An Award

Sarah over at http://www.britgalusa.com/ gave me the above award a couple of weeks ago, and I am only now getting round to posting it. Which only goes to show how little I deserve this award, as I have been anything but a superior scribbler of late. But thank you for thinking of me, Sarah, I do appreciate it, and I do promise to mend my ways. In fact, there are quite a few things I want to change about my lifestyle come the New Year, but more about that some other time.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how hectic this time of year is, because you already know that. Usually, I like to have all my Christmas presents and cards bought before Thanksgiving, that way I am spared the madding crowds from Black Friday* onwards.

This year, that wasn’t possible, and last Saturday was a case in point. Mick and I went Christmas shopping in Joplin, Missouri, along with the rest of the four states, me thinks. The main highlights of the day were to be a visit to the bookstore, and lunch at a pub style restaurant that serves a pretty mean fish and chips. Now I love bookstores, and had we spent the rest of the day in there things would have been just fine, but we didn’t.

After the bookstore we went to the mall. After seeing the endless lines in every shop, we decided, forget about it, and went in search of lunch. Mick dropped me at the door of the restaurant while he went in search of a parking space on the crowded lot. One glance inside told me that fish and chips was off the menu, there was a line of about 20 people waiting to be seated.

Outside, Mick was still circling, but he was so intent on finding a parking place he didn’t see me wildly gesticulating to him to pull over. So there I am chasing him around the parking lot, and I didn’t catch his eye until he actually found a spot. The relief on his face soon turned to dismay, when he saw me.

In the end, we had lunch at a Chinese place, followed by some grazing in Sam’s Club. They have that many free samples of food on offer in that store that you really don’t need to eat lunch. Anyway, we bought a load of food to stock our new freezer, and decided to call it a day.

I bought the remainder of my Christmas gifts on-line, all from the comfort of my own home, with no sodding queues to deal with.

*For the Brits, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when the whole of America descends on the stores.

The Sky at Night

Also, I don’t know if you noticed the sky at night on Monday, December 1st, if you did, you would have seen a rare alignment of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter. It was quite a spectacle. I did take a photo but it didn’t turn out too good, so I cribbed this one off the net.

Here in Oklahoma, the crescent moon was standing on end, with Venus and Jupiter to its right.

British astrologer, Jonathan Cainer, http://www.cainer.com/ had this to say about the conjunction:

"Those two bright lights, so close to the Moon last night, were Venus and Jupiter. Their rare sunset spectacle does not, on its own, signify the end of the credit crunch. The pessimism genie has been let out of the bottle and it may take some months before enough optimists team up to chase it back in. Still, we should be encouraged by the planets of prosperity and good fortune aligning so closely this close to Christmas. It augurs well for a fruitful festive season a New Year, with a new President, pursuing new policies from which many benefit."

Let’s hope he’s right.