Technically it shouldn't really have been emotionally draining except for the fact that I wasn't feeling 100%, so that took it's toll.
The day started unexpectedly at around 2am when I woke up with the taste of, I'm guessing, bile in my throat and having a little trouble breathing clearly. I have no idea what the hell was going on... but it wasn't pleasant.
And it took a while, and a spoonful of icecream before I could get the horrible taste out of my throat, given that water didn't do a damn thing. Fortunately I did manage to get back to sleep reasonably easily though.
When my alarm finally went off I just felt generally not right. I had a bit of a headache, I was a little nauseous and my brain felt a little like it was operating from a long, long way away.
And it's not like we didn't have a whole bunch of things to do and places to go today... so that was helpful.
Once Ma arrived it started with us getting my recalcitrant car battery started... which fortunately didn't take as long as I feared it might, and then we drove down the road in separate cars so that I could drop my car off at the mechanic for a new battery while we were shopping.
By the time we were finished shopping my car was ready, and actually started when I turned the key, which is always nice.
When we got back to my place, I went through the boxes of my old books that Ma had brought down to see what was headed off in search of new owners. Which turned into a whole saga on it's own...
But before that we packed up the car full of books and the artwork the framing place put the string on the wrong way up plus the extra prints that Ma wanted framed and headed off to the aforementioned framing place.
I picked up the "art doll" I bought a while back from Espionage Gallery which I'd dropped off to be framed when we picked everything else up last time. It actually looked fantastic... there was a little text blurb that came with the piece when I bought it and the guys at the framing place suggested that they could do that as a little gold plaque at the bottom and it worked out really well.
Once I have everything sorted out with my books and bookcases I'm definitely going to need to go through and photograph all my artwork, maybe create a private blog or private Tumblr for them.
I also took over a tiny bit for the two pieces Ma was having framed... the guy was going with something that was "safer" than I thought the prints needed, so I stepped in. If Ma had objected I would have butted out, but she was happy for me to put my two cents in.
And to think that the first time we went in and had a ton of stuff framed the girl said something like "well that's your framing done for the year then"... little did she know.
I wasn't completely sure exactly where I wanted to take all of the books to sell, but there was a bookstore we visited somewhere in Unley last year that I figured would be a good place to start... so we headed there... it was gone, replaced by a beauty shop.
Not a good beginning... but thankfully I had the technology to go looking for other second hand bookstores.
And we found one that wasn't that far away and headed over there... but the woman there was "only looking after the shop for the day" and couldn't buy any books.
At that point we were two for two and I was getting a little annoyed. So I sat in the car looking other bookshops up on my phone and ended up calling them to check that they were a) still there, b) were open and c) could actually buy books...
The first place I tried was a "book exchange" but didn't buy books (sorry, WTF?), the next place only wanted to buy two small boxes/bags worth (I had four boxes and two bags in the boot of the car, so no joy there), the next place didn't buy it only took donations.
By that point I was more than a little frustrated... firstly with the fact I couldn't find anywhere that would take the books but also because it was difficult to even find places online to try. Or at least it was difficult using my iPhone.
Eventually I managed to find a place on South Road, which was basically down the road and around the corner from where we were sitting. And they at least said that they would look at what I had and make an offer.
Hallelujah!
I mean I know the proverbial arse has fallen out of the book market, but seriously, I didn't know it was THAT bad!
Although the place I called did look more than a little dodgy... there really wasn't room to swing a proverbial cat... in fact there wasn't even room to swing a very small book about cats. There didn't even seem to be a counter... it was just a fairly average sized shop crammed from wall to wall with as many bookcases and books as humanly possible.
The older couple who ran the store were quite sweet if a little bit bordering on bibliophilic... and they ended up taking more books than I was expecting, but at the same time they left some stuff that I thought they probably would have taken due to the fact that they already had copies.
By the time we came to talk about cash moneys I wasn't really expecting a lot... to be honest I was just happy to find somewhere that would take the books and give me any amount of cash.
While we'd been going through the books Ma had been wandering around the rest of the shop and had found a couple of books she wanted, so we threw those into the deal, and I still walked away with $40, which was better than a kick in the face.
And because I really couldn't be bothered bringing the books that they didn't want back home, we headed into the city to the Oxfam Shop and dropped them off as donations. The girl looking after the shop was very grateful, and they're now officially out of my hair.
Then we headed down to Arndale to go and see Epic at the movies... now I know that it's school holidays, and a Saturday and an animated movie... but what the hell is with parents not controlling their children at the movies? Or in public generally I guess... but specifically at the movies.
It made me want to stand up at the start of any movie where the audience is largely children and give a presentation on how we behave at the movies. We do not talk during the movie... if we do have to say something, we whisper. We sit in our chairs and don't run around. We do not under any circumstances behave like we're in our lounge room.
But it's not really surprising the children don't know how to behave when the adults seem to be easily confused by the simple combination of a letter and a number denoting their designated seats.
And as much as I dislike the concept of assigned seating (I think it's so that the cinema companies can force people into booking tickets online and therefore they can decrease the number of frontline staff they employ, and reduce their costs... all of which means that the quality of service to the customer is greatly reduced), if you're assigned a fucking seat, you damn well sit in it until the movie starts and they if you really want to, go find another seat.
Because if you sit in a seat you weren't assigned, especially in one of the small cinemas, then the people who were supposed to sit in that seat have to find another seat, which means the people who were supposed to sit there have to find another seat... and so on and so forth.
Anyway... after the movie we headed into the city (again) to pick up the artwork I couldn't bring home on Thursday... and to look at the artworks that had just come in for the show in a couple of weeks, which is one of the perks of being such a good customer. I didn't end up choosing anything other than the one that I "bought" on Thursday without seeing it in the flesh. But it really was gorgeous, and once again it was the only male themed piece in the whole show, so I had to own it.
Unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to hang around and chat with Josh due to only having a short term carpark, and when we got there there was a random dude chatting with Josh already so we lost some time there.
By the time we got back here it was about 5:30... which, given that we weren't going out anywhere this evening, was a very long day for us. And I really am both physically and emotionally worn out.
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