every step you take, every move you make, I'll be watching you

I went home a few weekends ago to see Rent with my mom and my betrothed. It was fantabulous as always. The music moved and the story line shook me to my core, but the real excitement happened on Sunday-at the mall.

Deciding that it was time to actually wear the new shoes I got for Christmas, but needing to trade sizes first, we headed to Nordstrom at South Park for a little exchangaroo. South Park has gotten considerably high end since the days of the Christmas Carousel and the pet store, so we also decided to peruse a few other shops while Freddie sat idly buy watching a fountain.

As usual, I wandered off while we were in Anthropologie and my mom had to come looking for me. She seemed incredibly irritated, which surprised me because after 27 years you'd really think she'd be used to this by now, but also because, really mom, it's not that big of a store. When I called her name to show her this adorable tulip skirt, she kind of snipped at me. Afraid she'd cause a little scene, I decided to abandon my efforts on the skirt and went to her side.

Looking toward the door, she quickly and gruffly said, GIVEMEYOURSTUFFTHAT'SANDIEMACDOWELL!!! It took me a minute, but then I realized she was talking about her...



Often distinguished by her curly mane, Mom also recognized her voice and her hunch was confirmed when the clerk said, Thanks, Andie!

So, I tossed my stuff to mom, and, of course, followed her out the door to confirm. She headed into a very fancy shoe store, which I could only pretend for about 5 minutes I could shop in, but it was in fact her.

This is not that unusual. Andie is actually spotted quite frequently in the area. I went to school with her niece. She has family in the area. But, it was our first Andie sighting, so we were excited.

When we returned to the check out, the girls were chatting..."She's not that nice." "No," the other girl said "she's not." The first girl replied, "she actually kind of scared me a little."

As we exited the store, we saw her rejoin her party, 3 teenagers, and spent about ten minutes following them around the mall. We watched from afar, which is what polite stalkers do. After leaving the shoe store, she stopped in Burberry. But, the best part was when she was chatting with her children in a central area outside of Neiman Marcus and a screaming girl came running toward her. You could see Andie's face flash with a look of annoyed desperation, "oh, the misery of fame. Can't I go out and spend a thousands of dollars without anyone bothering me for autographs?", but her look of desperation turned to shock, when the girl stopped abruptly 10 feet in front of her, she had just recognized her friend from across the mall and had to rave about the sale at Urban Outfitters! HA! Because the thing is, Andie actually seemed to walk through the mall virtually unnoticed. I wander if that actually upset her more than the previous scene. Perhaps we stalkers should have identified ourselves. It's rough being a forty something mom in the world where shoeless Britney and too tiny dogooder Angelina get all the credit. A woman needs to be fawned over every once in a while. If you're reading this, Andie, we realy did think you looked pretty good. I guess that L'Oreal stuff really works.