yesterday i was not at my best. my hair was pulled back and frizz-city, and i had bags under my eyes and my skin looked grey and old. my eyes were dull and i had a zit in the middle of my cheek. these were not good conditions with which to shop--you should always feel great about yourself when you shop (that's my belief anyway), but heather and i had previous plans to meet and buy our california clothes. i had an hour and a half to burn before she showed up at the mall, so i decided to take a look around at the different sports stores to see if they had the runners i want. well they didn't. i was also looking for these things called oggz for lisa. she wants to buy them for her rich spendy aunt because in lisa's words "they're weird and she's weird!". there were none of those either. and then a bad thing happened. i tried on an arm load of clothes at the bay and i hated every single thing and each thing i pulled over my head and then off again made my hair even frizzier and i kept trying to see something i liked about myself in the mirror, but i just looked bad in my eyes. speaking of eyes, i even tried squeezing my eyes shut and opening them again hoping things would be different but they weren't. "i knew this wouldn't be a good shopping day." i muttered in my heart as i trudged to meet heather at old navy.

heather was in better spirits. i was late and she had already found some things to try. slowly my spirits lifted as i shopped around the store. i found lots of cute t-shirts and i got greedy basically grabbing every one of them i could find in my size. then i saw some more but i knew that they're sticklers in the change rooms at old navy so i told myself i'd come back. i told myself that i was going a little overboard. i said to myself that my eyes were bigger than my plate metephorically speaking. but i'm always that way. i'm greedy. greed is one of the deadly sins barbed in my soul. or is it gluttony. both probably. anyway heather and i changed in next door stalls. she found some cute capris (i was jealous of the camo ones that i found but they didn't have my size, but that's the cut throat world of fashion for ya). and i found a bounty of cute thin layer t-s. so she was bottoms and i was tops. we were one of the last people in the place and the other store we wanted to go to was closed so we go again tomorrow to get our respective missing tops and bottoms.

after our successful shop heather and i were on a high. we were giddy, giggling school girls and unashamed of it. the maroon markings on my cheek were forgotten and the frizz-halo was forgiven. i still had my vera's burger shack freebie so we decided to go. on the way we talked about our bodies. heather commented on my legs in a favourable fashion. that's the first time i heard that, i told her. she said sarita always has nice legs no matter what size she is. i've noticed that too, but i've never had what you would call skinny legs. i think she was just lumping me in. haha she said i looked good in my black running pants. i found that pretty funny. little did i know she was checking out my gams on our early morning runs. then we talked about what we'd most like to be different or 'less' if you know what i mean. all of a sudden heather laughed and said "i can't believe we're talking like this on the way to get burgers!" i shrugged. can't let things like that get in between you and a delicious vera burger.

heather got the four cheese and i got the thai burger. they were divine as usual and we both doused our fries with malt vinegar. mmmmmm. we sat at the window facing this red school house. there was a tree in front of it with little green buds. i liked the red and the green and i walked outside to get a shot. and that's when the picture taking began. first some shots of the school house. then i turned and looked up at the sky. and who to my wondering eye should appear but an elf and eight tiny reigndeer. no. the sky was aflame with the sunset and the clouds were very dramatic. so we took some clicks of that and then heather and i were trying to get a self portrait of ourselves but it was hard because i had it on zoom, and then i looked like quasimodo, hunching over to get my head at her level, and then she was pulling her head way back into the folds of her neck, but we finally got a good one.

when we got back to the car i asked heather if we could go to the beach since we were near by. i was nearly skipping with happiness and energy, a new clothes high coupled with a new place to take pictures was putting me over the top. the beach was so beautiful. i couldn't capture things fast enough. everywhere i turned there was a shot to take. i left so much undone too. so a return visit can be just as wonderful. euphoria is my one word, nutshell, summary.

heather picked up some games for her primary activity the next day and we watched house together. house loves cutty.

i had a good sleep and wore some of my new shirts. usually wednesday mornings are amongst my most drear and weary, but today i was happy and energized. i brought my wedding saris for show and tell (we have show and tell every wednesday. you get points, but like who's line, they mean nothing. still it's a motivator for me, i'm not going to deny it.). i got lisa to help me to tie it on, but of course it was nowhere near what it was supposed to be like. everybody liked it and was dutifully impressed. sue came in and saw them on my desk. "you want me to put one on you?" i asked. "yes i do!" she exclaimed like i had read her thoughts. so i put the black one on her and we walked her around the clubhouse. she was a big hit. we need things like that to change up our days. i've been feeling like every day is the same lately. i've been asking questions like "how many onions do you think i've chopped over the nearly three years i've worked here?" "how many times have i scrubbed this counter?" today the phone rang at quarter to 12 and lisa was paged. "oh. it's quarter to twelve, "can you save my lunch"", lisa mimicked on her way to answer it. i feel like i've witnessed that very scene a billion times.

apparently i had a good hair day. it looked the same to me, but i got some comments. i was a little worried about my hair after the cut. i worried it was going to be a poof with two skinny long tails on either side of my head. but it's not. it's settled into it's cut and it looks good. whew. i should have known better than to doubt sarah's handy work.

at one fifteenish i left work to go to the dr.'s. to show him my new mole that i've been worrying about. i had to expose myself to the nurse too, so she could tell him about it. i dont' know why, it's not like he wasn't going to look for himself anyways, but i lifted my shirt and let her have a look too. she poked it which i thought was weird. maybe she's a tactile learner (i was going to put textile learner haha). i waited in the aptly named waiting room for an hour before they called me. i went through three magazines and was feeling the dozing head nods coming on and i began to believe that they forgot about me. this was partially confirmed when the receptionist came out to me and asked "excuse me, did you give your name." "yes," i said feeling unhappy about the confirmation of my beliefs. and i had to tell her again. i know mistakes happen in dealing with people, and when i'm the person who makes them, i'm very forgiving. but when they happen to you it feels a little different. they took the pretend everything's as it's supposed to be route, and i didn't say anything. i tried to let it go. after the poking nurse left me in the dr's office she said there was stuff to read in the bottom drawer of this cabinet. i took that as a bad sign of more waiting. i had no more desire to read magazines although i did half heartedly try.

dr. howie looked at my new mole and another i've had for a while. it turns out they're not bad moles. he said some people 'collect' them over the years and by the time they're old they have a lot, so sometimes they're called senile something or other. but that old people get mad when you use that term. i thought it was funny that he threw in that last tid bit. apparently i'm one of these 'collectors'. he said they're easy to get removed if i want. so that's an option if i collect at too fast a pace. i don't really want to be an avid collector. 'avid' is a popular crossword word fyi. as is 'ado'. i showed him the blood pin pricks too, but he didn't seem to be worried about those either and he asked if anyone else in my family has them and sarah, my partner in skin tags is also a partner in these, i discovered during the easter break. genetic factor he said. thanks dr. howie!

i had a little cat nap after i got home and then i went out and took a few pictures. i got home at the same time as elicia who had a frustrating day. i helped her carry her stuff upstairs and when we opened the door the cats ran out. we just shut the door like we often do because they dont' like being shut out and they will come back without us chasing after them. but then elicia started venting to me for a good ten minutes. we heard this meowing and i thought it was the upstairs cat, and we continued and then we heard it again and i got up to look for the cats that, when it came to both of us that we never let the bad kids back in! as soon as i opened the door the naughty kittens with dirty mittens rushed in side by side.

top model was pretty good. mmhmm. it's less than a week until i go on my trip! woohoo/yikes!