'Tis the Season

I just went on the first of many Christmas shopping trips of the season, and it was actually fun! Ask me in a couple more weeks when I go back out, and I'm sure I won't have the same answer.

I just finished reading Linda Rucker's blog where she had the shopping trip from hell, but I have to admit, today wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Stopped in Shoe Show and got my son a pair of Sketchers...not bad at $39. I remember the day when I was whopping out more than a hundred bucks on sneakers for the kids. Thank God, they're grown, and really don't care about status anymore.

Then, it was off to Wally World.

Now, I really hate Wally World, but I think it was because I hadn't been in awhile, and the crowd wasn't too bad, I actually had fun.

I stopped off at the Christmas section, and turned on all the musical toys, even had one of them marching along the floor. Adorable! I saw an old friend, Victor, who was watching me having so much fun, and he proceeded to tell me he had bought a $4000 TV for his kid. Now who in the right mind would do that? He's always spoiled the kid, so that was so like Victor.

The highlight of this trip, though, was when I was in the frozen foods department, and a woman tapped me on my shoulder. "Dotti? Is that you, Dotti?"

I turned around and omg it was the most wonderful woman in the world. Her name is Louzetta Kellam, and she's my sister's mother-in-law, but when they made her, they broke the mold. I always envied my sister in that she had the best mother-in-law in the world.

So, we hugged (I wouldn't let her go), and remininced about old times.

See, I haven't seen my sister since the funeral of my Aunt Sissy, and we have had words in the past, and it's so hard anymore. I don't know what it is exactly, water under the bridge I suppose, but it's like once my mother died thirty years ago, things were never the same between us. She had her life, and I had mine.

So, of course, I asked her about my sister and she told me to visit over Christmas, of which I said I would (dunno), and then she brought out a picture of my sister's daughter's little girl who is three now. She is beautiful. Looks like Stacy (my sister's daughter), and even looks like my sister with that red curly hair.

She asked me how I was doing, and I told her about my books and what I'm doing online, and her face lights up. I said, "You have a computer?" I mean, this woman has to be in her seventies, and not too many older people have computers around here, and she goes, "Of course I have a computer! I'm always on it!"

Well, I'll be damn. So she takes out a piece of paper and gets me to write my website down.

So I tell her then about my trip to California in the spring and how the LA Times wants to do an interview with me, and it damn near floored her. I loved it.

But, it did make me really want to see my sister again. Perhaps I'll swallow my pride and do just that.

Christmas shopping can be more than stress. Who knows who you might run into that will really make your day.