Patti and I watched The Artist yesterday afternoon.

It was quite well done, and I see why it won all the Academy Awards.

Alex invited me to join him for dinner yesterday on his break between shifts.  (First I accidentally walked into the restaurant next door to his, and - of course -  I didn't find him there.)  Enjoyed a pleasant dinner together, and I surprised him with a few tales of adventures from my 20s.  

Who knew Mom did some off-the-wall stuff when she was younger?  At first he didn't believe I took a week-long horse ride from the Verde Hot Springs to Yarnell (we had no choice after slipping off the winding road out of the springs into a ditch, blowing out all the right tires on the Suburban and the horse trailer and bending the trailer axle!)  Since we hadn't planned a 'cross-country' trip home, we ended up looking like Ma and Pa Kettle on horseback.

Of course there were the numerous adventures along the trip, such as the evening I tied my horse to a pole sticking out of the ground and woke up in the morning to find her gone.  The pole turned out to be a lightweight PVC pipe which she had no trouble ripping from the ground.  Luckily she was easy enough to track down since she was dragging 12 feet of pole behind her and left a visible trail to follow.