Retail Therapy

As many women know, shopping can be a wonderful way to relieve stress. We begin by perusing and picking out the things we like. Next, if it's clothing we're searching for, we try things on. Sometimes we whittle down our things by budget. Then, we buy. Lather, rinse, repeat. I think shopping is uniquely feminine - it's the gatherer in us. Now, I don't mean to say that men don't or can't like shopping, or that all women like shopping. Not at all. In fact, I was not always a big fan of shopping. I found it exhausting, and kind of a waste of time. Now, unless I know exactly what I want, or have something like 4 minutes to buy 5 things on a list, I do really enjoy the act of shopping.

I do believe it was Sarah who taught me the art of retail therapy. I don't quite know when it started, but I really enjoy shopping with Sarah. She's the person that will encourage me to try on something that might not look quite right on the rack, but might look absolutely fabulous on the body. She's the person who is not afraid to tell me that, yes, that pair of pants really does make my ass look fat (Rusty would just say that I look beautiful - it's supportive, but sometimes just plain dishonest ;-) And she's also the person that helped me go from a wardrobe that is 98% jeans and t-shirts and 2% ill-fitting miscellaneous special occasion clothing to something that's more along the lines of 75% jeans and t-shirts and 25% classic and cute. I will never give up my jeans and t-shirts.

Oftentimes we play the "How Much Would You Pay For This?" game. There are two reasons we play it - one would be to illustrate how insanely expensive an item is, the other would be to revel in how ridiculously cheap something is (and that, combined with how much we LOVE it, would mean that we have to have it). Here's an example from a recent trip to the home section of TJ Maxx:

"So, how much would you pay for this Italian hand-painted terracotta cake stand?" questions Sarah.

"How aobut $15?" I said. I'm thinking it's not all that pretty to begin with, so I wouldn't really be willing to pay much more than it's functional value.

"Higher."

"$30", Vicki says.

"Higher."

"$50?" By this time I'm thinking there's no way in hell I'd buy this ugly cake stand.

"Higher!"

I think it ended up being $90 or something like that. It will never sell. In case you couldn't tell, this was an example of the "insanely expensive" version of the game.

Anyway, this past weekend was full of wonderful retail therapy. On Saturday, Sarah and Vicki and I went shopping together all afternoon and capped it off with a great dinner at a local tapas restaurant. The entire day was fun, invigorating, therapeutic, "distracting", and it allowed me to be myself, without thinking too much about my cancer or what was going to happen to me in the coming months. I can't really ever forget about it (nor do I want to), but it's good to be thinking and talking about something else. I also got new clothes :-)

On Sunday, I went for another round of retail therapy with Jocelyn. Luckily, as long as one is careful about one's budget (and I am always careful about my budget), retail therapy can be performed often without negative side effects ;-) Jocelyn and I were able to get new Red Sox gear for the game we were going to the next day (today), and we bought her a cute dress that she will wear to a wedding this summer. I also bought a new shirt that says "Green is the new Black". Yay!

Anyway, thank you for letting me indulge in this story that has little to do with being sick, but more to do with having fun.

Also, an update - I do, indeed have a Red Sox bandanna. In fact, I have 2. On Saturday, Sarah and Alex gave me one (thank you!). It's one that was not intended for canines. Also, I got a really soft one made out of jersey material that Melissa sewed for me. I love them both and now I have one for me and one for my bear ;-) BTW, Melissa is my friend from college that is now in medical school, and I believe she is thinking of going into plastics. I wish she could be my surgeon because I have no doubt that she will have all the capabilities of the finest doctor (that should be a given), but most importantly she is has the attention to detail, appreciation for design & symmetry, and precision of Martha Stewart. That's exactly the kind of person I would want to fix my boobs. :-)

Anyway - thank you all for your help with the bandanna search. I thought I'd call off the APB before I got 10 more.