I Suck At Shopping For A Present

i seem to be in a pickle.

karen's birthday is this wednesday. yesterday, karen was going to work late at her job. so, i had ample time to kill. more importantly, i had ample time to look for a birthday present for karen as i get out of work fairly early in the day. in fact, it was the first day that i actually had time to go looking for a present for her.

unfortunately... the problem: i can't find any good gifts for her.

i find karen extremely hard to purchase gifts for. adding to the difficult nature of gift purchasing for karen is the fact that this year, karen has not exactly been in the celebratory mood with the passing of our son (braden) a month ago. karen has never really been the "yay me" type anyway. and this year, she really hasn't wanted anything outside of the obvious (that being a different outcome for braden).

i wish i had the power to give her that, but unfortunately that is out of my control. so instead, i'm relegated to looking for a present that, in the grand scheme of things, might not even mean much to karen.

anyway, i went to the south shore plaza in braintree yesterday to find a gift for karen. i'm surprised people still go to the south shore plaza because... to me, there are no good stores at the south shore plaza. there even isn't really any good places to eat at the plaza outside of the cheesecake factory.

needless to say, i searched and searched numerous stores in my allotted time for a present... zip zero nada nothing. there was simply nothing that caught my eye. as i was shopping, i started to think about my last year... because last year, i had a similar problem.

last year, as karen's birthday was drawing closer, i did not have a present for her. (i may be sensing a trend here.) one day after work (when i still worked in town)... my friend (hot amy) with her infinite wisdom asked if i wanted her to accompany me as i looked for a present for karen. naturally, i agreed.

and so, we embarked on a shopping excursion... of all places... to the south shore plaza. we looked at a few things before i remembered that karen wanted a right hand ring at the time. from there, hot amy and i went to jewelry store after jewelry store looking at rings. (in case anyone is curious, hot amy loves jewelry.) if i didn't know any better, i would say hot amy just wanted to try rings on.

it was an interesting experience to say the least. i got to learn about a particular jewelry designer by the name of david yurman who i never heard of (not that i would have heard of him anyway because i know nothing about jewelry.) david yurman apparently is famous for a twisted cable design or something like that. some of the jewelry associates even thought i was looking at rings for hot amy, probably because she was trying a lot of the rings on. it was quite comical. (the rings did look nicer with hot amy, the hand model.) i ended up not purchasing anything that day, but it was a fun experience. hot amy probably will never go shopping with me again, that's for sure. and for anyone curious, i did eventually get karen a right hand ring for christmas and not her birthday. for her birthday, i ended up getting her a bosu ball which was on her wish list. (so no, i was not implying she needed to get in shape or anything with that gift.)

anyway, that was last year. this year seems to be almost a repeat of last year in that i don't have a present again... with the exception of the shopping excursion with hot amy. although, my friend (andrea) did offer to go shopping with me for karen's birthday present this year. i wonder if andrea likes rings. just kidding.

with karen's birthday tomorrow, i don't think i'll have a present for her in time. unlike last year, i still don't really have any ideas for her. i thought about the jewelry route this year, but karen already has a necklace with braden's name on it. as well, she is getting another ring with braden's footprints around the band as soon as we order it.

i seem to be out of ideas... and out of time. man, i suck at shopping for a present.