Goodbye Weekend!

The problem with three-day weekends is the same problem with ordinary weekends. Eventually they come to an end.

But on the whole, this one was pretty good. Well, Saturday was sort of irritating. I started off feeling peevish because I had really wanted to go to the Columbia Daedalus and the Vietnamese restaurant close by for lunch. I was even willing to have it be an early dinner. But neither Rachel nor Mr. Pointy Sticks was all that interested in going on Saturday.

So, in an already sort-of-cranky mood, I decided to go out on my own – go to Michaels and get the illustration board Rachel wanted and get it cut into 5” squares, go to Borders and use the 40 percent off coupon I got in the mail, and run into the grocery store for things I wanted to make a tasty rice salad for dinner.

So off I go to Michaels. Yay, they have the illustration board! So I grab two sheets and over I go to the framing counter.

“Can you cut these into 5” squares for me?” I ask politely.

“Ummm,” says the young woman behind the counter, “I don’t think we can do that. (She consults with someone in the back room.) No, we can’t do that.”

“But don’t you cut mats?” I ask.

“Oh, we send them out to be cut!” she says brightly. “But there are mat cutting kits over on the wall there!”

So I wander over and, yes, there are several different types of mat cutting kits. One of the more basic ones seems to be $29.99 – it’s rather hard to tell which price tag belongs to which hook. “Hmm,” thinks I, “I could probably justify $30.” So I grab it and off I go to the cashier.

She rings me up and says, “That’ll be $114.99!”

Turns out the mat cutting kit was $89.99. I did not buy it.

So I throw the illustration board into the trunk and head over to Borders to console myself with some nice 40 percent off book. And as I walk through the door I think, “You idiot! The coupon is sitting on the bookcase at home!!” So no book.

Grumpily I head over to the grocery store and, as I walk in, flip open my phone to check with the folks at home to see if there is anything they want. And my phone is dead!

I never should have left the house.

However…Sunday we did get to Daedalus and to the Vietnamese restaurant. Yum yum yum.


Their food is so good. We got grilled beef and grilled pork summer rolls for appetizers.


Mr. Pointy Sticks got the Vietnamese hot and sour soup for his main dish


and Rachel and I each got Triple Delight vermicelli bowls…grilled pork, shrimp and chicken with noodles and other goodies.


I gave her my chicken and she gave me her shrimp. Tasty cooperation.

Then we headed over to another one of my favorite places.


I didn’t get many books at Daedalus (though I did get C.J. Sansom’s latest, Sovereign, which is pretty darn good – it’s the first of his I’ve read) but Rachel got a basketful. She was happy to find lots of Faulkner.

And on Sunday, Mr. Pointy Sticks and I went to see the new Star Trek movie. I thought it was pretty good. It was fun to see the beginnings of these iconic characters and there were some amusing lines. But too many explosions. Just because CGI is available doesn’t mean it have to be used constantly. And *POSSIBLE SPOILER* what’s with killing off Spock’s mother? She’s alive later in his life! Not to mention killing off the entire Vulcan planet? I thought they were going to do some clever bring-time-back-to-before-the-destruction-of-Vulcan sort of thing. They do, however, now open the door to a new series of movies with this younger crew.

All in all, a good weekend. There should be more three-day weekends in the world.