Another day ...

Things just keep rolling along.

I would like to understand how some things happen. I am watching a new animated series on tv that for the life of me, I cannot understand HOW this ever came to be.

It is terrible. Not even remotely funny...how the hell did this thing ever make it on the air? How do these things happen?

I should have posted this closer to the actual occurrence but this was one of those moments that needed to swirl around in my brain to filter through the layers before I wrote about it.

Over Memorial Day weekend this year, my adult niece and I, along with a friend, flew to New York for the annual Fleet Week observance. This is where various naval ships from various countries come into port, and the sailors are cut loose for shore leave in the Big Apple.

To sum it up concisely; its a blast!

On Sunday, May 30th, we decided to go "itinerary-less", and started out with doing the obligatory Staten Island ferry ride. From there, we started shopping like there was no tomorrow, which was factually true, because it WAS our last day in NYC.

Well...my niece had found her a few great little dresses in the Village the day before, which naturally meant it was time for SHOES!

We walked all over Manhattan...not just to shop but just to sight see. In so doing, we hit the Diamond District. This is a city block or two stretch right near Rockefeller Center that is loaded to the gills with diamond stores. If you have the money & the stomach for dealing, very good deals can be found!

Well....she started looking at some diamond ear rings, just for the sake of looking. We went from $1,500 for the pair to where they were about $400, mostly cause the store we were in was actually TWO competing counters/merchants. They basically got into a price war over the ear rings...lol....and it was really funny.

Each of them had a big calculator that they would key in their "offer", and discretely flash the price to you so that the other merchant couldn't see. It was interesting as to how quick the price came down from $1500 to the $400.

As we turned the corner onto 5th Avenue, lo & behold, there was the Aldo store my niece was looking for!

Now if you want the visual definition of "surreal", walking into that store was it...

It was huge, and jammed packed with hundreds of women on a similar mission as my niece...to find that perfect pair of shoes to match whatever outfit needed it. The place was a gleaming white marble zoo designed to make the most fashion-hating working class blue collar man go to being a gay fashion maven in 30 seconds or less.

And since New York public buildings do NOT believe in a true working air condition system for their patrons, the place was a very toasty muggy stale stack of air....with piles of shoes to fight over.

I plopped down onto an ottoman/bench while my niece dove head first into the shoe smorgasbord.

And then it happened....

This store, which had one helluva numero uno sound system built in ( no a/c but stereo out the wazoo.....) starts to throb with the ethereal music musings of Lady Gaga singing "Dance in the Dark". For whatever reason, I had never heard this song before. But I can assure you of this, it is now forever liked to my mental image of that store filled with all kinds of people brought together by whatever muse of fashion was working at the register in the Karma Department that day.

All I can say is that it was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end!