~Saturday~ I was up at 9:00. Had breakfast. Xolani came down around ten. He had some coffee and some cream cheese and jelly on bread.
We picked up Duma at 11:00 and the three of us had a most delightful walk around Lake Johnson. Topics discussed included small businesses (how they work here versus in South Africa), unions, and bad casting while fishing. I took a picture of them together with each of their cameras, and we asked a girl walking by to take a picture of the three of us with each of their cameras. I need to get a copy of one of the ones of the three of us.
We stopped at the boathouse, where Duma got an ice cream bar. There was a man sitting in one of the rocking chairs, reading and softly chanting the Koran. A lady standing next to him and leaning over the edge of the deck, barked orders at one of her sons who was below us fishing and going past areas she was telling him not to go past.
From there, we stopped by NC State, visiting the Walk-in Center, where the guys working there were gracious enough to look at Duma’s laptop, as he has been unable to connect to wireless access due to a number of missing drivers. They worked diligently and patiently to get him up and running, and we were most appreciative.
From there we went out to Crossroads Plaza, where we had lunch at Greek Fiesta, and then did some shopping. While driving out there, both Xolani and Duma pointed to my gas tank, which was well over half full, and said, “Gas. Get some gas.” I explained that I had a lot left and that I could go at least another two weeks on that, since I ride the bus so much. They repeated themselves a couple more times until I figured out that they were saying that they’d like to help pay for my gas, since I was carting them around all day.
Duma and I both bought an external hard drive from Best Buy—he a 350G one, and I, a 500G one. I used $100 of my mother’s “good son” money to get mine. Now I can get all of the files off my old, old laptop, and finally put it to rest. I’ll also back-up all the files on my desktop machine and on my laptop that I currently use. It’ll be nice to finally have a backup of a few thousand pictures, four years worth of Grad School homework, and countless other documents of my life.
While out there, we also to Old Navy and to Kohl’s and then back to Old Navy, where the boys each bought clothes—among which was a purchase by Xolani of a pair of Nike shoes, which were $70 marked down to $50, and about which he said would cost about $150 in South Africa.
Xolani and I had a later dinner, at around 8:00, consisting of a small salad and some shrimp cocktail. We left at about 8:50, and picked up Duma on the way to downtown. I’d set them up with my business card just in case they had to reach me, provided Xolani the name of the crossroads closest to my house to give to the cab driver, and told them about The R Line—the free downtown circulator bus that they could use to barhop if they weren’t happy at Hi5.
I dropped them off there, where three African-American women swayed their booty as they walked down the steps to the place. I left them smiling.
I met Joe at The Borough at about 9:30, where a bunch of people had come from some Crape Myrtle party, and another group of people that came either from there or some other party where argyle was the theme. We were a little bit cranky about being there, so only stayed for two drinks. Steve H. and his boyfriend Shaun made an appearance and stopped by to say hello.
At Flex, it was “Daddy Night,” where we drank cheaper drinks until making our way over to Legends, where we saw the end of the drag show, and eventually the end of the evening.