Monday Mall Moments

While her sister and I are sitting home in the frigid northeast and watching the temperatures dip into the negative numbers, Amanda is enjoying the above which she sent via text picture. Gee, I don't see a single speck of snow in that picture, do you? She flew out of Philadelphia very early this morning with Darci's family and landed in Puerto Rico sometime before noon. Lord knows if she's out walking the sandy beaches now or what but I can tell you that the view here in Connecticut is much, much different!

After a very dismal weekend, the sun came out this morning but didn't really get the chance to warm things up too much and we had temperature readings in the teens on the thermometer - though the windchill factor was much, much lower. Nothing really melted at all but the roads were finally starting to clear and driving wasn't anywhere near the ordeal that it has been since Friday.

Good thing, too, as I had decided that one of Jamie's Christmas presents was going to be a trip to get her eyes examined so that she could then pick out a couple pair of glasses from ZenniOptical.com (a great online site for really cheap but good glasses! This isn't a paid post, I honestly got Amanda's last two pair of glasses from there and paid less than $40 for both pair!).

Jamie hadn't had her eyes checked since 7th grade due to the fact that her Dad has no insurance for her and couldn't afford to take her to an eye doctor. I figured she was way past due for a new pair of specs so scheduled an appointment at Cohen's at the local mall as I had found a coupon for half-off of the exam - woohoo!

I had obviously forgotten that there would probably be a ton of people at the mall what with it being just days before Christmas and the weather keeping most sensible people home over the weekend but in spite of the traffic and crowds, we managed to get a decent parking space and got to Jamie's appointment with plenty of time to spare. It didn't take long for the exam to reveal that her vision had changed as suspected and soon we walked out with the new prescription in hand.

As anyone who reads my blog regularly knows, I am not a great fan of shopping and/or the mall but teenage girls love 'em so Jamie was quite happy to find herself in one with hordes of holiday shoppers. I acquiesced to looking through a few of the stores after her eye exam even though I really just wanted to cut and run from the place! Still, there was at least one present I wanted to see about getting so we popped into the Hot Topic store, a place that both girls love and that gives my cousin Amy a headache!

I was looking for a pair of socks to go with the other part of the Christmas gift I had gotten for Amanda's friend Cate and what better place to look than at Hot Topic - store of multicolored socks galore! As I tried to decide on which pair I wanted to get for Cate, Jamie proclaimed that she really needed a pair of striped socks herself and chose the third pair over from the left at the top of the picture. Amanda already owns the fifth pair over and she didn't want to have the same socks as her sister. They are cool socks but the cost for a pair of socks has gotten to be ridiculous! After you hand over the arm and leg that they cost, you're really only going to need one sock and not a pair if you're going to be the one wearing them!

After a few quick pictures ...

... ah come on, kiddo, smile a bit! ... we left the mall and the traffic behind and made a few other quick stops before arriving back home to throw some ice melting stuff on the front steps and pick out a couple pair of glasses on the computer. Hopefully they'll arrive before Jamie heads back to Florida on the 5th.

What I'd like to do now is take a nap but alas, I guess I need to wrap what few Christmas presents I have as I don't think that Santa's elves are going to sneak in and do them for me. Darn! Ah well ... where did I put those bows??

Reflections From a Mall Parking Lot

Teenagers & the mall ... they go together rather like macaroni & cheese, hot dogs & hamburgers, spaghetti & meatballs, peanut butter & jelly, steak & potatoes, hot chocolate & mini-marshmallows ... you get the idea, right? Some things are just meant to be together in life - especially on a Saturday evening when school is out, summer has begun, and you and your friends want to go somewhere. Least ways that's what my teenage sources tell me!

To that end, I'm sitting in my car in the parking lot of the Crystal Mall in Waterford, which is the closest mall to our house, while Amanda, Darci, and Cate explore the wonders of Hot Topic, FYE, Borders Express, Spencer's, Claire's and who knows what other stores. While they're inside ooh'ing and aah'ing over whatever it is that teenagers ooh and aah over these days, I'm waiting for them in the car with my laptop, digital camera, and mostly-unread Stephen King book - fully prepared to wile away whatever amount of time it takes for them to decide they've shopped till they've dropped. By my estimation that shouldn't take too long as the Crystal Mall is somewhat pathetic by mall standards and none of them, except for Darci, have more than $20 to their name.

Way back in the day when I was a teenager, we didn't have malls to hang out in (yes, we did have electricity and running water, thank you very much!) but if we did have malls, $20 would have gone a lot farther than it does now. As a teenager if I ever happened to be in possession of an Andrew Jackson I was quite thrilled but alas, these days whenever I give Amanda a $20 bill invariably what I hear sounds something like "Is that it? I can't buy anything with just $20!" Sadly, she's almost right and with the way the economy is going, I suspect it's going to be worth even less before too long. Heck, as soon as you break a hundred dollar bill now it seems to disappear like a quarter from a magician's hand so $20 today is probably the equivalent of $5 back in the mid-1970's when I was a teenager. I'd check online to see what the difference is but there's no WiFi signal where I'm parked and I'm too cheap to go across the street to the Borders and sit in the Seattle's Best coffee shop and pay for one to find out. Though now that I think about it, a nice iced coffee beverage would really be nice ...

In an effort to resist temptation, though, I think I'll kick back and read some of Duma Key or maybe even take a bit of a nap while I'm waiting for my cell phone to ring to tell me that the girls are done shopping and "now can we please go get something to eat because we're hungry!" Teenagers & hunger ... they go together much like teenagers & the mall!

Note - This post was written using Windows Live Writer - if you aren't familiar with this great desktop application that makes it easy to write your posts off-line and then publish them later I suggest you check it out by clicking here! I first read about this over at The Life of a Father of Five and it's a pretty nifty little tool!

Retail Therapy 101 & 102

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I think I may have mentioned this in the past but allow me to reiterate it one more time just so we are all clear on this particular subject - I totally despise shopping malls. I do not enjoy going to a place that is a veritable mass of merchants out to relieve me of my money with wares that I neither need or want. However my darling daughter, being the teenager that she is, thinks that the mall is the mecca of society - a place to go and spend lots of time in even though there are only about three or four stores that she will set foot in. And that includes a mall that has over 170 shops! A mall that has three very high stories, carpeted floors, and over 170 shops! A mall that took us over an hour in the rain and wind to drive to with a parking garage almost bigger than the State it's in and over 170 shops! A mall that will make you feel somewhat dizzy if you stand too close to the rail on the third floor and take a picture looking straight down at the kiosks below and has over 170 shops!


So after all that, you might ask how the Retail Therapy to Get Over Not Being Able to Go to the Canceled My Chemical Romance Concert went and I would have to say that it went okay for the most part but it took a trip to more than just one mall to affect a total cure. After all, missing a concert that you had your heart set on for almost a month requires some heavy-duty shopping - at least that seems to be the case for Amanda!

We got to the Providence Place Mall around 3:30 in the afternoon and, after finding our way through the labyrinth of a parking garage, we made our way through the Macy's entrance to access the mall. Both Amanda and Cate cringed while having to walk through a store that sold "prep" clothes and appealed only to the masses who were merely brainwashed conformists but they survived the short walk through what I thought were a lot of cute looking clothes. Sadly, my daughter has no interest in 'cute looking clothes' and was chomping at the bit to get to Hot Topic where they sell things goth and Emo and non-conformist. It's a store that not too many adults frequent but boy-oh-boy do kids like Amanda and Cate just love it!

The one at the Providence Place Mall was surprisingly small for such a large mall and it was pretty well packed with kids who looked like they were more than ready for Halloween. After looking through their displays and not seeing anything that jumped out and screamed "Buy me! Buy me!" we went next door to a very large Newberry Comics store. There were more than several things in that particular store that screamed "Buy me! Buy me!" and Amanda walked out with two hard-to-find Mindless Self Indulgence CDs and a pair skeleton gloves. Don't ask!

Gloves, suspenders, and two CDs

From there we went to Dave & Buster's for a late lunch so that the girls could play some arcade games while we adults sat and relaxed for a bit and talked about the stress and frustration that Amy is experiencing with her whole house-buying experience. In talking to her I am reminded why I will probably never be, or even attempt to be. a homeowner. The whole process of buying a home does not sound in the least bit like fun!

After lunch we stopped in at Claire's where Amanda got a pair of green-heart decorated suspenders and then the girls popped into Spencer's where nothing appealed to them. At that point we had hit pretty much the only stores in the mall that the girls had any desire to go to and we decided to get the heck out of Dodge as it was pretty crowded and there really wasn't anything else to do as far as we could tell. It seemed to take longer to get out of the garage then it did to walk the mall but we eventually made our way out onto the turnpike and headed back towards Connecticut in a rainstorm that provided absolutely no visibility.

Amanda wasn't feeling particularly thrilled with the whole shopping experience as she had expected more from a mall the size of the one we had just left so I suggested that perhaps we could stop in at the mall closest to home and maybe the Hot Topic there would have something that she liked. At the one in Providence they had jackets that can best be referred to as the type that were worn by the members of My Chemical Romance on their Black Parade tour but they only had smaller sizes and Amanda was disappointed that they didn't have one in her size.

Thankfully it had stopped raining by the time we got back into Connecticut and I was actually able to see the road in front of me! When we got to the Crystal Mall the girls happily piled out of the car and into Hot Topic where Amanda was able to find the jacket she liked in her size. I told her that if I got her the jacket that was it - Retail Therapy would be complete at that point - and she was happy with that.

She really is happy despite the serious look!

After walking through a Halloween shop and trying on silly glasses for awhile we finally headed home with a very large moon hanging above and illuminating the way. I still don't have anything for a Halloween costume for myself but I guess we're going to try to hit a few thrift shops today and see what I can find there. Truth be told I've had enough shopping for the entirety of the year but as long as we don't go to any more malls I should be able to handle it. Hopefully! Besides, it beats working a 16-hour shift on what may be the first day of sunshine we've had in over a week!

The Back-Up Plan

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We should have been almost to Maine by now but due to the sudden cancellation of tonight's My Chemical Romance concert at the University of Maine we have had to make other plans. Amanda is still quite bummed about the whole thing but these things happen and one just has to swallow the disappointment and find something else to do.

After discussing it with Amy, we are going to take the girls over to the Providence Place Mall in - where else? - Providence, Rhode Island. I've never been there but it's supposed to be quite the place with more than 170 stores, eight restaurants, and entertainment venues including an IMax Theatre and a Dave & Buster's which is sort of the adult version of Chuck E. Cheese (blech!) with much better food and arcade games.

What impresses me the most, and sounds the best to my back in this rainy weather, is that they have carpeted floors! Can you imagine? Carpeted floors in a huge shopping mall that also has the essential stores that two teenage girls require - Hot Topic, Spencer's, and Newberry Comics. I need to put together a Halloween costume for work so perhaps I'll be able to find something I like while we're there - with over 170 stores I should be able to find something!

As a rule, I hate malls but there isn't too much else one can do in rainy, windy weather and perhaps this shopping excursion will help dissipate some of the disappointment of not going to Maine. As long as there isn't some sort of clown convention going on, it should be fine!

I'll keep you posted!

Tickled Pink at the Mall

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Amanda talked me into taking her to the Buckland Hills Mall today so that she could meet one of her on-line friends that lives in Hartford. I should probably point out that this particular mall is a good 45 miles away from our house but we didn't really have anything else on the agenda for today so why not? Plus, she's spoiled though she fails to think so!

Once we got to the mall we had to hang around for a little bit until her friend showed up at their designated meeting place - Hot Topic, of course - so I spent some time watching people walk by when suddenly I spied the cutest little old couple since our own Sarge Charlie and Empress Bee.


As I spied them, they were walking hand in hand along the concourse and what struck me most other than the fact that they looked so happy together was the way that the woman was dressed. She had on a lovely dress along with a pair of hot pink sandals with 6 inch heels, a matching handbag, and a hot pink hat complete with scarf and funky flower. She looked like she was dressed in her Sunday best and ready for an Easter parade or luncheon with her friends. I thought she was just adorable all decked out like that as well as impressed that she was walking so well in those shoes!

I decided to follow them because of course I was thinking "wow, I need to write about this in my blog!" and as just a mere written description wasn't going to do it, I would need to try to take a picture or two with my cell phone. Amanda decided at that point that I was completely and totally crazy as I was "stalking" an old couple and surreptitiously taking pictures!

At one point, "Miss Pink" stopped at Urban Outfitters of all places and started looking through the clearance bins, God bless her little pink-bedecked heart! I apologize for the quality of this picture as it certainly doesn't do her justice (you can't see the lipstick that matched her hat, shoes, and purse)) but it was as close as Amanda was going to allow me to get and my camera phone isn't the best in the world. Still, I think you can at least get a general idea of how cute she looked!

Shortly after that Amanda's friend showed up and after walking around a bit with the two of them and her mother I decided to cut out for the local Borders where I could sit myself down in their WiFi Cafe, get a nice cold beverage, and do a blog entry! Because after all, life is one big blog post these days!

Just don't tell my friend Miz Cyn that I went to a pretentious WiFi cafe again! She'll disown me!