Friday Randomness

Looks like I didn’t do a Friday Randomness last week, so let’s get caught up.

This week uber-creative blogger Michelle and her husband were in San Francisco for a medical appointment (thankfully great news there!), and when they asked if I wanted to pop over for dinner, of course I said yes! As always, meeting a blogger is like meeting a friend, because they ARE a friend, just one that you haven’t met in person before. In this case I got a bonus, because her husband joined us for dinner. It was lovely to get to know them a bit in person, and hear about their very rural life, which is so very different from my semi-urban life in the Bay Area, and reminded me in some ways of my childhood in Fairbanks, Alaska. My only complaints were that we forgot to take a picture of us, and she didn’t bring her dollhouse for us to play with. (Can you imagine what an undertaking that would be? HA!) Going into the City for dinner presents the question of public transit vs. driving. It’s cheaper to drive, assuming you can find free parking. Their hotel was in a neighborhood where I might find street parking, but it’s always risky. Also, as much as I love SF, I do not love driving there. I’m comfortable doing it, but it’s never fun with so many cars, people walking in front of you in the middle of a block, one way streets, and the parking issue. So I decided to take public transportation. I live about 2 blocks from a BART station, so that part was easy, but getting from the BART station to their hotel was more complicated. Should I take a bus? Walk? Take the cable car? Walking is fine, but there are some very steep hills on the most direct route and I didn’t want to get there all sweaty. Buses are fine but kinda boring. The cable car is the best, kind of fun and also pretty direct. But spendy. Riding the cable car is $9 each way, so would more than double the cost of my trip. Oh well, it’s only money, right? And Michelle and her husband were kindly treating me to dinner, so overall not too expensive. I remember when I lived in San Francisco that sometimes if you hopped on the Cable Car a few blocks along on the route, they wouldn’t bother to collect a fare from you. The last 2 times I have tried this, it has not gone my way and I’ve had to pay, but this time I got lucky, and not just once but twice! Yay! Thank you, kind Cable Car operators! And thank you Michelle and Pat for a lovely dinner and conversation! If you get a chance to hang out with Michelle, I highly recommend it.

The other morning I was out for my morning walk, and happened upon a long line of folks in front of Best Buy waiting for them to open. I asked someone what the deal was, and they said Pokémon cards. True? Who knows, but it made me kind of happy to see them out there doing their thing.

There are 3 units for sale in our townhome complex. Now that we have our pretty siding up and the construction is over, it’s a good time to sell. Or it was a couple of months ago when 2 units sold for $X. 2 of these 3 asked for that same amount, but the 3rd went about $100k less. What? Why? These are townhouses, and pretty identical. Some difference could be explained by upgrades in the kitchen or whatever, but not $100k worth. I’m sure this is really messing with the other 2. I’m glad we’re not trying to sell right now.

There are still 5 kittens at the rescue where I clean kennels a couple of days a week. Look at this one, all stretched out. Cute tummy.

I went to the Farmers’ Market on Sunday, when it was 97 degrees and disgusting out. Right after I took this picture, the vendor moved the grapes from these bins into the shade. Not sure if that was for the grapes or for the shoppers, but I was happy about it and bought a bunch. I love August and September grapes around here, so good. I also got berries and tomatoes. I had money left, and was going to look for some vegetables, but it was too hot and I was sweating and didn’t want to think anymore. So I took my fruit and went home.

I saw this random photo on Facebook. True? Fake? Don’t know, but I liked it! You know, except the idea that someone dumped a broken printer on a street corner. And clearly it’s not current, since July 3 was on a Friday this year (I know because it’s our anniversary, so I pay attention.)

What else. Well, I had a money win this week. I told you all a while ago about Capital One Shopping. The basic idea is that you sign up for it (you do not have to use or even have a Capital One credit card or account), and then they send you emails with offers. You go to those websites through the links, and shop, and you get points that you can use to buy gift cards. Of course they track your browsing and send you deals that are related to what you shopped for, which is surely how they make money. ANYWAY, I bought something or another and had $45 worth of gift cards at Ulta. THEN the shampoo we use went on sale, 2 for $48 (instead of $68), so I snapped it up and was pretty proud of myself. With tax, I ended up paying $7 something for my shampoo. I mean, I could save a lot of money by using a drug store shampoo, but this stuff really works well for us, and as I’ve gotten older my hair is more picky.

Today I’m going to dinner with my darling friend Neva. Thankfully the weather is perfect (cool and breezy) rather than the stupid 100 we had last week. Tomorrow we’re having Ted’s parents over to celebrate their 51st wedding anniversary.

I hope you have wonderful blogger meetups, and beautiful weather, and no wildfire smoke, and family and friend time. Happy Friday!