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Marriage Dates
Nov. 4th, 2017 09:50 amYesterday, Shawn took me out on a date.
We do this every so often, and always on a Friday, early afternoon, so that, as a bonus, Shawn gets the rest of the day off from work as a "mental health day." Win/Win, as the kids would say.
I picked Shawn up at the Minnesota Historical Society around 11:00 am and off we went to Saint Paul's West Side neighborhood, to our favorite date spot: Boca Chica Restaurant Mexicano y Catina. We got there just in time for the all-you-can-eat buffet to get started. The food was amazing as always. From there, we stopped off at a thrift store on 7th in downtown (and a bathroom break--and coffee for me--at Claddagh Coffee.) Shawn managed to find a mixer bowl at the thrift store that we'd been looking for. (I break things.)
I got bored at the thrift store faster than usual. It's sort of a stereotype, I suppose, but my wife loves to shop for bargains; me, not so much. I'm usually good for an hour or two, if there are books, however. Typically, I'm not a big non-fiction fan, but, when I go to thrift stores in particular, I love looking through the non-fiction. People read and recycle the WEIRDEST stuff. But, for whatever reason, St. Vincent's didn't have many non-fiction books and most of them were ultra-religious. I can still enjoy the ultra-religious stuff, if it's something more than the run of the mill "Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul" type stuff. Alas, all they had fell into this category, what I would call basic Christian self-help. Booooor-ring. I dug a little through their stationary section, but also came up short.
Stationary is super hard to come by these days. This might be a surprise to you, but no one handwrites letters any more. Barnes & Noble often has super-overpriced stationary sets, but there's not the variety that you once used to be able to find, and the sets are rarely more than 10 sheets. That's, like, two letters for me. So, I'm always on the lookout for stationary at thrift stores. You'd be surprised at the stuff I've found--though I've had FAR better luck at estate sales. Even so, last trip to Good Will, I found two full packs of stationary for a dollar a piece. They were weird (a jungle scene, if I remember right?), but I honestly don't care, so long as I can actually write on the stuff. I'm actually expecting to get some stationary for my birthday--which is in two weeks! I'll be fifty!--and if not then, for Soltice/Christmas.
But, St. Vincent's had nada, zilch, nothing.
Boo.
After that, Shawn and I decided to head home, where I promptly napped. Mason had had me up late the night before helping him format a newspaper for his English class. They're doing creative book reports and he decided to do Game of Thrones. So, he wrote a bunch of articles, an advice column, a full page of obituaries, and even put together a crossword puzzle. It was actually pretty neat, helped along by the fact that there's an HBO show, so he had lots of action pictures to use, like a real newspaper might have. But, I haven't had to do layout since sometime in the 1990s and so there was a bit of a learning curve. I don't think we got to bed until nearly midnight (on a school night!) So, I had intended just to "rest my eyes" and the next thing I knew it was 2:30 pm and time to go fetch Mason from school.
The evening was pleasant. It started to snow on our drive home and so my entire family happily went into hibernation mode: snuggling under blankets, reading books, etc. We ordered pizza because we TRIED to order pizza on Halloween night and discovered that, apparently that's a thing people do and we couldn't get one to save our souls. On Halloween, we ended up driving to Cossetta's and picking up pasta, as well as pizza, for take home. But it wasn't Maverick's, which is our new favorite pizza place since Eden Pizza closed its doors.
Shawn and I decided to make hot buttered rum, which Shawn had a recipe for. It seemed like a good idea on a snowy night, but, ugh, no... never again. I was totally delicious, don't get me wrong, but there was something about having it right before bedtime that was a total mistake. Despite being highly alcoholic, it totally acted like caffeine for me. I could NOT get to sleep. Meanwhile, Shawn slept but seemed to get an insta-hangover and totally disrupted sleep patterns, too. It was weird. We vowed that if we did this again, it would be in the middle of the afternoon, NOT right before bed.
This morning, Shawn is making an apple cake. We have a ton of leftover apples we need to figure out what to do with. At least neither of us seem to be suffering this morning from the rum.
We do this every so often, and always on a Friday, early afternoon, so that, as a bonus, Shawn gets the rest of the day off from work as a "mental health day." Win/Win, as the kids would say.
I picked Shawn up at the Minnesota Historical Society around 11:00 am and off we went to Saint Paul's West Side neighborhood, to our favorite date spot: Boca Chica Restaurant Mexicano y Catina. We got there just in time for the all-you-can-eat buffet to get started. The food was amazing as always. From there, we stopped off at a thrift store on 7th in downtown (and a bathroom break--and coffee for me--at Claddagh Coffee.) Shawn managed to find a mixer bowl at the thrift store that we'd been looking for. (I break things.)
I got bored at the thrift store faster than usual. It's sort of a stereotype, I suppose, but my wife loves to shop for bargains; me, not so much. I'm usually good for an hour or two, if there are books, however. Typically, I'm not a big non-fiction fan, but, when I go to thrift stores in particular, I love looking through the non-fiction. People read and recycle the WEIRDEST stuff. But, for whatever reason, St. Vincent's didn't have many non-fiction books and most of them were ultra-religious. I can still enjoy the ultra-religious stuff, if it's something more than the run of the mill "Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul" type stuff. Alas, all they had fell into this category, what I would call basic Christian self-help. Booooor-ring. I dug a little through their stationary section, but also came up short.
Stationary is super hard to come by these days. This might be a surprise to you, but no one handwrites letters any more. Barnes & Noble often has super-overpriced stationary sets, but there's not the variety that you once used to be able to find, and the sets are rarely more than 10 sheets. That's, like, two letters for me. So, I'm always on the lookout for stationary at thrift stores. You'd be surprised at the stuff I've found--though I've had FAR better luck at estate sales. Even so, last trip to Good Will, I found two full packs of stationary for a dollar a piece. They were weird (a jungle scene, if I remember right?), but I honestly don't care, so long as I can actually write on the stuff. I'm actually expecting to get some stationary for my birthday--which is in two weeks! I'll be fifty!--and if not then, for Soltice/Christmas.
But, St. Vincent's had nada, zilch, nothing.
Boo.
After that, Shawn and I decided to head home, where I promptly napped. Mason had had me up late the night before helping him format a newspaper for his English class. They're doing creative book reports and he decided to do Game of Thrones. So, he wrote a bunch of articles, an advice column, a full page of obituaries, and even put together a crossword puzzle. It was actually pretty neat, helped along by the fact that there's an HBO show, so he had lots of action pictures to use, like a real newspaper might have. But, I haven't had to do layout since sometime in the 1990s and so there was a bit of a learning curve. I don't think we got to bed until nearly midnight (on a school night!) So, I had intended just to "rest my eyes" and the next thing I knew it was 2:30 pm and time to go fetch Mason from school.
The evening was pleasant. It started to snow on our drive home and so my entire family happily went into hibernation mode: snuggling under blankets, reading books, etc. We ordered pizza because we TRIED to order pizza on Halloween night and discovered that, apparently that's a thing people do and we couldn't get one to save our souls. On Halloween, we ended up driving to Cossetta's and picking up pasta, as well as pizza, for take home. But it wasn't Maverick's, which is our new favorite pizza place since Eden Pizza closed its doors.
Shawn and I decided to make hot buttered rum, which Shawn had a recipe for. It seemed like a good idea on a snowy night, but, ugh, no... never again. I was totally delicious, don't get me wrong, but there was something about having it right before bedtime that was a total mistake. Despite being highly alcoholic, it totally acted like caffeine for me. I could NOT get to sleep. Meanwhile, Shawn slept but seemed to get an insta-hangover and totally disrupted sleep patterns, too. It was weird. We vowed that if we did this again, it would be in the middle of the afternoon, NOT right before bed.
This morning, Shawn is making an apple cake. We have a ton of leftover apples we need to figure out what to do with. At least neither of us seem to be suffering this morning from the rum.