Underwhelmed by Snow

So all week, we were told that we’d be getting quite a bit of snow here, and there were a lot of winter storm advisories &c. We had plans to see a movie Friday night, which I’d gotten tickets to a week or two ago, but by the time we got to Friday, we were both too tired to go out again, and ended up staying home. The tickets weren’t too expensive (it was going to be a nice cheap date), and the venue is owned by the city, so I figure it’s keeping that space running. Snow was supposed to pick up overnight and into Saturday, so we thought we’d probably be staying home Saturday as well, rather than going to the festival put on by the city downtown.

Slept in a little bit on Saturday morning, which was nice. We were thinking we’d meet up with friends for coffee that morning, but we waited around for an hour or so after texting them and never heard from them until much later. Guess they were busy and such, that’s OK. We went out ourselves. Instead of walking like I’d wanted to, my spouse felt more comfortable driving and parking in one of the lots near downtown, then walking around. I still wish we’d walked, but the walk downtown is about 30min from our house, and we still weren’t sure how the weather would behave and how icy the streets/sidewalks would be, so it’s OK. Parked and started looking around at the festival stuff. They partially closed down a few blocks, but couldn’t close down the highway that goes through the middle of town, so a few blocks were closed on either side of it and booths were set up. We ended up going to a coffee shop downtown and getting drinks, and sat for a little while there.

Once we’d finished our coffees, we got up and walked around a little more to look at booths and all that. There were some photo op areas, so we got a few photos, which was really nice. Overall, despite the cold, and the fact that we were there at the very start of the event, there were a decent number of people out. We ended up getting grilled cheeses from a food truck for an early lunch of sorts, and they were delicious! We went to one booth and they had little hand-painted canvases made into magnets, and they were very cool! I got them for us and my spouse wanted one with a cat atop a rainbow TV, and I got one that was a sort of rainbow flag.

We looked around at other booths and just kinda enjoyed the atmosphere in general. We came across one which had framed art and stickers, and they were giving a little break on buying two of the framed pieces. I decided on one that has a bee and other bugs on it, and my spouse got one of flowers. Both very pretty! I ended up hanging up the flowers piece in our living room and it looks really nice. I’ll probably hang up the bee one in my office, probably between the bookshelves. After we’d looked at some other booths, we went over to the “treat tent” and grabbed some heart-shaped treats from one of our favorite local cupcake shops; mine was a vanilla cake with frosting flowers, and my spouse’s was a cookie cake. I thought it sounded good to check out one of our favorite downtown bars for a drink, so we decided to go over there. Unfortunately they weren’t open until noon, so we popped into the gallery next door to look at stuff there (my spouse saw a wooden gnome in the window that looked cool!). A lot of the art was out of our price range, but was still very nice! They were doing a fundraiser with some pieces near the back, and my spouse ended up really liking one with a heart-shaped display of roses set on a beach, a little piece on a mini-easel, so I bought that for them. It will be a really nice piece for their office!

We had killed enough time to go back to the bar nextdoor and sat there for quite awhile at the bar, shooting the breeze with the owners (they are super friendly!) and having some good drinks. My spouse got a mimosa flight and I got a beer, then ended up getting a mezcal old fashioned (delicious!), and a couple more beers. All in all we stayed for a couple of hours and had a really lovely time there. Apparently their cook called out sick that day, which was a bummer for them, since they usually make burgers and fries and other fun stuff on their food menu. So they had on the door that they didn’t have food, and at least a couple of parties came in and bailed when they found out there wasn’t any food as usual. They did have brats and hotdogs on the rollers, &c., so they had some food, just not the normal stuff one expects there these days. My spouse said they have the best burger in town, and they have Beyond patties too, so I am always very happy when we get a burger there!

otherwise, we left after awhile and walked around a little more, but eventually we were ready to go home. Headed back home, chilled out, watched YT and just had a nice night. I got on the computer and did some music tagging and just mucked around on the internet, as I often do. My spouse crashed out about 11pm and was dead asleep by the time I came in, so I’m glad I’d filled my CPAP before getting on the laptop. I listened to a couple of podcasts before crashing out myself.

I didn’t plan on going anywhere today, but we are planning on taking a trip in the not-too-distant future that may involve a day trip to Canada, so I need to renew my passport (it lapsed in Aug 2023, I spaced on renewing it). Got passport photos today, had to go to Walgreens since FedEx wasn’t open, inexplicably, until 12 today. I need to staple the photo to the passport app, though, and I should’ve asked about that at Walgreens, since the post office kiosk didn’t have a stapler. I’ll sort it out sometime this week and get it sent off, and hopefully it’ll come back in time for our trip; if not, it’s OK, but I’m gonna try. Did some other errands and then came home and did Latin for a few hours.

And now I’m just writing this and hanging out. Will probably have dinner soon (hotdogs! veggie for me and Costco dogs for my spouse), but not too much going on tonight which is OK by me. I have a busy first couple days of the week, so I’m just going to try to get through Mon & Tues, and the rest of the week should be a lot more chill, and I have Friday off!

anyways this post is reminding me of back in 2004-05 or so when I used to write, kinda obsessively granularly, about my days. I don’t know that that’s entirely a good thing as I spent hours doing that, and I don’t have anything to show for it these days. Not that I think I’d want to revisit that stuff from 20 years ago, yikes. so I don’t know how much of this sort of thing I’ll do, but I thought this weekend was worth documenting since we had a lovely time!

will write more soon and it’s been nice blogging a little more! thanks for reading!!