Puck just left to get the train back to school, after staying with me since last Wednesday night. We had a little bit of a rough parting, not because of a fight, but because they are feeling sad and depressed and I'm frustrated that nothing I do seems to help. So this has not been the best holiday weekend ever, even though I spent so much time with Puck. In years past, that alone would have been more than I could want or expect.
The reason Puck was staying here is because their house in Staten Island continues to be uninhabitable as it is being repaired from Hurricane Sandy. I went there a couple weeks ago to remove my projector and screen and the first floor is almost a total loss. It feels awful seeing them have to go through what I went through with my fires of 2007 and 2009. I can't imagine how hard it would be for me to have that kind of disaster hit me now, with the lack of support system I used to have back in Houston (such as it was) and in New Jersey.
It's been a while since I've had to get up for work. I took Thursday and Friday before Thanksgiving week off to see the Twilight Saga marathon, which was all five movies culminating with the finale at 10 pm that night. It was a great ending to the series and I really enjoyed myself.
On Friday I got a ZipCar and drove out to Stony Brook to pick up Puck for the weekend because we hadn't seen each other in a month to that point and we were missing each other. We were supposed to see each other at Ryan's wedding earlier in the month, but that got postponed to January due to Sandy. Saturday we went to House JAPaN for a hot cocoa and hookah party hosted by Alex, then went to visit Puck's family and sister at their grandmother's place in the Lower East Side.
Sunday I packed my stuff to go on a business trip to Ivanpah, our large solar thermal plant in California. It was a fun trip, as those go, especially since it was only one night and spent in Las Vegas at a posh hotel. I even won $0.10 playing video poker.
I got home late Monday and woke up Tuesday to have lunch with my past summer intern at Nearing. We went to the Tick Tock Diner near Penn Station and got caught up on each other's lives. She's eager to come back and help out during the winter break, and I will be happy to see her in the office if we can make that happen.
The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday was spent grocery shopping and preparing food for the upcoming holiday weekend with Puck. We had Thanksgiving dinner at their grandmother's place with all the grandparents, including a wonderful pie their mom made.
Friday Puck went to visit Ryan and I spent the day hiding from the shopping crowds. In the evening, Puck, Lori and I went to try our luck with the Broadway ticket lotteries, but struck out twice. So Puck went home and Lori and I had dinner at Schnipper's and then contributed to a record-breaking Thanksgiving box office tally by seeing Wreck-it Ralph, which surprised me as being the best animated film I've seen since Toy Story 3, (which admittedly wasn't that long ago) but also probably one of my top 5 animated films of all time (Beauty and the Beast, Toy Story 3, Wall-E, and Howl's Moving Castle are the other four). It was amazingly good. When I got home, I woke Puck to let me in and we stayed up late watching a bunch of episodes of the new CW show Arrow (the Oliver Queen/Green Arrow character from DC Comics) before heading to bed.
Saturday I went to get my hair coloring redone, which was long overdue, while Puck went to visit family. My colorist, Kelly, left Sassoon with a bunch of other coworkers and opened Salon SCK, near Columbus Circle. It's a gorgeous space, so open and airy, with a view of Trump Towers and Columbus Circle from the second floor. I got my hair all done in a slightly darker shade with purple highlights like I used to have.
In the evening, Puck and I went to see the play Cyrano de Bergerac from orchestra box seats we bought the night before. It was a sumptuous, grand staging and full of action, romance and comedy. We were lucky to see it before it closed today - Puck is reading the play in Russian with their mom. I've been a fan since I read it in high school, and of the 1950 movie starring Jose Ferrer. When we got home, we started a marathon of James Bond movies (just one more thing we're planning to go through) with Dr. No and From Russia With Love.
Today's been a quiet day, other than the way it ended. We walked over to Best Buy to see if Puck could find an e-reader, but no luck. I got a copy of Prometheus, which I missed in theaters so I'm looking forward to checking it out. We got some vegetable dishes from the Sichuan restaurant on 48th Street and I made some fried beef dumplings and curry chicken to go with it. I went to yoga, but I felt scattered and unable to focus in the now. So now to bed and hopefully things will be better tomorrow. Good night.
