"It's not a tumor!" I think...

Thursday is my ophthalmologist follow up, but nobody has called to say there is a tumor in my head, so I'm thinking the MRI went well. My eye still isn't 100%, but it's only iffy at great distances and when I look to the extreme right. I have been driving, and I haven't been having the headaches I was having. On to the week in review!



On Saturday, despite the deluge, we went to the local restaurant supply shop to look around. They had the usual more! and bigger! things you would expect for restaurants, and quite a few decorative/ridiculous/useless items that nobody needs. Everyone definitely needs one of these...



Sunday was much sunnier, so we headed down Route 9 to visit friend Bethany in Niantic. Niantic is a cool little town with some nice looking restaurants, antique/junque dealers, and a fantastic used bookstore called the Book Barn. Actually, we only visited the "downtown" branch of the Barn, but it was still pretty great. The best treasure I found was this Russian magazine.



It really deserves a post all to itself, but it contains lots of pictures of giant Russian trucks and tiny Russian cars. Besides the store cat Frank, there were store turtles, complete with ID chart.



There were 5 on the "log" and one in the water but I didn't take the time to properly ID each one.



We also took a walk along the not quite completed Niantic boardwalk, which consists of a sandy walkway and lots of rocks. The seagulls really like the rocks because they find clams and crabs and whatnot and drop them on the rocks to get to the tasty squishy bits inside. We saw it happen, and we saw lots of the discards all along our walk. Example, crab...



Example, clam...



Speaking of clams, before this whole adventure began, we had lunch at the Niantic Diner, where I enjoyed the Clam Roll Platter. Which was excellent.



Other excellent highlights included this Rover...



...construction equipment caution stickers...



...dusty fake owls in the Book Barn...



...and the powerstrip-in-a-tree outside of the Book Barn.



Also, by the way, I did complete another project this weekend, which was my original intent, an octopus wearing a sweater.



This "talisman" has to do with things like staying on top of several projects at once, flexibility, wearing sweaters, and general creativity. Also, I like octopi. I like the creature, I like the word, I have even been known to like the food, which maybe means I don't "like" the creature itself as much, but who am I (or you!) to judge? Anyway, first I knit an octopus,



and then I knit a sweater for the octopus,



which, if you've ever done ANYTHING with double pointed needles, was really pretty easy. I mean, look at it, it's just a collar and sleeves.



So, besides being wicked cute, it was kind of cathartic to bring this to fruition. I've always done plenty of talkin' the talk when it comes to projects big and small, but I often don't end up walkin' the walk. I hope to change all that, in small but significant ways, so that I spend more time doing what I want and enjoy and less time dreaming and idealizing new projects. It's great to have new and big ideas, but it gets to a point where you end up being all talk and no action, and nothing ever comes of it. I have boxes and boxes of unfinished (and unstarted) projects and there just isn't enough time for everything, so I'm trying to learn to enjoy the things I have, revisit previous interests, and focus on what I'm doing. But enough about me...

While at Chef's Restaurant Supply on Saturday, we did manage to find a few items we needed, including this "octopus" dish scrubber.



And, also worthy of it's own post, I was really surprised to find a Finnish cookbook at the Book Barn.



Oh, and not just a cookbook, but "Entertaining the Finnish Way". Yes, by all means, lay out a table and cover it with platters of whole fish, sliced hard-boiled eggs, pickled beets, a bowl of cabbage, and some rolls.

THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!!!

(more Niantic) & (a little more knit octopus)