Freakin' FREEZING!

Was my weekend in Boulder. With the weather outside some number of degrees below zero, my DDD's apartment had a broken furnace. My first night there was spent in a double bed, huddled with my daughter in an effort to stay sort of warm. My nose was kept under the covers so that the cold air would stop waking me up. JJJJEEEEZZZ, it was cold. Both roommate and mother (me) called the property management people in the morning to get them the hell out there! They finally delivered two space heaters, neither of which worked. Then one industrial strength space heater showed up, shortly AFTER the power came back on after an hour or so of an outage. This, strangely, bolstered our feelings that things were starting to look up and that our luck wasn't ALL bad. The carpenter covering for the property management people did manage to get the pilot lit and the furnace to stay on, but the apartment smelled so strongly of gas that I did not think we could stay the night. Fortunately, it dissipated enough by evening that we were all right. They are still not allowed to close the door to the heater.

The good news was that both Friday and Saturday night audiences really loved The Learned Ladies! DDD played Armande, and has proven herself pretty darn adept at this acting gig she's pursuing. She's got a nice flair for comedy, and has always been pretty striking on stage. She got these nice big, beautiful eyes (the rest of her's pretty good too). The costumes were very unique and striking, and while the set was simple, it was utilized very well. I was impressed. Unfortunately, her grandparents and aunt came to the Sunday matinee where the audience was just plain dead! What a difference a lively audience makes - the actors play off the audience reaction, which of course, gets the audience rewarded with even more enjoyable moments! Remember that, people, next time you are in an audience! Laugh it up! Enjoy! Appreciate! (unless it's a serious or sad drama, of course...) Let 'em know you're there!

So the double edge sword here is that when I go out to visit DDD while she's in a show, we don't get to spend a ton of time together, which is sad; but then, I get to see her in her element, which is just wonderful. We did manage some shopping time so she could replace her cold toes boots with something a little more appropriate. She always gets a few little goodies as well - a nice dinner or two, a tank of gas, some windshield wipers and the like. Being the good little credit card holders we are, we oblige these little luxuries. The sad part is that I realize just how much I really like her company and how much I've missed her these last 3 1/2 years.

My little great-niece had her second birthday while I was there as well - it was SO fun to see her and her little baby brother! Two little blondies - Adam still looks bald (he's only 3 months old, so duh...) and Nina still has just a little bit of hair, but it's in cute little curls at the nape of her neck. I just wanted to eat her up! I didn't get nearly enough of a baby fix, though, so I'm just going to have to go borrow my nephews a little this weekend. Can't believe littlest nephew is going to be a year old in a couple of weeks. It's gone by so fast...

So, for those of you bugging me to tell you how the weekend was - it was great, it was freakin' freezing, and it wasn't (and never is) long enough. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.