Well after about an hour of false start, I did manage to get the hell out of the house. Did some wankiliciousness involving chasing around after one particular piece of paper that needed to be turned into the registrar like in February, but it's in now.
Once that was done I went down the hill to catch the bus to the mall and found Main Street cordoned off from the Army Navy store to the Lego Castle known as Northampton City hall, for all intents and purposes trapping the Hells Angel's Coffee Klatch that always parks their bikes along that block. Enquiring mind that I am, I asked one of the cops applying yellow tape to the area what was going on with the cordoning and the cop cars, and did I mention the fire department, all with their lights set to maximum epileptic seizure? No visible smoke or anything. The cop shrugged, a wry grin on his face. "Somebody got a suspicious package," he said. "Fun, eh?"
*sigh* Really. Who'd wanna bomb anything in Northampton? These are the days we live in, I guess. *wanking gesture* I have to wonder whether the big zeros are going to go down in history as the decade of fear or something silly like that.
I wish I'd had my camera today, though. I had to leave it home though, as the batteries needed a good hard charge. Still, something about the occasion called for it though. Maybe it was the bored jaded looks on all of the cops' faces, or the vaguely annoyed expressions all the firemen had on theirs. The whole scene kind of had a "God, why are we here?" feel to it. Even the pedestrians wandering past only seemed to hold a passing interest in the events unfolding around them, except for the one slight mental case who decided to march up and down the perimeter of the cordon screaming at everything and everyone within it because he was afraid it was going to make him late for work. Every so often the human drama that unfolds before my eyes every day simply begs to be recorded somehow, and sometimes describing the scene just doesn't cut it.
This town is so fecking strange some days.
Anyway, I did eventually make it out to the mall and helped
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sundart pick out her new bike at Target. She is the proud owner of a brand new Schwinn hybrid. Yay. I have a biking partner again! Anyway it was fun, you got to take the fully assembled bike right off the rack and wheel it home which was cool because even with instructions I think I would have been kinda useless about putting a whole bike together. I'm very good at fixing and adjusting preexisting structures, just don't tell me to assemble something from scratch unless the pieces all have either "playmobil" or "LEGO" stamped on them somewhere.
Had one minor scuffle with
sundart, as she refused to test ride the bike in the store, by which I was rather appalled, so I hopped on the thing and proceeded to gleefully take off down the back aisle on it, cutting around the sporting goods racks, adjusting the gears, and scaring some old guy in one of the bedding aisles with my exuberance. I had a fabulous time, I mean come on, when else are you ever going to get to legitimately ride a bike around a department store?
sundart didn't share my opinion however, and unfortunately I think I quite thoroughly embarrassed her in the process. *sigh* That I am a little sorry about, but I don't really regret my test drive. I still ride the backs of loaded grocery carts too. There's too much insane Ed-like ten year old in me I guess. Besides, I told her on our way home, looking silly is an art form, best embraced.
Also saw something amusing/appalling in the toy aisle. I pose a challenge to any of you, actually. Next time you are in a big box department store or something stop by the toy aisle and look for the "Cali Girl" Barbies. Boy oh boy, was that a bad font choice. It's so easy to misread them as "Call Girl" Barbies that it isn't even funny. I have to wonder if they're going to get recalled sometime in the next few weeks or so as angry parents misread the box?
Came home with a helmet and a new lock for my own two wheeler, glad to have gotten out of the house. As for the rest of my evening, I think I'm going to kick back and do a little photoshopping and web site maintenance - and tomorrow morning I think I'm going to hit the trail.
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