I hadn't planned on going out today, except perhaps to spend a Michaels coupon and to recycle the plastic bags. That all changed as I ate breakfast and read yesterday's newspaper. In a few minutes I was pulling on my coat and hat.

Old Time Pottery had a sale on floor rugs, and they had small circular rugs—circular rugs without fringe at a decent price. I've been looking for one for the library.

So I bought one. It wasn't the one in the ad, which I liked best, but I found one almost as good. Bought a few other little things, including a cheap bowl and spoon for my oatmeal at work, since someone swiped the last set.

Since I was in the Town Center area anyway, I came back via Piedmont Road and stopped at Michaels and also at JoAnn, then at Publix on Dallas Highway to recycle the plastic bags and buy some more oatmeal (it's not like it's going to go to waste...LOL), and bought some suet for Schuyler's "cousins."

Since I'd left home with only a packet of oatmeal on my stomach, about midway on this odyssey I stopped at Dunkin Donuts. There was a big sign outside saying they had crullers again, but they didn't have any inside. (They had French crullers, but those aren't really crullers at all.) For the best, anyway; I don't need to be eating a real doughnut. I had a chocolate-frosted instead, which is at least a raised doughnut (less calories and fat). I hadn't had a doughnut since last April when we were on our way to Atomicon, and I figured it would be a treat. Instead it wasn't anything special.

I was furious half the time I was driving. I put my radio on and accidentally clicked on my usual traffic report channel. It wasn't there. XM and Sirius "rearranged" things again so that all their talk channels would be on the same number on both services' radios and evidently they rearranged the traffic channels as well. Well, now we are stuck with Sirius' shit-poor, shared traffic channel (Atlanta shares with Miami) instead of XM's single-city channel that is updated more frequently. One of the reasons I ditched Sirius and got XM was that I couldn't stand their badly-updated dimwit shared traffic channels. Thanks a lot for getting rid of the good stuff in favor of the bad (again!), you idiots.

When I got home I spread the rug out...poor thing has been bound up so long there are grooves in it. It's going to take a while to relax. LOL.

I watched Animal Cops South Africa while I had a small lunch, then put on Little Miss Sunshine, which I had recorded a couple of weeks ago because Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin were in it. I understood this was sort of a black comedy, but I didn't see it that way. It was really kind of sad...and sweet. Richard Hoover is a wannabe motivational speaker looking for a way to spread his 9-step plan to success, his wife is Sheryl, their teenage son Dwayne wants to go to the Air Force Academy and be a fighter pilot (and has taken a vow of silence until he makes it), and rather chubby little Olive (Breslin) just wants to win a beauty pageant. Grandpa Hoover is a foulmouthed, cocaine-sniffing cynic who nevertheless adores Olive and who has been teaching her a routine to do in a pageant, and, as the film opens, Sheryl brings home her brother Frank, who has tried to commit suicide after being fired from his university job over a fracas started by a homosexual love affair. They all seem to be a bunch of sad-sacks, but when Olive gets a chance to appear in the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant, they all pull together and drive cross-country to fulfill her dream.

Of course it isn't that easy, and troubles dog them on their drive and threaten to split them apart—in one case the separation is painful. But it was funny: when they arrive at the pageant, and see Olive through, these "dysfunctional" folks with their arguments and aging VW van and hopes and dreams are more warm and human than the so-called "normal" hairsprayed pageant organizer and the tarted-up, plastic-faced, repugnantly ugly little girls in the beauty pageant.

Of course I think that was the point. :-)

I've just finished dubbing off a locally-produced program called What'll Ya Have?: A History of The Varsity. Basically The Varsity is to Atlanta what Nathan's is to New York City—although The Varsity doesn't have as many franchises. :-) It's a burger joint, but one with an 80-year history. Since I didn't grow up in Atlanta and I'm not much of a burger fan, most of The Varsity's magic is lost on me. I've never eaten at the main restaurant, just The Varsity Jr. on LaVista Road, and all I remember is getting indigestion from the onion rings. :-) But a friend of ours tells me if he ever visits Atlanta, he wants to eat at The Varsity, so I figured he'd enjoy the special. (James and I want to take him to the Colonnade, which is the same vintage as The Varsity, but the food is, IMHO, waaaaaaay lots better.)

But then I'm sure most native Atlantans wouldn't understand my infatuation with Iggy's at Oakland Beach, either.

Labels: decorating, history, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:16:00 PM

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