Happy Feet

We had another nice slow start today. (I *love* vacation!) And today, elsaf made us French toast – yay! (I love French toast even more than pancakes, and that’s saying something.) And more sausage to eat with syrup. judiang, as usual. was the last one up.

Much of the afternoon was spent geeking and waiting around to find out when the National Day of Mourning will be. This has no bearing on me or Elsa, but Judi is a Fed and thus it is of great importance to her. And now we know – her day off will be Tuesday. Perhaps she will rant about the irony of that date in her LJ. Perhaps not.

Elsa made us roast beast sammiches for lunch. She and I had earlier walked to her local bakery to get some bread. It was pumpernickle rye, which Judi and I turned down for our sandwiches. What can we say, we’re White Bread Girls. 😉 The sandwich was great, and we had it with Royal Riviera pears from Harry and Davids. It was the best pear I have ever had – so juicy and succulant. Thanks to Elsa’s mum for getting a Harry & David set o’ items for us.

Judi decided that she needed to go to Best Buy again, this time to get stuff for herself. So we stopped there on our way to our Holiday Movie. She picked up two mice, because one mouse just isn’t enough… (Actually, she needed a wired mouse for her laptop and decided to get a wired mouse for her PC for when her wireless one gives her grief and I pick on her to “get a real mouse.”)

Our pick for Holiday Movie was Happy Feet. The only trailer we saw that was anything good was Harry Potter 5. And the movie? So cute! And such a great rythm. I had happy feet while I watched it. Penguins are of the cute! Go penguins!

We finished our fun evening out by having supper at La Shish. We ate at one of the restaurants last year and Judi wanted to go again this year. They make very yummy Middle Eastern food. The girls got the shish combo for two and I got the garlic & almond ghallaba. Judi and I also got smoothies – her a papaya and me a mango. I’d gotten the ghallaba last year and enjoyed it enough to order again this year. Maybe someday I’ll get a shish kabob. 🙂

Our evening was cut short by poor Elsa getting a bloody nose (she got one yesterday at breakfast too, poor dear). She had me drive home and I did so quite safely cuz I’m a good driver. Despite what other people say…

When we got back, we watched The Ruby in the Smoke and ate ice cream. I had Been & Jerry’s chocolate fudge brownie while the girls had B&J’s Cookie Dough ice cream. Good eats and good show. Now we’re watching last week’s Torchwood and I’m writing this.

Tomorrow, our threesome breaks up when Judi and I head on back to Ohio to continue my Christmas celebration. And shortly my birthday celebration. Yay for celebration! Yay for presents!

Merry New Year! Beef Jerky Time!

Happy New Year to all of you playing at home! Can’t believe it’s 2006 already. Can’t believe I’m 35 already! Sheesh, I’m old enough to be president now! (elsaf assures me that I’m too honest for the role, thankfully. Just as well – I certainly wouldn’t vote for me!)

I’ve been thinking about doing a post looking back at 2005 and perhaps I’ll do it later in the day. And I might even try a looking forward post as well. I’m not a resolution kind of person, but a few goals wouldn’t hurt. (I don’t do resolutions mostly because I hate breaking promises – even if they’re to myself. But a goal isn’t a promise, it’s just something you hope to accomplish.)

Our method of ringing in the new year was heading off to Elsa’s parents, watching movies, and eating foodstuffs. It was a lot of fun and there were plenty of snacks. Elsa made seasame balls, pork pearl balls, and sticky rice in lotus leaves. (She enlisted me to help but I was having an off night and did more to hinder her than help. Whoops! She should have gotten judiang to help instead. Thankfully, I only permanently ruined one dish (and that wasn’t my fault! The bowl just broke on me!)

The movies that we watched were Quigley, March of the Penguins, and The Polar Express. Quigley was a silly little movie about a mean SOB who dies & is sent back to Earth as a pomeranian. We had a ball MST3King it and watching the cute pom. Judi will probably be adding it to her collection. (Everyone should have a Three Kinds of Heat in their video collection, I feel.) I’d seen Penguins on Christmas day with the family and enjoyed it then and tonight as well. (I was more awake on tonight’s showing.) Polar was interesting, but I don’t think it’ll join my collection of Holiday Must Sees.

We toasted the new year with champagne and fizzy cider (I went with the apples rather than the grapes), then packed up (dogs & all) and returned to Elsa’s. And here we all sit, writing and reading our journals. Yup, even in 2006 we’re still geeks.

So, once again, Happy New Year to you all! And Happy Birthday to those of you who, like me, are New Years Babies! 🙂

The weekend before the 5-day weekend

We have 2 days of school this next week, and then a nice 5-day weekend. So I spent a stress-free day, which started with going into the school & turning off all of the servers. Why, you ask? Well, the KVM (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) Switch got all screwy the other day and was preventing our backup server from booting. There were only 2 people on computers when we went in (Why??? Why was anyone at the school on Saturday morning????) but we kicked ’em off (nicely) and turned everything off & on again. And it looks like everything is now responding favorably to the KVM switch.

Dad and I then drove off (separately) to Troy and met at the Chinese Buffet for lunch. I let him pay cuz I only had enough for tip (which I gladly gave). The we parted – he onto Goodwill & the UPS Store, me onto Walmart, the bookstore, and the Piqua Mall. Walmart was where I picked up Madagascar & breakfast & got some cash. The bookstore was having it’s 20% off sale, so I bought myself some books, got ideas for Christmas presents for me (so the parents can pick them up tomorrow when they go to the sale) and well, didn’t find anything else for anyone else. Alas!

I headed off to the Piqua Mall and purchased a ticket for the 3:40 showing of Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire, but still had an hour to kill. So I sat on a bench and read more from Terry Pratchett’s Going Postal. (Good book, BTW.) I then stood in line to get into the theater and eventually found an empty seat in the aisle. (I’m not used to going to movies that other people see – it was almost claustrophobic!) We had 5 minutes of commercials and 15 minutes of previews. And then the movie. YAY! Great movie! IMO, the best yet. When I got home I called the parental units & said we had to go see it next weekend. I’m ready to watch it again. 🙂

While I ate supper (chicken salad on Club crackers) Leo and I watched the extras for the Charlie & the Chocolate Factory deluxe DVD. Great extras. And I think I’m going to like the movie a lot more on the second viewing now that I know where it and the book differ. And let’s face it, Deep Roy (all of the Oompa Loompas) kicks ass. 🙂