On Friday morning, I woke up and felt like myself for the first time in almost a month, so I spent the weekend making up for the lost month of December.
Friday afternoon, Anne and I finally saw The Return of the King. I won’t discuss specific spoilers, because I would have been pissed if anyone had done that to me, but I will say this: I left feeling incredibly saddened that it was over. I love those characters, and that world, and I was so sad at the final fade out that their journeys were over. I’m holding onto faint hope that Peter Jackson will make The Hobbit, so we can return to Middle Earth (and see Smaug!) one day . . . but just barely.
While I was sick, and couldn’t get out to the movies (there was no way I was going to be that asshole in the theatre who’s coughing and sneezing the whole time), I watched the extended version of FOTR and TTT, as well as all 10 or so hours of the appendicies, so I was really pumped up for RotK, and I wasn’t let down at all. I can’t wait for the extended DVD version, (which I hear will be about 5.5 hours long!) to come out!!
Saturday was pretty windy, and by the end of the day, the sky was so clear, I felt like I could reach up and touch it. When the sun set, it was like someone had painted the sky on a glass globe, turned it upside down, and placed it over Pasadena. The Eastern sky was a deep, deep indigo spotted with a few stars, and the Western sky was crimson and orange, and Venus hung just above the horizon. I’ve seen some beautiful sunsets in my life, and Saturday’s easily makes the top ten.
Sunday, we took advantage of the clear air and unseasonably warm weather and went on a hike to Echo Mountain with my brother and his wife. The views were spectacular, and we all had a wonderful time. While we were up there, Jeremy and I finally found the Echo Mountain Geocache, that we couldn’t find last year.
When we came back to my house, Anne and I made pizzas for all of us, with yummy artichoke hearts and freashly-made sauce, and then we played the Pop Culture edition of Trivial Pursuit. If you’re in your early 30s, like me, you probably remember playing the original Trivial Pursuit in the 80s, right? Of course, by “playing,” I actually mean “wanting to stab yourself in the eye with a fork because we could never answer any of the questions.” Well, I am happy to report that the Pop Culture edition was built just for us! Trivial Pursuit is significantly more fun when you can actually answer the questions . . . especially when one of them is “What did Dennis Moore distribute?” (Answer: Lupins!)
It was a truly wonderful weekend, one that (to steal a phrase from Steve Jackson) restored many of my hit points. I think I may have gained a level, too, but I won’t know until I tally up my XP.