puttering about the town
This morning, I took Puppy and myself to get a haircut. We had tried to get one last week, but had misinterpreted a crucial fact: that it was Sunday, and all those store owners like their weekends too. Even the lawn mower shops (certainly a weekend sport!!) are closed on Sunday.
So we headed out today, to Pete's Barber Shop. It's near the South Orange train station, so I thought that this might be a nice place to go. When we got there, there were a few people waiting and only one barber (Pete?), so it all looked good.
I sat down with a magazine from the rack - Cargo, a magazine for the conspicuous consumer who disposable income... Not being a member of the breed, I presumed to amuse myself for the next two hours looking at all the things that I would never buy, like $1500 leather jackets, insulated protectors for my iPod, and handmade jeans ($198). Although, being an academic with a half-broken watch, I might be interested in the $400 tweed blazer and the $130 National Geographic watch. One item caught my eye, though (more later).
After 15 minutes at the barber, the 1st customer got off the chair and left. I though he had been there a while, but didn't think too much of it. The next customer, an elderly gent with just-a-bit of snow-white hair got in the chair. I continued reading. After a while, I looked up, and the barber was still working on the same elderly gent. I checked my cell phone - 20 minutes had passed! Puppy and I were the 5th and 6th people waiting when we arrived, and a small alarm bell went off in my head.
We kept waiting, through the 3rd and 4th customer. Finally, It was Puppy's turn. It was now 1:15 and we had to leave near 1:30 for his soccer game. We had entered the barber shop around 11:30 am. So I let the barber work on Puppy. He didn't finish with Puppy until 1:45!!! I paid him and rushed out - no time for Poppa to get a haircut today.
Anyway, we got to the soccer game - Puppy's team so far is undefeated, and today they won 2-1.
When I got back we had visitors - one of Princess's friends from Hoboken, her mother, and another little girl who's our neighbor here. They played for awhile, decorated each other with body lotion and brushed their hair, had dinner and left again. Elynn burned the crap out of a pan, and, in our usual arrangement, she cooked so I clean. Happy Happy Joy Joy.
Now, what caught my eye in the Cargo magazine was this - a multi-function ladder. I had been thinking about buying one for awhile: since I'm now a homeowner, I have these responsibilities like cleaning out the gutters and doing minor repairs on the house exterior. Our wooden A-frame ladders don't work well outside, because most of our property has a slope. Our survey doesn't record the pitch of the property, but it's something like 6-10 feet over 90 feet. Also, we have some work to do on staircases, and A-frame ladders just plain won't work. This multi-function ladder came highly recommended by the magazine, and had some nice testimonials on Amazon, was about 1/2 the price of the popular Little Giant and not a cheap as the foreign knockoffs.
Amazon was selling the Climb Tek ladder for $180 with free shipping. They were also running a promotion - with $199 in Tools, $25 off. So I added on a couple of more things - no-slip grips to attach to the top of the ladder, a set of small metric sockets, and a Gator Grip wrench.
And placed the order. Ah, the joys of homeownership. One of the best feelings has to be the virtuous feeling one gets from buying nice tools with the inspiration of using them for home maintenance and improvement.
Now I just need a snow shovel. And a weed whacker (double as a lawn edger...). Maybe I can get these used....
So we headed out today, to Pete's Barber Shop. It's near the South Orange train station, so I thought that this might be a nice place to go. When we got there, there were a few people waiting and only one barber (Pete?), so it all looked good.
I sat down with a magazine from the rack - Cargo, a magazine for the conspicuous consumer who disposable income... Not being a member of the breed, I presumed to amuse myself for the next two hours looking at all the things that I would never buy, like $1500 leather jackets, insulated protectors for my iPod, and handmade jeans ($198). Although, being an academic with a half-broken watch, I might be interested in the $400 tweed blazer and the $130 National Geographic watch. One item caught my eye, though (more later).
After 15 minutes at the barber, the 1st customer got off the chair and left. I though he had been there a while, but didn't think too much of it. The next customer, an elderly gent with just-a-bit of snow-white hair got in the chair. I continued reading. After a while, I looked up, and the barber was still working on the same elderly gent. I checked my cell phone - 20 minutes had passed! Puppy and I were the 5th and 6th people waiting when we arrived, and a small alarm bell went off in my head.
We kept waiting, through the 3rd and 4th customer. Finally, It was Puppy's turn. It was now 1:15 and we had to leave near 1:30 for his soccer game. We had entered the barber shop around 11:30 am. So I let the barber work on Puppy. He didn't finish with Puppy until 1:45!!! I paid him and rushed out - no time for Poppa to get a haircut today.
Anyway, we got to the soccer game - Puppy's team so far is undefeated, and today they won 2-1.
When I got back we had visitors - one of Princess's friends from Hoboken, her mother, and another little girl who's our neighbor here. They played for awhile, decorated each other with body lotion and brushed their hair, had dinner and left again. Elynn burned the crap out of a pan, and, in our usual arrangement, she cooked so I clean. Happy Happy Joy Joy.
Now, what caught my eye in the Cargo magazine was this - a multi-function ladder. I had been thinking about buying one for awhile: since I'm now a homeowner, I have these responsibilities like cleaning out the gutters and doing minor repairs on the house exterior. Our wooden A-frame ladders don't work well outside, because most of our property has a slope. Our survey doesn't record the pitch of the property, but it's something like 6-10 feet over 90 feet. Also, we have some work to do on staircases, and A-frame ladders just plain won't work. This multi-function ladder came highly recommended by the magazine, and had some nice testimonials on Amazon, was about 1/2 the price of the popular Little Giant and not a cheap as the foreign knockoffs.
Amazon was selling the Climb Tek ladder for $180 with free shipping. They were also running a promotion - with $199 in Tools, $25 off. So I added on a couple of more things - no-slip grips to attach to the top of the ladder, a set of small metric sockets, and a Gator Grip wrench.
And placed the order. Ah, the joys of homeownership. One of the best feelings has to be the virtuous feeling one gets from buying nice tools with the inspiration of using them for home maintenance and improvement.
Now I just need a snow shovel. And a weed whacker (double as a lawn edger...). Maybe I can get these used....