Making friends

[Lindsey]

On Saturday it was beautiful and I planned to spend the whole afternoon outside. In the morning I had dropped Scott off with a friend (they were going to Edmonton for a bachelor party) and took Layla to acupuncture (what a nightmare... she was so stressed and restless!) and finally got home. I put her crate out on the deck, and brought some cushions and a book outside and settled in to read.

After a few minutes I thought I might as well do Layla's exercises with her, and express her bladder. I was out in the grass expressing her when our neighbor came to the fence. He introduced himself and I introduced myself. He asked if we were getting settled in and I said "Well we've been trying, but this little dog here was paralyzed a couple of weeks ago so she's taking up a lot of our time" and he said awwww and asked what happened. After some explaining and his well wishes, he said his wife was having a clothing party that afternoon, and she'd love to have me over and I could meet some of the neighborhood ladies if I was interested. It was starting in half an hour. I thought, why not?

I had never been to a clothing party before, and I was in for a surprise. First of all, I felt a little bit out of place because all of the women were much older than me, which wouldn't be a big problem, but there was nothing for me to talk about. They all have kids, some are teenagers, they are mostly all stay at home moms. The clothing was not my style at all, but I pretended to be really interested. Then we all had to try on an outfit that was chosen by the woman who came to sell everything, and I of course got to put on something I would NEVER wear, but at least it fit. Afterwards we got our order forms and I felt obligated to buy something since I was the new person there and had come over and had drinks and I felt I should maybe support the whole idea. Plus, I'm sure they look at us and see we bought this big house next door and think we must have money But that house is the reason we DON'T!

Anyways, so I'm flipping through the catalogue, looking for something I might want. There was actually one cardigan that looked really nice and was a little younger looking. It could be worn lots of different ways. I found it in the catalogue... $83!!! Are you kidding me? I could go to one of my regular stores and buy 4 or 5 shirts for that price! The more I looked, I realized the prices were outrageous. $40 for a tank top. $100 for a hooded long sleeved shirt. I finally picked out a sport bra for $44 and paid on my visa. It was one of the cheapest things in the whole catalogue.

Then things were awkward because everyone was mingling and they all knew each other and I had nothing to talk about. I did start talking with one woman about dogs and I wrote about what happened there in my Layla thread. I started feeling like nobody wanted to talk to me or didn't know how to talk to me, and they were all just talking about their kids anyway, or other people they all knew. After being there for almost 4 hours I was getting panicky about Layla being in her crate alone at home and I was looking for a way out. Thankfully Scott started texting me and I just said "It looks like I have to run home, but thanks for everything!" None of them knew he wasn't actually in town for the weekend.

I just felt relief as soon as I got home. I'm glad I did it but it was so awkward and I didn't feel comfortable at all. I was glad to be home with Layla again. She missed me. After about an hour, the doorbell rang so I ran downstairs to get it, and it was the woman from next door. She said she just wanted me to know anytime we see them sitting out in their yard having a drink, we can feel free to come join them. She also said she's home all day every day if I ever want to stop by for coffee or anything. She is really nice so I'm glad she stopped by to make an extra effort. They have three young kids, two boys and one little girl, and they are all adorable. I think Scott and I could end up being good friends with them!