Monday, January 19, 2015

Near Death Experience?

Friday night C wanted to go to IKEA to look at a sofa. Anna stayed home but M tagged along. M and I were starved. We went to the IKEA café but I didn’t see anything good. He ate chicken tenders and fries. I went downstairs and ate two fifty cent hot dogs. M ate an ice cream cone. As usual Ceil took forever and we didn’t leave until nine. M wanted to drive around Atlantic Station. Seemed like I got stuck at every red light. While waiting at one all I could think was that it was 9:30 and I hadn’t been home for 15 hours, so I took a right on red and headed for the highway home. Had to stop by Kroger on the way, so it was after ten before we got home.

Ceil was going to paint the kitchen/den on Saturday. There was so much stuff piled up everywhere that didn’t need paint all over it that I spent several hours cleaning and organizing and moving stuff out of the way. Later I ran errands: the library, thrift store, return a RedBox movie, make a deposit at the ATM, and get the oil changed in the Civic. On the way home Ceil needed a spotlight from Home Depot. Then she needed light bulbs. Then she called needing a roller brush. Then it was the entire roller. While looking at the rollers half the light bulbs fell and broke. When I got home I cleaned out the garage. Also re-watched The Blind Side and unsuccessfully tried to debug Anna’s laptop – guess I need an expert.

Later C drove M to the new Avalon in Alpharetta. A gang from school was supposed to hang out but it turned out to be only one girl, MacKenzie. M made it clear that it wasn’t a date, though she was a cutie. They ate at Whole Foods – he ate a burrito. I had to go go pick him up later. Lots of people eating and shopping and going to movies at the Avalon place. Caroline Hargreaves family was out of town so Anna and several friends slept over there both Saturday and Sunday night.   

Sunday morning I drove C down to Passion City Church. John Piper (above) was speaking. With no second service we knew there would be a crowd. I dropped C off and parked up at the old Gold Club. The short bus ride didn’t take long. Piper delivered a wonderfully passionate, biblical sermon – even commenting on and adding to a church leader’s short pre-offering testimony. On the way out we ran into Mary-Clayton’s family and met her sister’s new boyfriend. C and I walked back to the car. Ceil kept looking for acorns off the fir trees, so this took a while. Then had to stop by and pick up a phone charger for M.

By then it was 1 pm. We’d been gone four hours for one church service and I was stir-crazy and starved. The line at the Pine Straw Plaza Willy’s was long and service was slow. When it was our turn they were out of their main dish – chicken. When I paid the amount seemed high and when we got home I figured out why: they’d duplicated M’s burrito order. Not sure if C confused them or if we got someone else’s food, but at least we didn’t pay for something we didn’t get.

C drove M and a friend down to PCC, leaving me at the house alone. It was too windy to rake so I trimmed the hedges with my new hedge-trimmer (my old one I had inherited from my grandfather had been mysteriously lost after 28 years). I trimmed and trimmed. At one point the clippers slipped out of my hands and sliced a deep cut at the base of my left hand. It didn’t go straight down but in at an angle – otherwise it might’ve cut a vein. I held up my hand and went inside. By then there was lots of blood to wash off. I was kind of in shock, but not shock shock. A close call. Had it been worse it would’ve been hard to drive to the hospital. During halftime I went out and carefully finished trimming the hedges without further incident.

Needed gas on the way to work this morning. Went Old Alabama to fill up at a BP with usually low prices – but gas there was $2.099. Took Jones Bridge over to Old Milton and saved twelve cents a gallon. My BP card discount made it an incredibly low $1.309 per gallon. Filled up my tank for less than $15.00.

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