2/2/13

Greetings from a cold evening in Iowa…

The weather continues to be very wintery.  Been having days where the outside temperatures stay in the single digits.  Burrr….

On Friday morning we had the city come and do the apartment inspection.  They found a few small things that we need to correct.  Need to replace some of the hard wired smoke detectors with newer dual sensor models, and do some upgrades to the back exterior stairs.  The stairs need some additional railings and enclosures.  They want them to be safer for small children…  There is a small handyman place down the street that we will contact and see if they will deal with the stairs.  The smoke detectors are easy – have ordered them on Amazon and should be easy to install when they arrive next week.

We had a busy morning today with cat training at ARL and my ice skating.  First made it to the Brenton Plaza (outside ice skating rink) at 8:15 am for a final practice session before the show later in the morning.  John dropped me off and then he ran to pick up his dry cleaning and stop at the bank.  I got into my skates and we went through our routine a few times.  It went well – just fine tuned some of the timing of it.

After practice was done at 9:00am John was waiting for me in the Jeep and then we headed to the Animal Rescue League (ARL) for cat training class.  They require the volunteers to go through the training before they are allowed to work with in the feline area.  The training was about where things are located in the building, how to sign-in and out, procedures for handling the kitties and etc.  The lady who conducted the training did a nice job of keeping it moving right along and interesting.  The ARL has a nice facility and the animals appear to well taken care of.  The adoption cat area is not huge, they probably have two dozen cat cages along with two group rooms.  The training was done in 70 minutes, just in time to head back downtown for the show.

We were originally going to be the last group to perform, but we got bumped up to being the third.  The first two were girls who were very good.  We were the first of the “Learn to Skate” groups.  Here is an iPhone video that John took of the debut performance:

Best part of the performance is that I did not fall down…. Lots of room for improvement, but was still fun…  We then stayed and watched the other groups perform.  A group of grade school kids did a routine to the Adams Family theme song that was cute.  Then the youngest kids did a routine to Hakuna Matata from the Lion King… now I have that song stuck in my mind….

After ice skating we headed towards home and decided to dine out for lunch.  We ended up at the King and I Thai restaurant.  John dined here a few weeks ago with coworkers and enjoyed it.  This was my first time and it was really good.  I had a red curry dish with chicken.  I like my Thai food to be spicy but not over the top and they did a nice job with that.  Only drawback is that it was a little expensive, but would like to go back again.

Prince was a little stand-offish with us when we got home.  Think he could still smell cats from the ARL on our clothes.  He came around after 15 minutes of meowing his disgust with us  This afternoon we hung around the apartment, watched TV and did stuff on the computer.  Had a simple supper of soup and sandwich.

Tomorrow we are going to see The Book of Mormon at the Des Moines Performing Arts Center downtown.  The show starts at 1:00pm, so will probably head downtown at 11:00am and have lunch then walk over to the show.  There are lots of restaurants along Court avenue that are within easy walking distance.  Then after the show I have ice skating lessons at the indoor rink in Urbandale at 5:05pm.  John may have to drive me directly to the rink after the show – its running time is 2 hours, and 30 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.  John is not thrilled with having to sit through even more ice skating this weekend, but he will get over it

Not much else going on…  Going to play computer game for a bit and then head off to bed.  I got really tired of playing World of Warcraft, so picked out a new online game to play.  It is called Fallen Earth and it is post apocalyptic adventure game. It a bit like Warcraft in that you go on quests and kill monsters to raise up in levels.  I like how you gather up materials that you can craft into usable items.  Like I get cotton from cotton plants along with some weak adhesive from another plant and combine them to make clothing and etc. The game is also “Free to Play”, but you can spend real money on some upgrades and expansion for the game.  So far I’ve spent $5.00 on it – less then the $14.95 a month that Warcraft costs to play….