One benefit of my early waking in the summer is that I can get to Target almost as soon as it opens, when no one's there, and then to the grocery store before it gets crowded. I do sometimes have to dodge employees stocking the shelves, but I don't have to wait to check out. The real downside is that this also seems to be when the crotchety old people shop (not that I'm saying all old people are this way, just that this seems to be when that particular subset comes out). Take the encounter I had in Target this morning: Their automatic doors apparently have a safety mechanism that keeps them from opening when someone is standing on the wrong side, so they won't be smacked in the face by the doors flying open, which is also why they have so many signs around the doors letting you know that this is an entrance/exit, don't try to do the opposite, and if you want the opposite, those doors are over there. Well, as I approached the entry doors, there was an elderly lady standing on the opposite side, trying to get out. But not only did the doors not open for her (because she was trying to go out the in doors), the doors wouldn't open for me because she was standing there. But she just kept standing there, like she was waiting for the doors to be triggered by my approach, and that meant I couldn't get in and she couldn't get out. She finally figured this out and moved aside, and the doors opened for me. She then griped about how the doors wouldn't let her out, and I smiled and sweetly said, "Well, they are the entry doors. The exit doors are over there." She just snarled, "I know!" I figured it wasn't worth a fight (though I could have totally taken her), so I didn't ask why, if she knew that, she didn't walk a few feet and go out the designated door that would have opened for her. Then in the grocery store, there was some old person with their cart parked square in the middle of the aisle in just about every aisle, so that no one could get past while they stood there, carefully perusing labels, and they got in a snit if anyone dared say, "Excuse me," or nudge their cart to the side so they could pass. It seems like the nice old people tend to be there in the afternoons when the retirement home van brings them (though that bunch is most fun at the movie theater). These were the people you kind of want to put on an ice floe and set adrift.
But I did manage to score two $5 Target gift cards by stocking up on things I buy regularly. Now to decide if I'm going to be a grownup and use them on my regular necessities of daily life Target shopping or if I'm going to treat it like "found money" and spend it on something fun. I suppose it depends on whether something fun strikes my fancy.
I ended up not needing to watch a movie to switch mental gears yesterday. I just played the soundtrack I put together for this book while I did something else, and that got me right back into it. And from there I was lost in that world. I'm making a few minor tweaks, but otherwise I still love this book. I think that's part of why I keep delaying submitting it, because I love it enough that it would really hurt if my agent thought I was nuts, and loving it that much means I know I can't be objective about it, so I don't know if it's actually good or if I just love it for my own personal reasons that have nothing to do with the quality of the story or the writing. But I enjoy reading it, no matter how many drafts I've done, so after this round and after a round of brutal proofreading, I'm going to bite the bullet and send it to my agent. At which time she may suggest I get professional help and maybe medication.
I may work this weekend, since I don't have any other plans and I want to get this done. This is, however, a new Inspector Lewis on PBS Sunday night. And I have new fresh flowers because they had a bunch of the same kind on clearance again. I think that's a trait that's bleeding from the heroine of the book I'm working on. It doesn't come up in the book, but she just seems like the kind of person who'd always have fresh flowers around the house (and if the flowers know what's good for them, they'd better not wilt).
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