First of all, I have power again. The power was restored last Tuesday evening, only to go out again on Thursday after another storm (but back on before I got back from work). One would think that burying the power lines would eventually pay off if it means saving money from not having to send crews out to repair the lines after every storm. After all, we practically never lost power in Stuarts Draft, where the utilities are buried, even during hurricanes. The power stayed on during Hurricanes Opal, Fran, and Isabel.
Meanwhile, with no power to run the refrigerator for two days, I was kind of screwed, food-wise. After all, even keeping the fridge closed, without refrigeration, things start to get ugly. And therefore I had to dump a whole load of food after the outage. Thankfully, I didn’t have much in there in the first place. I didn’t go shopping before going to Chicago, deliberately letting stuff run out with the intention of replenishing afterward. So I didn’t have to pitch much, but still… I don’t think I’ve ever put so much down the garbage disposal. Seemed to put the least amount of stuff into the waste stream that way (and recycling the containers). I nuked the frozen stuff enough to make it somewhat soft again (I didn’t actually clean out the fridge until the weekend, so everything had a chance to refreeze), and then down the garbage disposal it went. If it was too big to go down the garbage disposal in one piece, I broke it up until it fit. The food item that was the most fun to “flush”, so to speak? A frozen pizza. I put the whole thing down the garbage disposal. You just break that sucker up, and then watch as the garbage disposal obliterates it, piece by piece.
Now, though, the fridge is full again after going out for groceries, and so we’re once again fully operational. And speaking of freezers, that brings us to this:
This picture of the frozen section with empty coolers at the Target store in Wheaton could be used to describe so many things. Snowstorm? Earthquake? Hurricane? No… in this case, store remodel. Though it does look like the aftermath of preparations for any number of different natural disasters, no? They’re doing a full remodel on the Target in Wheaton, and these coolers are getting ripped out as part of that work. It’s kind of a shame, too, since these coolers are only about two years old. I remember when they put these in, and I’ve only been in the Wheaton area for a little more than three years. What they’re doing is moving the food section upstairs and significantly expanding it, along with shuffling a bunch of other departments around. Then the walls were painted gray, which I believe was actually a primer, since the Target on Cherry Hill Road, also recently remodeled, has red walls. Either way, it should look nice when it’s finished. Still a shame that these almost-new freezers are getting ripped out, though. After all, even stupid Wal-Mart doesn’t relocate its freezers when it remodels stores, even though, as I understand it, new stores have the frozen in the back rather than in the front as in older stores. But there you go, I suppose. Then again, I’m surprised that Target is even remodeling the Wheaton location at all at this point in time, since they did an update to the store fairly recently (about two years ago), replacing all the signage and redoing a few departments.
Of course, what Target likely can’t remedy is the difficulty of accessing that bloody store. I certainly hope that one of the things that they add with this remodel is an exterior entrance, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. Right now, you have to go into the mall and down a corridor to reach the main entrance. The only way you can access the store is by going into the mall. There are no exterior entrances. I didn’t like it with Kmart at Dixieland Mall in Rogers, Arkansas twenty years ago, which had the same situation, and I don’t like it now in Wheaton. Plus in Wheaton, even getting to the mall is a chore. It’s not a simple proposition like Staunton Mall, where you just pull off the main road and you’re there. To get to Wheaton Plaza from Georgia Avenue, you have to go through several traffic lights, a number of which are long lights – especially so turning left off of University Boulevard behind Giant. If it gives you any idea, I could hit a red light on the left turn signal, stop, pull out my Droid, and be able to check my work Email, including sending any necessary replies, before the light turns green again. By the way, whoever designed the accesses to Wheaton Plaza, and whoever devised the way you get around the Wheaton Plaza property deserves to be shot. Just saying.
Meanwhile, I wish it was as cold outside as it is in the refrigerator right about now. While it was actually quite pleasant out today, where I was able to turn the air conditioning off, it’s not going to last, I guarantee it. I’m just ready for it to be fall, since I’m wanting to do a lot of things that involve being outdoors, but don’t want to be out in summer heat all day to do them, plus I don’t like the bugs. I want to do some night photography around the monuments in DC, and then Matthew Tilley and I are planning a day trip to Philadelphia in the early fall. Should be fun, but yeah, in the fall…