Holiday Weekend, Day 2
Dec. 20th, 2004 10:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothI got home from Day 1 at 1am, and stumbled into bed. My head was splitting from a horrible neck ache just like the one I'd had a couple weeks ago, which had made the last few hours with the family unbearable. My mom had tried to give me a neckrub to make it feel better, but... well...
In the morning, I felt better, although again my neck was still giving warning twinges. This time, though, I noticed that my neck flared up *especially* bad when I hung the old-style headphones around my neck, like I'd been doing ALL DAY the previous day... and all day the other day, two weeks ago, when I'd had similar symptoms. Mystery solved? I hope so, because that's something I can easily stop doing.
I was up fairly early, but I spent some time playing KotOR 2 before heading over. I knew that once I got there I'd be trapped forever, so I needed to have a little alone time, especially considering that I was going back to work Monday and Tuesday.
When I got there, we left fairly quickly to get mom's I-POD fixed. Or, well, replaced. Exchanged. Alex tried to set up an appointment at the 'genius bar', but the website had the button grayed out -- worrysome! So he drove us to this mall-like thing in the U-District, where they had a huge apple store, where we saw the reason for the situation -- the geniuses were all walking around providing general customer service to the HUGE HOARD of people invading the store.
Oh, and one of them was giving a presentation about OS-X on a big screen to a completely empty theater. Alex scowled.
We managed to rope one into handling our problem, though. He agreed that, yes, the I-POD was broken, and yes, it had been purchased two days ago, so we deserved a replacement. They didn't *have* any replacements, of course... calling around, though, he found one left in the store in Bellevue Square, and had them put a hold on it for us.
I should mention at this point the parking arrangement in this little strip mall. There were tons of ordinary parking lots, but they were all full, so we were forced to use the garage. 'Free parking!' it advertised. 'Six levels of parking!' it proudly proclaimed. What it didn't mention was that each level had space for only three rows of cars, and not very long rows at that -- it was a teeny, squished garage. We ended up parking on 'C is for Cow' level, and had to listen to 'mooing' noises continuously while getting out of the car and waiting for the elevator.
Just as we got back into our car and left the garage, though, Anna and mom both decided that they had to go to the bathroom. We had no intention of parking again -- the lots were nightmarishly crowded, and the garage was unpleasant -- so we let them off and milled about the parking lot until they were finished, mocking the pedestrians and other cars who *weren't* just wasting time.
At any rate, we headed to Bellevue Square next. It was also really crowded. The apple store there was smaller, but there were a few geniuses at the bar. One of them told us that, yes, the i-pod we'd had reserved was waiting for us, and 'this guy here'll get to you as soon as he's finished'. 'This guy' responded, "That'll be about fifteen to twenty minutes." Apparently, he was in the middle of giving a hard sell to a reluctant potential mac buyer. Fortunately, the first genius decided that it was probably okay for him to open the box and give us the i-pod himself, and we got out of there after a few minutes.
Before leaving the mall, we stopped at the ferry-playground to let Stevie run around and grin cheerily at the other kids -- Anna was worried that he'd be shy, like her, and mom, and me, and all our family, but he's not. We also stopped at the lego store, so that the nominal grownups could ooh and ahh at all the little displays, and buy a few toys to put together later...
By that time, it was 3pm. Mom wanted to buy me a cell phone -- she really liked her Virgin Mobile pre-pay, and thought that it was crazy that I didn't have one myself. There was a drug store across the street, a Bartells, which would have them. We had two hours until our dinner reservations. Would we have time to cross the street, buy the phone, and make the fifteen minute drive to the restaurant?
Yes, we actually seriously discussed whether we'd have time, and decided to take the risk.
The answer was 'yes, but just barely'. And only because our reservation hadn't gone through, and we had to re-reserve a table for six instead. I swear, I don't know what it IS with my family, but when I'm in there presence, time flows differently. I shudder to think what'll happen if Anna and Alex have more kids -- we'll all get together for thanksgiving or something, tear a hole in the fabric of space and time, and unleash a hoard of zombie ghosts on the world!
The restaurant we went to was a family italian place, that was apparently highly rated by critics, according to the blurbs on the walls in their lobby, which we had plenty of time to contemplate as we waited for them to actually get a table for us. The food was... acceptable. Not really worth the prices they were charging, in my opinion -- it wasn't very flavorful. No spice. We had dreary spinach pizza, and tough beef cacciatore set atop bland, mushy mashed potatoes, and some eggplant parmesan which was the highlight of the meal, despite not having much parmesan.
Stevie made a horrible mess of the food, piling it up in front of him as if taking a share for himself. He wouldn't actually eat it, though, until we got an extra plate for him and moved the food to it -- until then, he'd just keep stealing food from other peoples' plates and piling it up, then he'd forget about it and go for more.
We had plenty of leftovers, so we ordered dessert to go (a tiramisu, soaked in rum -- not something Alex wanted to eat before driving) and headed home to... well, to talk about politics.
It wasn't a very productive discussion -- we all agreed on pretty much everything. Eventually, we stopped, put the baby to bed, and mom went to choose which music she'd actually steal. To Alex's dismay, she chose pretty much everything -- even things we knew she'd hate, like Nine Inch Nails and Beck. "You were supposed to pick out the things you recognized, and then we'd add stuff we thought you'd like!" he wailed, and then went to work culling her list, while mom and Anna went to sleep, because it was already midnight.
When I headed home, he was still at 6.15 gigs, trying to get it down to a single DVD.
I'm glad this is a short week at work -- I need a vacation.
In the morning, I felt better, although again my neck was still giving warning twinges. This time, though, I noticed that my neck flared up *especially* bad when I hung the old-style headphones around my neck, like I'd been doing ALL DAY the previous day... and all day the other day, two weeks ago, when I'd had similar symptoms. Mystery solved? I hope so, because that's something I can easily stop doing.
I was up fairly early, but I spent some time playing KotOR 2 before heading over. I knew that once I got there I'd be trapped forever, so I needed to have a little alone time, especially considering that I was going back to work Monday and Tuesday.
When I got there, we left fairly quickly to get mom's I-POD fixed. Or, well, replaced. Exchanged. Alex tried to set up an appointment at the 'genius bar', but the website had the button grayed out -- worrysome! So he drove us to this mall-like thing in the U-District, where they had a huge apple store, where we saw the reason for the situation -- the geniuses were all walking around providing general customer service to the HUGE HOARD of people invading the store.
Oh, and one of them was giving a presentation about OS-X on a big screen to a completely empty theater. Alex scowled.
We managed to rope one into handling our problem, though. He agreed that, yes, the I-POD was broken, and yes, it had been purchased two days ago, so we deserved a replacement. They didn't *have* any replacements, of course... calling around, though, he found one left in the store in Bellevue Square, and had them put a hold on it for us.
I should mention at this point the parking arrangement in this little strip mall. There were tons of ordinary parking lots, but they were all full, so we were forced to use the garage. 'Free parking!' it advertised. 'Six levels of parking!' it proudly proclaimed. What it didn't mention was that each level had space for only three rows of cars, and not very long rows at that -- it was a teeny, squished garage. We ended up parking on 'C is for Cow' level, and had to listen to 'mooing' noises continuously while getting out of the car and waiting for the elevator.
Just as we got back into our car and left the garage, though, Anna and mom both decided that they had to go to the bathroom. We had no intention of parking again -- the lots were nightmarishly crowded, and the garage was unpleasant -- so we let them off and milled about the parking lot until they were finished, mocking the pedestrians and other cars who *weren't* just wasting time.
At any rate, we headed to Bellevue Square next. It was also really crowded. The apple store there was smaller, but there were a few geniuses at the bar. One of them told us that, yes, the i-pod we'd had reserved was waiting for us, and 'this guy here'll get to you as soon as he's finished'. 'This guy' responded, "That'll be about fifteen to twenty minutes." Apparently, he was in the middle of giving a hard sell to a reluctant potential mac buyer. Fortunately, the first genius decided that it was probably okay for him to open the box and give us the i-pod himself, and we got out of there after a few minutes.
Before leaving the mall, we stopped at the ferry-playground to let Stevie run around and grin cheerily at the other kids -- Anna was worried that he'd be shy, like her, and mom, and me, and all our family, but he's not. We also stopped at the lego store, so that the nominal grownups could ooh and ahh at all the little displays, and buy a few toys to put together later...
By that time, it was 3pm. Mom wanted to buy me a cell phone -- she really liked her Virgin Mobile pre-pay, and thought that it was crazy that I didn't have one myself. There was a drug store across the street, a Bartells, which would have them. We had two hours until our dinner reservations. Would we have time to cross the street, buy the phone, and make the fifteen minute drive to the restaurant?
Yes, we actually seriously discussed whether we'd have time, and decided to take the risk.
The answer was 'yes, but just barely'. And only because our reservation hadn't gone through, and we had to re-reserve a table for six instead. I swear, I don't know what it IS with my family, but when I'm in there presence, time flows differently. I shudder to think what'll happen if Anna and Alex have more kids -- we'll all get together for thanksgiving or something, tear a hole in the fabric of space and time, and unleash a hoard of zombie ghosts on the world!
The restaurant we went to was a family italian place, that was apparently highly rated by critics, according to the blurbs on the walls in their lobby, which we had plenty of time to contemplate as we waited for them to actually get a table for us. The food was... acceptable. Not really worth the prices they were charging, in my opinion -- it wasn't very flavorful. No spice. We had dreary spinach pizza, and tough beef cacciatore set atop bland, mushy mashed potatoes, and some eggplant parmesan which was the highlight of the meal, despite not having much parmesan.
Stevie made a horrible mess of the food, piling it up in front of him as if taking a share for himself. He wouldn't actually eat it, though, until we got an extra plate for him and moved the food to it -- until then, he'd just keep stealing food from other peoples' plates and piling it up, then he'd forget about it and go for more.
We had plenty of leftovers, so we ordered dessert to go (a tiramisu, soaked in rum -- not something Alex wanted to eat before driving) and headed home to... well, to talk about politics.
It wasn't a very productive discussion -- we all agreed on pretty much everything. Eventually, we stopped, put the baby to bed, and mom went to choose which music she'd actually steal. To Alex's dismay, she chose pretty much everything -- even things we knew she'd hate, like Nine Inch Nails and Beck. "You were supposed to pick out the things you recognized, and then we'd add stuff we thought you'd like!" he wailed, and then went to work culling her list, while mom and Anna went to sleep, because it was already midnight.
When I headed home, he was still at 6.15 gigs, trying to get it down to a single DVD.
I'm glad this is a short week at work -- I need a vacation.
