On Wednesday the 2nd, Mer and I were invited to see The Lord of the Rings:  The Fellowship of the Ring at a coworker’s house. We went separately, and I was slightly late, because I was having coffee (read: hot chocolate) with a very good student, Ben. Ben has been trying to decide between going to college at Bowdoin in Maine, and going to Moody in Chicago. I wanted to talk to him about the pros and cons of each, and he was willing to do that. We had a nice long chat of about an hour, and I think it helped clarify some things for him.

I showed up at the movie just as it was starting. Mer was there, along with Dubbs, our co-worker David, and our co-worker LT and his wife Audra. They had ordered pizza, and I brought cookies. We started watching the movie, and the pizza came about twenty-five or thirty minutes into the film, so we paused it there. LT had also ordered a dessert pizza (a cinnamon “pizza”) that was excellent. The regular pizza was fantastic too. I need to remember to get the location from LT.

I watched another hour of the film or so, but then I needed to leave. LT and Audra got a phone call about a family situation, and so they left shortly after I did. Mer hung in there and watched the whole film with Duubs, while David came and went as he wanted. I would have liked to have stuck around longer, but it was a good time with some good people. 

Saturday (the 5th) was a beautiful day. I called Zach and Londa to see if they wanted to go out to The Cheesecake Factory, and they were excited about doing that. However, they had a plumber coming, so it would have to be for dinner as opposed to lunch, as I had suggested. That was fine. I still wanted to make sure that Mer and I got outside since it was so nice out. It had to be a local trip, though, so we could be back in time to go supper with the Churchills.

So, I decided to take Mer to Portage Lake State Park. I had seen signs for it on the highway near Akron, but we had never been. It is an interesting park. It has an eighteen-“hole” Frisbee golf course, and a huge parking lot, and a pretty beach. The lot was mostly empty since it was November, but from the size of the lot, this beach must get used a lot during summer. The lake the beach is on is fairly narrow, but seems to be quite long, as we never saw the ends of the lake. There are pretty (and expensive) homes that you can see well from the beach, and there is one walking path that takes you out to a small point. Mer and I walked the beach and the little trail, and then headed back home. We were probably only in the park for about forty-five minutes – I had been hoping for more trails to walk – but at least we got outside on such a pretty day.

The Churchills came and picked us up at around 5:00 or so. We drove up and chatted, and when we got to the restaurant, there was already an hour wait, even at 5:30. So, we put our names in and wandered over to an art gallery that is in the mall, one that specializes in sculptures, which include my favorite sculpture, Melody. Melody is a statue of a woman in a long, flowing dress, who is dancing while playing the fiddle. I love it. Sadly, it is eighty thousand dollars, but it is still nice to look at.

We got back to The Cheesecake Factory and had about a twenty-five-minute wait. Supper and dessert were both excellent, and getting caught up with Zach and Londa was great. It was a fine evening together.