Of EEEEEEEEEs and $$$$$s - Part II

Okay, so where was I? Oh yes, we went back to my apartment after exhausting ourselves with shopping.

I showed Roo around my swinging bachelorette pad (heh) and in fairly short order we received a call from the esteemed Rappy. So we did the EEEEEEEEEEEEEE thing with Rappy for a li'l bit, then sat back and chilled. I called Bonefish Grill to try and make a reservation for dinner, but their first available was 9:30 p.m., so suddenly we had to switch gears. Eventually we decided on Olive Garden.

By then it was almost 7, but we were still a little full from lunch so we decided to go down to Super Target before dinner. So ... VROOM! Off we went.

We bought various and sundry things at the ST: Diet Coke for Roo, Diet Sunkist and Diet Mountain Dew Code Red for me. A reversible pink/black belt for her, black yoga pants (for $10!) for me. I also inexplicably bought two travel sizes of toothpaste. Yeah, I don't know why either. Roo picked up a straw purse and a kicky little peach-colored flower hair clip. It's all about accessorizing, don't you know?

And then it was off to dinner. When we were almost there we got a call from our beloved Teem, so we did the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE thing with her a li'l bit, too. Once inside the restaurant we were seated up in a section that was kinda warm and humid. It was weird. We ordered sangria, and it was Good. So good that I asked our waitress if it would be possible to get a "pitcher minus two glasses" of it, because I knew I wanted more but I didn't want to pay for a whole pitcher AND the glasses. She was very cool and said she'd just tell the kitchen that the glasses were her mistake and we had asked for a pitcher all along.

We gave her a very good tip.

I ordered the Steak Gorgonzola Alfredo (Grilled beef medallions drizzled with balsamic glaze, over fettuccine and spinach tossed in a gorgonzola-alfredo sauce, topped with sun-dried tomatoes and it was FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC) and Roo got the Mediterranean Shrimp Scampi (I think). We got a li'l bit tipsy and Roo pointed out that one of the waiters at the next table sounded exactly like Kermit the Frog. And she was right - I closed my eyes to listen, and it was as if Kermit was right there with me. So then I had to try valiantly to stop myself from laughing out loud, and eventually resorted to burying my face in my hands to try to avoid a public guffaw.

We got home around 10:30, and then I had to clean Scuddy's cage. Roo let Scuddy crawl on her a little bit; she's such a trooper. Then we called Tiff back, praised Caygeon for coming out to visit, screwed around online a little bit, checked email, and then realized around midnight that we were both exhausted and needed to go to bed.

And thus ends my first day with Roo!

A new day dawned early, though. I woke up around 8 a.m. and checked on Scuddy, whom I had exiled to my closet (she's normally on the counter in the kitchen, but she runs on her wheel all night and I knew there was no way Roo would be able to get to sleep with that racket in the background). Well, for some reason Scuddy had rearranged her cage - she had pushed her food bowl and exercise wheel around, and shoved almost all of the pine shavings into her little house, packing it tightly. It was really weird. I guess she wasn't happy being someplace with absolutely no light.

So I brought her out to the kitchen to fix her cage. Roo was up already, too, but probably could have gone back to sleep if I had let her. But no! I had to feed the cats (Dawsey was cryyyyyyyying).

So we decided to face the day. Showers and food were had by all. We prettied ourselves up and were out the door at 11:40 a.m. (take that, Teefee!).

First stop was Stein Mart, because I wanted to look at jewelry. I couldn't find anything, but Roo struck gold with an ADORABLE white skirt with black embroidered flowers and a purse that was just the coolest thing ever - white with pink, fuchsia, and black flowers (and more colors, I think), a black/white striped lining, and pink translucent plastic handles. It was sooooooooooooooo cute.

We popped into Hallmark to buy a card, then went in search of lunch. I couldn't think of anything interesting, so we lamed out and went to Applebees.

Well. We were seated and told that our server, Brooke, would be by shortly. And then we realized that we had been seated across from a obnoxious drunk guy, a woman and a teenager. Eventually a fairly personable and funny and big and tall and bald waiter, NotBrooke, came by to take our drink/food order. He joked about how he was going to steal our table from Brooke, but Brooke eventually showed up. Which was too bad, because NotBrooke was so much cooler.

But back to the drunk guy. Roo and I were both trying to figure out what was happening at that table. She had a better view of the man, and I had a good view of the women. I think it was a mother/daughter, but they looked close enough in age that they might have been sisters. But I think it was more a case of a woman having her kid very young.

Beyond that, we couldn't really figure out the relationship between the three people. Was the drunk guy mom's new boyfriend, meeting the daughter for the first time? Was he the daughter's online boyfriend, meeting the mom for the first time? Was he a pimp? A drug dealer? A complete asshole? All of the above? It was obvious that, whatever was going on, the women didn't know the man very well.

He was loud, rude, and ordered two more bloody marys during the course of our lunch. I had ordered a half Oriental Salad (which, if you've never had it, you really must - it is incredibly good) and Roo got the Veggie Patch Pizza. We both ate very quickly, trying to get away from Obnoxious Drunk Guy.

Oh, there was also a dad and his four toddlers at the table beside us. The toddlers were much more well behaved than the drunk guy, go figure.

After lunch we hit Old Navy (no purchases), Peltz Shoe Store (no purchases), and Famous Footwear, where Roo finally found a cute pair of black strappy shoes to wear with her Easter outfit. My contribution to the shoe shopping was basically to bitch and bitch and bitch about the dearth of wide widths in anything resembling cute shoes. Yes, I am bitter.

Then we went over to my mom's house. We did the meet-n-greet with my mom and stepdad, then my nephew Alex came over and everyone (minus my stepdad) played a rip-roaring round of Aggravation. My mom kicked our butts. It was a lot of laughs, though. Then we played with the dog, Maggie, but pretty soon it was time to leave and go to Carmelitas for a dinner of high-quality Mexican food.

Only, no! No! Carmelitas kinda sucked! I don't know what happened with that place. It used to be really good, but now? Not so much. We ordered cheese dip to go with the tortilla chips, and I swear to god it was Cheez-Whiz. Or something equally as heinous. The entrees were merely average. Roo convinced me to try a margarita, since I had never had one, and now I can safely say, from experience, that I jus' don' like 'em.

So we got the hell out of Carmelitas and hit the road for Sun City Center. The drive went by quickly and suddenly we were at Roo's grandpa's house again. I got to meet RooGrandpa and RooGrandpa'sGirlfriend, and they were both just adorable. And RooGrandpa gave me bottled water for my drive home.

And then I had to leave, which was sad, because Roo is so much fun to be around. But we had big hugs and EEEEEEEEEs and vowed to get together in Atlanta soon. But we would never, ever do that without Teem there too. Never. EVER. Must have Teem.

*raises Teem*

Posted by Highwaygirl on April 12, 2004 02:15 PM to the category Friends