EXPO
I've had a weird convergence of doctor and dentist appointments this week, and had to go over to UCSF again today. One piece of this was the second part of my physical from yesterday, which included fasting and getting my blood drawn this morning. Walt and Devon waited in the car -- with Devon driving of course -- while I went in for that. I'm a total chicken about needles and usually faint when I have any type of shot, blood draw, etc. to deal with (I would have made a horrible phlebotomist, that's for sure -- although then again, I can't imagine who in their right mind would choose that as a career); but I've learned now that if I just don't look at any of the equipment or open my eyes during the procedure, I can usually leave the lab upright.
However, by the time I got out of there, I was really hungry and kind of crabby, since I hadn't been eating a lot the last couple of days thanks to my stomach ailment. Walt had to go to the studio, so we went by Arizmendi bakery to grab something to eat. Arizmendi, or "the Riz" as we call it, is this total hippie co-operative bakery where Birkenstocks are worn proudly and the business closes on May 1 to support International Workers' Day. It also makes truly wonderful baked goods and some of the best pizzas in San Francisco. Devon has learned to love their scones and brioche knots as much as the rest of us, and she was quite happy to drop by for a bite.
Much later in the day, after Walt and I had both wrapped up our various appointments, I convinced him to drive across the bridge to visit Home Depot EXPO. This was about 3pm, significantly earlier than I'd ever get out of work, but nonetheless just the beginning of rush hour for those who commute from the San Francisco to the suburbs. However, my ace in the hole was that with Devon in the car we totaled 3, which is the minimum for the carpool lane across the Bay Bridge. Ha.
A moment to explain why we we're going to EXPO and even contemplating spending our hard-earned money at the store that my friend Dana calls "Home Despot..." and which every red-blooded American with an iota of common sense dislikes (at least I think I'm not engaging in extreme hyperbole when I say that. I happened to be in the hallway several months ago with my boss in Intuit's Building 7, which is where all of the executives sit. Another VP happened to come by and engaged my boss in some conversation about his new (at the time) home. Eventually the conversation turned to Home Depot, the locus for all home improvement projects in the Bay Area at least, and both of these folks spontaneously blurted out how much they hated HD. And since I as a plebe also hate the place, I'm going to make the leap of faith that it doesn't have too many net promoters...). Firstly, Walt and I scored some 20% off coupons on craigs list, good for EXPO and HD, and my parsimonious self can't resist the call of the bargain (these work up to $2000, so it can mean some real money); and secondly, it's one of the few places in the Bay Area that has a large selection of the prosumer ranges we're coveting (and the related oh-so-necessary accessories). We had a little crisis with the hood because we realized that if we get the fancy range, then it also means that we have to get a fancy (read: expensive) hood. Like many of life's upgrades, it appears to have a complete domino effect; if you upgrade one component, suddenly all of the other components don't play happily with the upgraded one -- and vice versa.
For a while, Devon was really enjoying herself at EXPO; the appliance section has tons of floor models, and there was a lot of space to run around in and play hide and seek. She's also recently started to turn on all of the burners on our stove, so this place was paradise; there were at least 15 ranges and probably another 10 cooktops, knobs a-beckoning. I'm quite confident that Home Depot's fire insurance is far superior to ours. The shopping cart also proved to be a lot of fun to push around and slam into the aforementioned floor models (I'm sure the sales people appreciated this treatment; we, conscientious parents that we are, at least tried to keep her aimed towards ranges that were less than $5000). But since we had a lot of models to look at and several demos of hoods (and subsequently dishwashers), she started to get bored; and things took a turn for the worse when she also got hungry and I realized that we hadn't packed sufficient snacks. We only had a granola bar and some Cheerios, both of which were met with disdain (and later a little wailing). Whoops.
I managed to distract her for a while in the bathroom, however. The diaper change was no fun at all, but the sink and drinking fountain are a different story altogether. She really loves drinking fountains, and I'm sure she could have spent at least 15 minutes playing in the one at EXPO if I had been willing to hold her up that long. I suppose the good thing about this is that after we realized we were short on food, we had to wrap up our EXPO trip fairly quickly, so we didn't spent a lot more time in the place. Even though I know our coupons are getting us a much better deal than we'd get elsewhere, it still makes me cranky to shop there.
However, by the time I got out of there, I was really hungry and kind of crabby, since I hadn't been eating a lot the last couple of days thanks to my stomach ailment. Walt had to go to the studio, so we went by Arizmendi bakery to grab something to eat. Arizmendi, or "the Riz" as we call it, is this total hippie co-operative bakery where Birkenstocks are worn proudly and the business closes on May 1 to support International Workers' Day. It also makes truly wonderful baked goods and some of the best pizzas in San Francisco. Devon has learned to love their scones and brioche knots as much as the rest of us, and she was quite happy to drop by for a bite.
Much later in the day, after Walt and I had both wrapped up our various appointments, I convinced him to drive across the bridge to visit Home Depot EXPO. This was about 3pm, significantly earlier than I'd ever get out of work, but nonetheless just the beginning of rush hour for those who commute from the San Francisco to the suburbs. However, my ace in the hole was that with Devon in the car we totaled 3, which is the minimum for the carpool lane across the Bay Bridge. Ha.
A moment to explain why we we're going to EXPO and even contemplating spending our hard-earned money at the store that my friend Dana calls "Home Despot..." and which every red-blooded American with an iota of common sense dislikes (at least I think I'm not engaging in extreme hyperbole when I say that. I happened to be in the hallway several months ago with my boss in Intuit's Building 7, which is where all of the executives sit. Another VP happened to come by and engaged my boss in some conversation about his new (at the time) home. Eventually the conversation turned to Home Depot, the locus for all home improvement projects in the Bay Area at least, and both of these folks spontaneously blurted out how much they hated HD. And since I as a plebe also hate the place, I'm going to make the leap of faith that it doesn't have too many net promoters...). Firstly, Walt and I scored some 20% off coupons on craigs list, good for EXPO and HD, and my parsimonious self can't resist the call of the bargain (these work up to $2000, so it can mean some real money); and secondly, it's one of the few places in the Bay Area that has a large selection of the prosumer ranges we're coveting (and the related oh-so-necessary accessories). We had a little crisis with the hood because we realized that if we get the fancy range, then it also means that we have to get a fancy (read: expensive) hood. Like many of life's upgrades, it appears to have a complete domino effect; if you upgrade one component, suddenly all of the other components don't play happily with the upgraded one -- and vice versa.
For a while, Devon was really enjoying herself at EXPO; the appliance section has tons of floor models, and there was a lot of space to run around in and play hide and seek. She's also recently started to turn on all of the burners on our stove, so this place was paradise; there were at least 15 ranges and probably another 10 cooktops, knobs a-beckoning. I'm quite confident that Home Depot's fire insurance is far superior to ours. The shopping cart also proved to be a lot of fun to push around and slam into the aforementioned floor models (I'm sure the sales people appreciated this treatment; we, conscientious parents that we are, at least tried to keep her aimed towards ranges that were less than $5000). But since we had a lot of models to look at and several demos of hoods (and subsequently dishwashers), she started to get bored; and things took a turn for the worse when she also got hungry and I realized that we hadn't packed sufficient snacks. We only had a granola bar and some Cheerios, both of which were met with disdain (and later a little wailing). Whoops.
I managed to distract her for a while in the bathroom, however. The diaper change was no fun at all, but the sink and drinking fountain are a different story altogether. She really loves drinking fountains, and I'm sure she could have spent at least 15 minutes playing in the one at EXPO if I had been willing to hold her up that long. I suppose the good thing about this is that after we realized we were short on food, we had to wrap up our EXPO trip fairly quickly, so we didn't spent a lot more time in the place. Even though I know our coupons are getting us a much better deal than we'd get elsewhere, it still makes me cranky to shop there.
posted by Devon Szalva at
10:04 PM
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