3153 Workin' it.

Friday, November 5, 2010

The consumption of alcohol may lead you to think people are laughing WITH you.

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I painted some walls yesterday. I figure I need to do the rooms that will be getting bookcases and heavy furniture first, so that means the living room, master bedroom, and dining room first. The rest can be done later.

I found the "local" (25 minutes away) arts theater in Red Bank, and today I saw the third in the Lisbeth Salander trilogy, Stieg Larsson's "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". I figured I'd avoid crowds by going to the 12:40 pm showing.

This one wasn't as bloody and cringe-worthy as the first two in the series, but, again, you must see them in order, and the closer together, the better. I'd seen the first two, but I still got lost a few times.

The theater is really nice, multiplex, soft, semi-reclining seats, electric fireplace in the hall, etc. There were only six people watching the movie, but a real live usher with a discrete flashlight walked down the aisle at least three times, and at the end he stood at the door with a basket of mints.

A movie at the Upstate in Rhinebeck, where I had seen the first two Lisbeth segments, costs about $6 with the senior discount ($7 for you young'uns), and parking is free. Today I was shocked to find that parking in the town lot across the street from the theater was going to cost me about $2 in change (of course I had only two dimes - had to beg change for a $5 from a very nice woman in the lot) and the movie was $11, no senior discount. Wow. That's more than twice what it would cost me for a movie in Rhinebeck. That's expensive for an afternoon's diversion!

I've been buying things for the house - freestanding toilet paper holders, shower curtain and rod and hanger-uppery things, spring tension rods to hang temporary sheers, sheer curtains, cotton cafe curtains, mops, waste paper baskets, cookie sheets, on and on. I have been utterly amazed at the packaging. The cheap spring tension rods came in a long skinny plastic bag, which is expected, but the bag was denser and stronger than many shower curtains I have known, and the top, where the hanger/label closed the bag, was fastened with metal studs, not the staples one would expect. Everything fabric came in a dense plastic bag with a zipper!, and then was in a second plastic bag inside the outer one.

I'm making a pile of packing materials twice the mass of the items I bought. Of course, being me, I've saved the zippered bags. They've got to be good for something. I can't just throw them out.

Besides the landfill question, plastic is made from oil. Am I the only person who sees over-packaging as a complete waste?
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