Weekend While You Wait

Last weekend was the best one I've had in recent memory. It was an intentional effort on my part to have a great all-about-me weekend that came on the heels of some...well....interesting news from my doctor. It seems as though in my physical she found a lump. The standard procedure is a mammogram and a consultation with a surgeon and those things are on the books, but I have had to wait a bit to get in for those appointments. I'm genuinely not worried about it because these things are very common and are much more often nothing than something. The good news is that if I did need a mastectomy, they can reconstruct using fat from various parts of the body. Now that's what I call a win-win. However, I felt it necessary to ease my waiting time with some great time over the weekend that would make my two-week wait a bit more palatable. Here is the breakdown by day:

Friday

I have the best work crew imaginable. I've mentioned how great the boss is, but the rest of the team is brilliant as well. I've told them about the mutinous boob in case I end up needing to be gone from work any more and they've been great about it. Friday afternoon they presented me with a gift card for a spa day. Very sweet. It got a little less sweet when Boss Man Spa Nazi emphatically noted that it WASN'T TO BE USED FOR SHOPPING AND WAS TO BE USED THAT WEEKEND. Easy there, killer - got it. I had already made an appointment with Cynthia, facial lady extraordinaire, so now it was covered.

Friday evening my friend AM came over and I made a chicken and corn chowder for dinner. If I may say, kids, this is an amazing chowder. It's quick, warm, comforting and filling. For dessert I made this cherry-crumble-type thing that is an old family favorite. It's called Mix-Mix-Mix but oddly, there's no mixing. It's more assembling than anything else. It's a can of cherry pie filling, a Jiffy (b/c it's a small box, or half of a regular one) white cake mix, dry and sprinkled on top of cherries. Then cover with a cup of oats and then melt a stick of butter and drizzle over it all. You can sprinkle on some pecans if you're so inclined. Then you bake the whole think at 425 for about 30 minutes. I can't describe how satisfying this is. I served it with chocolate ice cream and it was amazing.

As we ate our dinner we watched Children of Men. Interesting. Lots of spiritual overtones. Clive Owen is hot. Those are my take-aways.

Saturday

I woke up at my leisure (although I was excited about my day so I didn't sleep too long) and made pumpkin biscuits for breakfast. This is a fall favorite of mine and a traditional breakfast on Thanksgiving day for my family. I have a Saturday morning ritual of making breakfast and watching The Soup from the night before, then I showered and went to get a mani/pedi. Following my nail time I went up to Marin to see Burn After Reading at my favorite movie theater. It seems as though it was See Your First Coen Brothers' Film day at the Corte Madera theater. About 2/3 of the way through the film a woman behind me whispered to her companion, "This is really kind of strange." Mmmm hmmm. Yeah. Then in the restroom, a lady was discussing the film with her friend and her recap was, "It started out funny, then it got cynical and then it got really dark." IT'S A COEN BROTHERS' FILM. And, for them, this was pretty "radio friendly." There were only 2 murders, and only one of them was particularly grizzly. Really, it was Coen Brothers' Lite. Brad Pitt was HI-larious in it and John Malkovich played his desperate former intelligence agent to self-indulgent perfection.

Following the movie I did a little errand running/shopping and then headed off to my facial appointment at 4. Got home around 6:30, had some leftover chowder for dinner and got to work on some church stuff.

Sunday

Did church in the morning and I have to say it was a blast. I was leading worship and the songs were fun, the band was fun and it all just went really well. Following our Town Hall meeting regarding the move to OAPC, I went and met Annelies for brunch. We went to Brenda's which is a French soul food restaurant. It is, in a word, foodgasmic. Brenda herself was there cooking and I told our server, who told her, that if I were on death row, this would be my last meal. I had the fried catfish eggs benedict with Creole hollandaise sauce and hash. The biscuits are beyond description as is the homemade strawberry preserves. It was altogether fabulous.

After brunch we headed over to the Opera Plaza cinema for TransSiberian. Interesting suspense thriller with some plot holes, but overall a good flick. After a stroll through the nearby bookstore and some grocery shopping, I headed home. The Cowboys beat the Green Bay Packers (in Lambeau Field!!!) rather handily and then I watched the Emmys.

It was truly the best weekend ever and so very needed. I'm looking forward to the upcoming swirl of activity and it will all be made much easier by last weekend's relax-a-thon.