Bearshorty's musings

We started the morning with a nice hike in the very cold weather. Not as cold as last year but still. I could only do an hour and a half, mostly because I needed to get back for 12:15 spa appointment and partly because after all the walking and working out my legs didn’t want to walk anymore.

I decided to splurge on a spa, since I never do this. So I signed up for an Organic Facial – and it was very relaxing. It was an hour lying on my back on a heated bed under warm blankets while there were creams on my face and even shoulder, arms and foot massage. It felt decadent. I don’t usually spend money on this – since it is an indulgence but I decided to just go for it.

Bear and I went out to eat to a pub. We usually cook while we are here except for one dinner out and a breakfast diner when we leave. I got Shepherd’s pie and a hut and fruit martini – all was very delicious. It was a bit crowded this year – last year we came in a week with not too many people around. This week proved popular.

I spent part of the evening by the fireplace again, reading Stephen Fry with a clear conscience since I finished all the other books and December National Geographic too. I’m including my favorite quote from “The Fry Chronicles” this evening. He was discussion his relationship with tobacco and cigarettes:

“Substances seem insignificant compared to the big things in life: Work, Faith, Knowledge, Hope, Fear and Love. But the appetites that drive us and our susceptibility, resistance, acceptance and denial of substances define and reveal us at least as much as abstract expressions of belief or bald recitations of action and achievement.”

I made a scrambled egg for breakfast and then worked more on my RS Gifts story. We left the house for the afternoon and the weather was so warm and the sky very blue and being outside was just great.

We went for a hike at State Park for almost three hours, taking with us the with lunch Bear made. He used real turkey for the turkey sandwich, it was really fun to walk and eat it and see horses at the stables in the park. The State Park used to be an estate and it still had a working stables and other farm stuff. And a mansion overlooking the water. At one point we went down a sleep hill to get to the water but then we had to go back the same way and climb up. That was a bit of a workout. But after all the food this weekend I knew I needed it.

Then we had time to kill before the Harbor LightBoat Show, so we first visited a Wailing Museum for about fifteen minutes until it closed. Since it was so close to closing time the guy allowed up to see it for free. There was a replica of a wailing boat and a pretty interesting exhibition. I touched something on the miniature wailing ship and one of the arms fell off – oops. But I definitely wouldn’t mind coming back if I have more time. After the museum we parked by the main street and went window shopping. Mostly touristy and new age souvenirs, but the stores were already all in holiday lights and it was a nice way to kill time.

The harbor Lightboat show ended up being pretty fun. Basically, a parade of boats were decorated in holiday lights and were sailing up and down the harbor. We managed to find a decent parking spot to watch it. It took some time to get going but it was fun to see decorated boats in the dark sailing along. Sailing boats made sails look like Christmas trees. My favorite was a snake with a wagging tale.

After another big dinner of holiday food (my favorite part of the holiday is having left over holiday food), Bear and I watched more old home movies including his Black Belt test for Tae Kwon Do when he was seventeen. And old Christmases with Barney, Bear’s old dog who lived to a very old age but died six years ago.

A fun email today: Some of my students really liked that Black Death video and one emailed trying to see if I’d let them make a video like that instead of writing one of the essays for the final exam. While, of course, I said no to that, I did allow them to make the video as extra credit.