Yesterday was the first day of school for Lil’ Miss 20 Prospect, and 20 Prospect Jr. The day dawned overcast, and cool, with a howling wind from the Northwest. Fall had returned as cool and crisp as a tart apple. (Harralson, I think) School could not come soon enough. The kids have been climbing the walls for the last week, bored out of their minds, and looking forward to getting back to school. Probably not as much as Mrs. 20 Prospect has been looking forward to it, but close enough. I took the day off to take the kids to school, and spend the day with Mrs. 20 P catching up on errands and such. I think it will become a new tradition.
After a leisurely breakfast at the Egg and I, we stopped at the local Mall to do some shopping. You remember Malls don’t you? As children of the 80’s these were the pinnacles of Western Civilization before the coming of the Internet. Why you could get almost anything you ever wanted at one. In fact, if they didn’t have what you were looking for, you probably shouldn’t have been looking for it anyway. Surprisingly, there are still a few left around here, although they have definitely seen better days. In some ways it’s like seeing the twilight of an era when you visit the mall. A little piece of the 80’s preserved in amber. If I hadn’t filled up on Kamikaze cakes at breakfast, I would have stopped by the Orange Julius for an orange whip to drink a toast to the decline of the American mall.
I felt like an archeologist at times. I wonder what will become of these hulking clusters of inward facing buildings when they finally die. Will they be razed by the dozer, or re-purposed into Condo’s the way that old factories, and warehouses are? I’m betting on the dozer.
As for our shopping trip, it was uneventful. For once we were actually buying for ourselves and not the kidlins. I did come across this in J.C. Penney’s however…
It was on the clearance rack for $5.99. Apparently J.C. Penney’s is where internet meme’s go to die. If you aren’t familiar with the mystical powers of this shirt, read the product reviews here.
Still no sign of Tuscan Whole Milk though.
Alas, I did not buy the shirt. Someday I may live to regret it, but to be honest I am just not cool enough to pull it off.
Today it’s back to work. Nothing to do now but put our heads down and plow headlong into fall. Football games, falling leaves, ripening apples, and frost on the pumpkins. My favorite time of the whole year. So another season passes, like a phase of the moon, and seasonally affected bloggers like myself can do nothing but lift our snouts towards the heavens and let out a howl of mourning.
Hey I was a child of the 80s, and we used to go 70 miles to get to the nearest mall. It was a big deal.
Suzanne
We were lucky. Batavia was right in the middle between Buffalo and Rochester, so within 30 minutes in either direction we could be at either Eastern Hills Mall in Buffalo, or Marketplace Mall in Rochester. I remember how cool it was when Marketplace opened and they had a Carousel right inside the mall.