Beautiful chilly day

Last night, our Neighborhood Association had a holiday party at our neighbor's home across the street. The place was packed. We had a great time chatting with familiar and new neighbors, hearing about long-time acquaintances' surgeries, grandchildren, and career paths, and waxing sentimental about how little activity there is for Halloween trick or treating, now that the children who lived here when the neighborhood was forming are in graduate school or married and living in NYC. I remember taking Paul around on Halloween. One year I made him a real cool dinosaur costume with a long, detailed tail that dragged on the ground behind him. He loved it. In the past, I used to be far more creative than I am now. I used to make things. I used to sew. I used to do batik. I want to resuscitate that latent artist in me, such as it was. I recently went to Michael's and bought a kit to make a mosaic tile. My first thought was to place it around the koi pond, but I was suddenly inspired to make a plaque that could go on Gus' grave in the back yard. I've designed it using yellow and orange tiles, to match his color, with a blue ring around the center, to match his blue collar. I just have to mix the concrete, add the tiles, and let it dry for 48 hours.

Yesterday afternoon, we saw the movie Brothers, which I thought was better than the reviews led me to believe. Following that, we watched a movie on DVD entitled Shrink, with Kevin Spacey playing a messed up psychiatrist whose clients were mostly narcissistic celebrities and other movers and shakers in the industry.

This morning, Liberto and I went to Wal-Mart, and this afternoon, Paul and I went to the gym. I watched Property Intervention as I walked the treadmill. Love that show, along with the other real estatey, house-selling ones. Other than that, I've mostly puttered around, dragging my heels on doing any work-related work. I haven't even taken my work briefcase out of the car yet this weekend. I hope that sometime this afternoon I'll work up the energy to plan all the activities for the next week, grade papers, and create the final exams for week after next.