My goal is to have all of the laundry finished by tomorrow. Everything. This is a lofty goal. Every so often I can get everything clean, everything properly stored, and only the clothes I’m wearing not in a closet or drawer. It isn’t that I mind doing the laundry, just that I have a lot of clothes.
So I started working toward that goal this afternoon and got it down to one cycle left before the art of clean clothes completion can be realized. And that is an exciting afternoon.
We also went shopping. Headed to the local Kohl’s, where we discovered that it will be open in September. The Target next to it has opened, but Target does us little good, it was the extreme options and high savings at Kohl’s, the laggard, that we were after. So we ventured up the interstate 10 miles, down the US highway three miles to the other store.
The new Kohl’s will be the third in town. They will be in a more-or-less straight line, only 29 miles apart. While everyone loves good savings on clothes and the random housewares item, this might seem excessive.
I picked up a new pair of dress shoes — I’ve walked the sole out of my brown loafers, one more good pivot will have sock touching the cruel, unforgiving ground; shame, really, I like those shoes. I also bought a pair of tennis shoes. Picked up one pair of khaki slacks and two pairs of shorts. The Yankee bought things.
She had on a Samford shirt. The cashier’s daughter is about to join the SU softball team. Maybe that’s why she looked through the traditional Kohl’s scratch off savings cards for the higher percentage. Something to do with the jagged edge of the scratch off material. That little tidbit helped us save not just 15 percent, the typical, but 20 percent.
After that we somehow managed to score a $50 Kohl’s cash incentive, which tripped some other savings, somehow.
In all we saved more than half.
So we celebrated by going to Walmart. We bumped into old family friends, caught up on the latest goings on and adventures. We stretched the stories out because the sky opened up and the clouds poured on rain without repent.
I tested my blood pressure — perfectly normal, thank you. They have the new Dr. Scholl’s foot measurement machine. It finds that my balance is much better than its Wii counterpart suggests. This machine gives you a pressure read out on the screen before you. It looks like storms in the shape of human feet is descending upon your town. I seem to stand with most of my weight in the heels of my feet.
Despite that the loafers that are falling apart in the ball of the foot.
But the machine says I have normal arches and reasonable foot pressure, so there’s that.
Dinner with The Yankee and Wendy, who chose Outback. The rain killed that place dead tonight. Our waitress, shockingly, admitted she was burned out on the bloomin’ onion. She said she could get fired for saying that, which seems a bit excessive.
While we were there Tom Petty’s American Girl made its way through the speakers.
And that’s the global economy to me: A Petty song about American girls playing in an American-owned restaurant using an Australian-motif that is open on five continents. (Including Australia.)
At home I watched W. You take Oliver Stone with a grain of salt, but aside from a few of the quotes being put in the wrong places a lot of this felt, sadly, real.
And so to cheer up I watched The Wrestler. Or part of it. I liked this movie better when it was Rocky Balboa. IMDB says the Wrestler was shot in a month, and it feels like it. There’s the documentary feel of the camera angles and that got old quickly.
So I bailed on that right about there. Yes, yes, great movie. Mickey Rourke is no doubt brilliant, but I didn’t need to hear him exhale every third breath. There’s probably some great cameo I missed near the end, but I’ll live. Did Rourke’s character? Do I care? Clearly not.
Tomorrow: meeting an old friend.
