I ventured out today

I went to the library this morning as soon as it opened at 10 am. The books are in such disarray compared to how they should be shelved. I found a book on CD, plus another in large print, which is much easier to read until my eyesight improves. I don't know how I'll do with the book on CD - the only other one I ever tried was James Joyce's "Ulysses", which is as difficult to listen to as it is to read. I think I remember getting through the first chapter!

When I got in the check-out line a lady behind the desk asked if I wanted her to show me how to use self-check-out. First the home improvement stores and Walmart, then the grocery stores, and now the library. I said "no thanks, I'll just wait", and she then told me she would check me out anyway. She said the library wanted them to begin trying to get patrons to use self-checkout, no doubt so they can reduce their staff even more. I told the librarian that I had recently had eye surgery and didn't see that well to begin with - she could see that by what I was checking out.

I detest self-checkout as I feel if a company wants me to spend my money they can at least check me out with my purchases. It is hard enough to find an employee to ask anything beyond the simplest question as it is. I often wonder what this country is coming to - when a store that sells goods mostly made in China won't even hire an American at the cash register.

I intended to do some shopping in an area I've been in before but am not very familiar with. I find it is difficult to tell at a glance what stores are in a particular grouping, so I never did find what I was looking for. Realizing that I shouldn't take my eyes off the road long enough to identify all the stores around me, I decided to head for the Bel Air grocery that I usually shop in. I had taken the dog with me so I noticed some parking places in good shade - when I got there I noticed two dog catcher vehicles. The guys in uniforms were standing outside their vehicles talking, and I didn't dare leave my dog in the truck that close to them, so I found another part of the lot that was still relatively cool. It was probably the quickest trip through the grocery I've made for a while, but I worried about the truck getting warm. It was fine when I got back, and she was sleeping, as usual.

Tomorrow morning I am going to make a trip to my RV and look for a couple of items that I'm missing - one is the original XP disk that came with my Dell desktop. The Dell actually came with a couple of printed instruction books, so I just might read up on formatting the hard drive and see if I can possibly do it myself. I would like to be able to get it functioning fairly well, as it was completely awful right before I got my Mac. There isn't a lot of memory, although I did add some to it. It's been a long time since I've understood computers, which were much simpler when they ran on the DOS operating system.

I've decided I'm going to drive somewhere at least once a day, not far, but I'm going to get out and about. I can't stand it when I get depressed as I have been lately. When I got back home and backed into my parking spot, I did it perfectly on the first try. That isn't an easy thing to do with concrete curbs all over the place, and all I could say was "Damn, I'm good!"