Happy Birthday, Sweetie

Today is Tam’s birthday and we spent it just messing around. Funds being what they are, we didn’t do much in the way of celebrating, but we did do some shopping.

Our first stop was a not-so-local mall where we were bombarded with too damn much noise and waaaaay too much perfume. We had a quest, but it was beginning to look like we would need to reconsider. However, we pressed on, and enjoyed a few distractions as well.

The object of this particular quest was a stone (“the treasure is a rock!”). But not just any stone, it had to be a double-sided whet stone. In a box. Because my love has knives and they need to be sharpened, I guess.

After that, we sauntered back the way we came in and stopped at a See’s Candy store. I headed to the bathroom while Tam went to check out the chocolates. The woman behind the counter gave her a dirty look, and then offered everyone else in the store a free sample, pointedly ignoring my girlfriend.

Oh, yes she did!

Tam tracked me down in the ladies room and told me of the transgression and I said, “Nu-uh! We’re going back there.” We were both ignored, so as we were leaving I said, “We don’t get greeted, we don’t buy candy… especially from that BITCH.”

Oh, yes I did! (and I felt much better, too.)

We went to a local organic grocery store for lunch and after that, we hit the nearest Goodwill. We were on another quest, this time for whatever we could find that we couldn’t live without. Turns out, they had several items that just had to come home with us: a new coat for Tam, curtains for the living room, a popcorn kettle, some fabric, a book, and a new sweater.

We were on the way home when I managed to take a different exit from the freeway and we found ourselves near a book store that I’ve only been to once, but never forgot it. While it’s nowhere as big as Powell’s, it is not a shirker in the amount of books and places to store them. The place is a maze of tall book shelves and narrow passages. Tacoma Book Center is a hard to find treasure and definitely worth the effort.

After that, we headed to her mom’s place where she visited with family and my youngest showed up so I got to see him. He’s in a bit of a state right now, but things will be fine. He’ll probably be coming over for made-from-scratch banana cream pie tomorrow.

That’s the other thing that has been going on over here. While I’ve been busy writing and working on my NaNoWriMo project, she’s been in the kitchen, baking, cooking, and doing her best to keep busy and make me gain more weight. Cookies, baked macaroni and cheese, pie… This better be a best seller, or we’re going to go broke just buying ingredients.

But I’m not complaining.

Happy birthday, my love. Here’s hoping we win the lottery and can take early retirement to enjoy ourselves for a long time to come.

I love you.

K-