Privvy to my thoughts

It's late so maybe that will explain the turn my mind took tonight (or failed to take, whichever you decide). For some reason, I found myself mentally reviewing the staff bathrooms (washrooms, restrooms or WCs depending where you reside) I've seen lately.

I have to say, they are always pretty interesting. Maybe just because they reveal so clearly the humanness of teachers. I suppose like most kids, if I had thought about it at all, I would have said teachers just sprang to life at their desks each morning, and deflated into the same chair at the end of the day. But seeing a collection of hand lotions, makeup bags and toothbrushes (obviously I go to the ladies version) proves beyond a doubt that simply isn't the case.

Some of the funniest posters and some of the worst poetry I've seen have been in a staff washroom. ("Using that spray/Makes the stinky smell go away.") I learned about the "courtesy flush" thanks to a handwritten note in one. And I've been baffled by an older-school's fountain-style washing station where you had to step in just the right spot to get the water to shoot at your soapy hands (and the dodge required to keep it from spraying all over the front of my shirt and/or jacket will be a valuable skill should I ever take up paintballing. )

From there, my thoughts wandered on to a trip that's coming up. One of my offspring is terrified of automatic flushing toilets and I've been trying to think of ways to get around that. Most airports do not trust their patrons to have to stoop to such measures on their own so I know it will be an issue once or twice. I was even in one airport where the little seat cover automatically rolled around the rim as soon as you stepped into the stall. I must confess I stared at that one awhile thinking, "Now there's something that could really go wrong."

Which raises another problem.

Have you every tried to trick an automatic toilet into flushing? Maybe its timing was off. Or maybe it scared the living daylights out of you by flushing too soon. Or maybe that ___! paper cover didn't completely disappear. I'm sure there are several scenarios you can imagine that might mean you want to try again so the next person doesn't think you're a uncouth slob just in from the hills. And there you are - waving fingers, looking for the self-help button and generally aware that the toes of your shoes are pointed in the wrong direction for the ladies room.

I guess you have two choices. One is to laugh.

The other is to just go with the flow.

Price check

I'm a second-hand shopper. I enjoy thrift stores and used goods shops. Part of what I like about them is the prices (although I will admit I've gotten too cheap to shop at Goodwill anymore); partly I think it's a test of a garment's durability to have it go through an owner or two first; partly because there are fewer it-looked-great-until-I-washed-it issues; and partly it means that the odds of someone wearing the same shirt as me to church is pretty slim. (The last two times I shopped retail last year somebody had BOTH items on in a two week span!) Not that I never shop retail but my motto is that someone else can be at the top of that particular food chain.

So, one of my favorite pairs of shoes came from a Salvation Army store in Saskatoon about three years ago. I'd flown in, I didn't account properly for the weather and needed a back up pair. Found just the right ones, too. Brown leather, basic cut, not-too-shiny finish that could go either dressy or casual, strong stitching and a nice 1 1/2" height that I could spend the day in. Perfect.

I've worn these shoes many, many times. Many times.

I've kicked them off at friends' houses, worn them to interviews, paced classrooms in them and generally have them handy as a default pair of shoes. Easy on, easy off when shoe shopping, easy on, easy off when I just need a short break, easy on, easy off when going through airport security, easy on, easy off when getting out the door in the morning.

So I was in a staff room yesterday on the last day of my residency at an elementary school. I had about 5 minutes before my last session, so dropped into a chair with one leg tucked up under the other. In this position, you realize, the sole of my shoe would be directly visible to anyone sitting to my right. Which there was.

When I got up to head out of the staff room, my shoe slipped off and flipped over as I adjusted my footing. And there was the testament to my cheap-skatedness written on the dark soles of my shoes in permanent, shiny, silver Sharpie marker that has apparently been there since the day I bought them...

$2.99

Getting old

It's hard work getting old. Just ask Abraham Lincoln, who celebrated his 200th birthday last Thursday.

I'm teaching at a school right now that was named after the man and they had no idea that it was his birthday. Let alone that it was his 200th. Okay, one class made stove pipe hats out of black construction paper. Anyways, I happened to know and walked in with a Lincoln shirt on and a party hat and a few interesting facts about Abraham Lincoln (Did you know he was a wrestler? And that his formal education was only about a year and a half total?). The students (and a few of the teachers, too) just looked at me like I was crazy. (But that's another story entirely.)

And of course, there's always Mr. Nonfiction in the group. The kid that has a fact-bound imagination and canNOT fathom the riches of the make believe. So finally this child looks at me as I'm talking about Abraham Lincoln and says in an I-can't-believe-I-have-to-explain-this-to-you voice, "But he's dead."

Well, thus ended the reading of the lesson.

I tried to get him to pretend (no luck) or to explain that we could still celebrate the day as a significant one (you know, like Martin Luther King Jr. Day or Christmas) but he wouldn't have any of it. Finally, a big smile spread across his face and he lifted two thumbs up to the ceiling. "Well," he said. "Good luck, buddy!"

Clipart courtesy www.karenswhimsy.com

Spoiled rotten

I had an EVENT last weekend (not the weekend just finished but the one before that). It involved a potential identity crisis and SG making plans that I didn't get to know about. The only think I knew what what I was going to wear. And SG is very good at that kind of thing so I wasn't too worried about our evening.

What I was worried about was the dress. For starters, it was red, which is not a color I wear in large quantities. And it was one of those unforgiving sorts of fabrics that will show every wrinkle and wriggle and if I was going to appear in public in it as a God-fearing woman, I needed to make a few preparations. So it's been a goal for the last few months to get ready for the dress. (Okay - that's totally not me but a little bit of motivation isn't a bad thing, right?)

It was a great evening. I was as ready for the dress as I will probably ever be, and the flowers he brought home (sans kids, who had been farmed out for the night) were gorgeous. I'm not allowed to give out all the details because SG is afraid enraged husbands everywhere will come after him for setting the bar so high but let me just say that it involved: no "control tops", diamonds, flowers, dinner at a wonderful new restaurant, fiddlers, chocolate and Scrabble. I found out too that it involved hiding newspapers for a month and receipts for awhile. But I can forgive the deceptions because the end definitely justified the means.

It was a perfect evening.





( Potential crisis averted...)

Impulse shopping

Hubbie and I have been attending a class that's geared to financial management. Been through many like it before (in fact we are trained volunteer budget counselors) but a refresher is always good. And there's a few things that I still wouldn't say I have a convincing grip on. Like impulse shopping. It happens more than DH would like that I walk into a store and out with some extra items.

So last Wednesday, I had to take our vehicle in to have a flat tire repaired. Asked them to check a couple other things while they were under there. And rather than sit around their waiting area (although it's a very clean and attractive one), I decided to run a couple errands that were within walking distance.

By the time my vehicle was ready, I'd bought 5 vases, a ceramic bowl and a heart-shaped glass bowl for an art exhibit I'm directing this weekend PLUS a set of brake rotors, two remanufactured calipers, two pair of shoes (non-asbestos brake shoes, that is) and a half tank of gas for my neighbor's truck that he graciously loaned me while my vehicle was hanging around on the hoist.

Now I want to be fair and accurate on my finance class homework - do you suppose that counts as an impulse purchase?

Produce shopping

Sometimes the oddest places trigger an impulse that wouldn't ever happen in a different setting. Mine happened last time in the grocery store.

I was in the produce section looking at grapefruit. Not in a particular rush and just browsing for some winter variety. Somehow I found them to be very unsatisfactory grapefruit. Why? I mean I couldn't see inside them. I don't shop at one of those grocery stores that obligingly splits a sample of the fruit and then cello wraps it for your viewing pleasure. The peels has some of that rosy blush that indicates they have at least a chance of being ripe. It's not a bad time of year to be buying grapefruit. Why was I not satisfied?

Here's what I figured out - they all seemed to light to contain anything but styrofoam. And in one of those roundabout conversations that sometimes happen in my head, I imagined trying to describe my technique for buying grapefruit.

"It has to have HEFT, son," I explain to the phantom child that is learning the wisdom of life and grapefruit purchasing. "It should feel heavy for its size, like the juice is just packed in there bursting with its own special kind of tart ambrosia. "

"Really?"

"Yes, son. You should toss it in your hand a couple of times to listen for the solid smack as it lands in your palm...It should tempt you to hurl it at the shopper three aisles over to see how well it splatters on contact."

!?!?!

Time to go back to the bananas. The dropped banana peel is a much less confrontational way to cripple your fellow man.

And I think I need to stop reading Douglas Adams for a bit.

A nosy parker

Some of you might be shocked to find out that I'm a little nosy. Not usually with friends, mind you, (after all you tell me of your own volition, right?) but complete strangers are a different story. I won't just walk up and engage them in conversations with endless questions (at least not conversation with me) but in malls, in restaurants, on planes, or at the bank, beware that I may be listening in. No, I won't be crouched behind the potted plants. I just go with the principal that if your voice is loud enough to carry, I'm not being rude if I listen. Particularly if you're blocking the aisle at WalMart discussing the rash that just won't clear up and how it might be the result of your goldfish bowl.


ClipArt by www.surfdoggy.com

Sometimes I write it off as professional curiosity. After all, I can't write about my friends or they won't be my friends much longer. If I write about my family, they might actually read it! So most often I justify it as character research. Even old photos of other people's families conjure up villains and victims, bullies and belles, and the self-righteous widows that make great counterfoils to your favorite characters in writing.

Don't people make you curious? Today I was driving down the street and saw a fancy new pickup loaded with a drop-leaf table, two wooden chairs, a antique trunk, a dirtbike and a Pepsi machine. Doesn't that raise a question or two?

What about the business men that you suspect might be closet cowboys because their shoes are just a tad too pointy for current trends?

And you can't tell me you've never seen someone standing at a bank machine and wondered, "What thought process made her decide THAT was the outfit to wear today?"

It makes me a pretty lousy date, actually. SG and I went out for dinner one night and I missed two-thirds of his conversation because the guy behind me was explaining at the TOP of his lungs why he didn't think it was right to see fewer than three women at a time. I have never been so tempted in my life to follow someone to the restroom and as we checked our teeth for spinach, smile and say "Honey, RUN!"

So it's perhaps time to offer just a word of advice. Next time you're out in public, check behind the potted plants, keep an eye on that little mirror on the ATM and don't forget to be suspicious of the quiet woman at the table behind you. She's probably listening.