Weekend Update: The Redemption Center, A Near-Death Experience, and Mr. Potato Head. Also! With Bonus Cake!

It has been a low-key few weeks around here. Kidlet spent Friday night with her grandfolks, so LT and I had the house to ourselves Friday night and most of the day Saturday. We went out for dinner Fri. night, then came home and fell into bed completely exhausted. LT had a particularly grueling and long week, and I was in my usual state of "could fall asleep at any time". Saturday was hot and humid. LT and I both woke up cranky at 7:30 and proceeded to snark at each other for a few hours until we were able to call a truce and leave the house to go do the 47 errands we had planned for the day.

The first stop was the redemption center, where we exchanged an SUV-full of returnables for $76.15. There is still more in the trunk of the Jetta. When I asked LT why we had 12 trash bags full of returnables, she looked a little embarassed and admitted that she had been hoarding them since September when the redemption center in our neighborhood had closed. She had been nervous about going to the new center in the next town over because she was scared of going by herself. LT likes rules, and she will follow them obsessively if she knows what they are. She didn't know the rules at the new place (each center has a different way of doing things and a different list of items that they'll accept), so she was afraid to go by herself lest she do something wrong. That's my girl: brave in the face of large, psychotic people, able to calm down the most delerious/demented old person, rational and articulate at all times, scared poopless by the toothless lady at the redemption center.

After a delicious breakfast at the neighborhood greasy spoon, we headed to the nursery. We bought all the vegetable plants and a flat of annuals to plant by the mailbox and in the window boxes. Then off to Wal Mart, where we bought a Mr. Potato head for our friend's daughter's second birthday, more flowers, and assorted other stuff we didn't know we needed until we saw it in the store. On the way out, we were nearly mown down by an unstable-looking fat lady on one of those motorized scooters. We narrowly averted injury by swerving our heavy cart with the messed-up wheel (nearly tipping it over in the process), only to have the lady scream "Bitches!" over her shoulder as she drove away into the store, careening along the sidewalk like a drunk monkey. That was, by far, the highlight of the day.

Sunday was cold(ish) and rainy. We drove to South Attleboro (i.e. the ends of the Earth) to deliver Mr. Potato Head and eat birthday cake. Kidlet was initially freaked out by the crowd of people she didn't know, but quickly gained her composure and discovered that batting a balloon around the room can be great fun. Also, there was cake.

That pretty-much brings us to now. A post to come will detail all the work that LT did while I was napping and the resulting gorgeousness of the yard. Right now, however, I must go home and apply muscle rub to my wife's sore parts. Toodles!