The Visit

Preparations

So Fussbudget's visit was awesome. I worked myself into a frenzy preparing my home for a visitor, but it was worth it. I also managed to pre-prepare most of the meals for the weekend, so I was able to spend almost all of my time visiting. We didn't push ourselves to do anything, but managed to accomplish a lot. She arrived right about on schedule for dinner on that Thursday night. I had spaghetti waiting for her, and we enjoyed a pleasant meal and just yapped all night.

Shopping, Movies and Animal Medicine

Friday, she wanted to know if we had any Christmas stores in town so she could do a li'l Misery-style Christmas shopping. So we browsed around the mall and downtown... I picked up some Animal Medicine cards at this neat li'l place downtown called The Peace Nook, so we could read her cards and find out who are her animal spirit guides. It's kind of become a tradition... anybody comes to visit and we read their animal cards. Of course, in the past, all of my visitors end up taking the cards with them, but I managed to hold onto this set.

So we read her cards that night... but not until we'd gone to a movie ("Christmas with the Kranks"... not a bad movie) at the theater, and then rented no less than six more to watch during the rest of her stay. We actually managed to watch all but two before she left on Monday. *grin* Mostly chick flicks... but good stuff.

Boozin Up

She'd seen several Winery billboards during her drive through to Columbia, and asked if any would be open. She wanted to find some Misery wine to take home for her dad. None were open this time of year, but the local grocery stores always carry them. Now, Misery has a LOT of wineries, so she managed to find I think four different wines from different places, to take home. We did this on Saturday, cuz she wasn't sure if they'd sell wine on Sunday. I guess they don't in Georgia. I didn't THINK this was a law here, but we figured we'd play it safe.

The St. Louis Arch

Then it was on to St. Louis. It was pretty cold out and though the sky was overcast, it was dry, so we took a few (okay, a shitload of) Kodak moments at the St. Louis Arch. I'd told her about the itty bitty li'l pod-trams that go up INTO the arch, and she'd been debating with herself all day about going up into them. See, she can sometimes be prone to anxiety attacks. But she finally decided to do it, and did just fine during the full round trip. I have to admit, it's pretty cool up at the top of that thing. With the zoom of my dig cam, I could even make out Fussbudget’s car parked literally on the shore of the Mississippi River.

Then we moseyed around the museum (there's a museum, a couple of theaters, a li'l coffee shop, and souveneer shop... all underneath the Arch, underground), she did some souvenir/Christmas shopping, and by then it was time to eat. The Arch is right on the edge of downtown, so we simply walked over to a nearby restaurant and enjoyed the view of twilight falling around the memorial as we ate. Then took more pictures.

Train Station Style Shopping

We decided we had enough time to drop by the St. Louis Union Station, which was converted into a mall several years ago... it's pretty cool, looks very old fashioned and impressive. We had a small debacle, though, trying to park... evidently there was an event going on at one of the ballrooms, and we got mired in the middle of a street teeming with valets taking everybody's cars to park for them. More than once a smartly dressed but extremely harried individual attempted to open the doors and take the car… Fussbudget was beginning to get extremely annoyed over it all and finally started yelling at them “Quit TOUCHING my car!” *snicker* Fortunately, the door was closed at the time and they couldn’t hear her.

Adventures in the Land of Lost

When we finally decided to head home, we proceeded to get lost trying to find the alternate route to the highway, since the entrance we needed was under construction. It was all good, though… neither of us were stressing, and we’re perfectly capable of reading a map. Sometimes one must view things as adventure rather than misfortune. :)

Quiet Sunday

Sunday, Fussbudget wasn’t feeling well, so we decided to just stay in and watch movies most of the day. She DID feel well enough that afternoon to head back downtown armed with camera to get some pictures of the Mizzou campus. I have to admit, it really is a very pretty campus. One of the plethora of red squirrels that inhabit the area even stopped to pose for her.

Then it was on to Family Sunday Dinner with Gram and the folks. They’d invited her, and she was perfectly amenable to spending the evening with my family. We had a great evening, watching Agatha Christie’s “A Murder is Announced” after dinner.

Hiatus from Christmas is Over

Monday morning saw Fussbudget on her way back to Tennessee, which was her mid-way point on her way back to Georgia. She has a brother who lives there that she could stay with. I took the rest of that day off, hoping to relax, but ended up having the Christmas Season catch back up with me after my short hiatus.