Galena

Went to Galena, Ill. Sunday with T.O. and Lori. It's a Mecca for wealthy Chicagoans who desperately need overpriced doodads with which to clutter their homes and lives, and who need to drive their Hummers 140 miles to buy them. We - unlike those Chicagoans - just wanted to get the hell out of DeK and surrounds for the day and thought that Galena would be an interesting destination. Lori had been there a couple of times before, T and I never.

The plan was to meet at my place at 10:00. At 9:58, I was still getting ready, was dressed but my hair was about 1/20 done, had no clue what shoes I'd wear, and was freaking out. The phone rang. It was L, apologizing for running late. I thanked her and said to take her time. Headed back to the process of fixing my hair. It's a complex process to spend time with the person who cuts & colors my hair. I feel like when we're together, I need to show her that I've learned what she's tried to show me about how to take care of my hair. So I work extra hard on getting it to "do" stuff. That's probably why I end up looking like Rikki from Poison sometimes. (Although his hair wouldn't be bad on a woman....)

Anyway, back in the b-room, curling, poking, tweaking, styling, spraying, begging. The front door opened; T had arrived. (I ask that she let herself in, 'cause she's family to me.) She stood a respectful (and safe) distance away while I finished the hair prep process. Amazing how it can look so weird while it's being curled and then so...mellow when it's done. Not helmet-head at all, but just, like it was born that way or something. L's a genius and what she's done with my head is magic.

After that, T & I talked and I made tea. L arrived and we left around 10:45. Not so bad, considering that I'm about that late for work most days. (Sigh.) The route to Galena from DeK isn't exactly direct. We went to the big city and took IL-20 West, so there was a bit of winding and turning. But the day was flippin' gorgeous and we talked nonstop all the way there. It has been raining so much lately that the sun seemed miraculous, but the temperature and the lack of wind was what made it perfect: probably 70°. We all dressed differently, which I thought was striking. I'm the slob of the group by a factor of 10, and I wore a little dressy cardigan (and it's actually in that blue color), an off-white satin-edged t-shirt, dressed-up sand-colored shorts and Eastlands. L, who's the most dressy of us all, usually, wore a pullover-hoodie with a lace-up t-shirt under it and dark cargo pants with suede mules. And T, who can be all over the spectrum but I'd describe as being the most hip of the 3 of us, wore jeans, a strappy tank, and a gorgeous turquoise blouse.

We stopped on the way there at "the big red barn". That's what L calls Roughing It In Style, a store in Lena that sells all sorts of outdoorsy stuff. Rough-hewn furniture and those HUGE bears to put on a porch to wave people in - that sort of thing. The prices were mostly ungodly and the furniture was mammoth, so we weren't looking at anything very seriously. I was tempted by the Canned Loon - not actual loon, the bird, in a can, but a can with a stuffed animal loon in it. I thought it would be a funny gift for my dad. They were really small (Beanie Baby sized?) and $12.95, which is beyond my comfort zone for a joke gift. T liked the butterfly chair covers. L was drawn to some jewelry boxes. Naturally, I was the only one to actually buy something, but at least it wasn't wildly expensive. I've wanted a thumb ring ever since I started watching Tony Bourdain on the Food Network (Howdy, JCL!) and they had some, and one actually fit my [apparently] oddly-shaped thumbs, so I got it. However, that meant the seal on my wallet was broken, so in the car T, L and I talked about the importance of them sitting on me if I started indiscriminately buying things without regard to taste or cost. I do that sometimes.

Off to Galena, then.

T and I were starving by the time we arrived. L's more sedate than we are, and because she'd been there before she had reason to know how long it would be until she could eat again. We, on the other hand, are "must eat now!" types, and we were starting to think that we'd never see civilization, much less a restaurant, again. So L capitulated to eating first and shopping after. We headed out to the place she's eaten before, which she didn't know the name of but said would be "at the other end". I had no clue what she meant, and just thought that if I didn't get lunch soon, I'd cry. Happily, no more than 5 minutes passed before we entered Bubba's. Doesn't sound like much, but it was heaven. T had the New Orleans Guacamole Burger with sweet potato fries. I had the Basin Street Cajun Chicken (I adore blackened food!) with regular fries. L had French Quarter Chicken. Fabu.

Once fed, I was happy as a clam. (What does that mean? Are clams actually "happy", or are they just stupid because their brains are small, so they're more accurately "blissfully ignorant" than truly "happy"? Consider this!) First stop: Ink & Stamp With Sue. Perhaps the largest independent crafty store I've ever seen. Must've been 3 full store-fronts. The first one is all rubber stamps and stationery. The second is true art supplies, e.g. paints and stretched canvases. The third is a mishmash. Calligraphy (gorgeous!). Books. Journals. Metal things --? Tacky stuff (that's fun to look at), like the Worst Case Scenario books. There was a small tray of plastic rings with hand-painted designs. We each picked one out, deciding that they're not cocktail rings but rather Tea Rings. They will give us powers beyond those of ordinary mortals when we wear them when we go out for tea. Mine's clear but for 5 small black circles, each with a different colored center. L's is white with 6 pink dots. T's is red with abstractions, some of which are turquoise (and which matched well with her blouse, incidentally).

After we chose our rings (having to try on nearly the entire tray because our hands are different sizes and we have vastly divergent taste in tacky jewels!), L went to find the clerk because I was interested in more information about a small box in a glass case. It would make a great addition to my collection of small boxes if it was in my price range, but I was concerned by its presence in the display case. Not a good sign, in my experience. I wouldn't have asked, even, but L's assertive where I'm... Minnesotan. So off she went. And then she returned, alone. Puzzled. "We're alone!" "Huh?" "There's NO ONE else here!" We were completely alone in the store. It was very Twilight Zone. We wandered around for a while, eventually to the front of the store, and after a few more minutes saw the clerk - across the street, coming out of a store! He waved and jogged over. "Hey, sorry." L said, "You shouldn't have left us alone!" He scoffed, "Eh, this is Galena." I said, "Yeah, but we're not." T added, "We're wanted in 3 states." He looked up, looked at each of us in turn, and said rather slowly, "Yeah, that's why you waited for me." It was cute. We all laughed and paid for our rings.

Next stop: Main Street Fine Books & Manuscripts. L wanted to ask about a book that she's been seeking, written by a family member. The clerk was on an overseas call and put us off so we wandered on our own. I was drawn into the fiction and poetry sections upstairs. He had a first edition Edna St. Vincent Millay that tempted me mightily. A Robert Graves, too. But I held off. T & L looked mostly at children's books.

We wandered in and out of a few more stores, none of which enticed us to buy anything but which were enjoyable enough in their way. I tried on a sort of picture-hat which was more attractive than any I've tried before, but still not enough to buy. L found a sweater she liked but at $132, it was well beyond what she was willing to spend for a short-sleeved sweater that may have contained 3 ounces of yarn. T's eye was caught by a black shirt with a contrasting pink design. We had wildly-overpriced ice cream. We spent quite a while in a kitchen store (The Grateful Gourmet, which doesn't seem to have a website). It's one of those little stores with tons of stuff where you don't want to move around much because it seems like you'll set off a chain reaction of crashing bottles and jars. I got a small teapot (in the color "FB").

Then we went into Poopsie's. Wow - if you're ever in Galena, Poopsie's is the place to go. The place is huge and spacious (like almost any other store, where you have to watch your elbows!) and light. And fun. I had a handful of stuff to buy before I was five steps into the store. I'm a sucker for Quotable Magnets and I picked up two for myself (including one to match the mug that I have that reads: "Do one thing every day that scares you." [Eleanor Roosevelt]) and one for a friend that I'll send with a mix CD to a friend very soon. I found a new set of Extraordinary Chickens cards.

The most striking thing was the zodiac tile wall. If you've looked at my profile, you've seen that I was born on 27 August but was due a full 2 weeks earlier, 13 August. If I'd been born then, I'd have been a Leo, but I'm a Virgo. I haven't generally put much stock in the whole horoscope/zodiac thing, but I do think that the contrast between the Leo and Virgo standard personalities is considerable, particularly since T's a Leo (although she's very much on the early side, almost enough to have been a Cancer, but that's another story) and we're very close but different in some key ways. So, the tiles: there were two tiles for each sign, one nice and one "naughty". That makes it sound as if one was scandalous or something, but it was actually more like one was positive and one was just honest. Here are links to the Nice Virgo and Honest Virgo ones, and then lists of what they said:
*[Nice] Virgo (August 24-September 23): Observant, Sympathetic, Dedicated, Helpful, Thoughtful, Witty, Reliable, Charming, Emotionally warm, Sensual, Analytical, Efficient, Compassionate, Industrious, Organized.
*[Naughty] Virgin: bitchy, overcritical, anal-retentive, fussy, pedantic, always complaining, always worrying, indecisive, demanding, obsessive-compulsive, argumentative, sexy as hell

Here's the Nice Leo and the Honest Leo, and then lists of what they said:
*[Nice] Leo (July 24th - August 23rd): Confident, Generous, Expressive, Gracious, Romantic, Clever, Loyal, Determined, Fun, Kind, Accepting, Courageous, Enterprising, Affectionate, Commanding, Encouraging, Noble, Irrepressible.
*[Naughty] Lion: arrogant and bossy, patronizing, jealous, brash, haughty, proud, cunning, pompous, lustful, over-ambitious, vain, controlling, interfering, smug, lofty, born to rule

If you know me, you can tell that I'm more Leo than Virgo. I don't know why I'm letting it get to me, but it's been on my mind a lot lately and even moreso for the last couple of days. Does this matter to anyone else? Am I just letting myself get stuck on something that's beside the point?

I didn't even buy the tiles, in part because it felt like I'd need to get all four of them and that would be weird. The last purchase I made there (besides some little devil horns that attach with Velcro - not sure what I'll use them for, but they definitely appealed to me!) was a Pig Catapult. It really must be seen to be believed. It's a hand-held catapult that flings tiny plastic pigs "up to 15 feet or more", according to the back of the package. The clerks at the store were oohing and aahing about the Chicken Chucker, the companion piece to the Catapult, but they were out of stock. It looked considerably more dangerous because the chickens are pointy. I trotted out my "I'm an attorney" triteness and ruined everyone's fun in that regard. I should've gotten a couple more Catapults to give to GL & GW at the next Online Cataloging meeting. I think they'd have enjoyed them. I guess I could get them online....

All too soon it was time to head back to the Flat part of the state. We talked and laughed (and cried a little), and made plans for the future to the extent that it's possible. It was a good day with very good friends.