Our trial yesterday ended at 4p, but I stayed at work till almost 6p to do more divorce files. I’m almost at goal. Blech. I didn’t get home till 6:30p, and by then, especially since Vanessa was home, stressed from work and wanted to treat herself to a nice dinner and drinks, I found it impossible not to ditch jujitsu again. I was starving and had a headache, anyway.

So we went to Market City Caffe where I had way too much wonderful fresh crusty bread, way too much creamy delicious Italian pasta, and way, way too much pinot grigio wine.

Obviously, we were too wired by then to just go to bed or something, so just as I was thinking about maybe watching a movie at home, Vanessa asked, “So what do you wanna do now?” I said, “Let’s go to Bed, Bath & Beyond!” It’s only a few blocks from my house. So we went there, learned it was closed, and instead went to…WalMart! Woohoo! Entering the megastore, Vanessa made a joke about oh no, we’re not gonna get out without spending hundreds of dollars, and altho I laughed, I had no intention of buying anything.

$150 later at the checkout (between both of us), we were remarking astoundedly to the friendly register lady how neither of us really expected to buy the massive quantities of scented candles, tea light holders, large mosaic photo frames, standing glass vase, DVD movies, long-necked lighters, Gatorade, low-rise panties, knee-high hosiery, incense holder, and other stuff I can’t remember cuz we were probably a little tipsy giggling down the aisles and admiring all the REALLY COOL and REALLY CHEAP STUFF that we NEEDED to buy RIGHT NOW in case they RUN OUT and we find we REALLY NEED THAT STUFF later on when it’s TOO LATE. It may be safe to infer that our judgments were a bit impaired. But that’s the beauty of WalMart. Sure, you can’t leave without spending a bunch of money you didn’t expect to spend, but you get, like, a billion items for the price. Costco works that way, too, but at Costco, you get a billion of the same products, in industrial-sized packages.

At one point, when I was clinging onto the shopping cart (we walked into WalMart without one, and I realized at some point early on we should have one; that was the beginning of the end), I had a moment of clarity and said, “I can objectively step away and observe that we are being really lame.” She said something about how being lame with someone else being lame is what’s fun about it. It reminded me of being a lame teenager running thru Thrifty (now Sav-On) with my friends Sandy, Vicky, Ling-Ling, cousin Jennifer, whomever was with me at the time, laughing and looking at all the really cool stuff we knew our parents would never let us buy. Like makeup and razors.

When I’d first gotten home and Vanessa had finished telling me about her most recent work drama, I said, “Boy, we picked a good time for moving in together.” She agreed, as the drama had been rotated between me, then her, then me, and then her, and having a friend at home made things so much easier.

Oh, I’d forgotten to mention in the post about the weekend that on Friday, we decided Vanessa would stay with me another month until her boyfriend moved down and they could find a place together. Yay!