My sister zipped into town for a quick visit. She was traveling with a friend and we had the afternoon together today and then she zips off again tomorrow for DC and work on Monday. She wanted to go to our premier swap meetish type place, Santee Alley. It's the wholesale district and it's got everything and it's a lot of fun. You see everything from crap, to knock-offs to the exact same stuff they sell on Melrose, just at an extreme discount. It's arranged into sections - there is a street that's just accesories, several streets of women's wear, etc. I've never been in the men's section.
Here's the catch: it is a swap meet. It is craptastic. You're going to be among the unwashed masses. The streets burst with folks, lots of Latinos and Mexican food. There are a thousand little street vendors with teeny carts, selling hot dogs, or pupusas or ice cream. There are almost no bathrooms to speak off, you park a couple of blocks away and just walk through this virtual outdoor mallish area.
I developed a defensive stance, with both arms held rigidly out, so that anyone bumping into me would catch a fist first before catching my belly, but really only one man careened into me the whole time. Considering how many people were out there, that's amazing. Pam was usually walking ahead of me, running interference. It was funny, she was very protective and nurturing with me - always checking if I was tired, not making me walk far, leaving me sitting at the food court while she ran up and down the street, etc.
I wonder if it was the Indian Tikka Masala (yum) that led to my little dizzy spell I experienced later. We were in a store, hadn't been out long at all, and I all of a sudden felt like I might faint. Having never fainted, it took me a bit to even understand what the bad feeling meant. But I caught on and went to sit outside on a step. As soon as I did, the cold outdoor air made me feel better almost immediately. I took off my jacket and scarf and surmised that I had probably overheated. I don't know if the semi-spicy Indian food got my insides warm because I didn't consciously feel hot. I'm the queen of cold. But either the food helped me get hot, or it was simply not good-for-me food and made me sick. So we walked around cautiously to just a few more stores before we left. Didn't really make a difference, the bag of her purchases was SO big
that it was hard to navigate and she was getting sick of the crowd anyhow, so I didn't feel too guilty about being fragile and ruining the shopping. Good booty was gotten by all - we really got some bargain stuff that was great. She bought me a really cute purse and I bought a pair of earrings.
We went back to my house and I showed her around and she saw the house's promise with all the crap still hanging out. Okay, not all the crap, we're down to only about 5% of stuff that should be put away, still out. It's hard finding a proper home for everything, especially clothes with the lack of closet space having moved from an apt with two wall to wall closets in two separate rooms, into a normal, older home with 3 small closets. All the bedroom closets combined here, don't equal one at the apartment. It's going to take a little creativity, but there's lots of other storage space, just not so much for clothes. I have the baby's closet full already and he's not even born! And that's with all my non-pregnant clothes bussed out of the house, into boxes in the garage. Just coats and jackets alone take up a lot. I've got some strategies in my head that involve Ikea...
Pam took pictures of me and Mark in the yard, and Mark took some pics of me and Pam. I look like a stork standing next to her. I'm surprised I never felt for it when she told me I was adopted as a kid. I guess I look like my parents even though I don't look much like her. I don't how we're going to get the pictures to my dad - he's only mildly internet friendly, but way better than my mother was. Mark's mom is a little hipper than both of my. My dad's a business man, so he can always have his admin at work do stuff for him, so he only has to halfway get it.
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