Saturday we bought ourselves an early Christmas gift: an XBOX 360 with Kinect. Have you seen them? When we bought our Wii game system a few years back we thought it was brilliant technology. And it was back then. Now instead of either having to stand on a balance board or hold a wireless remote, all we have to do to interact with certain games is hold up our hand to sign in to start, then just move! Two cameras track your body’s movements. You move, your avatar on screen duplicates your move. Rick noticed that even when I started rolling up my sleeves my on-screen persona was doing the same thing. Almost creepy!

We just went to look at Best Buy on Saturday. Honestly we did. We walked in to the video section and the salesman asked what we were looking for. We told him and he looked at us and said “Well first tell me what kind of games the kids you’re buying this for like to play because that might make a difference in the system you should be looking at.” Hmmm, what to say? I looked over at Rick and said “Honey, what kind of games do we like to play?” At this point the salesman broke out in a grin, slapped me on the arm and said something like “way to go!” or “good for you!” Surely we can’t be the only adults who like to do this sort of thing??

They had a huge flat screen TV set up so that people could try out the amazing Kinect technology for themselves. It was set up for bowling. I tried it out. I walked up to the screen and held my arm out to the side to “pick up the ball.” I lined myself up, took a few steps and “threw” the ball. I got a strike!

Of course we bought one. Plus the sports game and the workout game. We discussed whether or not to wrap it up and put it under the Christmas tree or to set it up and play now. When we got home I was tending to dogs but Rick was no where to be seen. There he was in the living room putting the XBOX stuff together. “I thought we were going to wait until Christmas?” I asked him. “Well, I just wanted to see if we needed any cables or anything. Plus when Carolyn comes for Thanksgiving we can all play,” he replied.

Uh huh.

We played a few games and got used to how it works and overall found it very responsive. I somehow beat Rick at bowling and he beat me in our game against each other of table tennis. There are a few things that could use a little better user interface, like setting up your avatar, but overall it performs beautifully.  And it knows who we are: it knows that Rick is Rick when he stands in front of it and it knows it’s me when we switch places. Pretty amazing!

We are both looking forward to doing the yoga on the workout game. The Wii had yoga but you really didn’t know if you were doing the position correctly or not since all it really took into consideration was balance. This one should correct us if we are doing it wrong. Plus, the games are fun and it gets us off the couch and moving!

I guess we are really just kids at heart.

Today we held our breath as we came in to the studio and asked Kathy how the firing of our two pieces had gone. She shook her head and frowned. “I’m afraid we didn’t have a very successful firing.” Uh oh. Visions of shards of pottery flashed through my head. “Let me show you. I can’t remember which pieces were yours.” Monica and I saw our bowls on the table—mostly intact. Whew! Mine had two pieces broken out of it on opposite sides and Monica’s did too. Kathy’s bowl, on the other hand, was in bits and pieces and unsalvageable. Too bad! We sorted through the shards looking for our missing pieces and found most of them.

One of the “holes” I decided to leave because it looked pretty artistic and kind of like a seashell which is where I was kind of going with the bowl: an earthy beach-y look. The other side I glued three pieces back in which still left three spaces where other pieces had broken off, but it looked three-dimensional and not too bad so I went with it. Here you can see the “artistic” hole.

And here is a different view of the bowl.

And who could forget my apple?

Today I managed to get two coats of glaze on the bowl, both inside and out but I still have to apply a third coat which I didn’t have time to do. Too bad, otherwise it could have been fired this week. Now I will have to wait one more week to see results!

I glazed the apple and used three different shades of red applied rather randomly. I have no idea how it’s going to come out but I’ll find out next week! I’m not too confident it will look good!

Here is the bowl after glazing. Keep in mind that this will not be the final color. The outside glaze is not food friendly and has lots of sandy bits in it that will explode and melt on firing. Since I don’t have a clue what I am going to do with it afterwards, I kept it food friendly just in case and used a different glaze inside. In the first photo you can see the side where I glued three pieces back in. You can see two of the three holes I left near the bottom. See them?

We ran out of time so I didn’t get to work on my other project at all, so next week I’ll finish it up so it can be fired along with the hand-built bowl once the other coats of glaze go on. I can’t wait to see what I get!

The great cactus show chez Robinson is about to unfold. Right now they think they are Thanksgiving cacti. Next month they will probably think they are Christmas cacti. Salmon, white, magenta. They are all loaded with blooms.

No matter. They are gorgeous. They are blooming. They are happy. Who cares what kind of cacti they really think they are?

Let the show begin!

The other day I was grocery shopping in our local ShopRite. I was looking for a particular brand of rye bread that we have here in the east only I couldn’t remember the name. I know what the packaging looks like, no problem. But the name? Call it old age syndrome or whatever, I could not remember at the time.

I scanned the bread aisle in the section where it usually is, but no luck. There was a man restocking bread in the aisle, so I asked him. “Where is that really good rye bread hiding? Did you put it in another section?” He said something of which I didn’t quite catch the whole sentence but it included “Pepperidge Farm.”

“No, no, no,” I exclaimed. “NOT Pepperidge Farm, you know the really good Jewish rye!”

He looked at me kind of funny and said “Lady, I am trying to tell you that I am only the Pepperidge Farm distributor and I have no idea which bread you are talking about! If you could tell me the name though I might be able to help you.”

“OHHH ...” I said. (oops!) “Sorry! And no, I can’t remember the name just now. Thanks, I’ll keep looking.” And I did. I scanned that bread aisle from front to back and high to low, yet I didn’t see the familiar package on the shelves.

Finally I gave up and went back to where he was still restocking the Pepperidge Farm breads.

“Oh well,” I said to him, “I guess I am going to have to settle for Pepperidge Farm this time.”

He stood up, put his hand over his heart and said “OUCH. You’re killin’ me here! You’ve really wounded me. Settle for Pepperidge Farm? That hurts!” And then he laughed.

I picked up my Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Rye bread and put it in my cart. He approved.

One of the many small reasons I love living where I do is the people I encounter every day.

The Pepperidge Farm rye was not nearly as good as this rye, which of course I remembered the name of once I got home. But please don’t tell him I said so!

OMG. These things are so addictive. Thanks to friend Carolyn, I’ve had to eat the whole bag just to get them out of my pantry! Be gone evil nuts! I banish thee to ... uhm ... my mouth! Argh! I cannot. stop. eating. these. disgustingly delicious morsels.

Be gone ye evil things!

Out, out and into my mouth! Hurry, no time to waste.

Okay, gone now. I can go back to normal eating habits.

Whew, that was painful.

If anyone is making some kind of sweet potato casserole this Thanksgiving these would make a great topper! That is if they make it past your mouth and on to the casserole ...

Lay’s potato chips, you have met your match. I challenge you to “eat just one.”

P.S. Carolyn, do I thank you or curse you? Hmm?