Yesterday bright and early (11 a.m.) after ingesting one cup of tea, a bowl of oatmeal and a pile of vitamins, I put on my workout clothes and drove over to the Broad’s. She was grumpy but willing to go to her gym, which she had warned me several times is “ghetto” (it wasn’t). We did 30 minutes on the Elliptical trainer together and I remembered that sometimes working out with a partner is better.

Corinne and her roommate’s “Perfect Men”.

Then it was back to my house for a quick lunch of those fantastic Trader Joe’s vegetable Masala burgers that I could eat all the livelong day, jasmine rice and black beans and a whole lot of dog love, then off for a little shopping.

I took her to Plato’s Closet, a place that I occasionally go to and have donated clothes to in the past. She’s going to a pub crawl on Saturday to celebrate Mardi Gras–sounds like a terrible idea to me for someone who’s not drinking anymore, but what am I supposed to do? Get all mom-like on her ass?

“I’ll be fine*,” she told me. “I’ve been to bars before without drinking!”

“Well yeah, so have I,” I said. “But going to a bar for an hour or two is different from going to a pub crawl–an entire day devoted to drinking!”

“You wanna come?” she asked.

“No way!” I told her. “I could go to a winery too, but I’m not going to!”

She said she’d call me if things get ugly. In the meantime, I’d help her find an appropriate outfit for Saturday–something a little slutty. Tastefully slutty.

Corinne is a teeny-wiener, but the boobs still pose as a problem, at least as far as finding a dress at Plato’s Closet that would accommodate them. 80% of the dresses were summer dresses, with empire waists, tiny bodices and thread-like spaghetti straps–no good for bigguns. She began amassing a pile of skirts and shirts to try on and I wandered around the store and happened upon…

…this adorable reversible sweatshirt! It was marked for clearance too–SCORE. The salesgirls told us that lots of girls had tried it on, but nobody actually brought it home until I came along. See? You just have to have obnoxious taste, and you will always score at thrift stores. Easy peasy.

Corinne ended up buying several items, including this purple satin skirt I found for her–it’s a nice straight silhouette, more classy than slutty, but she could add a boobalicious shirt and some fishnets and heels to trash it up, if need be. Aw damn, I forgot to lend her my extra-chunky Mardi Gras beads, gifted to me last year. Phooey.

My car is at the shop, finally. It has, over the past couple of years, occasionally locked me out, but always resolves itself. Unfortunately this time both doors on the drivers side have been locking me out for over a week, so I have to get in through the passenger side. Talk about a pain in the ass.

I called Bug-Aid to find out if I could just fix it myself at home (sometimes, with VW, it’s not that complicated). They told me that eventually the car might just decide to lock me out completely, and then I’d have to get it towed. No thanks. How dare you, Volkswagen! The nerve.

* remember what they say: “fine” stands for fucked-up, insecure, neurotic and emotional!