An Extended Creative Rendezvous

By Carol Woolum Roberts

What an odd day I experienced today.  Not bad. Not weird.  Just odd.

I love driving places by myself for extended periods, because it gives me the perfect opportunity to listen to an Audible book.  Today I was listening to "Hang the Moon” by Jeannette Walls.  It is set in a fictionalized county in Virginia called Claiborne County.  Relatives on my dad’s side come from a real Claiborne County in Tennessee, pretty close this fictionalized county.

I knew I was going to drive to Coeur d’Alene today, because it is the closest town with a Verizon store.  Actually, it has three Verizon stores.  I opted to drive to the closest one, located on the corner of Appleway and 4^th Street.

A lovely young woman named Ryan greeted me at the door, and we walked to her desk.  I have been having phone trouble for a couple months now, with my texting and phone calling abilities being rather erratic.  At one point I realized it was a SIM card issue.  But often it would come back.  But after it not coming back for almost two weeks, I decided to take the plunge and see if I could get some help.

Ryan got me a new SIM card and put it in my phone.  She worked her phone magic several times, but to no avail.  The new SIM card would not work.  The old SIM card would not work.  So it was time for a new phone.

I came to the Verizon store on a very special day.  Apparently, the new Pixel 7a (I currently have a Pixel 4a) was being launched today at 1 p.m.  And because it was “Launch Day” there was a special promotion to buy the new phone at a reduced rate.  But I couldn’t get that reduced rate until 1 p.m.

I told the lovely Ryan that I could come back at 1 p.m.  I wanted to go to a coffee shop and journal anyway, and had some other errands to take care of, which I thought would fill the two and a half hours I needed to fill until 1 p.m.

I got my four-shot sugar free vanilla breve, and my Composition Notebook, and enjoyed writing for a while.  When my coffee was done, I thought about going and getting some sushi from a local food truck.  But after drinking the breve and I was no longer hungry.

Instead, I headed to Costco and gassed up the car.  I had a fun encounter with a friendly, older gentleman at another pump who told me he liked my smile. Then I did a Costco run.  I had my list, but it is Costco, so I did add a few extras.

One thing Costco did not have was the correct printer ink.  I pulled into Staples and got some new printer ink.  I had been wanting to buy some exercise bands, to stopped into Big 5 and found some of those.

It was now almost 1 p.m.  Back to the Verizon store I headed.

I walked through the doors at almost exactly 1 p.m.  Ryan greeted me and we headed back over to her desk.  She went and got my new Google Pixel 7a, as well as a new Google Pixel 6a for Paul.  He was getting an upgrade as well.  As the data from my old phone to my new phone was processing, Ryan and I visited about her life, my life, and how much she hates all the traffic in Coeur d’Alene these days.  She grew up in CDA and commented on how crazy things get in town during the summers now.

Once my data was transferred and Paul’s phone was activated, it was time to head home.  This was not the day I had planned for in CDA.  I didn’t enjoy a lunch of Sushi on the shore of Coeur d’Alene Lake.  I didn’t write snippets of conversations as I listened to people talk at the coffee shop.  But sometimes a Creative Rendezvous takes a different path.

When I returned home, Paul was working with his guitar student, Luci, and our after-school student Vito had arrived, and helped me bring things in from the car.  Then it was his turn to do some guitar playing.

The final stop on my Creative Rendezvous today was going to the Open House and Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for the new CM Studio and Gallery in uptown Kellogg.  (We recently interviewed the owner Cassie Hoialmen on our podcast.  You can listen to the episode here.)  What a lovely studio.  Cleo even got to attend!

Sometimes we head out with a plan in mind, and our paths change.  We make the best of it. We get creative!  The good news from today is, I now have a functioning phone that can call, text, and take even better photos than before!

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Have you had a chance to have a creative rendezvous recently?  What did you do?

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