Saturday,
February 2, 2002

A Shopping We Shall Go

Working on the basis that 1) I needed to get out of the house for awhile, 2) I haven't been down to Deep Ellum in a dog's age, and 3) my fellow FutureClassic Lisa hadn't been there at all and really needed to get out for awhile, being the mother of a one-year-old and all, we decided to have a nice girly day out.

Or as nice as it was going to get, considering that it was overcast and decidedly nippy. But it wasn't actively raining, so that was good enough for us as we climbed into the Hoosiermobile for a short swing through downtown Dallas (dead as usual on a weekend -- I can only assume what downtown must look like during the week, because on Saturday and Sunday it looks like the back lot at Universal, complete with its own clutch of homeless extras) and east to Deep Ellum.

I think I've described Deep Ellum before, but here's a recap -- originally (in the words of the Man from McKinney) "a warehouse district where you could count on getting your tires slashed," it is now a hip, happening party zone with clubs, tattoo/body piercing parlors and neat shit stores. Apparently you can still count on getting your tires slashed if you drive an SUV, though. But since I don't own an SUV, I felt perfectly safe parking the Hoosiermobile underneath the highway and ambling east on Main with Lisa.

As a party zone, however, it really doesn't come alive until night. Even late in the afternoon there wasn't a whole hell of a lot open, and I suspect some stores that would've been open during the summer had decided to take an early break due to the inclement weather. Still, we had a nice poke around various shops, and I managed to find a bottle of frankincense essential oil, which is something I've needed for some time now -- my treasured bottle of Soothing aromatherapy oil from Boots is almost gone, and since they stopped production of it three years ago I'll need to blend my own from frankincense, orange and cinnamon oils. Hmm -- wonder if I could write and ask for the formula. . .

We also stopped in at a truly cool furniture store and considered futons, and agreed that we would have to drag our menfolk back there, preferably with vehicles that could haul long, flat boxes. Of course, then we couldn't find a damn thing open that served food, so we went all the way back to Plano to eat barbecue at Coulter's. Ninety minutes of wandering around in the cold combined with full tummies had the expected effect -- I dropped Lisa at her place and went home to take a much-needed nap.

Before I took the nap, however, I admired the nice new Panasonic widescreen TV that Lyndon had purchased at Fry's that afternoon. See, when I first moved in I wound up buying a cheapo Toshiba just to be able to watch TV, since I wasn't sure when they were going to deliver our furniture and if I'd be able to hook the British TV up to the cable. The Toshiba was a nice little beastie, but I discovered to my detriment that the reason why it was so cheap was because it didn't have the S-Video or other hookups that you need for a DVD player. Of course, I discovered this after I'd already purchased a DVD player. Go figure.

But the Panasonic has all the required hookups, so that evening we enjoyed our DVD player for the first time with an inaugural viewing of Gladiator (Russell -- mmmmmm). The Toshiba is now slated for installation in our bedroom, just as soon as I get a bench or something appropriate for the foot of the bed, since the cable hookup is right next to the head of the bed. Such decadence.