Thursday morning we had to make the long, long (45 minutes) trek down to Morrow and Kaiser's Southwood office for James' urology followup. Luckily it was a nice sunny day, there was no backed-up traffic (although even moderate Atlanta traffic these days gives one the impression they are trying to run you down), and we were taken in almost immediately. Dr. Starr was pleased, we got a new "hat" (urine measuring device), and were off after stopping for lunch at Krystal. We had no plans for the rest of the day since we had the later doctor's appointment cancelled yesterday, so, since the Books-A-Million in Acworth closed, we thought we would stop at the one at Arbor Place Mall; it was on the way home.

Boy, what a disappointment. The old store was large, and you entered from the parking lot. It's now squeezed into a storefront no bigger than an old Waldenbooks and one third of it are silly toys. I found a bargain book as a cute gift, but it's not worth driving out there anymore. Sad. James had been jonesing for a frozen hot chocolate at the J. Muggs coffee shop, and of course that was gone as well.

On the way home we stopped at Lidl to pick up milk and other necessary things.

Friday morning we rushed through our shopping trip to Publix to get on to more fun activities: lunch at The BBQ Place. I got a simple sandwich and fries, James got a sandwich platter, and we were stuffed—the portions are enormous. Aubrey was able to take some time off work, and joined Alice and Ken and Mel and Phyllis as our lunch companions. We asked after Juanita, who had been poorly at our party and it turned out she had pneumonia and was resting at home!

On our way home James stopped at Kroger for gas and I nipped inside to get some no-sodium-added mushrooms. Valentines Day was already spilling out of the seasonal aisle and sending creeping tendrils elsewhere. Once I got home, I did more Christmas divesting: woodland tree down and spare room decorations put up, Rudolph tree, master bedroom mini-tree ditto, all put up in the same box, and the box taken downstairs. Later on we had sandwiches, having had our main meal at lunch, and watched Hawaii Five-0.

Saturday we took the opportunity to sleep in. A big rainstorm was stalking in from the west and it was oppressively warm and humid for January. We decided to try and beat the rain, and went off to Barnes & Noble with coupons. James got a new John Ringo book, a "Cook's Country," and an aircraft magazine, and I scored Northland, the story of a man who hikes the US/Canadian border. Then it was finally back to work: while James retired to the kitchen to cook and roll thirty hand-made burritos to take for breakfast when he goes into work, I removed and packed up all the decorations from the kitchen and the dining room and took those boxes downstairs, leaving the foyer, the 1940s Christmas village, the living room decorations, and the tree to go.

We had the back door open and the fans madly trying to keep it cool in the master bedroom when the wind gusted and knocked one of them out of the window. I raced in the bedroom and closed the windows just in time; outside the air turned into a welter of water pounding against any horizontal surface it could, and Tucker was at the back door looking rather disbelievingly at the wall of rain beating on the deck footing. Rain was splashing in, so I shut that door, too. It was so warm the air conditioner came on not long after that.

For supper James and I had the chicken and wild rice soup we'd picked up at Publix, and did a long delayed action: turned on the Roku, went to Acorn, and finally continued watching Murdoch Mysteries. We had watched the first episode of season nine, some time back to see if Crabtree cleared his name, and then never returned. Now last night when we watched Hawaii Five-0, Grover was investigating a murder at the swanky golf club where he was trying to get a membership. Once he saw how badly the members treated the help, he didn't want to join. So tonight we rejoined Murdoch at season 9, episode 2, where Mark Twain, an avowed anti-monarchist, is invited to speak at the Empire Club, where Inspector Brackenreid is seeking a membership. After seeing how snooty they are, Brackenreid decides he doesn't want to join. We were amused at the parallel plotlines of two shows four years apart.

Was rather delighted, as well, to see William Shatner playing Mark Twain. He turned in a nicely restrained performance as a man beset by debts and required to lecture to pay them off.

Labels: books, Christmas, food, friends, health, shopping, television, traffic, weather

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:44:00 PM

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