Scenic Routes: Remodel Day 54. The Desk.

We're off to a wedding this afternoon.

I thought the wedding was tomorrow... until yesterday.

Wouldn't be a problem except that last night, Skip was at a Music Festival over in the East Bay, (didn't get back to Middle School until ELEVEN FREAKIN' THIRTY!!!!) and, as a reward, kids who performed at the festival got to go to Great America this morning, and will be there all day... until at least 8pm.

And Skip is our go-to babysitter for things like this.

So I was suddenly left with a wedding to attend, and NO BABYSITTER!

Fortunately, my friends came through for me. Kelly is going over to her BFF's place in the afternoon, and can stay there into the evening indefinitely (one more reason to love our contractor, who is BFF's dad). And Nate's buddy from Kindergarten is having Nate over for his Very First Sleepover Ever!

Nate is so excited, I'm worried he might pee his pants. Heh.

I went off early in the morning to take Kelly to a rehearsal for the musical that she's going to be in next weekend, and after dropping her (and Kate, her buddy) off at the rehearsal venue, I went off on a hunt.

I needed a wedding gift, and I needed a non-black dress to wear to said wedding.

The bride today is the youngest daughter of Ken's first boss in Montreal. When we met her, she was 12 years old, and Skip was 5 weeks old, and she couldn't understand why he didn't just understand what she was saying to him.

Now she's a pediatrician.

I like to think that Skip played a part in her career choice.

Ken's boss moved to California shortly after Ken did, and came to work at the same company as Ken. Then, after Ken left that company, First Boss left, too, to go to Yahoo! where he worked for a few years before seeing some writing on the wall, and asking Ken if New Hip Company might be a better fit for him. So now, 16 years after Ken first started working for New Boss, they're back working together again. And we are the "old friends" of the bride's dad.

When we got married, it was the "old friends of our parents" who provided the sweetest and nicest wedding presents, and Ken and I felt we needed to keep paying it forward. So off to Macy's I went.

I think it's been probably 8 years since I've been to a Macy's. I always think it's going to be just too expensive.

I was there, at the mall, when it opened. And walking into Macy's, the first thing I saw was the fancy dress section. And look! A clearance rack! And look at all the UGLY stuff (in sizes 0 and 2, of course) that you can get on sale. No wonder I always thought Macy's was not for me... oh wait!

(a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds!)

(an angel chorus breaks into song)

It was The Dress.

Gorgeous.

Not Black.

My size.

And most importantly... ON SALE!

I tried it on.

It fit like a glove (ok, like a tight glove. But that's what foundation garments are for!). I made a snap decision. I would get it, even though it was still pretty pricey.

I was the first person at the cash register, 3 minutes after the store opened. The sales clerk asked me if I had the coupon for today.

The coupon? I missed out on a coupon????? I was heart broken!

Until she said "oh, you can get it by donating $5 to our Outdoor Environment Charity, and then you get a $5 coupon, AND you get 20% off for the rest of the day. Would you like to make a donation?"

DUR!

So I made a $5 donation, and my $119 dress went down... down... down... and I was suddenly paying $52 for it. And I still had the 20% off coupon for the wedding present.

It was going to be a golden day.

Upstairs, they helped me immediately in the registry, and I was able to get a glorious place setting of the bride's Kate Spade flatware (eek! I didn't realize flatware could be so expensive!) AND the hostess set (gulp!). Ken was hoping for the Calphalon cookware, but it wasn't showing up on the register in the store. Perhaps some other 'old friend of the parents' got to it first. I hope so.

And then I came home, and the guys were hard at work finishing up the grout, and getting going on MY DESK!!!!!