pre-fringe saturday shopping

so much to do
Today didn't all exactly go according to plan, but enough of it went right that I can't really complain.

Oh, and in answer to the question I posed yesterday about whether or not I was ready for Fringe... I can definitely say that even if I wasn't before, I am now!

I woke up far too early this morning, played with my phone a bit, got up and pottered around for five minutes, then gave up and went back to bed for another half an hour or so. Which doesn't really have much of a bearing on the rest of the day... but it was stuff that happened.

When I did get up, I did a little bit of tidying up, but spent a little too long phaffing about so that I was only just getting out of the shower when Ma arrived.

Eventually we toddled off to the supermarket and did the usual Supermarket Wander before heading to the checkout with the trainee girl. Now I'll give her her due, yes she was a little bit slow, but she was a good bag-packer... and that's rare in check-out staff, so big check in the plus column for her there. She was also being "trained" by possibly one of the most attractive young men I've seen in a goodly while... great hair, beautiful straight nose, lips that were like two little pink satin pillows... lordy, just divine. He clearly chewed his nails though and was obviously half my age at the bare minimum, but nobody's perfect.

After we'd finished all the other random wandering, we headed back here for the marathon unpacking.

I do enjoy the fact that my kitchen bench is now about twice as long, maybe more, than it previously was... it does assist with the grocery unpacking.

Anyway, once everything was all put away we did a little mulling over exactly what we were going to do between then and 3pm or so when we needed to be back at my place to get ready for our first Fringe show.

Sometimes it's good when you're thinking something but don't really want to suggest it, and the other person just comes right out and suggests the same thing for completely different reasons. In this instance, it was Ma who did the suggesting, with the location being IKEA.

However, if we were going to IKEA, I also really wanted to head to Toy Corner first to pick up the necessary Lego parts to make some DIY Lego wall art. The only down side to that being that the two stores are essentially in complete opposite directions. But we had all day, and no other plans... so we headed off to Toy Corner.

For some reason, I had it in my head that it was a little bit closer than it actually was, but it didn't take that much longer to get there.

We had a bit of a poke around the store before I went up to the counter and asked for the bits and pieces that I needed. Sadly they didn't have any of the 16 x 16 plates in the colours I wanted, so I left with just the small 2 x 2 plates. So that'll either mean another trip up there, or I may have to investigate it either of the other two stores that specialise in Lego have the parts I want.

It did mean we also got to have a bit of a wander around Ned's... which isn't a store I get to frequent very often as none of them are really in directions I end up going. Mostly it was a lot of scary stuff that shouldn't really exist, but we did spot some tiny "cupcake" sized bell jars on sale, and they had the types of long skinny canvases that I want to use for the Macbeth themed text artwork that I want to make for my bedroom once my hand is functional again.

Then we trekked from the north-east out to the west and the Land of the Swedish Meatball. It was more or less lunch time by the time we got there, so we stopped off at the restaurant... yeah, I know I say this almost every time, but it's all a bit ho-hum. We ended up getting soup, which wasn't all that bad.

Then we did a reasonably quick circuit of IKEA, going in the opposite direction to everyone else, because sometimes it's fun to swim against the current.

Our main targets were all on the ground floor though... as usual, it's kind of difficult to wander through the kitchen section without getting distracted (to the tune of two storage jars)... I finally gave in and got a small round rug just to put between the two armchairs to put my feet on... and as usual, the frame section is always somewhere I end up spending time, even before I actually had things that needed frames. Oh, and a little yellow cloud napkin rack to use as a letter rack, which works really well.

Then, due to the fact that we were there, they were cheap, and it will save us a trip later, was to grab one of the Rast chest of drawers... they don't look like much, but I'm hoping to channel my inner Martha Stewart (or other home decorating diva of choice) and make them look a little something like this. Yes, it may end up being more expensive than if I'd bought something, but there don't seem to be any bedside cabinets that are a decent size like that.

Anyway, it'll be a project...

I also picked up some cheap clear acrylic drawer handles... eventually I want to replace them with some chrome ones, but the ones in IKEA were like $7 a pair, whereas the acrylic ones were $1 for 6... so they'll do as an interim measure.

Fortunately we didn't need to deconstruct Ma's car to get the box in, but it did require a little juggling to secure it to the back seat using the seatbelts.

And then we headed back to my place.

We bummed around for a little while, between watching Calamity Jane on the teevee and washing the storage jars, it didn't take too long before we were getting ready to head into the city for The Bunker Trilogy.

Well, technically it ended up only being The Bunker Duet... there are three shows, but they cancelled Macbeth for tonight for some unknown reason... and I wasn't notified by the folks at the Fringe... and there was no announcement or sign up at the venue, we just heard someone in the crowd talking.

Anyway, I did have a little bit of a fanboy moment because the director/designer of The Bunker Trilogy is the amazing Jethro Compton, star of the 2012 Fringe show, The Boy James... which is still amongst the most amazing Fringe shows I've ever seen... and although he's not acting in this show, he was there at the venue, so I fanboyed a little, but there wasn't an opportunity to actually fanboy AT him, I just had to do it about him instead.

Full reviews for both of the shows tonight will follow... but moving on, we had a gap of a couple of hours between the first and second show, so we headed up to Gouger Street (since the venue was, of all things, a former print shop between Gouger and Grote) to find somewhere to eat.

As we wandered up towards the main eatery part of Gouger, we spotted a Sushi place on the opposite side of the road, and decided to head across to have a look... turned out it was one of those places with the conveyor belt, which neither Ma nor I have been to before (I know, I know... but it's true), so we figured why the hell not.

So dinner was at Sushi Bar Genki... given that it was only a little after 5pm, we were one of the first people in the place, and when we first sat down there weren't as many choices of things as there might have been later in the evening... but it did increase as time went on, and they had iPads were you could order whatever you liked. Of course, Ma and I ordered a plate of edamame each... because, edamame! Oh, and also, picked ginger... I LOVE pickled ginger so much!

And we kind of just picked some stuff off the conveyor at random that either looked good or sounded good or some combination of both. It's definitely a place I wouldn't mind going back to again, just to try some other things. But we got a nice range of different tastes, and even though I had to use my chopsticks in my left hand I still did pretty well with them.

Once we had a nice little stack of plates and some full bellies, we headed back to the venue for the second part of the Bunker Trilogy.

Sadly the third part has been postponed until the beginning of March, but it'll be worth the wait!

It did mean that we got to come back earlier, although it also meant that I came home to the neighbours with the pool at the back having a party. Which pretty much seems to consist of drunken shouting, very loud and off-key singing to whatever Top 40 dreck they're listening to... and last time it kept up until about midnight.

At some point, if not now, then the next time they pull this shit, there will very likely be some angry yelling out the window... urgh... anyway, I'm rocking some Coffivity through my headphones which is drowning out most everything but the most noisy singing/screaming. Which doesn't mean I'm not going to scream at them...

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