Sunday, Oct 18 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

The second floor is our home away from home on this trip. Isn't this just the cutest little jailhouse you've ever seen???



We decided last night that we wanted to participate in a cool movie/eats combo deal that the little movie theater and two of the restaurants in town have teamed up to offer. There are 2 packages. One is dinner and a movie for $20 and the other is brunch and a movie for $15. Quite a deal, huh? The one movie theater in town is called The Art Theater and the two restaurants are the Sunrise Cafe and Winds Cafe (which, you know if you have been reading this blog at all up to here, we have become quite fond of because they have fantastic, funky food!) The theater has the newest Michael Moore movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, up on its marquis, but we noticed that an art movie titled David and Fatima is playing there on Sunday at 12:30pm. We decided brunch at Winds Cafe followed by the art movie would be a good way to start our day. Alas, we arrived for brunch and found out that a group named Screenpeace actually rents out the theater for special screenings occasionally as a fundraiser and when they do this the movies they run are NOT part of the brunch/movie deal. So we decided to have brunch, anyway, but skipped on the movie. Which turned out to be a good decision, because it was, once again, a beautiful day and we had not yet really browsed the shops of the town and decided to devote the day to doing just that. Once done with brunch, which, I must admit, was a little bit of a disappointment, after the fabulous lunch we had had here a couple of days ago, we took off to do just that. One interesting thing that the artist community of Yellow Springs has done throughout the downtown area is "yarn art". Many of the telephone poles, stop signs and park benches have colorful patches of knitted and crocheted pieces wrapped around them. It is quite charming and definitely unique to Yellow Springs!



Along with many art galleries, there are also many import stores in Yellow Springs.
Kathi and I both really like the clothing that one can find in the import stores and these stores had lots of interesting sweaters, tops and skirts and the prices were actually quite reasonable. I came away with a very interesting top, while Kathi ended up buying a throw for her love seat back at home. Kathi also bought a bead doorway type of thing at one of the "import" stores that was basically a "head" shop. I haven't seen that many hookahs, bongs and pipes in one place EVER in my whole life!! Of course, they had a sign up that said that all of the items were intended to be used to smoke "specialty tobaccos" in. Uh huh.........sure. We also each got some incense from this particular place and upon returning back to our little studio apartment, I decided that I wanted to burn some of the peach vanilla incense I bought. Kathi stretched out on the couch while I lit the incense. Kathi commented on how cool the smoke from the incense looked as it rose through a shaft of sunlight (I promise that she did NOT smoke any "specialty tobacco" from any of the hookahs, bongs or pipes found in the last shop that we were in) and we decided that we should try and take a picture of it.

Ok, so the photos of the smoke aren't nearly as cool-looking as it was in real life, but one has to work with what one has, right? (I have no idea why all of that last sentenced is underlined....I have noticed that at times when typing here on Blogger, things seem to take on a life of their own!) Once "in" from our walk around town, we were in for the evening. We did our usual techno-geek girls thing of checking up on e-mail, browsing the internet to look at whatever caught our fancy and Kathi started preparing dinner. She had brought with from home some boneless, skinless chicken breasts as well as a boxed dinner made by Macaroni Grill restaurants for Chicken Picatta. The box came with the noodles, the cooking wine, the spices; basically with everything but the butter and the chicken. It was really quite tasty!! We sat down to eat just as book club was beginning to discuss the book (The Last Lecture) back in Indianapolis and one of the gals there called Kathi on her cell phone, which she put on speaker phone so that we could be part of the discussion. It was almost like being there!! Kathi and I both liked this book, even though we are both really more partial to fiction than non-fiction. It was sad, of course, because Randy Pausch, whom the book is about, had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer before being asked to give a lecture in the Last Lecture series at Carnegie Mellon University. The book explores his thoughts and feelings about giving this last lecture as well as his thought process about the topic of his lecture. It could have been a very depressing book, but I found it to be uplifting and full of hope. He chose to focus on the many blessings that he had experienced throughout his life and talked mainly about the fulfillment of childhood dreams (many of his which he saw!) He had been told that he had only a few months to live and he used this time to focus on spending time with his family (he leaves behind three young children) and wanted the lecture to be a gift to them as well as to his students and the many people who had been an influence in his life. Once the discussion was over the book chosen for the next month's meeting of the book club was revealed. The book is The Life of Pi. Kathi was not overly excited by this choice, but one must remember that one of the points of a book club is to get one to read books outside of the genre from which one usually reads. Not actually being a member of the book club, I do not feel obligated to read this book but I may read it anyway, because, like Kathi, this is not one that I would choose for myself and it is good to read "out of your box" every now and then! I am currently really looking forward to reading (actually I think I will be listening) to Dan Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol.

After the book discussion was done and dinner was cleaned up we watched a bit of television. We FINALLY ate the apple for a late night snack, along with some cheese and crackers. Then.........., drum roll, please...........the tossing of the states. If you recall we were down to New York and Arkansas. Lori's turn to toss.......what will it be????

Oh yes!! ARKANSAS! The look on Kathi's face and the groan that escaped her lips were priceless. I wish I had gotten a picture. She was holding out for New York. We would have done New York City, even though we have been there together twice (MANY, MANY years ago) and Kathi goes nearly once a year to visit her dear friend, Aeisha (please forgive me if I spelled that wrong!) While I would have LOVED to make a trip to New York City, I am really OK with Arkansas. Kathi was hoping to knock off the state of Oklahoma at the same time, but I don't see ANY town near the Arkansas/Oklahoma state line that looks the least bit interesting. We have a year to research, so we'll see what we can come up with. If there is one thing that Kathi and I have learned over the years, it is that we seem to be able to manage to have fun together regardless of where we are!