Friday I'd headed up to Town Center in the hopes of hitting JoAnn, only to have forgotten the coupons. 🤔 Oh, well. Instead I went to Barnes & Noble (since I didn't forget that coupon) and then did most of the shopping at Publix. I got us some generic beef and gravy for supper, and some nice pork chops for the cookout on Saturday, plus hummus and crackers to share.

Also watched the last of the Charleston house segments on This Old House. This was what was called a "Charleston single," built in the 1800s. The house is actually turned sideways to the driveway and the "front door" leads onto a full-length porch before you get to the house doors. I understand putting modern appliances and plumbing fixtures in, but it pains me to see these beautiful old period homes with modern furniture in them and these stark white decorating schemes. I wouldn't want to dust Victorian tchotckes, either, but I wish there was more of a balance. All that chrome and white seems so cold (and I still hate stainless steel appliances). They also worked on a second house, in a historically black neighborhood. It was so badly damaged they couldn't finish it before the show ended, so they posted the "reveal" on Facebook. Why not just make an extra episode?

(Oh, and Friday afternoon I finally got the Audacity recording program to work on my computer after several years of not being able to use it. On this computer as well as the previous one, the newest version of the software (the older one would no longer work) would always say it could not find a source to record from. I finally bought the cheap version of Total Recorder to record and then would edit on Audacity. Well, last week TR quit working; stuff I recorded came out garbled. It's done this before, but the only thing I could do to fix it this time was make TR my default recorder. This disabled Audacity for editing. I'd looked for answers to the recording-on-Audacity before, even asked Audacity (they responded in technical gobbledegook I didn't comprehend), but I tried searching again—and this time found something that was understandable and worked. It was as simple as going into sound in Windows Control Panel and un-disabling the recording setting! Apparently this is something Windows does automatically. Stupid thing.)

Saturday morning and early afternoon we were planning to do some chores. This got postponed when James' replacement tablet showed up. He has an Ellipsis from Verizon, but it fell and the screen cracked. We have replacement insurance, and we had ordered a new one. To our surprise it was delivered before noon by the "brown truck of happiness," and we spent most of the time deleting all the rubbish they put on it, and putting useful things on instead (like James' e-books).

We had a great time at Alice and Ken's on Saturday night. Ostensibly it was a party to celebrate their new backyard, but it was spitting rain, so Ken grilled out under the carport again. I like the backyard. There's a concrete patio and the rest is in ivy and pine straw. No grass to cut in back! It was the usual crowd of friends, plus Clay and Maggi drove up from Warner Robins, and some of Alice's church friends came. James' marinade of the pork chops was prime, and we also enjoyed yellow rice, baked beans, the hummus, chips, fruit salad, watermelon, and Clay's bourbon fudge. (Yes, you could taste it.) Juanita surprised everyone by showing up without her cast (she had to have a broken bone fixed in her foot).

This morning we slept in, I walked the dog—on a rare summer morning that was sunny but only warm, not burning, and breezy, simply lovely; if it was in the 70s all summer I would not complain!—and we ate breakfast, then went off to Ikea. I can't proceed down in the library without buying a few small bookcases to fit in the spot where the desk once was. We got there at 11:30 and the place was already crowded; we didn't realize till we checked out that there is a Back to College sale this weekend.

Sadly, the restaurant doesn't offer any of the variety it used to. There was a nice looking salad that was ruined by feta cheese, a salmon plate with baby greens that would have been okay had I not wanted to burp up fish all afternoon, the usual meatballs, chicken tenders (ugh), and vegetable balls. I didn't want to eat fifteen meatballs, so just got cucumbers, tomatoes and carrots from the salad bar (other choice was lettuce) and ate one of James' meatballs and a couple of forkfuls of his mashed potatoes. We shared a slice of chocolate cake for dessert, and then marched on into the showroom. Saw a desk chair that looks promising. I don't want one with armrests—armrests are for supervisors who don't do any work—and this one had nice back support. Trouble is I'm in love with a drafting chair at Sam Flax, but it costs over twice as much.

Anyway, we picked up some S-hooks, an aluminum holder for wooden spoons, ginger cookies for me and chocolate ones for James, and three bookcases: a short full-width "Billy" and the same height but narrower one, and a full-size "Gnedby." I need to transfer some books (not sure which yet) so that my overflowing history book collection has somewhere to go. I've accumulated a bunch of World War I and more Victorian books since we got the original bookcases.

I also bought a cotton bedspread to correct a dumb mistake I made during the winter. I replaced our fall quilt (which had always been a bit too garish but was all I could find in my price range) with a comforter, which was stupid, as I'd already relegated our nice denim comforter to the closet because it was too heavy most of the year. This bedspread, in a cadet blue, has a nice waffle texture and is light enough to be used as an extra blanket if needed but not smothering.

Stopped at Publix for forgotten things and milk, had teriyaki chicken and ramen noodles for supper, I washed and dried the bedspread and put it on the bed, as well as sorting pills for the week, and then we finally watched A Capitol Fourth. I loved the Boston Pops and the super fireworks on Wednesday (Bloomberg is doing a great broadcasting job; go screw yourself, CBS), and Rita Moreno's performance was a blast, but Capitol Fourth, for once, had better musical guests: Jimmy Buffett, the Beach Boys, Pentatonix, and more. When Renee Fleming sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" I got goosebumps. And you should have seen Tucker and Snowy staring at us when we got up and danced to the Beach Boys! I think Tucker thought we were having a fit.

Labels: computers, food, friends, shopping, television

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