Somewhat lessened of late

2003-11-23 - 10:09 p.m. (Houston Time)

So today we hung out in Houston. My brother and sister-in-law didn't have to work because it's Sunday. Mostly we ended up shopping. My sister-in-law's brother has decided that he is bringing his girlfriend to Thanksgiving, bringing the Thanksgiving guestlist to 9. For my sister-in-law, everything has to perfect. She only has eight place settings so we went out in search of one more for the brother's girlfriend. It wasn't hard to find a place that sold it, but it was hard to find a place that actually had it in stock so we could have it by Thursday instead of having to order it. We went to several stores but finally managed to find just what she needed. We stopped in several other non-place-setting-related stores, but didn't buy anything. Oh, except they also had to buy another pillow because they didn't have enough in the house for nine people.

We had lunch at a great little place called the Brown Bag Deli. Basically you get a brown paper bag and on it there is a checklist of things you'd like on your sandwich. You check 'em off, hand 'em the bag, and they make you a sandwich. No matter what you get, the sandwich is three bucks. Not bad, especially considering that it was a really good sandwich. I think I could've done with a few more selections to put on it, but really it was great. And the bread was awesome.

After lunch we headed back to their house and hung out for a bit. I had a fairly good conversation with my sister-in-law about life in general. My sister-in-law is the type of person who likes to have everything planned out down to the smallest detail long, long in advance. I'm really not that way at all. For some reason I always feel really inferior around her. It's nothing that she's done and she in no way tries to make me feel that way, I just do. For that reason I have trouble talking to her. I know it's dumb. But anyway, this afternoon she actually made an effort to sit down in the living room with me and strike up a conversation and it was good and I appreciated it. She told me that she and my brother also have a long-term goal of someday ending up in the Seattle area so she's jealous that I'm getting there already. I would love it so much if we all ended up in the same area. We'd have to somehow get my parents to come up there too so they would be nearby. I wonder if they would ever do that.

Later in the evening we stopped by a used book store called Half Price Books. As you can imagine, I didn't leave there empty handed. Just when I had decided what book I was going to read next, too. And since that book was the only book I brought with me other than the one I'm in the middle of now, there was no way I was going to change my mind. But now...I'm thinking I just might change it. I only bought three books, although I could've bought tons. I ended up buying PartnerShip by Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball, The Restaurant at the end of the Universe by Douglas Adams, and The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins. I wish I had a good used book store near my home. Actually, on second thought, it might be a good thing that I don't.

The last thing we did this evening was to come home and watch the first half of the new Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers DVD. My brother has a gigantic TV with surround sound so it's practically like watching it in the theater. The new DVD, though, has a lot of scenes in it that were cut from the previously released version. I don't know, in my opinion those scenes were cut for a reason. Most of them seem tedious or just unneccessary. Oh well, it's good that I'm watching it now so that I'll remember what's going on when the third installment comes out in a few weeks.

Tomorrow my brother and sister-in-law both have to work so I'm not sure what my parents and I will be doing. The weather really deteriorated here today. It's cold, windy, and rainy here now. My brother will be working from home tomorrow, but still we don't want to bug him too much. They will have a car that we can borrow though, so who knows what we will decide to do!