Ladies' day out

Cliff, his older brother, and their sister have spent the past couple of days in Kansas with their younger brother in celebration of his birthday.  Seeing that I was going to have two-and-a-half days alone on the property, I realized that even for a loner like me, this was a pretty big stretch of "alone time".  
Cliff said, "Well, you will be practicing for when I'm dead."  
Nice thought, eh?  I find it amusing that he's so very certain he will die before I do.  I might have to croak first just to show him!  OK, enough macabre humor.  
Left alone for more than two days, I turn into sort of a zombie, so I suggested to my daughter that we do something fun on Saturday.  I told her to bring the girls if they wanted to come and I'd buy dinner.  We also asked Heather, my grandson's girl friend, along.  The daughter's youngest accompanied us; the older daughter, Monica, had other plans (she has her driver's license, you know).  So there were four of us.  
We ate at Red Lobster and had some nice conversation.  Heather has an app on her phone that will take a "fun house mirror" picture of people.  Brace yourself... here's the picture she took of me:

Pretty scary, eh?  After lunch we went to World Market at my request.  I love looking at all the interesting items in that store, but most of it is frivolous stuff that I don't buy.  Yesterday I decided to buy some of their expensive foreign candy.  

That Toblerone is some of the best chocolate I've ever tasted.  It comes from Switzerland.  The candy raspberries are pretty good, too.  There are little sugar seeds in them!  I'm a little confused about where it comes from, though:  On the front is says, "German gummi raspberries".  On the back it says, "Product of Turkey."  I probably wouldn't buy them again, but I'm glad I tried them.  
Leaving World Market, we went next door to Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I picked up a couple of organizer-type things in hopes of making my kitchen cabinets neater.  I'm keeping the receipts, though, in case they don't serve my purposes as well as I hoped.  I love looking through kitchen gadgets, and both the stores we visited have loads of gadgets.   
Ever since Cliff and I visited our son at Thanksgiving, I've fought the urge to buy one of those fancy Keurig coffe makers.  They cost more money that I really want to spend; I don't have counter space for another coffee maker; and those fancy little K-cups are expensive.  Yesterday my daughter took away that third reason for not buying by showing me that they do come with a little basket that lets you use your ordinary coffee with the Keurig.  I didn't know that!  
On the way home we went by Price Chopper because they had Diet Coke on sale, a dollar off the usual price.  I only drink pop with I'm eating popcorn, but Cliff guzzles quite a bit of it.  Two 24-packs should last awhile around here.  Of course, I wiped out the two bucks I saved by spending over nine dollars on cherries.  I love Bing cherries, and hardly ever buy them because of the expense.  I ate almost a pound of them yesterday evening.  
No, my stomach is not upset.  Why do you ask?  
By the way, none of the money spent yesterday came out of our envelopes.  It was a one-day splurge paid for by money sitting in our checking account, and I'm not sorry.  It was fun, and once every seven months or so, it can't hurt.  
Oh, we did not go to Independence Center on our little outing, but we were awfully close.  There was a shooting there yesterday and the whole place was put on lockdown.  Reminds me of the time I visited a friend in Spotsylvania; we made a quick stop at a shopping mall for something.  That evening the news was full of stories about a shooting spree at that very mall.  It was a story that made national headlines.