Shopping, Shopping, and more shopping. Yesterday was payday. I was happy to have received my first of the month salary before Christmas, but having spent most of it, I was really eager for the next payday to arrive. I was also happy to discover that the signing bonus of the new teacher’s contract would be included. I had an extra $600 (after taxes) to spend. And….

I spent it all.

Yesterday, as soon as I received my paycheck, I called the furniture shop (it is a small mom and pop operation…literally). When I made my down payment a couple of weeks ago, the owner had told me that I only needed to call him when I was ready to make my final payment, and I would not need to go to the shop. He told me that I could pay the reminder when the furniture arrived. Anyway, he seemed to have forgotten. He told me to come Saturday morning (the sooner the better to get the items from the warehouse sooner). Since Saturday is usually my sleep all day recovery day, I was not really in the mood to go anywhere. Since I missed the 9:30am train I need to ride one stop on the Metro-North, I decided to walk the nearest shopping district about a 20 to 30 minute walk. The walk used to take about 30 minutes, but the more I walk the route, the shorter the time.

Anyway, I arrived about 10:25am. The shop was closed. Other shops were opening, but the shop was closed. I had forgotten my cellphone, so I tried to call on a pay phone, only the phone swallowed my quarter. I finally arrived at the shop. One of the owners sons arrived about 11:15 to open the shop. I paid in full and got a delivery time of between 12:30 and 1pm. Since, I was in the shopping area, I decided to go to the local 5 & 10 imitation shore to buy curtain rods for the bedroom. I ended up buying curtain rods, a mini stereo system, and a plastic shelving unit. Since my hands were full, I took the Metro-North back home. I arrived with about 15 minutes to straighten up the messes I’d neglected in the bedroom. When I was cleaning up the livingroom, I made the other rooms a low priority…now I was paying for it.

About 12:25 I received a call from the driver letting me know that they were on the way, and how to get to my place. About 10 minutes later the driver called again to say that they were downstairs, but did not know were the building was located. I offered to come downstairs…I ended up holding the lobby door opened. The drivers turned out to be the shop owner’s sons. One of them, I saw when I made the downpayment. He was sitting in a chair playing with his Playstation portable. They arrived, they set up everything. The owner told me that they would deliver and set everything up for $25 dollars. The kids (the oldest was probably in his late teens or early 20’s. The other son was probably in his early teens). I thought they did a nice job setting up the pieces. I only wished they had taken the boxes with them. I gave them the delivery fee plus another $25 dollars ($50 total). Since my bedroom is still not cleaned, I have not attached a photo at this time.

After admiring my new bedroom set, I fell asleep. The bedroom sets is a bit small (like kids furniture), but since I live a lone, the set should work nicely. After I woke from my nap, I was planning to go to the post office to buy some stamps – I have a snail mail pen pal in Brazil. Since I was tired, I was not really in the mood for chasing the train. I told myself that if I missed it again, then I would walk to the shopping district again.

And, I missed the train. I walked back to the shopping district to go to the post office. Man, walking into that post office was like stepping into a time machine. The building was old and the service was slow. I was surprised to find that that main branch post office did not have any of the vending machines that could be found even in the rinky, dinky post offices in the South Bronx.

After the post office, I did a little shopping in a local 99 cent shop. I then ate lunch at MacDonald’s. Next, I went to pick up a few items at the large supermarket. I ended up buying about $216 dollars worth of food products. I took a taxi ride back (the ride cost me $7 dollars plus a $2 dollars tip. The taxi driver was explaining how there were about 4 shootings in this area in the last few weeks.

Once home, I put the food away. I then took the furniture boxes to the trash compound.At this point, I was too tired to cook, so with $216 worth of food sitting in the kitchen, I went to get Chinese take out. I watched a little TV and did a little chatting online. Now (after posting this entry), it will be my bed time.