Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts
By Alyce Wilson
November 4, 2003 - Getting Wiggy with It
On Saturday, we slept in until about 10 a.m., had some breakfast and then headed into State College to do some shopping.
We went first to Lowe's so my sister could get a grow light for her shelf full of plants, brought in off the balcony for the winter.
It took us awhile to find what we needed, because they'd moved things around.
We stopped then at the Mad Hatt'r, where her boyfriend had a custom ordered hat to pick up. While I was there, I got myself a nice, fuzzy winter hat, with some matching black gloves.
Then we hit Arboria, a used and new music store, where I got "The Velvet Touch of Los Straitjackets." I'd been wanting to get an album by Los Straitjackets, and my sister's boyfriend had this one and recommended it.
After that we stopped in Tinderbox Gifts and chatted with one of the clerks, whom my sister knows. We showed off our new hats. He said my fuzzy hat makes you want to touch it.
"Yes, it's a 'touch me' hat," I said. "It's more effective than wearing a sign that says "Touch me."
"And you're less likely to get thrown out of bars," he agreed.
Goodwill had almost nothing left, since they're moving elsewhere. Everything was 70 percent reduced, but there was a reason for that. There was no doubt that these were the dregs of their clothing selection.
After that, we stopped in the Rag and Bone, which is a vintage clothing store. There, I found a blue knee-length skirt with embroidered flowers and butterflies, as well as a black and white polyester shirt from the '70s that looks a bit punk.
We got some sushi at McLanahan's, the local general store, and sat on a bench to eat it. Then it was back to my sister's place to chill out before meeting some friends of hers for dinner. We were meeting the girlfriend of one of my sister's former roommates, along with another friend who was in town for the weekend.
The football game had just ended, and the traffic was so crazy we had to find sneaky ways of avoiding it on the way to pick up our dinner companions. We went to Chi-Chi's. It used to be, when Chi-Chi's was one of the only chain restaurants in town, that it was always crowded. Lately, it's been easy to get seated. Maybe it's because they changed their menu.
Everybody but my sister's boyfriend ordered and then walked to the nearby Snappy's to use the pay phone. We were calling over to Africa, where my sister's former roommate is on a Fulbright scholarship. It was his birthday, and his girlfriend wanted us all to say hi. She'd bought a phone card, but with the international rates, we only had eight minutes to share between us.
There was plenty of time to say hi and wish him well. I urged him to take lots of photos and to write about his experiences. He said they're making a documentary and also intended to put some digital pictures online. I'll include a link as soon as I find out where they'll be.
We returned to our table and ate our dinners. After my sister and I had finished our pitcher of margaritas, the waiter tried to sell us another one. My sister said no, but he kept coming back and trying again, which got a little tired, even though he was trying to do it in a funny way. My sister's boyfriend said maybe he was just trying to get her drunk.
Now, we'd heard about a couple of parties that weekend and had thought about hitting some parties in different costumes. I'd brought along some cat masks for such an occasion. But my sister was tired, so we decided to stay home and rent some movies.
But first, we were trying on wigs on ourselves and on the dogs, taking more silly pictures.
We decided to go to the video store with our cat masks on. Hardly anyone paid any attention in the store, strangely enough.
We rented "28 Days Later," which was like a zombie movie on speed but wasn't as scary as we'd heard it would be. "Scary Movie 2," our second selection, was just disgusting. It wasn't funny, and there was a lot of locker room humor. It just wasn't our deal. I drifted off near the end and didn't feel as if I missed anything.
More Halloween weekend shenanigans:
Moral:
A wig can be far funnier than a movie full of sight gags.
Copyright
2003 by Alyce Wilson
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