Get a plan, Stan

I was busy two weekends in a row and I'll be busy next weekend so I decided that this weekend I was going to do nothing.

I didn't have any plans going in and I wasn't going to make any, not a pla. Except my laundry and mowing the lawn. I could handle that. If was trying to be really efficient, I could even do the two simultaneously. But that sounded like work. I wasn't going to work. My plan Friday night, and now I had one, was to go to bed whenever I wanted to and wake up Saturday whenever I woke up. But first I had to feed myself. I wanted something good.

Dogger and I were tired, we didn't go on our Friday Adventure Walk. Instead, Dogger accompanied me on a trip to go see how much of dinner I could buy at Poverty Barn. There was a story in the paper this week that local foodies were discovering that Shock and Awe, that Poverty Barn and other dollar stores sell food as well as household cleaners and picture frames. I all ready knew this. I wanted something interesting for dinner. I all ready had the boneless-skinless chicken breasts, so dinner wasn't going to be, you know fascinating or anything but I decided that I wanted fancy pasta and a decent white sauce and I thought Poverty Barn would be a good place to start - as long as I wasn't picky about which former Soviet block country supplied the noodles. Pretty much as it wasn't China I wasn't going to worry. A good policy is that if it comes from China and you find it at your dollar store? Do not ingest, that goes for little race cars, fake Barbie Dolls or things sold as "food". Weird greenish soup from Bizericstan? How international! You just have to pick your countries of origin carefully. Read the wrappers even if you have to ask for translation - If you're at a dollar store, trust me someone there speaks Bizericstanian or Polish, they're very close.

Anyway. I found noodles but no white sauce. I also found some promising plastic bins for planting flowers, I did not buy them . Remember, plan free! I went next door to Food Lion where I found the spinach noodles of my dreams as well as $3 a bottle white wine to fix the bottle of white sauce I settled on. My stir fried chicken and spinach noodles with white wine sauce was fabulous. And then I watched a very good doc, Helvetica . Yes, the type face. A documentary about a type face. It was good, you should check it out. You would think you would be more curious about something you see around you all the time, Helvetica is almost the visual equivalent to air - Everywhere around you all the time yet invisible.

Movie watched, still no plan. I stayed up late reading my book and work up Saturday whenever I woke up. I over slept. Sometime over night, I developed a plan : Go to the Farmers Market, and away I went. I looked at every flower they had. I found the right flowers and went to go pay for them ... and went...home, the Farmers Market doesn't take plastic. A "plan" might have been a good thing.

Once home I was in the direction of the dirt store, Poverty Barn, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. I was at Home Depot when a woman stopped me in the parking lot. If central casting was asked for Country Club Woman, they would have sent this woman. She was perfect, I hated her on sight. And she wanted to ask me a question, and in the same tone of voice you would use to ask the time she asked what she should do about the, excuse me, I do not know the correct word, the outside window sill on the drivers side of her car.

The paint had bubbled and chipped and she wanted to know how to fix it. She asked me this. If something happens to my car I take it to the garage and I tell them I think my car has a boo-boo and then I ask where the waiting room is. Don't ask me about your car. My car gets owies. I told her I would call the dealership and see if there was a recall and failing that, I would just pay them to fix it. I would not go to Home Depot to find auto paint for my car. She said thank you and disappeared into the Home Depot.

And I went back to the Farmers Market and bought my flowers and went home to plant them. But first, I had to unload my bins of dirt, drill out drain holes for the ice tubs cum planters, dump drainage pebbles into the tubs and finally, fill the tubs with dirt store dirt. Then I planted my flowers. And mowed my lawn and did the laundry. So much for no plans.

My flowers.
My first try Second time's the charm
The whole gang