We had a nice sleep-in this morning, which was just what James needed. He went to the doctor yesterday to address quite a few problems: according to the X-ray report he got back yesterday says he has severe arthritis in both hips and at least one disc which is degenerating. He has to go for an MRI for his tinnitus next week, and he has another test on the 16th which I will need to take him to because he won't be able to drive home. (We would have slept without interruption a lot later had I not forgotten to shut my alarm off.)

We had a great time at Hair Day, though. Alex and Pat brought the main dish, beef and chicken kabobs and grilled vegetables. Lin made her famous Asian salad. (I could eat the whole bowl by myself.) We brought pearl couscous cooked in chicken and vegetable stock with vegetable flakes. We also had deviled eggs, a relish tray, and a mixed bowl of cut fruit. For breakfast we brought doughnut holes from Kroger and John and Oreta brought a big bowl of cut-up watermelon, which was emptied before lunch was served. As always, talked a lot—Alex and James neeping about computer work, Terica and Juanita swapping work stories, Mel and I discussing my new "toy" (I love it; I have all my BBC radio files on it and can play them while I'm working; I listened to Little Women yesterday), Colin talking about his new job (he started one four days after graduating from college), etc. We stayed much later than usual, and then stopped at the Kroger near Ron and Lin's house on the way home and finished the weekly shopping, so we didn't have much of an afternoon left once we put the groceries away; there wasn't even time to look for dog adoptions.

Finally, we just went to Barnes & Noble at Akers Mill, and I walked the whole store. Picked up a bargain book about Betsy Ross for only $4, and bought Philip Caputo's The Longest Road: Overland in Search of America, from Key West to the Arctic Ocean, which was offered on Vine once, but I missed it. We were still stuffed from lunch, so we had a small ice chocolate each and half of a double chocolate cookie. The store cafè was full of people either using the wifi or doing their homework, and the aisles were full of people sitting down at the foot of the bookcases reading. I hope you folks are going to buy some of those books!

As we left the bookstore it started to rain with huge, heavy drops, almost drowning out our listening to the final "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me!" with Carl Kasell. Then it turned into Georgia Monsoon Season as we ploughed our way through puddles on the way home; one was up to the pickup's axle. Lightning flashed along the horizon and we had several great claps of thunder. Of course in that deluge we had no satellite signal, so instead we sat down to watch The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, which we had missed in the theatres. I liked this much better than the first movie; if nothing else there were no trolls in it. Benedict Cumberbatch must have had a ball recording the voice of Smaug; what a tour-de-force for a voice actor! The action was well-paced, and, hey, there's more Sylvester McCoy.

But what a place for a cliffhanger!

Now we're watching the extras...ah, yes. New Zealand. When God was giving out scenery, New Zealand got in line three times. :-)

It does looks like we are going to have to get a new receiver for our home theatre system. Just recently, in fact since the movie we watched last week, when the music gets to a crescendo, the receiver shuts itself off—it's like it's getting overloaded and just shuts down. Trouble is, most of the home theatre systems include DVD players. Don't need one. Also don't want to spend tons of money; it's not necessary that we have a state-of-the-art unit.

Labels: books, electronics, food, friends, movies

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