into the unknown

I'm about to  head out to get my allergy injections.  I finally graduated to "maintenance" mode and need to just get the shots every 4 weeks.  The clinic has assured us that they're open and dishing out injections, and I'm due this week.

I've noticed a marked improvement in allergy symptoms since I began getting the injections, but I'm not totally free.  For me, the worst symptom is being off balance.  Apparently, my allergies mess with my inner ear(s), and it's like being drunk without the fun part.


Speaking of drunk fun, I thought I'd share this pic a friend of mine put on her facebook, highlighting her covid-19 look.

I blurred her features, although I think anyone would be hard pressed to pick her out of a lineup from the photo.

I can definitely relate to the hair.  The DIY comfort mask is working for me too.

And yes, she's an essential employee.  She fittingly owns a liquor store.  Masked up and advertising all in one.



One of the things that makes me a bit anxious during this coronavirus upheaval is when I get a hit of allergy response - sneezing, runny nose, coughing - when I'm out among the people. In addition, since I had that tooth extraction that opened up my sinus last fall, my left nostril is on constant slo-drip. I almost want to wear a sign that says something like,

"No, really!  It's pollen and a bum sinus, not the virus!"

I'm loving the recent warm temperatures and sunshine, but as for trees, weeds, and grasses, I'm allergic to just about all.  And they're all waking up and spreading the love right now.

So I'm off to the clinic to distantly sit among others trying or not trying to suppress the sniffles and coughs.
Alone together.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linking up this week with Mama Kat for the prompt:
4. What do you do to manage anxiety or uncertainty caused by the current Covid19 climate?

toilets, leaking snot, and some more ink

A few weekends ago, my P.E.O. chapter threw a highly successful wine and cheese social/fundraiser/auction.  It was a good bash with good food and wines, and we made double what we made last year.  I've got a hankering for cheese and wine as I type...

As publisher of our newsletter last month, I had intended to include a few photos of the shindig.  Guess who forgot to take any photos 😑.

Typical.  

So  I emailed all of the members who were in attendance, asking if any of them snagged some shots.  Nope.  Not a one.  Well, we just chalked it up to having too  much fun wining and cheesing and auctioning to snap photos.  

Similarly, this past weekend, Magnum and I went up to college town to visit with Wolfgang and Meego.  Chaco even joined us for a while on Sunday.  Photos of our activities?  Nope.

This was the only shot I got of our weekend away.  Yes, it's of our hotel bathroom:

I snapped it because I thought I'd record the strange layout.  See, I'm not a "statuesque" woman, but I'm also not a shorty.  At 5'5", I'm pretty average, with probably longer than average arms.  Gotta say, that toilet paper roll was quite a stretch.

So there, that's my weekend in pictures.

Actually, we had a nice time.  Weather was perfect.  College town has so many good restaurants and breweries.  It's a good thing it's rated platinum for bicycling, or several residents (and visitors) would be obese.

I did manage to stick to my vegetarian ways.  There is much more to the veggie life than salad.

My overall caloric intake was also probably helped by the fact that my mouth is still recovering from my tooth excavation of last week, so I ate more daintily than typical.  That portabello mushroom sammich was just as delicious eaten with a fork, though.  Wish I had a pic...

The oral surgeon told me I may get water in my nose when I drink or may have blood in my nose from the tooth hole since my sinus has a hole in it now, too.  He did not mention that snot would continuously seep into my mouth from the tooth hole, but that's been a LoVelY side effect as well that makes total sense.  It's still allergy season for me, and it's like my allergies know I have a tooth hole to have fun with.

Okay, this post has become way too much about toilets and TP and draining snot through tooth holes...

The other random update is that I've somehow managed to keep my head above water on the Inktober challenge of 2019.  I have to remind myself that it's not about being perfect or even great, just about touching pen to paper every day, so there's that.  Here are the latest.

Wolfgang is also participating, and it's fun to see his submissions.  He has fallen a bit behind, and that's because he clearly has more of a life than I do.

So... what're you wearing?

Happy Halloween!  I like to celebrate it as the day when my cobwebs become decorations!

Actually, it feels like any other Saturday.  Nothing special going on around here.  I've got a big bag of candy and Magnum and I busted ourselves getting and carving the above jack-o's, so the little moochers better show up!

I'm just whining because Meego is away on a fun 4-day band trip to Utah.  I would have loved to gone along as a chaperone, but who can just take off for four days?!?

It's also made me realize how starved I am for an adventure.  We didn't do anything particularly adventurous this summer - no road trips, no comic con, didn't even make it camping ONCE.  As I recall, we had a camping trip tentatively planned, but schedules just didn't mesh to make it happen.  So I'm in much need.  Much need.

So much need that I'm lamenting the fact that I didn't make a trip where I'd be spending four days of my life keeping a bunch of high schoolers in line.  Four days that would include about 20 hours spent on a bus with said high schoolers.  THAT'S how desperate I am for a getaway!

But I am enjoying fall.  The colors, the cooler temperatures, the smell of rotting leaves...  Magnum and I headed out yesterday on the hunt for pumpkins.  We thought we would support the farmer who sets up shop at the neighborhood farmer's market site up the street.  He always seems to sell so few pumpkins.

So that was our first stop, and I think we discovered why his sales are so low - it's because his prices are so HIGH!  Seriously??  Forty-five bucks for something I'm gonna carve up and then throw away in a couple of days?

Okay, plan B.  To heck with the farmer, and off to the grocery store.  Three grocery stores later, we found a small pumpkin pile that hadn't yet been cleared by the other desperados.  We even managed to get three so that Meego would be represented in abstentia.

Shown, left to right, are Meego, me, Magnum.  Magnum's jack-o-lanterns always look like Loony Toon characters to me.

So that was our excitement.  Did I mention I need a getaway?

.

a bit of an oversight

We were headed home, just another nice day on the path.

Just as we were about to climb an extra steep portion, I felt a *pop*, more of a *jam* really.  All I know is that it was totally immobilizing and I wasn't able to barely move anymore.  In excrutiating pain, I pulled over to the side.  

Still, I didn't think it was that bad.  Maybe if I just sat for a bit and collected myself, we'd be back in business soon.  But the more I sat and tried to work out the kink, the more it became apparent that I might need some first aid.

As I sat there, a bit frustrated and embarrassed, a smooth running, fit male appeared on the path and pulled over.  My first thought was, "Oh sh*t, I'm filthy and in a sorry state.  Please, just keep going".

But no, he offered to help.  HE had a little first aid kit with him.  As he produced it from a little pack, I realized that it looked much like the kit at home sitting on our shelf.  A lot of good that was doing us!

In the end, he had what I needed.  But the whole process of examining the problem and taking steps to mend it enough for me to make it home only served to highlight what a sorry state I was in.  

I hadn't bathed in a while, parts of me were loose that should've been tight, parts of me were tight that should've been loose.  There were flecks of dirt, old and new, adorning my whole body.  As thankful as I was for the assistance, it was all a bit  humiliating.

At least it wasn't all lost on Abby.  After all, it was HER fault.

Soon after we arrived and limped into the house, she gave me a warm bath, all the while whispering little apologies.  Then she left me behind in my repose - how ironic - to get some personal care items for me.

She returned and gave me a little home TLC.  It wasn't quite as nice and thorough as the annual spa treatments she schedules, but I felt SO much better afterward.  Too bad I had to break down on the path for her to get her rear in gear.

About frickin' time!









------------------------------------------------------------

Note to self:  I need to do more for Bella than just take her in for annual tune-ups if I want to avoid her being publicly humiliated and throwing shade at me on the internet.

.

paved with good intentions

I was talking to a classmate yesterday - the guy who's wanting to get on the bicycle commuter bandwagon.

"So", I queried, "Ya ridin' yet?"

"Nah", he chagrined.  "I'm fat and scared".

So we laughed a little, but truth be told, I admitted to being scared too.  Not so much scared about riding a bike, but just thinking about all that can go wrong when you've got a schedule to meet.

We worry about getting a flat or having some other malfunction.  We worry about the weather taking a turn for the worse.  We worry about unexpected bad road conditions.  We worry about people that just don't like people on bicycles, for whatever reason (they're out there).  We worry about things that will keep us from getting where we need to be when we need to be there.

I know what he's thinking about.  It was scary to do at first.  To come out of the comfort zone.  I assured him I was scared too, in fact, I still get scared.  But then I get on a bicycle and go to class and then I wonder what I was so scared of.

Today was a nice-ish day, so I dusted off the helmet cam and took Alice to school.  Here's the 7.5 -mile commute in four minutes to save the world.

Or to save the fat and scared...





 .

no reaction

I thought I'd do a MamaKat's post today.  Since it's Thursday and I haven't linked up with her in a while.  I was perusing the prompts and came across

5.) Your least favorite subject in school.

and I thought, "Oh!  School!  I like school!"  Whod've thought that would be a problem??  I sat here wracking my brain for a LEAST favorite subject.  Geesh, what a nerd.

I mean, I liked school.  Heck, now I'm back in school so that I can work in a school for cripe's sake.  Least favorite subjects aren't something I consider very often.  But surely something must be at the bottom of the stack, right?

Nothing comes to mind, but I'm going with Chemistry, and that's a bit of a tragedy.

When I was a little kid, I thought that when I grew up, I'd like to be a scientist, which is a super vague and broad term.  But I pictured myself in some laboratory with the safety goggles and the beakers and test tubes all a-bubble.




I took chemistry in high school with all the other required sciences.  I'm pretty sure I got an A, but I don't remember hardly anything about it.  Granted, it was *hack* many years ago, but I do remember pieces of my other science classes.


In college, I was required to take General Chemistry (genchem).  I don't remember much of that class at all either, other than I recall thinking it was the same stuff we'd done in high school - which I don't remember, remember?






GenChem marked the end of my chemical romance.  I moved on to other things.  Later on, I worked at a (in the mechanical side) chemical company.  I was intruigued by the work the chemists in the lab did.  Creating new formulations and compounds based on what the chemists wanted the materials to do.

Yeah, THAT'S what I'd seen myself doing in my child mind's eye.  But we didn't do any of THAT when I was in school.  I think we balanced equations and stuff, making sure that the number of molecules on the right side of the equal sign matched the number of molecules on the left.  Okay, there, I remembered something after all.

I don't regret not becoming a chemist.  I've enjoyed the schooling and career path that followed.  But at the same time, I think I would've enjoyed being a chemist of some sort.  As long as I wasn't doing cruel and unusual things to animals.

I think it's why I like having a fish tank.  It's not so much about the fish, it's about keeping it all in the right chemical balance for the fish and plants in their little ecosystem, totally under my knowledge and control.  Which probably explains the apocalarium events...

.

here we go

It was almost time to head to class, and I saw snowflakes.  Snowflakes?  Already?

Not a lot of them.  Nothing to really get much coverage, and it didn't look like they were going to invite many friends, but still, I draw the line at riding my bicycle to school in snow.  Especially since it's sort of the first snow, and drivers get a little weird about it.  As much as I try to avoid it, I do ride a portion of the way in traffic.

I decided to give it the eyeglass test.  "If I can tell it's snowing when I take my glasses off", I decided, "no bike".  So I took off my glasses and looked out the window.

No more snowflakes.

Then I looked at my fish aquarium and noticed that I can't see my freaking bubble curtain without my glasses either.  Maybe I should devise another test?

Eh... not today.

It seems a bit early.  We typically don't get snow or cold-enough-to-snow until about Halloween or a little later.  The last time we had a wintry October was just a few years ago.  That winter ended up with record snow amounts and so many snowdays for the schools that the kids had to tack on extra to the end of the year.

Snowdays kind of lost their luster after that.

I've gone through the clothes and swapped out short sleeves for long.  We put the heavy blanket on the bed.  I cleaned and prepped the swamp cooler for hibernation.  And tonight, a celebratory dinner:

Clean-out-the-fridge-and-throw-it-all-in-a-pot soup.

.

tired?

Our poor Honda Civic.  It probably thinks I don't like it, but truth is, I LOVE it!  - as much as an anti-driving bicycle commuter can love a car anyway.

Really, though, I think that my attempts to be as car free as practical make me all the more picky when it comes to choosing gas powered vehicles.

I recently mentioned the criteria for choosing our pedophile van.  Then, of course, there is the ever adored, recently adopted Ellie Mae.







Our third and final gas snacker is the sweet little (no-named) Honda Civic.  We got her about 4 or 5 years ago when we wanted a no-frills, reliable, economical commuter car.  She fits the bill perfectly.  She's a frugal 5-speed with an absolutely hideous interior, moody radio, no A/C, and U-Crank-Em windows and mirrors.

She's quite fun to drive, sneaking in and out of tight parking spaces with ease and otherwise instantly responding to driver commands.

Recall that a couple of months ago, in a haze of blizzard induced cabin fever, I took out the driver's side mirror.  The GUILT!

Yesterday was worse.

Meego and I were coming home from the orthodontist.  We'd just witnessed a crazy person entering busy cross traffic through a red light.  What??  This SUV was stopped and then... just decided to go?  I'm guessing they were just distracted (like so many are!) and forgot they were sitting at a light?  That was STILL red?

They managed to stop-and-go get across as the green-light people stopped, all wtf.  But it was just weird.  Anyway, maybe I was replaying that in my head, or maybe I was tired from unpacking and getting restocked after our little trip, or maybe...

Well, we were about a half mile from home.  I made a tight little road-hugging right turn that the Civic does so well - too well this time.  My turn was too tight and I ended up clipping the curb with the rear passenger tire.  "Ouch", said the friendly Civic.

So there we were, a block or so further on, changing out the flat and replacing it with the spare donut.   Meego actually enjoyed it - going all NASCAR pit crew, albeith much MUCH slower.  I noted that it was a nice day out for such activities, and it was nice to be in a quiet residential area rather than a busy highway or such.  I was not, however, thrilled about getting my new Hello Kitty Stormtrooper shirt all dirtied.

So, I will finish my coffee and take little Civic to the shop now.  I'm contemplating getting her a whole new set of tires as I noticed how baldy her current ones are as I was sitting on the ground with her yesterday.

Maybe we take her for granted because she never complains.  She is just SO reliable.  I even left a sticky note on the garage door so that Magnum didn't automatically climb in and take her to work this morning.

Spa treatment day.
.

win!

Earlier this week, Magnum came home and announced that we are heroes.  Heroes of being stewards of the Earth!

This morning at the office

This was publicly acknowledged.  Did you not see it?  Heroes of the Earth and all?

I will skip all of the accolading and just say that, bottom line, we were awarded an epic award of epic proportions.

It's a $25 gift card.





It all started a couple of weeks back.  He brought home this Earth Day challenge thing from the office.  It was not for the weak, and we, the four of us, collectively toiled away until we were confident we'd done our best.    He took our result back to the office and, to be honest, I kinda forgot about it.

... until he came home with the announcement of heroicness.

So never mind all the bicycle commuting and all the recycling and all the xeriscaping and such.  We can complete a darn good word search!  Yeah, it was an Earth Day word search.  FORTY whopping words.  The twist was, we didn't know what the forty Earth Day words were, yet we needed to find them.

Also, so the non-heroes wouldn't feel bad I suppose, everyone in Magnum's office was given a nice pen made from recycled water bottles.  They were doled out to each department in huge thick plastic ziploc bags... *sigh*hello!*...

While I'm basking in victory, I'm dealing with mixed emotions.  See, with all this darn power comes responsibility.  We've got  a reputation to uphold now.  We're role models now!

Our Christmas trees ... in May

Yet I have a strong unyielding urge to do something not environmentally friendly, not prudent, not responsible, not sensible, not unwasteful...

I SO badly want to have a cathartic ceremonial long underwear burn right now.

Darn platform of public scrutiny.

eye glasses

I was in my early 20's and sitting in one of my classes in college when I found myself struggling to see what was on the board.

I was sitting in the second row, couldn't the professor write better?!

I realized, however, that there were others way back in the last row that seemed to be able to see everything just fine.  I had to face the facts.  It wasn't the professor.  It was *GASP* my fault.

I scheduled a checkup with an eye doctor, and soon afterwards joined the ranks of the bespectacled.

This week's prompt at Illustration Friday is "Eye Glasses".  That's a pretty specific prompt, and I thought about honoring it with, maybe, Ben Franklin - the inventor of bifocals.  But transitioning to bifocals is something I'd rather not think about!

An artist I admire over at DeviantArt often paints acrylic on card stock, so I thought I'd experiment, having never done that before - myself as guinea pig... or Secret Squirrel... Whatever.

.

I'm with stupid

I love him but I think he's making me stupid.

I'm speaking of Magnum.       Of course.

Let's review for a moment.  We ordered this thing after he had thrown his Asperger brain around it for a few days.  It arrived in an acceptable amount of time, but "it" was not the "it" that was advertised, plus it arrived in a box that looked like it had been salvaged from the Titanic.

Since then, Magnum has been making me stupid.

I'm referring, naturally, to research that has shown that listening to complainers is bad for your brain.  I read the short article which was, interestingly, followed by complaining comments.

This isn't about people who come seeking help in some area, or who just want to bring attention to something that needs correction.  And I certainly don't mind "being there" for someone going through a rough patch.  But according to the article, "Typically, people who are complaining don't want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing..."

Yeah, THAT's what I'm talkin' about with the Magnum.

Oh, he's got the solution(s) and has been chipping away.  I'm confident that the whole thing will be rectified eventually with little effort on my part.  BUT, after reading this article, I fear he's making me oh so stupid in between the chippings.

It's really not necessary.  I'm already a party to the indignity, but I guess it's the thought that counts.

And is it true?  Does being around complainers make a person's brain slough off?  I know that I generally avoid the chronically negative.  After a while,  they do seem to make my head hurt.

Perhaps more perplexing, how do we know if we're becoming stupid?  I doubt it's something that just happens overnight.  Intelligence takes effort, so stupidity probably does too.

I'll try not to work too hard.
.

today

You ever have one of those days where things just go according to plan?  When you wake up feeling fresh and ready and productive?  Your mental clarity is strong, your emotions high yet stable?

You have a to-do list that, even if a mile long, manages to be completed?  Your work is detailed, crisp, and organized?  You're on time for appointments and appointments are on time for you?

Your interactions with others are jovial and sincere?  The other people and things you regularly want or need access to are available and humming?

You have good hair?

Today wasn't one of those.

• Shoes then socks then feet got drenched.
• Laundry left on the clothesline became wetter than when it was hung.
• Printer cartridge dried up.
• Tutor student was late.
• Scissors.  Where are the scissors?
• Package for UPS was forgotten.
• There's more laundry.
• There's not much food.

But the hair actually looks pretty good.
.

[censored]

Hoo Boy, I could sure use a horse trough right now.  We used to have a couple of horse troughs.  We only sort of had horses, but that's another story.  Anyways, it was nice having horse troughs in the summer.

Since we only sort of had horses, we could use the horse troughs for other things.  We used them as "cold tubs", which are kind of like hot tubs in reverse.  Fill them up with water from the hose and then just sit in them.

It's unseasonably hot here.  Add to that the fact that the state is on fire, and I'm thinking of horse troughs.  I'm glad that it's at least crossing guard off-season.

I'm crabby too because yesterday I had a laundry accident.  Seriously, who does that?  Other than total klutzes?

Frugal domestic goddess that I am, I was "hanging the wash" outside.  Might as well make use of all of this dry heat, right?  I was hanging the wash while walking along a railroad tie that separates our weed lot backyard from our unsightly unkept grassland ornately landscaped hill.

wounded shoe

I was walking along when that &%^$#*! railroad tie grabbed my toe while the rest of my body was still travelling.  That little *%>##.

My cat-like reflexes didn't save me.  I'm so mad at that *$&^#+> railroad tie because of (a) what it did to my rib cage, (b) making me feel like a total klutz, and (c) what it did to the toe of my shoe.  &^$%(/!

%^#<*& Culprit

I don't normally cuss (*COUGH*), but come ON!

It's hot.  The state is on fire.  I had a laundry accident.  We have no horse trough.  I think these are signs of imbalance in my life.




The good news is, a remedy might be on the near horizon.

We may be getting a new cat.
.

secret

JUST  A  QUICK  COVERT  SKETCH  TODAY  FOR  ILLUSTRATION  FRIDAY  WHERE  THE  PROMPT  IS   "SECRET".  


SHHHHHH!!
.

best laid plans

I had plans. Really I did.

I was finished with work by noon today, and the afternoon was wide open.  I was going to get caught up.  I had a list.  A list in my head. It said things like "iron", and "clean the blinds" and "toilet train Meego"...

None of that has happened.  I did at least cook a slab of corned beef for dinner.




I think slacker mode kicked in over the weekend.  I felt a little more breathing room in my schedule, so I celebrated by drawing this Blake Shelton portrait as suggested by Terri.  He seemed more appealing than the aforementioned housewifery





Then today, I even had a willing participant in Meego's toilet training.  See, he cut me a deal a few days ago.  He wanted something but was a little short on cash.  I agreed to give him the cash if he agrees to clean the "Man Bathroom" each week for the rest of the summer.

I refer to it as the Man Bathroom because I don't use it much, it's more of a King/Prince throne area.  Anyway, Meego agreed.  I forked over the cash, now he's got to hold up his end of the deal, but he's never been properly trained in Man Bathroom maintenance.  That was going to happen today.

But it hasn't yet.

Meego wisely went to play at a friend's house when I started playing with Johnny Depp.
.

what the...

hail?

So I've mentioned that we want to get a new roof.  It's not that ours is greatly damaged, but our shingles are obsolete, and so we are locked in with our current home insurance until we get new shingles.  I've had a couple roofers look at it, and there is some damage here and there, but it's borderline as to whether or not insurance will cover it.

Our insurance has been kind of dragging their feet, so nothing's decided one way or the other.  Yesterday evening, some storms rolled in, so we were all about generating some hail. 



Despite Wolfgang's... uh... "moves", our efforts were a bit of a fail, with the hail never getting much larger than small garbanzo beans throughout several waves of aggressive storming.

But THEN we turned on the local news!  DANG, I've never seen hail as ridiculous as this.  It wasn't so much the size of the hail, but the amount.  With the help from all of the flooding, the hail piled up like large snow drifts, stranding several motorists a few miles south of us. 

This photo is from the local news this morning, several hours after the stormage:

Snow plow crews are trying to clear all of it out as major roads are blocked. 

So, I'm not sure what to think of this.  While this major hail missed our neighborhood, it was reported to the north of us too.  Could it be that we really DO have the power to generate hail?

Back to the drawing board.  We really need to fix our aim. 

And for those to our north and south... uhm, sorry.
.

making up

Well, I said that last week was busier than normal, but that doesn't mean the fun has ended.  This morning was Meego's end-of-year ceremony for 6th grade.  Any excuse for a party, right?

It started early, so I told Meego I would be a bit late because of the crossing guard biz, but I'd be there and find him.  Luckily, before I left, I remembered that we still had that borrowed baritone at the house.  I grabbed it.

Since I was late, all the good parking spots were taken.  I think the spot I found was just barely close enough to still be in the same zip code as the school.  That's fine.  It was a nice sunny morning.  Or... it would've been nice if I wasn't schlepping a baritone.

After toting the thing across the expansive parking lot and into the building, I made my way to the "drop-off" window.  I was already late for the ceremony and was hoping I could just drop the behemoth baritone off.

"I've got a baritone that needs to go back to the bandroom.  Should I leave it with you or TAKE IT TO THE BANDROOM?", I asked the friendly drop-off person, hoping she didn't hear that last part.

"Oh... well, you can just take it on down there", she said smilingly, obviously glad that I was offering to do her job. 

"Uhm.. okay, there's not a class in there... or... anything?", graspingly.

"Nope, it's a passing period now, so you can just take it on down", bigger smilingly.

Okay fine, I hefted the baritone again.  And she was right, it was a passing period.  A passing period for the 8th graders. 

So there I was, swimming upstream in a river of  8th graders deep in the throes of last-week-of-school.  I don't care to do that again.

I eventually made it to the bandroom, arms a-burning, whiney foot whining.  Of course, all the while, the clock was ticking and I was seeing my "Mom of the Year" nomination slipping away yet again as Meego's ceremony was happening elsewhere in the building. 

But I salvaged it.  I made a couple quick phone calls to some close friends of mine and arranged for a special visit.  *ahem*   It's 6th grade after all! 

(I love how my neighbor dogs give 'em hell at the end)



.

new stuff!

... just not for Meego.

Today is Meego's birthday.  Twelve years already *sniffles*.  We ordered him a gift for his special day, he'll like it  I'm sure.

Too bad it's NOT HERE!!  CRAP!

I placed the online order a week ago yesterday.  I knew it would be close, but since I've had such good luck with mail order lately (NOT!), I was optimistic that it would arrive on time.  Last I checked, it was in Toledo, OH. 

It's coming via the U.S. post office, and they've already delivered here today, so that pretty much confirms that he won't be getting his birthday gift on his actual birthday.  Well, someone's got to keep the therapists gainfully employed...

To add salt to the wound.  I got new stuff today (not that I'm disappointed *ahem*):  SHIRTS!

Last week, I got an e-mail from Deviant Art.  I'm not usually a soft sell, but they were offering FREE "Mystery Shirts" to anyone who spent a certain amount in their store.  I ordered a shirt and was promised a second Mystery Shirt!  How fun is that??  Besides, I needed some short sleeves and, as mentioned, I don't like to shop.

I ordered them Thursday. The shirts arrived today, which is how I know that Meego's thing is NOT arriving today.

Here is shirt #1.  It's a sketchy "ART" shirt. 

And here's the mystery shirt they sent me.  It's a DA 11th anniversary shirt.  Black background with a nice contrasting green. 

I realize that the angle at which I took the photos makes it hard for anyone to really see the design and whatnot, but they're ART shirts okay!  Going for drama.  This isn't the JCPenney catalog!

Now quick!  I have to stash them before Meego gets home!  The therapists don't need that much business.

p.s.  I did bake a cake.  On time.  Not a total fail.

.

the clueless go shopping

My "look presentable" work was done for the day.  I was hanging laundry while wearing a comfy ensemble bordering on clash, my hair up in a sort of ponytail/bun combo.  Wolfgang entered.

"Can we go to the mall?"

"Uuuhhhh....", I contemplated.

He needed some fancy clothes, and fancy clothes are not something we keep a stocked supply of.  We don't regularly attend events that require fancy clothes, and none of the kids has particularly fancy tastes.  They are all jeans-and-t-shirts guys, the only exception being Meego who has a strange "no jeans" rule that no one really understands, but it's not worth the battle.

But occassionally, a need presents itself, so we must make a mall run.  Their needs, my credit card.

My mom loves to shop.  She literally has several closets full of clothes.  When I was growing up and my mom came to school events, I always knew she'd be the best dressed.  Even for my wedding, she didn't go out shopping for a mother-of-the-bride dress.  She simply went to one of her closets and pulled out something perfect.  I didn't inherit the shopping gene. 

Wolfgang and I headed to the mall, my Mexican purse only further pushing my look into the clash realm. We were in the young men's fancy clothes section looking for a sport coat (or is it a blazer?). 

"What do the numbers mean?", Wolfgang asked

"I have no idea", I supplied.

"I mean, I know they're sizes, but how do I know what size I am?", he continued.

"I have no idea", I supplied.

"And what do the letters mean?", still barking up the wrong tree.  I just looked at him, no words necessary.

"Here, just put this one on", I said, holding up a brown courduroy.

"That's hideous", he observed.

"I know, but it has a number on it.  Put it on so we have a reference point".

He put it on.  It was both hideous and big.  Reference obtained.  Eventually, he selected a suitable sport coat or blazer or whatever.  He wanted a tie.

"The red one?", he queried

"I have no idea... ",  I haven't been around a place where men wear ties in a long time.

All in all, it was a pretty painless trip.  A low maintenance shopper with a clueless companion makes for pretty short work.  Maybe that's why God spared me having to shop with a daughter?

In the end, I think his outfit is quite stylishly dressy and appropriate.  But then... I could be wrong.

p.s.  I've since learned what the numbers and letters mean.  Thank you google. 
.

what she doesn't know about what I don't know

I was at a student's house yesterday.  This is the first time I've been to her home.  It's a typical house in a typical residential tract.  Nothing pretentious or ornate or hoity toit or keeping-up-with-the-Jonesy.

As we made our way to the modest unpretentious table, I was stopped in my tracks by THE most immaculate, most impressive, most magnificent fish aquarium I have EVER seen.  Really, EVER.

Google image - student's is better

That includes pet stores, doctor's offices, Chinese restaurants... even zoos.  Okay, the zoo might have some more exotic creatures in their aquariums - and really, how cool would it be to have a tank full of piranhas in your house! - but this aquarium was truly stunning.

I recently blogged about my own aquarium shortcomings.  Suffice to say that this girl's tank made mine look like a chum bucket at best.  On that note, I did get a new hood light and am hoping for the best.

Eventually, I snapped out of my gawking state and complimented her on the state of her aquarium.  There's actually quite a science to keeping and maintaining a healthy aquarium and I've still got much to learn.  

She told me that she enjoys it too and that she has a smaller one (20-gal) in her room.  This one is a 70-gallon fish paradise.  I was impressed that she is the main fish keeper of the household.

Then we settled in to our studies, me assuming my coach / mentor / role model part, she assuming her pupil / sidekick / protege' one.  As we sat there in the glow of the tropical inspiration, I was thinking it's good that she doesn't know about my tank of scum, sparsely populated with upside down gassy fish. 

.