NEVER Again

I'm getting old. I finally have absolute and irrefutable evidence of this fact.

In a word or two: shopping malls.

Shopping malls are direct evidence that I'm old.

Bee and I went out to White Flint Mall in not-so-tony, ugly-stepchild North Bethesda yesterday afternoon.

First of all, and as a total aside, could there be a cruddier mall in the D.C. area? (Oh yeah, I forgot. The one in downtown Silver Spring is pretty depressing, but I think there's hope for that one, because there's a ton of development going on over there.) Of course, I'm not exactly a mall expert. My mall experiences in the metro area are limited to Fair Oaks Mall, Tyson's Corner, the Premium Outlets in Leesburg, and the National Mall. That last one doesn't count, though, 'cause the shopping is lousy and it's really about the monuments, isn't it? You can only own so many 3-for-$10 t-shirts and $5 cherry blossom snow globes.

But getting back to the point: how shopping malls are direct evidence that I'm aging.

It's three days after Christmas and it's 2:30 in the afternoon, so I'm thinking, "Going to the mall won't be a big deal. It'll be quiet and shopping won't be a madhouse."

WRONG!

All I wanted to do was go to Bath & Body Works for some Warm Vanilla Sugar soap, to Borders for a birthday card (for a friend whose birthday was December 11 and I totally missed it) and a new crossword puzzle book, to some pen store that Bee wanted to browse in, and then to grab a bite to eat at P.F. Chang's or the Cheesecake Factory.

Sounds pretty plain and simple, right?

By the end of the whole three hours, I was done in. I'd been jostled and sneered at. I'd been walked through, like I was invisible. I'd had cashiers who moved slower than molasses in subzero temperatures. I ate food that was subpar at best. (And that's a whole other aside: how bad the food really is at the Cheesecake Factory and yet we still persist in consuming it.) I could go on and on, but I won't.

Suffice it to say, I am not a mall girl. At all. No after Christmas sale is worth all that hassle for so little reward. (And even then, one of the cashiers in one of the stores we went to didn't give me proper discounts on the stuff I bought. Did I go back and demand my measly $4.25? I did not. It just wasn't worth it.) Give me the good old internets any day.

Maybe what I really need is this.


Photo copyright: Google Images

Low Key

Christmas was pretty low key this year. A convergence of circumstances were such that extravagant expenditures seemed like a bad use of monetary resources, so we kept it simple. And having done so, I think I'm inclined to lean that way going forward.

The best gifts I received this year: a $25 iTunes gift card, a Hickory Farms beef stick, and a rice cooker! What more could a girl ask for? Thankfully there were no diamonds. Oh, and dare I confess it? I also received this. Which, as it turns out, is a really good album. Laugh all you want, but I'm rather enjoying it.

I did not, however, get one of these. That's okay, though, because I'm thinking I want to wait until there are more gigs and a lower calling plan.

Someone I'm acquainted with through the larger world of blogging and forums recently wrote she received a good stock pot for Christmas. She followed that announcement by saying, "I'm mollified."

If a good stock pot has left her mollified, what does a 10-cup rice cooker and vegetable steamer leave me?


Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 12/07