I was going to write about the actual Mother’s Day celebration at our house Sunday but I think I may have overdone this whole plot line. Suffice it to say it was pretty darn awesome. And then there was this moment with our youngest grandchildren. I was a happy bubbe let me tell you!
My pre-Mother’s Day celebration continued into Friday when my daughter (yes, the same one who sent the fruit and balloons) arrived at my office around lunch time. I was still hard at work (ha!) when they arrived so I went up to bring them back to my floor so I could finish up. When I got up there K handed me a clear terrarium-style vase thing with a Darling Orchid inside. Yes, that’s the actual name. It’s quite lovely with soft white petals and a spongy moss base. It has a place of honor on the shelf in front of my desk between the lucky bamboo and the violet. K brought her best friend along and I played hooky for the afternoon. We went to the Market where we indulged in pieroshkys (I thought of you Grammy! We ate in the same little park!). Then we wandered into and around the Market. In the almost 15 years we’ve lived in Washington K had never been to the Market! That surprised me but once I started thinking about it, I realized I rarely get to the Market on my own. Usually it takes out of town family or friends coming to visit to get me there.
After visiting a couple of shops with Asian art and lots of jade we got sidetracked by the bakery. Then while passing the seafood counter K spotted the Balloon Guy and wanted a motorcycle so we headed over there. We didn’t have a real plan and following our nose we wound up at The Great Wind-Up – the shop Grammy and I enjoyed on her visit in March. There was sooo much laughter while we were there and K found two wind-up turtles she had to take home. One of them did a little boogy woogy when you wound it up! And then she bought me this:
Go ahead and click on it so you can read the smaller print at the bottom. And here’s the back:
Check out his dance steps; all he’s missing is the top hat!
When we had laughed ourselves silly and annoyed the proprietor long enough we moved along. We stopped at the herbal shop next door, but it couldn’t really follow the toys and we didn’t stay long. We were considering heading back to the car when I spotted another tee shirt shop which of course we had to visit. One of the most enjoyable parts of our day was reading aloud the snarky or provocative tee shirts we found.
Fortuitously, the tee shirt shop was two doors down from The Great American Fudge Factory! I needed a break so we went in and examined their handmade candy apples. This one is my favorite; I think it’s called Tiger Tails or something. How awesome is this?
I wish I could have seen how they did that!
And since they also sold ice cream I got to sit for my break and nom on some yummy goodness!
Successful day all around!
It started Thursday at work about 12:30. The receptionist called and told me they had a delivery for me. “For me?” I mumbled, around the mouthful of lunch. When she confirmed it was for me and not one of my attorneys I thanked her and said I’d be right up. Strange. I never get deliveries.
Want to see what was waiting for me? Oh sure you do! Not that I’m bragging or anything. Well okay, I guess I’m bragging a little. Take a gander at this beauty:
That’s a scrumptious, fresh fruit bouquet from Edible Arrangements! Skewers of apple, cantaloupe, honeydew, pineapple (cut into heart shapes!) and strawberries! And there are grapes hiding in there too. Some of the fruit was dipped in chocolate!
The whole arrangement was wrapped in cellophane and tied with curly ribbon. Trimming the entire thing were these:
My phone’s camera didn’t do these justice. There were three mylar balloons: the one you see here with the writing, along with two stars, one pink and one green. They’re adorable and now they’re tied to my lamp at home!
Happy Mother’s Day to me! Plus? The office really enjoyed sharing the fruit!
For all the moms out there - I hope you have the most wonderful Mother’s Day! I wish these were real, and in your hands right now, but please enjoy them virtually. 
Recently one of my best online buds posted a poem on her blog. Cool and quirky, just like Dana (waves – Hi Dana!). Well, it reminded me of my old poetry, wasting away in a Word document somewhere. I thought I’d posted one of my poems and after searching my archives I discovered I was right! Twice! This one was fun to write, but I really liked the visual I got from this one. I could see a rom com including a similar scene.
Of course I had to ask myself why I haven’t I posted another poem? I didn’t have a good answer for me so I guess it’s time to post another poem. Before we get to that however, a little background about Seattle might be helpful.
Modern day Seattle sits atop olde tyme Seattle – seriously – take the Underground Tour next time you’re here. That tidbit is just for color, it really has nothing to do with the poem. But (and here’s the segue you’re looking for) also under downtown Seattle is the transit tunnel. Multiple bus lines use the tunnel, keeping at least some of the traffic off of downtown streets. The following should make a little more sense with that background. 
Tunnel Vision
(September, 2003; rev’d 11/03)
Metro motors down Fourth Avenue
in the early hours
before the sun has warmed
the city, and
through my grandson’s eyes,
wisps of steam,
escaping the underground bus tunnels
become extraordinary.
“Is it a dungeon?”
Eyes wide, he looks to me for truth.
Reluctant to spoil his fantasy,
I hesitate…
Then nodding, I fold away the Times,
and tell him tales of hidden castles,
brave, valiant knights and
fire-breathing dragons.
Disclaimer: I had one college level English class eons ago. As a result, most of my poetry is sort of free flowing. It likely does not fit into officially recognized or accepted styles for writing poetry. If you’re the type to point that out then just don’t, m’kay? I know it ain’t perfect; but it’s just for me and I don’t care. Thanks, and have a great day! 
Superlative is defined:
It was time. No, really. It. Was. Time. Time for what you ask? Okay, so you didn’t ask. I’m gonna tell you anyway. It’s my blog and I’ll write if I want to!
Yesterday I went under the scissors for the first time in probably close to a year. Well, not counting when my daughter gave me a quick trim a few months back. My first professional haircut in a very long while.
I’m not one of those people who spend big bucks for an elite salon style. Great Clips all the way. When we moved from the farm I was forced to leave behind my regular shop and while there was a Great Clips in my new town, I only got to try it once before it closed. The next nearest Great Clips is one town over which isn’t that far really, probably about a 15 minute drive in non-rush hour traffic. I wouldn’t mind trying that one if we were already over there for some other reason but I didn’t want to make a special trip after work in the midst of home-bound commuters. Nuh uh, no way! The freeways here at rush hour are definitely NOT rushing.
What’s a girl in dire need of a trim to do? Okay, the “girl” is stretch I suppose. What’s a woman to do etcetera. Happy now? In any case I remembered my across-the-street neighbor telling me about a place she had her hair cut. Daisy (not her real name) had long, white hair which she kept in a lovely up-do all the time. Then one day she appeared with her hair whacked off above her shoulders! It was a drastic change but it looked nice on her. She’d had it cut and permed at a little shop not five minutes from our mobile home park. So last night after I got home and fed the dogs I walked across the street and knocked on her door.
Prissy, her dachshund raced as fast as her tubby little body would allow to bark at me through the porch railing and I scratched her under the chin while chatting with Daisy about hair. I wanted to be sure I remembered correctly and she confirmed it. After a little more conversation Hubs and I headed for the salon.
There were two stylists on duty, both with customers when we entered. I wrinkled my nose at the distinctive smell of permanent wave solution. The wait wasn’t a long and once I was in the chair and draped, the stylist ran her hands through my hair asking if the color was my own. I have brownish hair with natural blonde streaks that get lighter during the summer. I told her it was and when she asked about the wave I told her it too, was natural. She went on and on about how lucky I was (I know) and then asked what I wanted.
This is the tricky part. I can describe what I want, I can even picture it in my head. I can’t understand it for someone else. I have to trust that they can envision what I am describing. The first time I have anyone cut my hair it’s nerve-wracking, especially now that I’m growing it longer. I explained that I did NOT want to lose my length; just a bit of a trim to remove the dried ends. Going on, I talked about cleaning up the layers because it was way past getting bushy. I wanted to tell her that I did NOT want a mullet! But since she was a younger Asian woman I wasn’t sure how that would translate.
She sprayed my hair to dampen it (I know! I omitted the single best part of having a professional haircut – the shampoo!) and started to work. It took a really, really long time. I have very thick hair and she did a thorough job – separating, clipping aside layers of hair and scissoring precisely. What makes it worse is I have to take off my glasses so I can’t even see what she’s doing. There’s nothing that makes me cringe faster than hearing the scissors snipping away and not being able to see what’s going on – especially with a new stylist!
Once she finished cutting and checking for stragglers she started blowing it out. I have used a blow dryer (with defuser) exactly once in the last six months. At least six months. I just don’t dry my hair because well, it DRIES my hair! But the brushing and even the heat felt so good I just let her go. By the time it was done I was glad I had. One blow out won’t ruin my hair forever and it looked so cool straight! She smoothed on a lotion called Biosilk or something and explained that it added shine. Whatever. It smelled divine and my hair felt INCREDIBLE! I paid the exorbitant bill of $16, added a hefty tip and we went off to grab dinner.
Where my bestie bartender friend raved about my hair and made me one of her signature drinks! Yum! The perfect ending to a long, totally exhausting work day.
And now I have a new salon!
That was the subject line on an email I received this morning. In the past year or so I’ve received multiple emails with this subject line. Not to spam levels but enough that it gets pretty annoying.
The email is supposedly from Windows Live Customer Care® although there is a person’s name in the from field and they’re using a msn.com email address. They’re requesting that I confirm my account or it will be deactivated. In real life my personal email is through what used to be hotmail. I had one of the original hotmail.com addresses but for reasons I can no longer remember I let that account go dormant. When I signed back up hotmail.com had become live.com so I used that, employing the firstname.lastname@live.com protocol like we do at work. Now hotmail and live are becoming Outlook. I already transitioned to the Outlook platform (is that the right terminology?) but I get to keep my live.com address.
Enter this email in it’s multiple iterations:
This email is from Windows Live Customer Care®. We are sending it to all account owners for account upgrade. We are experiencing network congestion due to anonymous registration of email accounts. To prevent this, we are shutting down unconfirmed accounts and your account is scheduled to be deactivated.
Then there’s a request to verify that the account is still valid by clicking on the reply button and filling in my information. Here’s the reply I sent back:
Full Name: Jane Doe – hey they’re the ones who think I’m anonymous!
User Name: Wouldn’t you like to know – I don’t have a user name.
Password: Expelliarmus! – ‘nuf said.
Year of Birth: 1970 – what they don’t know won’t hurt them.
Country or Territory: Yukon Territory – is that still a territory?
Then there was this:
One of my favorite blogs is Caught on the Web, by Carole Terwilliger Meyers. Carole is a travel writer but the blog isn’t about travel. Here’s the blog’s subtitle:
“Take a quick break from your routine with these fun, often funny, and almost always short-and-sweet items found on the internet by travel writer Carole Terwilliger Meyers.”
I’ve found so many cool things there – a hip little boy dancing the jive in this video; a 21st century Christmas carol; and most recently, the biggest kid I’ve ever seen playing in the mud.
You’re welcome.
I’m going to happy hour tonight. ME! I know I talk a LOT about drinking but I’m more talk than reality. Probably because my mother was an alcoholic, and with a genetic predisposition to addiction I’ve always been extremely leery of getting started down that path. During my first marriage I almost never drank. Even when it got seriously bad, or maybe especially because it got seriously bad. I didn’t want the hooch to become a crutch.
Between marriages, when I began exploring the single world again I did start drinking some. Mostly beer or wine, usually with a group of women out dancing somewhere on a Saturday night. Once in a great while a margarita. But I can count on one hand the times I’ve been genuinely drunk. And I can count on that same hand the number of times I’ve been invited to happy hour.
I’m not sure why I’m writing this post; it’s sort of evolving from where I thought it was going to go. I was invited to join some of the women in the office for happy hour tonight to help one of our co-workers celebrate her birthday. While I like most of my co-workers, I’ve rarely socialized with them (for more than 10 years I commuted 2+ hours each way; I wasn’t about to stay late if it wasn’t required!) so this will be a first. And they’re all babies, relatively speaking – the birthday girl just turned 37! It’s a safe bet I’ll be the oldest one there.
This could be interesting … or not. I’ll keep you posted.
Have a glorious weekend everyone!
