Early good morning, almost 5:00, been up since just before 4:00.

I have a custom dye job to do this weekend, and I’m planning to incorporate that into the larger batch of Blog Reader Specials. I also need to go to market today or tomorrow.

There’s another cold front coming through this afternoon, no rain is forecast, but tomorrow will be noticeably cooler than today. So I’ll walk to market today for “fresh air, sunshine, and exercise” (FASE), and then do the dyeing tomorrow.

In recent months I’ve become a fan of mystery movies on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel. Sadly (for me, anyway) both Hallmark Movies & Mysteries and The Hallmark Channel is switched to Christmas movies 24/7. The Hallmark networks seem to have a stable of recurring actors appearing in 2-3 movies a year, often in recurring roles in various movie series. It’s weird getting hooked on an actor in a particular repeating role over several movies in a franchise, and then seeing these people show up as different characters playing opposite different actors falling in love with other characters.

Granted, the Hallmark movies are rather low-budget films, and it’s fun to see the mistakes that are made. Like, in one recent movie, set in Alaska, supposedly in December as the story builds around a Christmas-theme. Fake snow fills the scene, everyone is bundled up and wrapped warmly against the cold, and the people are entering the house from the parking area. They pass one of those large outdoor circular thermometers hanging just outside the front door so people know how col it is outside. Unfortunately, it is clear that the indicator hand on the dial is pointed roughly toward the two o’clock position (if it had been a clock). That would roughly indicate it is 70º. Not believably winter cold.

I know, I know — they create an illusion of cold for the movie, but these movies are often made in the summer to fit all the post-filming production and get the film ready for a winter release. I get it. It’s just fun to watch for things like this.

Or watching a movie that supposedly only covers a span of a week or two, a child actor has recently lost a tooth, suddenly a couple scenes later the new tooth is half grown in, and it a later scene it is clearly not begun growing back. Or where a young girl is sporting something like fishtail braids, but “later the same day” she has regular braids, and then still later it’s back to the fishtail braids. As I said, I understand how movie production is done, they don’t film scene in sequence and sometimes they have to re-shoot scenes later. It’s just fun to keep my eye on the details.

I don’t like Christmas, so I don’t fall into the illusion these movies present. It’s all fake. Normal people don’t meet strangers and suddenly fall in love and upturn their whole lives to accommodate these new people. It is almost formulaic how these movies are created.

On the other hand, though, Christmas movies bring up a lot of sadness for me because of my own childhood and the fact I missed most of the holidays with my children growing up. I haven’t really observed Christmas in about 20 or 30 years. I would love to have happy memories of Christmases past, but those memories just don’t much exist beyond a snippet here and a flash there.

So I try not to get emotionally engaged in these movies, and I watch other things instead.

And actually the whole winter season is not a good time for me. So I mostly try to ignore it and just get on with my daily routines.

Onward into the day I go.

Later – 2:00p.m.

So, I went to Kroger to get a few things and get some FASE, and took my walker with me. I was on Alderson, approaching Wolf’s Burgers on the Beltway 8 frontage road. A car drove by and slowed to a stop. The woman driver yelled out, “I love your thing. It’s awesome,” I assume she meant my walker. It’s a mobility aid, without which walking to Kroger would be more difficult. But, it is really painful to walk that far and I do have to take a rest along the way.

There was a car in the Kroger parking lot with a placard that said, “Vote Here.” I walked over and asked, “What are we voting for?” The woman there said Kroger employees were voting for or against having a union. Obviously I couldn’t vote, but I did tell her I was totally for unions and all they can do to help the work force.

Now that I’ve been home several hours (along with a brief nap), my legs are killing me. No way would I easily survive standing up dyeing this afternoon, but the yarns will be ready to go in the morning. For now, I’m just relaxing with some TV and pondering if I should try a little handwork to see what will happen with my hands after I do that.