Questing

Yesterday was dedicated to “The Quest”; a journey to identify the dress my wife will wear at my son’s upcoming wedding.  This is not a task to be approached gently or without a proper amount of respect and consideration.  It is certainly not something to joke about (hard lesson there).  We decided early in the morning (well not so much a decision as a spousal declaration) to journey east to Natick for the more well stocked dress preserves at a high end mall.

There was a movie theater nearby, I had my kindle, and we hoped to stop by and see my younger sister who lives in nearby Framingham.  I went two for three on the plans as my sister (as with most winter-sick New Englanders) took advantage of a spectacular day to drive up to Maine with her fiancé.  I deposited my wife at the Macy’s end of the mall hoping she (I) would get lucky and find something at the low end of the mall.

The Wife's Hunting Ground Yesterday

After a food court lunch I went to see the movie Oculus.  I don’t get to see very many horror movies on the big screen since my son moved out as my wife adamantly refuses to be scared (Even by some pretty scary credit card bills).  They’re a real guilty pleasure for me (horror movies not the bills) so I was looking forward to this.  That was until a group of four females sat directly behind me and I prepared to have the attendant screams throughout the movie.  There was literally twenty minutes of previews which I found a bit unsettling due to the increased time (and therefore range) it offered my wife in the mall.

The movie started out great with an interesting concept of a haunted mirror being pursued by a brother and sister whose parents were victimized by the demonic residents of the mirror when they were young.  Despite the interesting concept and likable cast the movie completely sputters out in the second half with a utterly predictable ending.  The director became so enamored of gimmicks and flashbacks that he forgot to keep a horror movie scary.  The gals behind me issued nary a scream.

I emerged into the sunlit parking lot to discover that my sister was in Maine and against all prognostications my wife had found her dress.  I did pay the price for all those previews though because the additional time allowed a migration all the way to the other end of the mall and the Niemen Marcus store (gasp).  The dress does look beautiful (no pictures until the wedding though).

Mission Complete But Energy Sapped

The long walk to the prize though had taken its toll on my wife.  We planned on a night of dancing in Worcester but she told me over a celebratory dinner at Chuck’s Steak House that she just wasn’t up for it after her predations in the shopping jungle.  I was more than a little stunned since she likes dancing even more than shopping.  She must have squeezed an immense amount of effort during that movie.

The quest, though theoretically completed, may not be over as we are now in the “agonizing over a decision already made” phase.  We watched a movie together last night as she continued to peruse the internet with her I-Pad for dresses.  She spent a long time looking at the advertisement for the dress she already bought.  She didn’t appreciate my suggestion to just go up and look at the dress hanging upstairs instead of a picture of it.  This is a process I’m thankfully and blissfully unencumbered by; tough to watch though.