[crossposted]

"Okay, one thing I definitely know is that I need to get a new bed," Kristin chattered as she and Idina stepped out into the cold to start their whirlwind Christmas shopping expedition. "I was thinking I could just put a big red bow in the middle of it." Her high, girlish laugh rang through the neighborhood.

"And have you tied in it?" Idina asked, laughing. "Or better yet, you wearing the bow. Oh, my God, Ki! I can't believe you're getting married! And that I get to wear a matron of honor dress that will be more flattering than should be legal!" Of this, she made sure. "You must love him to get a new bed."

Slipping into the car, Kristin laughed, "You'll be the sexiest matron anyone ever saw!" Her eyes were bright with something other than teasing though, when she threw out flippantly, "I know! I adore that little bed!" It was obvious for anyone who cared to look that she didn't consider it any real sacrifice.

"We'll take it off your hands if you want. Put it in the guest bedroom." Idina pulled out and headed toward the mall. "It's nearly cold here! Who figured?! Hey! Tell me about New York! How was it?!"

"Bite your tongue!" Kristin was only able to maintain her mock-fierce look for a second before breaking into giggles, "I've got a guest room too, you know!" Glancing out the window, she looked over at her friend with a shake of her head. "I know you miss New York, Di, but I am so glad to be in a part of the country that it doesn't take me fifteen minutes to bundle up to walk two blocks!"

Snickering, Idina nodded (starting their seatwarmers, too). "I love it here, I just really do. It feels like home, already. You know?" She sighed happily. "Now if I could just get knocked up!"

"Not for lack of trying, I'm sure!" came Kristin's teasing rejoinder but she nodded, going on, "I know what you mean, though. About loving it here? There's just a...feeling to this city..."

"Exactly!" God, Idina loves that Kristin just gets her. "Tell me you're hungry, too, because I'm starving!"

It's been exactly the same between the two of them since the first minute of rehearsals for Wicked. They'd just looked at each other and were immediately friends for life and nothing over the years had changed that one whit.

With an indelicate little snort, Kristin gave her friend a wry look, "When have I ever turned down food!?" That, of course, just set off another fit of giggling.

"Obviously at some point, because you're gorgeously curvy as always!" The mall is close and Idina is able to find a spot to park that's only a half-mile away. "I say we start at Macy's. They should have beds? And all the fun Christmas stuff!"

"Well, we can't all be lovely swans like you," Kristin quipped, straightening her little knit hat as she hopped out of the car. "Ooooh! You know how I feel about Macy's!" she cooed, linking her arm through Idina's as they made their way towards their destination. Quietly, she added, apropos of nothing, "I really do love him, Di. He's the most amazing thing."

Squeezing her arm, Idina looked over at her best friend, answering seriously. "I know, Ki. I know you're doing this because you really want to. You had chances before. Lee must be the one. But if it ever feels like he's not." All Kristin has to do is say the word and Idina is there for her. Period. "I'm assuming you're not going to change your name?"

Kristin just squeezed back, grateful for a friend who understood all those things she didn't say. That last question had her giggle making another appearance, though. "Oh, Lord!" she laughed, "I've been Kristi Dawn Chenoweth for forty years, Di! I wouldn't know how to be anybody else!" Besides, she and Lee had talked it over a little and he didn't seem to mind her wanting to keep her name.

"You'd lose a lot of syllables, that's for sure!" Idina agreed. Inside the doors, she looked around, orienting herself. "Beds, first!" She pulled Kristin toward the escalator. "Are you two still planning on coming over Christmas day?"

As they headed up the escalator, still arm-in-arm, Kristin reached up to pull her hat off and fluff her hair. "Are you kidding!? Where else am I gonna go to sing carols and drink egg-nog!!?!"

"Don't forget the dreidel song!" Idina reminded her, laughing as the headed toward the furniture department. "Lee isn't Jewish by chance, is he?"

Bright laughter followed along as they went. "Does he look Jewish?" Kristin teased, shaking her head, "I don't think so, honey, sorry. You're still the lone Jew at the party." Another giggle and she turned sparkling blue eyes up to her friend, "The Lone Jew! Sounds like a superhero!"

Staggering a little with laughter, Idina gasped out, "I need a cape! And tights! Like Wonder Woman! Only more whiney. Oh, God." So disrespectful! She wiped at her eyes as they saw mattresses on the horizon. "My superpower is spotting a good deal!"

"Hooray!" Kristin's enthusiastic response came complete with muffled laughter. "Finding the best shopping," she went on, "Now that's a superpower!" It didn't take more than a quick turn through the department, though, for her to be shaking her head and sighing sadly. "Looks like I'm going to have to go with that suite I found online," her eyes showed that she wasn't really that disappointed, "They weren't sure they could deliver in time for Christmas but Didi!" Kristin gushed, "It was perfect!"

"Really? Tell me!" Idina responded, as she bounced to sitting on a very traditional sleigh bed. "Did it have rings for handcuffs?" Oh, really. She had to, with the older saleswoman who kept walking back and forth.

Snorting with laughter, Kristin hopped up next to Idina, "It's late 19th Century French walnut," she started, words coming faster with her excitement, "And it's a king, so there's plenty of room for Lee to spread out. It comes with two marble-top nightstands and a really fancy-mirror marble-top dresser." Truly it was gorgeous and Kristin was completely in love with it.

"Wow, that's way nicer than what they have here," Idina had to agree. "And you can't get a rush on it?" She fell back, pulling Kristin back too as they stared at the warehouse-like ceiling. "Did you tell them who you were?" This from the woman who wasn't afraid to play that card, if it helped!

"It's beautiful!" Kristin flopped back next to Idina, "I'll show you when we get home." The very idea that throwing her name around could get her things was still a foreign one to Kristin and she just laughed, "I'm sure they'd be terribly impressed," she put on a snooty tone and went on, "'Oh? Weren't you in that--Will Farrell movie?'"

"Oh, God, no! Just mention your Tony." That was much snootier, Idina thought, than Will Ferrell. "So, clothes shopping then? Or what do you need to look for? I want to find a Christmas G-string for Taye. Can't you just imagine?!"

Kristin bounced up off the bed, holding her hand out for Idina, giving her an exaggerated eyebrow wiggle, "Can I! Mrowr!" Cue that contagious, girlish giggling. "I think Lee would die of mortification if I bought him something like that!" The giggling went a little softer as she went on, "But he'd probably wear it anyway, not wanting to hurt my feelings." He really was the sweetest man she'd ever met.

Idina couldn't help but think of tall-tall Lee in a velvet G-string and it really did make an odd mental picture seeing as she preferred her sex partners, dark, shaved and sexy. "Maybe they have two for one! We have to find out, don't we?" Taking Kristin's hand, they moved through the store. "What are we looking for, the underwear department? Or gifts?"

"Hmmm..." Kristin squeezed her friend's fingers as they made their way through the store, "If it were for a girl, I'd say definitely lingerie, but seeing as how we're looking for boys..." Without another word, she turned them towards the gifts area.

A few moments spend rifling through boxed chocolates and pocket knives, Idina had to frown. "Hmm. This... doesn't seem to be it. Hmmm."

Just then a rather disheveled looking elf walked by. "Hi! Excuse me. Can you tell me where to find Christmas G-strings?"

She got a stare and a sigh. "Hosiery."

"...Hosiery?" Idina turned to Kristin. "Who'd've thunk it?"

"'Not I' said the little red hen!" Kristin quipped with a laughing shake of her head. "All right, to hosiery!" Which just so happened to be next to her all-time favorite department - SHOES!!

"Go, go!" Idina urged. "Let me get this and I'll be right over, okay?" She gave Kristin a kiss on the cheek and a shove.

With a little wave over her shoulder, Kristin began to bully her way towards the shoe department. By the time Idina caught up with her, she had on a pair of strappy little Jimmy Choos. "What do you think?" she asked, looking at them in the mirror.

Holding her little bag, Idina cocked her head this way and that. "Walk in them," she ordered. "I think I like them, but I need to see them in motion."

Obeying, Kristin sashayed away from Idina and was about to turn to come back when her attention got caught. "Oh!" she exclaimed, grabbing up a dark pink suede peep-toe and holding it up for her friend to see.

"Cute!" Idina waved at those. "And I like these. They make your feet look even more teeny. I love how you walk in heels. God." Turning, she waved down an attendant. "The pink in her size and an eight."

Heading back over so she could take that pair off and wait for the next, Kristin waved a hand. "You spend your life with a three inch heel being you 'flats' and you grow Barbie feet," she joked. Tilting her head a little as they waited for the sales attendant, Kristin asked, more solemnly, "You guys went and checked and all, right? Everything's okay? Physically, I mean."

"Yep! I'm fertile Myrtle and he's not shooting blanks. Just a matter of waiting for something to take." Idina sighed, fishing the G-string-- red with white trim -- out of the bag, dangling it from her finger. "He's beginning to think I just love him for his sperm."

"Aww! Poor Taye!" Kristin was suddenly all teasing smiles again, "Such a hard life!" That the sales girl didn't even bat an eyelash when she came back with their boxes only had Kristin laughing that much harder. I'm so glad I don't have to work retail!! It wasn't the first time that thought had crossed her mind.

Putting the G-string back, Idina kicked off her shoes and pulled the pink ones out of the box. "Can we get matching shoes? Would that be too BFF even for us?"

Shaking her head, Kristin stood up in the cute little peep-toe pumps. "Honey," hands went onto her hips, "If you didn't buy any of the shoes I had, you'd have to go barefoot!"

"Too true!" Idina stood up as well and in a caricature of a runway model, she walked the length of the aisle and back. "They pinch my left foot." Bummer!

"A little or a lot?" Kristin asked, watching Idina with a critical eye, "Because if it's just a little, you can get it stretched. They're leather, after all."

Taking a few more steps, Idina turned. "A lot. Like amputate-my-little-toe levels. Are they cute?"

With a sigh, Kristin just nodded, "They really are." Too too bad!

"Argh." With a sigh, Idina sits. "I hear your feet swell when you get pregnant. And your hair changes. Did you know that? Some of it falls out!" And yet... her expression was wistful. "It'll be nice to have bigger boobs. You're so lucky there, Ki. You have a great rack."

"They do," Kristin confirmed, nodding, "And your hair's amazing from all the vitamins when you're preggers but then, after the birth, everything that didn't fall out during comes out in clumps after." She made a face at that. Looking down at herself with an assessing eye, she shrugged, "Guess everyone wants what they don't have."

Horrified, Idina stared. "Are you saying ... I'll be bald?"

Seeing the look on her friend's face, Kristin laughed, waving a hand in negation, "No no no! You don't lose any hair while you're carrying and then all that natural shedding happens at once!" She went over and put an arm around Idina's shoulders (something she could do while her friend was sitting!), "Poor Di! Don't worry!"

"Bald, I couldn't do. I could not do it." Of this, Idina was sure. So imagine her relief! She pointed at Kristin's feet. "Are you getting the pink ones?"

"I'd go wig shopping with you," Kristin asserted staunchly, "Pick out enough that Taye could be with a different woman every day of the week!" At the question, she kicked out one foot, turning it this way and that. "I think I'm getting both, yes?"

"God, yes." And Idina laughed. "There could be theme nights! Marilyn night!" With the correct wide eyes and pursed lips. "Joan Crawford even." That was funny; she laughed. "You really are my best friend, Ki."

And just like that, she went from bubbling to sniffling. "Oh, Di!" Kristin cried, hugging Idina tight, "My true soul mate!"

"Don't you make me cry! My mascara will run!" Idina scolded, hugging her back. "How pathetic are we?! Low blood sugar! We need to eat!"

"Yes!" Kristin agreed with a somewhat watery laugh, "Shoes and food! What more do we need?"

"Husbands and future husbands. Not because we're weak! But because we love them," Idina declared, waving the girl over. "Ring these up, please!"

"Hear hear!" Kristin agreed, "We don't need them around, but we want them!"

It didn't take that long to get Kristin paid out and then they found a restaurant to hole up in for a while.

Sliding into a little chair across from Kristin, Idina thrust her nose in the hair. "Dahling, I do think I feel like high tea, don't you?"

In answer, Kristin leaned forward onto her forearms, "Oh, I say! I do like the sound of that!" A little giggle and she added in a stage whisper, "As long as they've got the double-Devon cream, I'm there!"

Idina tittered, unable to maintain the facade as she ordered a sandwich and diet coke, waiting for Kris to order before saying, "so... we need to talk wedding plans. Have you set a date?"

"Ugh!" Kristin put both hands over her face, "Could I just be engaged for the rest of my life?" As much as she loved throwing a party, the thought of planning a wedding truly intimidated her.

"Aww, sweetie. That's why I'm here." Taking her hand, Idina smiled. "It can be as little or as big as you want. But you have to have a date, first."

Nodding, Kristin squeezed Idina's fingers. "I know. If I didn't have you for this, I'd go crazy!"

"Oh, God, we can't have you going crazy!" Idina teased gently. "Easy, girl. You know..." She leaned in. "You can elope. My feelings won't be hurt."

There was the barest touch of hysteria in Kristin's laugh. "The four of us in Vegas, can you imagine!?" She shook her head, "That's something I'd have to run by Lee first."

"You don't even have to go to Vegas. They have places here. Ki, breathe." Idina scooted her chair closer so she could get an arm around Kristin's shoulder. "Deep breath, breathe with me. Come on."

Leaning her head against her friend's shoulder, the next laugh a little closer to normal, Kristin did what Idina said and took a deep breath - more a sigh. "I don't know why this has me so nervous. It's not like I don't want to marry him."

"It's the ceremony, I understand." Idina remembered a few freak-outs in her past too. "It'll be okay. I promise." A hug-squeeze and she let her friend go. "We'll talk about Christmas G-strings instead."

That brought a muffled giggle and Kristin raised her glass of water, toasting, "Christmas g-strings!"

"G-strings!" Idina grinned. Maybe everyone should have one. It certainly would make the Christmas bright.