Doug + Sarah's weekend: a short summary

(23:29:43 CDT)

Doug + Sarah's weekend: a short summary

Friday, Sarah took the day off work and then we went out and ran some errands and got the biweekly shopping done. I mentioned, earlier, that I picked up a few pounds of tea for the semester. After that, I went on to work for the afternoon. It is between semesters so the overall flavor of work is pretty relaxing, with more stuff along the "grad student line" where a single question may take 10-20 minutes but there aren't as many questions. This is my preferred method of working, because it exercises the brain a lot and there is plenty of time to do things like try and get the database page tweeked and look into this or that.

After work, hung out with my friend Allen who is in town for a short while. We hit up the Humidor and I got a couple of tins and the nicest corn cob ever, and he picked up a cigar. We came back to Jordan Lane and tried Sitar, which I really liked. I have never been in Sitar. The last time I went there, it was something like "India Palace" or "India House" and the food was kind of eh, but interestingly spiced, and gave all my friends pretty bad stomach cramps. I had been eating at Vinnie's and then Masala (not sure about the name change, if it was the same owners or if they had sold out). Now that Masala is closed, Sitar is the next closest choice. I recommend. Good service, too.

Our night out then took us to downtown H'ville and we walked up Holmes to Five Points and then back down to the Klatsch at Night bar. We had a pitcher of Hefe and chilled out for an hour and a half. Strangest bit about this time is when a bride and groom came in, apparently just married, and sat down at the bar and smoked and drank with the crowd. Awesome? Afterwards, we went down to the park and tried to have a relaxing smoke, but towards the end, some kids (as in 10, not teenagers) came around and were sort of right on top of us. What parents let their children practically crawl over two men sitting around in the dark edge of a park smoking a pipe and a cigar? Worst parents of the year? Who knows.

We finished the night watching the Japanese movie Versus. I will save critique until I have seen the director's cut, but the r-rated cut has some pretty blatant jumps in time.

There were more errands on Saturday, but my mind sort of hazes over for most of them. We spent hours at the vet past our appointments supposed start time, and never did get seen. We finally rescheduled, and they knocked 70 dollars off of our payment plan thing we do (we pay 20 bucks a month to get all shots and several major tests done throughout the year). We did Jamo's for lunch and got some awesome pastries with our meal. Eventually, though, it came down to Katie's party. It was her belated birthday party. It was a lot of fun, but I had already reached a point where my "people meter" was 100% filled and starting to bubble out of my ears. There was probably the most enjoyable game of Settlers of Catan played, there. Lots of random jokes, most of them kind rude. Good times. I drank nothing alcoholic, but woke up feeling very hung over. Like I said, I think my people meter was too full.

Today has only had one primary errand, but somehow it has drained me completely. We went down to the Jone's Valley Fleet Feet and let Sarah get her running tested. She is going need to get some relatively expensive shoes to keep up the hobby. Like I told her, though, that is fine with me. I reckoned it to me needing some expensive glasses to keep reading and how it might seem to be costly, it is a necessary tool to do something that she loves. I walked from that end down to the Barnes and Nobles, and realized just how wide that shopping center has grown. It takes something like a quarter hour to walk from one end to the other. 10 minutes for sure. Most of the stores are of absolutely no interest to me, but it was a neat contrast going from the gods-awful heat of the sidewalk to the air-blasting cold of the stores. It was little waves up and down of hot and cold. Picked up a Dr. Grabow "Big Pipe", got lunch at Wendy's, and then "hiked" back to the car.

Stopped briefly by the mall. Was in FYE for a few seconds and then went down to Book Gallery. It has been, I don't know, two years since I have set foot in Book Gallery. Their science section has dried up. Their classics section is practically the same. They expanded their horror section shelf-space wise, but haven't done anything to help with the actual section, most (but not all) of the books being the same as they had when I was there. There were a few mass-markets I might pick up if I go back in there, but overall, it was just a glance of what would have been my life if I had stayed. Another two years with the same books, the same price tags, the same registers. The saddest thing is that it was tax free weekend, the mall was filled with people, and there were four people in Book Gallery and two of them worked there. The other one (besides me) was Sarah. There did not seem to be any proper push to bring up that required reading was there. Required reading used to be THE big summer sell for us, and their prime facings were some bland fiction hardcovers and some "inspirational" thrillers. Sigh.

Skip to the end, picked up some "fresh" olives (whatever you call the fuller, with pits, olives that you get in olive oil and not pickled) and made a supper of sardines, olives, cheese, and bread. A fairly "continental" supper but it was good. Really good. Lots of strong flavors with the creamier ripe olives and the bread helping to counterpoint them. Oh, and picked up a cheap, used copy of From Dusk till Dawn which I am about to watch.

Time for tea and movies, and let my people meter deflate a little.

Si Vales, Valeo

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