Friday's Mini-Mall Fiesta

Despite getting slammed in the head with my ironing board on Saturday (causing only temporary concussive symptoms which soon passed), I'd say it was a pretty perfect weekend.

On Friday afternoon, Katie and I went shopping for craft supplies and make-up, which might just be two of my favorite things ever.

First, at the craft store, K. got magnets and a glue gun to make "rock magnets" (note: rocks were purchased at last weekend's gem show) for her bare refrigerator door. I got some mosaic grout & a plain wood frame to finally encourage myself to make a pebble picture frame using rocks I bought at last year's gem show.

Of interest, all of the craft store employees were middle-aged men, which struck me as strange. One of them also took quite a fancy to K. and me, and we had to endure his looming presence, questions, and long-lasting stares for the entire duration of our visit to the grout aisle...

It made me wonder if Michael's Crafts is in the business of hiring halfway house felons.

We then spun over to Ulta, which is southern Arizona's faux Sephora.

K. wanted to buy some Bare Escentuals make-up, and I am an avid user of the stuff so offered to go along and help her pick out what she needed.

After giving her a quick demo of the swirl, tap, and buff methodology, I left her on her own to make a decision and found myself obsessing over a new shampoo. Since my hair is so short, it takes me over a year to get through a standard-sized shampoo bottle, so I just wanted a little sample size. Unfortunately, there aren't many of those out there so in the end I compromised on something mid-sized and got this delicious smelling pumpkin shampoo...

I am a sucker for all of that dessert smelling stuff. Not in perfume... but I do love cake, sugar, and vanilla lotions! I, for one, do not mind giving off the aroma of a freshly baked cookie every now and then.

But moving on... we also stopped in PetSmart, which is located next to Ulta in one of Tucson's many delightful strip malls. We wanted to look at the puppies or kittens, but the only pets (aside from reptiles, fish, birds, and rodents, which can hardly be considered pets) were visitors to their "doggie daycare."

I'll go ahead and say that I'm more of a cat person than a dog person, although it doesn't really matter since I'm totally allergic to both, but if I had to choose, I'd get a cat any day of the week... mainly because you can be fairly irresponsible and still do OK with a cat because they generally don't care if you're around or not. It's the neediness of a dog that would kill me.

Anyway, we became completely intrigued with the canine characters featured that afternoon in "doggie daycare" and must have stood at the viewing window staring at them (and the poor uncomfortable teenage attendant who was clearly aware of our stares) for at least 20 minutes.

The first dog to catch my attention was this guy (actual photo)...

...who was humping every single dog he could get his paws around, and then humping the air when he couldn't get another dog underneath him. He was totally foul. And when he wasn't humping or air humping, he was lying on the ground with his legs splayed out totally porn-style. I called him "porn dog." Katie thought he looked a little like a canine sex offender. Neither of us liked his butt part in the hair on his head.

One of my favorite games is "which one would you pick?". I play this game all the time, whether I'm reading Us Weekly and picking which dress I would choose from the featured outfits on a page spread, or choosing a wig from the wig store window, or picking collector dolls at the Cracker Barrel gift shop. I can't stop myself. Not that I would ever actually buy any one of the items I like to pretend to pick out... it's just the challenge of picking the best of something.

So I queried Katie on "which one would you pick?," and she first eyed a Britney Spaniel but then decided its tail wasn't cut right, making it appear as though it had a ponytail, which bothered her. Then she chose a whippet until I noted that it was not only spastic but had a tail that looked like a rat's, and she had to agree...

They might be fast on a racetrack, but they are a bit rodent-like.

So in the end, she decided on a tan puppy that looked like some sort of bulldog mix. I had to give the little guy credit for being really cute and having the most energy in the room, but he was chewing on everything, and that struck me as mildly destructive.

Therefore, my pick was a mellow schnauzer that hung out 90% of the time under a table in the corner. He popped out now and again to look out a side window, but mostly he just calmly watched the action from his seat under the table in the company of a hideous little female toy poodle (with two balls of frizzy hair on her ass), who appeared comforted by his quiet confidence...

Poodles always remind me of Louis XIV. I guess it's the hair.

Katie attempted to deter me by mentioning that schnauzers have long whisker hair that is always wet after they drink water, but I suspended that reality while I watched my winsome little pooch sitting serenely in the corner.

Schnauzers win me over every time.

We finally pulled ourselves away from the viewing window and went home, and I spent the evening enjoying the 75 degree weather at an outdoor happy hour with AG, IDS, JV, and KS, before heading over to Gerry's around 8pm for a delicious homemade pizza dinner at his house.

More about the rest of the weekend in my next blog... including a photo montage from Ben's BBQ Saturday night, which featured hula-hooping astronomers, Black Russians, and Preparation H... intriguing, no?