Taxi Driver and Room Switcheroos

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I forgot to tell you about watching the movie Taxi Driver last week. I've only seen it once, 20-some years ago. As happens a lot, I watch an actor interviewed on Bravo's Inside the Actors Studio and end up putting one or more of their movies in our Netflix queue. That's how we came to watch Taxi Driver. I really wanted to see it again, in spite of knowing it's quite violent.

Man, what a freakin' classic. Robert De Niro is outstanding! He was just mesmerizing to watch. I wanted to mention this to you in case you ever see it on DVD - be sure to watch the hour-long "making of" feature. It's absolutely fascinating. It features interviews with the actors, director and writer, filmed in 1999, so it's fairly current. I love that! Everyone was 25 years older than in the movie - it was very cool! And they provide lots of interesting behind-the-scenes information. I highly recommend it.

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I've been on vacation this week. I swear I'm this close to canceling my Thursday and Friday off so I can go back to work and get some rest. I need some serious sitting on my ass time. Whew, I'm beat!

In my very last entry I was talking about how it would be a few years until I was able to move my studio into Simon's hopefully-by-then vacated bedroom. Things have changed. He and I are movers and shakers, we are. He decided he definitely wanted to move his room into the basement rec room now. We discussed furniture arrangement, etc. and both came up really happy with the idea. So it's been a beehive of activity around here - with no time to take before and after pictures even!

Here's what we've been up to. Pictures to follow sometime in the next few days.

Yesterday Steve and I went out to lunch at Sticky Lips BBQ - wow - that's some good food! I had Pulled Pork Nachos and Sweet Potato Fries. I ordered a small helping of the nachos but I knew it would still be more than enough food. But I've been craving Sweet Potato Fries - and they were mighty good. I had some Cherry Bomb BBQ sauce on my pulled pork nachos - you know me and sweet flavors. It was da bomb.

I had leftovers of both so I boxed them up in a Styrofoam container. We're driving down University, about to turn left onto East Avenue when I saw a dishelved young man sitting in the grass with a sign, "Hungry and Homeless". I said to Steve, "I want to give him my lunch leftovers." I don't know why it surprised me that Steve said this but it did, "Turn around and circle through again." So I did. There were no cars behind me but I would have stopped anyway. I stopped the car, rolled down my window and called to the man, "Here you go. Here's some lunch for you." He got up, walked over to the car and accepted the Styrofoam box, with a few bless-you-ma'ams thrown in. It was probably the biggest meal he's had in a while. He was looking very sad and weak.

I've been feeling good about that ever since, that I got to help him. Kind of got my volunteer juices flowing again. I was a volunteer at the Rochester Ronald McDonald House for 9 years and at that time, thought I'd never not be a volunteer again. But life changed and I needed a break. I have no idea where this is leading now. Somewhere I hope. Interesting.

On the way home from lunch we stopped at Wegmans to rent a Rug Doctor carpet cleaning machine. Penfield was out of them and Perinton only had 2 left. What? Independence Day is a big rug shampooing day? Who knew? So early last night we cleaned the carpet in Simon's new room while he was at work. He started moving furniture in last night, even while the carpet was still wet. That kid worked his butt off.

We also shampooed the high traffic areas of the living room and family room too. Made quite a difference. We were going to have all the carpet professionally cleaned, I even left voice mail at a place on July 4th. Then we decided we were too eager to get going so we rented the Rug Doctor. Good enough for now.

This morning I boxed up the little that remained in Simon's old room so I could shampoo that carpet before we had to return the machine at 2:45 today. I finally woke Simon up around 10:00 so we could go to Home Depot and Target looking for a closet set-up for him. There's no closet in the rec room. I think we found exactly the right thing at Target - two pieces actually. One is a clothes rod and shelf, which fits on top of a unit that has 4 shelves, three of which pull out. Simon is extremely particular about his clothes. He only hangs his button down shirts. Everything else he folds - hanging his t-shirts and Polos will stretch them out he says. (He works at Abercrombie Kids - has worn only Abercrombie & Fitch clothes for years. The kid loves clothes. Yes, he pays for them, not me.)

My point is he doesn't need much hanging room but needs lots of shelf and drawer space. He has a dresser besides so I think this set-up will work splendidly. He spent the afternoon assembling the furniture and did a great job with it. He's a mechanical whiz, barely needs directions. I love assembling that furniture and am fairly well mechanically inclined but he can work circles around me with that stuff.

I tell you, that kid has worked his butt off getting this room together. It really looks nice, very warm and cozy. It's long so he has a bedroom area and a living room area, we're calling it. Lizz's old bunk beds are in there too because we have no place else to put them. Simon has friends sleep over quite often so I suspect they'll get used. (Actually, the top one is too close to the low ceiling to be used.) I'm afraid Simon will use the bottom bunk as a catch-all for his clothes, but whatever. Not my problem, I've got a place to sleep.

I'll tell you about my new studio tomorrow. I've barely started moving things in there. But I will tell you that I'm going to Freecycle my computer desk. I went to Staples tonight and bought 3 new Iris 5-drawer storage units. I also went to Home Depot and bought 3 pieces of MDF to use as countertops across the Iris drawers. I hope the configuration I have in my head works out. I'm very eager to get going on it but just had to rest tonight.

Enough babbling out of me - time for bed.