In the World Again...

The piles of laundry accumulating could not be ignored, which prompted me to leave the apartment.  It's been a while since I left.  Since I had to take the laundry, I figured I'd stop at the bank, and while I was at the bank, I thought, "Well, I might as well take the train."  I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't a little overwhelmed.  The world was buzzing around me, rushing around in loud and bombastic motions.  It made navigating the iced over sidewalks treacherous.  I slipped a couple of times (but luckily didn't fall).  

So, I ran my errands.  First I took the laundry.  Then I went to the bank.  After I finished up, I took the train to Barnes & Noble to pick up a copy of the new Bead Star magazine.  (I haven't gotten my copies yet, but wanted to see it in person and knew B&N would have it.)  Magazine in hand, I stopped by the copy center to make some color copies of some collages I'm working on.  I realized in the reflection in the copy center glass divider that the winter was drying out my skin and my head looked pretty awful and that my nose was dripping.  Thusly, my trip to the drug store for a pocket-sized pack of tissues and some lotion for my drying out scalp. 

As I was leaving, I saw the glint of a familiar sign:  Trader Joe's!  Apparently there's a new Trader Joe's in Brooklyn in an old bank.  It's beautiful and what makes it even more beautiful is that it's not as crazy packed as the one in Union Square, which has a snaking line to just get in sometimes.  I picked up some dried cranberries and more baby carrots (besides coffee, my main dietary staple), and some mushrooms intended for dinner.  

For some reason, I remembered that I needed to get some more flat-back adhesive.  I had just run out.  I have plenty of super glue on hand, but one should NEVER use cyanoacrylate as an adhesive for crystals.  Not only does it damage the foil backing, but it clouds over the crystals.  That basically translates into hand cleaning each and every single crystal meticulously.  I popped into a couple of hardware stores and a few more drug stores, but they didn't have anything that I could use.  Most of them carried two part epoxy, which in theory would work... it'd just take ages for it to set up and I have a feeling that I'd be sitting there holding crystals in place praying that they wouldn't slide or move at all while the epoxy cured.  Eventually though I gave up.  I guess I figured that I could go to Mode International Beads tomorrow which is a few blocks from my apartment.  Alas, I was so turned around that I really didn't know where I was anymore.  So, I kept walking until I found familiar streets and sort of intuited my way around.  It was cold out and I had to stop a couple times to refuel at various coffee shops – just quick pit-stops to guzzle warm coffee to keep me going.  That's when I passed the Brooklyn Bead Box!  I knew that they'd have what I needed.  

Luckily, I found my way relatively easily to a train station.  Unfortunately it wasn't the one that I wanted, but I managed to calculate a route that would take me home.  The only bad part of the plan was that I fell asleep on the train and missed the transfer station.  I didn't want to ride down to the very tip of Brooklyn and change trains at Coney Island.  Instead, I decided to walk.  It didn't look very far on the map, but those things are rarely drawn to scale.  I ended up walking a long way and had to perilously traverse the icy sidewalks.

I would be disappointed with the way the day ended, but I found a prize!  It's amazing!  I found this amazing carved walking stick!  It's really elaborate and even has inlaid rosary peas or abrus precatorius.  Fear not!  I know that the seeds are poisonous if chewed and ingested.  I'm a smitten kitten with it!