Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

We have something waiting for us at a store in Reno that is open 7 AM - 5 PM weekdays only. So this afternoon, shortly after knocking off work at 3 PM, we headed in to collect it. Only to discover a notice on the door announcing that they were closed from 3 PM today only. Phooey. We'll have to try again tomorrow, but this time I'll call before we leave Fernley to make sure they are actually there.

So we did a couple of grocery stops, then went to dinner at the Peppermill. Ordinarily we'd then go do some larger-scale shopping at Winco, but I was unaccountably tired, and Lisa drove us home. We can do the grocery shopping tomorrow after our return visit to Reno.

Over the years, as Menlo got rid of surplus office chairs, I tended to accumulate them. They had dents and tears, but they worked. However, over the years they have eventually worn out, and just before we left for Europe, Lisa's ex-Menlo chair finally broke. In fact, it broke right under Lisa, throwing her to the floor, which was a bit scary. All that Lisa has left is an old office chair I bought many years ago in Yuba City when I was still living with my grandparents in Sutter, and it's nearly worn out as well. So today after work, we went into Reno/Sparks, first for a medical appointment for Lisa, and then to look into getting her a new, nice office chair. We found ourselves at Affordable Office Furniture & Supplies, where the owner was very nice to us and showed us a selection of chairs. Lisa found one that she liked. She turned it over to look at the manufacturing information, and found that this model is assembled in the USA from a mixture of US and Canadian parts. That sold her, and we ordered one for her. It's not cheap, and it will take three weeks or so for the custom order, but it looks like it should last for a long time and be very comfortable.

As I mentioned to the owner the old chair Lisa is using, I remembered and said from where I purchased it (Feather River Office Machines in Yuba City, long since out of business), and the owner pointed out that he has another store in Yuba City. We got to talking, and he knew all of the places around there: Sutter, where I lived for many years, Challenge, my hometown, and Chico, where I went to college.

WSFS tie-in: The Gavel of WSFS we used for many years (from 1993 until it got lost between Chicago and San Antonio) was also purchased at FROM in Yuba City. The one we have now is nicer, thought.

I realized yesterday that the plan for Lisa and me to convoy to Sparks to drop off the minivan for the brake work on Monday conflicted with an eye exam I have scheduled on Monday afternoon. So instead we did it this morning. It means they have it all day Monday even if they don't have time to work on it, but that's not a problem. I drove the Rolling Stone and Lisa followed me into Sparks.

After that, we went to the Peppermill buffet to celebrate Kuma Bear's 27th birthday (which was yesterday). I cashed all of our accumulated comps to pay for half of the cost of brunch. Saturday brunch is less expensive and over-the-top than Sunday, but there's not a whole lot on the Sunday menu in addition to Saturday that we'd want to eat anyway.

( Brunch Bear )

After eating, we waddled around the Peppermill as is our wont, contemplating what sort of SF convention we could organize in the convention's space. We think the key issue is what does the Peppermill think about SF genre convention hospitality functions (i.e. room parties). If that is something we could manage, then the Peppermill's function space looks to me like we could run a fairly compact convention in the Westercon-sized range. No, we're not bidding for anything; it's just hard for us to be in convention space without thinking about planning events.

After we got home, we walked down to the fire station, where they were having a small open house, but it was nearly over when we got there, so we moved on and picked up our mail at the post office and came home, where a lie down from the huge meal this morning seems in order. No more meals are needed tonight. I'm just glad my blood sugar reading came in under 200.

Over the past few days, Lisa and I (mostly Lisa) have unloaded my sister's boxes from the minivan to our storage locker and garage, so yesterday we could put the middle seat back into the Astro, returning it to what we consider its normal configuration. (The rear seat lives in the storage locker except for those rare times when we need seating capacity more than cargo space.) Today, however, we took slight advantage of my Central Time-zone shifted schedule and shortly after I knocked off work for the day, we headed into Reno, where we had dinner at the Peppermill (the server and manager recognized us and commented that it had been a while, which is true) and did a round of grocery shopping. It's certainly a lot less crowded on a Thursday evening than a Saturday afternoon.

Lisa drove us home, and I'm about to fall into bed, since by my body clock it's nearly midnight.

Sunday afternoon, we decided to go ahead and make a second trip to Reno, this time with the insulated cool-bag so we could buy good cheese and other perishables. The deciding factor was that Cost Plus World Market was running a one-day sale on many thing we would normally get.

( Bears Knows Whats He Wants )

We seem to be spending more time at home and, this past weekend notwithstanding, making fewer trips to Reno/Sparks of late. That may just have been an effect of the winter weather, but it also shows how much we have come to like our house.

This morning Lisa and I drove into Reno bright and early to get our shopping errands done.

( High Water in the Truckee )

Our first stop was the Atlantis Hotel-Casino, where I cashed in the ticket for my bet on the Australian Open.

( Not a Job I Would Want )

Collecting my winnings for betting on Roger Federer to win the Australian Open, we decided to spend them on brunch at Toucan Charlie's, and were in fact the first customers at the counter when they opened. (This is the source of today's post title; thank you, Roger!) I enjoyed the breakfast, but the buffets have stopped agreeing with Lisa. There are just too many things in the food, particularly food dyes and additives to which she's sensitive, that make her ill.

We did manage to complete the rest of our shopping and got home just after 1 PM. Lisa, who has mostly been up nights the past week or so, went to bed along with travelswithkuma while I started doing my laundry and packing the RV.

In the most recent storm, all of the trans-Sierra routes have been hammered and closed at various points, including US-50 (rockslides), CA-70 (flooding), and most importantly, I-80 (major mudslide). The only alternative was a detour from I-80 onto CA-20 to Grass Valley, then CA-49 to Auburn. This would work, but was likely to be slow and crowded as a major freeway was being funneled into a two-lane mountain highway. To my relief, this evening Caltrans announced that they'd managed to clear the mudslide and that all lanes are now open again. I'm off to the Bay Area in the morning.

Now that we have a full sized house (as opposed to a little travel trailer or small apartment), we could put up a full sized Christmas tree if we wanted to do so; however, Lisa prefers to get a small living tree. We have even managed to keep one alive for a second year. This year, we left the little tree outside and will take it back outside after the holiday, then re-pot it into a larger pot as soon as possible.

( Trees, Trains, and Gifts Sort of Under the Tree )

Lisa and were up much too early for a holiday. (I have both Friday and Monday off.) Actually, I think Lisa hadn't really slept much last night. We made a virtue of necessity and drove into Reno to deal with the last pre-holiday shopping. We first went to the Peppermill and had a non-weekend breakfast, using up most of the last of a gift card I'd received. We then dealt with the last of the shopping, by which time time was catching up to Lisa and we headed home, where she fell into bed and I took the rest of the day off. I'm quite glad not to be doing extensive travel at this time of the year, although I do continue to go out and wave to Amtrak when they go by. If I did have to travel, that would be the way I'd prefer to do it.

Lisa and I made a quick trip in to Reno this evening in order to buy a miniature spruce "living Christmas tree." In past years, we've put this off so late that we don't get a good selection, but this time we found one that looked pretty good. The challenge is repotting it after the holiday and trying to get it to stay alive for another year. It's tricky, given that Fernley isn't really the best climate for such trees.

After the errand, we stopped for dinner at the Manhattan Deli at the Atlantis Hotel. We are now sufficient regulars that we know to buy the smaller portions. Their half-sandwiches are bigger than most places' full-sized ones.

Lisa and I went to Reno relatively early tomorrow (Lisa having moved to a schedule that has her up early so she can take me to the Amtrak station tomorrow) and had breakfast at the Peppermill Buffet. As usual, this was probably cost-effective (excluding my habit of playing keno) because our shopping thereafter included not a bit of impulse shopping, and we had no desire to have any lunch at all when we got home.

Lisa's early-morning schedule now has her going to bed in the middle of the afternoon, which she did when we got home. I finished my laundry and did the largest part of my packing for the next two weeks. This is a complex trip, with me taking the train tomorrow to Emeryville/Fremont, collecting the RV, working at a client site for two days, then flying on Tuesday evening from SFO to London and spending the night there, then taking the train to Paris, crossing Paris, then taking a train to Barcelona for Eurocon. I return the Tuesday thereafter, then work for three days in the Bay Area, then (I hope) drive home. The biggest part of the complexity is packing to have clothes for work, clothes for travel, and clothes for Eurocon. Fortunately, work clothes (and anything else I don't need on the Eurocon trip) I can store in the Rolling Stone on Tuesday after work. Nonetheless, it means I have to give a bit more thought to my packing (and take a bigger suitcase).

Also this afternoon, I shifted a couple hundred more pieces of wood on the Mountain of Misdumped Wood before coming in to turn on the World Series.

Today Lisa and I went to Reno/Sparks to deal with accumulated errands and shopping, including getting the minivan's oil changed. We got an oil change just before the Kansas City trip and more than ran through it (and burned up/lost about a quart of oil in the bargain) during that trip. Then it was a round of grocery stores, RV supplies, and clothing stores as we replenished the larder and I bought a new pair of slacks and a shirt — and moved down one shirt size, just barely. I hope that lasts, and is not just temporary stress-related weight loss due to Day Jobbe.

Tomorrow morning we're up fairly early to get me into Reno to catch the California Zephyr to Emeryville and then on to Fremont to collect the RV. Next week I'm in the Bay Area, and then I get to home for two weeks. As I told Lisa while we were driving home, "I want to come home already, and I haven't even left yet!" But at least I don't have to drive there tomorrow.