Thank you cards

Today I left the office before noon, I had to run some errands and get lunch. I thought that 45 minutes would be more than enough, but you see I had one thing I needed to do, and that was getting thank you cards. Unfortunately in Ashburn there are not many independent stationary stores. The first thing was to go collect my debit card; I had forgotten it Friday at a Burmese restaurant, then I went to purchase a sandwich remembering that there was Hallmark store by the Corner Bakery in a little strip mall not far from the strip mall where the Burmese place is at.

I went to Hallmark hoping for some funny cards, and found 2, just 2, everything else had flowers, or pooches, or kitties or well nauseating poems and horrid early 90’s coral reef palette colors. Then I remembered that at the Mall there was a Papyrus, and at least there I could get some nice ones. So I drove to the mall, this is an indoor mall, not a strip mall. I parked outside of Hecht’s and made my way to the food court, and looked for the store, but it was no where. SO I checked if they had stationary shops, and alas, they did another Hallmark store and a Carlton Cards. I shuddered looking at the packets of cards they had. Hideous, they said 15 year old girl, 10 year old gay in training, or 70 year old wearing depends. Then I got distracted by the Gap store, they have some cute shorts for summer, and I am not sure I have mentioned this, but now that I have embraced the gringo in me, I am going to wear shorts all summer. Except to work, I will wear shorts during the day and evening when appropriate. But by then I realized I had already spent 1 hour in this endeavor.

Finally in the middle of the Gap, I realize that next to Harris Teeter, there is a stationary shop. And so I hurried out of the mall and drove to yet another strip mall and went into a not very promising store called “Zazu” and at the very end of the local, they had all their stationary. There in a little corner, among all the wedding invitations I found the Crane thank you notes. Of course then, I had to decide which model I wanted, should I try the generic card, should I get some personalized stuff, what to get. So I talked to the two women running the shop and the brought from the back some cards they had not displayed, they are off white, with embossed thank you in the front, perfect. All in all 20 USD, for 20 cards, compared to the 3 bucks per card at Hallmark I thought these were a bargain. And yet again I proved how ridiculously gay I can be. I spent 1.5 hours searching for thank you notes, and probably managed to drive 4 miles to get them.

Well that is all for today … this weekend a party was had, in my honor nonetheless, which was a bit unnerving. It was fun ! Thanks to all who attended and a little post on the festivities tomorrow.