My Last Hundred Bucks: Books, Beer, and Burgers in Durham

by Audrey Senna

Where’d your last hundo go, Audrey Senna?

$10 for a ticket to a Kishi Bashi concert. I don’t know who Kishi Bashi is, but all my friends told me to go, so I’m going.

$35.47 for three books from Amazon. Intrigued by online reviews, I got the sci fi novel Wool by Hugh Howey (indiebound // amazon) and the cookbook Keys to the Kitchen by Aida Mollenkamp (indiebound // amazon). Free shipping is swell, so I threw in City of Bones (indiebound//amazon), a YA urban fantasy that’s going to be made into a movie. If it’s good, then good! If it’s bad, then I can say with authority that it’s bad. This was also my justification for reading Twilight (it was bad).

I love excuses not to cook on Friday nights. This time it was a Greek grilled cheese at Elmo’s Diner ($9 with tip).
Some friends and I drove to Pilot Mountain State Park for a day of rock climbing, and my share of the gas was $10. The rock face was warm from the sun and covered in lady bugs. Lucky, maybe? We climbed until tired arms, tender fingers, and fading daylight forced us to stop.

We got back just in time to catch the Duke-UNC basketball game at a bar. $20.63 got me beer and a burger that I demolished between Mason Plumlee’s second and third dunks.

On Sunday, I wandered over to a food truck rodeo. The crowd was thick and the lines were long, but I stuck it out for a mozzarella-basil-tomato sandwich ($7) and a boysenberry-pear Loco Pop ($2.50). I sat in the grass, listened to jazz, and got sunburned.

Finished off the weekend with a Walking Dead watch party at a bar. I don’t have cable, so I can justify $5 for a beer — especially when zombies are involved.

Audrey Senna lives in Durham, NC.

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