The Operative Word is FREE

I kept wanting to blog about all our FREE stuff we did this past weekend, and now it's already Friday. We ate out a lot (all cheap, though I know that doesn't matter), but countered it with lots of activities that didn't cost us a dime. Friday night we had FREE movie passes that we'd gotten from a previous screening Basil and I had attended, so we took Number Two Son to see Hot Fuzz (avoiding the long Spiderman 3 lines). Parking was $2.
Saturday Basil and I used our Bank of America card to get in FREE to the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens (normally $15 each). Wow - what a great FREEbie! We wandered through the Desert Garden, the Australia Garden, the Japanese Garden, the Rose Garden, and the Jungle Garden, plus saw a Gutenberg Bible and some wonderful works of art. We finally left, not because we'd seen everything, but because our stomachs were growling (it was 3 p.m.) and my back was killing me from all the walking around (I'm desk-bound most of the week). Basil called me a wimp and we headed out for a cheap lunch at In-n-Out ($10.29).
Monday evening we hit the local bookstore for a Chuck Palahniuk reading since Number Two Son is doing an American Lit assignment on a book of his choice - Fight Club. Basil has read a lot of his novels, and I had actually just read Fight Club as well (since I had to sign a permission note for my 16-year-old to read it and thought I'd better find out why he needed my permission).
It was a long evening as we arrived at 4:30, and the reading didn't start until 6:30, but well worth it because in addition to hearing two short stories not published anywhere, he handed out FREE stuff! Everyone got at least one FREE fake cigarette, the kind that looks real and if you blow into it, talcum powder comes out and looks like smoke. Someone actually handed Basil a handful to pass out and he ended up with a bunch left over. Score! (As a side note, Basil has never smoked and hates cigarette smoke, but likes to pretend with toothpicks and bits of grass, so he's in heaven). At the end of the reading, he started throwing out various rubber toys, and Basil was quick enough to grab an autographed squeaky hamburger. Now Number Two Son has a prop for his oral report at the end of the year! Yay! We had purchased a book that was previously signed, which was good because the line was too long to wait in, especially on a school night when there was homework to be done.
We're glad to find out that with a little digging, you can find many cool things to do that don't cost any money. You might just have to look a little harder to find them.