And Today…

So, today I went to town to pick up my paper from la prof’s mailbox. The first problem was parking. Parking in Burlington is always difficult. There are two big carparks that offer two free hours. In past times, I have occasionally had to wait a few minutes for a place but I have never, until today, seen both of these parks with the Carpark Full sign lit up! So, I chose to drive down to Perkin’s Pier at Lake Champlain and park there. One has to pay for parking there during the summer but Fred and I, being Officially Old, have a card that will get us into State Parks {and Perkin’s Pier} free.

It was quite a long walk and all up hill to Church St Market Place which is also where the Burlingtom branch of the Community College is. I really didn’t mind this because uphill I can do when I am not tired. I actually prefer this to my walk to the library which is downhill going but uphill coming back. I walked slowly and saw a couple of interesting things. First, there was an art gallery where there was a craftsman giving a display of glass-blowing! That was very impressive. Then I passed the Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts where there was a display of craft works. This being Vermont, the crafts were of a very high quality. Unfortunately, this being a tourist area, they were also very high-priced… I bought nothing but I did sample their free coffee and cookies. There was one cookie which was chocolate and peppermint together…delicious. I liked it so much that I popped in on the way back and snagged a couple more of them!

I had tried to get my grade on line before I left and there was nothing. Now, when I asked the girl at the front desk to check Nichole’s mailbox for papers, there were no papers there yet.  The girl told me that grades usually take 24 hours to show up on the web site so I will try tomorrow. She also said to call and she would check the box for papers before I went down there again! I decided to walk back {all downhill} to my car. On the way, I located the Euro Cafe where, la prof told us, they have an Italian night once a month with singers and story-tellers in Italian. I also went into an architectural salvage warehouse where they had, anong other things, several of the old-fashioned claw-footed long bathtubs! One reason I seldom take a bath these days is that the tub is much too short for me to be comfortable. So, although we now have access to a tub with jets, both Fred and I prefer to shower! I also found a consignment store I had never been in before and spent a little time in there but although I found a couple of coats at a good price, I don’t actually need a new coat. This store was a bit irritating in that although the coats were all in the same place, they were not arranged by size, just jumbled together.

So, I got my car and started to drive home. It would be truer to say I started to "inch" my way home. There was, of course, a lot more traffic than usual which I did expect but what I didn’t expect was a lot more pedestrians than usual who swarmed across the roads when the lights were in their favor and when they were not!  On the way back there are two places where the road becomes two-laned. The lane on the right is for people {like me} who want to go straight ahead and the other lane is for traffic to turn left. Twice , someone in the left lane whipped around in front of me when the light changed , much to my annoyance.  And, of course, in order to get home I had to make my way around the roundabout, which, with normal traffic, usually goes quite well with people yielding to oncoming traffic where they should. But the traffic today was not normal and apparently there was something in the air today which prevented car drivers seeing the yield signs. Fortunately, I always drive defensively around the roundabout.

Anyway, I got home safely and Fred was cooking bacon just in time for lunch. I am going to spend the rest of the day reading and relaxing. I have done over 5000 steps today including my walk this morning and I need to rest…

Until later….