Craziness and shopping... possibly the same thing

I haven't posted in a while because I've been feeling kind of blah again. Well, "blah" isn't really the best descriptive for it, something like "all over the houses" or however that expression Julie sometimes uses goes. I've been sad, then angry, then out-right depressed, then cranky and basically hard to live with. Change of weather? Missed a couple doses of happy pills? Cabin fever? Stress at work? Lack of days off? Poor diet? Probably a measure of all of them. Thankfully, there are four more days left in my 'busy season' at work at which time I feel the need for that gavel they have on Wall Street - I'd like the bang the hell out of some counter or desk and declare 2008 dunzo.

On the weekend, I got up early on my one day off (that being Saturday) and drove to West Edmonton Mall. You can clearly tell at this point that I am out of my freakin' mind. Going to the, what is it now, second largest mall in the world? Third? How many have the Oil Tycoons in India and/or Japan built now, I've lost track. Anyway, going there on a Saturday in December. The second last Saturday before Christmas. AND, I went to the busiest store in the whole freaking mall - Bath & Bodyworks. Holy hell, now this location is the only one in Alberta, mind you, so it's packed at 9 am on a Tuesday no matter what time of year, but on a Saturday at 10 am, it's absolutely sick. Three lines to the cashiers started at the front of the store. Like, the FRONT of the store where those blue bags are hung for poor saps to pick up and hurl random lotions and soaps in while they wistfully look around hoping there'll miraculously be one Cucumber Melon body wash left but seeing they're at the mid to back of the store realizing they need to suddenly draw up a plan with their friend/partner/husband/child like a high school football coach would in the fourth quarter of a state high school championship game.

I'm not making this up... I actually heard this...

"Okay, you stand in line, I'm going to try to reach the hand soaps."
"Alright, but I wouldn't go that way... maybe cut through line two, go down past those candles and then zip back through line one over by that woman over there."
"Hm... yeah, that seems like that'll work. Okay, I promise I'll be back by the time you reach the front of the line. If I'm not, just grab what you can as you pass it and we'll make do."

I end up grabbing some body wash (the cucumber melon shelf was bare, dammit...), one hand soap, a lotion my sister really likes (Julie and I picked her name for Christmas presents this year) and a little tube of a really nice hand 'treatment' for a friend of mine. I wanted to pick up some of the candles like the one Jen and Wendi bought me for Christmas last year but they didn't have any. I was very disappointed because I LOVED that candle. :(

After escaping Bath & Bodyworks, I stopped at HMV to pick up my sister's other present, the first season of Flight Of The Conchords or something... all I know is it was freakin' expensive because they had it packaged up with a cd as well. I looked wistfully at season five of Law & Order SVU which I want sooooooooooo bad but seeing how the cheapest I've seen it is $60, that just isn't going to happen for the next five or six months while I work on fully recovering from our two month financial crisis. Unfortunately, re-building a savings account for emergency funds and re-paying off my credit card is more important than my crush on Casey Novak and Olivia Benson... darn it.

Later that day, Julie and I went to London Drugs (hm... the Canadian equivalent to Sav-On in the States, I guess) and picked up my parents and sisters and the gay boys downstairs a little gift. We were initially not buying anyone but my sister a gift, not even each other, but to cheer me up, Julie suggested we buy for my family & the boys. She called it my gift from her, to which I'm thrilled with and very grateful. They've all helped us out quite a bit this year and it's nice to be able to give them a small token of thanks. Of course Julie's parents have helped us out too and it would be nice to send them a little something, but I have to ask Julie about that to see what she'd like to do. Now that it's already the middle of December, there's no chance anything will even get there before January, but it's still worth asking.

Anyway, this post is getting too rambly for my liking... sheesh. Last night, Julie and I went to see the movie, 'Valkyrie' on a free pass she picked up at a bookstore the other day. It's that movie about Hitler's Germany and an almost but obviously not quite successful attempt to kill Hitler and take over Berlin by some of Hitler's Generals, etc. It was better than I expected and it actually builds suspense to where you get to thinking they might actually pull it off until you suddenly bring yourself back to reality to remember that, no, obviously this doesn't work. I think it was well done, though I'm not sure why they feel Christmas Day is a good opening day for such a movie. On Thursday, we're going to see some Adam Sandler movie that's also opening on Christmas Day. Yay free movie passes! :)

Well, I should get off the computer and get ready to head to work. It's technically my day off but I've had to work at least half the day for probably two months now so that didn't really work out in the end. Oh well, last week! I'm dropping my car off at the dealership this morning as well - the engine light is on for no reason at all. When I called about it yesterday they told me it's happening a lot due to the cold weather - the cars have so many sensors nowadays and one of them probably got frost bite (that's my terminology, not the experts). This weekend we sat at -27 C for three days so I guess that'll do it!