haircuts and hardware stores

I just want to say first off that Spring really did do that "sprunging" thing today... it was a GLORIOUS day... I think it ended up being 22°C... warm enough just to wear a teeshirt... and I put on my "Summer sneakers" (they're not really that Summery, they just don't have much of a sole to them, so my pants would drag in puddles in the Winter) too. Glorious!

Today was something of a stealth Haircut Day... I mean I knew it was happening, but I only booked in on Thursday at lunchtime... Ma was scheduled for her Haircut Day today (I know, its incredibly lame having haircuts on the same day, but it saves me sitting around waiting for her to come down here) and at the last minute I decided that even though I wanted a cut and colour I should book myself in... and after some "Who's on First" antics with the guy who owns the salon about the appointment time (my brain kept thinking that "tomorrow" on Thursday was actually Saturday, so I confused both of us) I managed to slot in first thing this morning...

I rocked up around the correct time for a change (stupid Saturday buses left me standing at the bus stop for ages so I couldn't get there any earlier), after getting myself an Iced Coffee and two chocolate sprinkle donuts (one for me and one for Tink)... and we did our usual random pop culture gossip, discussed various model-related reality shows and movies and whatnot while she cut my hair in the same style as last time and then coloured it in my "usual" not really blonde but blonde colour...

Once I was all done and Ma had rocked up at the salon after doing some wandering in the city on her own, we headed off for Supermarket Adventures...

Pffft... why do old people need to go shopping on Saturday morning? Don't they have ALL week to do their shopping, isn't that the point of old people? I'm not against old people in general, just the kind of old people who get to the top of an aisle and STAND THERE while people are trying to get past or down the aisle or whatever... grrrrr...

I was also highly surprised to find something decent clothing-wise in one of those very "low rent" bargain chain clothing stores (the one that ends in "Less", I can't bring myself to actually mention the name though)... they had racks of questionable teeshirts out the front for $5 and Ma showed me one that was okay but a bit naff, and I flicked through the racks and found two halfway decent ones. Sure they're gunna fall apart after the first wash, but hello, $5... and one is all baby blue and white and shiny gold (which I'm wearing at the moment) and the other one has a bear on it (and some reference to Alaska, so it's probably a fake sporting team thing)... so they were kinda okay, at least for the five minutes they're going to last.

After the ritual unpacking and reading of the paper and whatnot we were kinda stuck about where to go and what to do next... added to that was the fact it was about 1pm, and we usually have to make that decision at around 10am... so we didn't really want to go very far or do a heap of stuff.

Eventually we just got in the car and headed off... somewhere. I'm not completely sure WHERE we were headed, possibly in a vague West Lakes kind of direction, but that got knocked on the head as we headed down Port Road. The foozeball is on today/tonight/at some point/like I care... so all the tragics were driving down the same road as us. Fortunately there's a new bigass Bunnings store on Port Road, so we headed over there instead to find out about some stain/varnish for the coffee table Ma got from Ikea. I wasn't thinking at the time, but we really should have just asked the woman about oiling it... but we didn't, so we ended up with a pot of stain and varnish all in one (it varnishes as it stains as it varnishes... or something) and a paintbrush and some sandpaper (which we didn't actually need)...

Then we came back to my place and I put the table together and stainished (or whatever the collective term for staining and varnishing at the same time is) it for her. Well, the first coat anyway. Can I just say that I suck at home handyman stuff... even something as simple as painting/staining... not so great. It was worse because it was like a light coloured stain (I think it's supposed to be Aged Baltic or something), and it kept dripping and pooling in odd places... and then it would collect on the bevelled edges of the legs and tabletop and whatnot.

I still think it's a little patchy and a little crap (not bad, but it just looks like an amateur job), but fortunately I had Ma take the varnish stuff away with her (she's going to take the table away on Tuesday when the stuff is properly dry) so I wouldn't be tempted to try again and in my efforts to fix it make it worse (or put so many coats on that it ends up toffee coloured)... it is going to need a couple more coats though, it's not all smooth and lacquery yet.

I'm not quite sure what to do with myself this evening... I think all this sunshine has me considering a little outing... which probably won't happen, but I'm considering it... it'll probably just end up being a night of Mythbusters...

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