...or "This Year's Black Friday Expedition."

I woke up at 5:48 a.m. thinking "Why am I getting up at six o'clock when the store I'm going to doesn't open until 7:45? So I reset the alarm for 6:30 and fell back to sleep. Postponing it a half hour didn't help chivvying Tucker outside for a walk; he gave me an incredulous look like "You want me to get up? Now?"

I was waiting at Office Max seven minutes before opening with a lot of people mostly waiting on a laptop deal. Previously they have opened at six and I was practically the only person in the store.

With my Windows 10 upgrade, my telework scanner (which was made for WindowsXP after all) quit working and I turned it back in. But I wanted a scanner for myself, and, in case of OCR scans, wanted one with a sheet feeder. I had gotten a cute little all-in-one Epson from Amazon Vine and it worked fine, but it had only a flatbed, not a feeder. I was going to pick up the cheapest sheet feeder Office Max had, but the one $10 more had network access and a photo tray, so I got that instead. I also got a crosscut shredder. I have a straight one only on which the blades are growing dull and the statistics on identity theft are getting to be appalling. The shredder I got will also shred credit cards.

James' wireless mouse had acted up a few months ago, which brought into sharp focus that we had no spare wireless mice. The ones we like, the big Logitech M310s, are regularly $30. Today they were $9, so I bought two. James also expressed interest in having a wireless keyboard and mouse for work, so I picked up one for him. I also got a new set of InkJoy ballpoints (as the free ones I got from Vine were running out of ink) and what is frankly a toy, a Boogie Board "Blackboard." You write with a pen on a liquid crystal display. It's like a scratch pad.

Frankly, at this point I was already tired, but the one thing I always do on Black Friday morning is go to Best Buy to get the newest season of Big Bang Theory on DVD. The first year Best Buy opened on Thanksgiving night, there was not one blessed person in the store when I got there on Friday. Sorry to say this has not been a trend. This morning the store was mobbed with people buying flatscreen TVs. I found Big Bang and a Blu-Ray copy of Wonder Woman for $7, so grabbed it and spent time in line reading my phone and trying not to pay attention to the antics of the guy behind me. I thought the lady behind him was going to belt him. He got in line with a 42 inch television and a Dyson hand vac. About halfway into the line progress, he left the hand vac and disappeared with the TV without a word to anyone in line. The lady behind him was bewildered. "Where'd he go?" So she just stepped around the Dyson and got in line after me. Five minutes later he reappeared with another TV box, and jockeyed his way behind me again. The lady got testy with him and said "Are you going to move again? Because if you do I'm not giving you your place back!" Sheesh, all he had to do was tell one of us that...I dunno, maybe he noticed the box was dented on the TV and wanted to get an undamaged one. I could see that. But say something. That was rude.

Then off home, where James was already up and done with breakfast. He liked the keyboard and mouse so much he wanted one for working at home. So, before I fell asleep again, we went back to Office Max for another. Then, with 25 percent off coupons in our hot little hands, we went on to Barnes & Noble, where I used mine to buy Judith Flanders' Christmas: A Biography and he used his to buy Cards Against Humanity (we've wanted a set). O frabjous day! All the magazines were 30 percent off and the new "Breathe" and the new "Bella Grace" were out. But James had no luck finding the December "Airfix" that usually has an airplane calendar.

I was shameless. "We could go into Buckhead..."

Well, first we had lunch at the Corner Bakery, which kind of has a Panera-type menu. I had chicken noodle soup and it was dreadfully salty and tasted out of a can. James fared better with a small chili and a steak-and-cheese sandwich.

It was a lovely day to drive into Buckhead, not much traffic, and we got a handicapped place right out front. Alas, no December "Airfix," but he did find a few more magazines, and I found a "Best of British" and a "Saturday Evening Post" Christmas cover salute and a few other things, and a stocking stuffer for Emma. We came home through the opulent neighborhood that spreads between Peachtree Road and West Paces Ferry, and almost every house seemed to have a gorgeous RED Japanese maple in the yard, and many had some type of tree where the leaves turn a dictionary-defining orange. There were trees the color of old gold, and trees mixing green and bright yellow. One of the treats of Thanksgiving in the South are that many trees are not past peak by that date, so the old trees around the old properties were spectacular. Plus the weather was in the low 60s and we rode around with windows down.

Of course all that fresh air made us sleepy and we ended up falling asleep for the rest of the afternoon!

We picked at the dark meat left off "Monty" the turkey for supper, and had the little chocolate bundt cake we'd bought at the Bakery for dessert, and then I figured it was time for Christmas and put some Britcoms on: The Good Life (one of our especial favorites) and To the Manor Born and Keeping Up Appearances (with just about everyone in the Father Christmas suit) and Vicar of Dibley, finishing up with the warm and wonderful "Merry Gentlemen" from All Creatures Great and Small. Love all the vintage decorations—look at those C6 bulbs on the Christmas tree!—and the homey interior of Skeldale House. God, I want to live in that episode.

Labels: books, Christmas, DVDs, electronics, food, magazines, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:56:00 PM

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