Why Buy One When 900 Will Do

Yesterday, I was talking to my mom in the great room, shortly before I was going to a get a haircut. I spotted a pileated woodpecker through the windows. We both managed to get some good shots of him.



Last night, I had an early dinner at Madhatter's Cafe & Bake Shop with AE, JB, and LB. EG's flight was delayed, so she couldn't join us. We had a great time chatting and then we went to Whole Foods briefly. That didn't take long, so AE and I decided to check out the new theater at Northgate Mall. Neither of us had been to that mall in years.

We spent a long time figuring out the optimal parking spot, since we weren't shooting for a particular movie time. Even though it's been extensively renovated, it's still an old mall, so it wasn't easy finding a space that would work that well with my van that had a curb cut anywhere nearby. We did find a good space, though.

By the time we actually got to the theater, it was about 7:45pm and we would have either had to have gone into a movie late or wait almost an hour. There wasn't anything that we were that eager to see, so we decided to wander around the mall some. Eventually, we went in Hungates.
Hungates used to be the only store in Durham where you could buy art supplies.

AE noticed that there was a whole display of colored pencils wrapped up and marked down to $200. There were over 900 Berol Prismacolor pencils, which normally sell for just under a $1 a pencil. I thought that was just incredible. They are my favorite brand of colored pencils and are almost the consistency of very smooth, but hard, crayons in wood pencils. Even though I haven't produced a major piece of artwork in 8 years, I knew I had to get them. It's not as if they will go bad or anything.

Apparently Hungates has been hit very hard by large chain art supply stores, such as Michael's and A.C. Moore, so they are getting out of the art supply business all together. Vic, the very nice salesperson that explained this, said we could drive behind the store and pick them up.

Very little is marked back behind the mall, but we knew we were supposed to see the Durham police substation and two dumpsters. I parked and AE called Vic on the phone, to let him know that we had found the dumpsters. We waited. We waited a good 15 minutes. We were very entertained at the idea of waiting behind a mall, in a large white van, waiting for a guy named Vic to deliver our large package of...colored pencils. There was one problem.

They were the wrong dumpsters.

AE called again and we found out that we needed to keep going around the mall. We found Vic and they loaded the pencils into the backseat. We were on our way. I actually found a place in my art studio for them, which is perfect.

Tonight my parents and I went to ACME (to celebrate the pencil acquisition, of course). I had another serving of pan seared scallops with cashew-ginger pesto, baby arugula and grapefruit. We shared a lemon pudding cake for dessert. That's one of my favorites.