February 4 - Valentine's Day Decorations

This morning, we didn't need to go to the store.  Although that could have translated into extra time for a super-productive morning, what it actually translated into was a lot of reading and some Spanish.

I did manage to cook a real lunch, but the morning felt pretty lazy.

School was good - as is always the case on Monday, there were some changes in students and classrooms... We did have a short discussion about Groundhog's Day. Many folks here have seen the movie "Groundhog's Day"; they even showed it in one of the theaters over the weekend.

Since I did not leave the house until my walk to school this afternoon, I did a rather long walk after class.

A few stores have started to put up small decorations for Valentine's Day.

I walk past a store almost every day (sometimes more than once) that is a Catholic church supply store.  They sell vestments for priests, lots of decorations, and today I noticed that they also sell consumables (oil that can be blessed to make holy oil, wafers that can be blessed for communion, ...).

I don't really understand why this requires a storefront and a display window...do people just walk in and buy this stuff?   Do they shop around?  It made me curious, so I looked around.  Turns out you can buy a box of 1000 communion wafers for $18.24 from amazon (free shipping with Amazon Prime).  

I also wandered around Santa Cruz.  It is an old neighborhood with really narrow streets, lots of small restaurants and shops, beautiful patios and wall decorations, and of course some nice churches.