Other than my computer crashing and burning, it was a nice weekend. On Friday night we had dinner with Lee, who was in town with her husband Russ working the Animazement con. We were hoping Russ could spend some time with us too, but he was in the grips of a major hardware problem and had to spend the evening searching Raleigh for an obscure cable. (A 25 pin to 25 pin parallel cable, both ends male, with no centronics, in case you're interested.)
On Saturday I was relieved to find out that Russ, although unable to find the cable, had been able to rig up an alternate solution. So his receipt printer worked for the rest of the weekend, which I'm sure saved him a lot of time. Lee and I had lunch at Neomonde in Morrisville. Which has an interesting little grocery section. Besides the obvious things, like grape leaves and tahini, they also sold some things I'd never seen before like rose jam, date paste, and a bunch of interesting cheeses. I would have bought some cheese if I'd had a way to keep it cold.
We took a takeout lunch back to Russ -- which involved much negotiating of the hotel parking lot, where I wasn't allowed to stop for more than a minute -- and then headed out to Chapel Hill/Carrboro for the afternoon. We went to Carr Mill Mall, where Lee enjoyed the bead shop and we both shopped a bit at that store where everything is blue. Turns out they have Fiesta dishes, and best of all they're getting rid of most of their Fiesta stock, so it was on sale! I bought a deep oval dish in plum (the deep purple) and a small tumbler in a pretty bright blue I'd never seen before. It might be Peacock, last year's new color. I am so out of date on Fiesta. I used to keep up pretty well & get at least one piece in every new color. Then my favorite internet seller went out of business, and I just haven't been buying it since then. Also, I pretty much have all the dishes I need, which greatly reduces the desire to buy more dishes.
After Carr Mill Mall we walked up and down Franklin Street. Which, to be honest, has more restaurants and fewer cool shops than I remembered. On the way back to the car we ducked through the NCNB building and ended up at that tiny used CD store. Which was great! Nice guy running that place. He has a small but good jazz section and I bought 3 things: The Song is Hoagy Carmichael, a Johnny Hartman CD, and a 3-CD set of Benny Goodman from 1935-36.
We also went to Cafe Driade for some refreshment and a very small BPAL meet n sniff. Lee has a terrific storage system for travel: she keeps her imps in small vials designed for beads, threaded on a chain so they stay together, and carries the whole thing in a small beaded bag.
Today I took it easy. All I did was help with the laundry, space bag my winter clothes, and fish feed the garden. This time I waited until early evening when it was cool, but hoo boy, that stuff still stinks. I fed almost everything: the vegetable garden, the roses, the asparagus, the nasturtiums, and all the perennials I wanted to have a boost. The only thing I missed was the blueberries and the hydrangeas. I used up almost all the fish emulsion. Which is kind of a bummer! That stuff was expensive and I only got 2 feedings out of it. I think there's enough left to do a "foliar feeding" (mix it up in a sprayer and spray the leaves instead of watering the ground). I'll try to do that in 2 weeks.
3 Comments
ha! your divaville purchasing-obsession begins already! :-)
I know it, I couldn't resist! I bought that stuff even though I wasn't sure if I already have some of it from you. The guy at the store said I could exchange them within a week though, so it seemed worth the risk.
That was fun! I really enjoyed hanging out with you and Georg, and getting to see some of the city. Neomonde is definitely on the go-back list the next time we're in town, too.
One minor clarification: the chain of imps-in-vials usually just stays in my travel toiletries kit. I put it into the little pouch because that was the easiest way to bring it along on the tour. Those are 2" seed-bead vials from Fire Mountain Gems; they cost something like $3.00 for a bag of 10. The chain (which is sold by the foot) and connector can be had at any hardware store.