The Dangers of Eavesdropping

I didn't PURPOSELY eavesdrop on my co-worker, but it was still dangerous. I nearly bit my tongue off trying to avoid laughing out loud.

I was walking by a co-worker's cube on my way to the printer. She was on the phone - on a recorded line. I didn't hear the conversation leading up to or after the quote below. So I really have no idea what she was talking about. All I know is where MY mind went after she said it:

"You're right. It's hard and it's weird."

Telling on myself - anniversary edition

As readers of the blog may remember, I like to bake. Several years ago I bought a stand mixer that I had been lusting after for a while. Big motor to mix heavy, dense doughs. Large mixing bowl to make larger recipes. Lots of accessories would allow it to be one of only two large appliances on the kitchen counter (no toaster accessory).

That, of course, is how I rationalized it to myself when I bought it. About 2 years after I bought it the mixing blades would no longer stay in. No matter how light the batter, the mixing blades would fall out of the mixer into the batter. Even EGG WHITES for goodness sake. So Husband and I have tried for the better part of a year to find someone who can repair it (since it naturally happened after the warranty period was over) without success. The maker is an Italian company (DeLonghi) and has no repair centers in the US. When I looked on the internet for repair companies, I found that many people had had the same experience with DeLonghi's mixers - with no recourse other than replacing the mixer.

Then this week for our anniversary, Husband ordered a brand new Cuisinart stand mixer. It has all the other positive attributes of the old mixer and none of the negative. Cuisinart isn't an American company, but it's well established in the US, so customers have lots of support from the company if anything goes wrong. It also has a 3 year warranty!

So the next time you're shopping for something that you're clearly lusting after - do yourself a favor. Do research online about the company and the product you're buying. Just because it's "big and pretty" doesn't mean it won't break down at the drop of the hat. Just look at the Buckeyes' offensive line!

Telling on myself

My cat Trixie is smarter than me. That's not ENTIRELY a new idea for me, but I had it brought home to me again today.

Trixie is prone to bladder infections because she has bad kidneys. So I periodically have to give her a pill (antibiotics) every day for 3 weeks. She's currently about halfway through another course of antibiotics. So she's feeling well enough that it's not easy giving her the pills.

First I have to CATCH her, not always easy for those of us with arthritis. But husband helps with that, if I she's feeling really defiant. Then there's getting her to swallow the pills. Now the pills she's taking, to be fair, are pretty large for a 10 pound cat. But I have a way of pinning her down that doesn't hurt her and allows me to open her mouth and drop the pill in. Then I rub her neck until I notice her swallowing. This part can be time-consuming, as any cat owner will tall you. Then after she swallows the pill, she gets a couple of cat treats.

Yesterday I caught her fairly easily. And giving her the pill was no harder than most days and easier than a lot of other days, so I counted myself as lucky. Until today.

You see I found her pill from yesterday on the ottoman in the living room this afternoon. So, she not only fooled me that she swallowed the pill (not the first time!), but she managed to EAT TWO TREATS before jumping on the ottoman and spitting out the pill that she did NOT swallow.

I am humbled by your orneriness Trixie, but I'm still giving you your pills!

Dreams

What are YOUR dreams like?

I've learned that mine are weirder than most, which doesn't completely surprise me. I mostly dream of people who are NOT in my life - usually completely made up people. I nearly always dream in color. My dreams often have music in them, like movie scores. I have in the past dreamt as a cartoon - one that I had completely made up - the characters, plot (such as it was), art work - the whole shebang. Once in a VERY great while I'll realize that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming. I always wind up flying when I wake up in a dream.

What brings this to mind is a dream I had late last night. It was an opera. YES, an opera. Not Madame Butterfly or La Traviata, an opera I made up. Now it didn't last for hours - probably just a few minutes. But everyone was singing. And the funny part is that it was very much a modern opera. Everyone had their solo lines that fit together in sometimes harmonious and sometimes dissonant ways. I don't remember what the opera was about or the characters (though it was someone in my life). Very weird - even for me.

What about it? What are your dreams like?

A Practical Joke I HAVE played

My freshman year in high school (lo those MANY years ago), I shared a small apartment with LRR, a friend I met in high school. We had a mutual friend LF who was going to nursing school in a different neighborhood in the same city. For some reason LF kept complaining "No one sends me a letter! How come I don't get letters?"

Mind you this was the autumn of 1977. While that IS a long time ago, telephones HAD been invented. She wasn't THAT far from us or her family. Why not just pick up a phone? We did HAVE phones and knew how to use them. When LRR and I pointed that out to LF, she wasn't convinced. She wanted a letter!

So I sent a letter. LOTS of letters. But it was only a single letter per page, and only one page per envelope. Those envelopes were addressed to LF and mailed to friends and relatives all over the country with a request to mail the envelope on a particular day. So for the better part of a month, LF got the letters she thought she wanted. They came from all over, but they didn't say a thing. And, because I made sure that there were no vowels, couldn't be made to say anything.

When she figured out what was happening and who had done it (the former was harder to figure out than the latter), she actually called us on the phone! Imagine! She tells that story every time I've been to a high school reunion (been a while though).

That's one of my favorite stories (evil without actually being harmful).... But I doubt its one of LF's favorites....

Telling on myself

Sometimes I do funny things. Sometimes I do stupid things. Sometimes I do things that are stupid AND funny. When I do, and I feel the urge to share them, I'll put them under this title. And today I feel the need to share.

Once in a while I have a period where I can't seem to get enough of a particular food. And the food is never GOOD for me either. At the moment I seem to be in one of those periods and the food that I'm obsessing over is jelly beans (and no, I was not a Reagan fan.) It's happened before with jelly beans, but not for about 9 years. Like I said, it happens once in a while.

Anyway I went grocery shopping with my husband. We went to a particular grocery store because we knew that this store had a Jelly Belly display that included Sours. Now when I get this jelly bean craving they don't have to be Jelly Belly. I'm no jelly bean snob or anything. They have to be fruit flavored (spice - EW!), but other than that, I don't care. But once I had those sours in mind, well, I did mention that I was obsessed, right?

Anyway, I walk up to the display and tear off a plastic bag. I give it a cursory glance and figure it will hold about 1 pound of candy. Great. Perfect. So I fill up my bag with Sours I had been obsessing over for about a month, put them in the grocery cart and start to push the cart away from the display. Husband says something like "Aren't you going to get any other flavors?" PERMISSION to satisfy my obsession? Why YES! YES, thank you VERY much!

So I grab another bag, and go to the other flavors that he wanted to try (all fruit flavored. YEAH!) and put them in the bag. Then, just to top off the bag mind you, I put in a few other flavors that sounded yummy. Plum? Oh My God That Sounds SO Good! I nearly fill that bag too and we're done with jelly beans and off to fill the rest of grocery needs.

We weren't buying a TON of things so when we got to the check out and the cashier said "That'll be $89.13" I vaguely thought "that's a little more than I thought it would be." But I chalked it up to rising food prices and put the bags in the cart. (To those of you who have figured out where this is going, stop skipping ahead of the class!) Then Husband looks at the receipt and gives me this Look. It's a look that says "I know something that is very funny and I DARE you to ask me about it in front of ALL of these people." Naturally I asked about it in the parking lot.

It turns out that we spent $89.13 on groceries but $31.00 of that was on JELLY BEANS! The plastic bags held more than 2 pounds a piece and we had nearly filled two of them, so we bought over 4 pounds of jelly beans (and it was ALmost enough!)And to top it off Jelly Bellies are over $7.00 a POUND! Can you IMAGINE? $7.00 a pound for jelly beans? I hadn't even looked at the price on the display. It never occurred to me that they would be that expensive.

If we had a safe at home, I'd probably put the darn things in the safe. When you spend $31.00 on jelly beans, the darn things ought to last a while.

But with my current jelly bean obsession, they probably won't.