Labor Day Weekend

It's been a busy weekend so far. Things began on Friday; it was the twins' 30th birthday. It still seems as though they were just born. Don't let anyone kid you - children grow up far too fast, although it doesn't seem like it when you're living through the teenage years!

At any rate, Lyn asked Vaughn and I if we wanted to go out for a girls night out celebration with one of her best friends from her school years and her mother. See, "K" was born on the same day as the twins; a few hours earlier. Her mother was already settled in her room next door to mine when I finally was brought to my room. Of course, we didn't know each other then, but the girls found each other in grade school and have been good friends ever since they found they shared a birthday.

We were going to meet at a local watering hole, but Lyn called and said the place had been changed to a bar close by. We were tickled by the change. I'd never been to this bar and had always heard it was nice and had decent prices. That proved to be true. However, it was just me and my girls, and after a suitable time had passed, Lyn called "K" and inquired as to the delay. Seems they had all changed their mind and had gone to the original bar and had forgotten to call Lyn and let her know.

Seemed a little odd to me, considering the change to the place we went to had been made just a couple of hours before we were to arrive, but I'll hold my tongue. Lyn's a big girl now; she can decide whether it was intentional or not.

However, I'm reasonably sure that someone figured out the bar we liked was smoke-free; gods forbid if they couldn't drink and smoke for a couple of hours! (Understand, the plan was to hit several bars after we had dinner) So, by the time we finished our drinks and joined them, they had already gotten appetizers, and had a few more drinks under their belts. We split an appetizer basket and had a couple of drinks.

I don't venture out on nights of hard core drinking much anymore; does it make anyone else beside me nervous when you decide to run a tab and the waitress takes your credit card till the bill is paid? Had I known that, I'd have hit the bank machine, and will do so in the future. Seems that there would be too much opportunity for someone to write those numbers down and use 'em.

When it was time to leave, I was completely polluted by the smoke. I decided not to go bar hopping with the rest of them. I came home instead. It was only about 9:30. I was hungry since I'd really had no dinner to speak of. I asked R if he wanted to go grab a bite, and he said he had to ice his knee, do some things and it would be an hour or so before he would even give me an answer. So, I just said fuck it and went to bed.

Saturday dawned bright and early. I was up and dressed by eight; we had some errands to run and I wanted to get going. But, by the time R got done with his physical therapy exercises and got showered and such, it was going on 10 or so. We headed to the mall to pick up cat litter and other necessities, and then I decided to run over to Sears to look for a digital camera for Lyn's birthday gift. It was not a good Sears visit. I'll blog about it separately, because I'm still astounded.

A grocery store visit and fuel stop completed the errands, then it was home again to start preparations for the birthday party for the twins. Jared got a keg and people brought appetizers and we just had a small gathering for family and friends.

Again we headed home early; it was probably somewhere around 9:30 or so. The night felt very "fallish" and it got quite chilly outside. The mosquitoes were biting like mad, and between them and R's knee aching, we headed out and left the beer-drinking for the younger crowd.

But, when we got home, I was still restless - and yes, hungry again. Appetizers just aren't quite enough to tide me over till morning. Since neither of us were tired, I suggested that we run down to the casino for something to do for a bit. I got a "well, maybe, let me ice the knee and see how it feels in a half hour."

So, I dinked around the house, waiting. I figured we could grab a bite to eat and gamble for an hour or so. Heck, it was Saturday night and I'm just not ready for the rocking chair!

Of course, he decided he just didn't want to go. Why is that not a surprise? It's no wonder that I have started going and doing things without him. I'm not like this huge party animal, but I do like to get out and dance to some good music or be with friends!

I was...how to describe it...I guess "antsy" would fit. I just felt itchy and out of sorts from feeling stuck in this house once again. Much of it was, I'd guess, was because both the parties turned out to be disappointing. And then he just basically gives me half a promise and then totally backs out. I was in one of those frames of mind where you feel the tears aching in the back of your eye sockets, and it wouldn't take much to provoke yourself into either crying or becoming an ax murderer!

So, I flopped onto the couch for bit, tried to get interested in watching football *shudders* and finally got up and changed into some jeans and informed R that I was going to go to the casino.

It shocked the hell out of him. I just told him I wasn't going to spend my life stuck at home all the time; I needed to get out and do something fun once in awhile. And, I asked him again if he wanted to go and he didn't.

So, I grabbed my car keys and said bye, and by gawd, I took MYSELF out on a date.

I didn't get home till 3 a.m. Won $125 bucks, too.

Remember that commercial for a drink supplement called Ensure? They showed two couples approximately the same age. One couple, the one who drank Ensure was out scuba diving, running on the beach, etc. while the other couple just sat in rocking chairs with the wife glaring at her husband with that look of "I want to be doing that, too!"

Let's put it this way. I don't want to be the wife on the porch anymore. Life is too damn short not to live it to the hilt!

I slept in till 7:30 this morning. Then up and around, and got morning stuff finished. I told R that I wanted to drive over to the outlet mall and buy some new bras. For some reason I always put that task off till what I'm wearing is a total embarrassment. I'd hate to be hit by a bus in that underwear! LOL

So, he was agreeable because he wanted to attempt to drive the truck to see if he could manage it yet. We made the 30 mile trip; took the Dolly-Yama with us and I made my purchases (five new bras, 3 utilitarian and 2 pretty ones) and new panties. Yeah, guys, I'm sure you were all dying to know that! LOL

Stopped by McDonalds, grabbed some junky food and headed back on the interstate to the rest stop to eat. Walked the dogs around there; gave them someplace new to "read their pee-mail".

And now we're back home. I'm in the process of doing laundry, and basically just taking it easy. I want to start a new knitting project tonight; just not sure which one it will be.

Tomorrow I'm going over to Kirk and Marsha's to help with the wedding favors. Only 20 days till the wedding! I'm sure you'll get sick and tired of me talking about that in the next three weeks.

So, that's it for this episode. And now I'll tell you about the trip to Sears which I still find amazing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

As I said in the earlier narrative, I decided that Lyn needed to join the modern world and have a digital camera as her birthday gift this year. Normally, I just give the kids checks for their birthday, but this year I'm spending a whole boatload on Kirk and Marsha since I hired the band and have to get the rehearsal dinner bill and so on.

And, as we sat at the bar on Friday night, Lyn almost had her heart in her eyes when all the other girls pulled little digital cameras out of their purses and took pictures that you could see immediately. She had her camera, too, of course, but she still uses a 35mm. Nothing wrong with that - I'll never give up my 35mm, but it's still fun to have the immediacy of the digital.

So, under those circumstances, I decided it was time for her to have one.

I've always had good luck with Sears. I've bought most of my 'big ticket' items there, including my Sony HandyCam DVD recorder. So, going to Sears seemed the logical thing to do.

Found a couple of cameras I was interested in, and of course, like other places it is standard to have them locked down. Even so, you still can mess around with them and get a general idea of how easily they can operate.

Pushed the power switch on the first one. Nothing. Tried the next and then the third. Nothing on either of them. We wondered if that section of cameras just was not attached to a power source. When the clerk came to assist us, we told him what we were interested in and asked if they could be plugged in so we could mess with them.

And he *laughed* at us. He told us that we were just plain out of luck - that the cameras were "good" until the batteries died and then people just had to take things on faith. He didn't offer to call his manager, nor put batteries in the things or anything. He just laughed and told us it wasn't store policy and walked away still giggling like a school boy.

As he walked away, I said to him, "I guess you just missed out on a sale of anywhere from $150 to $500 dollars." And, with his mouth hanging, we turned around and walked out of the store.

I came home and called Sears management and told the woman of this occurrence. While she was suitably dismayed about the customer service I had received, she told me that this was, indeed, store policy to just leave the cameras alone once the batteries had died.

I was truly amazed. I suggested to her that when the store was closed that someone should be assigned to unlock the items from their security devices and replace the batteries so customers could try out the display models. She didn't say anything.

However, I was absolutely astounded when she asked me if I would be interested in coming back into town and Sears would be glad to put batteries in any of the cameras I might be interested in purchasing.

I said, "No thank you. The party is in a few hours, and you had the opportunity to have the sale earlier today. It is inconvenient for me to return to the store, even though it is only four miles from my house."

Of course, it could have been done. In fact, I met Kirk later that afternoon to have his help in buying her camera. And, we had to go to Best Buy to get the job done. I'm one of the folks who is not overly crazy about giving BB my money for a lot of reasons, but it sure struck me as odd that BB - who has one hellova lot more business than Sears, seems to have no problem whatsoever in keeping working batteries in their cameras!

We ended up getting her a Kodak EasyShare. It's quick to learn and easy to get pictures from the camera into the computer or docking port. Lyn has plenty to do chasing kids - she doesn't need something complicated for her first digital. There's time for that later. It's a cute little camera. Wouldn't mind having one of those myself to keep in my purse.

She was thrilled! I hope she has fun with it. Can't wait to talk to her in the next day or so and see if she's taken any pictures with it. And Kirk was going nuts when we walked past the check out at BB. He didn't realize that the first season of Heroes had come out, so that became his birthday gift; while I didn't spend equal amounts of cash on 'em for their birthday, he *is* getting a bundle spent on him later this month with all the wedding expenses!

So, as Kirk said, "we can't be trusted any more - we're over 30"

I guess I can truely say my babies are all grown up now.