Anyone remember this gem of a cinematic experience starring none other than Lil’ Bow Wow?

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I really want to say, “Ah, 90s,” but that movie actually came out in 2002.  And if I remember correctly, it was actually pretty dang cool when he whispered, “Make me like Mike” to his basketball shoes and then crazy slam dunked like he had Flubber on the soles.  But that’s not the point.  I actually only said “Mike” because I went to Michaels the other day.  And that IS the point.

You see, I recently experienced a rare and incredible phenomenon known as THREE DAYS OFF IN A ROW.  Consecutive.  Three.  No work.  I normally have two days off a week, but since the coffee shop is open all seven days, they’re never in the typical Saturday/Sunday combo.  My weekends are typically more of the Tuesday/Friday variety.  Anyway, now that it’s the off-season and things have sloooowed down here on the Outer Banks, we rotate around an extra day off a week, and this week I was the lucky winner!  So not only did I get three days off, but for some magical reason I don’t quite understand but did not question, they were in a row.  It was like a mini-vacation!

So, with the luxury of three full uninterrupted days of relaxation ahead of me, I set aside the first day to make the trip up to Virginia Beach.  It’s about an hour and a half away, and I go about every couple of months just for the day – usually when I have one of those days where I just really feel like getting off the beach and driving, or else when my Target withdrawal gets dangerous.

Get ready for a tangent: SPEAKING OF WHICH, there was a new Target Lady on last night’s SNL!  We’ve waited so long, but it was worth it.  My brother and I were laughing hysterically… as we watched it simultaneously on our separate computers 600 miles apart while Skyping about our favorite lines.  Um, is it weird that we do that every week?

Aaand we’re back.  So I made the lovely and scenic trip up to VB to visit the luxurious locales which we Outer Banksers are sadly denied: namely, Target, Trader Joe’s, and Miiiiichaaaelssss!  Those were angel voices singing that last one.

I don’t know what it is, but something happens to me when I walk through those doors that turn my thought processes from “Hm, I need puffy paint and scrapbook paper for some crafty things I’m doing this week” to “OH MY GOSH COLORED GLASS BOTTLES OWNING EVERY SHAPE AND SIZE IS ESSENTIAL TO MY CONTINUED EXISTENCE!!!”

These were my downfall (but really, how enticing is that display?).  As ashamed as I am to admit it, I really did walk around for fifteen minutes with four of them in my basket before running back to the shelves and tearfully shoving them back.

In the end, I did make the very practical purchases of the puffy paint and scrapbook paper that I needed, plain candle wicks so that Sarah and I can make new candles with all the old scraps of wax we end up with, and three giant jar candles that were on sale for 3/$10 (what!) and smell AMAZING (yep, we’re candle junkies in my house).  I also made the less practical but not wholly unnecessary purchases of a wooden letter J (just because I thought it was cute), an awesome squirrel mop brush even though I have none of my watercolor stuff with me here, and a totally sweet box which looks like a book and has maps and a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it.  And then I had to get out of there before I started buying partial shares of the company.

The only other point of note about that trip was that I found a bunch of cassette tapes in my glove compartment of 1930s radio broadcasts of The Shadow.  I got them at a yard sale in Geneseo last year and totally forgot about them, because I was so into using my car’s tape deck as an iPod adapter that I forgot it could actually play tapes.  Kids these days.  Anyway, these radio shows are SO COOL.  That was a great $1.50 spent, if I do say so myself.  Boy, do I love a good vigilante.  The Shadow rocks.

Now, I’m not one to bash television – goodness knows I am firmly planted in front of The Bachelor every Monday evening – but there was something so different and creative about old radio entertainment.  The sound effects, the voices, even the pauses were so convincing and effective, and I got totally sucked in to the stories without any visuals at all.  The original advertisements were even left in there for things like Blue Coal – heat your family’s house all winter long, even in snowy Buffalo!  That’s what it said.  This stuff is gold, folks.

Well, that’s all I got.  The next two days were less eventful but certainly relaxing.  I needed the time to come down from my Michaels-induced manic episode, anyway.  Anyone else go nutso in that place?  It can’t be just me…