*A little nod to my dear Grandpa Evan, who used to ask what day it was, and when you replied, eg., Tuesday, he’d say, “Tuesday!? All day?!” and then he’d wink and give you a little nudge in the shoulder. 🙂
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First of all, a comment about today. It’s December 27th today. 12 years ago a small, red-faced, screaming boy was unceremoniously yanked from within me two weeks ahead of schedule in an emergency C-section, and thus began a whole lot of love and laughter and learning about raising boys, after having had three girls. The Boy, as he has been called these last twelve years, continues to amaze and intrigue me, and quite often I look at him with laughing wonder and exclaim, “Son, you rock.” Read his blog about his birthday, and karate classmates who cuss like sailors. Betcha you’ll smile too.
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Yesterday, my family met up with Paul’s parents and headed down to Florence, AZ, to visit St. Anthony’s Greek Orthodox Monastery. It is a spectacularly beautiful place, and Megan’s photos give a glimpse of what the monks have been able to build out in the middle of the desert south-west.
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While that lot was off touring the monastery, I spent some quality time with my bro and mom and the adopted bro, CSM. The guys wanted to introduce us to an Indian Buffet they really like, so we went there for an early lunch and dined on THE most fabulous fare (the fresh garlic naan with tiny diced jalapeno was to.die.for. … also, the chai was perfect on a crisp cool day).
We did not linger over our meal since we had a deadline — a 12:40 showing of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” at Camelview 5, all the way around the 101 loop over at the Scottsdale Fashion Square. We arrived barely in the nick of time, and I dropped everyone off at the door and went to find a parking space.
Good.Stinking.Grief. The entire population of Arizona, and much of New Mexico appeared to have descended on the mall. (The second day of Christmas, hello, should have known!) By the time I eliminated every ground level possibility and resigned myself to the parking garage, drove up to the third level and parked, walked down and across three parking lots to the theater, and got inside, I had not only missed all the previews, but the movie had started, and I was vaguely aware that something had gone terribly wrong in Budapest, but I was having trouble following it because I was also having trouble following my brother who was trying to lead me to our seats, but due to my increasingly severe night-blindness, I could see literally nothing except the movie screen for a good five minutes. All I could do was stand at the back and wait until he figured out I wasn’t behind him and came back for me.
At last he did, and I was able to stumble down the aisle of the very large and very full theater to the second row where at last I could relax and enjoy the rest of a really excellent (but not for kids) spy film. Great cast, beautiful cinematography, perfect score. I predict awards.
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This afternoon while Jacob was at karate, the girls and I went to Ross Dress For Less to spend some Christmas cash, and they found some delightful deals on dress slacks, a few blouses, a couple of “LBD’s” that were actually both modest AND cute (shockingly tricky to find these days) and Geneva even found a cool black car-coat length trench coat. I perused the iron wall-wear for decorative items, but couldn’t decide on anything, so I settled for a purple trash can for the girls’ bathroom, and a bottle of sugar-free Tiramisu-flavored syrup for my coffee.
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Tomorrow I am going to do a little more couch and mirror shopping. There’s a new consignment store on Bell Road that needs exploring. 🙂
