good end to this 30-day month

Come midnight, April will be done this year - hallelujah!

Monday featured yard work and a movie at AMC.

Tuesday held more working in the yard, a second movie at AMC, and slunch with the bfe.

Wednesday - today - saw the chem ladies luncheon, the monthly laundry session, a third movie at AMC, and Trenting with my first niece.

 

I'm so glad the weather has cooperated to lift my spirit.

Ever since that dip on Monday, it's been in the 80's during daylight, with more uplifting notes to follow along into May tomorrow.

That lower tone for the first day of the week actually made it ideal, though.

I have a yard inspection coming on May Day.

Smitty suggested I use mulch to show off the "flower beds" of spiderwort in the front, rather than putting up little white fences.

I wanted neon yellow mulch, but Home Depot had only red, black, and brown as the options.

Fortunately, the wood variety was on sale for just $2 per bag.

I chose the red-stained wood.

(smile!)

So far, I've put out thirteen bags of it.

Remember that spiral I like to mow under the Japanese magnolia tree?

Well, it's going to be absolutely obvious now.

I just wish it could better resemble a yellow brick road... 

but the brick red is good.

No neighboring ignoramus will ever mistake it for a crop circle again.

(smile!)

Dinner was in-house on Monday, with leftovers intended for lunch Tuesday.

Instead, I met the physicist at Bonefish Grill about 5 PM and we dined on shrimp and tuna for two hours.

Yes, that would be both seafood delights, as he and I shared the pineapple shrimp as well as the  pan-seared & blackened ahi tuna.

Absolutely delightful and we ate every bit!

Might that be due to the lack of side salads from the meals?

Yes, I'd wager that's so.

At least we both know of that menu change now.

 

The luncheon at Kayak Kafe Midtown today was quite filling, as usual.

Yvonne and Lea were there and, because the spring semester is done, no one was in a rush to get back to anywhere...

so we sat and visited for almost three hours!

Since we finished up all the school chatting early on -

including me telling them of Annette Ramos at SMF36 as a volunteer -

and Lea informing us of the upcoming merger of East Georgia State College in Swainsboro as the thruple for GaSoU and Armstrong -

we had time to explore other topics.

Very nice!

Such as this: Lea is a seamstress, too!

She just made her daughter's dress for senior prom!

Of course I talked about making my wedding dress and all those fabrics and using the 7 1/2-inch spread between the tip of my thumb and the tip of my pinkie to measure widths for unmarked remnants... of course!

Yvonne never did get into sewing, nor has Lea's daughter, Amy.

Nice to know I have this in common with the one of us still at Armstrong.

When Suzy Carpenter retires next month, Lea will be the only woman in the Chemistry & Physics department at Armstrong.

Hard to believe that, isn't it?

But that will be something else she and I will have in common: being the lone female in a place full of men.

I had that experience when I first arrived at Galeta Island in Panama.

I was the first woman to ever be stationed there.

Of course, that was in the late 1970's, and, in the electronics maintenance field, was not such a rarity.

In this modern world, a female chemist is much more common.

The thing is, here's the thing: as people have retired at Armstrong, new people - of either sex - are not being hired to replace them.

That's a lot of empty offices in the seven years I've been gone...

since the last merger.

Glad I'm not part of that scene.

Glad that Yvonne and I are still here to support Lea.

(smile)

Now, on to the very active dances on my A*List card this week!

Yes, all were rather fast-paced, even though one was animated.

"The King Of Kings" took the traditional Easter story of Jesus and had it told by an actor to his young son, a son that was besotted with the tale of King Arthur and Excalibur.

That was a bit of a different take, so that was nice.

"The Accountant 2" (written as 'squared', not as a sequence value) reminded me that it's been a while since I saw the first one.

I'm just saying this: 9 years is too long to wait for a sequel.

I remembered nothing about Ben Affleck's autistic hitman character, nor about his brother, played by Jon Bernthal.

I'm not saying the movie wasn't good, because it was quite good.

I just wish I could have had more context.

That was certainly not the case with "Sinners", which may be the best movie I've seen this year, and Michael B. Jordan has a lot to do with it ticking.

Strangely, the bfe and I were just talking about him at our dinner, with me going on again about the Jesup Drive-In jaunt arranged by that actor during the pandemic.

The movie is set in 1936 and centers on three men: Smoke, his twin Stack, and their younger cousin Sammy, aka Preacher Boy.

Romance, music, dancing, vampires... wow!

Before the end, I was weeping.

Then, a short way into the credits, when I thought I was under control, another reel popped up, set in 1991, at a place called... well, named for Sammy's lover.

By the end of that bit, I was weeping again.

Wow.

I do so look forward to seeing this again next week.

The bfe will be with me, too, as he's quite interested in vampires.

Isn't that something?

I've known him 13 years and never knew that until just recently.

Good.

(smile!)