Monday I called CarMax to arrange the 30,000 mile service; the car was only at 29,568, but the next week and a half of driving to work would bring the requisite miles and I wanted it serviced before vacation. I was originally going to arrange it for Friday until the serviceperson told me it would take at least four hours! The idea of spending 4 hours cooped up in CarMax's waiting room with a bleating television was loathsome, so instead I had them arrange it for yesterday, when James was off (since he worked Saturday, he got a day off during the week). So I left work at 12:30 and James, having had his eye exam and swapped tales with the guys at the hobby shop, came to pick me up.

I wasn't in great shape, having had frequent bathroom visits that morning. I stuffed myself with PeptoBismol, and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich at Waffle House, which did help. After lunch we drove up to Discover Mills, which is a huge outlet-sorta mall off Sugarloaf Parkway. I say "outlet-sorta" because DM is rather a mixed bag of things: there's the usual food court, department store outlets (including a Neiman-Marcus outlet), several interesting specialty stores including a Books-a-Million, American Greetings, a Lego Store, an "As Seen on TV" shop, a Plaid Craft store, a calendar shop, and one of the huge Bass Pro Shops, which has a big waterfall in the middle with a climbing wall on the back, and a fish tank with bass, trout, gars, etc. in it, and also the Georgia Country Music Hall of Fame, a movie theatre, and Medieval Times, which is a dinner theatre where you watch knights jousting and crossing swords. (We went to one long ago in Orlando.)

This is a huge mall—it's at least twice as big as Cooney Field across the street from my mom's house; the latter's walking track was a half mile around so this one had to be had to be at least a mile around—and we made the complete circle. We got some Christmas gifts in various stores (including one in a very unexpected place) and I bought a Lego turkey [more later] to match my Lego Easter bunny and Christmas figures (Santa and a snowman). Our feet were quite sore when we finished!

The calendar store was great. I got another New England scenic calendar for my cubicle (bought solely for the October photo, which is a path cutting through a great arch of pumpkin-orange and flame-color leafed maple trees) and also noticed that they had small calendars of both Linda Nelson Stocks and Charles Wysocki this year (Stocks also has a lovely datebook with prints I've never seen before.)

When we stopped at Books-a-Million (I was still looking for a crosspatch/krisskross puzzle book), James caught me petting the stuffed Rudolph they have (his nose lights up and then blinks when you press his left ear) and bought me one for our anniversary. (Yes, Mom, another stuffed animal... <g>)

I also picked up a sale book of Advent devotionals at the Bible Outlet store.

Finally we headed back to the Gwinnett Mall area, stopped at JoAnn to spend coupons (so now I have another gift finished), had dinner at what may be the only Ryan's left in Atlanta (no "just steak" order anymore; it's all buffet), and then briefly stopped at Fry's, which we were too tired to do anything but briefly limp around. I did get five more RAM disks, though, since House starts up again next week.

The car was actually done before we hit JoAnn, but neither of us wanted to drive home during rush hour so we just took our time finishing up.

The car purrs like that proverbial kitten now.

I have to mention the Lego turkey because it was too funny. I sat assembling it while watching Whose Line is It Anyway? and when it was done, placed it on the little sofa table. Now, at night I usually take "Girlfriend," Pidgie's little saucer toy, from the cage and place it on the sofa table and let him toss it on the sofa or to me, pick it up, let him sing to it and then toss it some more, etc. Playtime.

Well, Pidge eyed this turkey and at first wouldn't go near him. He and the finished product are about the same size. Then he forgot about it while pecking at "Girlfriend." As a joke I put the toy near the turkey. Pidge eyed it some more, then pecked at "Girlfriend." Finally he pecked at the turkey, then grabbed "Girlfriend" by one of the little projections, and tossed "her" away from the turkey! LOL! "Leave my girl alone, you masher!" I put his toy back near the turkey a couple more times and each time he would peck at the turkey's "beak" and then toss "Girlfriend" away from the interloper. Too cute!

Labels: pets, shopping

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