I Made My Bed And ALL I Get To Do Is Lie In It?

I woke up fully intending to go for a walk, but soon found myself just planted in front of my computer not doing much of anything until finally it was late enough that I had to take a shower and get dressed.
Kathleen had an eye doctor appointment here in Ashburn today, so we had made plans to meet for lunch and do some shopping.
Since I needed one, and the place I go to is right next to the eye doctor, I decided I’d get a haircut before meeting her.
I decided that it’s a good thing that I’m usually early (I can’t stand sitting at home waiting; I’d rather go where I need to go and wait there, if need be), as a combination of being busy and short-staffed meant I had a lengthy wait before I could get my haircut.
I think I’ve mentioned before that over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that certain Hollywood myths just have no basis in reality.
(We won’t talk about how “geek babes” are a myth, for fear of Wendy chopping my head off)
Most of the movies and TV shows I’ve seen would have you believe that all cosmetologists, like flight attendants, are extremely hot young women.
In all the times I’ve flown I think I’ve seen exactly one flight attendant who was even somewhat hot, though probably not nearly so hot as she might have been, say, fifteen to twenty years before that.
As for cosmetologists…well, with a few exceptions, most of the ones I’ve encountered haven’t exactly been supermodels, and even the exceptions weren’t that…exceptional.
In any case, today’s encounter was no exception. Between the two stylists and the two female customers the women in the place must have been carrying about a thousand pounds combined weight.
Yikes.
Beyond that, though, it was an odd group.
The woman who cut my hair had her baby there with her, sleeping in a car seat next to her workstation.
The baby slept and was quiet for most of the time…until the other stylist kept demonstrating the fact that her clippers made a weird, loud noise. She did it several times for no reason, and each time, understandably, it disturbed the baby greatly.
The two other customers were kind of odd as well. They had come in together, and I thought at first that they were mother and daughter. It may be that my assessment was correct, but the younger (though still older than I am) woman seemed to be of ambiguous ethnicity, while the older woman was white, and there didn’t appear to be any sort of family resemblance.
While they were sitting and waiting they were talking about some woman named Melissa (I think; I wasn’t really listening, as I was engrossed in a copy of “In Touch” magazine). The older woman said, “I feel a little sorry for her.”
The younger woman asked why, and the older woman said, “She was raped by her neighbor. I guess he cut her up really bad.”
…
Okay, first of all, I don’t know that this is a conversation you want to be having, loudly, in public.
Second of all, you feel a “little” sorry for her?
I don’t even know this woman and I feel extremely sorry for her. I mean, WTF?
Even though I had gotten there several minutes before the Odd Couple (the possible mother/daughter weirdness team), the younger of the two was called in ahead of me when one of the stylists finished with her customer.
But whatever.
While she was getting her hair cut the woman commented on the pictures of the stylist’s daughter that she had up in her work area.
The stylist mentioned that now, in contrast to when most of the pictures were taken, apparently, her daughter is 12½.
From there the conversation somehow turned to discussion of the daughter’s cup size and the fact that she never takes her bra off for fear of future sagging.
It got stranger when the woman getting her hair cut started talking about how she can tell that her “chubby little six year old” is going to have big boobs.
Again, WTF?
So while I honestly would have liked for my hair to have gotten cut a bit shorter, I bolted out of the place at my first opportunity.
From there it was a matter of waiting for Kathleen. Some sort of issue with the lenses (she was there for orthokeratology, which involves reshaping the eyes with contact lenses) led her to have to call Brian and have him pick up some other lenses from the doctor’s Leesburg office to bring them to Ashburn for her.
She decided that we would go to lunch, have Brian meet us, and then she would just go back to the eye doctor after we finished everything.
Getting to the restaurant took forever, thanks to one point on the road where, thanks to construction, two lanes merged. Once we got there it was overrun with children.
My lunch was one of the unhealthiest things I’ve had in a while (A burger with bacon and a fried egg on it…why can’t things that are good for you taste that good?).
We parted company with Brian, and from there we hit a couple of stores, and eventually made our way back to the eye doctor, from which I made my way home with my new purchases.
In addition to a Firewire and S-Video cable for connecting the DVR to my computer, I picked up a little four-drawer storage unit and new bedding.
I’ve needed new bedding for a while, and what I bought is extremely nice, but…well, it was a bit pricey.
As far as I’m concerned, at least.
I mean, $125 for a comforter, sheets, and pillowcases? WTF? It’s just bedding; it’s not like it can do anything cool like wirelessly stream MP3s from my computer or something.
Why is bedding so expensive anyway? As mentioned, it has no electronic components or gimmicky features, which are the only things that, in my mind, can justify a high price.
Am I supposed to believe that cotton and polyester are rare commoditites?
What is the justification for the expense? Recouping R&D costs?
Paying for the extensive benefits packages those kids in the sweatshops are collecting?
I just don’t get it.
In any case, the bedding is very nice. The comforter set (comforter, bed skirt, pillow shams) is this soft faux-suede material with an embroidered pattern. The sheets are 400 thread count cotton sateen.
As I said, it’s very nice.
Too bad I’m the only one who’ll get to enjoy it, though, especially since I’m annoyed at how much it cost.
I mean, $125 and it doesn’t even have e-mail capabilities…
On the technological front, the S-Video cable, as I knew it would, worked very nicely when connected to my computer’s TV tuner card.
The Firewire cable, which, theoretically, would provide me direct access to the DVR’s hard drive, however, was another matter entirely.
When I was at Best Buy looking for the cable, and indeed, well before that when I decided to buy a Firewire cable, the thought that there might be different kinds of Firewire cables never even occurred to me.
Having never messed with Firewire peripherals, I just assumed that there was a standard cable type, which was silly, considering that I’ve had issues with non-standard USB cables in the past, so I should have known better.
In any case, once I got home I discovered that I had 4 pin to 6 pin cable, but what I needed was a 6 pin to 6 pin.
So I wasn’t able to hook up the DVR.
I didn’t feel like dealing with traffic to go out and buy another cable (I figure on keeping this one in case I ever do pick up another Firewire device), so I decided that I can wait a while to try it out.
After all, with four two-hour movies saved on the DVR I’m only using 10% of the capacity of the hard drive, so there’s no immediate need to try to move anything off.
Because I knew it would be cheaper, and since I was willing to wait, I decided to order the correct cable from an online supplier. I'll probably get it by Monday anyway, which will be just in time for me to try messing around with it.
In any case, that’s it for right now. I may (or may not) write more later.