ah, springtime.
the weather is warmer. the puddles are drying up. the ladies' clothes are getting skimpier, shorter and tighter. mmmmm. springtime.
with springtime comes new life--the birdies are building nests. the crocuses are blooming. the cows on the farm are having calves. women are pregnant everywhere.
--pregnant women everywhere?
oh, that's because i was at Babies 'R' Us in liverpool.
i was on a gift hunt for my cousin's baby shower. yeah, i know--baby showers are for chicks. but i got invited. just what are you supposed to get for The Couple Who Makes More In A Month Than I Do In A Year, anyway? after a few laps around the store, i found ABSOLUTELY NOTHING suitable for a gift, perhaps cuz i'm not a good baby shopper. i also scared myself into not wanting any babies of my own for even longer than i had already planned. there's just too much stuff to know about them. too much crap to buy for them. too many butts to wipe on them. too many whines and cries emanating from them. not for me, not for several more--no wait, MANY more--years.
anyway, i'm off track.
i've never before seen so many preggo chicks and newborns in one place in all my life. it was a strange blend between that "new life is so beautiful and wonderful" feeling and the "holy shit i gotta get out of this place" panic. eventually i settled on some big block letters of the baby-to-be's initials--good enough for a baby, manly enough to not to make me feel like a wuss. plus, i was pretty proud of myself for:
1. remembering the fact that a baby is due
2. remembering it is a boy
3. remembering it's FULL NAME
--pretty impressive for a bachelor with no female counterpart to keep track of those sorts of things for me, if i do say so myself.
to make up for thrifty-ness, i dug out my old airbrush spent this morning airbrushing the letters with baby blue and white paint. i must say, these things look pretty damn cool now and it kinda made me wish i'd had my initials in big, airbrushed wooden letters when i was a kid. i just hope the parents think it's as cool as i do.
of course, while in syracuse, i had to stop in for a haircut at the Shoppingtown Barber & Styling Center, where, THANK GOD, the barbers still use a straight razor to shave your goddamn neck. i can't find any other barber that does that. if i could justify driving the 180 miles round trip to continue getting my hair cut there like i used to, i would. but no. i managed to lump a bunch of errands together to justify this trip. guess i'll have to make do with one out of every few haircuts being done by my man vinnie at Shoppingtown, and for the rest, i shall suffer.
then i went to border's at the Carousel mall to check their selection of swedish language books. seems like every bookstore has shitloads of spanish, spanish, spanish, and then almost as much swahili, and then they have a pamphlet on swedish and it jumps into taglog and taiwanese. but since this is the mother-of-all-borders stores, they did have a couple swedish things, including a dictionary. i bought that, and a little pocket book called "Say It In Swedish" which was published in 1978, so if i need to say "where is the rotary dial phone" or "would you like to disco dance" i'll be all set. it does however have some other timeless phrases that will hopefully come in handy should i ever make it to sweden with that certain swedish someone.
wow, i did it!! i blarfed without self-incrimination. cool.
