To me, when I don't have my Friday off, the weekend starts on Friday night, and frankly this weekend had a rotten start. It was one of those cold, damp, drizzly, grey days where people say ferverently "At least it isn't snow!" without realizing that if it was snow it would at least feel warmer! This type of cold just creeps down your neck (even with a scarf) and gets into your bones. It was so chilly out that I was able to work all day in long sleeves, which I usually can't do because it's always 80°F in my office. It was a perfect night to hibernate, so that's what we did: James picked up dinner at Dragon 168 on his way home and we sat in front of the 21st century hearth, the HDTV, and had hot wonton soup. It felt lovely. He had a sa-cha beef combo (spicy) and I had the usual pork fried rice (yes, Ivan, the good kind without peas and carrots). It was so cozy we almost ended up going to bed early, but finally hit the hay about midnight.

Saturday the clouds parted in time for the morning dog-walk; as the remainder of the clouds drifted away the blue sky was revealed. If you looked up "blue" in the dictionary, this blue would have been there. We took our time eating breakfast, which was good because we were on the run for the rest of the day.

It was off to Walmart first for wild bird food. I'm not going to do much backyard bird counting if I don't get some seed in the feeders. Walmart is already full of bathing suits and warm-weather clothing that fills me with dread, and the main food aisle is crowded with items for Valentine's Day baking. Got the seed, plus some odd groceries like sugar-free candy and my yogurt. Then we needed dog food, and we had a 20 percent off coupon from Petco. The closest Petco was all the way at Akers Mill shopping center, but it was cold enough to just toss the yogurt in the back of the truck and go on.

Well, since we were going to Akers Mill anyway, might as well stop at Barnes & Noble. (I am unrepentant.) Hurrah! Winter issues of "Landlove" and "Landscape" in! I found an alternate history book for James, too: V-S Day, about a World War II where the Nazis and the Americans develop space platforms. By then we were a bit peckish, but we got the Petco trip over first: two bags of dog food, a new antler for serious canine gnawing, and some puree to liven up Tucker's meals (hey, if you've got a 20 percent off coupon, you stock up).

For lunch we went to "Grub," which is a custom burger place. James got a traditional burger with some great onion rings, but I got a "Moroccan," a big lamb burger with a mint Greek yogurt sauce on grilled flatbread, with some taboulleh on the side. The burger was delicious and juicy and filling, but the place is much too expensive to go to all the time. We could have gone to Longhorn and had a lunch sirloin for what the burgers cost us! Plus the music is Too Loud. Don't they expect people who go there to want to talk? If you don't mind the price or the noise, it's got some good food.

(Not to mention I tasted the lemon juice and the cucumber in the tabbouleh till late in the evening, but then that wasn't Grub's fault.)

Our final stop was Publix, to pick up some twofers and a few other things, and our grocery shopping was done for the weekend, unless we forgot something. We needed to get it all home and put away, then eat something before we were on our way for the evening, which we spent at UUMAN, the Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North, which has their "Common Grounds" coffee house once a month. Our friend Louis Robinson was performing, plus they were doing a salute to the 1960s. We had a good time, although James wished more of the songs had been cheerful! Still, we heard "Sunny" and "Daydream Believer" and "What You Do to Me," with selections from the Beatles, the Lovin' Spoonful, the Monkees, Jimi Hendrix, etc. Louis sang "Those Were the Days," which I remember singing along with my parents. I didn't realize it was originally written in the 1920s and was a Russian song. But come to think of it, it sounds Russian.

It was a long dark ride home from Roswell and a long day, which explains why we were on our way to bed by midnight. I was too tired to even sign on to chat, and we had to be up at 8:30.

Today we went to the Atlanta Exposition Center South for the annual RV show. We left early enough to get breakfast at Burger King, but James wanted to try this new QT kitchen thing he saw on TV. Unfortunately the QT we stopped at didn't have it. I looked for a chicken or tuna salad sandwich on white or wheat (everything else had cheese on it), but the only chicken salad was in a wrap. A green wrap. The green wasn't so bad, and neither was the chicken salad, but it was more lettuce than anything else and came up on me all afternoon.

We know we can't afford anything at the RV show, and we'd have to buy a bigger truck to be able to pull anything worth fitting into anyway (and with the power chair, we'd have to get a "toy hauler" so it would have a ramp), but it's fun to look in the different things, especially the big buslike motor homes, which we refer to as "Disneyland." One was $622,000 with a wood interior and leather seating and fancy lighting. Amazing! We saw the cutest little retro trailer that looked like it came out of the 1950s, and finally one of the larger teardrop trailers; usually they only bring the small ones. Also saw a couple of the A-frame ones with screen popouts; it makes them less claustrophobic. There were some vendors there selling campsites, of course, and a line of vendors selling "gadgets." For Valentine's Day, James bought us both a cute little gadget about the size of a small flashlight which charges your phone, plus doubles as a speaker, plus is large enough to use as a phone stand.

When they all started looking alike, we quit and came home after a brief stop at Kroger for gasoline and something we forgot (of course).

James made the lamb shank we picked up at Publix last night for supper with mushroom rice (it goes with everything). Yummy and enough left for a sandwich for lunch tomorrow. Next, AFV and Alaska: the Last Frontier.

Labels: books, events, food, magazines, music, pets, shopping, weather, work

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