Something absolutely extraordinary happened today. It was a weekend we didn't have anything planned and it wasn't raining. Do you know how unbelievably rare that has been for the past few months?

So we shoved four of the most useful of storage conveyances—otherwise known as a Xerox paper box—stuffed with books we no longer want into the back of the truck, carefully covered with a tarp, since retired me no longer has access to the things and must take care of the ones we have, mounted the power chair, and made our way up to Chattanooga. We had a couple more pit stops than usual, and by the time we arrived, it was lunchtime, so we went to City Café first.

Last time we came here, I don't know what was going on, but the place was packed and we had to wait nearly a half hour to be seated. Today: plenty of seats, and we had a super waiter. Of course we ordered the chicken soup with our open-faced sandwiches (turkey for me and roast beef for James). It is the best tasting soup, with carrots and celery in it, and it's made the way my relatives did so long ago, with broken up spaghetti in it instead of noodles or rice. Its only fault is that it's really salty; otherwise it could be a food group all of itself.

We should have brought some home like we usually do; I practically inhaled the cup in one breath it was so good, but now I feel like I hardly tasted it. The turkey, while being only breast slices, was still delicious laid on the toasted bread with gravy all over it; I did manage to bring some home. I can get some French bread at Publix tomorrow and have at least one sandwich, maybe two. We also bought a slice of their chocolate suicide cake to take home. They carry these huge cakes for dessert, the size of small drums, as does the Marietta Diner and Pasta Bella and a couple of other places here.

Then it was off to McKays, where we sorted the contents of the four Xerox paper boxes into bins and sent them off to be considered while we wander amongst the books. James found a real prize, a coffee table book about the Spitfire aircraft with color photographs for $2. He got some other aircraft-related publications, and also a copy of The Bluejackets Manual (basically the instruction book for U.S. Navy recruits) from 1944.

I found some goodies myself: the latest Bess Crawford mystery which I was planning to get off Amazon with points and instead got with credit, two different linguistics books (Words in Time and Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions), Roger Angell's book of essays This Old Man, The Man Who Invented the Daleks about Terry Nation, a book I won't mention because I may or may not give as a gift, and two nearly free amusements: a book of etiquette "by" Hyacinth Bucket (that's pronounced "bouquet," dear) for only 75 cents, and, for a mere dime, a fannish collector's item, a nearly-new copy of Jean Lorrah's early Star Trek novel, The Vulcan Academy Murders. We received a combination of cash money and credit, and both had cash left over.

We usually take the books they reject and I donate them to the library book sale, but I didn't feel like loading them back into the truck and toting them up to Roswell Street, so I let them have the rest.

We had a nice drive home despite a traffic problem: they were fixing the Lake Allatoona Dam road and creating a nasty little backup on I-75 south. We'd observed it on the way up and knew we had to get off the freeway no later than exit 293. So we got off there, at Cartersville and the Tellus Science Museum, and followed a route that took us to the old state highway 41. We had to go through the main drag in Cartersville where all the shopping centers were, but, aside from that, traffic was not bad. By then we were so close to home we just stayed on US41 and were rewarded, just south of Cartersville, with a beautiful sweep of highway that brought us through a lovely valley view. James noted that we must keep this in mind next year when the leaves reach peak.

In a few minutes more, we were driving by the Books-a-Million in Acworth, and thus went through our usual route home via Due West Road and Dallas Highway just as sun was setting. James took the road through the battlefield park and, in a little copse of trees just at the right side of Chatham Hill Road, a place I've always been convinced is a deer yard, were two deer grazing undisturbed by the traffic scant yards away.

Home in time to take a look at the books, eat a bit, compute a bit more, talk to Snowy and walk Tucker.

Labels: books, excursions, food, traffic, travel, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:10:00 PM

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