First of all I must confess, I am not a big Prince fan.  I liked a couple of his songs, thought he was nuts when he changed his name to “whatever that thing was”, but respected him for being a true musician.  He wrote his own music, lyrics and performed them and I respect that in a musician.  He also kicked serious butt on that “Still my guitar gently weeps” video.  I guess I just envisioned him as a singer but evidently he was a wonderful guitarist.

Secondly, I admit that I was a Glen Frey fan and I do hate the fact that he died at an early age.  I know he must have had a ton of music still inside of him to be released.

But life goes on.  With or without the musicians that we love.

I had an excellent day yesterday with friend, Garnet.  I picked her up around 9:30 and we proceeded to the used CD store where I changed some of my old CDs into four new ones.  (Well new for me.)  They wouldn’t take my Yanni CD.  I asked the girl at the counter about it.  My sister gave it to me.  My sister listens to country and I am a rock and roll girl through and through.  Why Yanni?  I never listened to it; maybe I should.  Maybe the universe is trying to tell me something.

After we did the CD thang we drove around and ended up at the huge Woodman Grocery store where we both bought cheap booze.  I also got some green beans and little red potatoes as I have been jonesing a Nicoise salad.  If you aren’t familiar, it is a salad with cooked green beans, potatoes, boiled egg, (not on mine), onion and tomato and some tuna.  I haven’t found a place in Rockford that makes them and so I decided to make one for myself.

Daughter, Jessica, made one for me in December when I visited her for the holiday.  (Christmas to some, Hannukkah to some, Kwanzaa to some, holiday to all.)  Is anyone else sick to death of trying to be politically correct?  I am a backward hillbilly dumbass.  I don’t know any better.  Give me a break?

Garnet and I couldn’t decide on lunch.  I wanted the stupid Nicoise salad, she, of all things, wanted a burger.  Garnet has turned vegetarian since her two bouts of chemo and radiation.  Says it ruined her taste buds.  We finally settled on, you are not going to believe this, Kentucky Fried Chicken.  They have one that is in conjunction with Long John Silver’s and I just love that vinegar they serve.  I got the fish and green beans.  They really have pretty good green beans.

Garnet chose the shrimp since they didn’t serve burgers.  She likes these potato wedges that the Colonel serves.

This restaurant plays music from the 60’s and drove me nuts.  Teen Angel was all right in the 60’s but not today.  One of the workers asked if we liked the music as she was bopping around like a mad woman to it.  I asked her to turn it down.  Which they did!

I sang along to one of the songs and Garnet was amazed that I knew all the lyrics.  If you didn’t know, I am the lyric queen.  I know more stupid lyrics to more ridiculous songs than you can believe.  The next song came on and Garnet was singing along to it.  I was amazed that she knew the song.  I didn’t recognize it personally.

Garnet liked her shrimp and said when her hubster went to fetch KFC she would ask him to bring her some shrimp.  I’m glad that she found something else that she likes to eat.  I used to cook for her but don’t any longer because I don’t know what she can or will eat.

BTW, my fish was not up to standards.  The batter was a little sweet and I was disappointed.  But the vinegar kicked major butt!  I am in it for the vinegar!

We headed off to the local Goodwill store where they were playing that music that is currently popular on bop radio stations.  I felt physically ill the entire time we were in the store.  I found a new plastic box to store our batteries and plug in rechargers as I discovered the old one was broken to bits when I was searching for a battery that morning.  I also found three rolls of cloth ribbon that hadn’t been opened.

Last week at the Goodwill I found a brand new set of queen size sheets that had never been used for $9.99.  Deal!

We left Goodwill and the intolerable music behind.

We decided we really wanted to get our walk in today.  There is this very odd mall just down the street and we decided to go there.  This humungous building is filled with booths that are filled with stuff that is so mind blowing it is unbelievable.  The first one I entered was filled with really nice looking jewelry.  Move on, as I am not a fan.  (Kind of like Prince.  I respect it but it isn’t me.)

Most of the booths in this section were filled with more of the same.  I noticed Garnet at the end of the aisle looking at something of note.  I joined her and we found such wonders.  We found wooden items, metal items, toys, doilies (I love doilies) and other really old and interesting things.

I must tell you here that the music they were playing was kick-ass.  They played one of my favorite Elton John songs, The Border Song, and I sang right along with it.  Garnet had never heard the song before.  Check it out.  Great tune.

While we were reliving our childhood through the items at our display, we sang along with the music.  Music from the 70’s is some of my favorite tunes.

I found these really cute butterflies made out of what looked like old tin can material.  They are all rusty and gnarly.  I’m putting them in my fairy garden.  I told Garnet I would probably need a tetanus shot after carrying them around all afternoon.

We came across the scariest teddy bear toy I have ever seen.  I had to take Garnet’s picture with it.  We also saw the scariest doll I have ever encountered made out of porcelain or something hard.  They had a Cabbage Patch doll that was pretty ugly too.  We played with a washboard, admired a metal ironing board, rang all the windchimes we came across and just had the best time in the world.

Garnet fell in love with this vulture which turned out to be an old lamp base.  Who on earth would want a vulture lamp?  Garnet wanted that vulture, I know she did.

I think we spent a couple of hours just strolling around looking at all the stuff and singing along with the music.  We checked out and I spent all of 82 cents on my butterflies.  Garnet didn’t buy anything.

I thanked the check-out ladies for a lovely visit and apologized if anyone complained about out singing.  I bet they hated us.  Oh well!

We then ventured toward home but decided we needed to sit outside in the sunshine for a while.  I drove past the turn in for the park where we intended to go.  I made a massive u-turn in the road (nothing was coming either way, I looked!) and scared the crap out of Garnet.  We drove back to the park.  The parking lot was almost full.  It must be a popular place to walk.

We sat outside on the picnic table for a while and talked and laughed.  We saw a huge dog which I took for a Great Dane, a wiener dog and a squirrel.  I also saw something flying in the sky and thought for a moment that it was a plastic bag but it was flying quite nicely.  I believe it was one of those hang gliding parachute things.  Garnet missed it as she was looking elsewhere.

I was getting cold because I didn’t bring a jacket and so we left and I took her home.  And so ended another great adventure with one of my best buds.  It really doesn’t take much for simple people to be outrageously happy.