Yesterday I did the usual morning stuff, killed time loitering at Barnes & Noble, and then met Diane at Target. We had our usual dinner, and then I followed her to the Suzuki dealership in Leesburg so she could drop her car off to have it inspected, have the tires replaced, and have it detailed. We then went back to her house, where I got a shower, and went to sleep on her sofa.
I woke up at about 6:30, after Diane's alarm went off, then walked to a grocery store to pick up a bottle of diet soda and a newspaper. I never realized how long it takes Diane to get ready, but I was able to read the entire paper while she putzed around. I saved the crossword puzzle for later.
She was finally ready to head out at about nine, and we went to the new Dulles branch of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, where she works to merchandise the coffee mugs. I had never been there before, and it was kind of weird being inside a closed museum. So I just considered it an opportunity and walked laps around the museum for an hour. The place is huge, so I did four laps. Diane was smart to bring me back home so I could grab my iPod.
By then it was 10:30, and I went to the McDonald's there and did the crossword, but I had just started reading my "Instinct" magazine when Diane called me on my cell phone and asked me to help her out. Wanting to be out of there, I came to her aid and we were done by about 11:30.
The next step was to Dulles Town Center, where she had to return some pajamas that she had bought for her sister-in-law a few months back, then to Ruby Tuesday for lunch, which she bought. Having eaten like nobody's business for the last week, I just got the salad bar. Then we got back to her house, where we waited for the painter who was supposed to come that day. He never showed up, so we went all the way back to Leesburg, and were back at the car dealership by 4:30.
Unfortunately, they still weren't done with the car, but I was ready to call it a day. I had not anticipated this taking the entire day, and by this time I had my fill of Diane. Don't get me wrong, I love her dearly, but spending nearly twenty-four hours with her would test the patience of anyone. She never stops talking, and her speech is less than eloquent (referring to the museum as the "air-o-space" museum, for example). So at about five, I left her at the car dealership. She just called me and told me that she was done.
I stopped at Target for a popcorn, and then came home and had some soup, and some animal crackers that I had bought for the family reunion a week ago. My total calorie intake is about 1300 for today. If for no other reason, I look to going back to work as a way to get myself back into routine and undo the damage from the past week.
More "Magazine Rack" news now. I know, dear readers, that you are probably sick and tired of hearing about my stupid magazine subscriptions, but I am talking about it anyway. If you want to skip this section, scroll down until the color of the text changes.
Back in this entry I wrote about how I had impulsively decided to subscribe to Harper's Magazine. Well, I have been receiving it for several months (in that entry, I described how I had gotten three issues in a short time), but I haven't really been reading it. Although it was cheap, I still didn't think it was worth continuing to receive if I wasn't going to read it. So yesterday I called and canceled the subscription. A refund check for $5 will be in the mail. I will deposit it, along with the 9¢ dividend check from The Gap, when it arrives.
During Justin's family reunion (here is the entry), I had purchased a copy of Reader's Digest for some non-controversial reading material. A subscription card fell out, offering a year for ten dollars. I went on their website (can you tell I just learned how to insert links into my blog?) and saw that they were offering the same deal, or two years for $15. They had an option of "bill me later" on the website, but I learned my lesson with "Genre" and "Instinct." I just put it on my credit card to be done with it. This should give me some nice, clean jokes to share at work. Not even Petunia Gray can give me grief about jokes from Reader's Digest.
I used to have a subscription to Reader's Digest when I was younger. Back when I used to visit my grandparents, the bathroom always had a stack of issues of Reader's Digest on the hamper in front of the toilet, and while my grandfather used to read them there, I used to take them from the bathroom and read them elsewhere. So for several years in the late 1980's and early 1990's (I remember getting them in college), my grandmother gave me a subscription. So now I will be receiving them again.
It seems kind of strange though; I have drifted away from reading books at work and now prefer to read magazines. I guess we all evolve as time goes by. But now, the Magazine Rack contains the following:
- Mad
- Entertainment Weekly
- Out
- The Advocate
- Instinct
- Genre
- Reader's Digest
I can't figure out how the color changed (with my topic still being on magazines), but I'll just deal with it. I guess that when I switched to the bulleted list option, I lost what color I was using, as well as the font. I'm just enjoying experimenting with the various options that the "compose" mode on Blogger offers.
Eric Out.
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