The Best-Laid Plans...

There's a famously misquoted line in Robert Burns' poem "To a Mouse" that reads, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a' gley." If you translate that from the Scots dialect into modern English, it reads, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Mr Burns was watching over me yesterday.

We were up early, for a Sunday, and had planned to go to a local dance studio with a nice, big floor and rent space for an hour or so to practice some of our routines that require more space than our own studio has. This particular studio (Lioudmila's) charges non-students $12 per hour to rent space during off-periods, so we figured that was a good investment of our time and money.

At this point, Mr Burns was joined by Mr Murphy.

We arrived at Lioudmila's at 10:50, laden down with our shoes, notes, CDs, video camera, and my crying towel ... only to find the place locked up tight as a fanatic's mind. AARRGGHH!! We'd assumed that the studio would be open, as there had been several people there at this time the previous Sunday, but yesterday was obviously different.

Without knowing when anyone with keys might show up, we decided to go home so that Agnes could sew and I could finish taking down all the Christmas decorations. Well ...

Agnes wanted to stop at the Bed, Bath, and Beyond store en route to pick up a few kitchen odds and ends, so I duly detoured there. She didn't find what she wanted, and so decided we might as well go to the big Pentagon City shopping center, which has two large, high-end kitchen stores. But first, she wanted to stop at the Barnes and Noble Bookstore next to Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Cost of visiting Barnes and Noble: about $38.00.

Up to Pentagon City. By now, it's lunchtime. Lunch at Chevy's Mexican Restaurant: about $37.00, including tip.

Stop at the Sur la Table kitchen store for the things not found at Bed, Bath, and Beyond (and other neat stuff): about $80.00.

Stop at the Harris Teeter supermarket for dinner fixings: about $35.00.

Stop at the Apple Store for a headphone splitter so we can use our iPods to play dance music without using the sound system at strange studios: $20.00 (including tax and my military discount).

Then home. Grand total of our originally-planned $12.00 excursion to Lioudmila's: about $210.00.

Next Sunday, I'm not getting out of bed.

Gotta go. I need to go back to work to fiscally recover from yesterday. Sigh.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo