Generation Gap

It’s official, I am OLD. Yesterday, I bought a pair of ‘thigh highs’ to go with my Halloween costume. I assumed (erroneously, obviously, hence this experience) that they had that rubber stuff up around the top to keep them up on your thigh. So last night, about 7:40, I’m watchin’ a little tv, and decided to try them on, just for shits & giggles. They look VERY cool, except for one tiny little problem. As soon as I let go of the top, they start rolling down my leg. Yeah, no rubbery stuff. I have moved at least 5 times since I last had need of a garter belt, so if I even still owned one, I have NO IDEA where it might be. So Helen & I make a flying trip to the mall in search of said accessory. First stop, JC Penney’s lingerie department. We looked and looked, but didn’t even find stockings, much less garters and garter belts for them. We found the girl working the nearest checkout, right there in the department. She was all of, oh, 19, at most. Bless her heart, she had NO IDEA what a garter belt was. Granted it was her first day on the floor, but still! So we looked some more and found nothing. I looked in the lingerie catalog, and found 'torsolettes’, which everybody I know has always called a bustier, but whatever you want to call it, it had garters, so I showed the girl. She still had never seen them, and apologized profusely for not being able to help us, and suggested we "try maybe an old-timey store". OMG! She also thought we were in our 30’s (God love her for taking almost a decade off of us after all that)! It was truly an entertaining, though not successful encounter. Next stop, unplanned, was the floor in front of a jewelry store where there was a puddle, which sent my right foot sliding forward while my left remained in place, landing me on my left knee. I did a relatively spectacular, for me anyway, splits. I’ve got a denim burn from my jeans and a lovely bruise on my knee, but otherwise, I’m fine. Jewelry store employee was very nice and once I was up and told him I was fine, he called maintenance, then stood outside the store until they arrived to mop to ensure that no one else was hurt. I would like to say that in general, this country is entirely too litigious, I think. As I got up, the 2 teenaged boys behind me, and 2 employees at a cart in the middle of the mall said "SUE THE MALL" WTF???? Umm, yeah, I am fine, thanks for asking! Between the 4 people, I heard the word sue at least 3 different times. Now, if I were one of those unscrupulous people who is out to get something for nothing, sure I might get a lawyer and give him/her 1/3 of any award I might get, and fake all kinds of injuries, etc. That is NOT who I am, and the fact that those people assumed that I might be almost makes me sick, you know? THEN, as we passed the aforementioned cart, which sells some sort of fragrance something or other, maybe aromatherapy, I’m not sure, the guy (yes one of the ones who told me to sue the mall) tried to foist something off on us, then said "Can I ask you a question?" We said "no" and went on our way, because it was now 8:18 and we had a mission to complete and get back to Penney’s before 9. Dillard’s was our final stop. GO DILLARDS LINGERIE DEPT!! Not only did they have a VARIETY of garter belts, though only 1 that will fit me, the young women working, I would say one was probably 18 or 19 and the other early to mid-20’s knew exactly where to look for each style, they also were able to have a ballpark idea of my correct bra size without measuring me! It was DAMNED impressive. They guessed a band size smaller than I wear but a cup size bigger, which is technically, where I belong, but those underwires in that size kick my ass (Well, my armpits anyway) so I go up a band size and down a cup size in order to be comfortable. The next time I need a fitting, I know where I’m heading for sure!!! Dillard’s NorthEast Mall!!! Happy Halloween/Samhain Ya’ll

Living with cats

Since this is a relatively new blog, I should point out that I live with 2 of them. Over the weekend, we got a couch from my sister & brother in law. Nothing fancy, but it's a couch, and I can lie down to watch tv, should I so desire in my media room, however, I digress. One of the cats, my (ok, not so very) little calico, Bow, has laid claim to the end opposite where I tend to sit while I'm watching tv or playing on the laptop. She bathes there, she sleeps there, she watches tv there. So last night, my roomie and I are watching tv in there. I have no idea where Ms. Huzzbucket is in the house, but for whatever reason, my sweet (if yellowbellied) boy Leo is snoozing on the opposite end of the couch from me. He's been there probably an hour or so, all peaceful-like, off in kittydreamland, not bothering anybody. Background for those who haven't met my cats, bless his yellowbellied heart, he's afraid of his own shadow, much less things going thump or touching him when he's not paying attention. In strolls Bow from the kitchen. She walks over to the couch and sees him there in her spot. Hard as I tried to teach her manners, it appears that I failed. She had several options at this moment: 1. She COULD have howled, as she is prone to doing, for no particular reason, at random times 2. She COULD have reached up with a paw, patted him on the head and said "dude, you're in my spot, scoot!" 3. She COULD have climbed up beside him and curled up with him, as they sometimes do, either on the other couch, or on my bed BUT, she did NOT do any of these things. She instead POUNCED up on top of him, using him as a sort of a springboard to get onto the arm of the couch. My poor boy, flew off the couch as if the hounds of hell were after him, too scared to even puff up! Once he thought he was a safe distance away, he turned to see what had attacked him, and saw her, looking all innocent. Yep, she's got an innocent look. When my roomie said "Bow! that was unnecessary and uncalled for!", she looked around with a "what? I don't know what you're talking about" sort of look. I guess we all know who the alpha cat is....

Random acts of nice

In the last few weeks, there have been a handful of instances that have caused the cynic in me to stop and rethink my cynicism with regard to people in general. I am not sure exactly why it is that I am such a cynic, but for whatever reason, I tend to be. Incident #1 happened on October 3rd. We were on the way to the airport at the asscrack of fricking DARKTHIRTY in the morning so I could go to Maryland for my birthday weekend. We stopped at Whataburger on Rufe Snow so I could have a bite of breakfast, and a Dr Pepper before I was stuck at DFW airport without access to Dr Pepper. We pulled into the drive through, and I ordered a biscuit with bacon and a kid size dr p. Note that at no time did the words EGG or CHEESE come out of my mouth. We were the only car in the lot at all. About 8 minutes after we pulled up to the window, she finally handed me my dr p, but not my food, then walked away from the window, leaving my bag sitting just inside the window. I looked at the receipt and when she came back, I told her “umm, I ordered a biscuit with bacon, not a bacon, egg & cheese biscuit”. She went to get a manager, who came back and apologized, telling me that they were out of biscuits and wouldn’t have more for another 5 minutes, and that she was going to refund my money, and that I could either wait for another, or not. Kudos to her for refunding not just my biscuit money, but ALL of my money. As I was sorta antsy to get to the airport and get past security, and in the grand scheme of things, the dr p WAS the most important part of the order, I passed on the biscuit and just got pretzel sticks when I got to the airport. I’m pretty sure that the overnight shift or early morning shift, whichever it was, as it was like 5:15 a.m., in a 24 hour fast food restaurant is the suckiest one there is, and I’ve encountered my share of surly people, but this lady was very nice, and ultimately, was more interested in making sure the customer was happy than she was in making the sale, which was quite refreshing. Incident #2 happened one day last week, I think it was Wednesday, actually. I stopped at the Racetrack gas station nearest work to get a dr p. (hmmm do you see a pattern here?) As I came back out to the car (at like 6 a.m.), I saw a trucker walking across the parking lot. A middle aged man, I would say probably late 40s to early 50s, but I suck at guessing ages, in what looked to be freshly laundered western shirt & jeans. As I reached my door and unlocked it with the remote, he was about 3 feet away, and said “ma’am, hold on.” Now I have no idea what possessed me to not just grab my door handle and jump in the car, other than I didn’t feel threatened by him at all. I glanced at him as he got to my car, and opened my door for me, waited for me to get in, and closed the door behind me, then waved and went on in the store with his coffee mug. Being a rennie, I know that chivalry is not dead, but honestly, I don’t see much of it from random strangers, and it was a pleasant change. Incident #3 happened yesterday morning, at a different Whataburger. We stopped for caffeine on our way to run a couple of errands before lunch. There was a pretty good sized line, but I was desperate, so I waited, ordered my drink, my roommie, who was with me, didn’t want anything. We pulled up to the window, paid for my 1 dr p, and had to wait for the cars ahead of us to move. There was also one car in the outside lane. In a minute, here came the cashier, back to the window, with not 1 but 2 dr p’s! She said “I am giving you an extra just for the hassle of trying to get out around all the traffic. WOW! Whataburger’s got it going on, where customer service is concerned. As it turns out, the way that the line in front of us was and where the car in the outside lane was parked waiting, there was plenty of space for me to get through. YAY!

Look a new post

Ok, yeah, I still suck at this blogging regularly thing. I don’t Twitter very well either, but eventually I’ll probably get a little better at both! Since my last post, I’ve been a little busy.

1. Faire--- yep, did it for 3 weekends, though only 1 weekend was really full.

a. MIDDLEFAIRE still very small, quaint, really only a one day sort of faire. Nonetheless, I got to spend the day with some awesome people, and see friends I haven’t seen since Scarby. Didn’t really buy anything this year, and that’s ok, but I did help someone else pick out a couple of things. Overall I had a wonderful day, and made a few interesting observations that I may share later. Or not. b. MARYLAND – I had looked forward to this trip for a year and a half. I was going to spend my birthday, not just the weekend closest to my birthday, at faire! I was going to see friends that I haven’t seen since Arlington, and won’t see again until December. I had new friends who took vacation days in order to pick me up and return me to the airport, and gave up a weekend at their preferred faire in order to share my birthday at faire, as well as share their home with me, so I wasn’t in a strange place with no one I knew. By the Monday before I left Friday morning, I so did not want to go. Yeah, I won’t have the chance again for 5 years to be at faire ON MY BIRTHDAY, but I wanted instead to stay and spend time over the weekend with someone relatively new in my life. Bless him, he did his best to convince me that I would have more fun at faire, as he had to work and had several other obligations keeping him busy that weekend. My distress at the airport and on the first leg of the journey, from DFW to Atlanta came as a huge surprise to me, even. Over the course of the weekend, I had multiple disappointments, most of them my fault, largely because I didn’t want to be there, and because I failed to really understand the grueling schedule my friends I was originally going to see were on. As hard as my hosts tried to ensure that I had fun, MD is not the faire for me, and I’m not sure I would spend the time or money to go back. c. TRF – yes, I camped, for the first time in like 30something years. Friends rented a popup camper and we split the cost 5 ways, it was a great deal. Well, other than the bed we were in giving a bit at 5 a.m. on Saturday and 7 a.m. on Sunday. We got down there late Friday night after the rest of the crew had arrived early in the day and set up camp. All we really had to do was unload our stuff and start drinkin’ before we went on walkabout with jello shots that Isa made. That was interesting, meeting people with booze! TRF is, well, TRF. I’ve been once this year, and I would go again, with the right person/people, but don’t have a burning desire to go back. I like TRF, but I LOVE Scarby! 2. Work’s gotten crazy busy, and people are starting to get UGLY about us not doing repairs. I’m sorry, but that $16K installation that could cost my company hundreds or thousands of dollars per day if I don’t meet the construction schedule takes precedence over your $300 repair. I realize that you think that your product is the only one that matters, but guess what, the world does NOT revolve around you and your facility, much less your 10 year old product that I have told you for 3 years is pretty much beyond repair and needs to be replaced! 3. House is beginning to be in better order, at least some of the time. I SUCK at housekeeping. I HATE doing it. I blame my parents for this… we had a housekeeper until I was almost 8, and until I was almost 11, my mom didn’t work away from home, other than volunteer sort of stuff, so I didn’t have to pitch in and do cleaning, etc. until after she went back to work. And actually, one of my great aunts told me one time “Honey, you don’t know HOW to properly clean house, because your mother didn’t know how.” Technically, I suppose, that makes it my maternal grandparents’ fault, because they had a housekeeper who was in several days a week, as far as I remember from what Mom told me. This weekend, sometime, my landlord is coming by to winterize the pool, and maybe drain the hot tub to clean it. I think that’s about it for now… maybe I’ll get better at this now.