Saturday Night Chinese... Sunday Afternoon Gelato

We went out for dinner last night, with young C and her parents.... to one of the local Chinese restaurants. Great food, but this restaurant is always noisy. Not that it's over-packed with customers, but the kitchen is open for all to see, so you get the cooking noises as well as the conversations between the chefs. The restaurant decor is all tile and marble, nothing soft to mute the sounds, so that makes for more noise as well. But a lot of the larger restaurants here are like that..... we just get used to it. (But more often than not, we go to the smaller, quieter restaurants.)

While we were in the restaurant, a small television in the corner of the room was tuned in to the Astros baseball game... they were up 2 - 0 when we sat down at our table. When we got back to our house, C turned on the television to see how her beloved Craig Biggio was doing, and the Astros were up 12 - 0, or something like that. We all sat down and watched the end of the game-- as if we thought the Astros would be losing at the end of the ninth inning?

During the last couple of innings, C went through a huge basket of shells that I had bought at a yard sale. I picked out some of the larger ones, to use as decorations around the living room of the cottage, and I told her she could have the rest of them. She's planning to make some sort of shell-sculpture, or she may glue the shells to a small bookcase that I found at a yard sale. She can barely contain herself these days, just waiting for the day we can move everything up to Mayberry.

I plan to take my watercolors up to Mayberry, and I'm bringing up some of my favorite books. We aren't getting cable service or a television for the cottage. As my husband says... we want to keep Mayberry as "a place to be, just be." (And that doesn't include sitting in front of a TV screen.) We're not even getting a telephone installed, since I have my cell-phone and we can just use that when we need it. Once we get everything moved in and arranged, and after I put the finishing touches on every room, I plan to draw and sketch and get back to practicing with the watercolors. And then there's the view....... just sitting there in the backyard swings and looking at the birds and the ducks and that glorious view of the lake. We can all hardly wait.

This afternoon, I took young Miss C to the Italian gelato shop, along with my friend A's niece L, who is visiting from NY. Next week is going to be so busy, and I wanted to make sure to get a chance to see L before she goes back home to NY. C and L are just a couple of years apart in age, and the two girls have a good time when they're together. Today was a spur-of-the-moment idea, being that I had a couple of hours that wasn't occupied with packing and boxing for the cottage. The three of us had a nice time at the gelato shop..... L opened up her birthday gifts, and I gave C a small gift because she passed her driving course this weekend. She is now an "official" Texas driver, but until her next birthday, she will still need an adult, licensed driver in the passenger seat of any car that she drives. I knew she would be a "natural" driver.... I just knew it.

On the way home from the gelato shop, we stopped at Sonic to get my husband a strawberry slush...... and C and I found out that L hadn't ever had a Sonic burger before. (They don't have Sonics up in NY.) So I got both of the girls a "Wacky-Pack," as it's called...... a small burger, fries, and a strawberry slush, plus there's a toy surprise in each of the packs. This week's surprise was a light-up-in-the-dark Frisbee. C and L were hilarious in the car..... laughing and giggling about the Wacky-Packs. C said she usually gets a Wacky-Pack at Sonic because the portions aren't too big, plus just saying Wacky-Pack makes her laugh.

Our dear Miss Frankie was so right years ago....... she always said that an easy way to stay young was to surround yourself with young-at-heart people who knew how to laugh. I can still hear you laughing, Frankie. To this day, I can hear you laughing. We miss you still, and young Miss C talks about you all the time.