GeeCee's Not-Entirely-Original Miscellany

Pardon me while I disturb local canines with my high-pitched squealing. Chris just got me my early 40th birthday present:



And they should be here in time to wear them to this weekend's club night. Muahahahaha!

If you want a 30% off coupon good August 26–29 at Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Gap Outlet, Banana Republic Factory Store, and Athleta in-store or online, leave the email address to which you'd like the coupon sent in a screened comment below and I'll send it out; I have 49 available. For the record, 5% of purchases with the coupon from these invitations will be donated to Feeding America.

Because I'm sure I can't be the only one who cares:

Preorders are being taken now for three styles of the Hello Kitty Doc Martens

Like pretty Taschen art/design/fashion books and calendars? Enjoy.. (The obligatory referral link, which you can use or not as you desire.) For the atlas fiends, they have a reprint of Blaeu's Atlas Maior and Cellarius celestial atlas.

Anyone want a 30% off coupon good today (Nov. 15) in store at Old Navy/Gap/Banana Republic? If so, leave me an email address to send it to in comments (screened); I can send up to 24 more. I tried it out today and it is good on sale and clearance items (so all told we ended up with a total 50% discount what with sale items, woohoo!), you just can't combine it with other coupons. Also, when you get the coupon you can choose one of several charities and 5% of your total will be donated to them. Donorschoose.org and Feeding America are two of the options, don't remember who the others were offhand. [Edit: It looks like the charity I picked, Feeding America, is what's assigned to you as well when I send the coupon.]

Those of you who are tired of listening to me whine about my SAD-related brokenness will be pleased to hear that I found a decently-priced lightbox and it will be on my doorstep tomorrow, thanks to the magic of Amazon Prime. Now I just hope that it actually works.

For those what care, there's a Woot-Off going on right now. The current offer is a Roomba with scheduler for $99.99, they're about 50% sold as of right this minute. [Edit: Sold out as of 10:55, moved on to some wine.]

(Allow me to recommend Woot Agent. Also, allow me to recommend that you make sure to turn the @#$% sound options off when you configure it. Guh.)

Being a masochist, I went shopping for bathing suits today.

Well, okay, I went because I actually needed one since we're headed to the beach tomorrow and the suit I have is a size too small; I can squeeze into it if need be, but it's not what one might call overly flattering (other than the fact that it gives me pretty good cleavage). This is not a good time of year to be looking for a swimsuit; other than Nordstrom, everywhere I went had one half rack (heh heh, I said "rack") of bikinis in size 2 and maybe one or two one piece suits that that were either a size 10 or a size 24. Since I'm neither of those sizes, I'm out of luck. Tried Marshalls, TJ Maxx, Ross, Burlington, Sears, Macys, Macys (Fair Oaks has two of them, because one used to be Hechts), Nordstrom, and JC Penney, where I found a suit that was slightly too big but wearable for $5; sadly it looked way more than $5 of awful on me, so I passed.

My last, best hope, seeing as how they sell nothing but swimsuits and related crap, was Everything But Water. I took a look through a couple of racks, determined I wouldn't find anything there, and started to leave. The saleswoman was chatting with me and said that a lot of people come in and look at their prices and then leave, but these suits would last years, unlike the cheap stuff you buy at Target. I agree that these are higher quality and higher prices than Target, but that isn't why I was leaving. If I'd been less disheartened about the whole experience, I'd have done a little education. Look, lady, I know I'm not looking particularly put together today, but the problem here is not the price. I'm (reasonably) okay with spending that amount of money on a piece of clothing if it's going to last me more than a season. The problem is that you don't carry a damn thing that will fit me. I found one, count 'em one size 16 suit in the entire store. I need an 18 or a 20, depending on the suit. I would love to give you folks some of my not-insubstantial disposable income in exchange for that awesome hot pink number, but you and your buyers clearly don't want to take money from us fat chicks. Seriously, those bills in my wallet don't have cooties; you can't catch Teh Fat from handling them. Yeah, Betsey Johnson is never going to make anything I can wear, but surely there must be somebody out there who makes decent-quality suits that don't offend your designer sensibilities and come in sizes larger than a 12. Surely the complete lack of larger sizes in your inventory must be a matter of quality control and not that the idea of fat chicks in swimsuits offends your aesthetic sensibilities. Right? RIGHT?

I should've gotten over the lack of motivation last week and ordered something online, but I really prefer to try bathing suits on first because things that look super cute online rarely look as good when I actually put them on.

Ah well. In lieu of a $100 bathing suit, I got myself a $7 Hello Kitty purse on clearance. (That's the design, but my purse has a different shape.) Y'know, that probably makes me a lot happier than an overpriced piece of lycra would anyway. So there. *thbpbt*

My antidote to feeling down this afternoon? A trip to the MAC counter in Montgomery Mall for some lipstick. (Yes, there's a MAC store just down the road in Fair Oaks, but I also needed to hit up the Snot Topic in Montgomery to get some Special Effects dye since the Manic Panic has already mostly washed out of my hair. Curse my reasonably-healthy mane!) Despite the slight annoyance at my first several choices all being sold out and my failure to find a tube of "Pink Poodle" lipglass, it's funny how well a quick-ish stop at the cosmetics counter worked as a mood lifter for someone who is frankly too lazy to wear makeup most days. I'm also looking forward to the planned outing for tomorrow afternoon, because really, what weekend isn't made immensely better by new lipstick and a new comic book or two? [Edit: And a zombie movie!]

Oh, anotheranon? I saw a storefront in the mall on the upper level near Nordstrom with a big sign on it claiming that this summer it'll be turning into a Lush outpost.

Ugh.

We left for the National Geographic warehouse sale around 1:30, and just got home at 11:30 or so.

Okay, so we weren't at the sale for that entire time, or even most of it. After a bit of an adventure getting there thanks to my missing various signs on Independence and some misleading Google Maps, we spent about two hours wandering around the Armory and picking up lots of goodies:

• March of the Penguins
  
• A couple of National Geographic Traveller titles: Paris and Boston
  
• Mapping the World: An Illustrated History of Cartography
  
• Through the Lens: National Geographic's Greatest Photographs
  
• Battlegrounds: Geography and the Art of Warfare
  
• Last Stand: America's Virgin Lands
  

There were also a few things destined as holiday presents and some things nminusone picked up whose titles I don't remember offhand. The apparel and gifts section got a cursory glance or two at most because after 20 minutes in the "wander past the tables" line which wrapped around the back of the building, neither of us could immediately see anything that seemed worth another 20 minutes in line to us.

Leaving, we ran into curiousangel and rivka and Alex completely by coincidence outside the building; that was a pleasant surprise. We then proceeded to get a much more comprehensive tour of Benning Road NE than I think we really wanted while trying to get back on 295 headed north so we could hit up Ikea while we were on that side of the Beltway. Ikea's always a black hole for time and money, and by the time we got out of there a couple hours later, traffic on the Outer Loop was backed up -- XM's traffic station claimed that it extended from the GW Parkway to University Avenue. That seemed like a fine opportunity to bail and have dinner in Silver Spring, so that's exactly what we did. It was a lovely night to wander around City Place, although at that point we were both more than ready to not be on our feet for a while. In an effort to avoid the reported backup on the way home after dinner and a much-needed margarita at Austin Grill, we took the long way around to River Road and the Beltway, where we did not find the backup that supposedly started not too far ahead. We also managed to miss any backup from the wreck on 66 west that had three of the four lanes closed at one point. Today was not the day to be driving anywhere near DC, apparently.

We decided that the better plan for the evening was to come home and put our feet up instead of going out to see another movie, and I spent the last several hours doing water changes, wondering why every single sample of water I tested tonight -- including stuff straight out of the tap -- reads "OMG ur fish iz ded!" on an ammonia test when the ammonia indicators in the tanks don't register even mildly dangerous levels and the fish aren't particularly stressed, and treating my poor little crowntail boy Victor for fin rot. Tomorrow is housecleaning day, especially if the rain keeps up.