Saturday, November 28, 2009
Posted at 4:18:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Wow, I can't believe we did it! The whole tree is set up, thanks to Dean. I didn't want to do the ornaments this year, but he made me do it, and created a Gantt chart to motivate me. (Pretty great, huh? I love how everything is "installed.") We did forget about the garland, so had to add an unscheduled task for that, but, with that one small addition, we finished exactly on schedule!
It took precisely the length of three listenings to Bob's Christmas CD. Yes, even Dean listened! AND, best of all, he helped! I never would have been able to do it without him. It was so much easier, faster, and less back-killing with an assistant. The only bad thing was that Dean is a billion times more efficient than I am about hanging ornaments, so it seemed like he ended up hanging about 90% of them!! I had to start screaming near the end for him to slack off and leave some for me!
But, I pretty much managed not to criticise his haphazard placements and just go with the flow, even though I am excruciatingly choosy about ornament placements. Although it was difficult not to intervene, I only re-hung a few of his. I was just so glad that I didn't have to hang them all myself that it was totally worth giving up control! Anyway, he did a good job, although some of his decisions were rather questionable. (A whole moldy mushroom section, instead of spreading them out? All the cars driving along in a row looking like they're on a freeway? Hmmm.) Actually, when I wasn't looking he started taking out all these ornaments that I usually stash in the accessories box and avoid hanging, so we ended up with ALL the ornaments on the tree, including ten zillion sinkmes I haven't hung in years. Yikes!
Got woken up really early this morning by the wind. Like, actual early, not Laura-early. 6:30 or so. It seemed like it was time to get up, until I deciphered my watch in disbelief. But I lay around until a more appropriate getting up time (after 11). Unfortunately, my shoulders weren't tricked into believing that was real sleep. Wunderground says, "High Wind Warning in effect until 4 PM EST this afternoon. Sustained west winds will average 25 to 35 mph today with occasional gusts of 50 to 60 mph... " Eeek. Good old Wind Friend. It's amazing how un-windy this fall has been until now, actually. Best fall ever!
Posted at 11:21:00 AM by Laura W. Petix.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Wow, that was almost like old times. A Marshmallow Guy (!) tall dry for-here cappuccino. At Rocky, with amazing smooooooth foam, a velvet armchair, the Hartford Advocate, and a spoon.
Posted at 4:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
I went to a Black Friday sale! At Uptown Consignment. :-) 15% off with a coupon, and a got TWO beautiful J. Crew cashmere pullovers. I gave my extra coupon to someone who didn't have one, and she was all happy. It wasn't even crowded.
Cold silvery sky and bare black branches day, but I was warm in my boots, gloves, and Oshima beater.
Mmmmm, it's nice and overcast today: good for sleeping late and making up for yesterday. I am so bad at sleeping on trips. I think I got about one wink, but at least I didn't thrash around restlessly, so lying there awake was pretty relaxing regardless. I was really tired by about 10 PM though.
Posted at 1:51:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Anyway, our nonconformist Thanksgiving trip to Provincetown was great! It was super-cloudy on Wednesday (two layers, so Tango got to be the meat in a cloud sandwich) and when we got to PVC the clouds were almost too low to land, even though Dean flew the ILS approach. Then at the very last second, there was the runway right in front of us.
The taxi driver who picked us up from the airport was the same one who picked us up the first time we visited Provincetown, and I remembered her, even though that was in August 2006. Very weird, since I usually can't recognize someone I saw three seconds ago, let alone three years. I talked to her a lot as we drove along (something I pretty much never do), which I think I did the first time, too. She gave Dean her business card, so we called her from the Crowne Pointe Inn on Thursday and she gave us a ride back again.
Thanksgiving dinner at the Crown Pointe was good, although not as good as homemade. Weird, that's one meal where homemade is always better than a restaurant, even though I'm not much of a Thanksgiving food fan. Anyway, I was good and ordered the turkey option, even though there were two other choices (swordfish and steak), plus Dean's tofu cassoulet. They had pumpkin bisque (good), a nice sharp salad, and all the token sides: cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, stuffing (far inferior to my mom's special sausage and olive stuffing recipe), and green beans almondine. Pretty good, and I liked that it was not a buffet and not huge portions. For dessert, we could choose between pumpkin pie and dark chocolate creme brulee. Dean had the pie, and I had the brulee. I don't approve of weird brulees, but I kind of hate pumpkin pie. It was a fun dinner, trying to remember traditional Thanksgivings and observing that we were being kind of subversive having Thanksgiving all by ourselves at an inn that doesn't allow anyone under 18. I really, honestly, just don't understand the appeal of the tons-of-food-and-tons-of-people thing.
Anyway, the nicest part was Thursday afternoon before dinner, when we went for a walk around town. It was overcast and chilly out, but so nice and still, and a good temperature for walking, bundled in my arm warmers, long skinnysleeved sweater, Oshima beater, gloves, tights, warm suede skirt, and fleecy shoes. We walked down to Commercial Street, and cut through the post office lot to the deserted beach, which was so silent and so calm, it didn't seem real. The ocean lapping the sand sounded exactly like the lake when you get up early in the morning and go down to the dock with bread crusts to feed the fish. No one around. Just broken scallop shells and the occasional seaweed, overcast sky and sand, greys and browns, so clear, such amazing lighting. I kept wanting my camera, but I didn't have it.
We had fun wandering Commercial Street, looking in the shop windows. Most of them were closed, either for the day or the season. There were other friendly people walking around, but not that many. A lot of them were walking dogs. One lady asked us if we knew where to get a coffee, but of course we didn't, being visitors. So every time we passed a coffee shop, I pointed it out to Dean. They all were closed. We had dinner at 3:30, then flew home around 6:00 and were home by 7:30. It was a nice relaxing trip.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Aaaah! My old rigged Curly Top™ hair dryer (handed down from Dean) is turning into a death trap! I think I'd better not use it any more. :-(
Posted at 1:33:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
[Edit: !!! I don't have to cry! They still make Curly Tops! Looks like they were discontinued, but came back!]
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Skeevy Cheeze Steaks is gone! Now it's "The Other Place" in a HUGE font. Skeevy!
Posted at 3:22:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Monday, November 23, 2009
1) I really like the new post office dude, and I'm not even totally sure why. It's just something about his attitude, I think. He seems to really care about mail. I don't go to the post office as often any more, so I've only seen him three times so far, but every time I have I've left kind of wanting to mail more stuff. The other day, he was impressed by the collection of stamps on the padded envelope I was mailing (I had about ten on there, all different and color coordinated) and said he remembered selling every one of them (not at my post office! I wonder where he worked before? he seems really young, too, so I was kind of surprised, since some of them were from 4-5 years ago), and then today he asked me if the card I was mailing had anything that shouldn't be bent in it, and when I told him it had photos, he stamped "DO NOT BEND" all over it. Anyway, not huge things, I know, but most post office workers seem so jaded.
Posted at 7:14:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
B) I love the new Kelp Forest stamps so much. I bought two more sheets today. It's not just the images (anemones! anchovies! kelp! sea urchin! lion's mane nudibranch!) but, even more so, the colors. Something about the blue (and accompanying oranges) just reminds me so strongly of a 1960s children's science book illustration. I love it. You can kind of see it in the online image, but it's much more striking in person.
I slept really WELL last night, and my shoulders are FIXED! (As fixed as they get, at least.) Yay!
Posted at 12:00:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
We're at The Blue Lobster!
Posted at 4:42:00 PM by Laura W. Petix.
Me, when we drove up: "You've never been to The Blue Lobster!"
Dean: "No, it's skeevy!"
Me: "Not anymore--it moved, remember?"
Haha, Westminster oyster crackers! I got a hot lobster roll and Rhode Island clam chowder. They were both good! Also, chocolate milk. I always (and only) get chocolate milk there for some reason. They make it out of normal milk, with Hershey's syrup. You can tell because there's chocolate down at the bottom of the cup.
I can't fully wake up today. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. And my shoulders are KILLING me. Aaagh. I must've slept really poorly last night. Not sure why.
