So, from my new house, I take a new bus. My old bus stop was directly in front of my apartment complex, and it dropped me off almost exactly in front of my office building. My new bus is 5 blocks from my house, and five long blocks from my office.

Well, 5 blocks is not exactly a marathon. I am still willing to walk that far. It takes about 10 minutes to walk it. Well, 15 to the office. Not that long, not that far.

Except when you add it up, I’m walking 40 minutes every day.

I’m gonna quit my gym! This is serious exercise!

I don’t know how I will feel about it when it is raining, but right now, that is not a problem.

The real problem is that there is MAJOR construction on the downtown end of my walk. Two very long blocks of dust paths and broken concrete, tall gravel piles and pipes and ditches. That is when I think of the song “NObody walks in LA.”

But i’m walking in LA. Downtown LA, where the courthouse and my big tall office building is. Guess who else is walking in LA?

Suited men with expensive neckties. A single-file ant column of them, walking purposefully and swinging their briefcases through the dust and ditches.

It is so surreal it makes me smile.

So, I spent time unpacking all my things yesterday. As I was getting things put away, a “click” sounded, and everything went quiet.

And dark.

The power went out. It was about 6:30. uh oh. It was still light enough to see. I thought I remembered a little flashlight in one of my boxes. Oh good, here it is! While I was there, I unpacked some more of that box.

I remembered a candle too. But I didn’t remember where the matches where. I wondered for a little bit whether my car would be locked in the garage if the opener didn’t have power. Hmm…

But then I thought I had better put together my bed before it got dark. I didn’t want to sleep on the floor. I put the bed together…Where is that dust ruffle? Oh well, I’ll find it later. It was nice to lay down on the bed for a moment.

Chris came by later with his dinner. By that time the power was back on. He and I worked to get my home stereo/theater system set up. We used my old shoe rack, a piece that is essentially narrow shelving made of nice red wood. It matches the rest of my furniture, so why waste it in the closet? That garage sale I bought it from has been good.

We racked everything on the shoe rack. Then came wiring. Bless Chris’s heart! He sat down on the couch and said, “I’m glad my girlfriend is a video conferencing expert. You know what to do.”

How many guys would step aside and let their girlfriends wire the stereo? Wiring this stuff is my JOB, but still, most guys would shove me out of the way. He is very secure, thank heavens.

When I was almost done, he pointed to the window. “Look!” he said. A beautiful flaming pink sunset was all across the sky.

That was MY view.

Chris and I sat on my couch for a moment and looked at the beautiful sky. It faded quickly, I was glad we stopped to see it.

Man, there are a million crazy things for sale on TV. We are crazy crazy shoppers. And we watch a lot of TV. What a better marriage of ideas in American culture:
shopping while watching TV

I personally have a rule:
Never buy anything on TV while watching the infomercial.

Hence, I have never bought anything I’ve seen on TV. Sometimes I think about the stuff I have seen, though. Because that’s another rule I have:
If I see something I think I want, walk away. If I think about it later, maybe then I really did want it and I will go back and get it.

But a lot of the time, there are things that you may be very excited about while under the spell of the infomercial, that you really have no earthly need for.

There are some things I still would like to try. That Epil stop ‘n’ spray stuff…Does it really work? Or does it peel the skin off the sprayed area right after the camera stopps rolling?

And that REVO hair styler…It looks so cool. But there is NO WAY that would actually work. I mean, the mechanics of it probably would take the curl out of my hair. But then I would be left with highly staticked fly-away hair.

Maybe straight-hair people don’t realize that most curly-hair people are blessed with very fine hair. They associate curly hair with pubic hair, which is usually coarse. But curly HEAD hair is usually very fine.

Anyway, the seductive REVO hair styler is doomed to fail. The hair-dos would be destroyed with the first breath of air that hit them.

Those Minwax commercials make me start eyeing my furniture. Hmm…Does that need to be refinished? It’s SO EASY!

And there is a commercial for a STEAM BUGGY. Wow, what a great device! Not only does it clean all your entire house without harmful chemicals, it can iron your clothes. That one really had me fascinated. I am against harmful chemicals. First, because they kill us and make babies come out funny. AND because they cost so darn much! The power of STEAM can revolutionize the world.

Man, that was hard to resist. But the almost $200 price tag helped me out.

What else?

Oh yeah! The FOOD SAVER! This is really the coolest thing. I may eventually buy this, really. Really!

Of course, this is the last infomercial I saw.

It VACCUUM SEALS the food in your whole house, keeping it safe from all kinds of buggies, and worse from going stale. You can make up a plate of food, stick it in a FOOD SAVER baggie, suck all the air out of it, and then freeze it for a whole year. Homemade TV dinners!

All the money I could SAVE with this $120 device.

I don’t know. I’m gonna wait a little while longer. We’ll see if I’m still excited about it after I see the next infomercial.