How I Spent My November Vacation

Well, here it is, the last day of my vacation. As always, the time just zoooooomed past. Thank goodness I've got a 4-day weekend coming up with the Thanksgiving holiday in just a couple weeks, because this just didn't seem like enough time off.

Monday I just mainly kicked around the house: did some knitting, read a bit, played with the dogs, brainsucked. Cooked a pot roast for dinner; it tasted good but was amazingly tough. The potatoes, onions, and carrots were excellent though.

Tuesday I went to the yarn store to get size 3 needles as noted in my last post. Amazingly, I ONLY bought the needles, despite much temptation from gorgeous yarns. One skein in particular was difficult to resist. It was a soft, thickish merino sock yarn in variegated shades of lavender. I actually had it in my hand & ready to buy it, and still managed to make myself put it back on the shelf.



I also went to the bookstore that day. Bought a total of four books: "Ghost a la Mode" by Sue Jafarian; "The Body in the Library" by Agatha Christie; "Six Geese a-Slaying" by Donna Andrews; and the latest Sherman's Lagoon collection by Jim Toomey. I'm already done with all but the Agatha Christie so it looks like another book trek is required. I am failing to see why the esteemed Ms. Christie is so popular; I'm finding her writing style to be almost cartoonish. Unrealistic dialogue, no depth to the characters (not yet, anyway; I'm only a couple chapters in but still. . ) and she's already used that annoying TV trait of the one-sided phone conversation where the speaker repeats what the other person says so you know what's going on. "What's that you say? You found a body? I see. A young woman you've never seen before, you say? Yes, sir." Really annoying.



Ralph's time off began on Wednesday, and we went to see the new "Christmas Carol" starring Jim Carrey. I was pleasantly surprised to see some other familiar names in the opening credits, including Gary Oldman, Carey Elwes and Bob Hoskins. I enjoyed the entire movie with the exception of one section, whereas Ralph was bored out of his skull and went to go read in the truck about 2/3 of the way through. The only part I didn't care for was the segment involving Ghost of Christmas Yet to Be. While I loved how the Spirit itself was portrayed, the storyline at that point took a strange deviation from any other version I've seen & I just didn't care for it, or see the reason for it. After the movie we ate lunch at George's Greek Cafe; not the one in Long Beach, but his new location in Lakewood, which is in the same parking lot as the movie theater we had gone to. Delicious as always :-)



Thursday we didn't do much of anything other than brainsuck & wash the dogs.

The photos on today's posting are from our Friday outing to the Los Angeles Arboretum. That was a lovely visit. Oddly, we didn't see that many peacocks (usually there are dozens) and not a single peahen. Then again, we don't normally go this late in the year. I was highly amused by the name "woollybutt" for a tree. The photo of Ralph is of him standing next to it so you can see how tall it is. Fewer things in bloom this time of year than the last time we visited, which I suppose is only to be expected. Still, we had a nice, relaxed mosey around the park. My favorite section was the Shakespearean herb garden, where they had planted different herbs & had little signs with quotes from Shakespeare that referenced the particular herb the sign was near. I think Ralph liked the roses the best.



Yesterday we had planned to go to archery, only to discover when we got there that class had been canceled due to the Senior Olympics holding their archery competition. There were a few open butts (stop giggling, it's what you call the big hay bales that hold the targets) but Ralph didn't really want to shoot since none of his friends were there. Instead we headed to the Nature Center across the street, where an Acorn Festival was being held. The Festival itself was kinda sad; just a few tables set up with acorn-related information. However, there was a tour of some of the oak trees in the Center and that was really fun & informative. For example, I didn't know that oak trees produce different kinds of leaves, depending on where they grow in the tree: thick leaves at the top, thinner, flatter leaves lower down, serrated edges on some leaves & smooth on the others. Some of the trees were so scrubby they looked like bushes, and one was amazingly tall and spread out.

Saturday night we attended a party at our neighbor's house. Good food, had some good conversations (including one with a fellow knitter, always a pleasure!) but didn't stay as long as I would have liked because it was just too noisy for me. Neighbor A had set up his X-Box to play music, and it was cranked so high that conversation in the living room was virtually impossible. There weren't any chairs in any other part of the house, and outdoors was a little chilly. Also, since most of the people were outside away from the music, there were so many conversations going on that it was hard to concentrate on a single one.

Today will eventually be a day of housework, as we both need clean work clothes for the coming week plus the carpet needs vacuuming AGAIN even though we just did it.