I took a nature walk with my students yesterday to collect leaves and seeds for science.  We did all kinds of sorting and investigating with our finds.  During recess today some students were looking at our leaves and stuff again.  I overheard one student say (in reference to some berries), “Don’t touch those!  They poison!”  Another student responded (in a very “duh, you’re an idiot” tone), “Ms. Kitten wouldn’t pick them if they poison!”  I had to laugh… it was too cute!

It was also an interesting situation, though.  One student was so rooted in common sense and the other relied completely on trust.  Which one would win out?  Well, the kids all looked at each other… shrugged… and touched the berries.  LOL

Trust is everything… any relationship without it is poison.

So I did it!  What’s this momentous occasion you wonder?  I finally went grocery shopping for the first time in September!  The first couple of weeks weren’t bad at all… I still had leftovers from the parents’ visit and lots of odds and ends in the freezer.  Then I really had to get creative.  By last week, I was pretty desperate.  I had eaten way too much take-out and a few too many dinners consisting entirely of pretzels and diet coke.  But yesterday I hit rock bottom…

I stopped at the drugstore on the way to work to grab something to take for lunch.  I spied something that looked edible on the bottom shelf of the fridge case.  I squatted down to check it out… but I suddenly found myself eye-to-eye with a big, nasty dill pickle.  This thing was practically yellow and swimming in a plastic pouch of rancid pickle essences and juices.  I gagged.  This isn’t something I’d ever want to be 6 inches away from… and especially not at 6:30 in the morning!  Mental note:  Must.  Buy.  Food.  Today.

That pickle scared me straight.  I will never be without food in the house again.  I plan on spending my whole life avoiding that pickle.  You know that thing will still be there when I die… mocking me from its juicy hyperbaric chamber.

I have these colleagues of all ages that get together once a month for dinner.  We have done this for years.  When the group first started, we all worked at the same school.  We’d get together and piss and moan about work… and leave feeling great after much laughter and wine.  Over the years, a few of the members have retired.  This has really put a damper on the fun.  These dinners have taught me a lot about retired people:

- 5:30 is considered a late dinner
- When you’re meeting at 5:30, you are really expected to be there at 5:15 or they will obsess over your whereabouts.  5:25 just won’t cut it.
- Appetizers?  Dessert?  Drinks?  What are those??  We have got to get out of here before dark!
- Topics of conversation are limited to diseases and surgeries, random people we run into at random places, and deaths.
- If the server screws anything up, they can’t get over it.  “I can’t believe he gave me your salad and you got mine!”  “He can’t even keep salads straight!”  An hour later… “Does this LOOK like thousand island?”
- Even if their plates consist of 3 peas and a slice of bread, they obsess over having wayyyyy too much food.
- They LOVE separate checks (and servers just LOVE us as a result).
- They give the EXACT amount down to the penny… heaven forbid we round up and give the server another 12 cents!

I have a friend who is just as annoyed with their behavior (she’s the only other “young” one)… you can catch us making a lot of faces at each other throughout dinner.  You can’t help but laugh through the whole meal at this point.  I adore these ladies, but somebody shoot me when I start showing any of these characteristics!

We recently had Open House night at my school… you know, where the kids bring their parents in and drag them around the school to meet their teachers.

As a project for Open House, I recorded my students acting out scenes of a story we had been working on.  Then I used iMovie to put it all together into one little movie.  It was really a hassle, but turned out quite cute.  Anyway… my plans were to show the movie that night right from my laptop with a projector.  Ha… the mac had other ideas, of course.

I checked out the projector from the library, and when I tried to set up the system, I discovered that the cable did not plug into the new laptop.  Grrrrrr.  Of course nobody was around after school to help…
so I came in an hour early for Open House that night and managed to track down our helpful media specialist.  She found the updated adapter for me.  (Apple is really good about making you buy 100 new accessories when you upgrade your computer.)  I set everything up with the new adapter… turned everything on… nothing.  NOTHING!

The media  specialist came down to help me, but couldn’t get the thing to work either.  We WANTED to call the technology dude for help, but he’s one of those people who make you feel like an idiot when something doesn’t work… and then proceeds to tell everyone else what an idiot you are… for years.  And more times than not, he can’t fix it either and then proceeds to blame the problem on something YOU did… not his lack of skill.  Neither one of us really wanted to deal with him, so we continued to tinker on our own.  No luck.  We finally decided to move my movie to an old laptop and try hooking that up.  It worked!  Whew.

The movie was a big hit at Open House.  I even had parents recording it on their cell phones so they could share it with other family members.  One father saw the mess of computers and cords on my desk and said, “Oh, is this your new computer?”  I explained that it was actually an old one and pointed out the new one… then detailed all the trouble we had.  He responded, “Well, I can tell you what your first problem is.”  “Oh?” I asked hopefully.  He laughed, “Yeah, that apple icon on top there.”  Exactly.

Wheeeeeeeee!  My new couch is here!  Nevermind that the delivery guys came 2 hours early… and when they called to say they’d be here in 10 minutes, I was still in bed.  I’m too excited to care about letting strangers in my house in my pj’s!

I called my parents to share my joy.  Unfortunately, Mom wasn’t home, so I got to talk to Dad.  He isn’t exactly the epitome of excitement over anything.  I told him I got the couch and his response was, “You had to take a day off of work?”  LOL  I ignored it and continued babbling about how cute it is.  Then he said, “Am I going to be able to stretch out and take a nap on this thing?”  Always so practical…

I’ve inspected every inch of it again, just to be safe.  It’s still in perfect condition.  So now if any pee stains turn up, I’ll know they’re my own.

My mom has always said that I have champagne taste but a beer budget.  As usual, she’s right.  This forces me to do a lot of outlet shopping… the eternal bargain hunter.  But I don’t want just ANY bargain… I want something truly amazing for next to nothing.

This summer, I decided it was time to replace my living room furniture (sofa, chairs, that sort of thing).  It’s all 10 years old and from IKEA.  Not that there’s anything wrong with IKEA, but 10 years is more than enough use out of IKEA furniture… and I’m ready for some grown up stuff anyway!

Well my champagne taste recently led me to my favorite furniture outlet stores:  Crate and Barrel, Carson’s, and Macy’s.  (If ONLY there was a Pottery Barn outlet nearby!)  My girlfriends came with me since girls always shop in packs… but mainly because I tend to agonize over decisions like this.  We didn’t find much until we got to Macy’s.  I fell in love with a sofa there.  It was PERFECT!  Everything about it was ideal… except one thing.  It was a sleeper!  I do NOT need any more reasons for people to decide to sleep over at my house.  The price wasn’t too great, either.  I was bummed, but we continued on.

We finally worked our way to the clearance area and THERE IT WAS!  The same couch!  We checked it out… not a sleeper!  OMG SOLD!  Then we looked at the price… $149!  Wait… did someone leave a zero off?  Nope… $149!  OMG SOLD!!!

We stood there in shock for a moment… nobody knew what to say.  Then reality set in.  “What’s wrong with it?” I asked to the group.  Everyone just shrugged.  The inspection began.  We were on our knees with every cushion pulled off… sniffing every inch of fabric… investigating for stains… feeling for tears and scratches. Nothing.  “Something HAS to be wrong with it!”  We couldn’t find a thing.

A sales guy happened to be wandering by.  “Excuse me… what’s wrong with this sofa?”  “We’re practically giving it away.”  “Right, what’s WRONG with it?”  “Are you complaining about a couch that’s practically free?”  “Did somebody pee on it?”  (Poppie peed on my couch!)  LOL  We went round and round with the sales dude… at least he had a sense of humor about it.  It turns out that it was delivered to someone, they changed their mind, and it was returned the next day, rendering it worthless to Macy’s.  This all opened the door for a  snarky little kitten like me to swoop in and buy it for 10% of it’s original price.  INSANE!  (Not that I’m complaining!)

Well, of course, after buying the couch I simply HAD to have some matching pieces.  So a trip to the real Macy’s was in order.  The furniture gods were smiling upon me once again… Macy’s was having a HUGE sale.  So I got a matching chair and ottoman and a the cutest accent chair ever!  All in all, I got an entire roomful of quality, grown-up furniture for about half of what it normally sells for.   Wooohooooo!

Champagne, anyone?

So there I was waiting in the check-out line at the local “dollar store”… one pair of green pom poms in hand. (I realize how odd it is that a grown woman is buying a set of pom poms at the dollar store… unfortunately, the reason for the pom poms is not nearly as interesting as it could be.)

Anyway… I’m in line, trying not to make eye contact with anyone (as you know, I like to avoid it in stores). So I pretend to be interested in the shelves of crap around me. Family pack of toothbrushes… 6-pack of gum I’ve never heard of (wonder if it’s lo meiny)… early pregnancy test… batteries… early pregnancy test… Spiderman pencils… early pregnancy test… early pregnancy test… EARLY PREGNANCY TEST?

OK, this has to be some sort of mistake… maybe it’s one of those things that is in the dollar store, but is actually more than a dollar. Without drawing too much attention to myself, I peer a little closer… nope, a dollar! At this point, I feel someone’s stare… it’s my turn! The check-out girl is staring at me impatiently, and now everyone in line knows I’m ogling the early pregnancy tests… AND buying pom poms! I feel my face turn red as I step forward to pay. I couldn’t get out of that place fast enough.

On my way home (after I got over myself), I started to think about the $1 early pregnancy test. I really have a lot of questions about it. Have they expired? Are the directions in Dutch?  “Plas op deze stok.”  (LOL, thank you, google translater.)  Who would trust ANY medical test that costs $1? How accurate can $1’s worth of technology actually be? Are these geared for ladies who need to buy in bulk? Are these people buying their condoms at the dollar store, too? I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.

Then it hit me:
If you can’t afford a pregnancy test… how the heck are you going to afford the baby?

I have been blessed/cursed with a big, toothy smile. It has served me fairly well in life… but has also brought about some annoyances. My peers assume my constant grinning means I’m always up to something… earning me one of my favorite nicknames, Trixie. (I’m not saying they aren’t right.)

When I’m in a store, I find that I have to avoid eye contact with people. If I look at them, I can’t help but smile… and this launches a certain series of events, depending on their age:

- Babies are instantly mesmerized.. which is fun, as long as the parent is not paying attention. If the parent IS paying attention or catches me, they suddenly begin to babble in baby talk… making me want to hurl the nearby tic tacs at their head.

- Old people will want help. I actually do smile at them, and I’m happy to reach for something at the back of the freezer or tell them where the cereal isle is.

- Check-out workers will assume a smile means I want them to comment on every item as they scan. “Ohhhh… that looks good.” “Wow, what a sale.” “Someone’s hungry tonight!”

- Other random adults can’t return a smile with a smile. Many feel the need to fill the silence with mind-numbing small talk. I hate this situation worst of all… it puts me on the spot to think of something interesting to say to a total stranger. I usually just give a polite answer or laugh… and move along (but now I have to watch for them through the rest of the store so I don’t bump into them again). If I’m trapped in a line with them, then there is a whole lot of nodding and uncomfortable laughter.  Blah.

- If I have any sort of liquor in my basket, any guy in their 20’s within a 10 foot radius will always feel the need to ask where the party is. Yeah, I’m having a huge bash with my 6-pack of Zima.  (LOL… I miss Zima… don’t judge me.)

Don’t get me wrong… I love that people are nice and feel a sense of community when they’re out running errands. But I’m not a chatty person… I’m usually deep in thought about something trivial… and I like it that way. I spend my whole day at work talking… once I leave, I need some peace. All I ask is that you can the baby talk… and just return someone’s smile with a smile… that’s all anyone needs.

10. TSA is quite easy to fool. I smuggled a tube of that “oh-so-dangerous” lip gloss from Christmas through security in my pocket. HA! Quart-sized bag, my ass!

9. Playing “name that animal” gets a little old after being woken up by something howling outside my window every morning at 6. One day it was turkeys… one day a coyote… never did figure it out the last morning. I SWEAR it was a bear!

8. It doesn’t matter where or when… you cannot enter a Wal-Mart without being assaulted by the sounds of a screaming child. through. the. whole. store.

7. When my sister doesn’t bring the kids, I actually get treated like a human and get to sleep in a REAL BED! Not a fold-up couch contraption, not a cot, not a blow up thingy… a real bed! *feels special*

6. I got caught up on the latest issue of Betty & Veronica’s Double Digest. I was desperate for reading material… but I have always loved Archie comics. For those of you who care… there’s a new girl in town and you get to vote on who you think her boyfriend should be online! ROFL

5. I learned that a “little hike” to my uncle actually means a 6 mile trek up Mount Martha. Never again.

4. My family has horrible taste in television shows. Seriously… I’m going to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon the next time I’m subjected to a conversation about Dancing with the Stars.

3. I’m becoming more and more like my dad… it’s scary. At least it’s not my mom, though! LOL

2. Chicago has the worst travel weather in the world. It doesn’t matter what time of year… you will always be stuck in an airport waiting for a storm system to pass. Always.

1. I got to check out my burial plot in the family cemetary… can’t think of a better way to spend the afternoon. I’m thinking a little Hello Kitty motif on the headstone might be fitting. “Here lies Snarky Kitten… get off me.”