The way is shut

2003-12-21 - 11:12 p.m.

I had another unpleasant dream last night. In my dream, my optometrist was having me try out another pair of contacts. The left one was small and hard, similar to the one I have in real life, and the right one was soft but huge. I couldn't get the right contact in my eye because really it was bigger than my eye. And somehow I managed to shatter the left contact. I took the contacts to my optometrist, tried to downplay the shattered left contact, and showed her how the right contact was too big to use. She tsk-tsked and said, "This won't do at all, sit down," directing me towards the exam chair. The chair, however, wasn't an optometrist's chair, it was a dentist's chair. She cranked that sucker back and started probing in my eyes with metal objects while I tried bravely not to wriggle. I was so happy when my mom woke me up this morning.

And this morning we saw "Return of the King." We got to the theater a half hour before the show started, but were unable to find more than two seats together. So my parents sat together, my brother and sister-in-law sat together, and I sat all by myself in the very back row in the seat farthest to the left. Actually, it wasn't so bad sitting there. The back row has plenty of leg room so I could stretch out. Also, I had nobody kicking the back of my seat and nobody next to me. And since I was so high up, I had to look somewhat downward towards the screen which meant that my contacts were relatively comfortable. And I could see just fine. As for the movie, I don't know, I wasn't as impressed by it as I expected to be. Frodo is just as annoying as ever. It was good, yes, but not terrificly fantastic as people have been saying. My favorite character in this movie was Eowyn. "I am no man."

After the movie we had lunch and went shopping then hung out at home the rest of the day. We started a new puzzle today. It's tradition for us to do a puzzle every Christmas. We started one yesterday and finished it in only a few hours. So today we started a new one. This puzzle, I think, somebody got for us as a bit of a joke several years back. It was along the lines of, "You think you're good at puzzles? Try this." It's not hugely impossible, but it's 1500 pieces and entitled "New England in Winter." Yeah, the color white is a common theme. Needless to say, we didn't finish it tonight. We also played a board game tonight. We played a game called "Bethump'd." It's almost like a trivial pursuit type game only all the questions have to do with words and the English language. It's fun, especially since all of us are at about the same skill level and we all have the about the same amount of competitiveness and playfulness in us. I actually won, but just barely.

After dinner we went for a walk around Dovewood Court. Dovewood Court is a street in my area on which every single house has gone crazy all out on the Christmas lights and decorations. The streets are packed with cars trying to get to it and the sidewalks are packed with people walking through it. People like to take limos through it. Each house has a different Christmasy theme to it. They usually do the same thing each year, but this year quite a few were different. One house has a Margaritaville theme set on a tropical island. Santa is in a boat being pulled by sharks, they brought in sand and set up palm trees and other island stuff, and this year they added a ten foot volcano that actually puffs out smoke periodically. All the houses are really impressive.

And just for the record, Aunt Flo came to visit today. It was sort of funny because I totally wasn't expecting her. But then when I asked myself, "What day is today, anyway?" I realized it was exactly the day that Aunt Flo is supposed to come. Yeah, Euc, pay attention!

Oh, and another fun thing that happened was that my sister-in-law and I had a discussion about Seattle again. We got on the internet and looked up hospitals in the Seattle area and discussed what we knew about them. She showed me the area of Seattle where she'd like to one day own a house. We talked about one day having all our families up in that same area. It made me really excited to get myself up there. She told me that in June she has a meeting in Seattle and I invited her to come stay with me then. Think I'll actually be set up up there by then? I would say I have no doubt that I will be, but back in August I had no doubt I'd be up there for Thanksgiving, so I don't know. Oh but I can't wait!