THE SWEET SMELL OF.....

This weekend was pretty decent... no major tragedies - which is a huge bonus in the 'world of Mara'.

Friday night was nothing spectacular. I was kinda feeling blah... think that Tango was trying to share some of his 'cold cooties' with me. I'm not a big one for sharing cooties. If you've got cooties, you need to be sleeping on the couch .... or better yet the guest bedroom. In the guest bedroom your cooties are contained and I can isolate your cooties and call the service to fumigate once you've finished spewing your 'cootie-nastiness' from here to kingdom come.

All things aside, I went to sleep around 10:30 hoping that if I had contracted some cooties I could sleep them off. 3:30 Saturday morning I'm startled bolt upright out of bed to the sound of Tango's pager going off. Apparently there was an emergency at one of his properties that he had to go attend to. Well... I wasn't going to sleep any time soon and I felt sorry for his sleepy, stuffie, cootie contaminated butt so I offered to go with him.

So here we are heading out at 3:30 in the morning.. well, one emergency led to another and then a police situation at another property... blah (Tango - property owner/manager). By the time we finished with all 'said emergencies' it was 6:30 - time for breakfast. We were both laughing because our empty tummies sounded like a couple of growling monsters. We called our usual spot and found they didn't open for another half hour... neither of us could wait that long. Ok... off to the truck stop we go.

I've never eaten at a REAL truckstop... I was quite impressed upon entering at all of the various hoo-ha for sale. You had all of your regular convenience store stuff along with various Michigan souvenir mugs, spoons, hats, postcards, moose (people... you have to be WAY UP before you see a moose in Michigan. There was a case with little crystal ornaments, a few collegiate logo things.... and then I saw it. The rack with all of the bumperstickers... I could hear angels singing and a light shown down upon that beautiful display...... ok, I digress, it was more like a fluorescent can light and the song 'Centerfold' playing a notch too loud... but hey... it was still FABULOUS to me. Tango went and got a seat while I browsed the bumperstickers. Mind you, I'm not allowed to mar the beauty of my cars with these... I just like to have them. And sometimes... when the situation warrants it... I'll paste one to somebody else's car. 10 minutes later, I was the proud owner of 3 new bumper ornaments.... 1) Go Bra-less. It pulls the wrinkles from your face! 2) If you can read this you're close enough to KISS MY ASS. Make yourself useful. and 3) Don't Drink and Park, Accidents cause People.

Happy as a clam (I really don't know what clams have to be happy about - really all they are is slugs in shells... anyway)... happy as a clam I went to sit with Tango and get breakfast. He had already ordered coffee and OJ. We both got the breakfast bar (impressive... a breakfast bar in a truck stop - day-um) Hmmm......Eggies, a sausage, some bacon, some tatoes... ohhh a biscuit and gravy. Went and sat back down and began to dig into the um...... breakfast... eeep.. it was ice cold. We sat back looking at each other and down at the plates and managed to chew down a few bites, gulped down the orange juice and sucked down the Joe...::sigh:: we should have waited for our usual joint to open.

Back at home I got to sleep for an hour before I had to be back up to go out with my friend Ann. We had this huge extravagant shopping trip planned - ohh yeah... retail therapy, pocketbook olympics.. whatever you want to call it, that was our mission. She got to my house at 9 and we headed off to the spa first thing... manicures and pedicures were in order. On the way feeling a little sleepy I suggested we stop at the coffee house... yup... Venti White Mocha Latte with a double shot of espresso... so friggin good.

As I'm getting my nails done at the salon I notice that my hand is shaking just a little.. and was it me or was that little attendant awfully attentive and REALLY wanting to hear how my ENTIRE week leading up to this manicure went??? While in the pedicure bath I couldn't seem to stop my knee from bouncing.. even when Lee forcibly stopped it twice after having to repolish my toes because I bounced too hard and messed him up (....sorry Lee).

On we went to the Mall. (once again the angels sing) Did a whole lot of shopping for things I did and didn't really need...the highlight of the afternoon was the cosmetic section in Marshall Fields. After stopping at every station we were both painted with every available cosmetic product known to man. Oh yeah.. we could have hit the streets in Detroit and... well let's not go there. Walking through the perfume counters was like trasversing a police training course full of snipers. Women hiding behind displays would pop out and assault you with a quick burst of some floral, fruity essence. We were dodging the blasts like bullets trying to make our way to the front of the store when SHE stopped us. Never before had I seen a creature quite like this. Her skin was tanned orangy-brown by hundreds of visits to the fake bake, the crows feet extended from under eyes and the corners of her mouth to meet somewhere in the middle of her cheek. Dark brown pencil heavily covered the over-tweezed eyebrows and an equally dark red lined her thin lips. Her over-processed, bleached blonde hair was poofed into enormous dips and swirls... it almost looked like cotton candy... It was.. in a word, frightening. As her voice rasped out of her aging throat I wondered how long it would be before she succumed to throat or lung cancer and felt vaguely sad.

"Would you ladies care to try the latest fragrance by Ralph Lauren" she said... her melodic bass tones floating through the air.

Magically producing two tester ribbons she liberally sprayed them with 'Turquoise' and waved them with a flourish handing one to each of us.

Ann and I pressed the ribbons to our noses inhaling the essence called 'Turquoise'... my nose twitched and I looked over at Ann. We went to thank Deep Throat and make our way out but in one last ditch effort to make a sale she shoved her forearm up to my nose and said..

"It's a wonderful fragrance, it works with your body chemistry and smells different on everyone.. I just put some more on"

As I inhaled one thought came to mind............

MMMMMmmmm.... Eau de Marlboro Lights.... NICE

::smooches::
Mara