After yesterday, sleeping until 8:30 and not facing my computer was a relief. I had my oatmeal and yogurt, checked e-mail, then went down to the garage and emptied out the car in preparation to give it "a spa day." (I also swept out the garage while I was there.) When that was done I drove to "Mr. Clean" and had the car vacuumed out and washed. It took only twenty minutes and when I was finished I went to WalMart for pants hangers and diabetic socks for James; found a book pallet with some books for $1 and some books for $5. For a dollar it was worth grabbing the young adult version of Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower and also an original book based on the film National Treasure. This on the heels of my Hamilton Books shipment, which was a birthday gift for James and three books for myself: Service and Style, a history of department stores; Letter Perfect, a history of the alphabet; and A Pocketful of History, a book about the history portrayed by the reverse side of the state quarters.

I had a terrible sinus headache by the time I got home. I fractured my nose thirty years ago (my right knee locked up as I was hurrying at work and I fell face first on the concrete floor), and occasionally it gives me a great deal of pain for several days in a row. It's apparently in another one of its fits. So I took three ibuprofin and lay down for 20 minutes, testing out the new pillows in the spare room in the process. Very comfy! I'm going to recycle one of the old pillows as being the pillow that goes in my car. "Fred the Traveling Pillow" has had a long and illustrious career, but it's stained and tired, and was dispatched into the trash when I cleaned out the car.

I happened to notice what was on the television just after two o'clock: Rachael Ray had Dick Van Dyke as a guest (a show from May). She spoke with him about Mary Poppins, then, after they'd chatted about The Dick Van Dyke Show for a few minutes, with Dick praising Mary Tyler Moore, who should appear but MTM herself! This was great fun to watch.

James got sprung early (he hasn't worked a full forty hours since March), so after "The Elf" (oops, I meant Dr. Oz) started, we went out to Borders. It looks as if the management really believed they'd get an eleventh-hour reprieve, because new stuff is still coming in from the warehouse, including the 2012 calendars, which are 60 percent off. So now I have all my calendars for next year: a Linda Nelson Stocks for work, a small scenery calendar for the spare room, and, because I couldn't decide which I wanted for my craft room, I got both the calendar of Alaska scenery and a calendar of foxes. I also bought a calendar as a gift, and also a book as a gift.

Otherwise I went a bit wild. Colonel Roosevelt keeps tempting me, but it's still only half price. I know it will be in paperback soon and Sam's or Costco will probably have it, and it will be a lot less than $17.50! On the other hand, linguistics books are hard to come by (and Barnes & Noble has a pissant selection of linguistics books!): I got The Great Typo Hunt, You Are What You Speak, and Origins of the Specious. Plus a book on Cro-Magnon man (one of my favorite subjects in science) and the biography of Kay Thompson that Mel was raving over last Saturday.

Plus I found "Richard Castle's" Naked Heat on the bargain shelf, for 40 percent off $4.00; can't beat that! And two card games, "Trivial Pursuit Steal" and "Hit the Deck," the latter which sounds a little like "Uno."

James and I also each bought a duffel bag that folds up into a smaller bag. I remember Mary Bloemker always carrying a fold-up bag when she traveled to accommodate extra souvenirs. (Funny how that memory popped back up when I saw those bags! Next month it will be two years since Mary passed away.) James bought several books himself, a model magazine which was left over, a couple of those nostalgia booklets you give people on their birthdays (one for his birth year, and two in the 1940s), and some emergency light sticks.

Yeah, I know, they don't usually sell "light sticks" in Borders. There was stuff in the store I had never seen in a Borders before. It looks like the liquidator is trying to get rid of other junk at the same time. There were these loose weave blankets, Pillow Pal knockoffs, picture frames, and other assorted weird items. (In fact, the copy of Naked Heat I got has a Target tag on it. What's with that?)

Anyway, we ate dinner somewhere new, Empress of China II, next to the Merchants Walk complex in the same strip mall with Bird Watchers Supply. The food was quite good; I had a pork dish with shrimp in it as well! Then we finished by picking up a few things at Trader Joe's.

Had a nice evening at home. Watched two Christopher Eccleston Doctor Who episodes, then put Torchwood on. I'm still watching, still wondering—but in a way this is disappointing. Way too drawn out.

Labels: books, chores, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:26:00 PM

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