fenchurch | I lack a good subject line

Follow-up on yesterday's 7-hour miracle Amazon delivery:

I finally got around to looking up Dynamex, the company that was contracted to deliver my package... it turns out they're a same day delivery service. I'm guessing contracting with them for deliveries from the local Amazon warehouse was cheaper than sending things UPS or FedEx, and I'm certainly not going to complain! I think it wouldn't have weirded me out nearly as much if the guy had shown up in a company car (although still... SEVEN HOURS!).

We've had our old entertainment center pushed up against the wall at the back of the library for years now... with our old television still in place and all of our various classic console systems crammed onto the shelves around it. It's actually a lot more awkward than it sounds and we haven't used any of that stuff in years.

Well, a few weeks ago while I was in Utah, someone on our local Freecycle group posted a request for an entertainment center...

rackham replied about ours and then cleared it off and got it moved out into the garage for easier pick-up (which still hasn't happened yet, because the person in question has to arrange for transportation for it and ended up running out of time before their vacation), then decided to offer up the old television while he was at it. Someone came by last week and picked that up... and it was a bit sad to see it go. It was the first television we bought together (I had one when we got married) and I remember that we actually bought it on lay-away at Shopko because there was no way we could afford it outright. Considering it's probably about 18 years old, I'm impressed that it still works!

Anyway, we've moved our old rear projection television (the one that used to be in the living room until we bought the new flat panel for Christmas last year) down to where the entertainment center used to be and have started plotting out the suspended shelving system we want to put in around it. It's amazing how much more usable that space has already become, even without the shelving in place! So, we figured we'd run down to Tukwila and hit Ikea to get a few things and look at their shelving options, then head over to Zoopa for dinner and maybe swing by the Container Store in Bellevue to check out the Elfa system.

Well, we got down to Tukwila only to discover that Ikea now closes at 8:00 on weekdays. o_O Fine. So, over to dinner at Zoopa... where we found ourselves behind a woman at the salad bar who had some, um, interesting dietary habits. I'm normally totally non-judgmental on what people eat... but this woman had a thin bed of iceburg lettuce and, I think, maybe a few small bits of other vegetables, that she proceeded to heap with shredded cheddar cheese. I was waiting for her to move down the line and was trying NOT to openly boggle as she shoveled on more and more and more cheese (there was easily twice as much cheese as anything else). And then she hit the dressing, going straight for the blue cheese (again, no judgments... it happens to be my favorite dressing as well, although I don't indulge very often these days) where she ladled on one scoop. And then another. And then another. And then another. By this time, I was afraid my eyes were going to pop out of my skull... because her plate then contained, essentially, blue cheese dressing soup with over a cup of shredded cheese floating in it and a few lonely leaves of lettuce bobbing around. And for good measure, she tossed on another ladle full of blue cheese dressing.

rackham was right there with me, boggling along... and, in fact, wasn't sure he'd seen what he'd just seen. I just... *goes to her quiet place and tries REALLY hard to not be judgmental*

After we got over the shock, dinner was as good as always... Zoopa remains one of the best places I've found to eat out and easily stay within my Weight Watchers plan. And the Container Store wasn't closing insanely early, so we were able to get a good look at the Elfa system and decided we quite liked what we saw (and the 30-50% off sale right now doesn't hurt, either). So, now we just need to make absolutely sure we've got our measurements right and after ten years of talking about it, we'll finally be getting a shelving system for all of our gaming systems. Yay!

In other news, I think I'm finally getting over my bout with viral conjunctivitis... and without it moving into my lungs (which is what worried me and my doctor the most). It has not been a pleasant week, though. And that was probably my second worst drive back from Utah (coming in after the time I'd gotten hit by Norwalk Virus and drove home when I was feeling "well enough"). The visit to Utah, itself, was a lot of fun... and I had a great time at Life, the Universe and Everything 27 (I still can't believe it's been going so long! My first was 6 and I ran 9... in those ancient days of yore). Some excellent panels this year that were all very well attended. I don't think I went to an event that wasn't packed to the gills. It was also great seeing

agilebrit, as well as so many old friends from my college days... and getting a bit of a shock by how old their kids are!