Heather asked me while munching on the rest of her salad at Soup Plantation.
Heather, her daughter Hannah and Joleen and come down to San Diego to visit me on New Year's Day. I was so excited that they were coming down to visit the Chaos abode to spend the day together. I promised an action packed day at Paper Tales and I did not want to disappoint my traveling friends. I looked at our restless kids, Joleen's sad face and said, "Call her again!"
The "her" being Michelle. We were, what you would say in legal terms, "stalking" her. However, we likened it to just trying to get a hold of our dear friend.
We had arrived at Paper Tales an hour beforehand excitely awaiting all the fun, glitter and paper it had to offer. As we pulled into the parking lot and toward the shop, I noticed the "open" sign started with a "c" and ended with a "d".......No.....that sign doesn't say what I think it does. Unless Webster dictionary recently changed the spelling of open......... "OMG....it's CLOSED!!!" we screamed collectively (except for Carlos who yelled a "YAY!!! Let's go home!") Nooooooooooooo..........But, I called to make sure it was open the day before.......Nooooooooo.........This can't be....Nooooooooooo......
We stood against the door sadly peering into the window looking at all the beautiful products as they mockingly sat just out of reach from us. What were we going to do?
Heather then came up with a brilliant idea...."Let's call her!"
"Yes!! That's perfect! We'll call her and see if she if she can come down!" I said with absolutely no regard to Michelle's New Years plans.
"Ok....Do you have her number?" Heather asked me.
"Of course I do!" I said confidently. "Somewhere. On my desk. Under piles of paper and projects. Somewhere......"
At that point, Heather rolled her eyes at me and knew that idea was a one way road to nowheresville and suggested we head over to Soup Plantation to weigh our options.
After regaining some energy by eating some soup, salad and frozen yogurt sundaes, we focused on our options....a) break into the store and leave money on the counter for all our purchases, or, b) call our friend Joy who was going to try and meet us at some point to see if she had Michelle's phone number. We opted to call Joy as we figured no one would come to bail us out if we were arrested. As we had hoped, Joy had Michelle's cell number and we immediately called her. I left a message that said something to the effect of "deperate......crying while eating our cranberry orange muffins.....no where else to turn".....and ended it with a vague threat of "don't make us go somewhere else." We then sat and waited an immediate call in return. Fifteen minutes later, and no return call, Joleen suggested that she probably didn't recognized the area code and was probably ignoring it. So we decide to call again in hopes that she would at least get curious enough to listen to the message. Ok...at this point what do you think happened?
1. Michelle immediate obtained a temporary restraining order on all of us, including the three kids, forbidding us to be in a 10 mile radius of Paper Tales.
2. Had us arrested for unlawful cell phone stalking.
3. Came to the store and opened it up so we could go shopping.
Based on this picture, can you guess who just arrived!
Well, Michelle of course!
Michelle's our hero!
People found new uses for cute baskets.....
Floors were used for purposes other than walking......
Solace was found at a block table......
Some people had tons of fun.......
Others thought they were living a nightmare......
In the end, we had a blast! We bought tons of fun stuff.....laughed until we cried...and made some great memories.
WE LOVE YOU MICHELLE!!!!
Afterwards, we packed three cranky kids into a van and headed back to my house where Heather, Joleen and I sat around chit chatting, not wanting the day to end. After begging Joleen, photographer extraordannaire, to take photos of my family and me, and withholding the keys to the car from Heather until she agreed to revamp my blog, they finally had to bid adieu and start their journey back up to Orange County.
Thank you so much Heather and Joleen!!!! I had a blast!!!!
