I'd rather be: excited by something
Desiring: some meaning
Enjoying: the smell of someone's gingerbread cookies (making me hungry though)


I'm still feeling rather "eh" and it kinda bugs me. Maybe this holiday blahs where you're supposed to feel something whether happy, excited, sad, harassed or busy, and when you don't feel any of those you just feel blah, wheras at any other time of the year would just feel "ok." It makes me feel.. kinda empty and... I dunno kinda useless.

So I'll just recount some of the last four days and head out to do my chores.

I had thought I'd like to go dancing Wednesday night but no one responded to my email in the positive (except for Molasses, but he had the distinct air of not really feeling it). I should have anticipated that and ditched the plan early enough to hang with the Squire down in the South Bay. It sounded like he was going to be lonely that night with his friends headed off to the four corners, and I totally didn't try to arrange anything for that.

Instead we headed off for some yummy Angelo & Vinci's in Fullerton. That place totally rules. Best Italian not made in someone's mom's kitchen ever. The only trouble is the company has been hit and miss lately and I can't reliably count on not having to deal with assholes anymore. At least I didn't know the asshole this time... It was a dude who's party was up in the balcony and the dude had had WAY too much vino. He was in a mood to party and shared with everyone by shouting down at those of us below trying to eat in peace. I even flipped him off twice to no avail.

thank goodness for the yummy food though.

We had thought about catching a movie but elected just to head to the LBC and crash. i'm sure we puttered around some but I really don't remember what went into it. I think we saw "The Manchurian Candidate" though it may have been earlier in the week. I'm still not convinced that movie wasn't a comedy. C'mon! Frank Sinatra doing "karate"! Though the red scare in it seemed timely, I suppose.

On Thursday we were headed to my parent's new house by way of Food4Less where it seemed like *Everybody* and his brother had congregated. Molasses was actually surprised by the low prices, as if I hadn't told him repeatedly that it was a great place for deals (if not for more..quality...food). At the house we settled in and played games with folks who weren't in the kitchen and taught my dad and BB to play Guillotine. Dad liked it well enough and he enjoys chatting with Molasses and me about whatever stories come to mind. We told him he ought to see Master and Commander (fun story, and they got the flavor just right!) on the big screen, but we'll see.

Dinner was tasty though my sister put way too much salt in the stuffing (normally I really like stuffing). The ham was excellent though. I love sweet potatos so for that I was happy. This year we didn't have any kind of salad which was sort of too bad but one needed at least two servings to taste everything on the plate. So that was just as well. Molasses and I brought wine to share with Mom and my sister but mom couldn't find the bottle opener. So Molasses ended up carving out the cork and pushing most of it and many filings into the wine. We used a strainer to pour it into a decanter and served it from there. It went down pretty well after that and was quickly dispatched.

After supper we cooled our heels while the pie heated up. We played a little some cribbage with BB, who (unwittingly) kicked our butts. Then a game of Flux with BB and Mom, which BB won again. Mom didn't like Flux much, it was a little too crazy. So we switched to Gillotine. Always a favorite. }:>

Finally the pie came out, the whipped cream was added and hot chocolate poured and lo, it was good. We hung out and chatted and I handed over a partial list of the items on my Amazon wishlist (I couldn't convince the printer to do that last page), and wrote out a custom list - a list of items only members of my family can fullfill. And finally we headed out.

The day moved comfortably but slowly and by the time we were back in Long Beach it was bedtime. On Friday, we had made up our minds to get up at a good hour - not work-early, but earlier than a "sleep in" hour - and go to Fry's before heading out to his grandma's in Hemet. My Molasses had earlier in the month tried to install a combo CD-ROM, CD-R, DVD-ROM and some other stuff-like Drive on Isobel. But the new drive couldn't work because as it so happens Isobel had a nasty flaw having to do with the BIOS and not detecting new hardware. So in his tremendous wisdom and infinite generousity to build me a new computer as a Christmas/birthday/anniversary present.

I think there's probably other stuff I would like better, but he really is the only person who would not only offer to buy me something like this but also has the skill to make it work. So I deeply appreciate this gesture and wait with anticipation to when I can record and burn CDs and watch DVDs at home with best of 'em. So someone else will have to get me that pony...

So anyway. Fry's. whoo-boy Fry's. Not only Fry's but a one-day sale on the busiest shopping day of the year. If you've never been in a Fry's imagine a HUGE warehouse stuffed wall to wall with computer components, telecommunications equipment, audio parts for the home and car and every last home electronic device you or I could imagine. Also home appliances, DVDs, CDs and complete computers. Most Fry's are also decorated by a theme. The one in Burbank is an Alien invasion, the Westside Fry's is a jungle theme and the one in Anaheim Hills is space exploration. so add to the warehouses full of stuff some cheap theme park decor, super low prices and several hundred 20-something geeks lusting after Newer! Better! Faster! Cheaper! throw open the doors at six am and you get a little bit of a madhouse. Parking was sketchy, workers/attendants only told you aboout 70% of what you needed to know (usually they operate at about 80-85% usefulness), and the hands, they were grabby. The best shit was gone long before we showed up, of course. That was to be expected. I kept myself to looking for one DVD (and not finding it) and drooling over the laptops. Laptops always look neat to me. but I think it's because ultimately, I have no use for one. But I kept an eye on my Molasses and helped him keep his temper in check.

We eventually had all we figured we wanted and headed on out to the desert. It was cold and dry out there and we pulled in as the sun was setting. It was simply beautiful, but since I was driving I couldn't take pictures. }:P But at least we saw it, we were on track for pulling in ahead of the sunset but there was a nasty accident on the 10 that involved no fewer than four (4) SUVs. One of them was utterly totalled as its transition could easily be seen having popped up from the engine block and sitting just under the crumpled hood. Thank God no one in anything smaller than a truck was involved. Road fatalities suck. *mutters about the fuckin arms race on the road...muttermuttergrumblegrumble*

Anyway. There were some exhilirating near-misses at dinner with Molasses' grandma, I think the most obvious was when Lois said something about Bush Jr showing up to visit the troups at Baghdad airport being the only gutsy official from Washington to visit the area. I was about to mention the other senators who had made the trip when Molasses brought up that Sen. Clinton was out there, first in Afghanistan then in Iraq and had been out before Bush and would be back after. Lois jumped on this and declared that nothing would make her happier than to hear of Hilary Clinton's plane being lost at sea and never to hear of her again.

Did you just hear tire's screeching as you read that? Cause I could have sworn I heard them when she said it. Still this is classic Lois and I talked around a smile when I patiently informed her a lot of what Sen. Clinton has been doing abroad while the administration had been trying to say that the situation was perfectly normal and ok.

Hm. She also said that the AARP was way too far to the left for her to comprehend lining up with them and that she despised Sen. Boxer for supporting President Clinton (Clinton was in office when Boxer ran and won her seat in the Senate). And this was eventhough we agreed that insurance companies are evil and HMOs just want to make a buck, never mind what their actual patients want. She never actually offered reasons for why she quit the AARP and only indicated that she disliked Mr Clinton for his philandering and therefore hated Mrs Clinton for staying married to him and Sen. Boxer for supporting him. That was the only reason she would give. Sheesh. Even I have more reasons for disliking Clinton than his inability to stick to his marriage vows.

Ah Lois. What a wonderfully nutty lady.

We had dinner at Marie Calendar's and took a pumpkin pie home afterwords.

At her home we played cribbage and chatted about Molasses' family (and she informed us about how much she hates Indian casinos because they aren't taxed, and yes, was quite impervious to the reason that they are Indian casinos) and finally headed out, a little later than we wanted. Once there Molasses began assembling the computer parts to go over some bits of it and determine if he was missing anything. I read a bit of Return of the King (of the three I have the least memory of this book, eventhough as I read it I find it's really the most exciting).

Saturday was a whole butt-load of shopping. First Sears at which I stayed determined not to buy anything for myself, then a run-through of CompUSA (which was pointless, how do these people stay in business??), and ducked into Borders to see if anything was stirred. Since I have 10% at B&N, nothing really was. At noon we headed up to the HRD do jang where Molasses was going to work with another black sash to plan the Christmas demo. But since the grandmaster was there, they had to spend their time doing his wishes, which amounted to moving furniture. We ducked out after 45 minutes.

We headed up to my apartment and almost completely cleared out my car of presents I had bought before heading back to the LBC. Down south we checked out Target and Bed, Bath and Beyond and got lunch at Rubio's. Then we headed down to Tower for a couple of CDs and went home.

At the apartment Molasses got to working on the computer while used his machine to get on Amazon and make that store a shitload of money. In retrospect I could have exercised some better judgement and saved myself a bit of money but oh well... spilled milk. And really, I'd had enough of restraint bought myself a nice peacoat that should get here any day. There's only a couple of folks left unshopped for, not counting my dad (because I'm saving my next paycheck for him). They're proving to be a little tough, but I remain undaunted. I shall not be daunted!! Do you hear me?!

Ah, and finally Sunday. I rested (mostly) on Sunday. There was a short trip out for personal game stuff and a great lunch at Rutabegorz and later an even shorter trip for some RAM at Best Buy. OTherwise we chilled, had leftovers and a delicious drink that is sorta in some ways like but in many other ways totally dislike a white Russian. One part Kahlua, one part Baileys, two parts milk. heat. yum.


I'm nearly all the way through the first book of Return of the King and I'm wondering about what I may see in the movie. I'll post my thoughts once I finish, but fair warning if you've not read the books (or don't have much memory of them) then there will be spoilers.

As for other movies: I'm not really interested in the Last Samurai pretty much for the same reasons I wasn't really interested in Dances with Wolves. But like Dances I'll probably eventually catch it on the small screen. Over, and over again. The Alamo is interesting, not because of the subject matter, or really anything that relates to the movie but with observing the discomfort of the audiences I've been in when the trailer ran. It's supposed to be a heroic thing and as schoolkids we learned Daniel Boone was big hero and all... but.... We in California somehow cultivated a distrust and distaste for things Texan (except, of course, for gasoline and steak). I'm not sure where it came from. Lot's of us got to California by way of Texas, including my family - my dad was born outside of El Paso. But we watch it the trailer and when they ask what the soldiers would fight for we give half hearted smirks to our friends. Certainly not Texas.

It's maybe because the history is taught with some context, that the Alamo was, for all intents and purposes an outpost in a foreign nation, that the (white) settlers in Texas brought slaves there because they had enough of being harassed because of the slaves in other states. So they would rather move to a foreign country - where slavery was illegal! - than stay in their homes. And Polk. Good ole James K, our eleventh president. Spurred on the settlers promising to back them up if the Mexican troops harassed them. His back up came mostly after they were all dead, but I suppose that's neither here nor there.

And it's REALLY hard not to laugh when the announcer states the band of merry fighters was up against the one of the greatest armies ever put together. *guffaws* Whatever they paid that guy it wasn't enough. He sounded like he almost believed that line.

Viva Santana... Bloody hell.


Still, the battle looks really good.