Best activity in below freezing weather: locking yourself out

What, with the beginning of that title you thought I was going to say something lusty?

Unfortunately something lusty was not possible as hubby is out of town. Hence the locking myself out. In 23 degree weather. Do. Not. Recommend.

See, my friend is having a birthday party tomorrow. And I am a GOOD FRIEND so I am baking her cupcakes (at some point I’ll try to blame this on her [even though no one asked me to bring cupcakes]) but tonight, Friday, at 7pm I realized I didn’t have any mix or frosting and I already have tons of things I have to do before the party tomorrow. So again, with hubby out of town, I thought a quick run to the grocery and cupcake baking sounded like a great way to spend my Friday night. Also I would obviously eat at least 6 cupcakes myself tonight. Et voila, parfait Friday night plans!

Yeah. Notsomuch.

I grab the car keys and house keys off the counter, walk out the door and closes it behind me, automatically locking the door handle. But the deadbolt needs to be manually locked so I pull the keys out of my pocket to lock it. I have car keys. I have no house keys.

FUCK.

We never gave anyone else in DC an extra set of keys. We’ve talked about it, but never did it. So in less than 30 seconds I’m googling “lock smith dc” on my iPhone. When, in the middle of my googling, a message pops up on my iPhone screen: “Less than 10% battery remaining.”

FUCK.

My situation, only minus the waves. And on a DC sidewalk in 23 degree weather. As you may recall I don’t always have the best of luck.

So we live in a townhouse with two condos, being locked out with my phone dying I’d like to get inside. With someone I know, where I can sit down, and borrow their phone. So I knock on my neighbor’s door and wait a sec. No answer. But I can hear the TV through the door – I’ve been in his condo before as we’re friendly, he invited us to a party even! – and I know the sofa and tv are right next to the front door. Not only can I hear the TV through the door, but I can hear the ticking of the clock on 60 Minutes that’s how easily sound travels through the door. So I wait another 30 seconds and knock again. Louder, a police knock, if you will. Nada. Several minutes later I knock again! Zilch. I guess we’re not as friendly as I thought? He’s our age and although we didn’t know each other before we bought our condos, it turned out we even have friends in common!

Fuck it, either way I have to call the lock-smith ASAP so I just have to hope my 9% battery will get me through it. No time for Yelp research or scrolling through websites, I click on the first one that shows up and a very nice lady answers, asks for my address, and says someone will call and confirm he’s on his way. He called (yay 7% battery!) and showed up just over an hour later. Honestly, it could have been so much worse! I just really wish my goddamn neighbor would have opened up his fucking door! Sorry this is a very profanity laced post. But I know he was in there. If I could hear every word on 60 Minutes about Social Security, if I could hear him switch the channel to a basketball game, if I could hear his exclamations of “nice shot!” and “traveling!” then he could damn well hear my knock and hear me calling the locksmith!

So when the locksmith did arrive, I quite clearly said, “Thank you so much for coming out on a Friday night! I would have hated to be stuck much longer since I knocked on my neighbor’s door several times and no one answered!” I may or may not have repeated that several times as he drilled open my lock. Passive aggressive much? Yes.

Apparently we had a high security lock. Which costs more to open. Hence the drilling. $240 total!!! Dammit, hubby is going to kill me :( Plus the cost to replace the door knob and lock. The locksmith said a lower security lock would be closer to $100 for him to open. Whyyy couldn’t we have been less safe and less responsible and gotten a crappy lock??? Hmm maybe I can blame this on hubby somehow since he replaced the door knob that came with the house with a new, higher security one when we moved in? And blame it on my friend that I was buying the cake mix for. This never would have happened if it weren’t for her birthday!!!

So fuck, $240 in the hole. Turns out I did not have the best Friday plan after all.

And there goes me getting a mani-pedi tomorrow. Maybe I can use that time I thought I would be busy to bake my friend cupcakes after all.

In conclusion: *sadface*

Second conclusion: fuck you, neighbor. When we give our extra set of keys to someone, because obviously we definitely need to! It will not be you. Hope you enjoyed 60 Minutes. Jerk.

A nose for books in West Virginia

What kind of person goes on vacation in town of  less than 3,000 people in the sticks of West Virginia and still manges to find a book sale?

A lusty reader with a nose for books, that’s who! I just can’t escape them, y’all! This more than made up for my super depressing experience of being turned away from the last one I stumbled across – member that time all I even needed was 4 quarters, or 10 dimes and I cried in the library? Well even though I still get a serious twinge of regret for the fabulous books I wasn’t able to buy at that one…I made out like a frickin bandit at this one on vacation in West Virginia.

So this is how long I’ve had this blog post sitting in my draft folder…this book sale is one I found while on vacation celebrating our wedding anniversary this fall. When is our anniversary? Oh, just September 27th, so this only happened 3 months ago!!! Ugh, blogging, you have just been too much for me to keep up with. So yes, hubby and I drove about 2 hours away from DC this past Fall to visit Harper’s Ferry, Charles Town, and Shepherdstown, WV.

(For those of you following me on twitter, yes hubby and I are currently on vacation in Charleston, SC, not be confused with the trip in this blog post to Charles Town, WV) 

We stayed at the most adorable inn and woke up on our first morning refreshed and ready to explore the area! We hopped in our car and drove through Charles Town on our way to historica Harper’s Ferry. We hadn’t even gotten one block into the little town before I yelped, “Halt!” And pointed with a finger shaking with excitement to the sign and sidewalk chalk stating “Library Book Sale.” Hubby looked into my eyes gone wide with pleading, sighed and smiled, and pulled over on the tiny street with no traffic.

Guarenteed to get a HUGE smile out of me:

Whenever I go clothes shopping with the hubby I always promise to be fast, trying to pick clothes I don’t have to try on, or those I can just try on over whatever I’m wearing, zooming around the store, being as quick as I can to grab anything that interests me.

No browsing, that’s my rule to keep him happy, and I know he appreciates it. The same goes for book stores, he won’t go into one with me unless I already know what books I want because he knows all too well that book browsing could lead to hours of boredom on his end. We’ve literally stood on the sidewalk outside a Barnes&Noble with him making me cross my heart and swear I have a list and I will stick to it – no browsing allowed – before he would agree to go in with me. So I tried to be lightening-fast at this West Virginia book sale, one of the reasons why my pictures of these totally awesome old-skool romance covers are a little blurry.

These weren’t that familiar to me though, Dance of Desire, Her Heart’s Delight, Savage Obsession, author’s Stephanie Blake or Mary Daheim? I started reading romance in the early 1990’s and while I enjoy plenty of the newest releases, I am truly an old-skool romance fangirl at heart, so I was surprised I didn’t recognize the titles and authors in this box, but my heart recognized them as kindred spirits. I read a few of the back covers to see if they would spark my interest, but quickly moved on to trying to locate titles I was familiar with.

There were just sooooo many romance novels at this sale!!!!

Jennifer Garner was in a made for tv version of For The Roses?! Dost mine eyes decieve me, or is that her on the cover??? I read that book in the ’90s and don’t really remember liking it, I think it took way to long to get to the lusty bits and was a bit too saga-ish for me.

So what did I walk out with?

Even limiting myself to trying to just pick up those books whose titels and authors I recognized I walked out with some REAL TREASURE! I was so giddy y’all, every time I plucked one of these books out of the lineup.

• The Prince of Midnight, by Laura Kinsale (my first Kinsale I’ve ever owned, I’ve never read this before either)
• Prince Charming, by Julie Garwood (was on my list of favorite romance of all time…whyyyyy did I donate my copy from High School when I went off to college again?)
• Knight in Shining Armor, by Jude Deveraux (classic. one of my fave time travels. ’nuff said)
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkein (the cover sucks, but its a must have for my bookshelves. I read my dad’s copy when I was younger but have never owned a version for myself)
• Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume (this is the EXACT version I owned in elementary school, but now can’t find, problem solved!)

I struck some serious reading gold, huh?!

And that is the story. Of the time. I found a library book sale on vacation. In a teensy tiny West Virginia town.