Last Sunday, as is now usual, Amanda went grocery shopping with Mandy at Trader Joe’s and Madison Market. I haven’t been to either in ages. Amanda says they have the same attitude towards grocery shopping… e.g. they like taking the time to consider if they want this or that type of pasta. Whereas I am of the type that makes instant decisions on whether or not I want/like something; obviously, I don’t “shop”.
Afterwards, Mandy and Bryan went off to buy a replacement bed for their house. Amanda took a nap.
Mandy had talked to Amanda about going to Costco; neither Amanda nor I have even been to one. So, when Mandy returned we went off to Costco to check it out.
The Seattle Costco is the first store. I had no idea. They had a preserved piece of the original wall inside. The place was mobbed because it was a weekend. I also had no idea that they had gas, auto repair, and car washing as well.
The store itself was pretty much what I expected: a big wholesale store. I am unsure why some people like it so much, because it seems to me it is only really good for people with large families (bulk food) or with large living spaces (bulk other items). Otherwise, why bother with the expense of membership. Stuff tended to the cheaper side, but not outrageously cheap. Not that is it a bad place, but IMHO it does not rise to IKEA levels of consumeristic fun.
Mandy found a discontinued shelf that Bryan had wanted, so she called him up to help get it back. I did not think it would fit in our car with the three of us. As it turned out, it had started pouring rain, so we put in our car anyway since Bryan was going to strap it on top of his Volvo. It ended up not really fitting, but we just left the back hatch open. The shelf unit was pretty heavy, so it wouldn’t move around too much. I drove back with Bryan since we have to move the Prius’s seat all the way up.
We watched Water that night. It was good, but I found it depressing. I prefer my movies to be divorced from reality.
Monday, Amanda went in to Valley for rounds and then went to clinic. I did some background stuff for work (marginally billable) and then decided to suck it up and wait somewhere to get the car’s oil changed. It is hard to schedule stuff like this with Amanda’s random schedule, since I can’t just drop the car off for a couple days anymore (like I used to in NY). I ended up just hanging out at a place down the street (yay support the neighborhood) which was rather nice… they had the free coffee and tea and a free internet terminal. They were very very quick, which was good, because they had a lot of people lined up.
I was surprised with how much the oil change cost though, even considering I requested full synthetic. It may actually be more worth it to do it myself now; the hassle factor was always worth the $10-15 premium to me. The premium seems to be wider now, though. I knew I should have picked up that cheap case of Mobil 1 at Costco.
We had bread, cheese, wine, and salad for dinner. A repeat of my Saturday dinner. We watch the Ring afterwards. It was pretty good. I had not known it was set in the Seattle area. Funny.
Today, Amanda is doing some clinic thing up at UW, and then will have clinic at Harborview. I am about to take a break (well, writing this entry is also a break) and go running before eating lunch.