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Craft Supplies
The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust.
-- Elizabeth Bowen
Friday, December 6, 2002
Two years ago: Festivus
Four year ago: A Bug's Life
Five year ago: Carnival
Today was a day with a lot of driving around! My main mission was to gather all the needed supplies and tools for a craft project I'm doing with my nephews tomorrow. My first stop was at the cingular store in Southcenter. I paid my cellphone bill by writing a check and submitting it to the handy reverse-atm machine. Afterwards I had to wait quite a while until the young man working there was free to help me reassemble my phone. I'd dropped it while messing with the machine, and I wanted to be sure I was putting it together again correctly -- every piece that could come off of it had flown off when it hit the floor! Back, front, keypad, and the innards! But we got it reassembled; the key point is to put the back on first. He was kept busy for what seemed like a very long time by a low-life family trying to return grandma's dysfunctional cell phone.
I ate lunch at quiznos next door, which was doing landoffice business. The toasting of the sub really does make a difference! I had considered eating at a mongolian grill place in the same strip mall but they didn't have all-you-can eat, which I consider a key part of the mongolian grill experience.
Off to craft shopping. (I resisted the stores that were off-task to today's mission, like Cost Plus Imports and Ross's, even though they were right there!) This marble magnet making seems to be a popular craft! Michaels had the silicone glue and the flat-sided clear marbles. Jo@nne's had the magnets. But neither store had the all-important 3/4 inch circular punch! (Both stores stock these items -- they were just sold out.)
The Paper Zone didn't have the correct punch either, though they had large racks of punches that die-cut other little shapes, for scrapbooking, making your own cards, or making fancy confetti.
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At this point I got smart, went home, and started phoning some places. Impress at University Village had the punch and they would put it aside for me! It was nearly rush hour by the time I got there -- there just isn't any easy way to travel from West Seattle to University Village, which is beyond the U-district.
Being at that shopping center reminded me of when I used to take my mother there. It was a good expedition from our apartment on Capitol Hill -- she could sit by the fountain while I did some grocery shopping. They've enlarged and fancified the place since then. After I bought the paper punch and admired all the cool stamps and little tin boxes, I decided to hand out at the mall until traffic died down.
I windowshopped through Restoration Hardware, Anthropologie, a garden shop, some nice boutiques, and Bartells. At Barnes and Noble I bought several books (I've really been restraining myself lately), then had dinner at World Wrapps. I went back to B&N and read in a comfy chair near where some young girls were volunteering to wrap packages in return for donations. They weren't as busy as they'd have liked to be.
I was pleased to find new books by Carla Kelly, Jo Beverly, and a collection of Christmas stories from Mary Jo Putney.
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