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September 1, 2000 |
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I had dinner plans tonight with Pam and her parents.
Her mom suggested that we go to a place where she might get a nice
salad. Pam and I had talked about it earlier
that day, and we had decided to go to Tony Roma's. They served nice salads
there, or at least I thought they were nice salads. There were a
couple of other reasons why we decided to go, proximity was certainly among
them, but they did have good food. And they served lemon drops.
I drove her car, of course. My car
couldn't accomodate more than two, and Pam has
issues with driving.
Dinner was good. We had ribs, of course. I like the ribs here, I think
they boil them before barbecuing them, which decreases the time on the
grill and makes the ribs fall off the bone. Like I said, they're very good
ribs. I noticed that Pam and both of her parents
ate the ribs with a fork and knife, which is the way many people eat them,
but I find that this takes away from the experience of eating
ribs.
I don't think her mom ever ordered a salad.
Next in line was Eagle Hardware. Since she had just moved to her new place, it would stand to reason that she needed a number of items to properly make it comfortable. This included towel racks and new shower head.
Since we talked about getting new towel racks for her, I had suggested taking pictures of them with my digital camera so that we could try to match them as closely as we could. And yes, we did indeed take pictures of the towel rack.
There was a debate about what time they closed, but I had noticed when I had come earlier this week that they were open twenty-four hours. I had not noticed that they were now called Lowe's. I'm not sure if this is the reason why they were open around the clock now. They did have signs up that indicated a "Grand Opening", so they might have been an Eagle Hardware earlier this week.
They had a vast collection of towel racks. Really They had a ton. They didn't, however, have the match for the current towel racks that she's got at her place. There were a number of alternatives, of course. First, we could simply continue to shop around for the very same towel racks, which we had little chance of finding. Second, we could simply replace all the towel racks so that they would all match. Or finally, we could take the racks off one bathroom, install them in the other, and get new (though similar) racks for the first bathroom.
Naturally, she chose to not do anything for the time being. [Figures] She did however get a new showerhead since her current one doesn't seem to spray with enough pressure.
We roamed around the store for a bit longer. We looked at a portable air conditioning unit they had on display, because apartments in the Seattle area do not have air conditioning, and it does get hot enough to be unbearable. I've occasionally toyed with the idea of either sleeping in my office, or getting a hotel room.
We sat on some of the patio furniture and chatted for a while, she grew very fond of this swinging chair we were sitting on, but rationalized that she disn't have enough room on her balcony. I agreed that it was a very nice chair, but I think that it would've fit in her balcony.
We didn't stay much longer than that. She did not get the air conditioner. It would've been nice. And admittedly, I briefly thought about getting one, but the remaining ones were all floor models. I'm not sure if I would've gotten one even if they had any new ones.
Our last stop of the night was Barnes and Noble. Initially we had not planned on going there, but her dad wanted to get maps of Bellevue. There isn't much to Bellevue, really. Still, if he wanted a map and we were going to track one down. Frankly, I'm not sure if Barnes and Noble had them, but it was as good as place as any.
I stopped by Starbucks, which was right next door, to
get a small tin of mints. They had two lines at Starbucks they were both
about the same length, one had a cute cashier, so naturally, I went to that
one. I have a girlfriend; this doesn't mean I'm blind.
The Starbuck's mints are very potent. They're roughly the size of a pea, so they look deceivingly mild, but they're as strong as an altoid, possibly stronger. I could continue telling you about the mints, but to be honest, I wasn't quite as interested in the mints as I was in the tin. You see, I've been carrying these… Uhmm, condoms and the packaging was getting a bit worn in the edges. I needed a case that would be able to accomodate a couple of them. As you can see (on the left), I would have to curl corners to be able to fit them in, but it was adequate. Oh, I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture, but that's a "Cola" flavored condom.
I tracked them down in the store a few minutes later. They had spread throughout the store and were looking at different points of interest. Her dad was looking at the maps, of course. After much searching, he wasn't able to find a simple map of Bellevue for a reasonable price. [Sigh]
You can't have everything.
September 1, 2000