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January 2005

The Weekend

 

Things I enjoyed this weekend:

  • My long, pointless, and aimless Saturday drive which ended in Sacramento, and involved taking lots of pictures, some of which I may post some day…
  • The new Target in Albany, with its two levels, its cheap food department, and its seeming lack of long lines…
  • Even more cheap stuff at the new Winco in Vacaville…
  • Lunch at one of the only Chick-fil-A outlets in California…
  • Dinner at Gaspare’s Friday night with Dan, Jamie, and Eugene…
  • The Three Faces of Eve…

Things I could have skipped this weekend:

  • Doing emergency repairs on the kitchen sink — using a combination of duct tape and electrical tape — in a valiant effort to keep the damned thing working until we move into an apartment in Charlotte which (we hope) doesn’t have 90-year-old plumbing…
  • The traffic on the Bay Bridge last night as my cheap frozen food from Target and extra Chick-fil-A takeout began wilting in the car…
  • Having to wrap myself in two comforters because I (a) have no circulation to speak of lately, and (b) had no boy to snuggle with…

The Joys of Lowered Expectations

The other night, I went to dinner with some friends. I was all giddy when we found a parking space only three blocks away from the restaurant. One of the things I’ll really miss when I leave The Land of Lowered Expectations™ is this ability to get all excited about small things that people in almost any other city would find quite unspectacular…

For example, any of these can give me that warm, squishy feeling of being the luckiest guy on earth right now, but it probably won’t be that way in Charlotte:

  • Going out to the car and discovering that it hasn’t been broken into.
  • Coming home and not finding someone smoking crack or shooting up on the doorstep.
  • Going to the supermarket on a weekend and actually being able to find bread and milk.
  • Having a bus arrive on time and actually being able to sit down once on board.
  • Walking a whole three blocks without being spoken to by a single homeless person or Scientologist.
  • Getting through a day without having to smell marijuana smoke nor urine in any public place.
  • Visiting heated and air conditioned buildings with adequate plumbing.