remember that day in school when the teacher passed out timed tests and told you to have a pencil ready? she or he specifically said to “read all the instructions first and read through the test before you begin.” and then – silence.
you grabbed your pencil, chewed nervously on the eraser or the side of it, put your name at the top and started answering questions as fast as you could, skipping the instructions or reading through it.
you got to the last question and it read “go back to the beginning and put your name at the top of this page and only answer question 1” (or some other such verbiage nonsense like that.) dang.
there’s something to be said for reading instructions. patience, baby, patience.
so, one of my least favorite things is calling customer service. of any company. insurance companies, airlines, stores, online retail, the cellphone company, and the worst-the cable company.
one day recently i literally called time warner cable to inquire about a less expensive plan. of course, the company has been acquired by spectrum, so i was talking to the spectrum folks. but, at the time, my bill still had “time warner cable” on it, so i figured that they were still somehow in the game.
i explained to the gal on the line what i was looking for, the reason for my call. this was misunderstood time after time, until i just blurted out “i want a cheaper plan!” she then proceeded to tell me that she would research that for me. holdholdholdholdholdholdhold……
she came back on the line to tell me -excitedly- that she was able to find a fabulous new spectrum plan for me and that i could sign up right away, over the phone. here’s the thing (the moment i was hit by the customer-taser): the new plan was $35 a month MORE than the one i already had and about which i was calling to negotiate. what?!?!?! i asked her if she understood what she had just told me. she (again, excitedly) said she did and that she could sign me up right away.
i told her i didn’t want to talk on the phone with her anymore. 45 minutes of wasted life. a taser would have been more honest.
my sweet momma had a sweet nose. but somewhere along the line my poppo, using a derivative of her first name ‘beatrice’ nicknamed her “beak” and, for a time, all hell broke loose. she railed against his perceived slamming of her nose (which was actually a perky little nose) and was questioning of his continued use of his (now) beloved nickname when it irritated (“irked”) her. “beak” morphed into “beaky” – the name by which everyone under the sun knows and loves her. eventually, she even grew to love her nickname and proudly wore a gold necklace my dad had specially made for her (no, surprisingly, “beak” necklaces are not mass-produced!) our sweet beaky-beaky. ohmygosh, how i miss her.
we have had a recurring theme this past fall, winter and spring. last week, while cleaning the burner plates on our old stove, i found a cache of dog biscuits hidden underneath. now, you wonder how that happened? next to our stove, we keep a beautiful pottery tray that judy gave us. on it we keep dog biscuits (“cookies” we call them.) since i have talked about mysterious appearances of dog biscuits before, i am sure you are connecting the dots.
oh yes. somehow those little dickens carried about ten dog biscuits from the tray to under the burner plates. they had little picnics under there, until they realized the weather under there was pretty arid, even acrid, as the dog biscuits turned darker and darker and were burned on the edges. ummm….that could have been a disaster! what on earth is babycat doing all day and night? clearly he is not paying attention!
so, as incorrect as this flawed cartoon may be, it really does make me laugh. babycat needs to take a lesson…a little more cunning could go a long way.
my big brother had a guitar in the olden days that i still pine for. it was just a folk guitar, but he had painted it and applied stickers and graffiti’ed all over it. one of my favorite sayings on this old guitar was “you are what you eat.” considering that was the 60s and 70s, and rice-a-roni and kraft macaroni and cheese and other fabulous packaged pre-prepared foods were a way-of-life, he was way before his time. now is a whole ‘nother story.
first following the whole30 precisely for the prescribed 30 days, we are over a year later still on a modified whole30 diet….not diet necessarily for weight (although middle age has changed the mighty metabolism) but diet for how we feel. one of the joys of our weeks is to go to jen and brad’s and have “potluck dinner” together. for two sets of people on distinct food diets, the fun of this is to bring all the leftovers you have and then just eat together. we drink wine and tell stories of the week. it’s total bliss! we have talked much about the way we are now eating…we are infinitely more aware of what we buy and how we prepare it.
but there are those moments….and thank goodness for google…when we look up images or tell stories of twinkies and hostess cupcakes and reggie bars and m&m peanut candies and good ‘n plenty and buddig meats and wonder bread chip sandwiches…and relive the good old days.
i have literally sat across the restaurant table (or the kitchen table or the living room or or or) from him, on date night or any other night or morning or day, staring at his face, thinking, “geeeeeeez. you are DEFINITELY an acquired taste!” but then, a few moments (ok, or longer) go by and love swirls around me and i like him again.
i KNOW you have been there…whether on a date or with your significant other…the times you think “whattheheck??!!??” thank goodness that is balanced out with “you are totally my type!!!” or there would be NO relationships in the world.
i’m guessing he thinks that about me too (but only RARELY. lol.)
mama dear (my grandmother) used to sew with her lips pursed, straight pins held between them for quick access. as a little kid, i thought that you had to spit on pins in order to sew; as i grew up i realized that this was a falsehood (i’m sure you are thinking, “wow. what an enlightenment!”)
mama dear was the person who taught me how to sew. with an old-fashioned singer, a red pincushion, a blue sewing box and good sewing scissors, she set me on a course of many projects through my life…outfits in the 70s, curtains and shutter screens for the nursery, jumpers that matched The Girl’s when she was little in the 90s, pillows and stuffed animals, mending jobs, craft projects. my sewing machine is set up again, adjacent to d’s studio where he says he likes to hear me talk to myself or hum as i sew, and i love spending time at my machine, dreaming up things to make.
one thing i am proud of these days – that hanging around me (sewing or doing whatever i am doing) david has picked up some of the vernacular that comes out of my mouth….like “oopsies!!!”
several people lately have asked us what we meant by “products”…the “products” we were designing to go along with our blog post images. many of you may have noticed these product bars on our blogs each day. we understand that not everyone has seen these or understood our intent. we have been seeking the easiest way to present these products as options and so we listen to each suggestion we get.
there is sure a lot of fodder in our studios: paintings, music, cartoons, graphic images, photographs, writings…a melange of our work. it’s fun (and necessary) for us to turn all of this into a line of things that are purchase-able: wall art, tote bags, mugs, leggings, throw pillows, home accessories. i love the design work and have learned so much in the process!
we thank each of you who have taken a look at the sites where these are available (we have five storefronts on society6.com.) we have been told and have seen firsthand that our designed products that society6.com ship are of good quality and they stand behind them if you are not pleased. if you have any questions, please let us know. we appreciate you so much.
this week’s product line links are right below. the link brings you to one of the products in that line on society6.com. if you scroll down the page a little, it will say “also available as” so you can see the image in its varying iterations.
now, my sweet momma was pretty directive at times. she knew what she wanted and was pretty specific about it. even from the seat in her wheelchair in later days she would direct traffic or let you know exactly where she wanted to go and if you were doing it right. then there was the electric wheelchair. she got to be in charge.
it took scaling a mountain and zooming off into outer space and back to make all the arrangements that would eventually deliver an electric wheelchair to her assisted living facility. but all of that fades in the memory of her phone call. she had been practicing and practicing, trying to grasp how to make the chair go forward or turn or go backward without running into things or people. we kept telling her, “you got this!” her confidence was thin and i know she felt like she would never really be able to master that chair. until that day.
she called to say that she had gone down to breakfast. in her chair. alone. and when she got there, a woman at her table told her about how there had been an author there, sharing her newly published book, reading, autographing; it had all been quite exciting, she told my momma. my sweet momma looked at her, i’m sure smiling broadly and sitting up as straight as she could in her electric wheelchair and said, “that was me!”
never underestimate a granny gps. there’s so much possibility.
heidi, in moments of stress or joy, always asks, “what’s the learning?” a good question to lead with, to sort with, a question that helps things make sense.
this Flawed cartoon, the picture of a teaching moment. good grief, there are so many! teaching moments. learning moments. every single day.
reverse threading 