Good Morning!

Wow. This income tax refund stuff is terrific.

I absolutely went shopping yesterday. I damn near killed myself, but I got everything I needed...all of which is fairly boring stuff, unfortunately, but absolutely necessary. I started off at Kmart and bought a new wallet. because mine is in pieces, six pair of pantyhose, 10 pair of socks, six pair of underpants, and a nice new summer schmatta for warm day deli runs. I suppose I should explain that last one. First of all, for all you WASPS out there, schmatta is Yiddish for rag. Actually, you hear it fairly often in New York - "I love your dress!" "Oh, this old schmatta?" The word has basically joined the English language - in New York, anyway. And as to why I needed this thing (which is a blue sort of duster thingy that - I hope - doesn't scream "nightgown"), it's because when I get up on weekend mornings I don't necessarily feel like getting dressed immediately. I want to sit and read my papers and drink diet soda. However, in order to read the papers, one must get the papers. This is not a problem in cold weather because I just throw my coat on over my nice flannel nightgown (God, I'm a sexy beast), but since I sleep in old t-shirts in the summer, something else must be done. Ergo, one needs a reasonably polite schmatta. Although we do have one gent who lives around the corner and regularly comes into the deli for coffee in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers. And I suspect that some of the gals turning up in t-shirts and pajama bottoms are, in fact, wearing their pajamas. I do love a nice family-type corner deli where you can do that.

Then from Kmart I went over to Filene's at Union Square (thanks for the tip, Sarah) and bought myself five whole bras! (Well, of course, whole bras. What the hell can you do with a half bra, except maybe lend it to a male friend who needs a lacy jockstrap for some reason.) I found this deeply exciting - even more so because the prices were great.

And then I finished up in a blaze of glory by hitting Trader Joe's and getting some neat things to eat, like their wonderful frozen crab cakes and some beef taquitos. I also bought some chicken breakfast sausage, because Sarah made these little taco cup things for my birthday and used their jalapeno chicken sausage, and it tasted wonderful. Unfortunately, chicken breakfast sausage is just vile. Luckily it was on sale for 2.99 so I can dump the rest of it without feeling madly guilty, and buy some decent pork sausage when I go over to do the actual mundane grocery shopping at Associated later. (Cat food, plain old ordinary sandwich bread, sliced ham, toilet paper - they have organic toilet paper at Trader Joe's. Organic toilet paper tends to be extremely crunchy. Crunchy is a quality I want in fried chicken - not in toilet paper.)

And I was supposed to go out tonight, but now it's been cancelled, which I think is wonderful because now I can take a nap, then go and grocery shop and go to bed early. I might even do some laundry...how I stand this mad social whirl is beyond me.

Now I just have to figure out how to hide the new socks and underwear from Sarah. I suppose I could get really enterprising and go clean her room and find and wash all of the socks and underwear that I know perfectly well are scattered around in there, but that sounds like too much work...WAY too much work. Hey, it's Sunday.

Love, Wendy