One productive Saturday!

I set my alarm this morning, because I didn't want to sleep the day away and it ended up being my most productive Saturday in a long time!

I woke up at about 9:30, showered and hit the road with a destination in mind—Hong Kong Chinese in north Durham. I've been craving dim sum for a while and wasn't able to go when I was home because of the stupid snow. When I got to the restaurant, I was both disappointed and angry to find out they were closed. The rage only lasted a second though because I quickly realized that I was actually just a few minutes too early. That's a first! On the weekends, this place serves dim sum from 11 to 3, which is good to know. To kill some time, I headed across the street to a thrift store called Everything But Granny's Panties. I actually tried to find this place before Christmas to follow our family's rules and try to find some used gifts. Now I'm glad I couldn't find it. The place was a wreck. It's basically just a house with a bunch of crap inside. Nothing to see there...however, they did have a cool junkyard-style elephant in their parking lot!



In the store, I overheard a really funny conversation. A customer asked to use the bathroom and the woman working said, "Well, we used to let customers use the bathroom, but then somebody went and put a video of it onto the YouTube. I don't know why they felt the need to do that...we warned them it was messy!"

So, of course I searched for it. And of course I found it, with this written as the description: Okay, lemme explain. There is a second-hand store in Durham called Everything but Granny's Panties, and we had heard a lot of good things about it. When we finally went, we were a bit disappointed, but that's how these kinds of places are. Hit or miss. I really had to go to the bathroom while we were there, but they don't have a "public" restroom. They were, however, kind enough to let me use theirs, warning me first to not "break my leg." I thought they were kidding until I opened the door!! Note: Everyone around here actually calls the place "Granny's Panties." Enjoy!


A Mess in Granny's Panties from able parris on Vimeo.

After that, I headed back over to the restaurant and it was PACKED! I got back right at 11, which is good because if I had gotten back a few minutes later, I might not have gotten a table. Pretty crazy! I got seated and started off with some pork dumplings and pork buns. I love those pork buns...soooo good! Then I picked out something that I really didn't like (still not even sure what it is). I tried some shrimp dumplings (I like the pork ones better) and finished with a couple of those deliciously sweet sesame balls. With the exception of one dish, the food really hit the spot.

After breakfast, I headed to Auto Zone to grab some headlights for Cheryl's car. I've had a headlight out, so I just decided to switch out both at the same time. It was cheaper and easier than I expected, which was nice. But I was still able to get my hands all greasy and dirty, so I got that macho satisfaction that comes with doing manly things like fixing cars...even if it's just changing headlights.

The weirdest thing happened when I was driving home from Auto Zone. I passed a guy that had a duck sitting on his lap! I didn't believe it at first, so I let him catch up and...yep, it was a real, live duck just chillin' on the dude's lap. It'll probably be hard to see, but I took a picture anyway.



With the car taken care of, I headed off to the mall to get my computer looked at. (Sidetrack rant: some stupid lady was puppyguarding a parking spot in the parking lot. Totally against parking lot rules, if you ask me!) There's nothing seriously wrong, but I can't plug into the internet. I can still connect wirelessly, but it'd be nice to get my plug fixed so that I can use my laptop at work (since we don't have wireless there). As expected, the Genius Bar was booked out, so I just made an appointment for Monday. I didn't even walk around the mall because I had one more thing on my to-do list for the day...

The thing I was most excited for today was moving into my new cube at work. With a key and the alarm code now in my possession, I headed in to get settled in. I didn't even get the satisfaction of using my new key because there were other people in the office. I spent three hours cleaning out the old stuff in my cube and putting my personal touch on the place. It's not a finished product, but it feels good to get settled in a bit and I'm extremely excited for the new digs! Oh...did I mention I also found a VERY RARE card while cleaning out some old stuff? It's a Justin Upton Aflac card with the words "Player Issue" written on the side. It's really too bad that it's a little dinged up, otherwise it would be worth several hundred dollars. Here are a couple pictures of how my cube turned out so far...