The Access Van got me to Ellen's at about noon on Christmas Eve. Good thing I had arranged for it, as I would never have been able to manage on the bus. I took with me my smaller suitcase, a cloth bag with various tings in it, and a very large shopping bag with--well, other things in it.
El was just finishing cleaning, then we had lunch: a turkey sandwich and roasted Brussels sprouts, which I love. El then set about making Christmas Eve dinner: a nice pl;ump chicken, various sides, and her own entirely made from scratch stuffing.
For that, she tore apart stale whole wheat bread (neither she nor I would dream of buying it already cut), sauteed onions and celery in butter, added poultry seasoning...BUT WAIT! She had no poultry seasoning! To my great admiration, she looked up what was in it (various herbs), and made it herself. Greg came in while she was prepping and we three sat down to a delicious dinner. After, we chatted and watched fifty-year-old episodes of Twilight Zone, which was fun.
On Christmas morning, Ellen made me good pan-fried eggs and toast--of course, with coffee. We then opened our presents. I got lots of nice things--which it seems silly to enumerate, so I won't--and so did El and Greg. Later, El and I enjoyed FaceTime on her phone with all three of my other children and their families. That means we saw them in Savannah, Tokyo, and Singapore. I tried to get grandson, Joel, and his boys, but wasn't successful--will try later.
In the late afternoon, we drove up to the Kristimundi Center (I've been there several times before), but it was 4:00 and they were about to close. Greg knows the director, Michael, who lives on-site, and, in fact, invited him for dinner, but he wasn't able to come.
We took a walk of about a mile along a road in the hills and it was lovely. I was glad to get the exercise, too, as it was uphill most of the way. While we walked, Betty called and I told her I'd come up today (Friday). We had been invited to her daughter, Carolyn's, in Santa Barbara on Christmas, but Ellen had a bad cold, plus rain was threatened.
And boy, did it rain! After tasty leftovers for dinner, we settled in to talk and watch more of Alfred Hitchcock. I went to bed at 9:00 (they stayed up until midnight, I think) and before I fell sleep, heard the very heavy rain that came down. I was awakened twice by a piercing sound, then a message that a tornado was possible. This is some kind of alert thing, which I don't want on my phone, so removed it.
When we got up yesterday morning, the sky was beautifully blue and the sun was shining. It wasn't warm though and--beautifully and dramatically, there was snow on the mountains over Ojai:
Greg went out early to his favorite coffee house, The Beacon, And El and I met him there for breakfast a bit later. We had a good discussion about religion and its various forms and pretenses, plus how one views one's life, and other philosophical topics; I always like talking to those two, whether we always agree or not.
After that, Greg went off to work and El took me to UPS to return something to Amazon, then to WinCo for this and that, then Wal-Mart, where we both got various. She helped me in with all my parcels, then I said goodbye to my girl.
I no soon unpacked my suitcase and the multitude of bags and boxes, then I took off four town on the bus. I stopped in here and there and bought three more DVDs, then waited for the bus home. That took an age, incidentally, and I didn't get in until 6:00, but no matter.
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