It's settled. Sketchbook at the beach it is...and "At the drop of a Veil."

Add a mouse to the talley. It tried to bite me, but I was too quick for it. HA!

I have the morning off tomorrow. I think I'll read. Or maybe read at the beach. Or maybe read at the park. I have reading on the brain.

In the past couple of weeks I've been tearing my way through at least a book a day, sometimes two. Right now the favorite is "At the drop of a Veil." It's a true story of a woman in the 40's who married an Arab man and moved to Saudi Arabia with him. Eventually there will be a dramatic escape -- after she discovers that her husband has divorced her and taken the children by one word casually spoken to the King (Prince?) that he serves. How very exciting. I don't think I could handle the flies all over the food either. I do really like dates...

How could a Western woman deal with being shrouded and confined every single day? I suppose I'm going to find out as I get further in.

And I'm supplimenting it with a little Screwtape Letters here and there.

There is a skunk wandering around the Alisal. With my luck I'm going to go home and find him in my apartment. I'll blog tomorrow from a tomato juice bath...

My friend Adrian had his senior recital tonight. Toi toi to him... He's still planning on knuckling down and going to grad school. Maybe I'll do that one of these days. Or maybe by correspondence from Canada or Provence. I've always wanted a Theology Degree.

I came home with fifty bucks today in cash tips from the golf lounge. Hurah! I'm almost out of dates. The food that is. My other dates have long since been exhausted.

It's been a bad week for devotions. I haven't done more than glance at a few verses a night in about a week. I'm not going to my church for a while because they've converted the whole church to their "40 days of Purpose" campaign. Does anyone else out there believe everything in the Bible but never "feel" God? Is that ok? I almost walked out of my friend's church on Sunday because I looked around the room and everyone there appeared to be having one of those great "moments" and I got jealous. I haven't had one of those "I-know-he's-up-there-and-he-loves-me" experiences in a really really long time. In my head I know the feelings don't indicate the state of your faith, but I feel like I'm plodding along...

Another day at the golf lounge. A totally different type of people down there. It's like working at a country club. The members pay their dues and come and use the facility -- for a fee of course. The men are funny -- usually they swagger their way in after and between rounds of golf, suck down a few beers, and head out. If they've just finished a round they carefully talley scores and then exchange bet money. Their wives come in dressed to the nines in golf apparel, but never play. They come in to sit and chat about other members of the ladies golf club. (Which has it's own clock dedicated to them "In memorium." I wonder if they're all ghosts then?) Sometimes they bring in cards. More often they have salads and iced tea. One lady today actually had a sauvignon blanc. They never drink. They excuse themselves for taking up the bar for hours by telling me "My husband will be in later for a drink." Those men do drink.

I poured a guy a beer, turned around to write it down, and it was GONE. Today I had two "honeys" a "sweetie" and a "Kiddoe." Ah well. They like me better today. Apparently a "cute little thing like me" is going to get in trouble here.

Love Actually

I really liked it. We picked it last night to go with our sundaes. No one had seen it, but it had an all-star cast. Colin Firth, Alan Rickman, Liam Neeson, Hugh Grant, Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson, and Mr. Bean.

Kind of artsy with eight revolving plotlines. (That's how you can tell it was foreign. Thats at least four too many threads for an American audience to follow. How CAN they keep them all straight? I know lets spell every last detail out to them in neon lights so they'll be SURE to catch it...I missed the foreign film festival this year. Really ticked me off. They had Peter Jackson there doing a guest lecture. I didn't get a brochure until after the fact...*SIGHHHHH*

Yesterday morning I got the inevitable call. 9:30. Phil has gone to the emergency room, and the golf lounge needs a bartender. Guess who got tapped? So I threw on some makeup, did my hair up, and trudged down to the lounge to pour drinks for the good ol' boys. They needed gin and tonics and someone to call honey. I got a lot of "honeys" and a few "darlin's." Why is California the place to find a concentration of old southern gentlemen? I remind several of them of their high school girlfriend (I beg your pardon) and several others thought I had a nice smile. (Must have let that slip. I try not to smile at the bar. It only eggs them on. Kidding!) Right when I was closing, seven men came in for their daily 'turkey club.' They talked war and politics, and Phil's rib problems, and why wasn't he there, and if I wanted to be a good bartender I'll hang around with him for a while, and remember that other female bartender 'bout ten years ago? What was her name? That's right. Look bud, they sent us a pretty one today...

And so on. The perk? At the golf lounge they leave cash tips!