Our official snow total of last weekend's storm was 14 inches in my neighborhood. They did a surprisingly good job of clearing things. Usually, they shovel the sidewalks but not all the way to the street, leaving you to clamber over banks of snow to get to the sidewalk. This itme, they cleared paths all the way. There were a couple of icily hazardous spots on Tuesday and Wednesday morning after melt and refreeze, but that's just to be expected and was really just at the foot of the hill. It warmed up quite a lot by Wednesday and even got up to 60ish on Thursday. It had looked like I was going to get stuck too late at the office to take advantage, but things went efficiently witha meeting, so I was able to walk at least a little of the way home.
Unfortunately, it decided to get bloody cold again for the weekend. It was down in the teens this morning, for example. It's annoying, since it was way too cold out to make walking enjoyable. That means getting my exercise in at the gym in my complex (riding the stationary bike). Yesterday was good, but today my right knee started bothering me, sigh. I just hope it's not so frigid next weekend, when there's a Volksmarch in Baltimore.
I did go out to run errands. Yesterday, I went over to Burke Used Books, since I had some credit there that was going to expire next month. They took 17 books and I used up the credit from those (plus what I had before), primarily on mysteries. And today I went over to Tyson's Corner Center, which is one of the largest shopping malls in the area. I need to replace a briefcase that's falling apart, but the L. L. Bean store there didn't have them. I suppose I'll just have to buy on-line.
I did manage to get the photos I need for the visas for my upcoming trips, but the trip was a bust otherwise. The mall has been expanded a lot, but it's really just more of the same. I think my problem with malls comes down to the whole "paradox of choice" problem. There's just too many things for sale that I get overwhelmed and end up not buying anything at all. Add in way too many slow-moving people, with surprising numbers of them pushing baby strollers, and I just end up impatient and frustrated.
Unfortunately, I do actually need to shop. There are some things (e.g. the briefcase and some polo shirts) that I can buy on-line, but I need to try on things like suits and shoes. So I expect I'll have to resign myself to getting mall-ed again all too soon.
Copyright 2006 Miriam H. Nadel