It's Dreary in Tacoma. And Raining.

The rain has been constant today here in Tacoma. Last night and this morning lightning was striking. It's like spring in Texas without the tornado drama.

So, this morning, due to the rain, Lulu's first husband could not ride his Huge Harley to REI to do whatever it is he does there. This left Lulu without a car.

So, I drove to the Lulu House, ostensibly to take photos of some of her apparently fabulous jewelry stuff and to go to WOW'S for lunch with Frank and Virginia, them being the well-known, constantly sparring partners, who live their own little Univision Telenovela.

But, eventually I was to learn the real reason Lulu lured me to her lair was so that I could drive her to Safeway. There was no WOW'S.

Before Safeway happened I learned, inadvertently, that Lulu was about to slur me on her blog in a most horrendously malicious way by describing me as a 4 year old with attention deficit disorder in dire need of Ritalin and with a mad compulsion to talk to strangers. And that I have no sense about how to operate a successful market stall because I engage the people in conversation, thus wasting time from the all-important transactions.

Well. I'll just say this about that. I lost track of the number of times Lulu wandered from her booth on Sunday, taking with her the stash of change-making cash. The worst incident came a bit after noon when I had 4 women wanting to buy bracelets, necklaces and magnets from me. All with $20 bills. And me with no change.

I didn't know what to do. It was embarrassing. And then Lulu sashayed up ( I wanted to say waddled up, but that somehow seemed mean ) and as she sashayed she was stuffing her face with Kettle Korn from a Giant Bag. I could not get her to focus on the problem at hand. Or her hand out of the Kettle Korn.

One of the customers walked off in frustration. After about a half hour of this madness I was finally able to make change for the first lady, who then walked off, obviously, and quite righteously, seriously offput. The 3rd and 4th long-waiting customers seemed to find it all amusing. As did Lulu as she just stood there stuffing popcorn into her pie hole.

As for the issue of me engaging the people in conversation. Well, from that we learned where many of them were from. We learned Lulu should make more skeleton stuff. We learned some of them read our blogs and I got invited by an Austin artist to an event in Dallas.

There was one slight problem caused by me talking to one person in one minor incident when a lady was overcome with joy about seeing JP Patches and would not shut up about it. All I did was ask her what the deal was with the big fake red noses so many people had. On and on she went, quite animated. I eventually escaped by saying I was off to take photos of the new JP Patches statue. I thought the lady left when I did, but Lulu claimed she came back and Lulu had to shoo her away. I don't believe Lulu's account.

So, back to the real reason I was lured to Lulu's today. The Safeway trip. I've wondered how Lulu goes from having a few hundred dollars by the end of Sunday and then no money by the end of the next day. Well, the grocery shopping at Safeway was instructive. One chicken at $1.99 a pound for over 10 bucks. One box of 12 chocolate chip cookies, $5.89. 4 donuts, $3.26. 2 magazines at about 6 bucks each. 1 package of bacon for $5.99, with a buy one get one free deal of equal or lesser size. But Lulu got only one, not understanding that she'd be paying $5.99 for that one package. I did not get too pointed about this mistake because I think Lulu could maybe not eat so much bacon. I'm forgetting some of the stuff. Oh, one Starbucks Grande Vanilla Bean Frappacino, with whipped cream. Those cost about $4. And was sickeningly sweet. Particularly with donuts and chocolate chip cookies.

The total for 2 puny bags, filled mostly with junk food, was about 50 bucks. Or 50 magnets in Lulu Currency. All in all, the Safeway excursion was a real eye opener. I now know how Lulu can end up broke so quickly. And, also why she's not quite the dainty little thing she used to be in her younger years. Donuts, bacon, cookies and Starbucks do not a dainty girl make.

I'm outta here in less than 48 hours, not that I'm counting. I will continue to engage strangers if I feel like it. And I'll never do one of those Lulu's Shows again without a pocket full of dollar bills. And a mute button. For Lulu. I won't even talk about the bad Lulu behavior that occurred in front of about a dozen customers when my ex-fiance' called. Let's just say it was very embarrassing. And loud. Like a 4 year old having a tantrum....