So, I was driving by Circuit City today, and there were big signs advertising their 50% off store closing sales. I had the following three thoughts in quick succession:
"Wow, 50% off, we could get some really good deals!"
"But we're broke."
"With all of these stores going out of business, there are a lot of good deals to be had right now, but we don't have the money to take advantage of them. This is a terrible time to be unemployed!"
And then I started laughing out loud. Because isn't that the definition of a recession?
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Friday, October 17, 2008
Road Trip: the Miniseries (3)
Episode Three:
I had wanted to leave my house on Thursday at noon, but it took me a lot longer to get ready than I had anticipated. I've never traveled with a baby before, and man, do you ever need a lot of stuff to travel with a baby! We eventually got on the road at 3:00 p.m., which was actually the estimated departure time I had given to my mom, so, in a way, we actually left on time. (Although my cover will be blown as soon as my mom reads this post. Darn.)
Before this weekend, the longest trip Valerie had ever taken in the car was 45 minutes. And she was pretty good for about the first 45 minutes of this trip. Unfortunately, my mom's house is an eight-hour drive. First, she got hungry. I was completely prepared for this eventuality, having packed some pumped milk, my pump, extra bottles, and an AC adapter so that I could pump in the car. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack "not being stuck in the car seat." Valerie is normally pretty good about taking a bottle, but we just couldn't seem to get the angle right in her car seat, which led to much mess and frustration. Which led to crying. Which led to her overheating, because she was so worked up. That was the worst. When she was completely miserable, but I could do nothing to help cool her down, because I couldn't take her out of the sweaty, plastic car seat. Whenever we would finally stop, I would take her out, her back soaked with sweat, and comfort her as she tried to comprehend why it took so long for me to tend to her needs. Then I would put fresh, dry cloth diapers behind her back and we would be okay for a few minutes as we started back on the road.
By 9:00 p.m., we had only made it halfway to Ottawa. When the sun set, overheating became less of an issue, but it was replaced with fear of the dark. Remember how I made myself a mental note to bring a battery-powered light with me on this trip? Well, I didn't. My mom called my cell phone about this time, and I told her I was sure it was going to be 2 or 3 a.m. by the time we got there. I wasn't feeling optimistic.
Fortunately, Jeremy had brought a little LED book light with him, which I clipped to the baby-view mirror. Then Valerie fell asleep. Worn out, no doubt, from all the crying she had done in the past six hours. And she stayed asleep until we arrived in Ottawa at 12:20 a.m., having stopped only briefly for gas and pee breaks. I was so relieved, I almost thought we might be able to make the return trip.
To be continued...
I had wanted to leave my house on Thursday at noon, but it took me a lot longer to get ready than I had anticipated. I've never traveled with a baby before, and man, do you ever need a lot of stuff to travel with a baby! We eventually got on the road at 3:00 p.m., which was actually the estimated departure time I had given to my mom, so, in a way, we actually left on time. (Although my cover will be blown as soon as my mom reads this post. Darn.)
Before this weekend, the longest trip Valerie had ever taken in the car was 45 minutes. And she was pretty good for about the first 45 minutes of this trip. Unfortunately, my mom's house is an eight-hour drive. First, she got hungry. I was completely prepared for this eventuality, having packed some pumped milk, my pump, extra bottles, and an AC adapter so that I could pump in the car. Unfortunately, I forgot to pack "not being stuck in the car seat." Valerie is normally pretty good about taking a bottle, but we just couldn't seem to get the angle right in her car seat, which led to much mess and frustration. Which led to crying. Which led to her overheating, because she was so worked up. That was the worst. When she was completely miserable, but I could do nothing to help cool her down, because I couldn't take her out of the sweaty, plastic car seat. Whenever we would finally stop, I would take her out, her back soaked with sweat, and comfort her as she tried to comprehend why it took so long for me to tend to her needs. Then I would put fresh, dry cloth diapers behind her back and we would be okay for a few minutes as we started back on the road.
By 9:00 p.m., we had only made it halfway to Ottawa. When the sun set, overheating became less of an issue, but it was replaced with fear of the dark. Remember how I made myself a mental note to bring a battery-powered light with me on this trip? Well, I didn't. My mom called my cell phone about this time, and I told her I was sure it was going to be 2 or 3 a.m. by the time we got there. I wasn't feeling optimistic.
Fortunately, Jeremy had brought a little LED book light with him, which I clipped to the baby-view mirror. Then Valerie fell asleep. Worn out, no doubt, from all the crying she had done in the past six hours. And she stayed asleep until we arrived in Ottawa at 12:20 a.m., having stopped only briefly for gas and pee breaks. I was so relieved, I almost thought we might be able to make the return trip.
To be continued...
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...
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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)