Errand Day

Since I do most of my travel in the city by bus, it’s become second nature to lump as many stops into one session as possible – get the most for my money, as it were. In one of Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels, he mentions a practice of requiring three reasons to go anywhere, and that’s something like what I try for. So Monday after my e-mail check, I went to work off accumulated errands, being out of cash, out of reading material, and requiring a saw. Stop one was downtown, for the bank and library. I think I did pretty well with my library session. (There seem to be issues with adding pictures today. This is as good as it gets, sorry.)

I always like to see what people get at the library and the grocery store, as a way of learning something about them. Wonder what my library pile says to others? This week’s run included 2 Victorian-set mysteries, 2 sci-fi/fantasy, Ovid’s Metamorphoses in two volumes, a book on Louisburg and one on the English conquest of Canada, and two on rural schools – Glengarry Schooldays by Ralph Connor and Tales from a Village School by Miss Read. Sadly, I’m on the third book of the 10 already. I have this issue with putting books down.

I ran down to Lee Valley also before going home, for the saw. Just a small folding one for pruning, as I’m cleaning up the garden for someone nearby, for a little extra money. They have lots of soft maple invading, and an old honeysuckle interfering with the clothesline, among other things. I suspect they haven’t done much at all in years with the place (he says, ’The garden is here, or it was 8 years ago.’), and it will be satisfying to see it come alive again.

I also bought garden shoes there. I had a couple of gift cards to spend, and I know these shoes are comfy and tough – my parents have them also, and if Mom can’t kill them, they’re pretty darn good. I use them when I’m there, and love them, except they’re a couple sizes too big, so now I have my own. And in red not green like the others, so it’s hard to mix them up – think of the confusion three pair of almost-identical green shoes would cause. Bad enough our rubber boots are the same.