May the 4th Be With You, Bookworms!
This post isn’t actually going to have anything to do with Star Wars, but I do so love that pun. I’m running behind on reviews, to the surprise of nobody, so I’m just going to recap some random things from this weekend, cool?
ONE: Hubs and I took a long weekend just for the heck of it. I mean, we’re grown ups and we always seem to have more vacation accrued than is necessary. So. We thought, “We should go to St. Louis and see the penguins at the zoo there and maybe go in the arch and probably eat Italian food.” Sounds like fun, right? Except. It rained so so so much both at home and in St. Louis that we decided we’d rather be warm and home than cold and in the rain with penguins. So we watched a lot of TV on Saturday, including Hubs’s first viewing of Fast Times at Ridgemont High
TWO: After watching Fast Times at Ridgemont High and the glorious opening mall scene, we got a bit morose at the death of the shopping mall (our mall just lost its Macy’s and has been struggling to keep stores in it, and it’s a pattern we’ve seen in a number of Central Illinois malls.) So on Sunday, we decided to drive like 3 hours to the Woodfield Mall in the Chicago suburbs because it’s huge and full of stores. At least it was indoor entertainment.
THREE: While at the Woodfield Mall, we went into one of several hoity toity interior decorating places. I don’t know how one can be hoity toity AND inside a mall, but they managed it. Anyway, I picked up a bejeweled skull and was all “Oh Jim, LOOK! It’s Poor Yorick!” Because I never miss an opportunity to make a Shakespeare joke, plus, it was a bedazzled skull. Only a sales lady saw me with said skull and was all “Have you seen our other skull things? We have the best collection of skulls you’ll find anywhere!” And I didn’t want to embarrass her (or admit to my lame Hamlet
FOUR: We decided to eat at Rainforest Cafe because I remember it being the coolest place EVER when I was a kid. (It doesn’t really hold up, but I digress.) Because we didn’t want to wait half an hour for a table, we told we could eat at the bar with no wait, AS LONG AS WE WERE BOTH 21. Haaaaaaaaaa! They even double carded us. We had to each show a driver’s license PLUS a credit or debit card (or anything else with our names on them.) It got me thinking. When I was in college and underage SOME PEOPLE (definitely not me…) had IDs that were not fake, they just weren’t ours. I mean theirs. Because this was not about me. Of course, this was in the era before everybody and their mom had debit and credit cards with them at all times (back in the day, many of us carried cash) BUT. We THEY would have been SO BUSTED had the whole double carding thing happened.
FIVE: Because we were on our little adventure to the mall, we were in danger of missing Game of Thrones
The only “Bookish” thing about this entire post is a bad Shakespeare joke. High five, self. You are one super duper book blogger. Alright Bookworms, what did you do this weekend?
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Megan M.
We only have one mall where I live and it’s already pretty tiny, so even though *I* rarely go there, when I do it always seems to be busy. But I think online shopping is killing pretty much every kind of store except grocery stores. We haven’t had a bookstore in our town for years, since the mall’s Waldenbooks/Borders closed.
Words For Worms
While I get a little sad at the thought of brick and mortar stores closing right and left, I can’t help but love online shopping. It’s just so much easier. And I don’t have to interact with actual people unless I want to.
lostinliterature108
Hey! My kid’s class just gave their tutor the Hamlet/Skull Litograph poster as a thank you gift. We framed it, it was very cool. Jonathan LOVED Hamlet.
Happy sigh…
Words For Worms
That is awesome! Shakespeare can be intimidating but when it’s taught right there is so much awesome to be had!
Leah @ Books Speak Volumes
So double carding is kind of insane. I wonder if the restaurant had gotten in trouble for serving underage drinkers so they were forced to double down and be extra careful? Weird.
Words For Worms
Right? I’m sure they’d had issues, but c’mon kids. You’re going to try to drink underage at the flipping Rainforest Cafe? Seriously? There are animatronic jungle animals on display, for heaven’s sake! Go to a dive bar like a respectable underage drinker!
Annie
Haha, that skull thing is just the sort of trag-comedy that would happen to me!! I am in awe of your hubby’s IT skills, and I imagine Game of Thrones in Spanish could be really fun to watch with alcohol. This weekend I spent time in Sequoia and SF. If you get time to hike in Paradise Valley then do it!
Words For Worms
You know what I bet translates perfectly in Spanish? Hodor.
Andi M. (@estellasrevenge)
Literally laughing my ass off at Game of Thrones in Spanish. Now I don’t have to run anymore because my ass is officially gone. <3
Words For Worms
LOL, oh man. I won’t let him live it down either. I’ve been randomly yelling “JUEGO DE TRONOS” at him. I am obviously excellent at wife-ing.
Julie Merilatt
You were in Schaumburg!? You were in my hood!
Words For Worms
I was! Good thing I’ll get to see your smiling face at BEA, or I’d be bummed to have missed you.
Jenny @ Reading the End
Man, I would never let vacation time go unused. That is bonkers. SMOKE EM IF YOU’VE GOT EM I say which is why I went to India and New York last year and I have no regrets. (Except I wish I were richer. To go more places with my rich dollars.)
Words For Worms
I’ve got some severe homebody tendencies that are hard to overcome, and I always feel foolish taking time off just to hang out at home.
Lindsey
We went to Rainforest Cafe lately too. It is certainly an experience. I think, as grownups, it’s a little loud to actually talk over dinner. And even for my little girl, the animal noise spooked her for a while.
Long live Robin Sparkles! 🙂
Words For Worms
What I couldn’t quite figure out is why there was a dolphin display? My geography isn’t great, but I always assumed that rainforests were more inland, like surrounding a river. Which is freshwater. Which means no dolphins. Although, I don’t suppose science should interfere with whimsy.
Charleen
So, because all our family and a good chunk of our friends live in the Chicago suburbs, I make a 6-hour round-trip on more weekends than I’d care to, and maybe I’d feel differently if I weren’t doing it all the time.
But.
That is waaay more driving than I’d be willing to do just for a mall. (Yeah, Woodfield’s a pretty nice mall, but still.)