The Square Peg

Most people spend their day doing one of two things: preparing or repairing.

Don't spend all your time repairing yesterday's mistakes. Fix what you can, and then begin preparing for tomorrow.

Avoid being near-sighted, focusing only on what is reflected in the mirror you hold in your hand. Become far-sighted by removing the mirror and looking toward the horizon of your future.

Is the best, most interesting place on the planet. Seriously!

We went to Atlanta today and ate lunch at WF between meetings. If you know me at all, you know I love to people watch. Talk about a melting pot...I could sit in there and be entertained for hours.

The most common thread shared by today's WF shoppers is their overall lack of tasteful fashion (pun intended). While it's safe to say that most WF shoppers care about things like organic, vegan, environmentally friendly products and packaging, there's one thing they don't seem to be too concerned with: looking good while shopping for that stuff. There were a few people in there whose clothing choices made me wonder if they looked at themselves in the mirror on their way out the door and thought, "this looks good". If so, I'd like to ask them what they were smoking and if the prescription for their glasses had been checked recently.

I watched with fascination as the nerdy John Lennon looking guy wearing socks & sandals ate lunch and chatted with his little boy, and the young adults two tables over, who started as a group of 4 and added more friends and chairs to the table as time passed, laughed, talked, and drank their smoothies. There was one guy in that group who looked like a cross between Frodo from LOTR, and Scrat from Ice Age. I know, right?!

And they've got hippies, nerds, trendy wannabees, geeks, greens, granolas, tree hugging nature lovers, gay people, straight people, people with ink, people with piercings, people with ink and piercings, people with ink but no piercings, piercings but no ink, and people with neither who shop in there. They've got folks who are barely dressed for public viewing and somebody running around in an overcoat...in the dead middle of September in the south. They've got little kids in there, and old people in there; sometimes together, sometimes not. They've got black, white, brown, yellow and suicides (in case you don't remember, that's all the flavors mixed together). They've got foreigners and natives, and foreigners who think they're native. There's nobody who looks "normal" shopping there. It's quite an amazing place.

I watched the casual/preppy guy eat his wrap for lunch and wondered what kind of work he did (he could've been a model for Ebony), and how old the girl was at the next table who was wearing the Grandma-style clothes (answer: waaaay too young to be dressed like that!). She had on red suede pumps with pilgrim-style buckles though that looked like she bought 'em from a second hand store, and I couldn't help but like them somehow.

I sat there in my trashy, sexy butterfly shirt, dragonfly choker and Levi's that barely covered my patent yellow sandals and wondered who was watching me watch them.

Entertainment while I shop at a quality store for quality products. I can't wait to go back. Who's with me?

When I first heard the Pussycat Dolls' new song "When I grow up", I thought they said:

"When I grow up I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies; when I grow up, I wanna see the world, drive nice cars, I wanna have boobies."

Upon listening closely, I realized they're saying "I wanna have groupies."
My bad.

It seems I may have a bacteria in my stomach, and today I had to have a biopsy done to check for it. The following is an account of my day.

I was worried about having the scope put in because I have a very strong gag reflex. Turns out I was worried for no reason. The nurse sprayed the back of my throat with the most vile thing that's ever been put in my mouth (and I'm including the time I accidentally drank out of the Coke can my dad had been flicking his cigarette ashes in, and the time I ate oysters on the halfshell). The word "putrid" fits very well here. Within minutes my tongue and throat were numb and soon after they put the anesthesia in my IV. About 8 seconds later, I asked the nurses if it was just me, or if the room was blurry. They replied in unison (with sly smiles on their faces, I might add) that it was definitely me.

Fast forward about an hour or so...

I wake up sitting in a chair to see Moose and several nurses standing and laughing all around me. I could feel myself shaking and at first I thought I was crying. I was, but it was because I was laughing so hard. Moose told me the following; some of it I remember, most of it I don't.
Apparently I was dreaming (or maybe I was hallucinating) that we were dancing at a football game, where all attendees were given a bag that contained magic blue shoes. It seems I wanted to make sure Moose took his home with us when we left.

Also, I was at a carnival type place, because I was riding a ride. All the cars were pretty, and seated one person to each one for the ride. The cars were purple, blue, green, red, orange, yellow and teal. It was my job to tell everybody where to sit and I assigned them all to sit in the car that matched the color shirt they were wearing. Except Tashy. For some reason, I was feeling mischievous and said she had to ride in the orange car, knowing that she doesn't care for the color. But then I said she might be able to ride in the red car.

At one point, I told Moose I was hungry and wanted noodles. Later on, I said I wanted a grilled cheese sandwich with aforementioned noodles, but the noodles had to match the dress I was wearing, which was black with purple swirlys and circles. And then when Brian told me I needed to get dressed so we could go home, I asked for one more ride and started crying when he said I couldn't have one. In the middle of all this, it seems I kept asking Moose if he was videoing or taking pictures of the ride and telling him to take out my cell phone to do that.
Yeah...and while I was on this trip, I could hear someone say over and over, "I want what she's having". Apparently that was the guy in one of the beds near me. And the nurses thought I was talking about a football game because Moose had on his Peyton Manning jersey. And when we got in the car to go home, I told Moose he had to drive because I was too drunk to do so.

I bet those nurses are at home right now, sitting around their dinner tables with their families, and telling them about the crazy patient they had come through the surgical center today.

This is why I don't do drugs; I couldn't handle trips like the one I took today very often.
After a couple of violent puke fests and a nap, I'm mostly back to normal now.

The love I have for my kids is practically indescribable. It can’t be summed up in a paragraph, no matter how many flowery adjectives and cool metaphors are used. And while my kids are the same gender, they are totally different from one another. I love one for his sense of order; the other for his ‘live and let live’ attitude while always being true to himself. I love one’s level of self-discipline; the other’s ability to go with the flow and not get bent out of shape when things start getting chaotic (he didn't get that from me).

They each hold philosophies and exhibit behavior that I both agree and disagree with, but it never affects my love for them. I love them simply because I took part in their creation. They could never do anything to make me not love them; yet if they only did things I approve of wouldn’t make me love them more. I love them because they are mine. And it’s a love unlike any other.

I work in a flooring store and a couple of customers came in today. The wife asked me how much our carpet costs. She wasn't asking about a particular kind of carpet, but she was standing near a display so I walked over to check the price tag on the rack she was standing next to. I leaned over to look at the tag when I smelled it. It wasn't the smell of cigarettes, but I couldn't put my finger on it right at first. Then it hit me.

It was weed.

After I quoted the price on the tag, the husband made an attempt to speak. When I raised up and looked at him, I could tell he was flying at an altitude way higher than the rest of us. He had a little bit of brown iris and an itty bitty pupil mixed in with the bloodshot in his eyes and he was having a some trouble holding himself up. And then he tried to speak again. It wasn't working very well. He kept doing this thing where he puckered his lips out but then drew them back in farther than normal and real quickly so he looked like he was chewing food, only he had no food in his mouth.

This is how the next few minutes went down:

Him: "Baby, how big you thank our libin' room is?"

Her: "I don't know; what fo?"

Him: "So we know how much carpet to git."

Her: "I done tole you, baby, we ain't doing the livin' room firs; we doin' the betroom."
Him: "No, baby, we said we doin' the libin' room."

Her: *moving her neck and pointer finger in the shape of the letter "z" but not in the same direction as each other* "No, we DID-INT; we said we doin' the betroom, and ats what we gone do."

Him: "Well, OK, tell her how big you thank the betroom is."

Her: *turning to me* "It's big enough to fit a king size bed in it."

Me: "Hmm, I'm not sure that's enough detail. It would be best if you measured and brought the numbers in to the store because carpet has to be laid so that it runs in the same direction. And if there's a closet in the room that needs carpet, we'd need to factor that in as well."
Her: "Well, OK, den. We'll come back."

Him: *as they're turning toward the door, he points outside the window* This is where I noticed that his little problem holding himself up had grown to a much larger issue. He looked like a buoy in the ocean bobbing back and forth. "How much is the blahblah outside?"

Me: "The what?"

Him: "The plahplah". (I can tell the word starts with a "p" but I'm not sure if it's "pillow", "panel", or "pallet". We had two pallets of panels sitting outside next to the steps though, so I presumed he meant them.

Me: "Oh, the pallets? Well, the prices vary, but there should be a sign on there. Let's go out and check."

Me again: *pointing to the big sign with large black letters on it* "It's $3.19 a square foot."

Him: "Hmmm, that's pretty low." *Compared to him, everything was low.*

Her: (she's standing at the car by this time, getting ready to get in the driver's seat) "Come on, baby, we got to go."

Him: "I'm comin', baby." To me he says, "we be back later to look at the plahplah again."

Me: "Sounds great. Thanks for stopping by. Be sure to bring your bedroom measurements with you."

Him: "blahblah OK. blahyou"

Working with the public is so strangely entertaining sometimes.

When I heard that Lowe's was advertising their sale on "family trees", my first thought was that they were trees for homosexual couples. You know, because gays refer to other gays as 'family'? And my second thought was "What makes it a family tree? Are the needles rainbow colored?"

I am not even kidding.