Off to Chadstone

We woke up at 9am. I said that I wish I hadn’t said to my sister Gill that I would go and see mum with her at 2pm, as I’d already promised Sam that I would take him shopping to get his new iPhone. Sam said something about leaving for Chadstone straight away and that I could still do both. It seemed easy, we had roughly four hours before we had to be home. 

“Okay, come on let’s go,” I said.

No muesli, no coffee, not juice, no nothing, just get dressed and get in the car.

“We need to have a shower, said Sam.

“Well, not necessarily so,” I said.

Sam just looked at me.

“But, of course, we could have a shower.”

He tilted his head and smiled.

It was hot driving to Chadstone. I didn’t know if I should have the windows open and the fresh breeze blowing through the car, or if we should attempt to shut the day out by raising the windows and turning on the air con?

“If we get there early, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting a car space. I wasn’t so sure, being shopping centre phobic to a certain extent. I think that is from spending most of my shopping hours in the inner suburbs or in the CBD. However, it didn’t take us all that long to get a car space, as it turned out, ten minutes max.

Firstly, we had to have some breakfast, naturally, which consisted of a coffee and a rather poorly chosen muffin, which was not fresh today. Still, it was one of those muffins with a gooey raspberry centre so it was just edible. I should have asked and normally I do, but I was in unfamiliar territory and not on my game.

Then we cruised the, seemingly, never ending shops. I observed the people to be very serious about shopping. Still, I guess it is Xmas and that is what Xmas is all about, after all. Shop until you drop, buy, buy, buy.

Mark called me when we were in the Apple Shop, our reason for coming to Chadstone and I chatted to him while Sam bought his new iPhone 4S. Mark was upset with Jane and her only concern for him is to provide her with money. She has spent the 80K she got from her grandfather, which apparently, Mark has to repay. And now she is working her way through the second 80K that Mark gave her from the sale of Thornbury. She gave Andy – the man from the last report was out of her life completely – 35K to buy a new truck for his burgeoning landscape business, and now Jane has very little cash left to buy herself a house, which was the reason for the two lots of money being given to her in the first place.

Anyway… apparently, the phone call culminated in Jane screaming down the phone that Mark’s brother and sister had bought all of their kids houses… the implication that Mark should now do the same.

“But Mark, you have given her enough money to buy a house, the fact is that she has spent it.”

“Yes,” said Mark. “Well, at least now I know that she only sees me for the money that I can provide her with.”

“Are you going to give her more money?”

“No, I’m not going to.”

“You have now retired and will need all of your money for you, now.”

Still, Mark has always been vulnerable from the emotional guilt that his kids have freely dished out to him over the years, but, I guess that is the deal for most parents?

Still, the phone call gave me an alternative to watching the retail machinery in action.

“All done,” said Sam afterwards, holding up the stylish new white box the phone came in.

So, it was time to leave. It was time to head to the Korean restaurant for lunch.

I realised at lunch that we were only a short distance from Lottie’s twilight home, 5 minutes away. Originally, according to our house rule that if you leave you are to take boyfriends/lover with you, I had suggested that Sam should head home and that I would come and pick him up as soon as I was finished with my sister and mother. But, if I was only five minutes up the road, I could leave Sam shopping and I could come and pick him up when I was done, a suggestion that he was keen on. So, after a quick call to my sister, I left him at the business centre, which has Harvey Norman and JB Hi Fi, and I headed off to meet my sister at 14.30.

It was hot today. Really hot. The heat was blazing as I headed to mum’s twilight home. She seemed fine. We took her out to a local café and we had milkshakes, banana for mum, caramel for me and blue heaven for Gill. Mum now needs assistance to walk to the café, but with Gill and I on either side, she managed just fine.

I picked Sam up at 4pm, just when he said he’d run out of things to look at and was just starting to feel bored with the shops. Not bad though, some six hours of shopping, with a few hours of eating, of course, to break up the time.

It wasn’t long after we got home that Samwas starting to talk about dinner. So, we went to the supermarket and bought ingredients to make another pasta sauce.

We made tomato and tuna pasta sauce and watched TV.

I suggested we eat the rest of the dope cookies, but, I guess, we ate them too close to eating dinner and the effect wasn’t nearly so hilarious as it was yesterday.

We watched the Misfits. I’m not so sure that Sam was so keen on this, but I have not seen so many Marilyn Monroe movies and I was quite keen to see it. It was interesting. And after all these years, I was glued to Marilyn’s performance. Clark Gable was okay, convincing enough. I found Eli Wallach strangely attractive. But, Montgomery Cliff, I don’t know, it is his voice that I find unconvincing.

Wild horses; freedom running the highlands and then under saddle for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine that glorious freedom being taken away from you because of stupid humans?

Shane heads out to the Trough party.