TO-DAY KELLY MADE ME GO SHOPPING:((

Another cloudy, cold, morning so there was only one thing to do. Go shopping!! Yep, you heard me right.......go shopping:(( Kelly expressed an interest in driving over to Sierra Vista because she had some things to return to Marshalls. Seems to me women are always returning things. I figure why buy something in the first place if your just going to take it back again anyway. Seems like such a waste of time or something. Once I buy something I consider it mine forever whether it works or not. I don't even have to like it to keep it.


I needed a few camera things plus we have been interested in those hand held GPS systems for a long time now so thought we would have us another look at them in Sierra Vista. For those 2 reasons I decided to skip my photo group to-day & allow myself to be dragged over the northern end of the Mule mountains & down the other side into the shopping malls & stores of Sierra Vista. Kelly knew I would require a pacifier while waiting at some stores so she threw my Roswell book in the car.....and it worked.

I didn't figure Marshall's was a guys store & before I got 6 feet in the door my nose told me I was right. I detected the telltale scent of new clothes. Racks & racks of clothes on hangers, bedsheets, slippers, perfumes, & frilly things. The colors were a dead giveaway too. Lots of pinks & whites. Where were the motor oils, the electronics department, the paints, chainsaws, & hammers. You know, the good stuff. Short answer......there was no good stuff in that girly store so I wriggled free from it's commercial grasp & hustled myself out of there & back to the car. Reclined the seat, put some quiet music on the CD player, braced myself for a long wait & immersed myself in the ways of the CIA, FBI, Army intelligence, scientific research, particle beam weapons, laser lights, & flying saucers. All was right with my world again.

Our next stop was Best Buy in the Sierra Vista mall. Well, that was a big disappointment because they didn't even stock hand held GPS units. Yes, we can order that stuff on line but I wanted to actually lay eyeballs on some of the darned things. We've read about different models on the internet & Laurie showed us her Garmin GPS 60 at the BBC the day before but I just wanted to compare units. Well, like I said, they don't even stock them. Lots of other neat-o electronic toys but I just wasn't in the mood for it to-day. Staff said there were a couple sports stores in the mall that might have hand held GPS units so off we went but to no avail. Aside from white socks with chartreuse racing stripes & 5,000 pairs of varying super hero running shoes they didn't have what we were looking for either. Kelly spotted some more girly stores so I headed for the food court. Now, there's a manly thought:)) Luckily they had a Subway & I got my old standard Tuna sub. Been eating those things since Columbus came across on the boat. They sure taste good but boy they sure do make ya smell bad!!

There were more people in the food court than were in the entire mall but I still found a seat ok. Not a good idea for me to eat a tuna sub standing up because it can get pretty sloppy & generally really make a mess on my shoes. And I didn't need to draw any more attention to myself with tuna dribbled down the front of me either. I sat quietly at the table watching all the people walking by & totally felt like a fish (tuna) out of water. It occurred to me that I could not even remember the last time I had ever been in an enclosed shopping mall like this & everything seemed so weird to me. It was if I had time warped myself back into my mall crawling days in the late 80's. The people looked the same, the stores hadn't changed much, the tunes on the mall speakers seemed familiar, & all the vendors in the food court were the same too. A&W, Subway, Chinese Wok, Wendy's, etc. Nothing had changed..........except me. I sat there mushing away on my Tuna sub feeling like an invisible alien under impossible scrutiny. Had on my 12 year old blown out Rockport shoes with a big lumberjack shirt, & by now, tuna stained pants. My bulky camera accessory stuffed photo vest probably made me look like the Michelin man going backwards on a windy day & I'm sure my Bayfield Bunch hat had a wad of dog fur stuck to one side of it. Yep, it was time for me to exit the mall alright!! Had me another chuckle when we reached the car. It was the only one in a sea of spic n span, fancy schmancy, shiny, metal monsters that was splashed from tire to roof with good old Arizona desert mud. Awwwww, I like when that happens:)))))

Our next stop was the camera store where the wily old duffer behind the counter charged me too much for a half a camera blower brush....& I let him. From there it was another sports store where Kelly tried to wheel & deal on a set of new hand weights by trading in her old ones. I don't like when she does that wheeling & dealing stuff because I get embarrassed so I hid out in the car. Five minutes later she returned carrying her old weights. She got out wheeled & dealed I guess. Sometimes it's just not best to ask!! Another sports star followed & this one looked promising for having some GPS equipment. Another dead end!! From there it was across the road to a Target store. I knew I was in trouble as soon as I walked in the door. It had that cosmetics smell to it & my eyes were assaulted with pinks & burgundies. Yikes, Christmas is hardly dead yet & this store was setting up for Valentine's day already!! Amazingly enough they did have some GPS stuff but it was all for vehicle dashes. Kelly went to look at some pink stuff & I hastily beat a retreat out the door & back to the car. She found her way back about 20 minutes later with a bottle of mouth wash in hand. She would have done well to pour some of that stuff in my ear to cleanse my brainwaves of foul shopping thoughts!!

Across the parking lot was the big grocery store called Frys. I have been mauled in that very same Fry's store twice before & there was no way I was going in there to be trampled upon again. This is the busiest store I have ever been in & I have learned my lesson well. It's a free for all in there, dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, & just plain knock em down & stomp em out!! Kelly grabbed a shopping cart & headed into action while I strolled next door to a Staples store. It was a Staples store in London Ontario that I bought my very first digital camera years ago. It was a cheap little 1 megapixel Hewlett-Packard & it was the camera that single handedly launched me back into the world of photography after a total abstinence from photography of about 10 years. But, that's another story. I knew Staples carried electronic stuff so figured they might have some hand held GPS devices. But, no go. They had the usual selection of GPS equipment for vehicles & that was it. Needed a new pen so figured this was a logical place to find a good one so after much deliberation I selected a package with 2 pens of the style I prefer. Returned to the car & within minutes Kelly was back with half a cart of groceries. Five minutes after that we were thankfully back out into the tranquility of the desert & 40 minutes later we were back at the ranch.

Brought the groceries in, swore under my breath at the cheaply made camera blower brush, & opened my package of 2 pens which turned out to be a package of................... 2 pencils!!!! *!!@#)&^##

GROANER'S CORNER:(( Did you know a crocodile cannot stick out its tongue. Ya, I thought you did.

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