It was a lovely weekend. Another one, actually. Right up there with last weekend as lovely weekends go.
On Friday, Penny, Carissa and I all took a half day to embrace one of our most favorite of pastimes (aside from sex, that is) and embarked down to the land of the Hootchie Mama on the hunt for some prime cheapass clothing. The Hootchie Mama store was, as always, in a vague sense of upheaval, as though the store were suddenly flung together by men wearing ski masks and staffed by confused women who are only temps and have been working there for three days. I expect to look through the back door and see hijacked trucks from other stores being unloaded by distracted people with guns sticking out of the back of their pants. Which, to me, always seemed like a good way to blow your own ass off, but that’s probably why I scored so low on the Gangsta part of my career aptitude tests in high school.
I am, by the way, even more convinced that there is something slightly amiss about the Hootchie Mama store. I was willing to chalk Mo’s score of a brand new suede jacket for $8 as a freak clearance double markdown occurrence, but this time, there were racks upon racks of Venezia jeans, which are, to my knowledge, only available at Lane Bryant and normally priced at $49.99. These were $12. Perhaps they fell off the back of a truck.
Penny and Carissa made some awesome scores. They bought a jacket, jeans, and at least two shirts for under $50. Then, we raced out to my favorite mall in all the land, but after a quick sweep, we didn’t find anything really intriguing, so made a pitstop at the Godiva store and stocked up on ridiculously-expensive-but-totally-worth-it-chocolate. They have a seasonal truffle right now: Banana. One of my little food idiosyncrasies is that while I’m not overly fond of most artificial fruit flavors (and feel that fake grape flavor is a scourge upon the earth), I love me some banana anything. Bananas are my very favorite of all fruits and fake banana is just fine and dandy too. Thus, a Godiva truffle with banana? Hell yeah. I got two, but I should have stock piled, because it is a mouth orgasm, and Godiva has this irritating habit of making seasonal truffles that I love, teasing me with their ephemera and then wiping them from the face of the earth with an aristocratic ‘har har’. Witness the tragedy that is the extinct candy cane truffle, for instance. You’d think they would keep a few breeding pairs around or something. Gah.
We then scurried over to one of my favorite little hole-in-the-wall Italian places down by Miller Park for dense brick-like garlic bread (which, despite the description is buttery and wonderful) and enormous plates of pasta and melted cheese. After that, we drove home and discussed various sexual acts and then played a rousing game of ‘Marry Fuck or Kill’ in which I am now betrothed to that clueless nerd Ralph Nader and Carissa will soon be Mrs. Norman Bates, which created memorable exchanges as ‘Well, Foghorn Leghorn is big.’ ‘But he’s a chicken? You’d fuck a chicken?’ ‘I’d marry Yosemite Sam, because he’s in law enforcement, and I’ve heard they get a good pension.’
I woke up early on Saturday and ran out to pick up Esteban’s dry cleaning for his impending tour of the West Coast, then was going to run out to the good butcher, but after I crossed the river, I decided that I had really woken up before my ambition and I just didn’t care all that much and there was plenty of stuff in the freezer anyway. Thus, I did the circle tour of our city then went back to my neighborhood when I remembered that we were waffling about just buying decent but cheap bookshelves at Target, since Esteban plans to pretty much trash them anyway. And the bookshelves in question were on sale, ending that day, so I took it upon myself to make an executive decision and buy two bookshelves anyway. If we decided later that we didn’t like how they looked, we could take them back. Thus, I made my sixth consecutive Saturday trip to Target and dropped $200 on shelves and miscellaneous sundry items (because black Woolite? How did I ever live without that? I ask this of you! It’s laundry soap! It’s gothic and vampirey! It’s the best unlikely combination of genres I have ever seen!), including a replacement DVD for my scratched copy of Bridget Jones’s Diary (mmmm’ Firthy goodness). Then I went back home, crawled back into bed with Esteban, who was snoring peacefully, and listened to the water drip off the neighbor’s back garage, because it was warm and lovely and melty and dare I say it, spring.
Esteban decided that he needed headphones for his trip, mostly because I have been using his really nice professional studio cans to listen to MP3’s on my pc, except that the cord is really really long and usually falls off the desk and I always thought that Tilly was just being really cute and playing with the dangling cord, except that she was really being an awful hellbeast and CHEWING HALF THROUGH IT. So I only had sound out of one side of my head, thus, I likewise needed headphones. And a new hands free thing for my cellphone, since the last one that I loved got lost with my cellphone last year. And Age of Empires II, because I’ve had the jones for that game something fierce and have given up trying to find my copy. Plus I didn’t have the expansion pack anyway. Thus, we stopped at our favorite little Mexican caf’ for lunch then over to the local Megalomart to have our electronic lust sated. Esteban also picked up a CD/MP3 player for his trip and I insisted upon buying a headphone splitter for our trip to England too. Thus, Saturday was, as Esteban put it ‘a three hundred and fifty dollar day before noon.’ More if you count lunch, but I didn’t bring that up to him.
We went home, played with our various items, then I made dinner (roasted whole tenderloin, baked salt-encrusted potatoes, green beans, and Fat biscuits, which I always seem to either overcook or grossly undercook, but after Esteban pointed that out, I had to make them just to prove that they are NOT my culinary Waterloo and that I AM capable of excelling at both a fine chocolate ganache AND institution grade biscuits from a can) and we lounged around, clutching our food babies and then sprawled on the couch watching the rest of Hellsing.
On Sunday, Esteban decided that he was going to skip his D&D, as he wasn’t feeling well and he also had a ton of work to do before jetting off to parts unknown for the upcoming week. I ate a bowl of Special K Vanilla (verdict: it sure isn’t Red Berries, people) with sliced banana and a glass of pineapple orange juice (Is it possible that the bacteria in our mouths is what makes orange juice taste good, and if we lived in a world where God was a dentist, none of us would drink it because it would taste the way it does right after you brush your teeth?), then sat down to put ice on my gimpy knee and read Replay(which isn’t my normal kind of read, but it’s been the first book that I haven’t been able to put down since Secret History) until Mary Kaye (she of the tampon stories in the comments section) swung by to visit. We ended up going out for lunch at the place where you throw peanut shells on the floor (and indeed some actual stubborn peanuts as well) and then raced back across town to catch a matinee of Love, Actually, which by the way is the greatest movie ever, and also full of eye candy. And also more nipples than is probably practical, but ah, those nipple-crazy English people! And Firth! Lots of Firth! But sadly, no Firth nipples. Strangely enough, when we sat down in the theatre, who was in the row ahead of us but Penny? And yet, it was so. Proves that I simply cannot get away from her. And she was dressed very nattily, which made me happy.
I went home to hang out with Esteban, since I won’t get to see him again until next week. We played on our various computers and then retired to watch the Oscars, which was a new experience for me, as they are always on a Sunday and thus I have watched them by myself for the past thirteen years. I was surprised to find that he was totally interested in the Oscars, perhaps because of Lord of the Rings, but I think not. I impressed him with correctly predicting five of the six major awards (damned Sean Penn! Damn him all to hell! Way to break my streak, you bastard) and then made him disdain when I claimed that if the academy wasn’t completely subjective, they would have given Lord of the Rings awards for the last three years instead of trying to make up for snubbing them the last two years and now feeling obligated to heap on the awards and screw other perfectly Oscar-worthy films this year. Perhaps Hollywood is feeling tired of hiding in the D&D geek closet. It’s got to be getting crowded in there, what with Sandra Bullock’s giant white wedding cake dress. They’re ready to stand up and hold their eight-sided die and magical ring of regeneration high. Or not.
We finished watching the Oscars in bed, using Tivo whenever necessary to gawk at a snide comment or Julia Robert’s enormous mouth (seriously, her mouth’ it’s unreal. It’s half her entire head. I suspect that if she unhinged it, she’d be able to swallow Peter Jackson whole. Maybe also Fran the music chick with the flowers in her hair, looking for all the world like she ended up in the Shrine Auditorium when she got lost on her way to the nearest Ren Faire). I started to ‘nap’ (which is the word I use when I’m tired and want to go to sleep but Esteban wants me to stay up and watch the Oscars with him.) He woke me up for the big ones at the end and then watched all the winners up on stage and didn’t turn it off until they were announcing the official airline of the Oscars. Because, as he added, clicking off Ricky Fitts, he wouldn’t have been able to sleep with the suspense of wondering’ American? Or NWA? But no. It was Ted. So we could both sleep soundly.
You want to know another reason I love Bill Murray? As if I needed another reason? When he didn’t win the Oscar for Lost In Translation (you mean you still haven’t seen it yet? What is up with you?) he didn’t look all fake and chippy (Depp, I’m looking your way) and clap when they announced Sean ‘I overact and played a retarded person on death row who was sodomized and did lots of anguished primal screaming so give me an Oscar dammit!’ Penn’s name for Best Actor. No. He looked like he knew that he had just gotten royally fucked over. Because just how many opportunities do you think Carl from Caddyshack has to win an Academy Award? Not bloody many. But it just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. He’s going to be back up on that horse, taking one for the team, and even if God in heaven above parted the clouds and said ‘Bill Murray is KING!’, it just wouldn’t matter. Because he’d still never win an Oscar when all of the pretty people are too busy stroking each other’s dicks. It just doesn’t matter. IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!
Ah Bill. Even in Meatballs, you were pure genius. All my love and boobies, baby.
