The second day of helping the Tapias decorate the outside of their house for Christmas crucially began with a delicious scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast, after which Sylvia got busy with drawing, cutting out, painting and decorating some larger candy-canes and gingerbread men to place at the front of the house. Rodrigo meanwhile was himself busy designing a faux Christmas tree made up of strands of colored lights, a la the Seaworld Skytower, only a tiny bit smaller, to be placed on the roof of their backyard studio. Going from his design he and I made a trip to Home Depot to pick up some necessary hardware supplies and to meet a friendly and exuberant, young Asian checkout person. For lunch we picked up some really good teriyaki chicken on the way back to their house. After filling our bellies with rice and de-feathered fowl we got back to the work at hand, Rodrigo cutting, sawing and sanding while Sylvia directed me where to install her handmade decorations. The final step was the three of us raising their fifteen-foot, strand-lit Christmas tree for all the neighborhood to see. I really liked the way it turned out. After putting away all the tools, empty boxes and ladders, we relaxed our decorating-stressed bodies, enjoying some Sylvia-made caramel corn while finally watching “Captain America” which I really liked a lot (especially Hayley Atwell who may have just made it onto my island). Thinking back on the movie I think my main disappointment was with Chris Evans’ performance. To me he seemed a bit too flat and uninteresting. But I loved the look and feel of the movie. And of course there was Hayley Atwell who was neither flat nor uninteresting.

(Thanks again to Sylvia taking pics of me.)

The interesting portion of my day, which was spent helping Sylvia decorate the outside of their house for Christmas, began with her and I going to Michael’s to pick up a few minor crafty necessities, then quickly chowing down a bean burrito (actually, not an innuendo), climbing ladders and walking on her roof to install lights and garlands and to take pictures as if I were a giant, picking up some terrific Mexican food for dinner from a nearby Los Panchos, of which mine were three carnitas street tacos, and finally watching Disney’s “A Christmas Carol,” the Robert Zemeckis CG version with Jim Carrey. The decorations turned out great, the food was fantastic and the movie was an amazing accomplishment.

(Thanks go to Sylvia for taking most of the photos of me.)