Couple of Perfect Days

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, and Cupid delivered a special treat for us: Terri felt well enough to go "out" for a few hours. So we took advantage of this and had a lovely day.

We took a cue from this cutie-pie guy sitting in the car across from our house and decided to hop in the car and see where it took us. (don't you love blondes with long floppy ears?)

We headed to Temescal neighborhood nearby us, full of cute little scrappy shops and Oakland hipsters.

Then we headed over to Rockridge, another cute little Oakland neighborhood, and popped into Market Hall, a sort of snooty yuppie fancy food market, just to have a look around and look at pretty displays. It was crowded.

But pretty displays of fancy foods always please me to no end, so we put up with the crowds for a few minutes and browsed. Chocolates were tempting, but we had cookie dough chilling in the fridge at home, so we managed to escape with empty hands (even though this display of salts and spices was quite compelling).

Lots of pretty Valentine flowers out for sale as well.

Then we headed up to the cemetery to enjoy watching the storm roll in.

This little angel looked very forlorn so we chatted with her for a minute.

Lots of corners and interesting gravestones to explore...

I don't know if these are cherry blossoms or what, but they are blooming all over and are so pretty, pink and frothy.

Sort of illustrating the transition from bare winter branches into spring bursting forth.

Remember those cookies I mentioned earlier? They were good. I had no heart-shaped cookie cutter so I just carved these with the tip of a knife. What's not to like about pink sugar cookies?

So yesterday we spent out in the world, and today we spent hunkered down inside against the storm. It's been gray, rainy, cold and very windy -- my favorite sort of weather. We have had a fire in the fireplace all day, and have been watching movies and munching cookies all day long. Warm and cozy. I never *ever* spend all day watching movies, so it's been quite luxurious.

Speaking of movies, we've been on a scary-movie kick. Last night we watched the 1963 version of The Haunting, and the 1979 version of The Amityville Horror (romantic, right?). Neither were particularly scary although they were nice and atmospheric. However, afterwards I got totally spooked out and once in bed, had to send Terri out back into the apartment to get my book, and then to get me a glass of water, and then to shut the closet door. What am I, five? Yes, exactly. I could not get out of bed again -- too scared. It didn't help that the wind was whooshing around our bedroom, rain pounding on the windowsills. Um, it was actually sort of great.

I haven't done any painting or drawing or anything else I'd planned to, but I've had a wonderful, wonderful couple of days. We don't get those too often right now (the Valcyte is no fun for anyone) so they are even more precious and we are enjoying them.