Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Maybe I should get a GPS...

So, our Wednesday night crew are coming to our new place tonight, and I decided that I wanted to make sushi. I remembered, about a year and a half ago, stumbling upon an asian grocery with a friend while we were on our way back from somewhere. I couldn't remember exactly where we were on our way back from, but I had a general idea of the direction, and I was about 80% sure of the road that it was on. So far so good. I can usually find my way back to somewhere I've been to before with some amount of trial and error. As long as I'm coming from the same direction.

But then I decided that I needed an oil change. And the closest Jiffy Lube was about five miles away, and not at all in the same direction as where I imagined the asian grocery to be. But not in the opposite direction, either, that would have made things too easy. They were three corners of a triangle, and I decided that I could cut across the top of the triangle and save myself some time. I was even a good little girl and tried to look the directions up in my map book, but unfortunately, we live on the top edge of the map book, and I had traveled even further north, out of map range. So I just started driving.

Then I passed a Goodwill, so I decided, on a whim, to stop and see if I could find any decent maternity clothes. Or a decent table for the new place. I generally consider a trip to a thrift store a success if I find one thing worth buying, and I'm ecstatic if I find more than two or three things. Today, I found a total of nine items of maternity clothing that fit me and I liked. Pretty awesome. I figured, at this point, I had probably used up all of my good thrift store karma, but decided to check out the furniture anyhow. And I found a gorgeous dining room table, in nice heavy wood, with two leaf inserts to make it big enough to seat about 12, and with only a few scratches on the finish that could easily be refinished away, but would be covered by a tablecloth most of the time anyhow, so were not a big concern to me. There were no chairs I liked, but my karma had to run out at some point. Best of all, I got out of there spending only $50 on everything together. Take that, Ikea.

I also caved at this point and called Jeremy to see if he could get directions for me online, and I carefully wrote down the route he gave to me. Then I missed a turn somewhere along the line, and ended up about 5 miles north of where I wanted to be. So, I called him again, and got fresh directions from my new location.

As I was driving along, still not 100% sure of where I was going, I passed Big Lots. Then I remembered where I had been coming back from with my friend when we found the Asian grocery. Big Lots! So, I stopped in to see if I could pick up a few of those random household things that you always seem to need to get when you move. Like a broom and a dustpan and a kitchen trash can and an ice cream sandwich (okay, fine, that last one had more to do with being pregnant than moving). I even managed to pick up a remanufactured Hoover vacuum cleaner for about 1/5 of the normal retail price. Score.

And, believe it or not, I even found the asian grocery after that. It was right where I had thought it was, and I probably would have saved myself a lot of time and energy if I had just driven home first and gone there "the long way". But then I wouldn't have found so many awesome things on my random shopping stops. I managed to find everything I wanted at the grocery (which, for my later reference more than anything else, was called "Assi" and is just north-west of 202 on 63). I even found some things I wasn't looking for, like red bean mochi. Yum. I had also forgotten that this particular asian grocery was also, for some reason obviously not related to geography, a hispanic grocery. So now I know where to go to get maseca and queso fresco the next time I have a hankering for pupusas. Mmmm... pupusas...

5 comments:

Rachel E.S. Walton said...

wow - that's the best meandering shopping trip ever!

Unknown said...

If anything, it sounds like you shouldn't get a GPS, because then you would've made it directly to your destination without all those wonderful little side trips.

But if you get a new cell phone, you could easily pick up a model with GPS on board. Mine has saved me from getting lost in the ghettos of East LA multiple times.

Anonymous said...

hehe, sounds like you had some rather good luck out of your bad luck.
It's always fun when that happens.
Hope everything goes well/continues to go well with the move and the baby, and tell anyone who would care that I say hey. :)

Anonymous said...

How did you get the table home??!!

Miss Jillian said...

Jule Ann, this whole entry reads like so many dreams I've had.... ;D I have to say that Jeremy seems better than a GPS, but that, of course, if you had a GPS, when anyone does, I instantly feel less concerned about them (hey, do you remember the days....gosh, the days back when we were in school together!...when folks commonly had neither cell phones nor GPS units? Whatever did we all do? You'd still be wandering around the city, trying to find the grocery store! heehee!)

And...I have the same question as JD ~ how *did* you get that table home?