I got lucky! Well, except for the police

Today was errand day. Oddly enough on 3 cups of coffee I felt strangely calm. Maybe I delegated it to the cats; they were doing time trials back and forth while I watched the sunrise.

Maybe it was all the writing before hand. I'm making good progress; by the end of the day I am up to 57627 words. I've put everything in what I think is the correct order. The character ages are sorted out. I've added a few bits in, mainly things I noticed along the way. Corrected a few inconsistencies. So I'm pleased about that. By the 25th I should have something I can upload to NaNoWriMo as a novel. Whether an editor or publisher will think it's commercial is another thing entirely. It probably isn't, since there aren't major plot points happening at certain places.

But then, I think lots of the big commercial novels now are kind of boring. Too many of them read like a paint by numbers novel. Writers have been told that a novel structure is thus and so, which is what they do. Or rather, it's what most editors buy. I'm much more interested in the off beat and quirky books.

The drive for the various errands was interesting. If you don't know Calgary, this might not mean much to you. They are doing construction along 14th Street from 90th Ave to Heritage. I knew one lane would be blocked so I did 90th. I'm in the right lane, turning left. The left most lane of 14th is blocked, so we're all going over the extra lane. Except for this geezer in the left lane is frozen with fear, even though he had lots of room. The guy in the pickup truck behind him was going berserk. You could see the truck bouncing around as he shook his fists. 14th was a northbound parking lot from 90th back to Southland, and another one southbound from Heritage back to the exit off Glenmore.

There was a 6 car fender-bender on southbound Crowchild near 50th. There was a train so I couldn't go south on 11th St to get to MEC. Damn the CPR! I had to go all the way to 5th to get under them. I'd forgotten about the little dodge to get on 8 and couldn't get across in time. Got parking right out in front. MEC was busy, but my actual line up was short. I bought snowshoes!

Can't wait to try them out.

From there to Tri It for another set of goggles. The ones I got the other week are size small, and I need the regular size. Fortunately I have a buddy that needs some and I'm happy to pass them along.

Then through the neighbourhood behind the store. I'm not sure if it's Hillhurst, West Hillhurst, or Parkdale. There's some nice homes in there. Across 5th Ave, watching a collision with a bunch of firetrucks on Crowchild just south of there. At least 3 fire trucks on scene. 5th is closed for construction, detour onto 4th. Never been there before, nice homes, smelling of money. Then over to the Beehive, dodging more construction and detours. Any store you can buy natural honey is a good thing, and they've got a ton of good stuff.

Up to Scarpones, dodging someone on that little chunk of McKnight between the Deerfoot exit, and the left turn into the old airport. He was determined to take up several lanes and didn't seem to know where he wanted to go. Eventually I got around him, and in and out of Scarpones. I liked that store better when nobody knew about it.

From there it was down Deerfoot, down Blackfoot and my goodness I'm glad I was paying attention as that guy signaled right, and started turning right into that odd little intersection at 17th, and 17th, and Blackfoot. Then he changed his mind and turned left across 5 lanes of traffic. I'm not even sure he looked. My eyes got very wide there for a few seconds.

Then into xxxxx store to look for a tacky Hawaiian shirt for a work thing. I paid cash, so there is no record I was ever there. What a sad place that is. All I could smell was cigarette smoke. I got really lucky with parking, someone was coming out at the spot one over from the handicapped spot near the door.

There's a shortcut going south from there along Centre, then Fairmount, then right onto Flint Rd and out on Heritage. I knew there was no way I wanted to go across Heritage to 14th again, even though I wanted to go to Coop. So I snuck down Bonaventure, across 94th, and through the Indigo parking lot to Horton Rd to avoid the Macleod Trail gong show. Then I got stuck. Southland, predictably enough was a parking lot going up the hill. Lots of people wanted to get onto 14th, and as I mentioned earlier, nobody was going anywhere in a hurry there. Even so, there were two cars on the median, owners exchanging information. Just another day in Calgary traffic.

Coop to buy a pineapple and some nice flowers. Home. Linda was astonished at how little time it took. I got very lucky with the traffic. The police part of it was the radio. I heard more of Sting wailing his heart out on this trip than in the month or two previous. At one point all three of the radio stations I rotate between had a Police song going. It was beginning to grate on my nerves.

Linda had been cooking up a storm while I was gone. I managed to get a bit of writing done, then sat down to this. Yummy!

Grrr! I hate it when Blogger gets pissy about rotating photos. Sorry guys. Put your head on your right shoulder, that way the drool won't run down your chin.

Ordered 5 wine kits for delivery mainly in Jan and Feb. More writing in the evening. A surprisingly nice day.