Catch a Tory

Vivian and I have spent some quality time the last week or two hanging out friends of ours. We invited our mutual friend Jolene over for dinner and a movie on Tuesday last week. Vivian made up her special pizza meatloaf and we watched the film Glory together afterward. Then on Friday, we helped set up at JNO and had a great time dancing with a swarm of new people. Several of our friends were down in Kansas City, but it seemed we had more than enough newcomers to fill the void. We also had a goodbye jam for Andy Meredith, who has been chairman of the Jitterbugs board of directors for as long as I can remember. We sent him off in fashion with Shim Sham done in a circle.

On Saturday night, Vivian and I joined our friends Dennis and Kara in Blair to celebrate Dennis' birthday. It was a potluck cookout, and I brought a bunch of tasty hamburger patties from Costco. We also gave him a giant bag of Dunkin' Donuts coffee, a favorite of his from the east coast. Dennis broke out a couple bottles of wine and then we all got to enjoy an extensive game of Catchphrase in the living room before heading on home for the evening.

The April showers passing through Omaha this week have been cool and refreshing, and Vivian and I decided to have a romantic movie night on Tuesday. Vivian tried out a recipe for Chicken Cacciatore we wound together online, and then we settled in to watch Taken on DVD. It was a pretty enjoyable film -- one of those where you get a rush out of the good guy being so bad.

Wining and Dining

Have I mentioned how busy a week it's been for Vivian and me? On Tuesday last week, we went to back to HyVee for their monthly wine-tasting event, and this time we brought some of our mutual swing-dancing friends with us. We got to try eight more wines this week, along with the usual assortment of hors d'eouvres. I think I liked the Cabernet best this time, which was a velvety-smooth red wine. We headed back to our apartment later for some strawberry cheesecake ice cream and a couple rounds of Catchphrase.

Thursday was Mark's birthday, so a bunch of us got together again to have some delicious steak and Italian food over at Johnny's steakhouse in West Omaha. The drinks were being passed liberally again, but Vivian and I just shared a plate of pasta together instead. The real fun came from the usual source -- fruedian slips from Vivian about wet pants and changing Eric's Facebook status via his iPhone while he was in the bathroom.

Good times.

Tax Day Tea Party

If you've been keeping an eye on the news over the last week or so, you may have heard about these "Tax Day Tea Parties" that took place on April 15. I thought it would be interesting to exercise some of my first amendment rights and join my fellow citizens as they demonstrated in front of the Douglas County Courthouse on Wednesday. There was a pretty large crowd, an estimated 1,500 people or so, and plenty of colorful signs and American flags being bandied about. I was a bit late to the party and got to miss out on the Q&A with the State Treasurer Shane Osborn, but I did arrive in time to see a local historian play the role of Patrick Henry. He gave a fiesty little speech at the end of the event, and some of the audience got to banter back and forth with him. One man blurted out, "Why aren't you using a teleprompter?" Mr. Henry answered back, "Because I'm not being told what to say." I think that line got a better response from the crowd than any political posturing by any of the other speakers.

I was actually surprised at how non-partisan the event was. Naturally, there was a lot of ire directed toward the current commander-in-chief, but there were quite a few anti-Bush signs as well. The general sentiment I got from the crowd was that they were fed up with poltitics as usual and just wanted to have a voice. I can't really blame them. It seems we get republicans and democrats trading places in the White House every few years, but the budget only gets bigger, government gets more intrusive, and one party always blames the other for everything that's gone wrong. Social security's still going bankrupt, and I'm still paying a higher tax rate than Warren Buffet. I really don't think there will be any "change" to any of that in the next couple of years, but it is nice to know we still have the right to gather together and yell about it.

And yes, I did vote, so I suppose I'm entitled to it.

Easter Weekend

The Great Adventures gang at Chad's house on Easter Eve

Happy belated Easter, everyone!

Vivian and I spent our first Easter weekend as a married couple with friends and family over the weekend. On Saturday, we attended an "eggciting" Easter eve party with our friends from Great Adventures over at Chad's house in Omaha. We started the evening off coloring eggs with friends, using crayons and dye just like I did when I was a kid. That brought back memories. Some of the girls got to hide the eggs while we waited inside (without peeking), and then we all got to run around outside trying to find them. Vivian and I were able to recover six of them, but some of them went unfound. I have a feeling Chad will be smelling them sometime around July, wherever they are.

Once we'd recovered all the eggs, we headed back inside to crack them all up to make egg salad sandwiches and deviled eggs to much. A couple thoughtful people brought a Wii for us to play with, so I got to try out Mario Kart for the first time. That was fun.

On Sunday, Vivian and I attended a sunrise service at Christ Community Church, where they put on a series of skits featuring "doubting Thomas" before the sermon. We wanted to be sure to have plenty of time to get ready for Easter dinner at our place, since we were hosting it for the first time together. Vivian's parents came over, as did Eric and our mutual friend Kristin, and we got to have some glazed ham courtesy of Jack, and a number of side dishes courtesy of Vivian. My lovely wife spent the last couple of weeks hunting down recipes for such things as roasted asparagus and crab dip for us to try out, and Donna finished us off with a decadently large pudding dessert.

It was an eventful weekend to say the least, and I hope amidst the eggs and food preparation that we didn't lose sight of what we were supposed to be celebrating: the resurrection of Jesus and our salvation through Him. Maybe next time I'll say it this way: Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Friends and Freak Snow

Vivian and I have had a couple quiet weekends together, and it's getting to the point where I'm really missing all my Jitterbugs friends. On Friday we went out with veteran Jitterbug Robin for her husband Tim's birthday at HuHot. We stuffed ourselves crazy with some do-it-yourself Mongolian grill fare, and then went to hang out at Barnes and Noble, where Tim got to spend the gift card we gave him on a fun-sounding roleplaying game. We wrapped up the evening watching Race to Witch Mountain, another thorough raping of a childhood memory brought to you by Disney. Thanks, guys. Next time, just for a change of pace, remake a bad movie and made it good.

The other noteworthy event this weekend was the freak snowstorm on Sunday. Every now and then I have to remind myself, "This is Nebraska, and we can have either a freak snowstorm in April or a 100 degree heatwave in October." Spring did seem to come early this year, and every time Vivian and I have been able to leave the windows open and enjoy actual fresh air has been a blessing. Come on, spring! Show us some blossoms before the icy hand of winter strikes again.

Fried Fish and Bill Cosby

It's been another busy, fun week for Vivian and me and our cluster of fun friends. The deep winter freeze is giving way to spring early this year, with a week or two of gorgeous, unseasonable warmth so far this year.

Last Sunday, a bunch of us gathered to see our friend Sarah Porter perform in the Taffetas at the Chanticleer Theater in Council Bluffs. Sarah and her fellow cast members have been frequenting the Eagle's Lodge on Friday nights the last couple of weeks, singing "shaboom" a capella as the rest of us dance after the Shim Sham to encourage us to come and see the show. The play itself consisted of a medley of songs from the 1950s, and the girls did a great job with their selection of tribute songs. We had a great time, though we unfortunately weren't quite up for the run to Panera afterward — Vivian and I get our fill of America's favorite bread store every Sunday night.

Over this past weekend, we got to attend our first fish fry of the year down at St. John Vianney Catholic Church. Our friend Anna wanted us to come and help out her youth group's bake sale, which we were more than happy to do. We got our fix of warm, carb-laden comfort food, such as grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, and even pancakes. We also got to enjoy putting Eric in jail for a few minutes, and then Lisa won a bunch of pork chops with a raffle ticket. We wrapped up our dinner, naturally, by doing some swing dancing in the middle of the floor as the one-man band played a handful of oldies tunes for us.

We reconvened at the Eagle's Lodge afterward to burn off some of our meal at Jitterbugs Night Out. The Grand Marquis from Omaha were back to play some live music for us once again, which was nice. We also had a handful of birthdays in our group, including David and Robin. I presented Robin with a special jar of Birthday Jam I relabeled just for her.

The lovely weather continued on into the weekend, so on Saturday a few of our mutual friends through an impromptu picnic down in Bellevue. Spring is one of those odd times in Nebraska, where you have to take advantage of the one or two Saturdays when you have both sunshine and temperatures between 50 and 80 degrees.

That evening, Vivian and had I had a much-anticipated date night in downtown Omaha. After getting a few appetizers at the Panda House at 16th and Farnam, we joined a swarm of other patrons at the Orpheum Theater to see Bill Cosby. It was a real treat to be able to see the 71-year-old comedian performing live, and I had been able to secure seats in the third row, so we were up close and personal with one of the greatest stand-up legends of all time. His new material was quite a bit more "adult" than most of the family fare I'd heard before, but he ended his show with the Dentist routine, which was one of my favorites from his 1983 film, Bill Cosby: Himself. I'd seen this bit so many times before that I could probably perform it from memory, and it was quite surreal to see Bill Cosby himself performing it again just a few feet away.

My new web comic

It's been a long time in the making, but I finally started my new web comic: www.outatfive.com! I'm planning on updating every M0nday and Friday. Go check it out!