shopping? completed. here's the list of all our loot: 1 pillow, to replace andrew's "flat-low", 1 pair of boots, 1 season of "friends" on dvd (my only true desire from this day), 1 argyle sweater for my husband, the only man under 40 who likes argyle sweaters except for those who also love other men, 1 dvd of "the dark knight", 1 multi-pack of black socks for my husband who wears out socks so fast that i often think of him as a goat, and, last, but certainly not least, 1 game of monopoly.

i am unashamed to admit that only 2 of these purchases were gifts for christmas. black friday is the perfect time to buy things like pillows and socks - things that we need, and are certainly not worthy of being wrapped and given as a gift. it's weird that they were on sale, though, since this is a gift-giving holiday sale. but whatever. it worked out that i didn't want any of the things that were big gift items... ie: a tv, a wii, an xbox, a camera, a gps, an ipad. all of those things were at the center of the madhouse. pillows and socks, however, were quiet corners of tranquility in the store.

also, they were 3 dollars.

anyway, my mother and i returned unscathed, with our bags of things, expecting to see my father sitting on the couch enjoying our 3 HD channels (brought to us by our convenient situation on a hill and an antenna), drinking a beer. instead, we found him sitting at the table, reading the book about facebook (by ben mezrich), waiting on windows 7 to install on my mother's laptop. i should've known it would take longer than 3 hours to complete that. in fact, it has consumed almost 8 hours of his time today.

WHY, WINDOWS?

i know that i'm a "mac-person" now, and thus, will never understand.... but isn't there an easier way? an easy button? a windows genius somewhere? my dad is good at computers and it's taken him all day. this is how i know i would never be able to succeed at installing windows. this is also how i know i will never even try.