Active and Varied

Wednesday was one of those active and varied days I like. Got to the Beach Cities Newcomers and Neighbors (BCNN) meeting at 9:30 and fell into conversation with a woman named Pat and her friend, Linda. I sat with them and enjoyed it.
Membership in BCNN totals 366 and almost all were probably there. There was the usual excellent coffee and yummy homemade muffins, fruit bowls, croissants and so on. The speaker was a woman who teaches Rekki (?) and is a dancer and she demonstrated how to dance through life. Sounds boring, but it was actually pretty good.
After, those who wanted to could stroll down the street for lunch at a certain small restaurant. I decided to go and was glad I did, as I met several other women, all of whom I liked. Plus--a big plus, the food was superb. I had a turkey sandwich, but not an ordinary one. This was turkey on a thick slab of rough bread--I love that kind, don't give me "marshmallow bread," that is, supermarket white--with what I think was store made dressing, onion, tomato, and lettuce, all bound together with melted Swiss. Mighty tasty and so was the locally-brewed Belgian ale I had with it. Good talk topped it off and it was fun.
My erstwhile "friend," Angela D., whom I had met when she appeared in Mad Gravity last month, called yet again. She called me yesterday while I was at the courthouse and left a long, long voice mail message that made it run out, then left another one. These must have totaled ten minutes of talk, telling me this, that, and the other thing of no interest whatever to me and how she was tied up with going to L.A. and other obligations, which is why she hasn't called me for lunch. I was too wiped out on Tuesday, what with my citation and all, to call her back and she called again when I got home from the BCNN meeting. We talked a bit, but I'm beginning to wonder if I really want a more intimate relationship with her.
Speaking of relationships, one of my best--my friend in New Mexico--called, then Skyped me to show me her new house. Wow, it's beautiful! It's perfectly in keeping with the setting and the furniture they had chosen with such care for their semi-rural New Jersey house is just exactly right for that house. The house is clearly southwestern, but subtly so, without the overkill you sometimes see when people try too hard. It has a fair amount of wood, a wonderful fireplace surrounded by rough stone, and floors, counter tops, and other surfaces of various materials that are in keeping, also. My friend and her husband each have an office of their own (my friend's will soon also be guest room) and there's a two-car garage, a huge deck, and more than an acre of land. That land is mostly ponderosa pine and other plants indigenous to the area.
After that treat, I went to exchange a pocketbook at Kohl's, then took a drive, ever mindful of traffic lights and stop signs, getting back about 4:00. On Tuesday, I had bought several pounds of carrots; I cut them up, washed and quartered some clementines I had (peel and all), added them and cinnamon stocks to the slow cooker, and let it go. I didn't feel like eating them at the time, but yesterday when I got home, took them out of the fridge, and just had them cold. Gee, they were good!
Topped off the day by buying a new home phone at Wal-Mart.