Have I mentioned that Aaron and I are attempting to purchase a Vespa? This whole one-car-for-two-people thing isn't working out as marvelously as it did in San Francisco, where we used the car so infrequently that we filled up the gas tank once a month, or in Seattle, where I had parking at work and Aaron could take the bus easily. Santa Barbara's public transportation is lacking, to say the least: the bus I need to take to work runs every half hour or every hour, depending on the day, if at all, and Aaron would need to take two busses and walk a mile to get to work. In San Francisco, it takes as much time to take the bus as it would to drive anywhere (thanks to near-impossible parking situations). Here, if it takes ten minutes to drive somewhere, it takes 45 minutes via the bus. So yeah, the Vespa. We're asking for money for Christmas and estimate that we can obtain around $1500 from various family members, which leaves us about $1500 short. While I realize we could feasibly get a working car for the same price, Vespa's are awesome and we've been wanting one for years now. Plus, better gas mileage and cheaper maintenance. We went today to the one Vespa shop in town to get an idea of what exactly owning a Vespa will entail, and the place wasn't open! How could a shop not be open on Sunday? We were shocked and appalled, mostly because it had taken us 20 minutes to park (and we were using the fucking paid parking lot!). Anyway, that's what we did today. That, and eat a giant breakfast from which I'm still slightly queasy.
At this very moment, I'm tickled by my productivity: I'm washing our comforters (which, I have just discovered to my delight, fit easily into our washer/dryer) AND reading Othello AND working on nanowrimo (I'm switching around at half-hour intervals, so I consider it to be multitasking even if I'm only doing one thing at any given time).
I went grocery shopping by myself today at the big grocery store. I was halted not once, not twice, but three times as I worked my way down the aisles trying to find food that might be tempting at a later date (since I was still ridiculously full from breakfast and a little off food at the moment). I ahem'd at the lady with literally half her body in the freezer section attempting to get four frozen meals to take advantage of the coupon deal; she did not move. I "excuse me'd" at the two gentlemen staring, intimated, at the vast breakfast cereal collection; they ignored me. I gently nudged the cart of the lady poring over the ingredients of a particular brand of bagels; she gave me a dirty look. I'm really very peaceful in car traffic; it's people traffic that annoys the hell out of me because it's not that hard to move your cart so that it's not directly in the middle of the aisle. Please, people: let's all collectively pull our heads out of our asses and think, "This is not my pantry. There are other people attempting to get things done efficiently."