Shopping Mania

I went to the shopping mall recently with a friend to buy a new dress for a wedding she was attending. She's the type that you really have no choice but to drop everything and accompany, because a true crime against humanity could occur if she was left to her own devices. You would no sooner let this friend pick out her own dress than you would allow your two year old vacation at Disney World unattended, it's just not done.

In any event, as I was doing this selfless act of charity, I had a lot of time on my hands, mostly spent standing outside dressing room doors. I was able to observe some truly suprising sociological trends. Clearly there are some very different philosophies on shopping out there. I couldn’t believe the number of women in "outfits" and stilettos at the mall. I guess I never noticed this before. Why are women dressing up to go to a mall? To impress the other chicks? To catch the eye of the Mall Walking Seniors brigade?

In my mind, shopping is an athletic event. It calls for easy on, easy off clothing (ok yes, specifically a velour sweat suit), and tennis shoes. And it calls for Focus. As in, going shopping should never be construed as code for "let's eat". I've never been a big eating/shopping combo type girl, but since I have had a child, the mere logistics of getting out the door Without Said Child calls for the event to be carefully planned and time, absolutely maximized. No matter how many weekend bachelor parties my husband goes away for or how many months his nighttime intramural league runs, he seemingly has no recollection of all my single parenting whenever I tell him I want to go shopping with the girls (maybe three time a year). It turns into An Ordeal, where he finally gives in saying "Fine! Go Go" and actually, I believe, pouts.

So I finally escape into the car with my girlfriend(s) after all of the drama to leave the house, visions of racks of clothes I can speed walk through sensing the fabric and fit with the tips of my fingertips, planning to cover 10 maybe 15 stores, when inevitably one of them turns to me and says "are you hungry?". It never fails, which is why I've developed somewhat of a reputation for being anti-hunger-friendly. If I have 3 hours to do 4 months of shopping, I do not want to spend it dawdling in a bistro. Dawdling in a Bistro is a perfectly legitimate activity if that is what you set out to do. But not if you set out to buy new leather boots because yours have holes in the bottom and your socks are constantly wet.

I will hesitate before responding, my teeth grinding audibly, and the friend will usually start to back off realizing their mistake. They will say things like "oh ok, well let's just go through Taco Bell, then huh? Ok?" And I will, with the warmth of an Ice Queen, say "Fine.", still internally calculating the diversions cost in time. And they will say, "What do you want?" And if I am starving to death I will say, "Nothing.". Because it’s the principal really.

Speaking of shopping, I had this incredible idea recently to do all my Christmas shopping in November this year. This would replace my pathetic arguments to my relatives and friends in mid December where, after realizing that I, who refuses to stand in long check out lines, have no hope of getting gifts out in time, argues that Christmas is out of control and we shouldn’t exchange gifts this year. Yes, I know it makes sense for adults, but even I, who propagates this argument, have to admit its pretty lame not to get my young nieces and nephews anything. Or my son for that matter.

Imagine my surprise when I ventured out in November to find the stores packed! I felt violated in a way. Sort of like the time I came up with the idea of a device that you could attach to pets or children that would sound an alarm if they fell into a pool, and which I did nothing about, and 6 years later it came out in stores. So, pretty much like my idea was stolen! So much for early shopping. It looks like I will have to shop the internet, which for some reason makes me obsessive about price as I comparison shop across 10 sites and spend a half hour searching online for promo codes for a $20 item. I wonder how long it will take me to get frustrated with that...maybe I should just begin writing...

"Dear Friends and Family,

I've been thinking..."

My Triumphant Return to the Blogosphere

Well since it's been almost a month since I posted, you might imagine I have a large cache of stories to relay. Gosh, are you always so off? I really worry about your judgement.

Or perhaps you assumed that, thanks to my blog, I had become the newest Google Adsense Millionaire and was off spending my fortune on expensive face creams and weekend babysitters. I myself suspected I was building up quite an Adsense pot and you can only imagine my surprise when after showing remarkable restraint, I finally went and checked my Adsense account, only to discover I had earned a total of $.08. Yes, folks, that's 8 cents. I'm sure every penny counts, but it wasn’t enough motivation for me to figure out how to put the ads back on the blog when they were lost in my Blogger Beta upgrade. Take that Google!

The truth is less glamorous I'm afraid. I've just been busy and my son has been sick a lot. A few days ago I was up all night with him throwing up repeatedly (him, not me, though it crossed my mind). The next morning he was completely fine and chipper while I felt like I had been to an all night rave. I asked him if he was sick last night and he looked at me with a serious expression and said "I spit out my tounge. I made a mess." You can say that again.

So while I try to get back into the blogging mindset, I end with the winner for funniest IM today from a friend who told me about his trip to join a special tour for a NASA exhibition:

Mark (10:49:23 AM): So I printed out a map to get the the facility. It took me into this huge residential area instead of to the commercial district

Amy (10:49:28 AM): it sounds like my car's GPS system, you can be in the middle of a 5 lane highway not near and exit and it says "you have reached your destination"

Mark (10:49:42 AM): and i was like "this has got to be the oddest place ever for a govt bldg"

Mark (10:49:52 AM): so i called Nasa

Mark (10:50:06 AM): and they were like "oh, you must have used mapquest - this hapns all the time"

Mark (10:51:00 AM): kind of funny that the only agency on earth tasked with tracking devices traveling interplanetary and beyond, has wrong mapquest directions to its facility, and hasn't lobbied for that to be fixed

Amy (10:51:16 AM): that is funny

Mark (10:51:29 AM): so the receptionist is like:

Mark (10:52:29 AM): "i have no idea how to get you out of that neighborhood, but start heading for the mountains, and hopefully you hit a freeway - when you do, go north for about 10 mins and take exit whatever- you're totally fine - we don't start the tour for at least five more minutes"

Fall Fashion Dont's

I am rapidly coming to the realization that I am going to have to sit out the fall fashion season. Have you all been out there? It’s horrifying.

I don’t know what has gotten into the so-called designers, but I see the makings of a national economic emergency when fall clothing funds are unable to be spent because there is nothing to buy. Mere weeks after I made a joke about how the 80’s cannot possibly come back in style, they filled the racks with “skinny” jeans (a façade we all know, its PEG LEG again, no “pegging” required), spandex legging’s and cotton knit sweaters with huge v-necks and horizontal stripes. I haven’t found a sweater yet that wouldn’t require some sort of tank top underneath to make it decent. I do not believe it’s possible to make this whole tank top layered with big v neck sweater to look good. It’s going to look sloppy and you will never find a tank top that really matches. There is something about buying a sweater that you cannot wear by itself that irritates me. It’s like buying a new pair of jeans and they come with a little card that says “find some cute rivets to hold these pants together before wearing”.

Fortunately for me, I constantly fear I will regret getting rid of clothes, so I still have some leggings from the 80’s buried in the back of a drawer. I hope the ones with the little foot strap don’t come back because those I did discard. But I remember when those were the hot item and they really only fit 5% of the population well. The rest either had them sagging around their ankles from their too short legs, or for the taller girls, they had to keep a grip on their waistband to keep them from being pulled down to their knees when they walked.

Well, I thought, I will get some shirts. How wrong can those be? Pretty wrong, as it turns out. The blouses are all equipped with purposely “wrinkled” material and/or ruffles. If you didn’t appear to be in need of liposuction before, plastic surgeons will be handing you their card if you wear one of these shirts in public. And ruffles on grown women?! What good could possible come from this? Ruffles should be outlawed if you are over the age of 7. Period.

It’s possible that I am shopping at the wrong stores. You won’t find me in Neiman Marcus or Saks and for all I know; they are hoarding all the good outfits. But I’m not shopping there. I have a psychological block to paying more for an outfit than I paid for my first car. And I’m not even talking about couture (my first car wasn’t very nice), I’m talking about that simple short sleeve shirt, a less refined person could even refer to it as a “fancy t shirt”, that dangles a price tag of $220.00. While I yearn to be on of those impeccably dressed women, who reek of quality and you know instantly that every outfit she wears could pay for a year of college, I can’t bring myself to surrender my wallet for it. Primarily because no one would notice if I did. A technology company in Washington is not the same as some hip advertising firm in Manhattan. I could wear a paper bag to work here and no one would notice. And as for my husband, he still hasn’t noticed that I dyed my hair a dramatic dark brunette last month, so I highly doubt he would clue in on the fine stitching and quality fabric of a $600 dollar skirt.

I am simply suffering from clothes-in-my-closet boredom, and if I have to be medicated this fall to alleviate this fashion depression, I’m sending the bill to the design houses.

My Lance Bass Fan Website

Google is out of control. They clearly have way too much time and money on their hands. Have you checked out their "lab" page recently? They have developed tools and programs for everything conceivable. It sick is what it is. From web searches for the blind to Googlized maps of mars to a tool to plan public transportation trips in Portland (and only Portland), Google has developed it. I love Google Suggest which apparently will offer you real time suggestions on better key words than the ones you are currently typing. Ever get annoyed by Microsoft Office trying to force words on you as you type? Yeah, its like that, for the web.

The one feature they don’t have is the one I was looking for. Naturally. After reading an article in today's paper about these 20 year old girls who were making $100,000 a month in Ad Sense revenue from their website which offers free MySpace templates, I decided to immediately jump on that rickety, overcrowded bandwagon (probably along with the Washington Post's 6 million other subscribers). But first, I needed to know what the hot search terms were so I could create a webpage that would lure them in like hungry minnows.

Except Google refuses to tell me. Unless I am to believe that "Lance Bass" is truly the top search term.

I asked my friend: "Do You think it's possible that Lance Bass is the top search term right now?"

She said: "Who is Lance Bass?"

I said: "You know, that gay singer from N synch that just came out of the closet?"

She said: "I'm so out of that scene"

I said: "look, trust me, Im no n-synch fan, but this was on CNN!"

She said: "I havent had the TV on today"

I said: "It was a couple days ago. Are you living in a cave with Osama?"

THEN she changed the subject. Very suspicious, no?

Well, I guess I should get to work on my "Lance Bass" Ad-Filled Website.

The Surreal Life

After reading another article on the DC Sniper trials recently, I was thinking about surreal events I've been involved with. It's the strangest sensation; you almost feel that you are on the outside looking on as a spectator. Some of the biggest surreal experiences for me include: being in an armed robbery (they call them "home invasions" now) at age nine with my brother and cousins while our parents were at our grandfather's wake. Several cracked-out, ski-masked, and armed men broke in and terrorized us while ransacking the house. We were so naïve we hid in a closet after we saw them chopping down the back door and it took them all of 15 seconds to find us. I was pretty sure I was going to die, and as a result, everything seemed to go in slow and fast motion all at once. Very surreal.

Another big one is of course September 11th. Living outside of DC, having fighter jets thunder over your house, and knowing you were sitting in a global bulls eye was pretty surreal. Just the day before I had finished with an engagement that had me flying back and forth from Dulles to LA every week, which was one of the routes that was hijacked. It was the most beautiful day, am amazing blue sky with the late summer crispness to the air, it all seemed so impossible. My husband was stuck on his "2-day" Northern CA business trip for almost two weeks and I had the radio and CNN on day and night for probably three days straight.

A little over a year later, we were treated to a rousing rendition of “what it's like to live in an unstable war torn country” when the DC Snipers showed up. You haven’t lived until you found yourself writing a will before taking the dog on a walk. Talk about group paranoia. Two guys in an area of 5 million had us diving into our cars and hiding behind concrete pillars on the rare occasion we were forced to leave our house. It seems surreal thinking about it now, but I actually would run in a zigzag pattern back to my car if I had to leave the house. You would have thought I would have felt silly doing this, but trust me, no one noticed since everyone else was either zigzagging or crossing the parking lot in infantry-style guerrilla crawls. You simply had no idea where they would strike next. No where was considered safe. My husband, as is his nature, managed to find the silver lining of the situation and was delighted when the credit card bill showed up and was the lowest it had been in 13 years. Trust me, I’m a dedicated spender, but “final sale” has a whole new meaning, when going out might in fact make it your final sale. I managed to go for an entire month without going to a gas station (My 3-mile commute work commute paid off again!) and when my husband had to go fill up mid-crisis, we had a phone line support system rigged to notify concerned individuals about the successful 98-octane mission.

So what dredged up these memories? In a word, Maryland. Maryland is retrying the Sniper's years after Virginia found them guilty of about a billion crimes against humanity as well as several counts of murder and sentenced them to death and life in prison, respectively (they are also still considering revoking their concealed weapon permits). I don’t want to draw attention to delicate family matters, but Maryland doesn’t seem to trust Virginia, so they would *also* like to sentence them to death. Ironically, Virginia executes a *lot* more prisoners than Maryland, who I believe turned their electric chair into a garden planter in 1999 after seeing a similar project in Martha Stewart Living's April issue. I suppose Maryland might be concerned about Virginia's decision making abilities and may consider the commonwealth's lack of taste to be a warning sign of instability, I can only guess as a result of our State Welcome Sign.

Haven’t given much thought to your state's Welcome Sign lately? Well, we have! Apparently someone pointed out that our sign was "dated" and I believe one quote was (paraphrasing) "it looks like something my grandma knitted and hung in her kitchen in 1950". So Virginia immediately took action and created five other horribly dated alternatives to choose from and put it to a public vote. I first saw the options printed in the Washington Post and again, felt that touch of surrealism. The first thing that leapt to mind was "What? Are these the right pictures?". It’s as if Virginia couldn’t come up with the money for any new clip art software and decided to reuse the Atari-era graphics and fonts they had on file. Furthermore, the only new slogan they could come up with was "Virginia Welcomes You", which wow, bam, talk about impact. What fools we were with the old slogan; "Welcome to Virginia". You can hardly blame Maryland for being wary, I suppose.

The Divorce House

Every street has one, doesn’t it? The house where, for practical purposes, should install a department-store style revolving door- (they can be an extreme sport for the coordination challenged, no?). The For Sale sign went up a few days ago, errected, best I can tell in the early dawn hours. The "Scarlet A" of suburban neighborhoods. Given that we havent been shown glossy brochures of the neighborhor's new house, this means one thing- the Big D---again. Again for the house anyway. A few years back the first neighbors also sold the house amid a divorce. That couple had some pizazz though. Despite being casual wave-as-you-drive-by neighbors, we were awoken one night around 3am with the door bell being run repeatedly and a pounding on our front door. 3am has got to be the worst time for this sort of thing- its so much in the dead zone, that it's impossible to leap from bed and take organized action. Even after I got up, I was sure I was in a vivid dream. My husband, who is 6'7" and 250lbs, grabbed my Victoria Secret robe (full size on me, mini-dress robe on him) in his semi-stupor and raced downstairs. Not far behind him, I looked down the staircase to see him at the front door and mistaking my robe for an old fashioned male nightshirt, thought I was having a dream where he had become Eboneizer Scrooge from A Christmas Story.

Then I saw the bodies roll by the front door in a tumbled mass as the wife and husband tussled over a manilla folder of financial documents. Apparently the wife's late night reconissance mission was discovered and she fled the house with the husband in hot pursuit. Why she decided to seek refuge with us, we have no idea, except my husband is the type who can and will strike up a conversation with anyone and so while I know the neighbors mostly by the dogs they walk, my husband has found himself many times the most unlikely of confidants. He spends a lot of time doing yard work and often I look out the window and see him leaning on his rake, nodding sympathically, while some neighbor is engaged in some sort of passionate story. So anyway, be warned, this is where all that friendliness leads to: 3am referree sessions. Who says all the excitement happens in the ghetto?

Anyway, if you hadnt guessed that couple didn’t make it and divorced splitting the house and 4 kids down the middle, each moving to another smaller house in the neighborhood, which also seems to be part of our neighborhoods divorce manual.

Then, the new neighbors moved in- highly educated, married 20 years, two kids. Two years later, the sign went up. I feel some concern for the families I've seen come to look during the Open House- should I warn them? Then again, I've conflicted. I don’t want to scare off the best prospects- getting a new neighbor is kind of like waiting for your blind date to show up. Will they be the cool couple who hold BBQs and can be seen casually drinking a beer on a hot summer day? Will they be the ethnic family with 27 cars who tear out the front bushes and don’t plant anything in the dirt left behind? Will they be the doctors, highly stressed with the $80,000 cars who seem constantly exasperated with their kids who will probably never measure up?