Of tea, kitties, the beach and Alan Rickman

I spent most of the weekend with pal o' mine, Dana.

I headed over around midday on Saturday. From there we went out to tea at The Secret Garden Tea House. Although not everything one would wish, it proved a vast deal better than our previous experience at the Captain's Cottage. For a detailed account of that fiasco, read Dana's posting.

The we had delicate little morsels, great heaping gallons of tea, and sweet things to finish up with. No krab salad on a pringle here so, like I said, a vast deal better. While it was all yummy, we decided that we could do as good a job and for less money and conspired to give it a go ourselves next time.

Following tea we headed back to Dana & Dave's place. We decided to get in a good beach walk. So after copious playing with kitties... what? Oh I didn't mention the kitties?

Well that foul temptress has four foster kittens right now. They're tempting enough on their own without Dana's constant needling that Paiwacket really could do with a friend. I mean look at them!

(ABOVE) Going from the bottom left to upper right are: Angel Eyes (or Amelie), Taz, and either Haggus or Wookie (I can't tell as Haggus and Wookie are almost indestinguishable from one another). But the evil male opressor in my life (Rick) is against us getting another cat for a while due to monetary reasons so I held firm. It wasn't easy though! They're all hilariously playful and incredibly affectionate. As my stay extended longer than anticipated, it became more difficult saying no. Sigh.

(LEFT) A nice scale picture for you. Haggus or Wookie sleeps as Beezle (one of Dana's 8, yes 8, cats takes a stretch. Yes, Dana is a crazy cat lady. But we love her anyway.

Anyway, so we took our walk on the beach: a nice long one. I always go barefoot because I'm a crazy person who likes the cold. The day was overcast but by the end of our walk the sky had completely transformed from steely gray to bright blue.

David was at a meeting and preparing that night for a tribute at an atheist meeting for a man who was retiring after (apparently) tireless work in the cause of promoting atheism. I had met Jim Heldberg several times (although I'm not sure I'm spelling his last name correctly) and he's a sweet fellow and so I eventually agreed to go to the meeting and then stay the night at David & Dana's.

The meeting was pretty good, as it turned out. There was an odd lack the inevitable loonies who cause eyes to roll at any given atheist meeting. Well, not complete lack but it was kept to a very respectable (and surprising) minimum. The meeting turned out to be quite nice actually, if not a bit long.

Following the meeting, back at the apartment, we watched a truly terrible movie where environmentalists were prostesting outside of a logging facility. Only inside the logging grounds scientists were performing genetic experiments to try to make trees grow faster. The result? Of course, Zombies. Yeah, I hardly needed to say it, did I? Not only did the sap from these genetofreak trees cause humans to zombify, the evil logging company locked everyone inside in order to contain the situation. Further still they'd fly overhead in heliocopters and shoot at the non infected. You know, for fun. This in turn caused the loggers to band together and within 48 hours form a "creepy" Lord of the Flies-type society where our heroes (a foreman, some of his men, one of the cowardly scientists, the son of the president of the company, and an activist) eventually found themselves trapped. Beyond. Bad. My only regret (apart from watching it) was that one of the characters survived. I don't remember what it was called just read the synopsis on the dvds you rent. If both genetically modified trees and zombies are mentioned, avoid it like so much genetically modified tree sap.

Sunday: I was affectionately woken up by Haggus who nuzzled under my chin purring for about 10 minutes. Dana and I went for another (and longer) beach walk. We took the dog this time. There were a lot of dead jellies and jelly parts on the beach so I had to watch my step. Although we did enjoy yelling "Jelleh!" sort of like Cartman everytime we came across one. We're not well.

We ended at a little place for coffee and pasties ate and then headed back. After we got back to their place, I took a shower (cause I was getting a bit wiffy at that point) and then we all headed off to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (that's where Alan Rickman came in). They hadn't seen it yet. I have to admit I liked it better upon my second viewing. I didn't dislike it before, I just enjoyed it more the second time around.

Following a brief shopping excursion following the movie I headed back home, completely wiped out! But I had a very nice weekend. Thanks, Dana & Dave!