Who Says it's Too Early for Christmas?

Well, when one is going to be gone for Thanksgiving... there's really no point in waiting. I put up my lights inside the house this time. Reindeer lights around the little side window... and the tree (now with colored lights) connected to that. I have two long strands of multi-colored lights on white strands, one along the edge of the stairs that continues, draping the closet door; the other outlines the frame around the sliding glass door.

It's very autumn-ish though... very chilly yesterday. I finally discovered the usefulness of the big street loop that is my community... it's perfect for biking! Did three laps, and it felt great!

This week from Netflix I got Coco Before Chanel (and even enjoyed it's very French-ness). Before that it was Faith of My Fathers (about John McCain's captivity) which I also enjoyed. Tonight I have the first five episodes of Inspector Gadget from 1983! We'll see!

Speaking about movies, yesterday evening I went out to the mall at Military Circle to watch something I found out about in the local paper that had come that day... 12 Years a Slave... a true story based off an 1854 autobiography of Solomon Northup... a free man who was kidnapped and enslaved in 1841. As Rotten Tomatoes acclaims it at 97%... it was fantastic. It was like nothing that has ever been done before... and it opened my eyes to the thing we talk of so lightly. It was an education. Yes, the Civil War was worth it; American slavery was just as evil as Nazism and needed to be uprooted and defeated the same way.

As I came out of the theater in tears... I decided I wanted to watch something else too, to relax. I tried for Thor, but that was only in 3D at the time, and I hate watching 3D... so I opted for Ender's Game... and I was very glad. I stopped in on an earlier showing of Thor on my way to Ender, and it seemed exactly the same as the last Thor... and Ender's Game was done very well. The author was involved directly, so that stands to reason. What did surprise me was that the University of Washington Electrical Engineering department was in the credits! Cool! My best friend in Husky Band was an EE major. Pictured below is the edition I read back in San Diego... it was on the Navy's reading list, and it was recommended to me by my roommate in Great Lakes:

Today, I've been working on digitizing my CDs, and I ended up buying a few things on iTunes... like every single thing The Piano Guys ever put out, a few Enya songs, and a few random favorites. And just in time, I took off for downtown Norfolk so I could walk on board the visiting tall ship from Norway, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Even though I am partly Norwegian, there is no way I could even attempt to pronounce that correctly.

After that, I walked along the waterfront and headed over to the MacArthur Mall to look around. Spent a lot of time in the toys & games store, mostly looking at the thousands of 2014 calenders they had. I briefly considered getting this one for my Darling:

LOL. I can't look at it without laughing. I was tempted on a few myself, but I really don't need a calender next year... and I was able to resist.

What fun.

Jw