"two-fer"

That's what I call days that I have to go in to Anchorage twice. It doesn't happen often, thankfully, but it does happen. Like today. I had a librarian meeting this afternoon and Jim and I took a friend's truck to the airport tonight.

The meeting was good; full of good and useful information for us school librarians (I am such a grammarian). During the meeting I learned something important: there is now a federal mandate to teach internet safety to K-12 students. It's something I've touched on in my library classes, but now there will be more responsibility on teachers to make sure kids truly *know* about this important subject. And...get this...there will be an assessment given to 8th graders (starting this year) about this subject. Apparently the test is difficult and some folks who are the tech gurus in their buildings haven't passed it. Makes me a little nervous, that does. Especially since I have an 8th grade student of my own. What does it mean if the kids don't pass?

The dropping off at the airport was uneventful. What happened afterwards wasn't so much. We planned to put babies to bed and then go on a 'date' after dropping off the truck. Jim and I had decided to go to a movie (Slumdog Millionaire) but we got a late start because our friends' renter had parked his car in the driveway, blocking their truck, and it took a little while to figure out where he was so he could move his car. No movie.

Then we thought we'd go to Barnes and Noble together instead. You know, do a little music and book browsing. But we got a slightly later start because we still had to clear off 12 days of snow and ice off the truck. Which meant by the time we dropped the truck off at the airport and got to B&N, it was 10:55. They close at 11:00. Oops.

Off to Borders, on the off chance they stay open later than B&N. Nope. Sigh.

Off to WalMart to get some sticky notes for Jim's sermon on Sunday. They were open until midnight, and we got some other things, but we didn't count WalMart as our date.

Oh! We had just the place! IHOP! They'd surely be open 24 hours, right? Right? Nope. Double sigh. And a pout.

Our final destination was good old Carrs, our grocery store. We found some cheesecake, some milk and Snapple and ate and drank while we drove home listening to Tom Petty and The Be Good Tanyas.

Woo hoo! I bet you're all jealous of our date.

To be honest, I had a great time. Any time spent with Jim is special and he's kinda cute when his profile is illuminated by oncoming headlights.