We weren’t sure where we wanted to go out to eat this fine and ordinary Saturday morning, but aside from doing all the usual things we somehow managed to get a little later start than usual. I wasn’t feeling like a big breakfast and started us Wrightsville Beach-ward after leaving our neighborhood and we ended up at Atlanta Bread.

While we ate I told Amanda that if she ever had a chance to get me Miracleman #15 for a reasonable price to jump on it. She pointed out that she wouldn’t very likely walk into a comic shop on her own and if she did she probably wouldn’t remember what it was anyway. I told her that it was the one where they destroyed London and a lot of people died, and Amanda said it didn’t sound like something someone named Miracle Worker would do. After we ate we headed across the street to Pier One, and I just had to share that little nugget with me geekompadre Jason Revill.

I sat outside Pier One talking to Jason on the phone for a bit until Amanda came out and told me to come inside to help her pick some things out. I had thought she’d just gone in there to get a birthday present for Hannah Frazelle, who turned 18 yesterday, but she wanted input on that and a couple other things. We ended up buying some lanterns for the porch and for out back. Pier One really does have some nice things and women seem to universally dig it. When my boss and his wife stopped by a week or two ago Anne Marie saw the mirror Anna had given us for Christmas (I think) and asked if it was from Pier One, saying she’d been looking at it. Yes, the mirror, the chest below it, the iron thing hanging on the other wall, the coffee table, the coat hanger by the door, the ceramic turtle and the cats in the fishing boat on top of the TV and a multitude of other things in this house are all from Pier One. (The last two were courtesy of me picking them out for our wedding registry!)

Despite finding several things for our own house, we didn’t score anything for Hannah, so we walked down to Banana Republic and got her a blouse or tank top I guess, I don’t know what you’d call one of those loose shirts with little shoulder straps, and a worker looking cap. While we were in there I had the idea of going to see Knocked Up, since it was supposed to rain some later anyway. I called Michael to see if he wanted to join us, which he did, and he called back a little later to ask us to also pick up a ticket for his buddy Chris.

After getting the tickets we went over to the Frazelle household to drop off the gifts. Nobody was there but Kirsten, whom we talked to for a few minutes before leaving Hannah’s presents then going out to the beach for a few minutes.

There’s a tropical storm, Tropical Storm Barry, coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. I figured it might be stirring up some decent waves but I really didn’t see much out there. We stayed out for a few minutes then went on back to the house. Hannah and her friend Maddie rode bikes into the driveway as we were getting there. Hannah was excited about her gifts (she was wearing a very similar but differently-colored hat) and she was also excited that she and Maddie had just met some guy who played Cousin Skeeter on some Nickelodeon show, or was some character on a show called Cousin Skeeter, I’m not sure which. They’d been staring at him for an hour trying to get up the courage to ask if he was who they thought he was. He was also in Coach Carter they said.

Anna and Barry came home from running errands. They were planning on hanging up lights downstairs but I found out for them before they got too far along that the lights only had extension plugs on one side, so that was scrapped.

Amanda and I left after a little bit and went to Home Depot to look at getting a bench for the place where the small plastic shed once had been. We didn’t see any we particularly liked there though.

It had been lightly raining for a while at this point. We stopped by Harris Teeter to pick up some movie candy then met Michael and Chris. I really liked Knocked Up. It had its low-brow laughs of course, but it was genuinely funny and had a lot of heart.

Not a whole lot else went on today. We put off going to Wal-Mart (which we’d planned on doing right after breakfast). I am directing tomorrow, so no late night for me.

Zach Dotsey
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