pet peeves

 One of my pet peeves is opening a loaf of bread only to discover that there is another layer of wrapping under the typical bread bag.  What brought this to mind is that today is "Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day."  You have probably all experienced receiving an order from Amazon or some similar company that, while a very small item, is shipped in a ridiculously large cardboard box.  Another irritant is an item sealed in a heavy plastic bubble that's almost impossible to open.  This is particularly fun if it's a child's toy on Christmas morning.  There's a reason why some collectible toys have never been taken out of their wrappings.  My personal particular frustration was a box of 100 tea bags.  I will not mention the brand.  I like to transfer tea bags from their box to glass jars I have, to keep them fresher.  With the particular tea bags I'm talking about that involved removing the cellophane outer wrapping which was very securely pasted down, ripping open the cardboard box, removing the four individually foil wrapped stacks of tea bags, tearing each of those open and removing the tea bags which are each individually wrapped in their own little envelopes and have a cunning little tag attached.  Recently I decided to try another brand and discovered that there were half as many layers to open, no tags, no little envelopes, and a very good taste.  I'm a convert.

my kind of event

 I'm still watching the Olympics.  Just saw the end of the women's marathon.  Molly Seidel won bronze for the US.  It was very impressive but I must admit, never, in a million years, would running 26 miles ever occur to me to be a fun thing to try.  On the other hand, today is "Wiggle Your Toes Day."  Now there is an event I could excel in.  I have been an unconscious toe wiggler for years.  I can clearly remember my husband (who was a very loving and patient man) saying "Quit wiggling your toes."  This usually occurred when we were watching a TV show.  I tend to go barefoot in the house a lot.  I don't know why it irritated him so much.  Apparently he felt that toes should just hang around quietly on the end of your feet.  How boring is that.  I bet you're wiggling your toes right now.  It's hard not to.  In the seniors exercise class I attend, we are told to wiggle our toes so it must be good for you.  In addition to wiggling my toes, I have another toe related talent.  I can cross my toes. The big toe over the second toe, obviously, anyone can do that, but I can also cross my little toe (is it called a pinky toe?) over it's neighbor toe.  In fingers, that would be the ring finger.  It's probably called something obvious like the fourth toe, in which case, I should say I can cross my fifth toes over my fourth toes.  I know you're probably amazed by this.  I tend to keep my talents hidden.

the mystery continues

 This afternoon I called my credit card company about the charge I questioned.  See yesterday's blog.  After following all the prompts, keying in all the numbers they asked for, and evidently assuring them that I really am me, I was finally told that I would be connected to the next available fraud agent.  This was all done with mechanical voices of course.  Then came 45 minutes of listening to their recorded reassurance that my call was important to them and please continue to wait.  I got the laundry folded and the dishwasher emptied while I waited. Finally a real live person spoke with me and I discovered that the five dollar charge I was questioning really was my charge.  However, and this was a surprise to me, the agent read off a list of three charges to my account that they had declined.  One was from a hodge podge of numbers that neither of us could make any sense of for $141?? Another had been charged in Georgia (the country, not the state) and the last one had been charged in Nebraska.  Since I haven't traveled anywhere during the last 18 months or so, I knew none of these were my charges.  Happily, the nice lady on the phone agreed with me.  Needless to say, I'll be getting a new card in the mail.

lifes little mysteries

 This evening I responded to a request from our apartment management to post some positive comments about living in this apartment complex.  It was a good day for a review request since they had a yummy social time for us this afternoon with refreshments provided by Club Soda.  Delicious.  However, I must have hit the wrong button somehow because my complimentary statement showed up as a comment on my own Facebook page instead of theirs.  Probably no big deal except one friend called, all excited, to ask if I was selling my 'condo.'  That would be a cute trick since I rent an apartment.  Why that post didn't end up in the right place is my first mystery of the day.  The second showed up as I was paying my monthly bills.  I like to get everything paid or scheduled early in the month so I don't have to think about it any more.  The mystery was a line item that showed up on a credit card, only $5.10, charged by a company I have never heard of in a town I haven't visited for years.  Hummm??? I will call the credit card company about it tomorrow when I am awake enough, and patient enough, to get an answer to my question.  

a new adventure

 My four grandchildren are growing up.  The oldest is 20 now and their stair-step ages are 20, 19, 18 and 17, and yes, they are all driving.  Today my 18 year old granddaughter was in town from Columbus and we went out to lunch.  What made it unusual and exciting was that she picked me up.  Her grandfather on the other side gave her his car this summer so she would have a car to drive to college this fall.  He and his wife were downsizing to one car.  It's a cute little red Ford Focus, not new but in good shape and it suits her very well.  As I waited for her I reflected on all the rides I have given her over the years.  From pre-school through band practices and so much more.  So it seemed fair to me that she should drive and she was anxious to show me her car.  When she pulled up in front of my building I thought how grown up she looked.  Then I opened the door and was almost overwhelmed (in a good way) with the interior decoration.  From the Hello Kitty seat covers and floor matts to the cartoon stickers covering the dashboard and the strands of beads hanging from the rearview mirror it was amazing.  I was delighted to see that she isn't taking herself too seriously as a young adult.  By the way, she is a good driver and we had a great time at lunch.  It's exciting to hear about the start of her first college semester.  I can't wait to see how she decorates her dorm room. 

It's all hers.

 I have seen a commercial on TV for an insurance company in which a woman's 'She Shed' gets struck by lightening and burns down, but until now I've never actually known anyone who has a She Shed.  If you're not exactly sure what a she shed is, think man cave but for women.  A friend of mine has a large back yard and beautiful flower beds.  She spends a lot of time in the yard and working with plants, but this summer she has gone one step further and gradually converted her storage building into an actual she shed.  Several of us in the same fiber group (the kind you knit with, not the kind you eat) started hearing about this project earlier this year, but this evening she finally had pictures.  Inside she has a little refrigerator, a work bench cut down to suit her height and comfy chairs.  The pegboard walls are painted and the bottom half covered in fabric.  Outside she had a door cut in the side wall (there was already a garage door on one end) and with a window on either side it looks like a perfect little cottage,  She even had window boxes built and has flowers growing in them.  About the only thing she seems to be lacking is a chandelier.  I asked her about that and she said she is considering it. I think a she shed would be fun but the management gets fussy about things we build on our balconies.

Travel time?

 A friend and her husband, who are traveling out east this week, texted  me a short video of Niagara Falls this evening.  That brought back a wash of memories or a gush of memories, any way, lots of memories of visits to the falls over the years.  Most recently, about three years ago, I was there with some friends over the 4th of July, and the fireworks over and through the falls were quite spectacular.  Another time, many years earlier (sometime in the 80s) I traveled there with my husband and our two kids.  On that trip we spent a fun day on the American side then went to the Canadian side to spend the night and do some sightseeing the next day.  At that time the parks and gardens on the Canadian side were quite spectacular.  For some reason we spent that night in a motel instead of camping, and as we looked out of our window that evening we saw a sigh down the street for a souvenir shop, but this particular sign was half burned out so it just said SOUV.  We did a little shopping there the next day, nothing particularly memorable, but that sign became imbedded in our family psyche and forever after we have referred to souvenirs as souvs.  Silly, I know, but not all family memories are epic.