So hard to come by

2003-12-06 - 10:41 p.m.

Today my aunt, her boyfriend, my cousin, and my grandfather came to visit. I don't think I mentioned this earlier, but my aunt's boyfriend is now actually her fianc�. He asked her to marry him. Personally, I think things were just fine the way they were. He will be my aunt's fourth husband if they go through with it. But really, it's not my place to say. At any rate, they're here because her boyfriend is running in the marathon, which is not, as I previously called it, the Sacramento Marathon, but the California International Marathon. That's tomorrow, which also happens to be my grandfather's birthday. So today we went out to breakfast and then went down to the Sacramento Convention Center to pick up my aunt's boyfriend's race number. They were having an exposition of lots of running stuff there and mostly it was stuff I couldn't care less about. But I ended up getting myself a pair of sunglasses. They're supposedly Ray-Bans, but they only cost $10 so I don't see how that can be. But they're comfy and a whole heck of a lot sturdier than my Wal-Mart cheapos and I'm not really interested in the brand name anyway.

After getting his race number, we headed over to Best Buy. You will be proud to know that I didn't spend a penny there. However, the rest of my family went all out. We originally went there because my aunt wanted to buy a new digital camera. Luckily, she had been doing some research and already had the camera she wanted picked out, she just wanted my expertise (I know, I know, what expertise?) on whether or not the camera she had picked was a decent camera. I assured her it was. Then while she was buying it, my mom dragged me over to show me a really cool scanner she wants. Then I suggested that we check out the computers since she is sorely in need of a new one. There was some guy from HP hanging out in the computer section who actually knew what he was talking about and didn't talk to us like we were stupid, and he basically sold us a computer even though we had no intention of buying one when we walked over there. So while she was buying her computer, my aunt grabbed me and told me she wanted to buy my grandfather a printer for a Christmas present. She showed me the one she wanted to buy, again asking for my expertise on whether or not it was a good printer. The one she was looking at was a printer/card reader/scanner/copier all in one and since she was buying it at the same time as a digital camera she would get $50 off through some deal the store was having. So we bought that too.

When we got home we unpacked everything in the living room and it looked like Christmas. There were boxes and styrofoam packing material and plastic wrappers all over the place. I set up my grandfather's new printer, which since his computer isn't here I couldn't set up completely, but we could still have lots of fun messing with. I used the copy machine part of it and then when my aunt got her camera working we took some family portraits and then stuck the memory card into the printer's card reader and printed out 8.5" X 11" glossy photos which looked really nice.

I set up my mom's new computer tonight, too, but I don't really know much about setting up the DSL. I'm thinking it won't be too hard, but I'd still rather have my brother's help doing it than messing with it myself. If he's not around tomorrow, though, I might try my hand at it. He wasn't around tonight because he and his wife went to see an opera. I want a husband who will take me to see operas!

We went out to dinner tonight at Hometown Buffet. It seems to be my grandfather's favorite restaurant. I'm not a huge fan, but it's tolerable. I just think it's too expensive for the amount of food I end up eating.

So that was my fun-filled day. Other than the fact the my cousin and my aunt's boyfriend talk non-stop at high-volumes and their sense of humors don't tend to rise above bathroom humor or the derision of gay men, today really hasn't been too bad of a day. Yeah, so not bad, in fact, that I completely forgot to mention that I woke up this morning with a sore throat and it has only gotten worse all through the day.

And I still can't really wear my contacts. I haven't been wearing them to work, but since I haven't had to work until noon for the last few days I've been wearing them for a few hours in the morning before work and then taking them out and wearing my glasses to work. But when I've been wearing the contacts, nobody else has been home. This morning I put them in and discovered they are much more uncomfortable when other people are around. When other people are around I can't look at the ground all the time. Looking up enough to make eye contact with people was painful. I ended up taking them out today after only half an hour or so. I won't bother with them tomorrow and then Monday I'm working a morning shift so I won't wear them and then Tuesday it's time for my follow-up appointment. The longest I will have worn them in any one stretch will be five and half hours. I really, really hope my optometrist can fix this problem. I have to say, though, I'm getting much better at getting them out of my eyes. They practically pop right out now whereas before getting them out was a major struggle.