That's my Boy!

Overheard yesterday afternoon:

Taylor (12): "I said just look at the serving size and get one extra."

Freddy (10): "I thought the serving size was 3"

Taylor: "No. It's 2."

What, No Blog Entries?

I'm werkin' on it!

Mensa Boy & His Hero

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina answers a question

Did she say, "Osama people out there in our nation that don't have maps?"

The Downy Debacle

My friend Jenny wrote this on her blog.

I'm pretty sure I hadn't told her about my conversation regarding this subject last Friday.

First, I'll tell you the story I sent to my email buds last Friday about my visit to Harris Teeter:

"I stopped at Harris Teeter today to get a couple of quarts of chicken stock for this soup. I had the boxes in my hand and headed toward the checkout.

I aimed for what I thought was an open lane and ended up at one of those freakin' self-checkout things. As I was standing there, contemplating the origins of the universe and why the lane signs seemed to give an optical illusion as to their actual location, the helper chick came up.

"Do you need help?" She asked.

"Well, I intended to be over there, but now I'm over here," I said.

"No problem," she said. "I'll help you."

"Well, I KNOW how to do it, it's just that I'm not feeling like doing it myself," I said by way of apology.

"I do this all day," she assured me. "I'll do it."

And so she took my two boxes from me and proceeded to do all the work, reaching past me to punch the right buttons and I was secretly glad she was because, even though I know how to do it, it all seemed quite confusing and LOUD to me and I just stood there and kept mumbling that I was tired and sorry... tired, lazy and sorry. And she kept smiling and took my $20 bill and gave me change and gingerly handed me my bag."

What I did not tell my email buds was about the conversation I had with a fellow shopper in front of the fabric softener in Target about 20 minutes earlier that day.

"Hmm..." the lady said, to no one in particular.

"Too many choices, isn't it?" I said.

"Well, it's just that I'm looking for this specific stuff and it's getting harder and harder to find," she explained.

Then she proceeded to tell me about some miracle product that is like dryer sheets, but you put them in the wash and when the colors on your clothes run, this sheet traps the color so that it doesn't color all the other clothes.

And so we talked about how cool that was, and then I said,

"Well, I'm looking for what used to be a very popular item, but now I'm starting to worry that it's all gone."

"What?" she asked.

"Free & Sensitive Downy Fabric Softener," I said. "It's been the only brand of scent-free fabric softener that I could find at Target and now I'm not finding it here, either.

"Is this it?" she asked, handing me a bottle clearly marked "FREE & SENSITIVE."

"Yup. What a dope I am!"

She just smiled.

They have changed the labels. Really. It reminds me of when I used to buy Old Dutch Corn Tortilla Cchips and had to stop because I couldn't find it anymore. After a couple of months going chip-less, I found it with an entirely different bag.

Can't they at least WARN US?

Bloomin' Idjut-Part II

Yesterday I again damaged my head in public. I went to the new flooring store to shoot photos at their open house.

And proceeded to hit my head on a carpet display.

Here's how it happened:

I was crouching down next to the display, shooting upward. Stood up after the shot and bonked my temple (the same one as last week) on the edge of a carpet sample.

At least they probably won't forget who I am.

I've decided to take this weekend off--no writing, no work. I chalked up the visit to the flooring store as "playing with my camera."

So I watched two movies yesterday.

The first was Gray Matters. Fairly decent movie. It's about a woman who does not know she is gay until she falls in love with her brother's wife. I think the strongest thing about the movie is it's title, though. The woman's name is Gray. It's a gray area-sexuality-and she matters. I like wordplay like that.

The other movie I watched last night was Peaceful Warrior. Now this was a great movie! I'd never heard of it before and I probably wouldn't have even chosen it if I'd known Nick Nolte was in it. But it was great! A little odd at points. A guy is trying out for the Olympic gymnastic team and he's very competitive and yet unhappy and never satisfied. Nolte plays an old guy at a gas station that teaches him to "empty out the trash." Take out all the garbage in his mind and life and build concentration. Good good movie.

Mensa Boy and the guys are building me a light box for my birthday. Out of PVC pipe and, so far, a sheet. But I think they are going to need a different kind of fabric than a sheet. For those of you who are not aware of what a lightbox is, it's sort of like a portable photo studio where you can put whatever you are shooting and use diffused light to photograph it. Shining the light through the walls of the lightbox (or the bottom, if it's just a table one with no sides), helps you control or eliminate shadows. Here's a photo of an apple I took by way of a test:

You can see the texture of the sheet they used. So I think we'll have to look around for some other kind of fabric.

So. That was yesterday. I don't know what's on tap for today. Probably more of the same! I told Mensa Boy I'm in a sort of in inertia right now. I want to get out and do something, but I don't know what. And it's too ridiculously hot, really. We are all very very tired of summer now.