Shopping

I went clothes shopping over the weekend. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but I loathe going clothes shopping. But my closet has turned on me and suddenly everything I own is either too small, too annoying, has a stain on it, has a hole in it or some other problem. Not to mention that I needed to make my wardrobe a tad bit more professional to go with my new job duties.

So out to find professional clothes I went. Now, I don’t normally go to the mall. I go to Vancouver Mall only because the closest library is there and I just walk through Penny’s and get my books and leave. Well, occasionally I’ll stop at Paradise Bakery for a cookie, or Taco Time. But for the most part I hate malls. If I do need something I generally go to the store I need and right back out again. I’ve bought Weekenders clothes for the past few years with the occasional foray into Catherine’s (which isn’t so bad since it’s just one store). But now that Weekenders is no more I can't do that.

What a friggin’ pain.

My first mistake, unbeknownst to me, was I chose Columbus Day weekend to go shopping. It was a lovely day, cool and sunny and crisp with fall in the air. I figured everyone would be out at the local pumpkin patch getting their pumpkins and running through the corn mazes. That’s certainly where I wanted to be. But no. They were all at the mall. All at the mall taking my parking places. All at the mall letting their kid wander around unsupervised while they pushed the stroller at a snails pace in front of me. All at the mall strolling 4-people across and not moving for anyone.

My second mistake was choosing to shop at Clackamas Town Center. I grew up with CTC. I remember when we first moved up here my parents and I went through the building before they were done with construction. I spent a lot of time there as a teenager, since that’s what you did in the 80s. I worked in that mall from 1988-1994. The mall and I knew each other quite well back then. Well, no longer! The whole place has changed. I might as well have been on another planet for all the familiarity I felt there. About the only thing the same was Sears, Penny’s and Nordstrom’s being in the same place. They took out the skating rink, removed the big trees from the center, updated the look and feel of the whole place, and basically made it unrecognizable. It was really quite a shock.

My third mistake was in thinking that I would just browse around the mall rather than going in with a plan.

My fourth mistake was in assuming that there would actually be professional looking clothes available in my size everywhere I looked. Why is it so danged hard to find a dress these days? I like dresses better than skirts because they come complete. I don’t have to pair it up with a shirt that matches or whatever. Did I mention I loathe shopping for clothes? It’s mostly because I am really bad at coordinating things. Once you do find the hidden dress section, you have to eliminate all the stupid looking ones that were designed for someone who wears a size 8 and been expanded to fit someone who wears a size 20. This, as you might imagine, is not always a good idea. There are times when this is a disaster. Most of the stores carried disasters in one form or another. After walking the whole mall looking for fat girl clothe stores and gazing in amazement at the things selling as fashion in the skinny girls stores, I finally ran some professional looking clothes to ground at Penny’s. Then I had to find the dressing room, wait for the 70 people in line in front of me, pick my way over all the discarded clothes in the dressing room and try everything on.

To save you from the painful step-by-step drama, suffice it to say that I did manage to find several nice outfits. They were all on sale and, miracle of miracles, the lady that checked me out offered to ring up my 3 outfits as separate purchases so I could use the $10 coupon that was in the paper (that I didn’t even know about) on each one. Wow!

After CTC I went bra shopping. I loathe bra shopping even more than clothing shopping. I got it right this time, though. Instead of wandering aimlessly around a department store trying to find my size (which is invariably on the bottom. Why do they put the big ones on the bottom rack? You’ve got to assume big ta-tas usually mean big girls and we don’t like to have to squat to find our size on the bottom row in the back. Make the skinny girls bend over!), I was smart and went to Just Like a Woman, a store that specializes in bras. I went in, marched up to the counter and said, “I hate my bra. Can someone please fit me properly for one?” So I got to work with Amelia or Amber or someone who was really nice and measured me up and brought me a selection. Cool thing about this is they fasten the hooks for you so you don’t have to stretch out all the muscles in your arms trying to hook them yourself. And they are good at what they do, so they can tell you if there isn’t enough coverage or whatever. I didn’t look at a single bra myself. She went into the back and came in with a selection and let me try on as many as I wanted.

So I survived my shopping trip with a couple of nice outfits and two new very expensive bras. Didn't get to the shoes, but that's okay. Shoes I can do.

Citizenship

I discovered today that I don’t deserve to be a US Citizen. I took the US Citizenship Test here http://usgovinfo.about.com/blinstst.htm. This was a sample test with 100 questions. I don’t know how they score them, but assuming if you get part of the answer wrong it’s all wrong, I got 23 wrong. That’s 77% for you math people. I think I read you have to get 80% to pass.

Go take the test and see how you do then come back and tell me. NO CHEATING, now! Answer it as if you were really taking the test.
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Now that you have taken it, let me clue you in on a few things.

Some of these questions are very ambiguous, even for a person who speaks English. For example:
Q. What is the United States Capitol?
I answered Washington DC, thinking they meant the capitol of the US. The real answer is “the Place where Congress meets”

Q. Who is the head of your local government?
Do they mean city, county, state, or federal government? I answered the Governor, thinking they wanted the title, but they actually wanted to know the person’s name. I still don’t know what the correct answer is, because it just says “insert local information.” Which local???

Q. What is the elective branch of our government?
They didn’t want a description but rather the names of the positions that make up the elective branch of our government (president, vice-president, cabinet, etc)

2. I think I need to go back to school on more than a few.
Q. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America?
This one is embarrassing. It’s not the Nina, the Pinto, or the Santa Maria, just in case you wondered.

Q. Who elects the President of the United States?
Strangely enough I actually thought the people elected the president. Turns out it’s the Electoral College. Why do I vote again?

Q. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution?
There are 27. Apparently the right to go into a bathroom stall and be able to close the door without having to stand on the toilet has not been approved yet.

Q. Can you name the thirteen original states?
Um, no. Maine and West Virginia were not part of the original 13, just so you know.

Q. Who is the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court?
It’s not Rehnquist, which is what the answer book says. Just so you know, it’s Roberts.

I didn’t know how many representatives we have (435), how many times senators and congressmen can be re-elected (no limit), what year the Constitution was written (the musical for 1776 pretty much stops after the Declaration gets signed, and therefore the majority of my knowledge. The answer is 1785). I also got the question on what the Emancipation Declaration did wrong. Had they said Emancipation Proclamation I probably would have gotten it right. I’m not even going to tell you what I wrote down for that answer it was so dumb.



3. Some of these questions are just politically dumb.

Q. Name one purpose of the United Nations?
The correct answer is NOT “to be blood sucking leeches on the universe and make the United States always be the bad guy.” Huh. Who knew they were actually there to provide economic aid to countries? Did we get any of that aid lately when we had our hurricanes? I wonder.

Q. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.?
What? What does he have to do with the US Government? I thought this was a weird question to put on here. It’s like asking Who is Paris Hilton? Just a famous person.

Q. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
I thought the answer was so obvious…US Citizens. Apparently, it is EVERYONE citizen or not. Huh.

Q. What is the most important right granted to US Citizens?
I said freedom, but apparently it’s the right to vote. Um, see who elects the president question. My vote doesn’t count