Blizzard, Dinner And a Movie

I have gone through a blogging hiatus recently! I really need to update today because of the recent blizzard and weekend activities we have been through. First of all, I want to say thanks to all of you Facebook users who expressed concern over my status update on Thursday. It was something to the effect of “Laura has been stuck in her car for 1.5 hours in a blizzard and isn’t even halfway home!”
Here’s the story: All week, we had been hearing forecasts of a huge snowstorm that would hit Denver on Thursday. When that day rolled around, I got up and went to work as usual. The roads were clear, nothing had happened yet, but Matt let me take the Highlander so I would have 4WD. It started snowing at my work around 9 am. It was a “pretty” snow, with huge flakes falling lightly. An hour later, I looked outside and saw a completely different scene. High winds were blowing snow in a complete white out blizzard and we were all warned to go home early so we wouldn’t get stuck.
Apparently, the rest of Denver was told the same thing. Between the “pretty” snow and the blizzard, Matt had come and switched the cars at my insistence because I was worried about how bad things would get while he was at work so late. So I was now faced with driving home in the Civic, which worried me. However, this turned out to be no bid deal at all. Traffic was barely moving, so I didn’t have the chance to slide or get stuck. I just kind of idled home. It took me close to 2.5 hours on a normal 15 minute commute. I should have stayed at work…the blizzard let up just as I arrived home.
We got between 8 and 10 inches in Centennial, which turned out to be on the lighter side of what other areas around us got. But Friday evening, I had the pleasure of shoveling those 10 inches of now wet snow and ice off the driveway. What a workout!
The snow melted quickly this weekend in the 50 and 60 degree weather, which has been a great blessing for our yard (which is now a swamp)! We really needed the snow melt to get things growing and green again. We had another mini-snow today, about 3 inches. It seems winter has decided to show up after all!
Matt is working this coming weekend, so he took me out for an early birthday celebration on Saturday. We went to a wonderful steakhouse downtown called Sullivan’s. It was very fancy. The waitor asked us what kind of “water service” we wanted. I had never heard that question before. It’s basically a choice between bottled sparkling water or tap water. (We just had the tap water). But we did order a bottle of wine, which Matt sampled like a pro.
We ended up ordering the “Sullivan’s Stimulus Package” which was a 3 course dinner for two, which was reasonably priced. We were so full after our salads, filet minon, mashed potatoes and asparagus that we could barely finish our dessert which was a rich chocolate mousse.
After dinner, we went to a popular dueling piano bar called Sing Sing. I have been to one of these before (in St. Louis) and they are always so much fun. It’s basically two guys playing two pianos and they take requests from the people in the bar. The more you pay them, the better performance they make of your song. Sometimes, people pay them to stop playing a song. :) Also, people pay them to embarrass their friends on their birthday or bachelor/bachelorette party. Luckily, Matt was nice and just let me enjoy the others getting embarrassed.
I ran in to my roommate at KU from my freshman year at Sing Sing. I hadn’t seen her since the end of freshman year. Let’s just say, we were two very different people. Anyhow, we talked for a couple minutes. She and her husband moved to Denver in January. It was fun to see someone I knew!
Last night, Matt and I rented a movie called Changeling. It had a really profound effect on me, but I wouldn’t recommend it for people who can’t watch movies about kidnappings (MOM!). Changeling involves a mother whose child is abducted while she is at work. A corrupt police force tries to convince her that they found her son, but she knows they have the wrong kid and that her son is still missing. The atrocities that the police put on this woman for the sake of hiding their mistake is astounding. Changeling was very disturbing at times but kept my interest for 2.5 hours and I found myself getting emotionally involved. I couldn’t wait to see how the movie ended.