Labor Day Weekend

On Friday, I have my very first class and was officially a student again. It was... drum roll... a three hour statistics lecture. Confusion mixed with boredom, probably how my students feel. I found some colleagues from my department so that was nice because it was a large class. We all hiked to an out-of-the-way copy shop together to pick up the course packets and then one of the women and I had lunch together at Veggie Heaven, a place I had been interested in trying. It did not disappoint and had lots of Falun Gong propaganda around, not sure why.

Austin and I tried to get our drivers licenses on Friday and went to the DMV (or whatever it's called here) armed with passports, WI licenses, insurance records, emissions test records, and vehicle registration records yet it wasn't enough. You had to have your SS card too; we thought with the passport we'd be in good shape but no (illegal immigrant fears maybe?). Also there were literally at least 40 people in front of us and it was looking like a multi-hour wait. We decided to bail and try again a different day though we need to do it soon.

Later I met a friend for dinner and margaritas and Austin had blocked his night off for gaming (one doesn't become a level 70 night elf hunter and guild leader without working for it!).

Today we have been very lazy and loving it. We went to buy a vacuum cleaner since we had to jettison ours in WI because it was the one last item that just wouldn't fit in the moving truck. We headed to Sears where we had a number of gift cards courtesy of my dear ol' dad (though he wanted Austin to use them for tools, lots and lots of tools) and a print-out of the Consumer Reports vacuum info. Yeah, we're nerds like that. Well, we ended up going a little above and beyond what we were initially thinking and got a Dyson. We joined the Dyson cult, that's right, and let me tell you it's worth it. I have already vacuumed a ton and I keep showing Austin the dust canister. How satisfying to see all the yucky stuff! He keeps looking over the machine and commenting on the engineering aspects. Like I said, we're nerds :-)

After the vacuum outing, we were housebound for awhile while we awaited our dining room table delivery. We had a college football game on and one of the guys lingered to watch it. We laughed and he apologized but we didn't care, they were working hard. I gave them some Cokes and Austin tipped them and voila, dining room set was in place! (I mean, not as a result of soda and cash but just sort of chronologically).

Then we went on a beer run; Austin has been really into Belgian trappist ale. We went to a new store that had been recommended to us and it was great. First we ogled the deli, cheeses, import foods, etc, then Austin found a Beer Man and got a serious ale education. I eventually got bored and sampled a few things and looked at the wine. They have a section separate from France for the Occitan region and it was labeled "Vins de pays d'oc" which I appreciated, being a Catalan separatist and all. (I know, I'm being kind of goofy here, maybe overly embracing the nerdy streak, sorry if my references are too obscure.) We also learned all about tequila making from another dude at the store. We told him we had just moved from Wisconsin and he said "welcome home." Oh, and I ran into a guy who had friends from Spooner, weird.

Now we're home and relaxing, ready for another low key night. I think tomorrow I need to shop for a backpack and we're going to do some cooking. I caught a glimpse of a Rachael Ray show today that looked really good. Disclaimer: Austin can't stand poor RR and finds her grating; I find her too bubbly, but damn the recipes looked good and the stomach overrules the show.

More later, perhaps photos of the new table and maybe the food or even the food on the new table.