random thoughts – Day 2,082 (Friday) – not black friday

It was the best Black Friday in ages and I saved a fortune. That’s because I stayed home and stayed off the Internet shopping.

Morning energy was invested in attempting to coordinate a semi-local non-retail diversion for the day. The top idea was to visit a museum sort-of halfway between my town and that of an acquaintance. The location challenge was to minimize drive time in the hellacious Black Friday traffic for both parties. It was harder than it sounded.

There aren’t that many museums between the two locations. Website results had a standard butt-covering disclaimer that “Black Friday may affect operating hours” with no way to confirm before the posted regular opening time. Many museums now have a ticketing system where you need to arrive within a designated window of time. Late in the research, the person at the other end of the challenge said they were thinking of MFA (Boston) which is basically in their backyard and a solid hour-plus from mine on a quiet day that isn’t the primary shopping day of the entire year. The idea was dropped.

Oh, silver tree.

Inside the protective bubble of my home, safe from traffic jams and road rage (mine), I added a string of dark beads and more ornaments to the silver metallic tree in the bay window that was started on Wednesday. Another tension rod was located and more beaded snowflakes and clear icicles were added to the center window. Two small green trees were set on the buffet and trimmed with pine cones and small iridescent glass balls. In a questionable dietary choice, half of a small sweet potato pie and a slice of pumpkin pie were consumed.

Outside the protective house bubble and within the independent weather system that is the snow globe of Gardner, snow swirled and blew and fell in spurts that were occasionally interrupted with patches of blue sky most of the day. The back yard collected more of a coating than the front. The street looked cold and wet and potentially slick. I was glad to be inside, warm, dry, putting up decorations, and not in traffic. Screw Black Friday, I made my own Silver Friday.