A Lesson, Thanksgiving and Farley

A quick lesson to remember from the last few days: Whatever time you think you should leave for the train station, leave five minutes earlier. The rush one receives from running for the train is overrated and often hampered by the heft and bounce of the backpack one may be wearing.

The long Thanksgiving weekend was mellow for the most part. On the day of, I had Chinese food for lunch and barbecued turkey for dinner. On the day after, I was unable to avoid the chaos of the malls (more about that in a second). Saturday and Sunday passed like an ordinary weekend with stretches of rest between visits to Costco, Restoration Hardware, Starbucks and Swensen's (for some ice cream goodness).

Getting back to Friday, we dropped in at the mall to buy a 6.5' pre-lit tree for $30 (with a bonus wreath) from Target. Parking in the mall's front lot was insane. After an excruciating crawl through the gridlock, I found my way to the mall's parking garage in the back. There, I discovered an almost entirely empty floor of parking spaces, rows and rows of free spots. Once I got out of the car, I thought I would have to pay for such easy parking with a long trek, but it turned out to be just a short walk (an important fact to remember for future visits).

We assembled the tree later the same day, all seven pieces of it (four for the base and three for the tree). That part took five minutes. We took another ten minutes sprucing up the individual branches, trying our best to transform the tree from its out-of-the-box Charlie Brown state into something that more closely resembled the vibrant full-bodied tree pictured on the box. For what we paid, it looks quite good. I'm sure it will look much better once we decorate it with ornaments and garlands.

Afterwards, we braved the crowds again to visit the big blue furniture warehouse with the bright yellow letters on the side, or as other people call it, IKEA. I like to think of it as LEGOLAND for adults. It was my first trip there and I was impressed by its enormity. I was doubly impressed when I saw the cafeteria-style restaurant and half-expected there to be a place to sleep for shoppers wanting to stay multiple days. All the place needs is a monorail, a parade and possibly fireworks at the end of the day to be the happiest place on Earth.

Luckily, we made it through without buying something from every land (you know: Lightingland, Kitchenland, etc.). The biggest purchases were a dining rug and an occasional table. The table was easy to assemble. By easy I mean that it only took a portion of Tuesday night (not all of it) and I ended up with only two leftover screws, which is better than two missing screws or a handful of leftover parts.

That pretty much covers the weekend. It's already the first day of December. Instead of being banal and saying I can't believe it's already here, I'll just remind everybody to open the first box of their advent calendars and enjoy the piece of chocolate inside (or celery for those who like to be healthy). Just think, only eight days until Chronicles of Narnia, 24 days until Christmas, 30 days until 2006 and 364 days until NaNoWriMo.

To wrap this up, here is a link to yesterday's Farley. It's a funny look at one of my biggest pet peeves: drivers who don't signal.