Reading: Stephen Fry, Making History.

Learning: how to make an embossed stamp impression. That I am jealous of people who can Rollerblade without fear. That Blake has yet another canine quality. That I hadn't forgotten the name of the beer hall putsch, because it is just the beer hall putsch. If there had been two, they'd each be named.

Listening: Pearl Jam, Vitalogy, because of "Better Man," and Peter Gabriel, Shaking the Tree (greatest hits), because of everything. Because Biko.

Viewing: I didn't see a single magpie on my walk home (I believe I might have a magpie RDA just as I have a canine RDA). I poked into some galleries in Cherry Creek North. The television has been off except for during RDC's breakfast.

Moving: I walked home from Cherry Creek on the trail. Three-plus miles. Plus I did 100 crunches this morning.

6 November 1999: Just the Nicest Day

The judge threw out the "gay panic" defense, at which point Aaron McKinney's attorneys shut up. I am so pleased the bench saw through that ridiculous ploy. McKinney was promptly found guilty, which also pleased me. And then Matthew Shepard's parents, who believe in capital punishment, asked for life imprisonment, not death, since Matthew believed in tolerance and that's what his mother's work in the eponymous foundation has promoted. And life without parole is what McKinney got. That also makes me happy, that a person who condones the death penalty doesn't want vengeance despite a personal stake in the case.

That third learning item came about when RDC was getting ready to leave today. Blake knows very well what a fleece jacket looks like and what it means, and he gets very angry when he sees one: "You mean you're going to leave? I'll kill you first! I'll kill you dead, yeah, and then you'll never leave!" RDC fed him a hem of the jacket and Blake seized it in his beak and did not shake it, as a dog might, but neither did he drop it as RDC (gently) pulled it back and forth. He looked like a dog shaking a chew toy.

Despite Blake's best efforts, we made it out of the house alive. We left the radio on for him as usual and again were reminded why we should leave either a while sooner or later than during the eleventh hour on Saturdays or change the station altogether. I always feel guilty when we leave him listening to "Car Talk." If I don't actually hear their puerile chortling, that show doesn't intrude on my consciousness for months on end. Unfortunately, it must onto Blake's. Blake listens to NPR because we hope he'll eventually learn the theme to "All Things Considered" and we can pretend it's Phish instead.

Anyway, RDC dropped me off in Cherry Creek North on the way to his fishing buddy's house, and I set out to enjoy myself. I have rarely spent an afternoon by myself wandering and browsing there. I should more often. Except I did not only browse. I bought.

I want to make my own Christmas cards this year, perversely because I want ones associated not at all with Christmas. Christmas trees, yes, since they are a (German) pre-Christian custom. Doves. Peace-type things. The sun, for solstice. Yes. I wanted rubber stamps. Two recent spottings in CCN are a make-your-own ceramics store like the one CLH wanted to take me to in San Francisco and a place called "The Happy Stamper" whose name nearly kept me away. But of course it didn't. I wanted my stamps.

I considered trees and ivy and dismissed variations on the peace sign and didn't see any good doves and spotted one of people dancing I really want to get for DEDBG. Then I found a nice big star with a spiral in the center that will mean solstice to me if it doesn't to anyone else, and then I giggled at the perfect tree, which I shall call a Christmas tree to minimize befuddlement. Cartoony and friendly and Christmassy with a crested parrot on top! Wheee!

As I sat on the floor in the back of the store counting envelopes, I noticed a boy wearing a UConn shirt going into an art class in the back. "Hey, UConn!" I exclaimed. He didn't talk to strangers, but a clerk did.
"Did you go to UConn?" she asked.
"Yep, grew up in Old Lyme, went to UConn. Did you?"
"I'm from Columbia! I miss Gillette's Castle!"
Finally, a person who understands Friendly's! And Carvell! Later she suggested "Kathy John's!" and we both jumped up and down squealing. I described my favorite Kathy John's dessert, but she knows the place because she grew up next door to its owner, who has now gone stamp-crazy in the gift shop. I told her that if I had been wearing contacts, I'd probably be wearing my favorite earrings, which also came from that gift shop.

And I probably wouldn't have thought anything about it if I hadn't known she was from Connecticut, but she talked like me. Fast and more nasal than folks do around here. I was surprised to find out Colorado natives think I have an accent. Colorado doesn't have a midwestern drawl or any accent I've noticed; the only marker of native Coloradan speech is slower speed and how they pronounce the "a" of Colorado. It's not the "ah" I say (I, the unaccented one) nor the nasal "aa" of how most Murkans say "cat" and "France" but something in between. Or maybe the "Col" syllable is more of an a than a schwa.

Wendy gave me lessons in embossing powder, which gives a beautiful effect with the heat-tool she had but which I can only too easily imagine starting a fire with at home with the over-the-toaster or -stove method she recommended. I bought a stamp pad with five narrow strips of colors, another Wendy-recommendation for reasons of cost control, except that marking my large sunstar stramp with a .5" x 1" strip of inkpad might make me batty. And metallic gold and silver pens with nibs I can write with, except that like most such pens they'll probably seize up before I've written a rod's length of script. I bought 75 envelopes. I have a packet of green construction paper that I bought for CLH's annual Catalog of Tackiness. I am all set.

I poked in and out of stores I've been meaning to explore for a while, the sort of store that bores RDC silly when we make rare forays in CCN to Gentleman's Warehouse or Cook's Mart or Sushi Tazu. I did not find the present RDC thought of for his mother's upcoming wedding, but clerks in the store I thought might stock it gave me other suggestions. I popped into the Cherry Creek branch of the library and tried to find times to take the bus home but the stupid site claimed server problems. At this point I was feeling pretty foolish for not having ridden my bike the three miles, since it turned out so warm, and I figured I'd walk. As I came out of the library, I faced a large, square, waterfalling fountain in which two Irish Setters cavorted. Standing on the steps watching them, I thought of Beth's conviction, "I love this fucking town," and thought happily that right now, I did love Denver.

Then I bought a mocha frappuccino from Starbucks, whose site does not list its drinks and how many c's a frap has, and sat in the sun finishing Making History. I think this is the first uninterrupted 2.5 hours I've given to a book in months, since summer by the pool. That's the reason I haven't read anything much recently, not that my brain is atrophying.

I preferred Making History to The Hippopotamus, if you're looking for any Stephen Fry to read.

As I sat there reading, I heard a toddler screaming crying and looked up to see one toddling along the whole long storefront. If it reached the far side, only a sidewalk would separate it from a street. I got up to track its movement; no one else seemed to be looking at it. Toward the far side, it slowed; I asked a sitter-by, "Do you know whose that is?" She knew what I meant despite the impersonal pronoun and glanced around for anyone else paying attention to the kid. It had come to a stop by another set of chairs and reached for a woman sitting there, who spared an annoyed look at her presumable progeny without responding to its desire for contact. Well, probably she wouldn't let it wander into traffic, so I went back and sat down. I have no maternal instinct, no concern for my fellow humans. Demonstrably.

I did meet a lot of nice dogs. The first chair I approached was very close to someone else's, so I asked if I could sit there. She glanced up, hesitated, said her husband should be there but was still at the Tattered Cover, and welcomed me to it. I sat and read and in a bit a man walked up. I vacated the chair and the woman, embarrassed, indicated to her husband with a look to find another chair, but I had already honed in on my next spot. "Don't apologize," I asked. "My next seat has a dog." She grinned.

Every black Labrador in this whole town is named either Bailey or Casey, except for Elton (who guides a blind man who takes my bus).

My walk home stretched along the Cherry Creek Trail, which I had not been on since I stopped riding to work in late September. The Cherry Creek Mall (a regular mall, with an Express and a Victoria's Secret) lies between Cherry Creek North (an outside walking neighborhood) and the Cherry Creek Trail. The trail runs alongside the actual Cherry Creek, and then there's Cherry Creek Drive South. Sometimes the Drive's on the north side of the Creek, with the expected name change. Sometimes there's both, just for fun.

This morning I removed Blake from the bookcase in the dining room (he loves the bookmarking ribbons in The Joy of Cooking) and noticed, for the first time in ages, an old glasses case I discovered when we moved. "Thanks for reminding me, buddy." Reminding me on a day I was going to the mall, no less. So I brought along my first pair of self-chosen glasses, dating from July of 1986, which were superseded by my huge owl spectacles in May 1991. Those owl ones have been my back-up pair for almost four years, so I have been negligent for that long in donating these. Well. Better late than never. I brought them into Lenscrafters, which manages such donations. The optician asked if I wanted a receipt. No. I don't understand the principle behind deducting from taxes--getting benefit from--something you're supposed to be donating. Or at least something that old and valueless to me, not at all a sacrifice. That I didn't even pay for myself, since I think insurance through my father's job covered them.

Also I stopped in Papyrus for a wedding card for RRP and MPR. Here I was glad I hadn't ridden my bike, because I knocked over enough stuff with my knees and backpack, without an extra dangling helmet. Besides, I would have worried about its safety all day and would have had either to ride in Tevas or walk in bike shoes. It was good to walk.