Woody & My IBF

That is a total of 8 in use, leaving 12 for me! Plus there were two in the desk lamp. Boy that's a lot of outlets. Even when charging my jump pack I only need 4 (iPhone, iPad, Macbook Air). My life is full of abundance. I also have a wet bar kinda that keeps the coffee pot far away from the bathroom and keeps the refrigerator noise nowhere near the bed.

And check this out: the shower walls are made of this cool stuff that I wouldn't use in my house because I do not have to worry about sanitation there plus I like only real tile. This is the walls. Note the decorative tiles. But they are not tiles. The entire think is in one molded piece so there is no grout to fall out or grow mold. I love it. Here are the towels they fold all fancy.

And here is the Clean lap desk complete with HBO guide with Hung on the cover. 

This is the breakfast place at the Comfort Inn. It is nicer than my kitchen. Well, not really because my kitchen is very different given that it is all old wood without any marble or granite or glass or pendant lights. I like it that way. This is the carbs. There is lemon poppy seed teacake. I really like the Comfort Inn. If you don't want to eat breakfast there, they have little brown lunch bags with takeout breakfast sitting right at the check out counter. And they have a Hagen Das freezer.

I am really into the groovy coffee things because they have a great old fuel pump on the label. This is the coffee thing. Fuel, coffee, get it?

This is Tina. Tina runs breakfast. She gets here every morning at 4:45. That's a.m. The Comfort Inn is busiest on Sunday through Thursday because they have a lot of business guests and she opens breakfast for them at 5:30 as a courtesy. Tiny is the kind of girl who always gets in trouble for talking in school. I know that because she told me so. I'm not sure I get the whole coffee genealogy but they use S&D coffee from North Carolina which is the stuff that Dunkin Donuts uses but the Dunkin Donuts coffee you get in the supermarket is not from S&D. Nuts, I forgot to buy Community Coffee in Louisiana. Anyhow, the TVA is building a nuclear power plant near here and it was started in the 1970's and then they didn't build it maybe because of Chernobyl (this is Tina's maybe, she's not sure) and it's now going on again. The engineers and other front men are here now but when more workers come they will be sharing apartments because it's cheaper than the Comfort Inn. Tina is from Texas and she loves it here. Her husband works for United Gypsum and I'm not sure that's why they're here but it must be part of it.  According to Tina, this is a very good hotel because the owner is very into housekeeping. I like him already. His family had hotels and from the time he was a boy he worked in housekeeping. The Comfort Inn is very, very clean. And friendly. I should also know that what people also like best about this Comfort Inn is that all the walls are poured concrete because they did a study she thinks with airplane pilots and the thing that bugs people the most is being able to hear the guys next door. The concrete pouring took a very long time and is an engineering marvel or something.

Tina tells me I should go to Unclaimed Baggage. I tell her I am (I'm not in the nuclear engineering business). She goes in the back of her kitchen and gets me a map she made for a wedding party and she kept some extra just in case someone else would need them. I am 10 minutes from Unclaimed Baggage! I had no idea. Tina also tells me that I should go to Tracy City to see Al Capone's halfway house. It took me a while to follow this but it turns out that it is halfway between his Florida house and his New York house or whatever, not a parolee or drug rehabilitation residence. It is now a restaurant and even serves gourmet food. I have been to Tracy City. They have auto parts (which is good for me) and a bakery that doesn't really bake anything. I had no idea that there was anything else there. Note to self: research Al Capone restaurant. Couldn't wait. Here is the High Point Restaurant and here is the story according to their website. Alas, no fried okra. New note to self: figure out how to check out escape hatches and such without eating there because the food reviews are awful.

Arrive at Unclaimed Baggage at last. This is Woody at Unclaimed Baggage. There are not that many people here even though it is at least an hour after opening. Must be waiting for Ski Weekend. I have never gone to the Annex before so give that a try. It is a wonderland of crappier stuff than you get at Goodwill but strangely fascinating. Next to the expired Centrum Silvers there are pregnancy tests. Don't think I'd want an expired pregnancy test.This is a shelf of miscellaneous beverages. I have no idea why these would be in some one's baggage. Not the slightly phallic one that the trainers at my gym think should not be sold there. Pick out tablecloth and Provencal olive dish and then put them back after 15 minutes. Pass strange shelves with plastic clamshells with the contents of toiletry bags. Each one has its own box. It is like the suitcase stuff from asylum that was what the patient could bring but they never left that the guy on Kickstart is photographing. Or the 171 trunks at Shadows on Bayou Teche.

This is sampling of the toiletries. Leave empty handed. Go to main building. I am parked at the side between Annex and main building so go in through the men's department. Select worn comfy jeans for kid because he doesn't have any more of his no matter how many times I mend them and embroidery groovy stuff over the tatters. A few shirts too. Cannot hold them all and forgot to get cart because I vaguely remember that all the carts are in the front. See one lurking by the door that someone must have used to get to parking lot. Peeking of giant pile of men's stuff make beeline for cart. Some lady with nothing gets there first. I eventually shame her into volunteering to give it up because she is getting just a few small things and they do have those nifty carts that you can put your basket onto.

Go around corner and really get cooking. I'm always touched by the wedding dresses that some sobbing bride lost. Same area has lots of gowns. This is one. It looks like a princess. Bet it's a pageant dress. Imagine teenager stomping feet and mother panicking. Go right to electronics and sporting goods which are both on the mezzanine and try to figure out how to get shopping cart upstairs. There is a ramp on the other side of the store. Go up ramp. Find very nice camping stuff including a Kelty sleeping bag for $24 and this inflatable ground pad which is very high end. Send picture to kid to see if he wants it. Do not get response. Buy it anyhow. Kettlebells! 16 kilo. I think I use these for some exercises but I leave the selection to Ron The Hun and these seem a little heavy. Later ponder and think that I use 22 kilos sometimes. Also don't want to add weight to Woody especially because they weren't such a great deal anyhow. Entire new TRX Pro thing in box. This is the stuff that some guy is using on a tank in the ad that is in the SEAL alumni association (or whatever) magazine. Ron The Hun is making me use this stuff and it involves your body weight and it is torture but I have become strangely fond of it as in look-at-me-I-can-do-this-and-you-can't. Ask for price. $95. Score! Realize I have not been jumping rope or doing pushups. Check out with TRX, sleeping bag and ground pad. You have to buy these separately at the cashier in the area because that's where the computers and other expensive stuff is.

Try to resist force field of jewelery counter. Last time cost me an $8000 watch. Well, cost my father $8000. Look for Susie's Hermes scarf that she left on plane a year ago. Not there but three others are at $195 a piece. This is very good because they sold for $325 in the 1980s so god only knows what they get for them now. Decide on two and want to take picture of pink one and see if Susie wants it. The heck with it. I'll take it too. Find out they have boxes. This is big. You can sell these boxes on eBay. I always threw mine away. Also can make at least double my money on the scarves on eBay technically paying for a lot more stuff at Unclaimed Baggage but realistically won't sell them anyway. Does the job in the shopping justification process though. Newly emboldened try on Bulgari and Cartier watches. One too big one too little. Thank god. I do not need any more watches. I have a thing for them. For whatever crazy reason I wear stuff on my wrists and not on my neck or ears. Go figure. Saleslady notes the rain finally coming down. Shit! Woody is not watertight and I have a gigantic prisoner painting in it. Try not to think about it. Especially try not to think about the probability that Woody will not start. Figure it will be wet and my shopping trip will be ruined or it will not start and my shopping trip will be ruined. Resist going to look. Can't resist. Ask jewelery lady to watch my cart and dash outside. Run to Annex and buy 3 $1.50 towels. Put on worst leaky places and go back to shopping. Whatever.

Finally hit clothing racks. I desperately need jeans and jammies and do not need sweaters or blouses or jackets. Hit the jeans. Select 10 pairs mostly from brands I recognize and while not intentional mostly brand new. Go to shoes. Nothing. Nothing for me, nothing for Susie, nothing for my sister. But wait. Here are bright pink soft shoes that you can fold up that were on Oprah. $6.24. Trust me, they did not sell for $6.24 new. Hit socks. Pick out stupid slipper socks but they were from Sweden and not Cambodia. The lights go off. There is no power at Unclaimed Baggage. We are all just standing there. I joke that everything is free. No one thought that that was funny. After about five minutes which is a very long time standing in the dark, lights go on in half the building. A cheer goes up. The generator has kicked on on that side of the building but not this one. No matter. Go to dressing room to try on 10 pairs of jeans. Lady said here's a room where maybe you can get a little light. I like trying on jeans in the dark. All that matters is that they feel right and your belly fat isn't hanging over the waist band. No need to check the size and freak out. Find four pairs of perfect $4 jeans. Also saw blind lady telling someone that this blouse is really pretty and suburban housewife who looks like her kids are in college riding Razor aroung the place.

Head to accessories and buy four knitted caps, two the fancy kind made in villages in Africa or somewhere and the others cashmere. Also Isotoner suede gloves with furry insides that will be essential for my north-bound trip. No jammies. Cute leggings with oriental/tattoo kind of design that are marked women's medium but I think will fit my 10 year-old niece. Cannot check out because the lack of power means no credit cards. And I am hungry. Go to Cups but they are not serving in the dark. Finally lights go on and have the 3 salad plate with their Famous Chicken Salad and baked potato salad and that cool strawberry jello and pretzel thing that only Southerners understand. Jello is sublime. Chicken salad is not. Wonder if I have gotten tuna instead because it is practically pureed. Check ingredient list on menu and confirm it is really bad chicken salad. Pick grapes and walnuts out of salad for rest of lunch. This is the 3 salad plate at Unclaimed Baggage.

Have to use restroom several times. Have Guest Services lady guard my cart because Hermes scarves that I have already paid for are in there. Getting dizzy. Take one more stab in men's department and come up with cashmere full-length coat ($79) for son. Also loden green wool English hunting jacket. There are some very spiffy people losing outerware on planes. Also bought diamond ring. Forgot to say that. And passed these teeny tiny cowboy boots which are $55 even at Unclaimed Baggage so they must be really good. This is the teeny boots. There is a checkout counter in the men's department which is right near the door near Woody and also has power for credit cards. Check out. Don't remember total score. Attempt to get to Woody to try to figure out how on earth I will fit an entire shopping cart's worth of stuff in. Detector on door buzzes. Take bags through one at a time. It is the Hermes one. He deactivates the strip. Go out again. Still buzzes. Try bags again. Say I will take the ones that definitely work out to car. Come back in. Guy worked on it and found it was sleeping bag which still had that huge tag thing that you can't get off at home without a bolt cutter and then you have tears in the clothes. Go out again. Buzzes again. It is ground pad. That came from the same guy as sleeping bag. They should fire him.

Hit road in rain. Windshield wipers work but they are very little. GPS takes me back roads so it works for me. Check pink route on GPS. It gets very very squiggly near Sewanee. I am not going up the mountain the hard way, so what is this? Hold breath. Pass really cool sculpture made out of all sorts of trash at a barn and then see more at the guy's house. His sign says there is even more available. I really want to stop but now I cannot fit another thing in Woody. Kid calls. Is there any possible way I can take him and his friend to dinner. I would be delighted. Then realized there is no place for them to sit. Keep driving. Pass really interesting ruins of something. It has big towers with crenelations like a castle and also has vines on it and an evergreen growing out of the top. Big new sign on front: Sherwood Mining. Note to self: go back to Sherwood and buy sculpture and explore abandoned-sorta mine. Now understand squiggly route. I am going up the mountain a different hard way as in second gear at 24 mph the whole way. Nervous. No shoulder. No rail. Fog and rain. Persevere. Get to Sewanee. Pass school entirely because cannot see it. Call kid. Go to dorm which is in the woods with abrupt grades and giant potholes. Stall. Really give it gas and make a spectacle of myself. Too bad.

Kid and friend come flying out. I needed to make room first. Well they'll just have to stand in rain until I do. Hand him bags from Unclaimed Baggage and Angola Prison Rodeo. Apparently peeked while I was moving crap around the car and told me he liked all of it especially the t-shirt with Angola, A Gated Community on it. Kid has two huge laundry buckets of shirts to take to dry cleaner. Attempt to locate dry cleaner in Monteagle on iPad. Maybe sorta will be one. It is on the school tips page but isn't listed in Merchant Circle or whitepages or anywhere else. Go to CVS to get wart remover (not for me). Also talked kid into trying sinus rinse. He is game which he has not been in the past but he has been sick for three weeks and is kinda desperate. Ask about dry cleaner. Counter girl is not from there. Other lady is. It is now in a kinda weird place next to the Piggly Wiggly in a little shack thing. Drive all around Piggly Wiggly in every possible direction. Pull in tiny strip mall, if you can call it that, and ask coffee lady. It is between the chapel and the Smoke House and is where the liquor store used to be and IT HAS NO SIGNS! Roll around again. This is in the rain and fog. Pass garden shop with tons of chrysanthemums outside and spy it. No one but me sees it. I only see it because there are a few shirts hung near the little window and I spot them. It is not a garden center. Well maybe it is but the dry cleaner is here too.

Take hundred shirts (probably really 45, really) and ask for huge favor. Can she have them done by the end of tomorrow? Or Saturday? I love my kid but I don't want to be here until Tuesday. The guy has just left and he will not be back until tomorrow night and they don't work on weekends and it will be Monday or Tuesday. Shit. Kid says he can get ride to pick them up. Need to count them because I want to pay in advance. She says it is okay. Just leave them in a pile and she will take care of them. Can I leave her my credit card? She will send me a bill. Now when was the last time a shopkeeper would send a perfect stranger a bill? It is a very nice town. Leave kid a blank check. Get in car. Kid has huge clod of we don't know what brown stuff on jeans. He was going to wear them to class tomorrow. Also he has not picked up his packages because it has been raining and they won't fit on his bike handlebars.

Kid wants to go to Mexican restaurant which is in Winchester which is about 10 minutes away when you come down the mountain the scary way. I will not do that. Take long but easy way and kid asks if I am sure this is the right direction. I am sure. But wait. Turn on the GPS just in case. We are indeed very close although it has been 40 minutes. Am all turned backwards but finally get to the general area. See Mexican restaurant. Park. It is the wrong Mexican restaurant. Look for right one. Make series of u-turns. Waiter gets every single order wrong but hey it's dinner with my kid. Drop them off and briefly discuss whether I should see him again tomorrow or not. He will be done with class at 12:30 and will call me. Also will get friends plane arrangements for Thanksgiving as he got the day wrong for dismissal and needs to change his flight if he can. That way they can both use one driver and friend won't have to take nasty shuttle.

Drove to Manchester easier way. There is no Holiday Inn Express sign at that exit but I am sure it is there because I saw it every day when we camped right next door to it. Figure I can be brave and try another hotel if I need to because I am someone disillusioned by HIE. It is right there where I remembered it. They have a room open but it is non-smoking with two double beds. I take it. Ask when the hotel was last renovated. I am getting smart. Desk lady has been here for three years and they are renovating all the time. They just did the breakfast room and are working on putting refrigerators and microwaves in all the rooms. Also they are working on putting new carpet in the guest rooms soon. Red flag. Talk desk lady into letting me park leaky car under canopy. Room is on first floor really near the lobby which I hate but it is a room. Coffee maker still in bathroom but it is the kind where there is no basket and no coffee pot so this is much more sanitary. This is the coffee pot. The plastic cups with the unattractive beige ice bucket that has probably been there since the 1970's are in plastic bags as usual but I have only used one twice I think when I have lost my bottle of water. What I don't get is why the bags are perforated. I assume it is because it is easier to get the plastic cup out without breaking it but don't the perforations sorta defeat the purpose? Note to self: do not forget water bottle. And now that I think of it, I have not gotten a water bottle or a goodie bag at all for being a Priority Club member since Louisiana.

Can't figure out why room creeps me out. Finally realize it is two double beds not queens. Haven't had that since the 1970's. Also very tall ceiling. It is not cozy. Knock on door. Some creepy guy wants to look at car. How the heck did he know which room was mine? Really creeped out and wonder if I should check Woody for pilferage or vandalism. Glad I read the warning sign three nights ago on the mirror: never open your door to strangers. I don't know why I let him talk to me at all. Shoulda called the police. Get undressed and find mystery mud on my jeans too. This is the crap. Good thing I have new jeans from Unclaimed Baggage.