So Thursday, before I left the office, I called Cafe Express. I just wanted to know if we could expect to get shafted and kicked out of our room again. I mean, hey, we HAVE been meeting up back there for more than two years you know? We kinda have dibs on that back room. So they put me on with Del. He’s the General Manager there. Really nice guy. He gets on the phone and is very interested in accomodating the group and wants to know if we’d like them to reserve the room for us. I’m all like, no, you dont have to reserve the room, i just wanted to know if anyone else had. We talk another minute and get off the phone.

I get to CE that evening. They’ve pushed a bunch of table together along the back wall bench and slapped a reserved sign on them. I immediately know that this is for us. So I sit down to knit and wait for other knitters to show up. Del comes over and introduces himself. We talk a bit and he’s very interested in what I’m doing and in the group, etc. Then, he informs me that he’s put two bottles of wine on ice for the group, on the house. I’m floored. So we had a lovely smooth Pinot Grigio at the group this past Thursday. How lovely is that? I’m always so thrilled to experience the niceness of people. It makes you feel very welcome.

Saturday afternoon, I went and saw A Prairie Home Companion with my Papa and Annie (his girlfriend). It was really good. I love Garrison Keillor. I’ve been listening to A Prairie Home Companion on the radio since I was a little girl. It was constant background noise at my grandparents house, and always on the car radio when we drove anywhere in the evenings. That, for me, is part of what home means. The movie does not disappoint. Except for names like Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, John C Reilly, Lindsey Lohan, etc… all of the people are people who actually work on the radio show. So the sound was authentic PHC. It was so cool. Afterwards, we went and had dinner at the Black Lab. It’s on Montrose and is an English restaurant. Right down to the strange English meals. For dessert, they really will serve you something called Spotted Dick. SD is some kind of pudding dotted with cinnamon, raisins and currants. What an unfortunate name for something that is probably really good.

Later, I went out with Susan to Pappadeux’s where I sat and worked on the koigu Mom sock and she had dinner. The waiter was hot. And flirting with me. I’m still feeling saucy with this haircut. Tis a goood thing. We finished there and went to grab Jet to go see a movie called Little Miss Sunshine. Its about a dysfunctional family and how with as much as they fight and squabble amongst themselves, when outside forces come to pick fights with them, they all pull together. Its a sappy idea for a movie, but we saw it at the River Oaks theater (the one slated to be closed down! find a petition, sign it!) and it was a tiny movie room with a tiny, packed audience and we all laughed really really hard pretty much continuously. Then, after the movie, the three of us started laughing our asses off in the bathroom at Lord only knows what and practically had to gasp for breath we were laughing so hard. I don’t know what we were laughing at, but really, I don’t think it mattered. We had fun with it.

We also attracted some attention for having our knitting at the movie. This chick sitting in front of Susan was enthralled and wanted to know if we could teach her. Sure! So we told her when and where we have meetings and to come on by. Hopefully we see her. :) She seemed like she’d fit in nicely with the group.

And because y’all have been so patient with the non-knitting posting lately, I thought y’all might enjoy this:

Dog with doggy raincoat. Cuuute!!

Doggy Raincoats!!