Stocking Up

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
-- Hebrew Bible, Psalms 30:5.

Friday, September 14, 2001
One year ago: Balboa
Two years ago: Tone Poems
Three years ago: Bits and Pieces
Four years ago: Mozart Out the Window

We are gradually recovering from the WTC and Pentagon disasters. Jack gets irritated by talking heads or too much rehashing on TV; when I suggest listening to NPR (my choice at almost all times), that doesn't suit him either. "It's just the same news, over and over!" Listening to roll calls of victims' names makes me weep; it brings the reality of individual deaths home to me. I especially felt this when I saw shots of a wall, with "missing" posters people had made of their friends or relatives, like for lost pets. I haven't had nightmares or other anxiety symptoms, though.

I took Jack's daughter H---- to lindy hop class Thursday night. We'd talked about this as a possibility before, and she was still willing the night before. I think that Chris "Cat Daddy Chris" Chapman is a good teacher, and I know the beginning classes I took from him and Hep Jen in early 1998 were very helpful to me, so that's where I signed her up. Plus, I can take her to class, read a book for an hour, then get some dancing in at the after-class dance. We didn't stay late last night, since the beginning students weren't taught enough in one class to really start dancing. But H---- did do some practicing with classmates while I got a few dances in.

I hope she'll enjoy this; it's a good, fun activity, and Seattle has a lively all-ages swing dance scene. But I won't push it too hard if she doesn't want to continue.

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I was impressed by the prayer service held at National Cathedral this morning, even though the whole concept made me slightly uncomfortable. I just don't think religion and the presidency should mix! I do like the cathedral though -- a medieval-style stone building constructed in modern times. I was listening to the radio and washing dishes when Billy Graham was speaking. Powerful and dramatic!

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Jack and I did errands today. What started as a quick trip got extended, somehow. When I told Jack this felt like a Bellingham day, he asked, "Do you mean we did nothing in Bellingham but drive around?" I laughed! "It only seemed that way sometimes."

We've been thinking about where to store CDs in our new place. The two small bookcases Jack used before will be mostly taken up with DVDs and video tapes now. So, since we'd gotten a coupon for St. Vincent de Paul's, we decided to check them out; it was on the way to the storage unit where Jack wanted to put the trailer away. We struck out, though -- no suitable furniture was there. We bought a few things, but nothing major.

I can't say the same for our stop at McClendon Hardware: duplicate keys, lawn seed, weed-n-feed stuff, more furniture slides, a bypass pruner, and gardening gloves. The problem with the grass seed and fertilizer was getting small enough quantities for our little lawn.

As we were checking out, the cashier warned me several times that she might have to stop for the minute of silence scheduled for twelve thirty. We made it out of the store, though, in time to see a jet heading right into the sky, leaving a long contrail. The radio was silent for the minute, then started with Ray Charles' "America, the Beautiful."

As we were driving north, I asked Jack if he was up for a visit to Costco. We needed to stock the freezer we got last weekend! I've been studying up on "once a month cooking" and freezer cooking, which basically means preparing ingredients in bulk, ahead of time. So we bought ground beef, pork roasts, and beef top round, along with other Costco staples.

But our last errand of the afternoon was Jack's idea, not mine. He wanted to find the Closeout Store we'd shopped at some month ago, which is close to the Costco. But I couldn't remember exactly where it was! We did track it down after a few false trails, since I knew it was between Fourth and First avenues, and north of Costco.

Almost the first thing we saw was a coffee table, a warm wood tone, with drawers. It looked to me like it was designed for CD storage! There were two the same; one was gashed pretty bad, but the other one had only minor damage. The price was reasonable, but not a tremendous bargain. We walked on to look around the rest of the place.

This store specialized in returned or damaged merchandise from a variety of sources, but especially from Costco. We saw several of the same "Anti-gravity" massage chair we'd looked at at Costco, just a few minutes before! But the mark-down wasn't enough to make it worthwhile. Jack drooled over a flat-screen HDTV, but even at six thousand dollars it was still too much. He'll have to wait a few years, I think.

I was surprised to see that they had a bunch of merchandise from "Martha by Mail," Martha Stewart's catalog business. They had the spice rack (but no spices), jars, enamelware basins, bread boxes, copper wastebaskets, metal boxes, and painted trash cans. I didn't fall in love with anything enough to buy it. Most things had chips or dents, but some were minor.

We did decide to get the coffee table, though. It fit in Jack's Blazer, since the wooden drawers and the metal framework below aren't attached to each other. I also bought a new phone for my Capitol Hill place; the old one's handset has been funky for a while.

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We should have returned a bit sooner; H---- was home from school and had crawled in the window. Good thing we finally have enough keys! After we unloaded the furniture and all that food, I went into the front yard and tried out my new pruners on a golden privet that wants to revert to green. Meanwhile, H--- and Jack were disputing about calling her mother. We'd left a message for her last night about H---- coming down to see her, but no response yet. The problem was that Jack couldn't find his phone card.

Argh! But I remembered that I could use my long-distance plan with any phone. H--- reached her mom, and it was settled that we could drive down to Olympia this evening. But her mom warned Jack to make sure H--- was fed (!) because they'd have already eaten dinner by that time.

H--- was surprised when we asked her to make dinner. But we'd forgotten to schedule a special cooking night for her earlier in the week (we'll do that next week), so why not fix something for all of us out of the pantry. "But I don't want a grilled cheese sandwich; why should I make them?" So we settled on two sandwiches (for Jack and me), made the lower-fat way (toast, sliced cheese, heated in microwave oven), plus Healthy Choice Potato Ham soup for all of us. Meanwhile, Jack sliced or cut up some of the meat we'd purchased, and I marked the bags and ran them down to the freezer.

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I thought the traffic wasn't bad on our way to and from Olympia. I guess I repressed the memory of the time we were in stop-and-go traffic, which bothered Jack more than me (good thing I was driving). There were people on a highway overpass, holding candles, waving banners, and cheering. This naturally caused folks to slow down, I guess! H--- had a tape of the Enrique Iglesias song "Hero," which a NYC station had altered to include audio of people involved with the WTC attack. I let her play it on my car stereo so we could hear it once, but I don't think it's very good, if good is the word that applies. I guess I mean that I wasn't particularly moved by it.

I'd thought that Jack and I might stop and see a movie on the way back, but when we pulled off at a Tacoma multiplex, there wasn't anything Jack was interested in seeing. I'm surprised he doesn't want to see "Rock Star;" he was in a band in the late seventies. But he says that he doesn't want to relive that time in his life. So we just got a snack at Jack in the Box instead.