Rolling In the Money
I’m not sure how that phrase originated, but I managed to experience my own version of it this weekend. Last night I finally attacked the metal tin in which I toss my spare change every day. I brought the tin into the living room and started counting.
…and counting…
…until I finished counting at $382.50. Yep, nearly $400 in pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters (and three Susan B Anthony dollars). There was also the odd Canadian coin, an NYC subway token (which must be REALLY old since I believe those were discontinued with the Metro card), and one New Hampshire turnkpike token.
I probably shouldn’t advertise that I’ve got this kind of money lying around the house, but it’s way too heavy for somebody to steal so I’m not all that worried. I still haven’t figured out how I’m going to get it to the bank (it’ll be one helluva subway ride).
In other news, I had a great weekend. On Friday night, I met up with Mark, Sven and Sven’s date to see Kathy Griffin at the Berklee Performance Center. It was a great show…especially coming just days after the Golden Globes and with much of her humor being celebrity-oriented.
Though, she was a bit more political than I had expected (especially after my Margaret Cho comments last week). She started the show by commenting that the previous night she was in Detroit and how happy she was to be in a city like Boston. Now, over the years I’ve noticed that nearly every performer I’ve ever seen has commented on how much they love Boston and how they recently performed in a drab city (Natalie Merchant, Tori Amos, Margaret Cho, Kathy Griffin, Janeane Garafalo, etc…). Granted, you’ll notice that my entertainment tastes seem to lean toward the left so Boston would be their kind of town. But I also suspect they tell every city how much they love it. So, do you think she’ll go on to Oklahoma City next and complain about Boston?
After the show, I backed out of hanging out with Mark and his friends and headed to the supermarket to pick up some groceries. For the record, Friday night at 10:30PM is THE time to grocery shop in Boston…it’s dead!
I got home shortly after 11:00PM, felt a bit peckish, and baked some chocolate chip cookies (Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough).
By the next morning I had eaten the entire package (but in my head like to think I worked off all those calories washing two weeks worth of laundry Saturday morning).
In the afternoon I visited my sister-in-law at Mass General (she’s doing well) and then headed on over to Mike’s house. We watched a DVD (Stonewall) and then his friends called and wanted to go to Club Cafe (gay bar). They picked us up and we went. The place was packed and the atmosphere was, well, unchanged from the last time I spent any time there back in 1997. Mike observed that nobody was smiling (and it was true). The stereotype of it being all attitude seemed to be holding up. After two drinks, we packed up and headed on over to dbar (another bar) where we stayed until just after 1AM.
Sunday was a day of rest. Sort of. I did manage to tackle the ironing that has prevented me from wearing most of my shirts for the past month. And then I worked on rolling my coin collection.
And now it’s Monday, it’s snowing, and my ego was shot to all hell as I came into the office to find an email from a person who had stumbled upon my blog. She was googling herself and through various links it brought her to my website. She and I were in the same class in sixth grade (in our school, you were with the same students all day, even though you switched rooms for various classes). In the email she said “Your name is not ringing any bells at all, I am sorry to say.” Yep, make me feel nice and memorable. Though, to be honest, I remembered her name but could not for the life of me associate it with a face.
To make matters worse, she wasn’t looking to chat me up and see how I’ve been doing since then…she was trying to put me to work by asking if I had contact information for our fellow students! I feel so used.
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When I moved out of the Pink House after six years, I rolled up all the change I’d accumulated and it was $800. I had to use my wheely suitcase to get it to the bank (and broke a wheel of it halfway there). I had a very kind teller, fortunately. (Hey, it paid for the movers!)
I’ve been searching for a large, attractive bank. My grandmother has an Indian Head bank that I’m slated to inherit, (which is a very morbid/practical Yankee thing, everything that someone expresses an interest in gets literally tagged, I’m also getting her 1933 Boston Cooking School Book). But as I think and hope she’ll be around for awhile, if anyone has any ideas where I can get an intermim replacement kindly let me know.
Don’t worry about the girl, she’s just probably just some pathetique. Besides, I for one am glad my sixth grade class has yet to track me down.
So who was the six grader? Do I know her?
BTW: in the future, you know those CoinStar machines at the grocery store? Apparantly instead of taking a certain percentage as a fee, they give you a Amazon.com gift certificate instead. I don’t remember what the fee was….If it was 5%, you would have gotten $19.00 for amazon and $382-19 in money.
Has anyone done this? Am I right in my understanding here?
sixth grader…not six grader. Oops.
Um, something weird happened with my comment, so if it posts twice, I duly apologize. Anyway, long story short…Karl, next time the pizza is on you.
You were quite the social butterfly this weekend!. . . and what a shame to be used in that way. I can think of other ways I enjoy being used, but it certainly isn’t in that manner. 🙂
It sounds like Club Cafe has not changed since I was last there in 1990! Of course, that’s when Avalon was known as Citi.
Now I feel old. 🙂
You young whipper snappers! I remember when Avalon was the Coconut Grove. Somebody get my dentures daganmit!
I was going to make some jokes about Coconut Grove (about flamers, that place being hot, etc…) but it just seemed too wrong.
As for Avalon…I remember (thought never went) when it Axis was, I believe, Spit.
There was a club named Spit? That has to be the most unappealing thing I’ve ever heard.
Snarling, you are right, extensive laundry does use up just about EXACTLY the calories found in a roll of Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough. =) For GOD’S SAKE how many times have I told you, forget the iron and buy a spray bottle of Downy Wrinkle Release! Granted it won’t work on deep, weeks-old-wrinkles from shirts that have been smushed under heaps of other shirts, but it works really well on regular wrinkles! (My change-collection record was in the neighborhood of $800 – we collected all silver change in a Poland Springs water jug that was, ah, liberated from an office. Man O Man did that add up quickly!)
and ps, I did use a Coinstar thing at the grocery store at one point to cash in about $80 – they take around 9% I think – no gift cards, just the 9% thank you, and give you the rest by way of a receipt you bring to the cashier for actual money. At least that’s how it worked here last year.
I went to Club cafe one night with Fritz, a former student and the student’s boyfriend. The food was OK, the drinks were OK, but I didn’t see what the fuss was about. Now Fritz’s (the Boston bar, as opposed to my husband’s place) is another matter entirely.
did kathy keep her pants on? i retro-embed people in my blog–hoping they will google themselves and find me…. i even bury messages in photo file names…. the web is so fascinating