Black Friday

Over the years I've gotten up early to "shop" on the day after Thanksgiving. Today was one of those days.

I hit North Neil Street about quarter to 7 and encountered the expected snarl of traffic. My first stop was Kohl's, and my usual entrance to their parking lot was a bit of a jam so I went around all that and entered from the east.

Upon entering Kohl's I headed straight for the women's clothes. I've found "bargains" here on past after-Thanksgiving shopping ventures. It was clear to me that the amount of shoppers was much larger that I expected as I saw that the line for the checkout stations extended through the main aisle clear around the store. I got to the women's section only to find it is now petites. Why do that do that? Six months from now it will be women's again. They've done this before ... flip-flopped between women's and petites.

I continued circling through the main aisle -- made much more difficult to navigate because of all the merchandise displayed in the middle of the aisle. It became clear to me that even if I found something to buy, I wasn't going to wait in the checkout lines. I never did find see where the women's section had been moved.

So I left Kohl's and went next door to Office Depot wanting to purchase a new 2009 appointment calendar for Mom. Here again, the checkout lines were long, and I knew I wouldn't want to wait in them in order to purchase just that calendar.

By now it is after 7:00 so I headed next door to Hancock Fabrics. It was closed with holiday hours posted saying it would open at 8 a.m. What? How un-American .... not opening before 8:00 on the day after Thanksgiving?????

I then headed for the mall where I had a couple specific things I was looking for. I entered through Bergners, and once again, navigated around merchandise displayed in the middle of the aisles. Crazy. There were lots of people, although not too many children, thank goodness.

I went to Macy's. More merchandise-filled aisles. I contemplated a couple things there, but passed on them. Next, CJ Banks where it was mercifully peaceful without lots of shoppers. Skipped Sears. I figured they probably didn't have anything that would appeal to me. Back to Penney's. Long lines again. Then back to Bergners.

I've been wanting one of those waffle makers that flip over to cook like motels have. Bergners had one advertised for half price. I looked at it -- displayed in the middle of an aisle, of course -- and didn't recognize the brand and thought it looked kind of chintzy. I thumbed through the instruction booklet, but it didn't have a waffle recipe so I decided this wasn't the waffle maker for me. As I was exiting the store I passed a whole row of 5-piece luggage sets -- in the aisles .... where else? I've been wanting to get us a couple pieces of "real" luggage to replace the make-shift totes we've been using. This set totaled $50 (regular $200 -- yeah, I believe that!), and I decided to purchase a set. The biggest problem will be where to store them.

Now headed back home -- it's 8:00, been out "shopping" for just over an hour -- I rememberd CVS Pharmacy had a waffle maker advertised for cheaper than the one at Bergners. I decided that if I was going to own a chintzy waffle maker, it might as well be a cheap one, so I purchased it. Don't know where I'll store this either.

And that is my big Black Friday adventure. The number of people in the stores was truly awful. I hope that I will remember that next year when I'm tempted to see what bargains I might find.

P.S. Patrick and I plan to venture out later this afternoon to try to buy his Christmas gift, a new iPod.

Dreams

I had 3 separate dreams last night.

#1 - I do not remember, but Dad was in it.

#2 - An old airplane, vintage WWII, flew low over our house. I watched as it kept getting lower, and once it was passed the school, it crashed in a huge fireball into Robeson Park. It was a windy day, and burning debris and embers were blown over the neighborhood. I watched as roofs on two houses across the street caught fire. I walked outside our house and saw that our roof was on fire, too. I'm thinking I ought to call 911 when a firefighter, dressed in protective fire gear carrying an axe and pulling a fire hose, walked down the street. He immediately got on our roof, chopped holes in the roof, sprayed water, and extinguished the fire. He then bawled me out for all the dead vegetation around our house that was a fire hazard. I wanted to point out that none of it had caught fire, but he'd continued walking on down the street.

I'm now left thinking "Now I have holes in the roof and a lot of water damage." I inspected a room inside the house. The wallpaper had flowers and was old and tattered and had a lot of scotch tape holding it in place. Up near the top, where I was looking, was Grammie's recipe for "No Bake Cookies" in her own handwriting! Curiously, the instructions said to "bake for 10 minutes." I woke thinking I need to get in touch with the insurance company.

#3 - Bill Nicholls had died. Since he had no family (at least in my dream) and his partner had previously expired, his former music students stepped in and planned his funeral. We greeted the mourners as they came in. We formed a grand orchestra and choir and performed some great composer's "Requiem." Sounded really good like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Sheryl Burton and Chic Grider were predominently featured in the planning and greeting. I also saw Sharon Jones (GCHS Class of 1970) playing a bassoon in the orchestra ..... even tho she really played a clarinet back in high school.

That's all.

Price of Gas

One thing that is most annoying is the fluctuating price of gas. I know P. doesn't like hearing about this. "You sound like an old person." But if he was buying gas, he might feel differently. It would be a little different for me if one could predict when the price was going to change. Like reading the Sunday advertisements and knowing milk is on sale that week through Saturday. But with gas it's all a big mystery.

I recently had two triumphs over the gas-game. I usually need to fill the car's tank about once a month. Back in August I filled at $3.46/gallon. The very next day the price had jumped 30-cents. Boy, I felt like I had cheated the gas ogres.

Then last week I thought about filling up again. The price was around $3.63/gallon, but on Wednesday when I remembered to go to the station, the price was up about 5 cents, and I decided I could wait until the following week to see what would happen. But on Friday I knew I was going out of town to GC, plus hearing gas prices were likely to rise due to Hurricane Ike destruction, I decided this was the day to fill even with prices at $3.67. Many other people must have been trying to beat the hurricane spike also so I had to wait for a vacant pump. As I was waiting. I saw an employee walking away from the price sign carrying numbers and I thought "Heck, the price has gone up while I'm sitting here waiting," and the price was now $3.79. Then it was my turn at the pump, and I was pleased to note that my pump had not yet been adjusted to the new price. I filled the tank while the $3.67 price was still on that pump. When I finished the price changed to $3.79 so I guess I again beat the gas grim reaper by 12-cents. Yoo-hoo.

Incidentally, I drove past the gas station the next morning and the price was up some more to $3.89. Then yesterday, 4 days after my recent gas triumph, the price is now $3.99.

It's crazy.

Sunday morning

Morning laundry is done, waiting to be folded.

I'm enjoying the "birthday card club" class. We meet once a month and make 3 b-day cards. I'm always inspired after the class, but I don't do anything about it. I purchased materials yesterday to make "thank you" cards to give to Jackie at her wedding shower on Saturday. Maybe I'll actually make them. The stamping class through the "Live and Learn" catalog was cancelled due to under-enrollment. Six people signed up and they needed eight. Bummer.

I saw my friend Julia over my lunch hour on Thursday. It was just like the olden days when we lunched together and talked.

Blog Class

I went to a "how to blog" workshop last night. I thought the instructor would walk us thru steps on setting up and using our own blogs. But, no. It was mostly a PowerPoint about what blogs are and how they're different than webpages using CMS (content management system) instead of HTML. Plus, he kept showing his own blog to demonstrate stuff. Zzzzzz. At least with my tuition-waiver perk I didn't have to pay for this class.

John had a bowling guy over last night to use his TurboTax.

Another exciting Tuesday evening.

Tonight is "Project Runway." And I can hardly contain my glee on Thursday nights: "Survivor" and "The Apprentice."