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birthday trouser shopping spree
Monday, February 16 2009
Forty-one, that's how old I turned today. Gretchen always treats me well on my birthday, and it usually starts with breakfast in bed. She made my French press of coffee and a bowl of raisin bran cereal (with soy milk, becoming too soggy before my first bite) and presented these to me along with a WiFi-equipped personal digital assistant (unfortunately, though, household WiFi happened to be on the fritz). Later for lunch she made me two delicious and completely authentic burritos (the first of which included a candle for me to blow out).
This evening Gretchen and I drove out to 9W for a birthday shopping spree, mostly because I haven't bought any new clothes since 2006 and my lifestyle tends to be murder on my trousers. I was trouser shopping. We started at Marshalls, the clothing discounter located in the appropriately-dreary King's Mall, the dreariest shopping center between Newburgh and Schenectady. But I found three trousers worthy of purchase, and I also spotted a woman with the most frightening spray-on tan I have ever seen in my life. It was so shocking I had to look away, and then look back. If I looked that way, I'd hide away in a cave, but she was acting as if she thought she was beautiful.
We continued on the Hudson Valley Mall, the area's "true" mall. I can always find good trousers in Old Navy and, though today was no exception, they didn't seem to be stocking any adult corduroys (and I've worn the ridges plum off mine!). I was able to find a pair of black khakis that look appropriate for just about any occasion (at least until I wear holes through their knees).
Gretchen wanted to walk the mall to see what it looked like these days, and so we did, exploring each of its three tentacles. The thing we took away from this experience is that products (in this case, clothes) look a lot more cheap these days than we remembered them from our last visit together to a mall. They're also more colorful, with a hint of fluorescence in just about every color (particularly the pinks, which are surprisingly popular). Perhaps the Chinese have got us beat when it comes to figuring out how to dispose of their radioactive waste.
Gretchen and I went to our new favorite diner, Rolling Rock, for my birthday dinner. Originally we'd planned to go to the Armadillo or some quasi-Mexican place, but the Armadillo was closed and Rolling Rock, being in the mall, seemed like convenient final destination for a trouser-oriented shopping spree. Our waiter at Rolling Rock (a white guy with close-cropped hair) had crazy eyes and a weirdly manic friendliness that I referred to as "coke fiend gangsta." Gretchen ordered a pasta dish and found it deliciously garlic-rich. As for my vegan garden burger and fries, it was exactly what I wanted. I also ordered and drank my way through three margaritas.
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