We take to the big city

Greetings from another day of vacation. Today we headed into Portland for a day of shopping fun.

So yesterday the power went out about 27 times. Came back on 26 times. We went to dinner. The restaurant was opened and had food. Came back home and called the power company. The power company came out in under 10 minutes. In Seattle no one comes out in 10 minutes, not even the police.

We had half of our power on and half off. The weirdest thing I have ever seen. It wasn't like half the house was on and half was off. It was two lights in the kitchen were off, everything else on. The kids room off, his stairs on. The living room one light on and everything else off. Internet on! Entire upstairs floor off. Entire basement on. We have some screwy wiring in this house, I'm guessin.

The repairman got in his power bucket, shot up to the power line and fixed it. Amazing! The repairman liked me. Said I was hot! I'm hoping that bodes well for my power outages in the future. I know next week he is coming and putting up some new power thingies that will help avoid power outages. They could have done it today, but he didn't want to inconvenience me with stoppage of power. I could grow to love this town! Seriously.

But I needed a big city fix. I wanted books. And shorts. And food. So we headed off this morning on a road trip. I drove. The kid talked and talked and talked and talked. Hours and hours of talking. Finally we arrived and parked. The kid talked. I walked faster. The kid talked. I think my ears started to bleed. The bookstore came into view. I entered, quickly. Hid in the peace and quiet of the decorating section.

The kid found me. I tried to lose him in the mystery section but he was stuck like glue to me. Glue that can talk. We left.

Entered the clothing store. Bought clothes. More him than me. I bought shorts and it is now raining. Always a dollar short and a day late, that is my motto.

Had lunch.

Finished the day by grocery shopping. Left Portland. Let the kid help me navigate back to the freeway. He insisted we use the navigation system in the car. We got on the freeway going the wrong way. Got off the freeway. Got on another freeway. Found the correct freeway, no thanks to either the kid or the navigation system. Had to get off the freeway because the kid wanted his rice krispy treat.

The kid slept all the way home. It was very, very quiet. My ears have healed. I am tired. Happy, but tired.

It was a good day.