Joyce and Nick's Saturday

Joyce and I have been busy pretty much since December on. So, it was refreshing that this past Saturday we didn’t have a whole lot planned. With that in mid here is how we spent our Saturday.

I got up at 7:30 to take a leak and I could not get back to sleep. One thing that sucks about getting older is that I can not sleep late anymore. It does not matter what time I go to bed, I still am up at the crack of dawn and that sucks. I was up at 7:30, laid down and was wide awake. I turned on the TV to try and find something boring so that I would fall back asleep but, I had no such luck.

Finally, at 8:00 I said fuck it and got up and took a shower. My Mazda has needed new tires for awhile now, and I had been putting getting some off forever. Since I was up anyway, I figured why not head over to Discount Tire and see about getting some new rubber. Joyce hummed and hawed about going with me and at the last possible second agreed to join me on my journey.

Now, this is a good thing because I would much rather kill time with her then by myself. However, since Joyce was going to go, it was going to delay my trip a bit as I had to wait for her to get ready. I love my wife, but my joke to her is always, if the house where to ever catch on fire she would never get out alive. It takes her forever to leave the house. I will sit there waiting, (and God knows I am not the most patient man to begin with) for her to get ready and time will just stand still. My new thing is to have her meet me in the car, but this does not seem to work either as I usually wind up sitting in my vehicle, listening to the radio for ten minutes.

Anyway, she at long last joined me in my Tribute and we were off to the Discount Tire on 95^th street in Oak Lawn. The store opened at 9:00 and we were there at about 9:15. There was a total of one person working the counters helping customers. Nothing grates my ass more then a store trying to save money by cutting back on staff. The one kid who was working was stuck with an old man that was taking three hours to make a decision that should take less then five minutes.

I surveyed the situation and looked at Joyce and said, let’s go. So, Discount Tire lost a sale because they were not sufficiently staffed. I traveled down the road to Chicago Ridge Mall where I figured I could turn around and head back home. As I entered the mall, I saw a sign out in front of the Sears, declaring a sale on all their tires. It was like a sign from God, or something. So, I decided to give them a try.

There was a short line, but at least Sears had three people waiting on customers. Joyce went browsing in the petite clothing section as I waited to be serviced. Finally, I did and got a deal where I bought three tires and got the fourth free. I also got an alignment. The only issue was that it was going to take two hours. So, I gave the Sears dude my keys and found Joyce.

Two hours to kill in a mall is not something I looked forward to. So, I suggested to Joyce we walk over to the movie theater and see if we could catch a flick. Now, I have not been to a movie at Chicago Ridge Mall in a decade. The theater is outdated and small. They used to have nice big sized theaters but, they cut them in half and now have six small ones. But, with really no choice I figured what did I have to lose. We had no idea what was playing or what to see. We got to the theater and saw our choices were basically the new Rambo film or Untraceable. Neither of us have any interest in the Rambo flick so, we opted for Untraceable.

I had not heard or read anything about the movie. We went in with only the poster as our guide. For those like me, who don’t know about the movie, it starts Diane Lane as a FBI agent who specializes in cyber crime. A killer starts committing murder live on the internet and Lane is charged with finding the killer. It kind of sucked. I hate movies where the main character is in the FBI yet, makes the stupidest mistakes. That was this movie. The only good thing is that since we got there so early we only had to pay $5 to see it.

Anyway, we killed enough time, as by the time we got out of the movie my car was ready. I paid for it and after meeting Joyce at Bed, Bath and Beyond we made our way home. It was about 12:30 at this point.

Once home it was my intention to relax for a bit. Getting bored quickly, I instead decided to put together (with Joyce’s help) a bookcase we had bought from Ikea a couple of weeks ago. I have long rallied against my loathing of all things Ikea, including their put together furniture. Anybody that has had the pleasure of putting together something from Ikea knows my pain. The instructions they send you have only pictures. So, it is always a challenge.

After we managed to put the bookcase together, we carried it upstairs into our office. Joyce, wanted it to go in between two other bookcases we already had up against the wall. This meant I was going to have to move a bookcase that was already full of books. So, this meant clearing all the books off the shelves and then moving it and then re-filling the bookcase.

Once this long and arduous task was complete, I at long last sat on my fat ass and rested for a bit. It was getting later in the day and I wanted to go to the Library before it closed, so I peeled myself off of the couch and went up there with Joyce.

The Library in Palos is undergoing some renovations but once it is done it should be sweet. Joyce got a book and a couple of DVD’s. I grabbed a live Stevie Ray Vaughn disc that I shamefully didn’t already own and a book about Vegas.

After our library run we went back home and kicked it for awhile. I continued the task of down loading some more of my cd catalog onto my Ipod for awhile. We had not eaten anything, other then some movie popcorn all day so we were both kind of hungry. Therefore, we started to have the debate about where to eat.

One thing married couples argue about is where to go to dinner at. It is not like we argued, we just could not agree on a place. We debated a number of establishments until finally we agreed on an Asian place in Orland called Ginger. The restaurant was really nice both inside and out. We got our table and looked over the menu. I was torn between two things. A pistachio crusted chicken or some Korean style ribs. I went with the ribs and that would be a huge mistake. Joyce got some Tilapia, which she rated as just ok. My ribs sucked balls. They were tough as leather and not marinated very well. I could have made better at home. All in all we labeled it a miss which is too bad as we had high hopes for the place.

After finishing dinner, we made the journey back home. As the night was winding down I popped in a flick from Netflix called Empire. It was decent but not something you need to go out and rent. Joyce popped in one of the DVD’s she got from the library upstairs. Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch watching bad cable like I do most every weekend night.

All in all it was a productive Saturday. It was also nice in that Joyce and I got to spend some time together without having any social engagements. I am lucky in that I actually like spending time with my wife. I like talking to her and laughing with her. So, as boring and monotonous as that day sounded I would not have traded it for anything.