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It's weekend recap time! (This message brought to you by the lovely ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
serinthia, who is leaving my hands free by driving my truck to work for us!)
Friday evening sawposicat coming up to visit after work for some playing with careful quality testing of the emulation computer. Hardware wise it was pretty stable, but there seemed to be some kind of bug in the SNES emulator that wasn't letting us use the joypads I have. Oh well; more work required, as usual.
After that, he andwooisme and I went on a run to Woodman's lasting until just after eleven o' clock. This was very reminiscent of the occasional forays my brother and I would go out on some years ago. Though Kenosha is getting a little bigger these days, there has never been a great deal to do at three o' clock in the morning, so wandering down to the grocery store at three o' clock on a summer morning, neither of us having to wake up early for school, and taking in the variety of unusual folks who frequent a grocery store at stupid o' clock was a great way to pass the time between sessions of movies and video games.
Posi picked up some cheese that I'd never tried before, Port du Salut, and Andrea did some grocery shopping for the house. It was getting pretty late when we got back so Posi didn't stay long, be he did hang around and chat long enough for us to divide up the cheese between ourselves. Yum! Thanks for coming by Posi; it's always good to see you!
Saturday, in accordance with Andrea's plans, we woke up earlier than I can remember exactly, or really want to think about. Fortunately, after getting ready to go and trundling out to the car, she drove and let me nap on the down to our destination of the moment; Woodfield Mall! Yes, we were driving down there for the Torrid model search, so my sweetie was looking very fetching as we pulled up to the door in the nearly empty parking lot of the mall.
There's something mystical about being in a large, typically populated area and being almost alone. Apart from some cleaning staff, we wandered trough the cavernous hallways with their darkened stores and vast, silent courts unaccompanied. I think we were even too early for the morning exercising mallwalkers. As we finally came upon the junction of corridors where the signup was being held, Andre took her place in the line of perhaps thirty or forty people while I wandered off to find a restroom.
A couple more ghostly passages later, I found my destination and, as I was beginning to wake up by now, took the opportunity to play with my hair. I made the top part into a ponytail, then pulled the remaining loose part back and made it into another tail that I combined with the first tail with another elastic. I rather liked the way that turned out, and I walked back to find my sweetie with my hair thus restrained.
The line had grown a little bit but, not too very much. I stood and chatted with Andrea for a few minutes, took my hair brush out and brushed her hair out again (I cannot believe how long it's getting!), and then went to sit down on the bench with the cute boy with the laptop who I'd been eyeing up. (It was the only bench in the area, oh so sad.)
Just as I was, Laptop Boy was there with his girlfriend, so we both had a while to wait. We chatted briefly about things foreign languages (he's had a couple years of German) and computers. By this point, the line was starting to get fairly long as people queued up to await the start of things, and a third, much less interesting, guy sat down on the bench between the two of us. Oh well.
I was getting pretty tired again so I turned around and kind of leaned along the back of the bench and took a series of short naps. Before too long, Andrea was waking me up and letting me know it was time to go. The two of us got up and walked back along toward our exit. Wow! If I thought the line was long before, I was sadly mistaken. It now stretched out all the back along the hall to the next junction of corridors. There must have been easily over five or six hundred people. We stopped into Torrid for Andrea to use her 25% off card that she'd receieved for signing up (Hi Laptop Boy!) and we headed out.
Our next stop, since we were right there in the neighborhood, was Ikea. There's something compelling about wandering around a three story building full of things with names like 'Oltag' and 'Shmeker'. I sat in a few chairs, but didn't find any I quite wanted to buy. We looked at a few wall hangings, but didn't find any I quite wanted to buy (though I almost bought one themed on Da Vinci's drawings of the form of man).
Next was Mitsuwa, where we again had a much fun not buying anything. I looked at a few books (Wow, Japanese versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Wizard of Oz, and even Gone with the Wind!), and probably made a fool out of myself by pointing hiragana out to Andrea and sounding them out. I also bought two pairs of hashi (chopsticks) to practice eating with. If I'm going to visit the country someday, I should probably lean how to use the utensils. I was amused to see, having read that very morning on the way down that Japanese consider four an unlucky number and never sell anything in that number, that all the sticks and other utensils were in sets of three or five; never four. I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it, but the realization was kind of neat. It sounds like Mitsuwa is having a big charity sale in a few weeks; I'm definitely going to stop by and see if I can get some more books at a discount.
Lunch was Chang Jang buffet; we tend to stop there when we're in the area since it's one of the better Chinese buffets we've been to. And finally, we took a leisurely route home along US 12, which used to be the main road up toward Milwaukee and Lake Geneva before the interstates came on the scene. We were hoping for more old tourist trap kind of sights, and there were a few along the way (There was a water park we may check out next year that looked like it had been there a long time. That was neat.), but for the most part, it was just more suburban sprawl. It's sad.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up a bit and doing laundry while Andrea napped. Raccoon was tired! I got most of the central floor of our bedroom clean and fought several more times with the drainage hose from the washer. I'm going to have to buy more hose for it I think; I can't make it stop coming loose, even with my mad-1337 jury-rigging skills. That's okay; just having working laundry machines is a wonderful thing.
More to write about Sunday, but I'm nearly to work now; I'll see if I can get to that on the way home.
serinthia, who is leaving my hands free by driving my truck to work for us!)Friday evening saw
posicat coming up to visit after work for some After that, he and
wooisme and I went on a run to Woodman's lasting until just after eleven o' clock. This was very reminiscent of the occasional forays my brother and I would go out on some years ago. Though Kenosha is getting a little bigger these days, there has never been a great deal to do at three o' clock in the morning, so wandering down to the grocery store at three o' clock on a summer morning, neither of us having to wake up early for school, and taking in the variety of unusual folks who frequent a grocery store at stupid o' clock was a great way to pass the time between sessions of movies and video games.Posi picked up some cheese that I'd never tried before, Port du Salut, and Andrea did some grocery shopping for the house. It was getting pretty late when we got back so Posi didn't stay long, be he did hang around and chat long enough for us to divide up the cheese between ourselves. Yum! Thanks for coming by Posi; it's always good to see you!
Saturday, in accordance with Andrea's plans, we woke up earlier than I can remember exactly, or really want to think about. Fortunately, after getting ready to go and trundling out to the car, she drove and let me nap on the down to our destination of the moment; Woodfield Mall! Yes, we were driving down there for the Torrid model search, so my sweetie was looking very fetching as we pulled up to the door in the nearly empty parking lot of the mall.
There's something mystical about being in a large, typically populated area and being almost alone. Apart from some cleaning staff, we wandered trough the cavernous hallways with their darkened stores and vast, silent courts unaccompanied. I think we were even too early for the morning exercising mallwalkers. As we finally came upon the junction of corridors where the signup was being held, Andre took her place in the line of perhaps thirty or forty people while I wandered off to find a restroom.
A couple more ghostly passages later, I found my destination and, as I was beginning to wake up by now, took the opportunity to play with my hair. I made the top part into a ponytail, then pulled the remaining loose part back and made it into another tail that I combined with the first tail with another elastic. I rather liked the way that turned out, and I walked back to find my sweetie with my hair thus restrained.
The line had grown a little bit but, not too very much. I stood and chatted with Andrea for a few minutes, took my hair brush out and brushed her hair out again (I cannot believe how long it's getting!), and then went to sit down on the bench with the cute boy with the laptop who I'd been eyeing up. (It was the only bench in the area, oh so sad.)
Just as I was, Laptop Boy was there with his girlfriend, so we both had a while to wait. We chatted briefly about things foreign languages (he's had a couple years of German) and computers. By this point, the line was starting to get fairly long as people queued up to await the start of things, and a third, much less interesting, guy sat down on the bench between the two of us. Oh well.
I was getting pretty tired again so I turned around and kind of leaned along the back of the bench and took a series of short naps. Before too long, Andrea was waking me up and letting me know it was time to go. The two of us got up and walked back along toward our exit. Wow! If I thought the line was long before, I was sadly mistaken. It now stretched out all the back along the hall to the next junction of corridors. There must have been easily over five or six hundred people. We stopped into Torrid for Andrea to use her 25% off card that she'd receieved for signing up (Hi Laptop Boy!) and we headed out.
Our next stop, since we were right there in the neighborhood, was Ikea. There's something compelling about wandering around a three story building full of things with names like 'Oltag' and 'Shmeker'. I sat in a few chairs, but didn't find any I quite wanted to buy. We looked at a few wall hangings, but didn't find any I quite wanted to buy (though I almost bought one themed on Da Vinci's drawings of the form of man).
Next was Mitsuwa, where we again had a much fun not buying anything. I looked at a few books (Wow, Japanese versions of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Wizard of Oz, and even Gone with the Wind!), and probably made a fool out of myself by pointing hiragana out to Andrea and sounding them out. I also bought two pairs of hashi (chopsticks) to practice eating with. If I'm going to visit the country someday, I should probably lean how to use the utensils. I was amused to see, having read that very morning on the way down that Japanese consider four an unlucky number and never sell anything in that number, that all the sticks and other utensils were in sets of three or five; never four. I wouldn't have noticed if I wasn't looking for it, but the realization was kind of neat. It sounds like Mitsuwa is having a big charity sale in a few weeks; I'm definitely going to stop by and see if I can get some more books at a discount.
Lunch was Chang Jang buffet; we tend to stop there when we're in the area since it's one of the better Chinese buffets we've been to. And finally, we took a leisurely route home along US 12, which used to be the main road up toward Milwaukee and Lake Geneva before the interstates came on the scene. We were hoping for more old tourist trap kind of sights, and there were a few along the way (There was a water park we may check out next year that looked like it had been there a long time. That was neat.), but for the most part, it was just more suburban sprawl. It's sad.
The rest of the day was spent cleaning up a bit and doing laundry while Andrea napped. Raccoon was tired! I got most of the central floor of our bedroom clean and fought several more times with the drainage hose from the washer. I'm going to have to buy more hose for it I think; I can't make it stop coming loose, even with my mad-1337 jury-rigging skills. That's okay; just having working laundry machines is a wonderful thing.
More to write about Sunday, but I'm nearly to work now; I'll see if I can get to that on the way home.
