Movies and Chinese Food

Yesterday, we went into town for a while. My DH and N. had to pass out flyers for N.'s BSA troop's Christmas Tree Recycling Fundraiser. Next week, Henry the Big Red Truck will be pressed into service to pick up Christmas trees, which will be put through a Chipper Machine (I didn't know such things exist). The troop gets $5.00 per tree to do this. We live in rural area, so the troop assigned N. to pass out flyers in a dense neighborhood in town.

I dropped the guys off at the entrance to the subdivision and then I planned to go buy pet supplies and maybe relax at Borders. RELAX! HA! (Those among you who are aware of your surroundings are probably laughing as you realize that this was on December 23!). I couldn't even find a parking place anywhere near Borders. Thank goodness that I don't actually have to shop for Christmas. There are benefits to sitting out the biggest shopping extravaganza of the year. It took me quite some time to get a parking place near Petsmart, but I managed. Petsmart was crowded: They were doing a pet adoption of cats from ACAT and dogs from Watermelon Mountain Ranch. They were also doing pet photos with Santa! The aisles were very crowded. It took me an hour to pick up 40 lbs. of dogfood, 20 lbs. of catfood, 36 oz. of dog greenies, 12 ozs. of cat greenies, and 27 lbs. of cat litter (which I think I left on the bottom of the cart!Darn!).

I checked the Borders parking lot again. Cars were even parked in the fire zone! APD must have gotten good revenue there! There were several cars roaming the parking lot waiting for someone to leave. I passed right by and found a small coffee shop with comfortable chairs near the neighborhood where DH and N. were passing out the flyers. Thank goodness I had brought a book. I bought a Chai tea latte and settled in to wait. Any ideas about picking up a few needed items at K-Mart were firmly put down by another customer who told the baristra that she had waited in the express line there for nearly 2 hours.

After I picked up my guys at the other end of the assigned neighborhood (cell phones are a wonderful thing), we needed to go to Lowes to pick a torch kit for our bathtub installation project (pictures forthcoming). Lowes was NOT crowded (everyone appeared to be at Target next door) and there were even a few parking spots big enough for Henry. This was excellent--we needed to consult with someone concerning the types of fittings for the new faucet hardware and we got help immediately. If you need to do home-improvement, do it the weekend before Christmas! Really! Everyone is shopping elsewhere and you will get the home improvement industry's advice all to yourself. We were only in Lowes for about 1.5 hours instead of the usual 3 hours it takes if you need advice. We had the same person help out throughout the Lowes experience, too. And the guy at customer service remembered us between the time we made our return (apparently we needed Moen kit 9997 but they shipped us Moen kit 9999) and our re-order (they expedited this and the hardware will arrive on December 27). It looks like we will have the new bathtub in by 2007 after all!

Today I have to put away the Menorot--and I really am going to get the wax off today! We have no plans to go anywhere that requires parking or going into a retail establishment. We are planning movies and popcorn for tonight.

Sometimes we go to Old Town to see the Luminarias on Christmas Eve, but there is a wicked west wind that is making 30 degrees F feel like 20 degrees F, so we won't go tonight. Tomorrow, we will participate in that great Jewish tradition for December 25--a movie and Chinese food.