Music: Edie Brickell (from Volcano); other “E” singers and bands on the list include ELO, Elis Regina, Sir Elton, Elvis, Eminem, Enrique Iglesias, Enya, Eric Clapton, the Eurythmics, Eva Trout, and Evanescence.
The Clapton and Eurythmics are the things I know the best — the rest? I have it in my music directory, but it’s little listened to. Thus: the A-Z all the way through approach.
The Edie Brickell is really quite nice — the voice and the music, the former distinctive and the latter soothing and a bit bluesy.
On my two shopping trips today I had my iPod and listened to a recording of the Goldberg Variations and to the Trannssylvanians’s album Igen, which is really really really good and highly recommended.
Shopping: My pantry and fridge were getting a bit empty. In particular I was out of eggs and dairy products, so this afternoon, after some writing and other tasks, I hopped on the 3 out to the transfer point, walked across the intersection and the parking lot, and began a few minutes of brisk shopping at Woodman’s.
I shopped to shop first in their liquor store. Two friends in Boston, Richard and Amy, like “7 Deadly Zins” (California Zinfandel), and while it’s $17-$18 at Riley’s Wines of the World, it’s only $15 at Woodman’s, so I picked up a bottle. A bit more than I usually pay for wine, but I can splurge now and again. Nearby I saw “Giant 47 Pound Rooster” from Rex-Goliath, and it was only $5.99 … screw the wine, I like the name and label, and the 47 just screams POMONA to me … so I had to get it. Turns out, talking later to both R&A, that a friend of theirs considers R-G her favorite cheap wine.
I’ll have one of the two bottles Friday evening, I suppose. It’s only 9pm and I could have one now, but I do have to teach in the morning.
I came home, dropped off my groceries, and headed out on the next bus to Walmart, the Devil Incarnatetm some might say. I wanted to look at rowing machines … see if there was a cheap one there that I could carry home on the bus and put together. Short answer: no. None in stock, only more complex exercise equipment, some only about $150 and quite tempting, mind you, but it’s not as if I have that much spare room in my apartment. I also needed a few kitchen items.
The bus comes once an hour, so I had plenty of time to browse and look at things I didn’t want to buy, and with what I thought was enough time to spare I got in like to check out.
ALAS!
The lines were very long, very slow, and half the registers — MORE! — were closed. I almost got out of line to browse items for another hour, but I figured, I’ve come this far, let’s give it a shot. As I got my receipt and headed for the door I saw the bus drive by. I would have needed 1.5 minutes — the people right in front of me were quick; the ones in front of them took EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES.
EIGHT FUCKING MINUTES.
*cough* *cough*
Sorry about that.
So I took a sharp left with my cart and parked it at the in-store Subway franchise. Did you know that the Thursday special is the Italian S.M.T or something like that? There was no line, per se, but I stood near the counter; the woman behind it asked if she could help me, I replied that I didn’t yet know what I wanted so was still looking, she recommended the special … because she’d been making it all day, so I said “Sure, let’s give that a try.”
$4.21
That’s with a soda — swapped it out and got a bottle of water — and either two cookies or a bag of chips. I hadn’t eaten at a Subway in years. How many? 5? 6? That sounds about right. There’s one on State Street; I went to it once in the late 90s and another time around 2001 when some people from the summer camp at which my brother used to work were in town and needed lunch. That’s also the only time I “frequented” what used to be Stillwaters on State Street (corner of State, Henry, and Johnson) — they had an outdoor thing going on in the summer, so that Saturday after I stopped with the Australians and such for a beer. Turns out they wanted crap beer like Bud and Miller … stuff that had no flavor and wasn’t too strong. Fuck that.
It’s a good f-bomb day for me.
Also, “frequent” isn’t a good verb if I only went there once.
Back to Subway and Walmart. I sat down in a booth … they’re not bolted down, and as I slid in, it shifted from the wall a few inches. I eased it back into place. I enjoyed my toasted sandwich (mmm … mmm … mmm … so many veggies, some pepper-jack, ham … mmm) and water and then read until it was time to go outside for the next bus.
We’re down to single digits again this evening. It was bitterly cold outside. Clear, crisp — the moon is nearly full, it seems, and shone brightly through a lacy curtain of clouds.
Reading: I took Jasper Fforde’s Something Rotten with me shopping this afternoon … good move, since I was stranded at Walmart for an hour. I’m only a hundred (out of nearly 400) pages in, so can’t really say how it’s going to turn out and such, you understand. But, in any case, so far, so good. Yes, so good. Funny, light, quick. It’s like literary cotton candy but made out of sucralose and some vitamins rather than plain sugar.
