An afternoon on the highway

We got a lot done this afternoon. I was at the store this morning, but left around 2 p.m. as sdavido and I had dentist appointments. (My uncle is our dentist, so I actually enjoy going.) We drove through the sleet to the dentist's office, and had our checkups. Then we headed out to B.J.'s (stopping at Krispy Kreme on the way...) to shop for shalach manot* ingredients. After that we got back on the highway and drove up to Macy's. Today was the last day of a half-price sale, and we wanted to look for a new suitcase. (sdavido's has gotten pretty beaten up, plus after almost losing it a couple times I really wanted something that wasn't black so it would stand out on a luggage carousel.) After some deliberation we bought a nice one that's kind of a golden bronze; not what I was originally thinking of, but it's a nice neutral, and a bit different. (We were considering several that were varying shades of blue. They also had several red ones, but I hate red.) Then we wandered around the mall a bit and finally headed back home through the sleet. Messy day to drive. And between the dentist and B.J.'s and the luggage it wound up being an expensive day, too. But we did check several things off our to-do list, so I think it was a good day on the whole.

* For those who aren't familiar with the term "shalach manot": There's a Jewish holiday called Purim on which it's customary to give gifts of food to your friends. (For details, see The Book of Esther.) This can be as simple as an apple and a cookie, and ranges all the way up to big fluffy gift baskets. My family has always liked to have a bit of fun with it - we usually do some kind of a theme - and since we got married sdavido has gotten into it, too. But since we make several dozen of these, we buy the contents in bulk as much as possible - it would be prohibitively expensive otherwise.

Milestone of sorts

For those of you who might be interested, today was the 10,000th episode of Days of Our Lives. My mother and I dug out the little portable TV and plugged it in at the store so we could watch it. (We used to follow it, but have been "out of the loop" for a while.) They had Frances Reid, who plays Alice Horton (one of the few remaining members of the original cast), do an introduction and postscript to the episode, which was rather sweet. It's amazing to realize it's been around that long...