else to do it.

While all of this is going on, he needs new equipment and yet another computer doesn't work. They will have to send him another one and more equipment.

So now the entire idea of going out of town has been scrapped, and they have found him something to do in Dallas. This particular job probably became available because there is little money to be made and no one else wants the job. But fine, he'll take it, as long as he doesn't need going out of town expense money and he doesn't have to work on Saturday, he'll do it.

He kind of forgets that he has stuff to do on Friday too, and now he has to work Friday.

But, the schedule is done. He works Tuesday through Friday in Dallas. End of story. If they can get him a working computer and some other equipment today.

So, yesterday morning, he asks if I want to go see Julie & Julia.

Now, at this point I should yell at him. What are you thinking? But then I see what he is thinking. He's thinking that we now have a hundred dollars that we took out of the bank, and we don't have to spend it on going out of town Wednesday and Thursday. If we really want to, we can spend seven dollars going to see a movie.

Fine. I remind him that he should cut the grass first, which he does. So I'm looking to see where we might watch this movie he wants to see. And the movie isn't at our cheap theater, and to get the next cheapest price we have to go to a ten thirty showing, which we aren't going to be ready for. So I suggest waiting til Monday, but then I find a place not far away that has a one o'clock show that costs just under five dollars. So we do that.

The movie was okay. Not just wonderful, but okay. My husband has read the book and looked at the blog. The movie is half about Julia Child fifty years ago, and half about the blogger who made all five hundred and something recipes in 2002. So the movie isn't really based on the book Julie& Julia, but half based on that and half based on Julia Child's own book. My husband didn't like that, while I haven't read either book and was maybe more interested in the Julia Child parts.

Maybe I should blog my way through a cookbook. But it should probably be a diet cookbook. Or the way things are now, a budget cookbook.

Anyway, so after the movie, when he usually waits for me outside on a bench, we weren't at our regular theater and there was no bench. And I couldn't find him. And I guess that he was waiting out in the car, except that I couldn't remember where we had parked, and unlike our cheap theater, this place had a parking lot full of cars. So I am just wandering around this big parking lot, looking for my husband. And I don't find him, and I go back inside. It's hot. I go back out and find him.

I am too hot and tired to get into it. And so much for my resolve to not spend money on anything, especially dumb stuff like sodas. It is hot, and I don't even have any water in the car. And we need to buy gas anyway, so we decide to get sodas when we get gas. Only we nearly hit someone at the first place trying to get to the only empty pump. We go to a second place and circle around, but leave there too. Why the long lines? Is it some holiday I've forgotten about?

The third place is totally empty, and I am suspicious. Maybe the pumps don't work? But they do, and we get some gas. I go in to pay and to get sodas. The sodas are almost one fifty. Maybe I don't want sodas for that much. Maybe that is why the other two places were crowded, cause they had cheap sodas or Slurpee's. The sodas are going to cost three dollars. For four dollars we could go to Burger King and get dinner off of the dollar menu.

We don't find a Burger King, but we do see a McDonald's. We eat there instead.

Okay, no more spending money til Saturday.

Except for lotto tickets. I will lose my mind if I don't buy the damned lotto tickets.

I spend the rest of the day watching the X-files, and cooking beans in the crockpot while doing a dance around the dirty laundry on the kitchen floor. The laundry has piled up, and we ran out of soap. I've gone to the dollar store and now have soap, but I haven't quite decided it is time to try the soap yet. I'll probably do that today, or maybe tomorrow.

So that was all that we did this weekend, except that I have tried to get a little work done in the garden in the morning before it gets too hot. It is time to start on the wildflower bed, cause I will need that to be finished next month, even if it is too hot to do a good job of it. And then I will finish the pathway between the wildflower bed and the bulb bed. Unfortunately, the fire ants have decided to work in the same area. I will have to find out where they are coming from and kill them.

So I am off to dig in the dirt.

This really is going to be a long week.

2 comments:

Ananda girl said...

my mom used to watch Julia Child regularly. Sounds like an interesting movie.

A budget cook book blog would be very useful and fun.

Diva's Thoughts said...

For some reason I have no desire to see that movie. I do hope it does well though.