James' day-off Wednesday was fast approaching, and I knew what I wanted to do with it: go up to McKay's Used Books in Chattanooga. We hadn't been up there since January of 2020, and there was a pile of eight Xerox paper boxes and a stray stack of books in the library waiting to be traded in. On Monday I went downstairs and separated out the books: James' discards in four boxes, my discards in four boxes, and DVDs and CDs in a ninth box, and tied up each of the boxes with strings so the lids wouldn't blow off in the bed of the truck. I also cooked pork chops and read and listened to Christmas music.

Since we were going to be out Wednesday, I did laundry on Tuesday and also put the gifts away from Sunday's gift exchange. We crossed our fingers Tuesday night and went to bed.

Amazingly, Wednesday morning was chilly, but clear. I didn't have any stomach problems, and James wasn't having an allergy attack. I figured, hey, get up at eight and we would be on the road by 9:30. Alas, more like 10:30, so we arrived at McKay's right before lunchtime again. On the other hand, it was a wonderful day to come; either there aren't a lot of people on Wednesdays or not a lot of people shopping there before Christmas. We got right in with our books (I put the DVDs and CDs in James' bins because he had the room) and started to wander around. I wasn't looking for much, because right now I have so many books. I did look for any "Dear Canada" books (I've found them in McKay's before), and hunted around the television and movie books and found the old CSI Companion and also a book I bought as a gift two years ago and dearly wanted to keep, but couldn't because I didn't have an alternate gift. I got a nearly new copy for only $1.50. What I did go look for were some of the CSI novelizations, and found about a dozen, but only bought five (I also got one at 2nd and Charles, so now I have a half-dozen). Also found The Pictorial History of Radio. Alas, didn't find anything I was looking for in DVDs, like Emerald City. James got a nice bio of Pappy Boyington and a John Ringo book and a couple of other things. I looked at the biographies and some of the travel books, but only skimmed history.

By 1:30 we were ravenous, so we put our empty boxes, wedged together so they had no open surfaces, up against the tailgate of the truck, and went to City Cafe Diner as usual. I had the open face hot turkey sandwich and James had a chicken pot pie and ordered a side of tater tots that was in a huge plate. He forgot how big the portions were last time. I brought half my turkey home and he half the pot pie and half of the tots, and we ordered a wedge of chocolate overload cake and couldn't eat it we were so full!

Of course we had their wonderful chicken "noodle" soup which has broken up spaghetti in it instead of something like egg noodles, and we ordered some to take home.

Before we left for home, we filled up with gas, but alas, by that time it was 3:30 and we didn't want to get stuck in Wednesday rush hour traffic in Atlanta, so we once again put off the trip to their Barnes & Noble at the Hamilton Mall. Their B&N is so much better than ours, or was the last time we were there; of course now that the new owner has taken over, it may not be.

Alas, we ran out of luck on the way home: no matter how tightly the boxes were wedged together, they still kept flying up and we lost three of them out of the truck bed on the way home, and to keep the rest intact we had to weigh down three of them with the books we bought and take the other three into the cab with me. As we were riding home with lots of leftover and uneaten cake, and I had the extra soup we ordered between my legs, it was kind of uncomfortable. We had to stop a couple of times to rearrange the boxes and once for James to use the bathroom.

But finally we were home and changed and munching on a light dinner while finally watching the end of Hawkeye. Wow! What a finale! They killed the Rockefeller Center tree dead and had a killer fight on the ice; in the meantime, Kate Bishop went up against Kingpin. Wow, does he wear armor or what: Kate shot him directly with an arrow and he just pulled it out. And then there was the whole cliffhanger at the end...they say this is only a "season finale," so will there be another one? And I do want a series about Echo/Maya Lopez, which is apparently in the works.

Except for the boxes, it was a wonderful day!

Labels: books, chores, excursions, food, shopping, television

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 10:36:00 PM

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