Sleepy in NC

It turned out to be a fairly busy day today. I slept horribly last night, which I tried to make up for by sleeping in, but I didn't do that too successfully, either. I frittered the morning away doing small errands, and then Peng and I went to a local Mead Fest. Mead is a wine-like fermented beverage that uses honey instead of grapes. The mead was fine; the company was excellent. I made a new spinning friend who wants to sell me one of her old wheels (spinner ladies - or guys! - out there, is there one y'all would recommend?). We met a bunch of really neat people. And we left with a ton of last year's mead, which featured various stone fruits. This year we brought apple juice (that was the price of admission), so I guess we'll see how that turns out next year. It was a very fun time. We then stopped for Greek food on the way home, which was also very tasty, and now I have lunch Monday.

Fortunately, I could do all this running around today in my new car, which I mentioned yesterday. Here it is:
My family has this habit of naming our cars after the Greek Orthodox patron saint of the day on which we purchase them. Yesterday was the feast day of Joseph of Arimathea, so the Jeep was promptly named "Joe." Joe the Jeep. It fits.

It's a Grand Cherokee. I ended up paying less for it than my old payment was on the Liberty, despite that the interest rate I got was something close to being prison highway robbery, but, my credit sucks, what are you going to do? And it was about $20 more per month than a new Liberty. And it's roomier, and well appointed (as someone on my FB page pointed out, it even comes with a Starbucks cup. Those are standard on all models I drive). I had a Grand Cherokee in college/med school, and I loved it. I'm such a Jeep girl.

The key is all funny, though, look at this:

It's not actually a key, really. But, if you push the little button on the back, look what pops out:

A real key. Which works in the door. I think this is totally fabulous, because I can leave the car running and locked (say, if I have a pup in there whom I don't want to broil, but I also don't want anyone to steal her. Or Joe) and run into a building to run a quick errand, and then I can get back in the car.

Maggie seems to approve.

New and awesome

My mom got a new car today. These are the speakers in the tailgate. Not that my family does a lot of tailgating, but, that's just cool.

It was a lovely Saturday here in NC. Slept in a little, did some stuff, went to Starbucks, then FedEx, then had to drive to the CH to jump through some hoops for a class I want to take. Spent an hour at the gym (my feet hurt). Came home, screwed around, showered, watched part of the 16 and Pregnant finale (I'm officially addicted to that show; still not crazy about Dr. Drew). Then went to wine tasting with Peng, which was delightful. Good company, good wine, and my stash is growing nicely. And Peng was going for a late dinner with Chef, so I met up with Ruthie again. We went clothes hunting at TJ Maxx (Ruthie's favorite hunting ground), and found a couple of tops for me, and this really awesome shawl/wrap thing (I'm thinking it'd be a nice beach cover up, which I'm always looking for) that has all this really nice Sanskrit lettering and it's really sort of om-ish an pretty...and then has "Freak" enbroidered in the one corner. I...don't get it, but I bought it anyway, because if I can successfully hide that corner, its gorgeous. We then went to a local burger joint for dinner and Smoothie King after that (have I mentioned that this is Ruthie's latest obsession?), and sat outside for a while and talked about out past lives (hers in surgery and mine at the Emerald Palace). All in all, it was a lovely evening.

Meanwhile, all the grapes I planted on FarmTown (a Facebook game I'm currently a little addicted to, for those who don't know) died because I left them alone too long. This made me smile a little when I got home and realized this. I thought, yeah, real life wins out every time.