Wednesday, December 19, 2007

When Time Stood Still...

Julie, missing in action...
Do you think anyone has ever died from shopping? After a restless night travelling between my house and Julie's, all the while dodging phone calls from Fritz, I finally settled in for a 4 hour period of sleep. Promptly at 7:40 AM after a Benedryl and 2 Tylenol PM's, I awakened to the ringing of the phone by none other than the lovely Jules. She announced that if she was going to be up, then I might as well be up too. We hung up, she was off to the showers and I was back to try to sleep, the key word being TRY! I contemplated trying to ignore the after shower call, but felt guilty and answered to find Julie out walking her dog in the early morning frost that 50 degrees allows. I think it was the screaming of the words, "GET UP" that finally did it. I found myself walking to the kitchen to turn on the coffee, thanking God that I had given up drinking. Going through the day with only 4 hours of sleep is bad enough, but doing it was a hangover is just awful.


Guess what? We were going shopping again! Joy to the world!!! Julie called a third time announcing that they were wrapping things up over there and she'd be over to pick me up in an hour or so. The Dynamic Duo trumpeted Julie's arrival as I greeted her by opening the garage door. The first piece of business was to re-exchange house keys, as that was the first thing we returned to each other when the big "fight" took place. I must admit that Julie returned my key with a lot more class than me. She enclosed hers in the pocket of a shirt I had admired at Banana Republic and sent it to me through the mail.


Since we were hungry, our next stop was to be a restaurant. We went to the Pavilions in Scottsdale and ate at Sweet Tomatoes, a chick joint. I watched a man get physically thrown out for ordering a burger. I had the "salad shooter" special and when it was time to pay, Julie asked for the seniors discount, never missing a chance to give me a dig about my advanced age. Hell, saved me a buck!


When we were leaving, with my little chocolate ice cream cone in tow, I excused myself to the restroom. Jules said she'd meet me outside by the door. If you've never tried to take care of business with a chocolate ice cream cone in one hand, you've really got to try it. Now that's a balancing act. After exiting the men's room, I headed out the same door we had come in and looked for Julie, but to no avail. She was gone. I figured she had wandered over to the cosmetics store that was about 2 doors down and I searched every isle. No Julie. I headed back to the car, hoping she was waiting for me there, but no luck again. Did she get sick and go to the ladies room? I was driving and she couldn't leave without me. She just disappeared into thin air. Was it possible that she was kidnapped? Jules has a tendency to get into trouble, all on her own. If you recall the dealybob experience of yesterday, that's a good example. A good 20 to 30 minutes had by and I really didn't know what else to do. I was about to drive around the corner and see if there was something there that could have attracted her, when she came walking out of the exit of the restaurant, asking me where I'd been. I told her I'd been right here waiting for her. Evidently, I came out the entrance and Julie was waiting inside the exit, a completely different door. Only the two of us could have screwed that up that badly!


Today productivity, after shopping my poor feet off, was a big bag of candy for me and a bottle of wannabe Benedryl. Julie bought wine!

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