Saturday, November 26, 1988

A Lucky Man Who Made the Grade ...

Woke up, got out of bed, dragged a stupid comb across my head. As you may have already guessed, it was just another Day in the Life.

But not just any day... it was Viv's birthday. She went to see "Hamlet" (one of her favorite plays) with Liz and some other friends. So that gave me some time to go into town and get her a birthday gift. I went with Doug and Jodi (one of the American students from Juniata College), but I soon strayed to do my own thing. First, I bought some transfer letters so that I could rub them onto my Yokel tape. It's looking more "professional." The sound, however...

Then I bought Viv a birthday card and a teddy bear (which she eventually named "Eugene." Guess where she got the name!) Then I bought some lunch. Boy, do I hate Christmas crowds!

I walked around town searching for Chaplin's Restaurant, a place I heard was quite good and thought it would be a nice place to take Viv for her birthday meal. But lo, it was not to be found. (Later I found out it is outside the center of town, so I gave up my search and just headed back to The Grange. When I returned to my room I worked on the Yokel tape for a bit, and then got ready to go out with Viv. We went to a nice Chinese restaurant instead, where we dined on won-ton soup and chicken dishes. I had kung po, which was excellent, and she had the Peking chicken.

After her birthday meal, it was off to see the new Bill Murray movie, "Scrooged." Unfortunately, we were 15 minutes late, but it was still an excellent movie. Well worth seeing again (especially to catch the parts we missed.)

When we left the theatre, Viv was thirsty, so we stopped at a nice pub for some drinks and chatted for awhile before catching the bus back to The Grange, where I finally gave her the gift. She loved him and gave him the name I mentioned above. (Figure out where it's from yet? It's my middle name.) Good name! I tolder her that he was a Conservative bear and that he, my own Russell the Republican Bear and I were going to start a conservative club. However, she insisted that he was actually a socialist bear. An expensive but infinitely worthwhile day.

(Pictured: A photo of York Minster and an entrance to the wall. Taken a day earlier during my visit to the City of York.)