m o o d g a r d e n

Just your average 48 year old tattooed woman

And so this is Crimble.

Having the day off of work, as I work in an office, made for a relaxing day spent with my spouse and cats.  We shared our Crimble goodies at midnight, he receiving many superhero-based items from me and me receiving a new digital macro lens for my Nikon D70s camera and a CD soundtrack from the movie Breaking Glass.  We went to sleep late last night content, happy and each to our bedrooms.

This morning we spent an hour or two in front of the happy box (the one you are reading these words on now) before showering and getting ready to go out.  We had nowhere specific to go, no family was awaiting our arrival, no halls needing to be decked with boughs of holly or any other ornamental, decorative or otherwise.  We do not celebrate christmas, kwaanza, channukah, ramadan or any other deity-based religious holiday, but that is beside the point of this story.

Today, we had a mission in mind.  Twofold:  1.  To find a restaurant that was open, and 2.  To find a person eating dinner there alone so we could pay their bill  anonymously.   Now, this requires some planning and some skill to accomplish quietly.   The first thing it required on christmas day was finding a restaurant open.  We only had to drive about eight miles or so to find one.  We sat close to the entrance and surreptitiously watched the folks coming in to see if any likely candidates would present themselves.  We didn’t have to wait long, as three minutes after our dinner arrived (a beautiful salad with walnuts, cranberries, bleu cheese and balsamic vinagrette for me, and a patty melt and onion rings for he who is not diabetic) serendipity provided the target; a lone gentleman, approximately 50 years old.

Oh, and I should mention that he was dressed as Elvis.

Two-tone brown and beige suit, custom fitted.  Cowboy boots.  Gold-rimmed aviator glasses.  And the hair, yes the hair.  We are still not sure if it was all his, but it was pure black, of a modest pompadour style and the sideburns went on forever.  Awesome.

Back in the car, we then sought out a place for a to-go coffee, while listening to Hazel O’Connor’s beautiful early 1980’s New Wave voice and discussed what circumstances might have brought Mr. Presley to the restaurant today.  We ended up down in Wyandotte by the Detroit River where we saw a lone man on a jet ski traversing the cold and choppy waters.  He drew large, slow loops in the water a hundred or so feet from the waterfront dock and I noticed that a man with a large-ish camera was standing next to his car, watching him.  On the way home we discussed what might have brought him out on a jet ski when the weather was about 36 degrees.

We pondered if he knew Mr. Presley.

All in all, we report a good day.

In our recent attempts to try to make our fundage last as long as possible, we have been cutting out most unnecessary expenditures. Naturally, the first to go were those of a fun and relaxing nature. This means that we must now resort to unwinding for free either at home or at one of the local parks. Thankfully, it is summer and we live in southeast Michigan, so there are plenty of things to do, park-wise. (more…)

This evening, after hearing that our plans for attending a previously-untested restaurant were cancelled due to impending gallbladder issues of the daughter of one of the attendees, the boy and I decided to seek out some dinner on our own after picking up Ocean, the Six-Million Dollar Cat from the vet where he was having a fructosamine and glucose test run. On our way back from our favorite standby restaurant (Logan’s Steakhouse) we decided to make a brief stop at the local all-night pharmaceutical emporium to see what we could find. (more…)