T, her man & I made a trip down south to find "the dress." Not the one that should be the one, rather, a one to change into for barbecue sauce spills & dancing. I say if you spend the time to pick a once-in-a-lifetime you should stick to it thick or thin or saucy. The youth-to-mid of today - excess. It's okay, because when it's your day it's your day & this has been her year in a way she may not know, so I tried to keep mum. I think it's hard for me to keep mum. This day didn't provide such a thing, but it did provide other gifts & thankfully a bag full of ties for the groomsmen & a rant provided by T in the chocolate shop upon finding out that everything is made with dairy my god. Women on their rag are hysterical beyond belief. I've been known to blame the thing, but seriously my god. A tirade in a chocolate shop because you don't know what your own dietary restrictions restrict is pretty redhotbloodedwomaninsane. You know you have a catch of a man when he responds, "It's okay, I started mine yesterday," & laugh when you chuck a bag of chocolate covered pretzles across the store when you find out they're once more non-dairy free...as opposed to holding you to a normal ever constant standard of sanity. We were exhausted & I fueled my exhaustion with malbec & we sang ol' snoop dog, not snoop lion, never snoop lion. At their home we had a sleepover in their king plus bed, all lumpy with love & a mewling cat. We woke in the morning to J making eggs & vegetables, pancakes & creamy caramel coffees. For a moment I was out of body & imagined the things we take for granted. We made our way to the Lynden Fair's cat show...
The cat show was lethargic & it took encouragement to remove T from the sad collection of felines, but we entered the grounds, considered riding a camel, ate some cheeseburgers, chicken fingers and fries, played bingo, rubbed some sheep, and finished with one miserable elephant ear unauthentic to our childhood.