Fire! Wait, no, that's just Magic Mike!

*cough*

So last Thursday I came home from work... a systematic combo of walking and bus ride, as when it is over 100 degrees, I am just NOT walking all the way. But I am reading Losing Beauty (which is very good, and you should read it too) so apparently when I got to MY street, I was so sucked into the reading and walking at the same time that I failed to OBSERVE that there was a whole bunch of excitement on my street.

To be fair, they really ought to shout a lot when there is excitement, don't you think? To make things more noticeable to those of us easily sucked into reading while we are walking...

I got inside and hubby pointed out that a tree fell on a car... *look out* Sure enough... Tree branch on car. CHECK. (it didn't actually do much damage, strangely, but why is it, out of a whole street, the tree branches always fall on the cars?)

Not the ACTUAL house and fire, but this is pretty close

And there was a fire.

Wait, what?

“Didn't you see the fire truck?”
“Erm...”
“Didn't you smell it?”
“Uh...”

I tell you. That is a FABULOUS book that I almost missed the bloody fire. It was maybe five houses down and it wasn't actually the HOUSE on fire. A power line had been knocked out in a big storm around noon (a different storm than stole the power from the people across the street from us—that was the 4:30 am storm...) and the line had started a fire in a garden. Not great... But worse (meaning the part that affected ME), they were going to have to cut the line at a higher point to cut off the spark supply so they could put the bloody fire out (which they did around 6pm)... 'probably no power until Saturday night'.

GADS!

Now ME... I can live a few days without power (call it an adventure. I'm a-okay). What I have trouble living with is my HUSBAND when he has to live a few days in SUMMER without power. True story. HWMNBMOTI is a big giant BABY about the heat.

Daughter bailed on us. Her boyfriend's house had power, so she came home at midnight and left again by about 9 the next day. Son and I swam next door and then played cribbage by candlelight, which was very enjoyable. Went to bed earlyish and woke up with no alarm (only about half hour late, so perfectly justifiable with no power—besides, no morning computer meant I was actually only about ten minutes late for work)


This really served as another reinforcer that I sure love my neighborhood... it is nice when things like this happen to see everyone sharing information and helping each other out. I love where I live, shoebox or no shoebox. I mean sure... if I could buy one of the houses at the OTHER end of the street with twice the square footage, I'd do it in a heartbeat, but I don't want to leave completely.

Power came back on Friday afternoon, more than a day early, so that was a bonus... and put back ON something I'd feared we'd have to call OFF.

You heard me...

Joe (#3) is my flavor...

Magic Mike with the Couch to Keg Team and our buddy Patti

Now as much as I'm a nudist and all for all that naked stuff... and I adore men... especially naked men... This is a movie I probably would have skipped without the accompanying 'Lady's Night'. Eye candy is well and good in passing, but experiential stuff requires some company to say 'oh yeah, baby' next to me... if that makes any sense.

But about two weeks ago my friend Patti suggested she'd love to come over and see it—she lives about 2 hours from me and her local friends seem to be the wholesome exercise sort instead of the... you know... naked cocktail sort... so she thought of ME. And I invited the couch to keg team... we started with sushi, which was fabulous (HWMNBMOTI won't eat it, so I'm glad to have friends to eat it with) and then we went for the HUMINA HUMINA experience that was Magic Mike.

As a movie plot, I was left a little frustrated with 'the kid' who for all intents and purposes was central, so I thought his storyline should have been tied up better, but Mike's story wasn't bad and the eye candy was FABULOUS. It's not like I expected a knock-dead plot. From an aesthetic perspective, Joe is most my type—I like some scruff better than clean-cut (Though Channing Tatum almost won me with his dexterity.... MAN, I love a bendy man, plus the flips and such—coordination is a good thing. I wonder if they did their own stuff...). I love Adam Rodriguez for his smile and dimples, but at 5'11” (me, I mean) I gotta give the big guys the edge. So yeah... Joe...

[he's in True Blood? Holy COW, there is my incentive to get back to THAT—I haven't made a point after the first season, but that can be changed!]

The huge win of it, though, was seeing it with my girlfriends—it was definitely a movie best seen in company with a little wine lube beforehand.