Shopping Frustration
Americans are fascinated by their own love of shopping.
-- Simon Hoggart
Sunday, July 23, 2000
One year ago: Lindy Exchange
Three years ago: Seasoned with Folly
This was a sleepy morning -- I was upstairs checking email around eight. Jack woke up a half hour later, turned on the radio, and began reading one of his Cerebus books.
I appreciated that Jack gave me time on the computer to work on journal stuff. His ulterior motive was that he also wanted to read more Cerebus. I can see I'll have to try some! He's debating whether to start me at the beginning (but it takes a while to get going), or in one of the middle volumes (but he had to puzzle over them because they were in the middle).
Meanwhile, H--- was very interested in the sample database she's constructing. I think it's a good way to get familiar with constructing queries and normalizing data. Nobody urged her to it this morning; she was all self-directed. But she does have the longer-term goal of getting her dad to give her a computer if she completes a programming project he's come up with for her to do. I think that's an incentive for her.
I wanted to take the bus back this afternoon. Jack came up with the idea of going down to the outlet mall in Burlington. I could board the Seattle-bound bus in Mount Vernon -- the two towns are twins, on either side of the Skagit river -- instead of in Bellingham as I'd planned. That sounded great to me, but I wondered about the wisdom of taking H---- shopping for clothes under time pressure. That just seems to slow her down, or make her reject everything she sees.
And that's almost what happened, though she finally succumbed to two pairs of jeans and one tshirt at Calvin Klein Jeanswear. It's just a frustrating experience for Jack (and probably for H---). I've suggested leaving it more up to her, dropping her off somewhere so the time pressure wasn't a factor. We'll see.
We drove into Mount Vernon so I could buy my ticket at the tiny bus station. I had about an hour before the bus arrived, so we drove over to a bookstore that we always see from the highway, but had never visited. We were disappointed that it was a new bookstore, not a used one, but I wanted to buy something to support them anyway. I was interested in how they grouped the books. Science fiction and mysteries were on their own, but romance seemed to be shelved among the general fiction books. I found a British import of Sharpe's Waterloo. Jack and I had watched a TV movie in this series not long ago, but he said he'd not been impressed with the books. I decided to try one anyway.
Georgette Heyer, one of my favorite authors, wrote a very detailed historical novel about Waterloo, and I was interested to compare this one to her "An Infamous Army."
This book did indeed hold my attention on the bus, when I wasn't enthralled by a young woman's monologue in a row behind me. She was telling her companion all about the times she "got in trouble," which in this context seemed to mean in trouble with the law. Endless hours of community service, an incident where she "borrowed" a car then crashed it. "It was hit and run, but they didn't charge me with that, thank gawd! heh heh heh." Every sentence was punctuated with this meaningless chuckle. But all is cool now, since she inherited eighty five thousand dollars, held in trust for her until she turns twenty one. "Oh, I want to get a masters degree in computer science. I'm determined to earn ninety thousand a year."
I exchanged glances with a youth sitting across the aisle from me, and refrained from laughing out loud.
* * * * * * * *
One of the reasons I wanted to get home tonight: a party at the Century Ballroom. Mark and Holly Snyder were hosting a "surprise" party for Mark's fiftieth birthday. (As I'm getting closer to that age, I don't think he looks that old, of course.) The party started at seven, but I needed to sit down, eat something, and check email.
I wore my red tiger print dress, which sounds really garish, but it's not. I put some extra clips in my hair, holding the sides up, plus a pony tail holder and a snood-like barrette. Hair-restraining technology run amuck!
There was a good crowd when I arrived. I had some more food, then started looking for people to dance with. I had a blast! Joe Ross always plays fun music. I danced with lots of folks, including some I haven't seen for a while. The music really grooved for me; I was in the zone!
One young man that I've danced with before succeeded in dancing me out of my shoe. I think he put his weight on the toe (but not on my toe, if you see what I mean) and I just stepped out of the shoe. So we dashed to the side of the dance floor and I put it on again. We resumed dancing, but all too soon he stomped me again, and this time he did get my foot. Poor guy, he was very apologetic as I doubled over, gripped his hand and yelped a bit. I'll probably have a bruised foot tomorrow, but I don't think any bones were broken. He thought things were worse than they really were because he misinterpreted a slit in the toe of my shoe, that's part of the design of the shoe. He thought he'd ripped my shoe somehow!
When Mark had his birthday dance, I did bring myself to go out in the circle. He commented that Joe the DJ had picked a very long song ("Walk Right In" by Indigo Swing). I said that he was so popular, we needed a long song! which was true -- so many folks wanted to dance with him.
I danced with the DJ the very next song -- a lindy challenge, since it was "You Say it's your Birthday", all hard rock and everything. But Joe and I always dance well together. He's got a great spirit of play!
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