Thursday, November 12

Started the day with a treadmill session and resistance exercises on this cooler, but still pleasant, morning. While I was getting ready for the day, Hubbie went to a Master Gardener's meeting. After doing a few things around the house, I sat down at my office computer and wrote a long letter to my friend in Texas to include in the screen door birthday card I made for her.



Hubbie got back home around noon, and after lunch, we ran a few errands...to the greeting card shop for December birthday cards; and to the appliance store to pick up the remote control for the upstairs TV (but it wasn't there...a recorded message I'd gotten this morning suggesting we drop by the store to pick the remote up was a mistake. A clerk at the store said the remote would be sent directly to our home).



Then we went to a dollar store to get a couple of more birthday cards for kids. While I was there, I looked for Christmas stickers like the ones we used at the card making session yesterday. The Caring Hands Hospice coordinator said she had bought all they had, but that the store restocks on Thursdays, so I should check then. I was glad to find that they did indeed have more stickers, at a dollar a card, and I bought six cards of them.



From there, we went to the everything's a dollar store to get some of the supplies we'll need for the graham cracker cookie Christmas house workshop. I got bags of candies, but they no longer have boxes of graham crackers, so I'll have to get those at the WDCS, I guess.



Then we went to the WDCS to pick up my new eyeglasses. But wouldn't you know it, the optician had to be on hand before I could get them, and he was on his lunch break until 3 p.m. So we went on to an automobile dealership that sent us an invitation to look at their autos and talk to a salesman, for which we would receive a free smoked turkey. We spent quite a while talking with the salesman, who then said they were already out of turkeys, having given away 200 of them this morning. But, they were getting more tomorrow, and we could get one then...just call and he will set one aside for us.



Since it was after 3 p.m. by the time we left the dealership, we went back to the WDCS for my eyeglasses, and this time succeeded. We returned home after that, and I did this and that around the house before putting leftovers in the oven for supper.



Later, we all went to the movie theater to see "A Christmas Carol," in 3-D, starring Jim Carrey.
Critics have panned this movie, but we thought it was okay. It's a different take on the story, but then every film I've seen approaches the story differently, and they're all interesting. The movie is rated PG, but it is not suited to young children, because the characters are scary. I'm unaffected by scary movies, but one woman brought her five or six-year-old daughter with her tonight, and in the very opening scene, the child begged to go home, and thereafter kept her head buried on her mother's shoulder. Leave the little ones home for this one, folks.

The 3-D effects are pretty good in the film, with snow flakes drifting down right in front of viewer's eyes, and a feeling of being there as Scrooge flies over the city. Of course, things do come sailing out at the audience, as they do in all 3-D movies.

The basic Dickens story is there, though not enough attention is given to Scrooge's transformation. I like Alastair Sims' transformation scenes in the 1950's film better. And of course it's hard to beat Albert Finney's 1970s musical version of the story. But Jim Carrey's 3-D version will do. I like it a lot better than his over-the-top version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." Though I am a fan of the Grinch, I really don't like Jim Carrey in the role.