Sometimes You Get More Than You Bargained For

I wrote this review three weeks ago. I had to wait until the book was published to post the review. It was the longest three weeks of my life.

Lost in Translation: Preschooler Edition

I am the master of languages. Need an interpreter for your family? I’m your gal. Spouse speaking Greek? I am at your service. Confused about what your meteorologist is trying to tell you? Allow me. Unsure what those pesky labels mean? I can clear things up. Today, I’m here to help you better understand your preschooler.

At the table:

“I’m full.” – I have a more pressing engagement. Like sticking Legos up my nose.

“I don’t like this.” – It’s not a hot dog or peanut butter sandwich.

“I’m ready for dessert! I ate all my dinner.” I gave it to the dog when you weren’t looking. Ready for some cake?

Getting Dressed:

“This shirt is too small for me. You need to give it to a baby.” It doesn’t have Spiderman on it. It has Bob the Builder, and I will look like a dweeb.

“This shirt fits me just right!” Even though it’s three sizes too small and is compressing my rib cage so hard you can see my heart beat from across the room. It has Spiderman on it. Spiderman!

Out and about:

“I want to walk myself. No stroller.”  – I have just enough energy to last until we are equidistant from any exit.”

“I’m ready to go home and take a nap, Mommy.”  – I just broke something.

“Sharing is fun!” – Ah, I see that you have ice cream.

At Home: 

“When is Daddy getting home?” I need to ask for something I know you won’t let me have.

“I’m your big helper!” – I just scrubbed the toilet with your toothbrush.

“I’m not doing anything.” I hope you have good insurance.

Bedtime:

“I need a drink of water!” I need to make sure everybody’s fun stopped when my light went out.

“Can I sleep in your bed?”  – I just peed in mine.

’nuff said.

Guess what?!! Today is release day for The Big Reap!  Buy The Collector series now, thank me later.

How To Meet A Fellow Blogger In Real Life

A few weeks ago, I got the most exciting email from Emily at The Waiting. Maybe you know her. She’s been Freshly Pressed a time or three. Anyway, she said she was coming to my town and wondered if we could meet. Um, yeah! So exciting. I’ve never met up with a fellow blogger in person before. So many feelings! Would she like me? Would we find lots to talk about? Would she murder me with chopsticks and stuff me in the trunk of her car? Like being in high school all over again.

Anyway, the lead up was pretty eventful for me.

2 weeks out: Awaken in the middle of the night with the sudden notion that I am actually scheduled to work the night she is in town. It was just a dream, little champ. You work the week before. Go back to sleep.

Ten days out: Where to eat? In this mid-sized town, there are surprisingly few good, local eateries that are easy for a non-native to find. Do we go for small-chain Indian food, or the hipster sandwich joint?

One week out:  Awaken in the middle of the night and ponder what to wear. Something classy, of course. So, Cookie Monster T-shirt or Slytherin Quidditch? This is a question to be settled closer to the event, after consulting a star chart, the Psychic Friends network, and the dirty clothes hamper.

Two days out: Awaken in the middle of the night and remember that one reason I blog is because I am socially awkward and not so good with humans.

The Big Day: 

10am – I have a few hours. With artfully applied sunscreen and a bit of luck, I can even up this farmer’s tan.

11am – I’ve never posted a picture with my regular face before.How will Emily recognize me if I’m not doing this:

Pretty

Yep, that’s me.

Painful

Or if I’m dressed as anyone other than Professor Trelawney?

 

The answer? MoonPies.

4:30 PM : The tire is flat. This is not good. It’s just flat on the bottom, though, the rest of it is still nice and round. Maybe it’s not the worst.

5:00 PM – Tire is going to take two hours to fix. There is no wi-fi here, and therefore no way to contact Emily to tell her I may be late.

5:05 PM – Minor melt-down in the Wal-mart automotive department. People snap a couple of pictures for the People of Wal-Mart website but otherwise just step over me and go on about their business.

6:00 PM – Car is rolled out of the bay. And around the store. And up the block. And I think possibly to the next town over.

6:15 PM – Keys are dumped on the counter and I pay for my two new tires. Because husband likes to buy them in twos. They’re best in twos. I try to use the same logic whenever I buy snakes, but he doesn’t fall for it.

6:45 PM – I’m on my way! I’m on my way! I’m on my way! The restaurant serves hipster with a side of pretension, which is great because I’m starving.

6:46 PM – Crap. I forgot to brush my teeth. Oh, well. I eat a pile of mints. I also forgot to brush my hair. I hope keys work okay in a pinch.

7:00 PM – Butterflies are apparently carniverous and are consuming me from the inside out. Will I be interesting enough? Will I find something to talk about besides the mating habits of Dwarf Malagasy tortoise species? Will I be in the right place? Will she recognize me? Is there toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe? Is my skirt tucked into my waistband? I’m not wearing a skirt. Why am I not wearing a skirt? I look like I’ve been sitting in a Wal-mart automotive department.

7:15 PM – There she is! I would recognize her anywhere! And she’s smiling. And not in the laughing-at-me-on-the-inside kind of way!

And it was great. We met, we talked, we ate, we talked. The food was good, the company even better. I’m happy to say that Emily is just as wonderful, open, gracious and witty as she is on her blog. It’s always wonderful when art imitates life. If you ever get a chance to meet her, I recommend it.

And if you’re in my neck of the woods, look me up. I’m relatively harmless, and I’ll bring Moonpies!

It was the best!

It’s All In How You Look At It

I’ve been in a terrible mood.

A to-do list looms over my shoulder that contains such minor tasks as learning a new computer operating system well enough to teach it to others. The job I was hoping for has been shelved for a few months. I spent ungodly amounts of money yesterday registering Squish for preschool and buying kids’ clothes for fall and two pairs of glasses, one for me and one for Girl-child. (Oh, yeah. I also learned I need bifocals. I was hoping my vision issues were just because my arms were too short.) After wrangling a Squish through a consignment sale, two vision appointments, and a grocery trip, we went to the car to discover our tire was flat. Two more hours of Squish-wrangling and another large chunk of change, and I was feeling kind of sorry for myself.

I did have a delightful dinner with the most wonderful person. It was the bright spot of my day. But when I returned home after 9:30pm, I discovered my kid who has a 7 o’clock bedtime was still wide awake. Daddy had let him stay up for a bit in the hopes he would sleep in. When does he ever sleep in?

When the kid’s feet hit the floor at 7:15 this morning, I was ready to run for the trees.  But then.

It’s funny how a perspective can shift when looking into those blue eyes.

I bet I was the only one in the world who got to have breakfast with Captain America.

 

Squish is ever the problem-solver. He was ready to fix the tire with some duct tape. That’s my boy.

“Happy Trapped In Amber”

Do yourself a favor. Read this series. Now!

A Cautionary Tale

This wasn’t the post I intended to write today, but it’s the one that spoke to my heart. It’s my two-year blogging anniversary, and I was going to regale you with some stats and search terms and other things that are mildly amusing, but I won’t. Not today.

Yes, I got all excited and screencapped it right that very moment. If you have followed me for a while, you already know that I am a dweeb.

When we start blogging, many of us have long-term goals. I had hoped by the two-year mark, I would be a published author with six best-sellers to my credit (one obviously ghost-written by my cat), and I’d be wealthy and retiring to the French Riviera. I happy to say I have met those goals. In the last two years, I have produced four first-draft manuscripts. I am now wealthy enough that I can buy almost anything in the free-bin at my local used bookstore, and I am about to retire to the French Riviera if by that you mean looking for a job at McDonald’s. Life is pretty sweet.

Anyway, pondering this post got me thinking about stories I have alluded to in the comment section of other people’s blogs but have never fully explained. I think now is the time. 

Some of you may know I used to work for Giant-Soulless-Discount-Chain-Mart. Some of you may even know why I left. Here’s the full story.

I took the job because my husband and I were looking to get out of debt. I worked at home during the day, and adding an 8pm-4am shift at Soulless-Mart three days a week seemed like a good idea at the time. I lasted four months. I could have persevered for another year or two, but I did not. It wasn’t the money. The pay wasn’t half-bad. I didn’t feel poorly treated, either. My supervisor was a little brusque, as we all are at 2am, but she taught me what I needed to know and cut me some slack when necessary. I left over a discrepancy in policy.

New trainees are subjected to endless hours of training before beginning their career, and even more after. Most of the training modules cover policies and procedures, endless hours of them, at which the employee sits slack-jawed before a computer screen and learns such things as “Selling Liquor to Minors Is a No-No.”

No:

No beer for you, kid. Those glasses ain’t foolin’ no one. //Photo credit “D Sharon Pruitt”

Probably:

This guy’s probably old enough. It’s okay to sell as long as he has ID and his cheque doesn’t bounce. // Photo credit Scott Beale/Laughing Squid

Policy training is crucial when a company has enough money to buy their own planet be a target for law-suits. And there’s a policy for everything.

Those of us who have ever worked in low-paying jobs know that we’re always looking for a win, some bit of evidence that we have not wasted our lives what we do matters. We dream of that golden moment where the 40 hours of computer training finally pays off and we save a life using the price checker as a defibrillator. Or can at least tell a customer where to find the Cheez-Whiz without having to make a left-hand turn. When you make barely more than minimum wage, the little things matter. It was so for me, and when my moment came, I was in for a surprise.

I clocked in as usual that fateful night shortly after Christmas, scheduled to report to my register in five minutes. I was cruising through electronics when I spotted it. A puddle in the floor.  There’s a policy for that, of course, because people spill things all the time. I was to stand guard over the spilled liquid until maintenance could clean it up.

Here was my moment to shine! I could protect all the shoppers from slipping and risking injury, and I could protect my employers from a lawsuit in one fell swoop! I was a super-hero. I didn’t even need a cape!

There were a couple of problems with the policy, however, starting with the fact that Maintenance knocked off at 6, and ending with the complete lack of supervisors to notify. Leaving the puddle to report it was forbidden. Some money-hungry idiot might stage a fall in the 3.2 seconds it would take to find someone. So I stood there.

The first time my name was called over the loudspeaker asking me to report to my register, I began a frantic dance, leaping and waving, hoping that someone in electronics would notice. No such luck. After two calls, I finally saw a customer service manager and reported my dilemma, begging them to let my supervisor know I was on the job. The CSM assured me I was doing the right thing, promised to find someone to take care of it, and ordered me not to move.

It was at that moment I noticed what I was guarding. This was no grocery spill, friends. I was risking my job to watch over a puddle of pee.

Using my mad forensic skills, I speculate that some parent was perusing $5 DVDs while their unattended offspring dropped trou and hosed down a support post. A carpeted support post.

Ten minutes and three more calls over the loudspeaker later, and I was still standing guard to a pool of human excrement. The royal baby hasn’t been watched as closely. Said CSM walked by again, having forgotten I was there at all, and wandered off with vague promises to find someone to take care of it and to notify my supervisor. He did neither.

Finally, a second CSM strolled by. She took charge of that puddle and relieved me (Get it? Pee joke. See, I can still laugh about it.) to return to my register. My supervisor was in a giant huff, and proceeded to chew me out, demanding to know why I didn’t just leave the pee and report for duty.

It was at that moment I know I couldn’t work at Soulless-Mart anymore. How can I work for a business whose managers are not on the same page about how to handle a puddle of pee? How does anybody? That’s why I prefer the zoo.

Happy Holiday!

This year, a lot of holidays have passed unnoticed and uncelebrated.

Valentine’s Day: always a non-holiday. No candy hearts here. They taste like chalk. I don’t hate Valentine’s day, it has just never been earth-shattering. Like Arbor Day. I like trees every day, thanks.

Easter: We went to church and worshiped, and it was beautiful as always, and we went to my mom’s for a family lunch. But it rained the entire afternoon, thus no egg hunts. Mom put the kibosh on indoor egg hunts when I was ten and we lost an egg. It wasn’t lost forever, of course. We found it. When it exploded in the closet. Did I mention we used real eggs? No hunts.

Father’s Day: Husband took the kids to see his folks, and I was working and couldn’t go. I told him to pick a day to celebrate, and he hasn’t. So I save the cards for next year? I guess after he reads this, he’ll let me know.

Fourth of July: We did nothing. At all. It rained all day long. Husband took the big kids to fireworks in the drizzle. The kids weren’t in it for the fireworks, though. Turns out, there’s a tradition between the three of them that involves Slurpees.

After all those misses, I was not about to let another National celebration slip away. So on that note:

Happy Hostess Day!***

 

That’s right! Hostess products are back on the market! I’ve checked the local papers, and I haven’t found a parade. I’m sure that was just an oversight. No day off from work, either, which was kind of a bummer for hundreds of millions of us. Next year, perhaps? They’ll still be fresh by then.

I feel the same way, little buddy…

 

*** I had to call it Hostess Day. I know Twinkies are the real news-making snack cake, but even I can’t bring myself to eat a Twinkie. You celebrate your way, I’ll celebrate mine.

My Fifteen Minutes

My husband and I are huge fans of Antiques Roadshow. They do their filming in the summer, traveling to venues all over the country. Every time we get notice that the show is filming within 200 miles of us, we try to win tickets. It’s a lottery. You fill out the online form, and if they pick your name, you’re IN! Or you can buy the tickets. For a $500 donation to your local station. *ahem*

Long story short (too late?), we won tickets. There might have been some joyous leaping about and a few high fives. A low moment followed soon after as we remembered that everything we own is crap. And the rules on the ticket are pretty explicit. If you want in, you have to bring something to appraise.

We agonized. We know our stuff is worthless, so the real challenge was to find things that were the least likely to embarrass us. Our decision was made, of course, as we were walking out the door, as all critical decisions should be. The most important requirement for us was that the items not be too heavy because the free parking is always at least half a mile from the door.

The setup was really amazing, and there were already tons of people there.

That is what is known in the business as a long line.

It was amazing to see what everyone else brought with them.  Click the images to enlarge.

I loved this print so much!

Even before we got on set, a crew bebopped around finding cool stuff to film. Not my stuff.

Me! With tickets! And my items for appraisal. Yes, that’s a shoebox if that gives you any indication of their value.

No cameras were allowed on set, so I have to take you there in my imagination. The set itself was built of blue panels at the center of a giant pinwheel shape. There were openings every 20 feet or so, and three lines fed into each opening. We got tickets for each appraisal line we needed to be in. Since we like each other, my husband and I opted to stay in line together.

Our first stop was jewelry since I had a perfume ring handed down to me by my great-aunt. When I say “handed down,” I mean I swiped it from her jewelry box because no one else wanted it. It looks rather like this.

Photo credit: etsy.com

When we were finally called for our appraisal, my stomach dropped to my shoes. I was terrified he was going to tell me my prized possession was Avon, circa 1982.  He didn’t, though. He was polite and told me it was a nice piece from the 1940’s with “probably a lot of sentimental value.” Translation: “What you have there is a gen-yoo-ine piece of crap. And the perfume stinks.” Value : under $20.

Next up, porcelain. The line was mercifully short. I brought a small collection of tea cups that same aunt had gathered on her jaunts around the world. Turns out, people don’t buy random tea cups anymore. He indicated that if I had a matching collection with a teapot, it might be worth something. Yes, and if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its behind on the ground when it hopped, either. Having expected no better, I wasn’t terribly disappointed. We moved on.

We were left with only our stack of old books and a single comic book from Raiders of the Lost Ark. The lines for both Books and Collectibles were daunting, so we decided to split up. I took the books. And I waited. After about an hour, it was my turn. I brought up my beloved books.

Why are old books so pretty? Ever notice that?

The appraiser was one I see on TV every now and again. A friendly type to be sure. He looked at my books like I had just handed him a turd sandwich and opened them one by one. After a moment, he said “Looks like you picked them up at a library sale.” I admitted that a couple had come from a giveaway bin. He made excruciatingly painful eye contact and said “The free bin is pretty much where they belong.” I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that. I knew my books were not worth anything. I had no idea they were worth nothing.  He went on to say “I can go over them one by one if you like…”

Please don’t…

I took my books and slinked off to join my husband in line.

We met the nicest people. The folks in front of us had an old gramophone. We chatted for a good hour and a half.  Actually, it was a great hour and a half. The best part of being there was talking to people and seeing what everybody brought, guessing who was going to be on TV when the show premieres (again, a hint: not me). I even got a peek at one of the Keno brothers! They wouldn’t let us take pictures, so my rendition will have to do:

I feel that I have captured the essence of unidentified Keno twin

Finally, it was our turn at the table. The appraisers were super-busy and were doing all kinds of research on the items that were brought in, so we had to wait a little bit more. Our gramophone friends found out their player was worth $500. The lady in front of us was told that her silver is a national treasure and was worth $10-15,000. The guy at the next table had a pair of Muhammad Ali’s autographed shoes and was signing the pre-filming paperwork. With each appraisal, my husband’s whimper grew louder. How do you follow up Muhammad Ali’s shoes with a comic book?

With an apologetic smile, he presented his book. The appraiser slid her glasses down her nose and told him the book wasn’t exactly old enough to be an antique. Time to go, honey!

Walk of shame, With my shoebox. Turns out if I dropped it, the stuff wouldn’t be worth much less than it already is.

Was our time at Antiques Roadshow mortifying? You betcha! Would we do it again? In a heartbeat. I haven’t laughed that hard in I don’t know when, and the line about the free-bin was priceless. We’re getting a lot of mileage out of it. But we’d take some different stuff.

Let’s do this again sometime. After the scars heal.

 

If there’s enough interest, I may do a giveaway of my appraised books. They were worthless before. Now they have provenance.

Today, I Remembered

I hit a rough patch a bit ago and kind of ran off the road..  You may have visited that particular ditch in your travels as well, the place where things that would ordinarily slide off like water from a duck’s back instead bring you to your knees, and even the chocolate doesn’t taste good anymore.  I won’t bore you with details, but at the beginning of this week, watching my plans and efforts crumble to dust, I wondered why I bother at all. It was a low point. But not today. Today, I remembered.

Today, Phyllis came to visit my camp and pooped on the floor, and I remembered how to laugh.

Phyllis the Polish hen. I can’t look at her without smiling.

Today, my new friends met my old friends, and I remembered why I love them both.

Rex, meet campers. Campers, meet Rex. Want to go to a movie?

Today, an elephant played me a harmonica tune, and I remembered how to sing.

I don’t even care that I have to clean the harmonica.

Today, an otter caught a snack, and I remembered there is wonder in the world.

I wonder how she bends like that.

Today, there was a splash pad and ice cream, and I remembered how sweet life is.

Today the water stopped, and I remembered I can make my own magic. Someone reminded me. Thanks for that, little buddy!

Today, I remembered why I love what I do. Today was a blessing.

Don’t Look Now…

Remember my little friend? I dropped it in a pot of dirt like a hot potato and haven’t touched it since. Or even looked at it until yesterday. It looks kind of the same as it did two months ago, actually. See? Then:

I took this picture a little less than 2 months ago when trying out the new camera. Doesn’t look like much, does it? All wrinkly and pitiful.

Now:

I may be sick…