Month: August 2002

Saturday didn’t turn out as hectic as I thought it would. My parents, Elise and I went to the Sealy Outlet Mall around 11 o’clock. Talk about a ghost town. I think this outlet mall was opened five years ago. On a tax free Saturday, the parking lot was 5% full. We went to the Reebok outlet and the Bass outlet to try to find some shoes for El. Both stores were having 50% off, going out of business sales. All but probably ten stores had been completely shut down. I don’t know how many store fronts there once were, but if I had to guess, I’d say close to one hundred. Now they were all empty facade clones with no “For Lease” signs. I guess Katy Mills has run this place out of business. I’m thinking that within the next few years, the Sealy Outlet will be littered with vendors selling day old bread, dented car rims, bison jerky and camouflage statuettes of the Virgin Mary.

We couldn’t find any shoes that Elise liked. We drove 30 miles east to Katy Mills. We drove into the parking lot and immediately turned around and headed home. The crowds were worse than the day after Thanksgiving.

We got back to my parents house, ate some left over lasagna and then we all started making more food. Elise chopped up a big watermelon, Dad started making ice cream, I started making a pizza and Mom supervised the operation. I guess it goes without saying that we had steak pizza for dinner and homemade ice cream for dessert.

I setup a spam filter on my Mom’s computer late that evening while everyone else watched TV and talked. El and I stayed up and watched a Saturday Night Live rerun after my parents went to bed. Pink was the musical guest the night that the show originally aired. What do you get when you cross Hanson, Linda Perry and a tablespoon of white soul? Pink. I wonder what I’d be listening to if I were still in high school – where the music that you listened to was half of who you were.

Sunday was a lazy day. I laid in bed for 2.5 hours on Saturday night. I couldn’t fall asleep. I got up on Sunday to eat breakfast, read parts of the paper and take a nap on the couch. I got up and glued parts of the Trooper back onto their respective locations.

Elise and I left my parents house and headed back to Temple at 2 p.m. We got home around 4:30 and I installed the 8GB hard drive that my Mom gave me. Elise started cleaning her closet. We went to bed around midnight. Now it’s Monday. Mondays……

Elise and I arrived at my parents’ house around 10 p.m. last night. We ate lasagna and salad. We all sat and talked for a while. Dad went to bed around 11, Mom and El sat on the couch and talked for another hour while I goofed around on Mom’s 48k connection. El and I went to bed around 1 a.m.

This morning we got up around 8. We ate breakfast and I went outside and watched some of those really big hairy bees suck the sweet juice from the flowers in the garden. They’re those bees that are the size of you thumb – the ones with the deep yellow thorax (I think, I don’t remember my insect anatomy) and the solid black abdomen.

I petted Simba and found a locust resting on a morning glory leaf. I went inside to get El so I could show her the locust. We went back outside and I pointed out the bug to her – he attacked her. He flew off of his leaf and hit her in the stomach. I guess it was because she hadn’t yet brushed her teeth.

We’re about to leave to go to Katy Mills (gigantic touristy outlet mall). It’s a tax free weekend. The women have informed us that it is our job as consumers to go out and spend money.

El needs a new pair of shoes (sheeesh). I’m hoping to make out with a semi-automatic rubber band gun so I can blast through the rabid shopping masses and get my place in line at a kiosk to listen to the new Lil Romeo and Jerry Jeff Walker compilation CD. Or I might opt to sit in one of those massaging chair displays to contribute in the spreading of head lice, butt weavles and scabies.