Tag Archives: shopping

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Cold day chronicle (also, Norway is open!)

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Most of what’s below can be skipped without any loss to the diverse richness of your life. It’s just the account of my day, offered here for your perusal because I can’t think of anything actually interesting.

No, wait, I do have one interesting fact. Norway has opened its borders again. The requirement that people traveling from countries outside a certain short list must go through a quarantine period before entering has been lifted. You still need to show proof of vaccination, but this is a big relaxation. A step back toward normal life, one fervently hopes.

“Following a recommendation from the National Institute of Public Health, the government is abolishing the requirement for entry quarantine because it is no longer considered necessary for infection control,” the Norwegian Ministry of Health stated.

You may recall that I predicted something like this just a few days ago, based on the amount of translation work I’ve been getting – which would seem to indicate a belief inside the film industry that freer association and travel are coming. I didn’t expect it to happen this fast, though. No doubt the movie moguls I serve in my small way have friends in high places, who tipped them the high sign.

Today was my first day without translation work since… I don’t recall. Probably less time than I think. But it’s been a string of days. I’d marked today out, whatever my work situation, for shopping and errands. (Note: it’s in times like these that I contemplate finding a wife. Only I know she’d retaliate with a Honeydo list.) The coldest day of the week isn’t prime time for such activity, but there are moments when you just need to go to the store, or else you’ll run out of some staple, like chocolate or beef jerky or pigs’ feet.

As I planned my day, I realized a lot of stuff had piled up on my list. It called for careful trip planning and logistics. Aside from the gym in the morning, which was a separate excursion, I must:

Go to the post office. Take my suit to the cleaners. Run my car through the car wash (not optimal on a day with a high around zero, but on the other hand there wasn’t much of a waiting line). Go to Wal Mart for a new computer monitor (because I knocked the old one over and broke the screen. Nothing to do with old age and clumsiness, of course – I was just as clumsy at twenty. And the piece of junk was always unstable. Which should teach me to buy computer components at Wal Mart). Get groceries. Stop at the drug store for immune system supplement. Then get the new monitor working, which is always more complicated than you expect, if you’re over ten years old.

I’m planning to work on the novel tonight. If God gives me strength. And the monitor doesn’t fall over again.

Goofing, Uncategorized

Annals of arctic shopping

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Fridtjof Nansen and crew members download Windows 1 from the Cloud, 1894.

A notable day this was. Finally got something done I’d been wanting to do all week. It cost me money, but if ‘twere done, then ‘twere best ‘twere done quickly, as the bald guy said.

I decided I needed a new laptop on Monday. The keys on the old one were stuttering, doubling random letters, which means your work load rises about 50% when you subsist by the keyboard as I do. But I got sick, as I’ve mentioned, and languished at home, doomed to work (work still came in) on my desktop computer, which really isn’t that bad. But I hate messing up my procedures, you know? It’s one of the perquisites of old age, being stuck in your ways.

Today I felt better, and decided this would be it. It was one of the coldest days of the year (the year being six days old), but I figured that would keep the other shoppers at home (I was mistaken, of course. This is Minnesota, where people jump in icy lakes for fun). My reading of Fridtjof Nansen seemed fitting, because just getting ready to leave the house on a day like this is a little like outfitting an Arctic expedition. (OK, just a little, but sometimes our temperatures are comparable to temps Nansen saw in the pack ice. In summer.)

The Norwegians have a saying – “Det finnes ingen dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær” (“There is no bad weather, just bad clothing”). This is one of the reasons I expected to find non-Scandinavian DNA when I joined an ancestry site. The fact that I found almost none indicates I must be a mutation – my father did visit Hiroshima while in the army in 1946, after all.

But at last I reached my favored computer store, eventually attracting a salesman’s attention. My plan was to spend a certain amount on a refurbished one, which has been my custom for a while. The salesman persuaded me I could get a new one for the same money that would be much more powerful and have a much longer life expectancy. It meant buying a brand I’d planned to avoid, but I saw reason at last. (Update: I’m working on it now, and I’m actually quite pleased. The keyboard action is good, and I haven’t had trouble with any apps [yet]). I notice, looking around, that I actually have a fairly tall stack of crashed laptops sitting around the house, so maybe the refurb strategy wasn’t as shrewd as I thought.

It did come with Windows 11. No doubt I’ll live to regret that, but what’s done is done, as the bald guy also said.

At least I didn’t have to retype half my words on this post.

Bookselling, Uncategorized

Self-promotion for passive-aggressives

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Photo credit: Maarten van den Heuvel @ mvdheuvel

Nothing to review today. My reading has slowed in the last couple days, which is not all bad. I’m trying to reduce my book spending, due to the current cutbacks.

Which will be exacerbated by the plumber’s appointment I had today. My kitchen faucet succumbed to the corrosive water we enjoy in Robbinsdale, and had to be replaced. I got the cheapest model they offered, but still… ouch.

Then out into the wide world and chill air, for a breathless visit to the drug store and the grocery store. Had my prescription filled at CVS. Later in the day, a somewhat pathetic e-mail showed up. Would I take a minute to fill out a form for them? Specifically, to indicate on a scale of one to ten how likely I am to recommend their enterprise to friends and family?

I don’t really want to fill it out. Because the truth would be cruel. I am somewhere between zero and one on that scale. Not because I dislike their stores. But because I can’t recall ever discussing drug store choices with any friend or family member. For some reason it just doesn’t come up. Maybe we’re atypical.

And in the back of my mind, the constant nagging voice of my inner publicist whispers: “This is what you should be doing, kid. If a big industry like CVS can send out plaintive appeals for affirmation, you can occasionally bug your fans about plugging your books and posting reviews on Amazon.”

Shut up, Nagging Publicist Voice. In these parts, we consider fishing for compliments a mark of weakness.

Then off to the grocery store. At checkout, the lady in front of me in line noticed I’d bought a Marie Callender Honey-Roasted Turkey meal. “Is that good?” she asked. “My husband and I eat a lot of that kind of meals, but we’re looking for something less bland than what we’ve been having.”

I told her I like it quite a bit, and don’t find it bland at all. (“Of course I’m Norwegian,” I should have added.)

Oddly enough, I had a similar conversation some years ago, at the same store, with a guy who told me how much he enjoyed that very same frozen meal. I agreed with him, and we shared a moment of social harmony, then went our separate ways.

In my world, that’s how promotion ought to be done. Not by intrusive tub-thumping, but by people just recommending things they like to each other, in the natural course of things. Even, unlikely as it seems, drug stores.

So when you plug my books, pretend it’s just natural. Thank you.