12.15.10 - Back in MO

Today I woke up and sat in Mom's living room, which has all the Christmas decorations, the old Christmas children's books from when I was under 10, and all of our presents already wrapped and waiting for us.  The tree only has its lights--we're waiting for Neil and Ellen to get in town to decorate it--but it still adds a lot.  There's also snow on the ground.  Compared with the late autumn weather and lack of outdoor Christmas lights in Berkeley, I feel like I actually woke up in Christmas town.

This is me.

Mom joined me and we visited for awhile.  Told stories.  Then Denny came by and suggested we surprise Julie by having lunch at Olive Garden.  So we did.  Enjoyed a table in an area away from everyone else.  Julie brought us extra olives for our refillable salad.  And yes, Olive Garden has delicious olives.  We swapped stories about incompetent coworkers and/or belligerent customers.  Always plenty of those stories.

Afterward Mom and I ran some errands which ended up involving walking around the mall.  I have a lot of memories there from high school and some summers during college.  It was kind of nice.  We also picked up some denim and she patched my patch-jeans so that they aren't 3 inches too short.  I've only owned them for 5 YEARS and now they finally fit me properly.

And at some point I used the elliptical machine for the first time since August. <3

Later Mom, David and I watched the pilot episode of Firefly.  Mom has never seen the show and I'd like to watch the whole season with her while I'm out here, but we'll see how that goes.  Such a glorious show.  "You've only gotta scare 'im." "Pain is scary."

Good first day. :)