RTT: "I'd like to say 'Thank you' on behalf of the group..."

and I hope I passed the audition.

So let me try to get you a little caught up here:

A couple weeks ago, my wife (the Middle-Aged Woman) quit her job...rather precipitously. She notified me with an email. (No sh*t - I'm not making that up.)

Last week, I had some wisdom teeth out. I had that done in-person.

Over the weekend, a good friend of mine let me know that he was going through such marital turmoil that he was expecting separation and divorce from his wife. He dropped this bomb - in an email. (Are you sensing a trend here?)*

This morning, they announced that the company I work for was entering into an agreement to be acquired by another company for almost 4 billion dollars. No warning - we came into work this morning and read an email with the announcement.

All in all - it's been a slow news month.

In other headlines, I got the stitches out of my mouth today - and auditioned for a part in The Odd Couple**. These events are not related (in any way that I'm conscious of) - but they did both happen today - and so are fair game to be mentioned in the same sentence. My good friend, Roger, was there - and I am hopeful that we will be asked to play the leads (Roger as Felix Ungar and me as Oscar Madison***). The auditions were both enjoyable and brief, so I will probably try to go back tomorrow for Day Two, in case they need an extra person to read lines and help out.

OK - what else, what else...?

I finally watched some new movies in the last couple weeks. I saw Appaloosa with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen (I recommend it) and also W. (the Oliver Stone bio with Josh Brolin, Richard Dreyfuss and a great cast overall) - but I can't really recommend the film. It's hard for me to feel the same about Stone knowing how he scr*wed reality over so badly in JFK.

I also watched Good Night, and Good Luck again on my Roku player (the George Clooney film in which he appears as Fred Friendly [who later became the president of CBS News] with David Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow) - it is an excellent film which I recommend highly****. The music in the movie, performed by Dianne Reeves, is also awesome. And I also streamed from Netflix to my Roku, the first 8 or 9 episodes of Lost, Season 3. I do like that show; I don't always know where they're going (I'm not sure the creators did in Season 3 either) - but I like how the episodes work emotionally.

Last night, the MAW and I worked out a budget that should allow her to stay home and work as a freelance writer for as long as she desires. The process seemed like it was going to be tortuous at first - but once we got to just crunching numbers, it seemed to go better. I would hate to think that we might upset Ms. Partly Cloudy***** again by having a disagreement. The very thought...

OK, I've probably p*ssed off enough people with my (pretty tame, really) snark in this here post.
I'd better git - while the gittin's good.

Take care.

PS: If you need more randomness in your life (and who doesn't?), I would be remiss not to strongly urge you to visit Keely at the Un-Mom immediately. If not sooner.

PPS: Why don't my Box.net widget or my YouTube videos work anymore? Have I been bad again? You can get the audio for today's post HERE.

* We got a chance to talk at length over the weekend and - well, who knows what'll happen! But at least I gave him a couple new things to thing about before walking away from twelve years of marriage.

** The MAW auditioned as well; but since she has her own blog - and I've signed a rather strict NDA - you'll have to read Unmitigated to see if there is a further disclosure on that event.

*** Felix was played by Jack Lemmon in the film, Tony Randall on TV. Oscar was played by Walter Matthau (stage & movie) and Jack Klugman (stage & TV).

**** It probably should have won Best Picture in 2006. In my opinion, it was considerably better than Crash.

***** I would give you a link to her blog - but she hasn't posted since March.