Shopping with JJ / Rudolph

Wednesday, Dec. 08, 2004 - 9:09 a.m.

Yesterday I took the bus to the BART station and the BART train to the stop where I met JJ. Miraculously, I got there before she did. She's almost always there before I get there whenever we meet there, because my transit timing is a disaster. But yesterday I got there first.

We'd been expecting it to rain while we visited, but even though the clouds were lowering and we could see the virga, they didn't rain on us. It was mild and humid.

JJ has lost weight. I have always thought she was beautiful; there are some women who have what I call the 'hundred pound window' who are able to look wonderful at nearly any weight (Anna Nicole Smith, Kirstie Alley, etc). But now that JJ has lost weight, she says she feels better. She was wearing an orange sweater and blue jeans and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. I had taken a half an Actifed earlier to try and pre-empt my allergies, so I was a little spaced out.

The first place we visited was an Indian market, and she picked up a can of I Forget What It's Called. It's this spinach and cheese stuff. The can had a pop-top.

We crossed the street and hit a thrift store where she found a large warm winter coat for around ten dollars. She looked at dresses and showed me where to look to see if the dresses were good. She checked for metal zippers, and brand names, and if they were home made, she turned them inside out to check the stitching and see if the maker owned a good sewing machine.

We hit a second thrift store, where something somewhere began to aggravate my breathing. We didn't stay there too long. Then we stopped by a store called Good Vibrations where I remembered to ask about batteries for my bullet. They had plenty in stock.

We ate lunch at a place called Taqueria Cancun, where I had a huge plate of carne asada and a diet coke for around seven dollars. A man came into the restaurant and played guitar and sang, and then passed the hat, and then he ate lunch with what he collected.

JJ and I even stopped by where she lived, although I didn't step inside because Tommy was ill and when you're ill, you don't want company even if you say you do. She gave me a beautiful square pendant with what looks like colored foil under the glass; it's really lovely and I am going to look for a chain for it that will do it justice.

We then walked back through the neighborhood to the BART station that was eight blocks away from the one I had arrived at; overall, we traipsed a total of around twenty blocks back and forth, and other than the minor allergy problem in the one store, there were no difficulties. We were glad to see each other, and JJ's enthusiasm over her trip to Montreal was absolutely palpable.

Thanks for a lovely visit, JJ!

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The Nielsen ratings have restored my faith in humankind:

In a holiday faceoff, the durable cartoon ``Rudolph, the Red-Nose Reindeer'' proved more popular (14.9 million viewers), than Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson's family Christmas special (12.4 million) or the lighting of the Christmas tree in New York's Rockefeller Center (10.9 million).

Well, newlyweds -- there's always tomorrow.

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It's foggy here today, after a night of rain. But fortunately, it's warm.

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I think that's it for now from here. :-)

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