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Appointments and Errands
Aug. 7th, 2020 03:53 pmI had an overdue dental appointment on Wednesday. Technically, not overdue, since it had been scheduled 6 months ago, but I normally alternate between my general dentist and my periodontist and I’d missed the cleaning at my general dentist’s in April when everything was shut down. The protocols were fairly strict – mask until actually in the chair; hand sanitizer, symptom checklist, pulse oximeter, and temperature check before being allowed to go into the inner sanctum. This was mostly a routine cleaning but I also had to schedule removal of a broken splint on a front tooth. At any rate, it’s done with.
I took my car in for service on Thursday morning. This was, perhaps, less urgent, but it is coming up on a year since I bought Twain and, despite driving so little, I like to keep up on general maintenance. At any rate, it amounted to an oil change and replacing wiper blades (and doing an overdue state inspection, so I now have an up to date sticker). I was not very impressed with the COVID protocols there, however, as the seats in the waiting room could have been further apart and some of the staff were wearing their masks below the nose.
I took advantage of being in Manassas to stop by McKay’s used books, for the first time in well over a year. I am making more of a point of not building up a balance of trade credit after Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church closed last year, leaving me with roughly $30 worth of unused credit. (Their system was annoying to begin with, since they only let you use credit for half the price of a book and some books were cash only. But they had a particularly good selection of genre fiction, i.e. mysteries and, especially, science fiction. By the way, they closed mostly because the owners were in their 70’s.) Anyway, McKay’s took 18 of the 33 books I’d brought in to trade. I came home with only 5 books in exchange and still have about $9 in credit. I have plenty more books to get rid of, but I need to find time to record them in my tracking system. The other bookstore I trade at is not accepting books now. And The Book Thing of Baltimore, where I used to donate the books the stores I frequent didn’t take, is completely closed. Someday, I should try Book Bank in Alexandria, but they are not taking books in yet. And, while there are several stores in the District, driving and parking in D.C. is too stressful for me. I will probably just drop a few things in some nearby Little Free Libraries.
I took my car in for service on Thursday morning. This was, perhaps, less urgent, but it is coming up on a year since I bought Twain and, despite driving so little, I like to keep up on general maintenance. At any rate, it amounted to an oil change and replacing wiper blades (and doing an overdue state inspection, so I now have an up to date sticker). I was not very impressed with the COVID protocols there, however, as the seats in the waiting room could have been further apart and some of the staff were wearing their masks below the nose.
I took advantage of being in Manassas to stop by McKay’s used books, for the first time in well over a year. I am making more of a point of not building up a balance of trade credit after Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church closed last year, leaving me with roughly $30 worth of unused credit. (Their system was annoying to begin with, since they only let you use credit for half the price of a book and some books were cash only. But they had a particularly good selection of genre fiction, i.e. mysteries and, especially, science fiction. By the way, they closed mostly because the owners were in their 70’s.) Anyway, McKay’s took 18 of the 33 books I’d brought in to trade. I came home with only 5 books in exchange and still have about $9 in credit. I have plenty more books to get rid of, but I need to find time to record them in my tracking system. The other bookstore I trade at is not accepting books now. And The Book Thing of Baltimore, where I used to donate the books the stores I frequent didn’t take, is completely closed. Someday, I should try Book Bank in Alexandria, but they are not taking books in yet. And, while there are several stores in the District, driving and parking in D.C. is too stressful for me. I will probably just drop a few things in some nearby Little Free Libraries.
