Saturday...

Today is the nth day in the celebration of my birthday (which is actually on Monday). It's like the 12 days...on the first day I had a party with friends and pres-ents (oh, it doesn't flow with the same syllables) Anyways, as I already commented on BB's blog, we are going to Courthouse 8, my favorite movie theatre ever. Why, you ask? Do they have a great wide screen and wonderful acoustics? I could care less. They're decent enough for me. No, my girlish sentiment rings true--the bathrooms have floral arrangements, that's why I love this theatre. Also, it's a Metro stop.

Movies, for me, are like therapy. I just started reading a book where a man uses flying as therapy...oh yes, Grisham's The Summons. I already read the end (some critic said it was a great one) and am not sure now that I need to read the middle. I digress.

At Courthouse, I've seen Brokedown Palace, Drive Me Crazy, Love Actually, Gladiator (on a date), About a Boy, among others. One time, my head hurting, I left work, drove to the movies, and my boss actually called my house to see if I was okay. My mom said, oh, she probably went to the movies. I forever thought ach, the black mark on my references forever! But he has now left Fox Books, just one day up and quit. Apparently corporate is becoming fiercer. I still do miss my halcyon days there...

Many of the movies mentioned above I saw more than once, and at Courthouse--I know BP was one I saw many times over, it haunted me so. At the time, I was paying reduced rent and I had no car payment or student loans. My mother thought it such a luxury, that I could go see the same movie more than twice, but for my sanity and my curiosity, I felt it a necessity. Since I didn't drive the first year and a half that I lived in Virginia, the fact that it was at a Metro stop was very crucial to its patronage by me. It also added to the mystique--at one time the downtown Business branch of the Carnegie library was in a T station (T is the Pittsburgh subway, which has all told 5 downtown stops, if that).

A city girl I truly am. I'm sure I've mentioned that I loathe to drive longer than two hours if I'm driving alone. And I'd rather take the bus to work--I could read at least! When I worked at Fox Books Downtown Pittsburgh, I had bus buddies, people I knew. On at least one occasion I had to ask one of them for bus fare because at 5 am I had forgotten my bus pass.

I'll leave this...my mother just asked if this was my Christmas paragraph. Ach, I'll do it here first.

[Sarah Louise] is still happily librarying at [said Public Library, Pittsburgh] where she has been for three years now. She started working in the cataloguing department last year and enjoys the variety. This summer she went to Chicago for the American Library Association Conference. She especially enjoyed the sunset tour of the rivers and Lake Michigan. [Sarah Louise] continues to enjoy her church, the Open Door, which has recently moved into a space that was built for the Presbyterians, (back in the late 1800s), sold to the Baptists in the 1900s, and now is owned (for the past 5 or so years) by the Mennonites, who are using the building as a community center. The Open Door rents office space and the "Great Hall" for Sunday services, at the civilized hour of 6:30 pm. This year, [SL] has had a variety of "extra curricular activities," including nursery at Bellefield Presbyterian Church Sunday mornings, and a stint as the Caregiver Recruiter/Coordinator for MOPS (Mothers of PreschoolerS), a ministry that reaches out to moms of preschoolers, hoping to introduce some of them to church in a non-threatening venue. She oversaw 10 caregivers of over 20 children ranging from babes in arms to 4 year olds. [SL] also had a few firsts and seconds this year: first time to see Peter Sis and Jack Prelutsky, both children's authors, second time to break a tooth (on unpopped popcorn) and a bone (her tailbone, on the basement stairs.) The first time I broke a tooth it was trying to open a nail polish bottle when I was in 4th grade. I can see the bottle even now. I think I didn't succeed in opening it. We lived in Tegucigalpa and so waited to go to our dentist in Silver Spring, MD, until the summer. I had a silver cap, not a crown, like this one. I think I will have to edit this paragraph--I did too much this year! I don't exactly like the tone sometimes these holiday letters get--and Junior won the pedigree for his age group...it's like each year you're updating your resume. I suppose I feel it more when weddings and children are mentioned since I've not yet reached those benchmarks/milestones.

Oh well. It's time to really write the paragraph...I'll post it here later, edited. I imagine it will be more whimsical than what you have above--since I loathe to boast too much.

Ta!