Day 5 - LA County moves into yellow tier

Sugar Rush…

Another section of Sugar Rush…

5/7/21. Friday

9:30 – 10:00 – I’m up so I go downstairs and say good morning to the animal. She pooped next to the front door again (sigh). I rub her tummy three times, she grabs her tennis ball, and we go outside. After running around the yard several times, she goes potty on the red rock and we come inside. Rotten chicken for her; coffee for me. I go upstairs.

Today’s Mother’s Day gift/birthday gift is a champagne-scented shower gel, lotion, and spray from Bath and Body Works! I love it!

10:00-12:00 – Blog posts.

12:00-1:00 – Shower. Lotion. Covid-19 uniform.

1:00 – 2:30 - I have a 3:00 ticket for the Sugar Rush, at The Village, in Woodland Hills – I’m pretty jazzed about it.  This is referred to as a ‘pop-up’ [they drive from place to place, popping up and charging for tickets and entry, like those mini-carnivals] and hard to describe.  Picture all the scenes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [the remake with Johnny Depp, not the crappy movie with Gene Wilder]…and, well, that’s the sugar rush.  One maze/section/scene after another featuring an homage to candy…life size lemon drops you can climb on…deer made of cotton candy…5-story chocolate kisses…candy-cane lane…you get the idea.  I posted a picture at the top of the blog.

-Driving. I listen to Martinis and your Money.

-I stop at Lady Dis for a chocolate-walnut brownie – I’ve been craving this for a week.

-Driving.  Traffic is…not good.  It’s almost back to pre-pandemic levels.

2:30-3:00 – I’m a half-hour early and they won’t let anyone in until 3:00, so I wait in my car and read a Money Diary.

3:00 – 4:00 - Ready!  This is an outdoor event, but everyone is masked.  I have to sign a waiver saying that I understand the risks of contracting Covid.  Security is tight – I also have to open my backpack for inspection and walk through a metal detector, but I pass muster and begin my tour through Sugar Rush.

I like it!  It’s cheesy and funny and there are several employees dressed up like the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, dancing on platforms.  I walk past a giant frog and one of the Mad Hatters says in a fake British accent, “If you kiss it, it will turn into a prince.”  LOL.  It really is just like walking through the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie.  At the end of the “tour”, a grown man dressed as an elf hands me a big bag of candy.  Strangely, at the end of the tour is some type of motor cop sitting on his huge bike – he’s smiling but it’s very intimidating.  

4:00-5:30 – I leave.

-Driving – Friday night rush-hour traffic.  Absolutely terrible.  What pandemic? I listen to Today Explained.

5:30 – 6:30 - Home and I have some of the charcuterie leftovers.  It’s even better the second day. I read Devotion.

6:30-7:30 – I take the dog for a walk. I listen to Air Talk.

7:45-9:30 – Gardening.  I do A LOT of trimming.  Yellow leaves are forming on some of my plants and my snapdragons are definitely infected with a fungus.  I pull the yellow leaves one by one – this is the only way to remove them – and then I clean up the Banks rose because there are numerous dead branches that need to be reckoned with. I also clean up the vines – trimming and more trimming – then do a final sweep of the patio.  Where are all these leaves coming from? I listen to The Fall Line.

-L. surfaces and announces she is making a sausage rigatoni. Praise be! (j/k). 

10:00-11:30 – I go to work.  I calculate grades for my Thursday night class, post them to their final transcript, and disable the Canvas shell.

The rigatoni is done and L. brings a steaming plate of pasta into my office.  I eat everything!  It is soooo good.  I know I’m going to pay for this weight-wise tomorrow.

11:30 –2:15 - I told my French Cinema partner I would submit our assignment for his review by Friday evening and here it is, Friday evening, and I’m not even close to finishing. I get to work on “our” Elle presentation. I prefer to do our assignments because I’m probably the better writer – it’s just easier then saying, “Okay, you write this paragraph and I’ll finish this one and we’ll review on this day for edits…”  I’d rather knock it out for the both of us…in fact, I’d rather not have a partner at all, but my teacher said we are not allowed to go solo on these particular assignments, so she pared me with J.  he seems nice enough and is really appreciative that I’m completing the assignments.

2:15-2:30 – My French Cinema assignment took longer than expected. I email it to my partner and close up shop.

2:30-3:30 – L’s rigatoni is amazing, but it looks like a bomb went off in the kitchen.  I do the dishes, clean the counters and sink, and store the remaining rigatoni.  There’s a ton left!! I listen to Counterclock, Season #3.

3:30-3:40 – I can only manage 10 minutes of a Kathy Smith Full Body Circuit with weights, before quitting.  My legs feel like lead.

3:40-4:15 – Night time routine. Bed.