My Weekly Frees

*Warning: This post may sound a bit braggy, but I hope that all will realize that it's in the spirit of celebrating AWESOME

A rather scruffy-looking hipster type came into my library the other day and asked me to hang a poster for him.  I said "of course!" and he informed me that he had already hung one in the bulletin board area, but also wanted to score the primo end of the bookcase poster real estate.  This vexed me because double-dipping like that is a bit selfish when we have so many other things hanging up, and the control freak librarian in me does not appreciate his just hanging things up willy-nilly.  I have a system for god's sake!

To throw him a bone though, I put the poster up in the coveted real estate, but didn't hang up the second one he had given me.  It's a compromise.

Since I didn't hang up the second one, it's been sitting on my desk for the past two weeks.  Even though I'm totally anal about the bulletin boards, my work space is a cluttered mess most of the time.  What happened though was because I hadn't hung up the poster, I actually read the damn thing, and found out that there is free acupuncture to be had in honor of the five-year anniversary of Providence Community Acupuncture!  Bonus: It's within walking distance of my house!

I'd never had acupuncture, but I've been having back pain and days long headaches, and my doctor (who I'm thinking of breaking up with) can't see me until April.  I'm more than willing to take a chance on Eastern medicine if it works. Plus, it's free!

In addition to free acupuncture this week, I also scored some more free theatre.  With that free theatre came three free beers, about three platefuls of free food and plenty of abs.

This guy barely wore a shirt--that's culture 

Seriously, I'm still not sure if I actually liked the play, but watching this guy walk around was like an anatomy lesson.  As my friend and fellow theatre-goer, Candace put it, "I didn't even know people had muscles there!"

Over the weekend, I visited a friend in Albany, NY, and we hit up the New York State Museum, which is not only a fantastic museum, but it's free!

I think it looks kind of like a Chinese pagoda--thoughts?

We also visited the Saratoga National Historic Park, a free day trip and the site of a major historic battle that partially determined the outcome of the Revolutionary War--important stuff.

While in Albany, I also attended the 3rd annual Mac & Cheese Bowl, which was not free, but for the low-low price of $15, I got to sample 32 types of mac & cheese from restuarants all over the New York capital region.  Well, I would have sampled 32 varieties, but about half had meat in them. No matter, I got seconds from the ones that didn't!  By the end of about an hour of near-constant cheesy pasta eating, I was feeling a bit sick, but also quite happy.

All in all, a successful, frugal and adventurous week!