A Christmastime Miracle

Post-Script: My dad, in his later years, also found the mall to be a convenient place to visit on a daily basis, where he could walk laps inside the complex without being exposed to summer's sun or winter's chill. I will also say this, the food court has a much better selection now than when I used to frequent such places, years ago. Yet, despite all the improvements, I'd be hard pressed to become a regular mall rat. Which, now that I've used that term, I did notice many more people lurking about under the stairwells who seemed to fit that description. Must be the economy.

Regarding the photo above, it's not actually from the mall but about a mile down the street, Buffet's Candies, the owners of which are supposedly related to that Warren Buffet. So no mall photos (yet), but kind of Christmas related. And yes, the candy cane sits leaning against their building year-round; go figure.

Typecast via Smith-Corona Silent. This morning, before our mall trip and the inspiration for this story, I'd been sitting in the patio room looking at this machine, noticing that, even though I've owned it for over a year, I never have really cleaned it up. So I took it out to the (now cold) garage workshop and proceeded to apply toothbrush and Windex to the crinkle paint finish, removing many of the old white-out flecks and dust motes. Still, it remains but a mid-20th century drab office brown tone. Not that I'm going to go painting it some fancy colors, since the platen knobs are also brown. But at least it's a cleaner version of mid-20th century drab office brown tone.