We loaded up the covered wagon and went to the Costco so we could spend two hundred dollars on enormous quantities of stuff.  We wandered passed the frozen food aisles where all the best samples are.  We roamed through the bakery and inhaled the cookies and lemon cakes. Where the muffins ended the produce began. I sniffed the nectarines and squeezed the avacados and then I saw the stupidest, politically correct nonsense yet.

Do you recall several years ago when some moron at some New York ad agency decided the prunes should be renamed “dried plums” because “prunes” sounded old and un-yummy.

Yeah.  That’s just stupid.  These were probably the same people who suggested North Dakota should change it’s name because “North” Dakota just sounded too cold. What did they think was a better option? North Florida? Asinine.

Anyway.  I flat out refuse to call prunes “dried plums”. It’s dumb.

And just when I thought Madison Avenue couldn’t be more idiotic, I saw this in the produce department.

So now we have “Fresh Prunes”?

WTF, people.  WTF?

I gave Sassy her own email address this summer.  She’s changing schools and I wanted her to be able to stay in touch with her friends. She also emails her grandmothers and a few other people.

She has asked me repeatedly for the last several days if I received an email from her.  I finally found it in an email account I hadn’t expected.  Here is our exchange.

Subject: Hi mom

Hi mom I thought that I would let you know that I need a raise in my allowance!
LOve Bug xoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxoxooxoxox

Subject: re: Hi mom

I found your email.  Allowance? What allowance?  I’ve never heard of it.
Love Mom

Why do you suppose she sent this via email? I can only suppose she wanted official record of her written request.

I suspect her next step will be a subpoena.

Our zoo just announced the lioness just gave birth to three cubs. The Sisters are very, very excited about this, but we do have some concerns.  Our zoo lately hasn’t had the best run of luck.  In the last year, we’ve lost one very elderly lion, one young polar bear who died from complications in surgery, and most recently one young giraffe with another giraffe surviving by the skin of her teeth.

That the lioness was “possibly” pregnant was mentioned almost as an after thought in one of the update news articles about the ailing giraffe. It was mentioned that they “thought” she might be pregnant but they didn’t know for sure.  They didn’t know for sure? What? Can’t they make that lioness pee on a stick or something?

MSNBC noted that Kaya gave birth to three lion cubs on July 28, last Thursday.  They couldn’t tell she was pregnant and she was carrying three cubs? I’m kind of concerned about where they got their zoology degrees – Brookline College? Cracker Jack?

Ava, Kelli and I have decided that we need to go get these precious babies and protect them from the zoo.  There are three cubs and three Sisters.  It’s like it was meant to be.

We have a plan. Obviously we’re not going to tell you what it is.  You’ll probably learn about it on the news though.  I want Brooke Shields to play me in the made for TV movie.

The keys to our plan are big purses, plausible deniability, and daring.  We’re fairly sure we can convince Ava’s husband to go along if only to see if we can do it. My Honey probably will go along because quite frankly the entire escape sounds like great fun. Kelli’s husband will probably initially balk at the idea but I think we can brow beat him into it if we give him a fun job. We may enter through the elephant enclosure.  Ava and I figure if we wear gray the elephants won’t even recognize us as humans.

“Shabala, when did we get new elephants?”

“I don’t know, Connie, but they look like fun.”

You know that’s what they’ll be rumbling to each other in that nifty elephant way they have.

We’re not too concerned about how young the cubs are.  We’re confident we can foster the little dears.  Hell, you can get anything off the internet. We’ll just have to up our number of weekly trips to the Price Club.

This is going to be great.

It was such a slow day that Ava and I gathered together several others and played Scrabble today.  Isn’t that a sad commentary?

I loathe Scrabble. In fact, loathe may not be a strong enough word to accurately describe my feelings towards Scrabble. Being a writer and borderline obsessive reader who acknowledges a rather elephantine vocabulary and splendid spelling skills, one would think I’d be pretty good at Scrabble – a game that applies both skills. My play is merely passable and, with my competitive nature, that is not sufficient for my tastes.  I also have a very immature tendency to not further my interest in subjects in which I don’t prove to be immediately proficient.  I offer up billiards as a perfect example. My father taught me to play – left handed – which should give me an advantage, and sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t.  I’m not consistent and I don’t shoot pool often enough to become consistently good at it, thus I choose to rarely play.  I dislike losing enough to not risk a possible win. Infantile, right?

I blame my mother for my abhorrence of Scrabble.  She always wins. She not only wins, she creams me every single time.  I have never, ever won a game of Scrabble with her. I usually don’t even come close to her score and it’s demoralizing. Every time she convinces me to lose a game to her, I make her play a game of Trivial Pursuit to soothe my feathers.

I don’t know how I got roped into the game today, except that I was just that bored.  It didn’t start out well. Right from the beginning there was an argument over rules.  That’s a problem with playing games like Scrabble or Monopoly with people outside your own immediate family.  You have to sort through what rules are legitimate and which are “house rules” your family has played with so long you assume they are the true rules of the game.

After that prickly negotiation where tiles were thrown and harsh words spoken, I was called back to the game after storming off.  Yes, I stormed off. I’m embarrassed to admit it.

There was another incident later in the game where I threw the lid of the box. I know it was a ridiculous response but, to be fair, Ava was taunting me like we were 5 and 10 years old. Quite frankly, unless Ava is on your team, I don’t recommend playing a game with her.  She accused me of blatant cheating but, truth be told, the reason we wouldn’t allow her to keep score is because her cheating has been well documented.  

My only consolation is that I won.  Without cheating, I’d like to point out. And without physically assaulting Ava – but it was touch and go there for a while.

This is the kind of story where you laugh until you snort, but you feel guilty about it the whole time.

In fact, just writing this post is making me giggle, but I am chagrined.

I got a message on my cell phone to call my father so he could tell me about how he almost killed his dog today. This does not sound like an auspicious start to a funny blog, does it? Just hang in there.  The payout is good.

So you know those cartoons where someone is in an elevator and, at the very last moment before the doors slide shut, their dog runs out leaving them holding the leash.  In next panel, the dog will be hanging from the leash stuck at the top of the closed doors.

Apparently, that really happens.

My father, who had a stroke a year and a half ago, took his dog, Delbert, for a walk today.  Because he’s still wobbly on bad days, he takes the elevator quite a bit to avoid tumbling down the stairs.  His family truly appreciates that he does this. 

Dad and Delbert hopped on the elevator after their morning walk and the stupid dog darted out just as the doors closed. In a panic, my dad started pushing buttons but he couldn’t get the doors to open or the elevator to stop until the third floor.

Ack!

Dad raced down the length of the hall and down the three flights of stairs. He took a spill on the sidewalk as he whipped around the corner to wobble his way back to the elevator to rescue the dog.

Now here is where you shouldn’t laugh, but you will and I’ll forgive you, dear reader.

Imagine my father, a 72 year old man with wild Albert Einstein hair and a pot belly, wearing slippers (he’s always wearing his “house shoes”) and an obnoxious t-shirt with a slogan like, “Who Farted?”  His running gait would have been sort of goofy and lopey, like a new born colt. I’m also certain he would have been hollering at the considerable top of his lungs, “Hold on, Delby! Hold on boy.  Poppa’s coming.”

You also shouldn’t assume that the above description is only relevant because of his stroke.  While he is a considerably different man since the incident, dignity has never been one of his strong suits.

“The look on Delbert’s face was classic,” Dad told me. “He was like, ‘Finally. Thank God you’re back. What the hell took you so long?’”

He found Delbert literally dangling from the top of the closed elevator by his collar, his leash threaded through the doors.

The maintenance guy had to come and retrieve the leash.

And Dad wonders why we don’t let him watch our kids.

Ho hum.

I always feel at odds when I’m not working on a project.  Book 2 titled Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret has been sent to MY AGENT.  I haven’t heard back from her yet on what she thinks but, in all reality, it’s way too early.  Nevertheless, I fret. What if she doesn’t like it, or what if she doesn’t like it enough. I have to stop thinking about it or it’ll just freak me out more.

I have some great ideas for book 3 in the series and I have a secret project I’m dying to sink my teeth into, but I don’t want to start another year long project until I get some direction from the agent.  For now, I’m working on expanding my pirate novella from 15,300 words to some where in the 20,000 word range.  Well, “working on” is a very loose way to describe what I’m doing to it at this point.  At the moment, I’m rereading my research on pirates and the history of New Providence.  After that, I sit around and get distracted.

Today was the end of summer bonanza at Sassy & The Bandit’s summer camp. Each grade did a song or dance. I want you to picture the following scene: a herd of six year olds, hair slicked back with gel except for Bandit who had the addition of a curl down his forehead. They all lined up on stage and then the music for Grease Lightening came on over the PA system.  They didn’t sing the song, but they did do the dance – and it was hysterical. I video taped it and you can hear me cackling away during the entire thing.  At one point, they all broke out small, black combs and slicked back their hairdos, their hips cocked to the side, all cool.

Sassy’s third grade class danced the “Tootsie Roll”. I have no idea what that dance is, or if they just made it up. I’m not hip like that. I can tell you the kid across the street with the hot rod is having trouble with his 1970 Barracuda because his timing is off and he doesn’t have enough vaccuum to get the power he’s looking for, but I have no idea about the latest dances (or the old dances) at the clubs.  Of course, the kid doesn’t want to hear the old lady’s opinion.  Nor did he take my offer to teach him to drive the thing, although my hand is just itching to get ahold of that shifter.

Regardless, my daughter was beautiful up there.  I swear she was the only one who knew the dance steps, but then my opinion was clouded.

Thanks to this blog post, I have effectively managed to distract myself from writing for at least an hour.

Success.

Once again the local Picayune has us amused with a news story from 1912.

Mesa – July 27, 1912

George Nun is beginning to get discouraged along the line of matrimony, and he has had enough reverses to make the most patient of men discouraged and out with the world.

He has been in search of a wife for the past several years, and although he has had many offers, for some reason or other none has proved successful and he is still in search of a better half.

He says the young ladies in and around Mesa are beginning to make fun of him and are writing letters to him in ridicule.

The following is a copy of one written by one of the young ladies of Mesa, which Mr. Nun handed to The Free Press yesterday:

“Dearest George: Read your advertisement in the Arizona Democrat.  I have been looking fo r a husband and I find by your description that you are a handsome young man.  I have seen you on the streets several times and fell in love with you at first sight. I am 34 years old, five feet seven inches tall and weigh 131 pounds. I have large brown eyes and a wealth of dark hair. Also a beautiful complexion. I enclose a lock of my hair for you to look at. Come and call on me Sunday at eight o’clock. Then you can get Bishop Ed Hunsaker and we will drift into matrimony. Your future wife, MISS MARJORIE MAPLE.

Mesa, Arizona, one block east, Main St. Box 644.

P.O. – I am well to do.  Am a stenographer. Love and good luck to you.”

Young girls should be careful what they write and to whom they write as their letters are liable to get into hands other than those for which they were meant and the writing is liable to be interpreted, as in the case of this one.

The young lady who wrote this letter is near 20 years of age, has brown eyes, light hair and no such beautiful complexion as stated in the letter, wears false hair and is far from being a stenographer.  She is quite well known in Mesa, and her friends would no doubt be surprised to know she would write a letter of this sort.

Holy cow!

How can a responsible newspaper print a story like this, leaving so many questions? When I read the story I was appalled they would print the letter with the name of the lady as well as her address.  I couldn’t believe The Free Press and Mr. Nun would accuse the ladies of ridiculing him and then turn around and do the exact same thing to this poor girl.

Ava interpreted it differently, thinking somehow the lady was making fun of Mr. Nun in the letter.

Either way, we will never know. 

I looked through archives and couldn’t find any photographs of either Mr. Nun or Miss. Maple.  It does seem apparent that Mr. Nun is very full of himself, pointing out that he has received many offers.  He implies the ladies are throwing themselves at him in a desperate attempt to marry the man.

We’ll never know. And I am frustrated by that.

I had another of my gloriously enlightening chats with The Bandit last night.

I can’t remember how it got started or how we ended up on the topic of girlfriends, but there we were anyway. He admitted that he was currently without a girlfriend and that didn’t seem to bother him too much.  I assured him there was plenty of time to get a girlfriend later. He confessed that he thought he’d stay single for a while, that really he had no intention of finding a girl real quick when school starts up next month.  He mentioned Casey – his first girlfriend from preschool. 

“We’re not dating anymore.” That’s the word he used: dating.

“Well, it’s not easy to hold down a long distance relationship when your six.  You haven’t seen Casey in a year and a half,” I reminded him.

“Yeah.” He nodded his head sagely in the dark. 

“What about kindergarten? You mentioned several girls you liked.” 

“I thought about dating some of those girls but I changed my mind.” He’s so matter of fact.  Now he’s mentioned “dating” several times and I want to know exactly what that means in his world.

“Does dating mean you ate lunch with them?” I asked.

“No,” he said quickly.

“Does it mean you held hands at recess?” 

“NO!” he answered even quicker, slightly indignant.

“Does it mean you stole a kiss?”

I expected a rapid fire response in the negative. Instead, he answered calmly. “We weren’t allowed to kiss at St. Private School.” That’s probably best, I thought.  With the way people have gone off the deep end these days, my six year old was liable to end up in a sexual harassment suit.

I kept probing for an answer. “Well what did you do when you were dating?” 

“Nothing.” He giggled. 

“When you were dating Casey, how did other people know you were dating then?”

“I kept it a secret.” Ah, the water’s are becoming less murky.  “Nobody knew.”

“Did Casey know?” This seems like a significant piece to the puzzle, does it not? 

I never got an acceptable definition of “dating” or, even if in fact, Casey knew they were dating at all.  I don’t intend to let this subject matter die.  Something very interesting happened when I dropped Sassy and The Bandit off at camp this morning.  A little girl came careening out of the crowd of kids yelling, “Bandit! Bandit!”  Now my boy is a player – I think we’ve sort of deduced this already by the above conversation, so he met her greeting with cool aloofness. But here’s the deal. I was certain I knew that little girl and I confirmed it when I went back up to the attendance book at the office.  Casey is spending the last week of camp with my boy.  Very interesting.  I don’t know if she will be joining him in this new school but it seems completely reasonable to assume she might.

I can’t wait until bed time tonight.