I was up late last night updating my Doctor Simon Locke web page and James just remained up and surfed along, so we were abed late. With no alarm clock to wake us, we slumbered peacefully until 10:30. Figuring Tucker was crossing his legs by now, I took him out and was joyously surprised to find cool air, blue sky, and a lovely breeze. After all that mucky 70s and 80s we had this week, it was wonderful. I almost wanted to dance.

By the time the dressing and the walking was finished, it was nearly lunchtime, so we didn't bother eating breakfast and simply drove out to the Perimeter Mall Barnes & Noble with our coupons, as we had a coupon for $2 off a sandwich if we bought a drink (which means we basically got the drink for free). It was hard to sit and eat first without looking at the books; if I don't go to a bookstore once a week I get twitchy. :-) I had a chicken and cheese something-or-other on a ciabatta roll and James had a chicken chipotle, then we shared a little round chocolate cheesecake for dessert. After this nice meal, we happily wandered around the store for an hour or so before we made our selections. I was very tempted by a geological guide to Georgia! I ended up with the next Kate Shackleton mystery, Murder in the Afternoon, and an interesting travel book, America and WWI. Of course, most of the locations to visit in the book are in France, but there are a surprising number in the United States, and along with being a travelogue, is actually a history of the U.S. participation in the war. Pretty neat. (I still want to find a book about the homefront in the first World War; hasn't anyone written one? Meatless Mondays, Wheatless Wednesdays, liberty cabbage instead of sauerkraut, Sedition Acts, etc.) I also picked up two books from the remainder table, the sequel to the Scotland Yard mystery The Yard, The Black Country, and a Doctor Who novel featuring the second Doctor with Jamie and Zoe, The Wheel of Ice.

James got a Firefly Yahtzee game and a nifty book called The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites. It begins with maize and talks about history as well as food.

We were "in the neighborhood," so to speak, so we backtracked to Dunwoody and went to Sprouts. Got James some chicken tortilla soup for supper, and I picked potato, with nice big chunks of potato with skin in it. We also picked up some beef bits, a couple of bulk things, Yukon Gold potatoes and corn on the cob to go with Easter dinner tomorrow, and two big chocolate cupcakes for Easter dinner dessert.

However, we still needed milk, so James parked at the Kroger across the street and I ran in for two gallons—and some burritos for James, and got a jackpot in the meat department: very pretty boneless pork chops on sale, some aging steak, and, amazingly, six nice chicken drumsticks for Tuesday for only $2.10! Oh, yes, and when I checked out the ice cream bars for dessert, I couldn't find any Eskimo Pie ones, but I did find some "Thin Mint" ice cream sandwiches. Can't wait to try that. Stuffed all the frozens and the "refrigerables" into the cab of the truck, put the air conditioner on full blast, and booked it home.

By the time we got home it was suppertime. The potato soup was delicious. James enjoyed the chicken tortilla soup, but said it wasn't any better than Kroger's.

When Tucker needed to go out, I enjoyed the weather once more. Really, if we didn't have to worry about the pine pollen, which has laid a fine spray of yellow all over James' truck, I would throw open all the windows. You don't want that junk in the house; I did it once and had to mop up windowsills and anything under them.

We had an interesting night at the television. First we watched the next two episodes of This Old House while we ate dinner. Oh, I drooled over those hardwood floors! Then I thought Rick Steves in The Holy Land would be appropriate for Holy Saturday. Next was another disk of Dave Allen at Large, and now we are watching Our World.

Labels: books, food, nostalgia, television, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:54:00 PM

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