20 – 12 = 7 (The New Math)

If you want to figure out that subject line, you’ll have to read all the way through to nearly the end. I’m going to start with Thursday when I went off to Grandma’s after work to meet her and Aunt Barbara for dinner. I rarely see Barbara (Grandma’s baby sister), so it was a rare treat for her to be in town even if it was for one day. We visited for a bit, went to dinner (okay food, horrible service — bad service seems to be endemic around this part of the state), and then parted company. I’m sure you saw our part of the country in the news, as it turns out we got 12 inches of rain in Grandma’s part of town in 5 hours (and 16 in 24) so my drive home — which is normally 40 minutes, was much longer. Other people never got home, including many people who slept in the mall because they couldn’t escape. Needless to say, my sleep Thursday night was cut short by half of what it should be, forgetting whether or not I actually slept.

Friday, I went to work knowing it would be a long day, and far more tired than I planned to be. I was secretly hoping the evening’s movie would be cancelled because I was totally wiped. But I wasn’t going to be the one to mention it, hint at it, or cancel it. Friday brought more bad weather, and in fact, a tornado removed a gas station near Grandma’s house. Left work early to meet Pablo and Andrea at my house and then go to the game. Ended up getting home late due to an accident. Remarkably, there was no traffic on the way to the arena. On Sunday it’s a 40-minute drive and on a weekday at 5, it’s usually a 75- to 90-minute drive. We did it in 48. Shocking. We went to Rosario’s, which was there years ago, vanished, and has now reappeared. My food was good, but I was most irritated that the lasagne was swimming in the sauce. That’s not a proper lasagne.
Flavour was good, though not evenly cooked. Evan loved his as did Pablo and Andrea. Kathy didn’t seem to like hers as she barely ate any. The garlic rolls were phenomenal.

We went to the game and the rain has vanished, finally, by then. We got to witness a rare home win by the Panthers despite their efforts to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory in the final period of play. So far, the day was proving to be a success. While at the game, Greg asked me to film his son playing goalie at first intermission, which I was glad to do. I tested the video camera at our seats by filming the Ice Cats (nothing like soft core porn to amuse you). I went down to 103 — centre ice — to film Greg’s kid and was stopped by the usher as they were letting the kids on the ice. The usher was actually nice once I explained what I was going to do. He let me stand behind the handicapped section and film. Then the supervisor Nazi came over and started yelling at me, causing me to miss finding out which goalie was which. Then the two ushers and the supervisors argued over whether or not I could film. (Filming of the NHL game is prohibited. Filming a friend/relative/etc at intermission is permitted but they had trouble figuring it out, and I kept getting jostled about.)

Having no choice I tried to film BOTH goalies at opposite ends of the ice but doubt I succeeded in doing anything but filming a bunch of shaking about. I feel bad, but that fiasco wasn’t my fault. The arena folks don’t communicate and none of them know the rules, and this is a common occurrence. Feh.

We left and went to Cinema Paradiso where we would see Rocky Horror Picture Show. The entrance to the parking garage was closed, so we drove in the exit and up the exit ramp. We watched other cars have the same challenge trying to park as we did. Finally, Liz arrived and had similar trouble, nearly removing the automatic gate when it refused to open.

We went in, realized we had time because they weren’t on schedule. Liz and I let them know that Pablo was a virgin. (In this context I refer to one who hasn’t seen RHPS and beyond that is outside the scope of my knowledge thankyouverymuch.) They tried to put the red lipstick “V” on his head, but I forestalled it until we returned from our coffee adventure because I was feeling kind.

We piled in my car and went in search of caffeine. Sadly, all the Starbucks we passed were closed, and we ended up at the Floridian Diner on Las Olas where Liz and I had coffee and key lime pie. Andrea had coffee and Pablo just watched. We finished, headed back to the cinema via the tunnel (Pablo was apparently a tunnel virgin as well). We parked, coming in through the out door again*. We bought our tickets and Pablo immediately got the “V” mark on his head. He was a good sport about it.

We entered the theatre just past midnight. My day is eighteen hours old already at this point and I’m operating on four hours of sleep. The coffee isn’t helping. I like the theatre: comfortable seats, some friendly staff, and even some friendly fans. All RHPS shows have some form of ‘virgin games’ wherein the ‘virgins’ are embarrassed gently. I got ‘ring around the virgin’ in high school. Other casts make you introduce yourself at the front of the theatre, proclaiming yourself a virgin. Stuff like that. This cast made everyone introduce themselves while grabbing their tits or tackle (as appropriate) and shouting their name loudly. Pablo did himself proud and we laughed. That should have been the end of it, but it wasn’t.

Now, I’ve seen some casts do spin the bottle wherein you take the virgins in two groups, spin the bottle, and then kiss the virgin from the other group. It’s a chaste kiss and you can pretend kiss if you really want. Harmless enough though creepy in these times.

This theatre they collected money and for every dollar they collected the virgins had to hold the kiss that long. That’s a bit over the top and definitely a little past the point of sexual harassment. Most people were faking it, though. Anyway, poor Pablo was the victim of a “substitution” where they picked someone of a clearly different orientation. I shan’t go further other than to say, I sincerely and formally publicly profusely apologize to Pablo — had I known I’d have never outed you as a virgin. You might have a sexual harassment case against the theatre. I hope you can walk again in a few weeks. (I’m kidding about the last sentence, but not the rest. Way too over the top. One day they will get sued, and they will lose.) If Pablo wishes to elaborate, he may. That’s all I’m going to say.

The only amusing part of this part was this one kid — 14 at best** — who raised $31 and got a nice, long French kiss with a very large older woman, and he appeared to enjoy it immensely. No faking there. He’ll probably need therapy and turn gay. It was a great laugh because when asked by the MC how he liked it, he was really breathless and had trouble answering it; the smile on his face was priceless.

We bought prop bags. I got three at $4 each. That’s $12 and handed the lady $20 and waited for change. “That’s seven,” she said. She repeated it again. I corrected her, and she said “seven” again. I ended up getting eight, but I’m not sure she believed me. Seriously. Epic fail. She wasn’t even a blonde.

The film started a little closer to 1am than midnight. They showed the US cut which has a missing scene/song and is about 3 minutes shorter than the UK version as I recollect. I could look at my last RHPS review but am far too lazy. The atmosphere here was way better than at Flippers where we saw it last time. But they had the movie volume down too low to hear, and the lighting people were incompetent causing the spotlights to blank the screen numerous times. The cast was enjoyable except for poor Rocky who was miscast due to his very tiny stature, and it was very, very, very distracting.

We got out well past 2am and I flew home at warp factor ten, at one point being passed by a little Acura doing warp twenty and at another point being nearly run into by a DUI. We got home a little past 3am, and then Pablo and Andrea went on their way. I was in bed around 330am, and was up, sadly, at 740am. That’s two nights in a row with four hours of sleep. Today was harsh. Really harsh and I am not functioning well. Tomorrow I have to be up at 7ish to head to the flea market with Timmy, Liz, and John. No reason, just fun.

And a bit of random news: if you think the Queen is not normal, here she is taking public transport. It’s pretty cool that she’d do this. It’s so normal yet not. A very short video so feel free to take a peek. And now I’m off to bed.

* Gratuitous Prince reference. Name that song for one penny.
** No idea how he got into an R rated movie 

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