Last week we went to Kara’s Cupcakes, which opened at Santana Row a month or so ago. Tonight, since we decided to have dinner in Palo Alto, we decided to first swing by Sprinkles Cupcakes at Stanford Shopping Center to get some cupcakes for dessert. First, as at Kara’s, we had to wait in line. Then, we entered the temple of cupcake, designed with an ultra-spare geometric aesthetic ruling the decor, with spotlights highlighting the cupcakes in their sleek cabinets. Apparently they were putting out enough cupcakes to have 6-7 cute young thangs moving behind the counter, taking orders, filling boxes, keeping the line moving.

“You know what this is?” Darin said.

“What?”

“This is the Cupcake Genius Bar.”

He’s right! It’s the Apple store of cupcakes! Soon, we will all be part of the postmodern aesthetic!

Kara’s has better cupcakes though.

I’ve had to rediscover shopping lately, because I need some new clothes. I either a)hate the clothes I’ve been wearing and desperately want a new style, b)need new clothes because nothing I have fits at the moment, or c)have discovered a secret need to wear high heels. Okay, I don’t much understand (c) either, but ever since Nina brought over a pair of her Guess for Marciano spiked Mary Janes I’ve been wanting to wear heels like that. Only I have to practice, having been a strictly flats girl up until this point in my life, so I need to start with mid-range heels and work up to 4 1/2 inch spikes.

(She brought over the heels to try on with this dress

which I completely loved and coveted so much I went out and bought this dress

only because the red wasn’t available and because I need some kind of Little Black Dress, right? Now, of course, I need somewhere to wear this dress and whatever shoes I eventually find to go with them. I’ll leave that as an exercise for Darin.)

So I’ve been doing a lot of shopping recently. Or trying to, at any rate. I was completely unable to get into the mall at all last weekend, because of the flood of cars.

Okay, weekends are out. Yesterday I went to Valley Fair first thing in the morning, a Thursday morning, to the best of my knowledge not the first shopping day of the Xmas season or anything. And despite my intention to hand the Nordstrom shoe sellers as much money as I possibly could (at least, as much as one or two or maybe three pairs of good heels would set me back—as I have literally* have not bought anything but running shoes for years, people), I walked out of there empty-handed. Because as soon as one associate helped me, he or she disappeared to wait on the four or five other women on nearby couches buy as many shoes as they possibly could. Yes, several of them were better dressed than I was (see above, “needs new clothes”), but still. I’ve bought lots of shoes at Nordstrom over the years and never been completely ignored before.

Certainly not at eleven in the damn morning.

I finally went up to the lingerie department, where the associate was more than happy to tell me that I had gone down a band size and needed to buy several new bras.

Then I went to Macy’s and gave up on the shoe department—tons of shoe buyers, two or three very harried shoe salesmen.

I stopped in Sephora, where I was set upon by quite possibly the most hilarious queeny—his word!—makeup artist from Urban Decay ever. And the second I was out of his makeup chair, someone else was in it.

As far as I can tell, things are hopping, shopping-wise.

Then I read something like Kevin Drum’s entry today about real consumer spending, and it’s like, Whoa.

I don’t know whether the Silicon Valley is on the tail end of the dragon. Whether this ripple is spreading over the economy (starting in Detroit, maybe?) and is headed our way with a vengeance. But while there are plenty of sale signs in the windows, I haven’t seen anything like the sign one Tweeter I follow reported:

A local business is, as of today, 11/11/2008, displaying a sign out front which reads (& I am not making this up): AFTER CHRISTMAS SALE NOW

I did walk around the downtown area of my little town, and a couple of businesses are closing. But at the moment it doesn’t seem like a crazy amount. One storefront has been empty for a while—used to be a Sharper Image; remember not to go crazy with the gift cards this year—but it’s going to be an American Apparel soon. A couple of storefronts already have up signs about the next businesses moving in.

Then I read, via Hilzoy, an account in the Financial Times about what’s happened to Iceland. And how it’s spreading.

And I’m like, WTF?

I have no idea where this economy is going. I understand the need to bailout the automakers, despite the fact that they make crappy cars that no one buys. I don’t know what Hank Paulson is doing with that slush fund the Senate couldn’t wait to vote him a couple of weeks ago, and no one else does either. Oil is back down to the mid-50s, apparently because of the world recession. Or because of speculation. Or because…

Jesus, I’ve never felt this blog was so aptly named before.

The only thing I know is that I still need shoes. Of course, I don’t want to regret buying them a year from now when we’re trying to buy milk.

*It occurred to me a day after posting that in fact I did buy some shoes last year when I went to the writers and agents conference in November. But they totally f’d up my left foot and I never wear them any more. Management regrets the error.

I found this quote in the morning paper:

Still, PG&E said Sunday that it was hoping nearly all of the lights would come back on by Tuesday or Wednesday.

“What!?” said Godfrey Muehler of Sunnyvale. “We’ve heard 10 a.m., 1 p.m., 3 p.m., 7 p.m.

Anybody see what made me sad? Is it the fact that all of my brethren do not yet have their lights and power on? Is it that PG&E is swamped and there’s yet another storm headed our way?

No, it’s the San Jose Mercury News using “!?” as punctuation. T’ain’t standard, man. Don’t make me take out my Chicago Manual of Style. You get to pick an exclamation mark or a question mark. You don’t get both.

You may have heard about this storm that blew into California recently. All over California at the same time, which is as neat a trick as you are likely to see. Usually the storm has to blow into one part and then move across or down to another part the next day, because we’re a really big state. Apparently, this storm knows from big.

Yesterday our power went out at 9:30am, so I called the painting guy I had an appointment with and said, You know, it’s cold and dark here, let’s postpone. He said, Yeah, I’ve kinda been wondering if I even want to leave my office today. I didn’t need any extra pushing — a café! With lattés and music and people going by! Just what I need on a stormy day!

The lights kept going out at Coffee Society.

I drove back home, where I discovered the Borders was closed and the local café was dark (though packed with people, hilariously enough — no idea what they were all drinking). I bought some sushi at the local market and drove around. Branches down everywhere. I saw one car that had been crushed by a falling tree (wish I’d gotten a picture of that). I listened to a lot of my podcasts of “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me (the NPR news quiz)” and eventually went to Club Swanky, where the kids were having a holiday day camp. They both seemed okay with having to stay at the club even past the end time of the camp, but by 3pm both of them were like, Time to GO, Mom.

So, what to do? I took them to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, which was cute (not a good movie, per se, but cute, and the kids really liked it). Then we looked for a restaurant — many of them were closed by power outages. I called home, and the voicemail picked up immediately, which meant the power was still out.

We ended up back at the Pruneyard, where everyone had decided to go for dinner last night, so we waited a long time for a table. During dinner, Darin and I decided we should stay at a hotel that night, so he phoned around to a couple of hotels. Nothing doing: either full up, or closed for remodeling.

We drove home, I found one of our flashlights in the pitch black, and I packed us an overnight case. We drove to the hotel around the corner from our house, where they gave us a so-so room (what the hell, we had a place to sleep and it was warm). The kids were at Defcon 5 for a while, until they actually lay down, at which point they were asleep.Darin and I watched the news for a while. Nothing about the Storm of the Century. Lots about Britney Spears, though. Yay.

I also apparently missed some story about tigers at the zoo, but that’s okay: I don’t need to know. Affects my life not at all.

In the morning I called home and the phone rang, which meant the power was back on. So we did what anybody would have done: we went out to find breakfast somewhere. Then we came home, where the kids have permission to play video games all day and have taken us up on that proposition.I hear massive thunder overhead. If we lose power again, though, we’re staying here. A night’s sleep with absolutely no distractions from lights will do us all a world of good.

Friday afternoon I told Darin I wanted to go to the mall and see the iPhone hysteria first-hand. But then Simon got sick, so that plan was cancelled.

Saturday afternoon we did make it to the mall, because I needed to get a dress for the party that night. While I was off shopping for dress, shoes, and makeup, Darin did such things as go to the Apple store and discover the 8 gig models were already sold out.

Saturday night we went to the big iPhone party up at the Exploratorium, which totally rocked but did not have the party favor I was hoping for. Most of the Apple employees there had iPhones, and 99% of them had gone to their local Apple dealer to buy one. Just in case you’re wondering if the employees believe in the product. And no, they did not serve Kool-Aid at the party.

Sunday morning Darin checked the iPhone website and headed down to Oakridge to get me one. It turned out that Oakridge was totally sold out on Saturday, but for some reason the website didn’t update.

Sunday afternoon all the stores in California had red dots.

I ordered my iPhone from the online store. I’m hoping the estimates for when it will ship are just a wee bit off.

(And I haven’t spotted one in the wild yet, but I keep checking every time I see someone on the phone.)

Now, maybe everyone else in this area drives a whole bunch more than I do and they already knew about this, but I just discovered one of the coolest features of living in this area.

So there we are, driving up Highway 17, heading to 85, and then to Simon’s preschool when BAM! Someone throws something at our car.

Except there aren’t any other cars around. Hmm.

On the connector between 17 and 85 the car starts driving funny and I think, “I bet this is the situation people refer to as ‘a flat tire.’”

I pull out the phone and call the preschool to let them know I’ll be late. Then I dig out my AAA card and get ready to call.

A tow truck pulls up behind us. Oh great, think I, a freelancer. I tell Sophia to remain belted in, just in case. In case of what? I don’t know. But it seems like the prudent maneuver.

The guy comes over to the passenger window and says that he’s with the Freeway Service Patrol and he’d be happy to change my tire for free. Which he proceeds to do in about 15 minutes. He asks me to fill out a little survey form and mail it back at my convenience. And then we’re all done and I continue on my way. I end up being about 10 minutes late picking Simon up.

Coolest. Thing. Ever.

And I don’t have to use up one of my AAA freebies.

If you drive in the Greater Bay Area, you need these guys’ brochure in your glove compartment.