Yay!

Okay, this is cool. I'm feeling so much better/more alive this morning. Two loads of laundry done (well, the second's still drying for a bit more) - oh, and I bought that skirt I liked, I still like it (but the shirts didn't seem as nice on second glance, so I left them).

I'm going to head out in a few more minutes. Going downtown. This may be an absurd notion, considering it's a holiday weekend and there's Saturday Market + The Bite going on, but I want to go to those two, so methinks I'm sort of stuck with it. I may also stop by Powell's, we'll see. Task 1: locate one of my walking maps of Portland and mark the bus routes on it. I'm not sure if I'm going to park in Portland or just park & ride Max from Beaverton. The latter might be the wiser course. Either way, I figure I'll take the buses around anywhere I want to get to once in Portland.

Hmmm. I'd also like to go to the Gardens and I might do that today. I also might not since they are still on summer hours until the end of September, which means I could go after work one day next week - if work doesn't run too late. Tuesday's out; I'll have the after-hours cell (covering for someone else for one day), and Thursday I'll be packing...Wednesday I'll have to do laundry.

Right. Gardens today, never mind that next week stuff.... Besides, I'll be up pretty close to them. Could even take Max/the bus to get there inna first place if I parked and rode in, but I really don't care to, since the bus down from the Max station in Washington Park is not exactly the most zippy way back up (the down trip is a bit slower than I'd drive it because he has to maneuver the bus around curves - the "up" trip is along another, lengthier, path).

Babbling. Yes. And now I'm going to wander off and go do something about this. Starting by figuring out where my walking maps are....

Fun is when you rip your finger.

Er, something. I'll explain that in a minute but, just so I live to the end of the post, no, it's not a big deal. :)

Plans, survival of, etc. I decided to drive downtown - the hype on the radio about how icky parking was going to be notwithstanding, I figured it was still early, and besides, even odds the situation had driven away anyone whose business could wait. Besides, I'm an optimist. 11 am. The parking garage is...empty on and above the third floor. Yeah, right, poor parking. Smart Park, the cheapest places I know of in the city, is more empty than not. Parked right near the stairwell and everything.

Of course, I ate about a half hour before I left the house; I was hungry, and figured I'd be downtown a while. So, wandered Saturday Market. ( Details of Saturday Market time )

Of course, I'd also intended to go to The Bite (just across the street), Powell's, and possibly even the art museum. This did not happen. I wasn't hungry yet, I was restless, Powell's wasn't inviting enough to get there, and I'm very ambivalent about art museums and museums in general. I get bored/restless too easily - and I was already restless. Not good, especially when the major exhibit they're touting, I've already seen. It was a very good exhibit - Splendors of Imperial Japan. I know at least one person I read here, that I think would probably love it. But I don't draw, you can't take pictures, and I'm only so able to be fascinated in any given moment. Heh. In other words, I have the attention span of a ten-year-old as regards museums, at least.

Left there, headed out 26 toward the zoo exit (my favored way to get to the Japanese Gardens). Their parking lot was full. So were the spaces in front of the tennis courts. I present the latter merely as a gauge of busy-ness; as a rule, I don't go up to the Gardens if their lot is full. It can be half full and they will be a hell-hole overpopulated by people. When it's full? Forget it. The effort of parking by the rose test gardens or on the street parking places (easy to get into, deadly to get out of, since you have to back out perpendicular to traffic!) is pointless if I will only be annoyed.

Headed on out to the Craft Warehouse. Where I did not buy the fountain-making supplies. I have pumps and foggers and bowls and stones and stones with holes and pottery supports I have not used. They did, I admit, have submersible lights, which I don't have - but that's because I don't like lights in tabletop fountains! It was hard not to grab pumps and foggers because they were on sale, good (not great, but good) pumps for under $20 and foggers for just about $40. That's a really good deal. Still, wandering through them left me feeling more inspired/fountainish. We'll see if that inspiration survives to be used, but hey.

Debated Powell's Beaverton, decided against it (I really do have enough books anyway, I guess). So made my only practical stop I'd intended to make - the shoe store. I've got a pair of work shoes, and a pair of casual-wear beat-up work-around-the-house shoes. Problem: I'd used them for yardwork. They're now rather, well, coated in yard debris. Not what I want to wear for other stuff. Since I'm trying to do more walking, for my new casual shoes, I grabbed a pair of tennis shoes that seem suitable for that.

That was my downfall. I was wearing my work shoes, so of course I wanted to switch (also, might as well start breaking them in). So I had to cut the tag. I decided this after leaving the store, so instead of having them cut it, I grabbed my nail clippers to do the task (they're just fine for thin plastic stuff, after all). Only somehow I gripped them wrong and my thumb slipped and the pressure was abruptly just on the nail.

Which got yanked back from the nail bed. Just at the edge, but enough to sting like crazy and bleed. This resulted in a quick stop at the Target next door for a box of bandaids (we were low anyway) and some antibiotic, since I didn't really think I wanted an infection there even as a mild risk. It didn't stop hurting until a few minutes after that was applied - I really did a number to it apparently.

And then I came home. :) Scott was just finishing his salad for the potluck/gaming group meeting he's going to this afternoon, so I stole a cucumber slice and then wished him a good time; he's left for that now.

And me? I think I may go play with my fountain-stuff for a while.