howeird | Early for a change. (Reply)

Slept in as planned, Spook came up on the bed to be petted at about 10, and stuck around for quite a while, parking herself at my feet on the quilt. Most of the rest of the morning she spent in the doggie bed in the bedroom. I gave her treats when I got to the kitchen.

I tried on the SAS shoes, and unfortunately there were three showstoppers. First, they were too narrow. The velcro closures didn't reach across far enough for the fuzzy hooks to reach the grabber part. Second, they slipped at the heel - not enough height at the back. And third, while the uppers are fine grain leather, the sole is not so fine hard plastic.

So Plan A became returning the shoes via UPS. I have to say SAS shipping is a class act, the box contains a pre-paid return label, an RMA form, and even a wet-and-stick industrial strength piece of paper tape to re-seal the box.

The rest of Plan A became:
CVS (same shopping center as the UPS store) for Vitamin D, a mop with plastic bristles and vinyl tile cleaner for the kitchen floor project, and small storage containers for my lunch box. I've been using KFC's excellent ones, but only have three of the smallest size, and don't feel like buying more to-go meals to get more.

I got completely turned around - instead of taking the most direct route, my car GPS took the allegedly shortest along the 85 freeway, and I took the wrong exit, and when I got to El Camino I was completely turned around and heading into Mountain View. My brain had convinced me it was the right direction. This has happened to me a couple of times recently, and I blame not-so-early-onset something or other for kicking in my internal GPS from the many years I lived in MV as soon as I saw familiar landmarks.

At Grant, I took a left instead of a U-turn because there was a 99 Ranch Asian supermarket up that way, and sure enough they had a big selection of Mama noodle flavors. I bought one of each that I didn't already have, and two of a couple I figured would taste great. On the down side, there were none of my favorite Asian fruits in season, and there were no frozen egg rolls in sight. I nipped over to the cafe and bought some hot egg rolls, one huge ha gow, and three fat bombs. The only other thing I got from the main store was flying fish eggs. One great thing about 99 Ranch in the summer is lots of pretty Asian gals in short shorts or miniskirts.

On to Sunnyvale.

Finally got there, and UPS was closed. Grrr. They were open Sundays recently, not any more. Drove to the other end of the parking lot and went to CVS. They had no nylon bristle mops, no vinyl cleaner, no small storage containers. They had Vitamin D, 2 for 1, $10 for 220 1000-unit capsules. With all the sunshine we've been getting, I chose not to buy the higher dosages.

Next stop, Home Depot, which had all the things. I got the last dusty half-gallon jug of heavy duty vinyl cleaner, and a jug of after-cleaner shiner, and they had just the right mop - sponge on one side, stiff nylon brush on the other. And cleverly hidden in a nook with the seasonal Halloween things were several container sets, I got a carrying case with 30 of various sizes, about 10 were small enough for lunch cooler needs.

Home, it's about 90°. Turned the aircon down to 74, turned on the livingroom fan and Tivo, and watched the Raiders game recording. Game was still in progress, but the recording lets me see it in almost real time and FF past the commercials and the 30 seconds of commentator BS between plays. Tivo's skip30 is excellent for that. Fixed myself a plate of cold stuff, starting with Safeway's house brand of salmon dip, and Ritz crackers. Something didn't taste right. Turned out it was two somethings. Somehow instead of buying regular Ritz crackers, I'd bought the ones with "everything". A horrid combination of onions, pepper, garlic and puke. Tasted the dip by itself and it too had lots of needless, taste-mangling spices in it. So did the crab dip.

But the artichoke hearts and cole slaw were fine.

At about half-time I paused the game and applied about half the vinyl cleaner to the dirtiest part of the kitchen floor - in front of the fridge, and the tiles between the kitchen and the laundry room/carport door. As soon as I splashed the stuff on, dirt came up. Between the sponge mop and the nylon brush that section now looks almost like new. It was a lot of work. Back to the game, and after the Raiders won, I started up the 49ers game recording, paused it and did the section of floor by the sink and dishwasher.

Back to the game, which was a horrible display of a great game plan but no execution. Aged Swiss cheese defense, dropped balls, missed passing routes, no QB protection, and lots of stupid penalties. Horrible officiating also hurt - lots of not-called holding, facemasking and pass interference.

Made dinner at halftime, the floor was not as dry as I thought it would be, but I was wearing socks so no harm done. Marie C chicken dinner, chocolate cake a la mode.

Took out the garbage & recycles, broke down the boxes & bundled them.

Movies.
I have zero interest in seeing The Wrath of Khan again. It is no pleasure for me to see Ricardo Montalbán's face after it had been turned into of Fine Corinthian Leather™. Or Shatner screaming. I'm a Trek fan, but not a fanatic. I'd be up for seeing Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home remastered, with modern audio, on a big screen.

As for the resurrected Close Encounters, Richard Dreyfuss was particularly nasally annoying in that one, and Teri Garr is made as homely as possible. I was blown away by the final 15 minutes on the big screen. Not sure I need to sit through the whole thing again just for that. IMDB says it was released in December 1977. I was out of the Peace Corps and may actually have seen it in Israel. Wait, no, by December I was visiting family in London, and a friend in Germany. New York relatives and friends in January 1978, and back to Seattle in late January, working at the Raymond (WA) Herald by Feb.