Specific Mall

Naturally, the saga of my Mom's leg lump isn't over yet.  After the He-Said/She-Said ultrasound results ("It's a tumour!"  "Is not!"  "Is too!"), the doctor who originally raised the alarm advised my Mom to go ahead with an urgent MRI.  His concern is that the second-opinion doctor at the hospital ER didn't check high up enough above my Mom's knee.  Yes, there is a cyst.  However, there is also something else in there that could be a tumour.

"Investigate sarcoma" is what the doctor wrote on her test requisition.  So, of course, she's alarmed,  and I'm trying not to worry, with moderate success.  It's a case of Schrödinger's cancer, which both exists and does not exist simultaneously until we have more information.  I submit that this should be the official disease name that everyone can lay claim to while waiting for their actual diagnosis.  I mean, the waiting stage isn't neutral, not by a long shot.

The MRI is scheduled for Monday, the results will take around 1 week, so we just have to sit tight for a while.

What to do when distraction is required?  Go to the mall!  Not just any mall.  A specific mall, i.e. Pacific Mall.  (See what I did there?)  Ken and I hadn't gone in a year or so.  Because it's a marketplace mainly composed of tiny, kiosk-sized businesses, there's always a lot of turnover, which means that there's always something new to see, and this time was no exception.

My favourite new business name is: It's Skin!

There are so many ways in which this name could go wrong.  Are they selling skin?  Things made of skin?  I mean, sure, it could be a leather store, but that would be a pretty weird name for it.  Are they answering a question that their salespeople get asked all the time?  "What the heck is that in the display case?"  "It's skin."  Ew.

The most unexpected new addition to the mall: several vape shops.  If you don't know what that's about, read this: "vape" is the Oxford English Dictionary's word of the year for 2014.  

The current most popular type of shop in the mall: cell phones and accessories.  I swear we saw at least 20 different retailers of this type.  If you want anything to do with cell phones, Pacific Mall is your go-to destination.  Especially if you feel that you need the maximum possible choice of phone cases.  There were literally thousands of options.  A couple of my favourites are, blue guy playing a saxophone:

And butter lion.

Butter lion?  Apparently yes.  I did a little looking into the origin of "butter lion", and found that he's actually a bear who was hit in the back of the head by a couple of butter pies.  There is no end to the weird imagination of Asian character creators.