So I'm a little late posting. Been in NH for the weekend, which was much fun. Though the trip there wasn't exactly auspicious. First it took until almost midnight for us to get out of the house (the Boy had a nasty headache), and then while he was sleeping in the car, I missed our offramp and got lost! It was the first time I'd driven us there (as opposed to home) and somehow... we just went past.
When I got to the point that I was pretty certain we'd passed it and phoned
kolyada to confirm we were lost and let her know we weren't dead, we were already about 5 minutes from Maine... so we decided to pop up there and collect it before turning around. Now I have all of New England! Woo! (And to answer
icecreamemperor from a while back: no, it's not to "win" the next time the map meme comes around. ;) It just seemed like a fun little goal to collect all 50.)
On the way back, one might think I'd speed so that
kolyada could stop waiting up for us. Well, I didn't mean to, and I swear the spedometer only said I was 4 miles over when I glanced down, but a cop pulled us over. Now usually this wouldn't be so bad (aside from the possible cost and points on the record) but =I can't find my license=. I don't know where it could've gone, though I'm still hunting through the house before I give up and get a new one issued. And then it turned out that a whlie back the Boy cleaned out the glovebox and wasn't thinking and threw out all the little papers... like the old registrations. So the cop asks for my license and registration, and I did the only thing I could think of: fake it and stall for time. Plus, hey, it's =technically= possible, if highly improbable, that I somehow missed it in my wallet before. So I checked, and the Boy and I discovered the registration situation, and meanwhile the guy had parked so his headlights AND flashers were reflected right off my wing mirror into my eyes, and THEN come over and was shining his (incredibly bright) flashlight in my eyes... not one of my best experiences thus far, I gotta say. But miracle of miracles: a call came over his radio, and apparently it was more interesting than we were, 'cause he suddenly said we could go, just slow it down, and he left. Praise be to whom or whatever you think most deserving. So we continued onward, then. Very, very slowly.
This trip was also my maiden voyage into
craigslist. See, I wanted a portable dishwasher. The Boy is supposed to do the dishes, but never does it when he hasn't got a job and now never does it 'cause he's too tired. So: dishwasher, and then we can both do it better. I found one for $50 and one for $60, but was beaten to both of them after my first inquiries, and then! Another $50 one, this one in Kolyada's city! Perfect, thought I. Then I thought, why not check for some other items I could use? This resulted in two other possibilities: a
gazelle elite workout machine, and
the 1st season of QAF on DVD. Since I've wanted that for four years and it was $20 instead of $80, I said, woo!
So Sunday morning, we (me, the Boy, Kolyada) headed to the home of the lady with the exercise machine. She had a neat house, and was extremely nice, as was her remarkably tiny cat. 5 years old, but only 6lbs, all of them love. <3 The woman was selling the machine 'cause she's had (and is having more) back surgery, she said, and I tried out the machine and found that yes, it was still kinda fun. So we bought it and carted it down to the Beast, managing to get it into the far-back seat. The thing is pretty big and hefty... it's still in the car, because the Boy refuses to take it out until after work. Alas.
That done, we decided it was time for dinner. We picked up
thren and all went to (iirc) "
Markey's Lobster Pound." I ate two entire lobsters, which I had been dubious I was capable of. They were tasty, o yes. One of the Boy's lobsters was clearly female, as its tail portion was full of roe. In fact, there was a huge chunk of it in there, about the size of the first joint of your thumb, as well as just coating the area just under the shell. And the Boy ate it. Ew. He admitted later that it was, indeed, disgusting, but we were all watching him so he wasn't going to admit it. Silly thing. Anyway, I stuck to my nice safe boy-lobsters, myself.
Stuffed with seafood, we went back to Kolyada's and dropped Thren off. A little later, I got in contact with the guy who was selling QAF, and we headed out to Brighton to find him and make the exchange.
Unfortunately, Brighton turns out to be rather a pain to get to. We got so incredibly lost, even with the mapping program -- the problem is how terribly the streets are marked there, i.e., they aren't. Finally, we called the guy, and at first even that didn't work. Then I saw a lady next to us at the light with her front window down, so I rolled mine down and asked her how to get to Brighton. She kindly (blessings of all kinds be upon her) led us most of the way there, and pointed us in the right direction to go the rest of the way. From there, we got phone-guidance, and eventually, finally, we found the right place. The guy was standing on his porch waving for us so we'd see him; it was amusing. Anyway, the DVDs had no box, which was sad, but they =were= the original DVDs, and hey, $20. I'll sacrifice the box for $60+. Our ice cream plans were foiled for the evening, as it was nearly 10 by then, so we headed back to kolyada's and spent several hours eating pizza and watching QAF, as she hadn't seen much of it. I'm such a bad influence. O:)
Now, all this time, I've been emailing the dishwasher guy, and getting an answer now and then -- he's going to bring it up from the basement and clean and test it and will mail by noon; he got caught up in things and forgot to mail; he's cleaned it but not tested it yet... Monday morning, still no phone number or address or agreement as to a time we can come by. I send email after email... until 10pm, when we leave NH, and I tell him too late, buddy. It's not like I hadn't told him we'd be there for the =weekend=. I am decidedly miffed about this; the dishwasher was the one I wanted =most=. But I am thwarted. Sigh. If you wonder why I was trying to buy one out there -- well, the local craigslist rather sucks. Really, it's v. slow. The Boston one, on the other hand... that one =moves=. There are no portable diswashers for sale in the capital district. Well, perhaps next time...
Meanwhile, those of you who actually view my journal (not many, I'm sure -- I know I rarely see any of yours) will have noticed that I have (another) new style. This one's called NinjaAttack, based on
veroz's "Cuteness Attack!". I'm sure you can all imagine my reaction to the idea of having a pastel pink journal (given that I don't like pink much and I'm not big on pastels either), but I liked the basic design idea. So I snagged it and I've been hacking it into a shape I prefer over the past couple days. Not done yet, so if you notice bugs (like the fact that at the moment the nav links at the bottom of pages aren't in the right place) that's why. I'll post when I consider it done -- if you find weirdness after -that-, please please let me know. Next things to deal with: the little left-side boxes, and then the whole calendar/archive area.
I also missed bookpost day. I'm thinking of just skipping it and doing the second half of June along with July in August. Mmm.
I did, however, get to see fireworks yesterday -- in the car just before and while driving home. That made me happy.
P.S.: Fixed the nav link thing. IE is rendering the page extremely bizarrely; no, that isn't what it should look like. Opera 8 shows it perfectly (well, for how it is so far) and Firefox is nearly perfect -- it renders random underlines of the last lines of some entries, and I don't know why yet.