Oddball Update

It was a…different kind of weekend.

A decidedly better kind, really.

I’m pretty much a homebody. I like my computers, my gadgets, my video games, my books, my stories, my quiet time. Apple is beholden to a similar fate — part of the reason we hit it off easily. But lately we’ve both been feeling a little restless, and at times even stir-crazy. I’ve had my nose to the grindstone for the last several weeks, including weekends, dealing with a busy time at work and a variety of side-jobs that have come to my doorstep. It hasn’t been exhausting, but it’s been constant. Familiarity of circumstances may breed contempt, and late last week, we both started to feel a bit contemptuous toward our surroundings. We needed some variety.

This weekend, we got it. For a chance, we took action and went in search of things to do, got ourselves out of the house and quenched our thirst for life by lapping some of it up. No, we didn’t go clubbing, skydiving or bar-hopping — I didn’t, after all, say we changed the fundamental nature of who we are. We did, however, chow down on some good eats, check out some new digs, enjoy some splendid views and have a great time doing it all.

In fact, we’ve slowly begun to let “fun” creep into our vernacular over the last couple of weekends, and have eked out time for a larger chunk of it with each successive week. I gotta tell you, I’m enjoying this. Being stuck in the house makes you feel run-down, saps your energy and eventually, if you’re not careful, turns you into a slug who is content with wearing sloppy clothes and not shaving for a week. Such are the trappings of working at home — when your job, your leisure time and your everything is all done in the same building, perhaps even the same room.

We started to break the mold last weekend, when we went and saw The Bourne Ultimatum at the big Coconut Point theaters north of here. It was a great film, a great end to the trilogy and a fantastic time. On the way home, a very rich dude in a very expensive Bentley Continental Flying Spur apparently greatly enjoyed my GTO’s personalized license plate, if his expression in my rear view mirror was any indication.

Last weekend was also when we installed all of the hurricane shutters on our house, and then took them down again, in a single four-hour span. This was all so we could get photos of the shutters in place to send to the insurance company, in the hopes that they’ll give us a tasty $1,100 credit off our policy. I’m still awaiting one last piece of documentation to prove that our home is storm protected: a windload sheet from the manufacturer of said shutters. I’ve called that damn place every other day for over a week, and they keep dragging their feet. Hopefully, early this week, I’ll get that last piece of paper once and for all.

This weekend, Apple and I ramped up our “leisure activities” to the point where we actually spent most of Sunday outside of the house. On Saturday, I spent the first half of the day working on a side job, wrapping it up around dinner time. Saturday had been designated “pizza day,” the occasion on which I’m allowed to order a pizza for dinner (which doesn’t come too frequently now that I’m on a diet). On our way out to pick up the grub, we stopped at the new Super Target that recently opened near our house.

Man, you want to talk about a nice store! Target has always been our favorite of the big-box discount stores, because it seems to be the classiest and has the best-quality stuff. The new Super Target is no exception, and in fact is decidedly the nicest Target store I’ve ever been in. It’s direct competition for the Wal-Mart Supercenter, which opened a couple years ago just a short jog down the road. (The two stores are actually right next to each other, but are bisected by the interstate.) With apologies to my grandfather, who works at Wal-Mart, I don’t see myself going to Wal-Mart anymore when there’s a Super Target in town. Target is a place I can go into without feeling all skeeved about the otherworldly people around me, without getting frustrated that I can’t find what I need thanks to horrendous stocking and organization procedures, without worrying about the quality of the third-world “quantity over quality” merchandise I’m buying, and without feeling guilty for supporting a corporation that clearly does not care about its own employees.

Super Target, as you may know, is the variety of Target stores that also includes a grocery center. Apple and I were both blown away by the quality of the grocery department, really. There’s a ton of great stuff there, including stuff we’ve not seen before at Publix, as well as a Pizza Hut Express. There’s wonderful soft-baked French bread for sale each day, a huge variety of fresh doughnuts (oh, how I’ve missed thee!), plenty of international boxed foods (rice, couscous, seasoned tuna, smoked oysters and other interesting goodies), and lots more. Apple remarked that she might actually fulfill our weekly grocery list from this place once in a while. She also let me buy a box of Twinkies, a guilty pleasure of mine, which I promptly took home and shoved, in its entirety, into the freezer. You may think me crazy, but I love a frozen Twinkie. I mean…ice-cold, firm cake with its cream filling turned to the consistency of ice cream? Fricking fantastic, aye.

I also thoroughly enjoyed my pizza that evening, thank you very much. To get the specific variety I wanted, we had to drive halfway across town and back again. But it was a fun trip, traffic was light, and it was cool outside thanks to the overcast, rainy skies. We listened to the radio, chatted and enjoyed the ride. It was fun.

As if enlightened by Saturday’s small taste of life beyond our stucco encampment, Sunday was even more adventurous. We decided we were going to go to the beach, being that we live practically right next door to the Gulf of Mexico and all. In June we got our free “county resident” beach parking permit stickers, and still hadn’t applied them to either of our vehicles. So I washed off the back of the Mazda6 and remedied that little situation. Then we borrowed my parents’ lawn chairs (thanks, guys), loaded up the car and set off.

First, we dropped by Super Target again, where I picked up a car wash mitt for the GTO. Next we headed to the library and spent some time hunting down some new reading material; I was in the market for something by Robert Ludlum, author of The Bourne Identity (who apparently died here in 2001, at his retirement home in this very town). While we were at the library, a terrific thunderstorm came up, so we sat around reading books until it calmed down. I figured this would put the kibosh on our plans to hit the beach, but I was thankfully wrong.

It seemed to be clearing up, so we headed down to the beach after all, taking a somewhat scenic route. Along the way, for a time, we were following a couple of young guys in a back 2006 GTO (which looked pretty stock) — as we were in the Mazda, I didn’t have much camaraderie to share, but it was fun to see through the eyes of the people who follow me around while I drive. I don’t often get to see from that perspective, since there are so few other new-age goats on the road.

The beach was deserted, so we took our lawn chairs and books down to the sand and soaked up the fresh air for a while. It was beautiful and cool after the storm had passed, and very relaxing. After a while the sun came back out, and it started to get hot and muggy. We headed home, but on the way, stopped on the spur of the moment for some chocolate ice cream. Also, we seemed to be collecting take-out menus from little mom-and-pop Italian restaurants the whole way.

I put my new car wash mitt to good use as soon as we got home, and gave the (quite dirty) GTO a full bath. After enjoying some vegetable gumbo and French bread cooked up by Apple, we decided to go out for a drive around town in the goat. It was great. The weather was nice, the setting sun was picturesque, and we were cruising in a sweet car. It doesn’t get much better! We saw those two guys in that black GTO again, and this time I had similar wheels to show off.

We took a circuitous route around the area, along the gulf shore, down to Fifth Avenue and back up along the east edge of town. We also tested out the new “flyover” at one of the city’s busiest intersections, which helpfully allows through traffic to avoid an intersection altogether. On the way home we stopped at Hollywood Video, and essentially spent our entire time there cruising the new releases, writing down the names of movies we wanted to see sometime.

I’d say it’s pretty much a lock that both Apple and I had a great time today, and indeed this whole weekend. We’ve also decided that going to the beach should be a regular occurrence, especially since it costs nothing and it’s only a matter of minutes away!

Having gotten reacquainted with what it’s like to actually do stuff, I found it pretty refreshing, invigorating, and a welcome change after a week’s worth of desk-bound multitasking. I’m sure there’ll be more to come.

Categorized as Life