Friday night, we went to the middle school/high school Jazz Coffeehouse event. I had earlier in the day help set it up in one of the local church basements. Now, how tall of order is that?! Set up a fun Jazz Coffeehouse atmosphere in the basement of a church, a
Midwest Lutheran church no less! We covered the fellowship hall tables with linens, votive candles (which the local caterer kept referring to as Volvo candles), old band instruments, and long-stem red roses. Next, the lighting. Large overhead
fluorescent lights just did not set the right mood. Table lamps! we thought. But, we didn't want to drive all the way to our homes and transport our lamps to the church. There have got to be some tables and lamps somewhere in this church, VOILA! The smaller bible study room down the hall had four perfect little side tables along with four perfect little table lamps. We moved them all down to the fellowship hall, along the sidewalls . . . perfect jazz ambiance. At this moment, the youth director comes in. I say to him, "don't the side lights look great!? We temporarily moved them from the next room, but we'll be sure they get back after the concert tonight."
"Did you ask the ladies up in the office?", he asks, knowing full well we had not. So he did our dirty work for us and went up to the church ladies in the office. Upon his return, he let us know that they were 'not at all happy about it, but now that they were moved, they supposed it was okay, as long as they were put back tonight'. We promised. (Church ladies, no matter what denomination, are the same throughout the country. Guardians of the 'sameness', the 'well we've always done it this way', the 'it just won't work' sentiments so long held in all churches. God better bless them, because I sure have a hard time doing it!)
The kids put on a very fun, jazz-filled evening of entertainment in the perfect light of '
volvo' candles and table lamps, transforming that Lutheran church basement, only for a moment, into a jazz infused, coffee aroma rich ballroom.
The parents had so much fun, that after we'd gotten all our kids back home and settled, we all met back downtown for a couple of more hours of fun and jocularity! Home around 1:00 a.m., tired and laughed out.
The next morning, we headed in two vehicles to two different cities with two different sets of teens and
pre-teens. I drove to the nearest city (6o miles away) with my daughter and her friend. I told them I'd take them to the mall and let them go into every store of their choice, then maybe catch a movie, and then stop for dinner on the way home. At the same time, my husband took son #2 to the other city nearby (80 miles away) along with two of his friends for a birthday outing. The original plan was to go to the same city (where son #1 was skiing all day with his friends already), with our own kids only, and spend a day together as a family, meeting up with our oldest son for dinner. As most often happens, the plans changed.
The girls and I arrived in the city around 11:30 a.m., and of course, they were hungry already. I was already pulling into the mall parking lot, so I suggested we just grab a quick bite in the food court. Don't those two words just make you all cringe - food court. It summons up all kinds of images you'd rather not experience; very large Midwesterners eating very large helpings of very fat-filled, mass produced crap falsely marketed as 'food'. I got sucked in to the Koala Express again by the guy out front serving morsels of unidentifiable shiny brown lumps on toothpicks from his tray. It's not like I had a choice whether or not to try it, he had thrust the thing at me coming within inches of my face, "you try? you try?" Okay, okay, I'll try it, just stop assaulting me with it! At this moment, I remembered I hadn't stopped for cash on the way up, so I took the girls over to the ATM, that magic machine that my kids think dispenses cash indefinitely, regardless of need. It was taking longer than usual to process my request and then horror . . .
funds not available. WHAT????!!!! I know our latest entire paycheck was deposited just four days prior, there IS money in that account. So, I try again. And again,
funds not available.
I'm in the middle of the mall with two young small-town girls who are excitedly looking forward to their day away from 'Dodge', a day on the town, and now mom has no money with which to even buy a little food court crap. I call husband to ask "what the heck?!", and he informs me that he has just paid for son #2's birthday longbow with the debit card.
AAAAAAAGGGHH! We have a security cash limit on our card, which is a good thing to do, but to remember to temporarily raise that limit for planned larger purchases is another good thing to do. But mystery solved, I knew there was money in there! I'll use my business debit card the rest of the day, easy solution. I go back to the ATM to get cash for the day out with my business card and . . . I can't remember the $^#@%#^ pin number for the blasted card. Okay, plan C, checks. I get my checkbook out and you know it, there's exactly ONE check remaining. I've got to save that in case I really get in a fix up here, so on to Plan D, use the business card the remainder of the day as a credit card and hope for the best. I have no idea how much is currently in that account, but I know it isn't much, I just bought 60 lbs of organic cream cheese late in the week, that stuff is like buying pure gold, there can't be much left in this account. So, we proceed the rest of the day with our fingers tightly crossed that my card will work at the food counters. Suffice it to say, we ate our share of the food court crap for lunch. I tried to be healthy and ordered the steamed veggies at the Koala Express, tasted like they were marinated in Pam. I'm beginning to remember why I hate malls.
Onward to the shopping part. The girls headed straight to '
Mallister'. For those of you who haven't experienced this store, imagine a dark, loud, middle-
schooler-cologne-infused beach bar with no alcohol and no soft drinks, only stacks and stacks of ridiculously expensive cheap clothing that you can just barely make out under the dim lighting. I ask the nearest clerk, "where is the clearance area?" Over the exceedingly loud rock music she
squints to see me in the darkness and says, "The Terrance Wear?". "No," I say, a bit louder, "the clearance area." "
Carrance area?" she asks, confused about what brand this so
un-hip mom is inquiring about. "WHERE IS YOUR CLEARANCE AREA?" I almost sarcastically scream at her (those of you who know me - you have a clear picture of this moment, I'm sure.) "Oh, the sale rack. It's over in that corner", she snips back at me and then she squats down to put more cheap shirts in their neat little piles and we're all treated to a full view of her lower back
tattoo and a large section of her rear end. Oh, I am
soooo not hip.
We take the corner only to find the 'sale rack' is full of very cheap, very sheer t-shirts 'on sale' for $20! -- $20! I look down at my growing daughter, she's growing at an alarmingly fast rate right now and I'll be damned if I'm going to fork over $20 for a t-shirt that we could get '4 to a pack' in the boys section at the Target a few miles down the road! The only difference is that it wouldn't have '
Mallister' printed all over it and my daughter wouldn't become a walking billboard for this horrid store. I tell the girls, just keep looking around for a while, I'll be over in that large comfy leather chair under that reading lamp they've provided for all those '
Mallister' shoppers who want to take a break and finish
War and Peace in the comfort of their store.
A few minutes later, I'm not sure exactly how many because against all odds I really did fall asleep in the middle of the store (remember, a late night before), the girls wake me up by saying "boo" behind my head and I jerk up with a small scream much to the amusement of the very cool teens shopping in that room. The girls, miraculously, have found a table with even more cheaply produced t-shirts on sale for 2/$20. I agree to let them buy a couple. They now spend the next 10-15 minutes searching the piles to find two that 'almost match but not quite match'. I'm thinking, I
could have slept another 10 minutes!
On to the next stores, only 30 or more to go. We stop in the bath/body products store, and my overly sensitive nose is immediately assaulted with green apple, cherry blossom, spring rain, and sensuous amber. Okay, somebody tell me, who decided our bodies and hair needed to smell like a fruit stand or today's weather. And by the way,
Rain does NOT smell anything like rain. Real rain smells like earth and wind and sunshine and sheets on the line. The store's
Rain smells more like a combination of the four previous scents on the shelf all mixed into one very annoying fragrance, they should rename it Acid Rain.
After the afternoon of walking into each and every store of interest to
pre-teen girls in the entire mall full of other
pre-teens, we headed out for a movie. Finally, a real nap! The closest cinema was just down the parking lot from the mall, next door to
Chucky Cheese. That
should have been a warning sign right there, but I must have been too tired from shopping to listen to my brain signals - DANGER, DANGER WILL ROBINSON! NEVER, NEVER, NEVER go to a movie theatre located in the vicinity of a
CHUCKY CHEESE. NEVER. But, the tickets were purchased, and we sat in the
scummiest theatre seats I've EVER encountered and endured
Step Up 2 for the next two hours. I've got to say though, the dancing in that movie is GREAT! (well, the parts I caught between cat naps anyway!)
Now for dinner. My brain must have been totally fried at this point because I agreed to taking them to the nearest semi-fast seafood joint, you know, the red one. Yup, I did it. But hey, I know the cheese/herb biscuits are good and it's a bottomless basket of them! Only after we were seated and had our drinks ordered did my daughters very shy polite little friend inform me she doesn't like seafood. Of course. So we start searching the menu for a chicken choice, she chooses the Cajun chicken and I tell her it will be on the spicy side, she tells me that's fine, she likes spicy. My daughter, of course, orders the crab legs and lobster bisque soup. I get a small salad, knowing full well there will be enough food left on the table to feed a family of four and strong coffee to get me home. But the waitress, a
wafer-thin teen herself, just looks at me and is thinking, "great, a cheap customer with a small bill therefore not much of a tip here." She isn't a mom of young children yet, and therefore cannot understand this strange order.
Sure enough, the friend doesn't like how spicy her chicken tastes and eats only the applesauce and biscuits. My daughter wants only the crab legs and biscuits. This means that now between their two plates there is leftover; a
cajun spiced half chicken breast, a serving of steamed broccoli, brown rice, potato planks, and a garden salad. We get a box to go and tomorrow's lunch is planned.
A day of shopping, done. Another star in my tiara. I'm now wishing '
Mallister' did serve alcohol and I'm glad we live in a very small little town, with no shopping mall and plenty of slow food in our own homes.
Maple Syrup! YUMMMMMM! YUMMMMM!!!
