Vacation, Day No. 1

Vacation is good.

Awake at 8 this morning, I started my first day away from work by retrieving my morning paper and was stunned to see the bold front page headline proclaiming “Saddam is dead.” … I mean, I was well aware of his death sentence, but I’d been paying little attention to the national news scene the last few days and had no clue his hanging would come so soon. So here it is, Saddam is dead; talk about anti-climatic … I left Kates to continue sleeping and went downstairs to flip on the “Today Show” for all the latest …

… By 10:30, Kates was up and we caught a quick breakfast at the swanky, new McDonald’s a few blocks from our house. There, too, a big screen TV on the wall was tuned to CNN and talking heads were discussing Saddam’s death, and a Chicago Tribune left on the table next to us also proclaimed the news in a large, bold headline. And later, the focus turned to the funeral plans for President Ford …

Ah, the news of the day.

From there, we set out for a day of shopping, taking advantage of the post-holiday deals. Though, taking advantage is an understatement. The stores were nearly giving their stuff away … We were getting 40 percent off sweaters, quality dress shirts and pants off clearance racks. I got 40 percent off a classy pair of shoes and a coat marked 70 percent down from $170.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun shopping. And when it was over, Kates and I had spent nearly five hours at the scene of our crimes …

We took a dinner break, trying out the new Qdoba in town (not much different from a Chipotle, and just as tasty …), and got started on the next mission -- to select a new sink for our illustrious bathroom. We stopped first at Lowe’s and took a liking to a rectangular Kohler sink and a smaller, oval-shaped Carlton sink. Then, after a comparison check at Home Depot, we were back at Lowe’s buying the oval-shaped sink. I guess you could say our long-awaited bathroom renovation has begun …

And after all that, we’re still not calling it a night. We’re off to a party …

Yep. Vacation is good.