Cold Today, Snow Tomorrow?

For some reason, it is apparently genetically ingrained in 95% of Arkansans to rush to the grocery store to buy bread and milk if even the slightest hint of wintry weather in the forecast. These natives ignore the fact that this is Arkansas, not Utah. We don't get blizzards. To my knowledge no one has ever been so snowed or iced in that they actually reached starvation levels.
Yes, we've had the occasional storm that has closed the airport or caused me to leave my car, after a very nice gentleman pushed it up a hill first, at a bank and walk a mile on slippery sidewalks to get home(thank goodness that for some random reason, I actually had my hiking boots in the trunk of my car). However these little frozen episodes never last longer than two days or so.
I will admit that the weather lately has been...odd. Sleet last Friday. Temps in the 60s yesterday accompanied by 60 MPH winds, grass fires that closed highways, and a 40 degree drop overnight.
It's like they say, "If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes."
Today I used my lunch hour to make my weekly Big Trip to the Grocery Store. I really despise grocery shopping so I try to get all the major items in one big trip and then limit myself to one or two Emergency Trips to the Grocery Store for those times when I knock an entire gallon of milk onto the floor or when I catch the oven/stovetop/dinner on fire. At noon-thirty today, half of West Little Rock was in the Kroger. Yes, indeed. Thank goodness that neither milk nor any bread-like items were on my shoping list. I would have risked life and limbs to acquire either. In fact, just picking up two cans of soup resulted in some slight bruising...and that was just for vegetable soup. Who knows what would have happened if I had wanted chicky noodle or tomato soup. (Mmmmmm, tomato soup and grilled cheese--the ultimate winter comfort combination.)
By happy coincidence, my grocery list called for baking potatoes and when I came home, there was a box for me! Goody--I love presents!! My aunt, because I am *The* Smashed 'Taters Queen of the family(which is not the same as being a Sweet Potato Queen, although I am one of those as well), sent me The Tater Mitt! I am serious. I have a Tater Mitt and it works! Maybe it took slightly longer than the 8 seconds listed on the box but I scrubbed that spud to almost gleaming perfection.
And as if it's not enough to be the proud owner of a Tater Mitt, mine came with a special TV bonus...a Fries Maker (although the back of the box refers to it as a Vegetable Slicer. Who knew Free Gifts with Purchase could multi-task???).
So in preparation of Winter Storm 2008 I peeled and sliced my potatoes and made Oven Fries. They didn't look quite crispy enough so I turned the broiler on for a second. Uh-oh, only I was talking to my other aunt ('cause I knew she'd be jealous of my Tater Mitt and wonder why her sister-in-law didn't send her one too) and my one second maybe turned into a minute or more. Whoops.
Anyone want some blackened Oven Fries? I'll share.

If you were a little girl of the 70s & 80s...

You had that Fisher Price Doctor's Kit with a stethoscope that actually worked.
My grandfather was a doctor but I was always happy to be a licensed Fisher Price medical kit-carrying nurse. My dollies and stuffed animals were subject to doctor's visits on a daily basis.

You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it.
Oh yeah. My Huffy was pink and purple and absolutely loverly! I learned to ride it (in circles) in the parking lot of our church, which was conveniently located two blocks down and one over from our house. I even had streamers hanging from the handlebars and my stepfather wanted to clothespin playing cards to the wheels. I talked him out of that ostentatiousosity.

You learned to skate with actual skates (not roller blades) that had metal wheels.
I don't even remember learning *how* to skate. I just skated. My friend Allison had the perfect carport for skating and our class took monthly field trips to the skating rink. Rest assured that my skates were always white leather(pleather?)with wheelie stoppers on the toes.

You thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute.
Who didn't? I also liked Isaac, but only as a friend. I loved "The Love Boat". Except for the episode with the mermaid in the tank. That one made me sad. I wonder how it ended--maybe she wasn't really a mermaid?

You had nightmares after watching Fantasy Island.
Who didn't? I still remember one "Fantasy Island" episode where there was a haunted house on the island. I don't know (or want to know) what that person's fantasy was!

You had either a 'bowl cut' or 'pixie', not to mention the 'Dorothy Hamill'.
People sometimes thought you were a boy.
I was never mistaken for a boy that may have had something to do with the fact that I refused to wear anything but dresses and ruffled,monogrammed panties. I had very distinct views on gender even at age two and they didn't lessen as I grew up. However I did have the Dorothy Hamill and one of my poor babysitters has the proof in her wedding photos. I think it may have been one of the few weddings where the flower girl's hair was shorter than the groom's.

You had rubber boots for rainy days and Moon boots for snowy days.
I had red galoshes, the sort of rubber boot in which your shoe'd foot will fit. I think Ramona Quimby had a pair in "Ramona the Pest". The only moon boots I remember owning were a dark blue and I cried every time I had to wear them , except when we were actually skiing, because they made my feet hot and they were ugly.

You owned a 'Slip-n-Slide', on which you injured yourself on a sprinkler head more than once.
My first encounter with a Slip-n-Slide was out at the volleyball field. It was really the Phillip's farm but my aunt and uncle and all their friends gathered there on weeeknds to play volleyball in the summer. There was always a handful of kids running around, too young to play volleyball. We had a regular one and later I had the Slip-n-Slide with the Splash Pool.

You owned 'Klick-Klacks' and smacked yourself in the face more than once !
Actually I don't think I owned these. They look like they were dangerous.

Your Holly Hobbie sleeping bag was your most prized possession.
My sleeping bag was Miss Piggy (sitting on a crescent moon---ooooh, and I've just remembered that Grandmother had the Miss Piggy and Frogs twin bedsheet sets for Elizabeth and me) but my beloved toy kitchen(sink, stove/oven) was Holly Hobbie.

You wore a poncho, gauchos, and knickers.
I still hold those blasted knickers against my mother. I had denim knickers and corduroy knickers, only I called them knickerbockers. I can't quite bring myself to destroy the photographic evidence. I wore the denim ones with my pink Izod shirt and my pink ribbon belt.

You begged Santa for the electronic game, Simon.
There was no begging involved. I had an older half-brother and an older stepbrother---it was a given that we would have a Simon, and that I would be the worst player.

You had the Donnie and Marie dolls with those pink and purple satiny shredded outfits, or The Sunshine Family.
I probably would have preferred the Donny and Marie dolls, but we (my cousin Elizabeth and I) had The Sunshine Family dolls (Steve, Steffie, Sweets, and Sunny, although we have made up the boy's name since I can't find it listed anywhere) at our grandparents' house. I personally disliked them--they looked too young to be parents and their clothes were hideous. I don't know why Grandmother wouldn't just give in and buy Barbie for us. At least Barbie had careers, unlike these freeloading hippie dolls. I do have to give her credit for buying me the Brooke Shields fashion doll though...but that credit is obliterated because she also bought us the Wrangler jeans fashion doll (and seriously, she looked like she'd been smoking with the Marlboro Man out there in the foothills beyond the ranch).

You spent hours in your backyard on your metal swing set with the trapeze. The swing set tipped over at least once.
I had the metal swing set and spent many hours "flying to San Francisco" (to see my Uncle Lee) in the glider. I never tipped it over but I could swing high enough to rock the posts out of the ground. I remember that someone's parents had the bright idea to dig small holes in the ground and then fill them with wet concrete and set the swing set's posts in the concrete...yeah, we swung so voraciously that the posts still came up, concrete boots and all.

You had homemade ribbon barrettes in every imaginable color.
Our ribbon barrettes came from The Personal Touch. I don't know anyone who actually made their own but I wish I did! (Just to show how naive I am, I didn't realize until just this very minute that those be-feathered clips that you always won at the fair? There weren't just funky little hair accessories!)

You had a pair of Doctor Scholl's sandals (the ones with hard sole & the buckle). You also had a pair of salt-water sandals.
My aunt had the Doctor Scholl's sandals and I greatly admired them, although now that I've learned they were the Dr. Scholl's EXERCISE sandals I have to question who exercised in them? Were there legions of Jane Fonda fanatics aerobicizing in these sandals? I clomped around in Aunt Ann's shoes as often as I could. I don't think they made them in my size. I don't know what salt-water sandals are but I did have jelly shoes.

You wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder really bad; you wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffle shirt with the high neck in at least one school picture; and you despised Nellie Oleson!
Hello fourth grade! More blame to lay on my mother's head. Another photo that will haunt me forever. I had read all the books before I even knew there was a TV show, but I hated Nellie with a passion. I was devastated in 5th grade to read Donald Zochert's biography "Laura: The Life of Laura Ingalls Wilder" and learn that Nellie was really a composite of two girls and many things were different than the books. I never completely recovered from Laura's betrayal.

You wanted your first kiss to be at a roller rink!
No,handholding was the only thing I was ready for at the roller rink. We were no longer roller-skating when I began to think about kisses. I wanted my first kiss to happen at a CYO dance in the school cafeteria, but 'twas not to be. I guess God objected because I wasn't actually Catholic.

PONG! ('video tennis' ) was the most remarkable futuristic game you've ever heard of !
I loved Pong! I was so scared that I was going to miss that fast-moving ball. LOL

Your hairstyle was described as having 'wings' or 'feathers' and you kept it 'pretty'
with the comb you kept in your back pocket. When you walked, the 'wings' flapped up and down, looked like you were gonna 'take off'
Fifth grade! I had a cute little pageboy but we feathered the bangs back, just the way my stylist taught me. It was something. That was my first curling iron.

You know who Strawberry Shortcake is, as well as her friends, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.
I had quite a collection, with the Strawberry carrying case. My favorite was Apple Dumplin' with her pet turtle. I even had a read-along Strawberry shortcake book and record. "When you hear this sound, turn the page. "

You carried a Muppets lunch box to school and it was metal, not plastic.
With the thermos inside some were glass inside and broke the first time you dropped them.
Mine was a metal Disney Express lunchbox with a hard plastic thermos. That was in Montessori(kindergarten). I had at least one new lunchbox each year but the only one I can remember clearly is that first one.

You and your girlfriends would fight over which of the Dukes of Hazzard was your boyfriend.
No contest. We all loved Bo and we all wanted to be Daisy. My two boyfriends and I would alternate between playing The Dukes of Hazzard and Star Wars, both of which conveniently had two male leads and one female lead. Ha, my first affaire du couer was a menage a trois-- we were in elementary school, I promise it was G-rated!

YOU had Star Wars action figures, too!
Of course I did. I had the Millennium Falcon and a boxful of action figures. Some good, some bad, & some ugly. The Millennium Falcon was a Christmas present from my Daddy and it took the better part of a bottle of Scotch for him to get past the "some assembly required" stage.

It was a big event in your household each year when the 'Wizard of Oz' would come on TV. Your mom would break out the popcorn and sleeping bags!
I managed to forget, every single year that the beginning of the movie was in black-and-white. I was always convinced that our television had suddenly broken. Every single year. And then I would cry when the mean lady turned into the witch. And then there were the winged monkeys. Really it was more like a form of torture....no wonder I blocked it out after each airing ended.

You often asked your Magic-8 ball the question: 'Who will I marry.
Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, or David Cassidy?'
I missed out on that although I did have a crush on Joe Hardy before I even knew who he really was.

You completely wore out your Grease, Saturday Night Fever, and Fame soundtrack record album.
Hee hee. The playing of "Grease" in any format (soundtrack or VHS) was forbidden in my daddy's house. He had weekend visitation with me every other weekend,and for every other weekend for an entire year, we watched "Grease" at least once on Friday, once on Saturday, and once on Sunday. The ban was enacted when my father realized that not only was I singing along and reciting lines but he was too!

You tried to do lots of arts and crafts, like yarn and Popsicle-stick God's eyes, decoupage, or those weird potholders made on a plastic loom.
Guilty as charged in regards to the weird potholders, but mine never turned out. I remember that there were lots of pipe-cleaner crafts, too.

You made Shrinky-Dinks and put iron-on kittens on your t-shirts!
Just the other day, a friend was lamenting the fact that she had had a kitchen fire and now the air was redolent with the scent of burnt Shrinky-Dinks. I thought Shrinky-Dinks were the coolest thing ever--it was always best to have the oven with the little window in the door so you could watch them curl up and shrink!

You used to tape record songs off the radio by holding your portable tape player up to the speaker.
But first you had to call the request in to your favorite radio station. I wonder just how many people have mix tapes where the first few bars of the song are obliterated by the DJ's voice.

You had subscriptions to Dynamite and Tiger Beat.
Bop! was my magazine of choice but my daddy was the one who bought copies for me. At Mother's house, I had subscriptions to Barbie for Girls magazine, Muppet magazine (which Grandma always called "Muffet" magazine), and Highlights. Later, I finally talked her into a subscription to YM but she never agreed to Seventeen.

You learned everything you needed to know about girl issues from Judy Blume books. (Are you there God, It's me, Margaret.)
Again, I highly recommend the book "Everything I Know about Being a Girl I Learned from Judy Blume". It inspired me to re-read my favorite Blumes and read the ones I had missed.

You thought Olivia Newton John's song 'Physical' was about aerobics. (?? its not??)
I have that song on my iPod now, and everytime it plays, I laugh when I think about a generation of little girls in our legwarmers and sweatbands, dancing our little hearts out to "Physical" without the slightest idea what it meant.

You wore friendship pins on your tennis shoes, or shoelaces with hearts or rainbow designs.
Naturally! The frienship pins were proof of how many friends you had. The more colorful the better. As long as they didn't clash with the novelty laces.


I've had the most fun in thinking back over the memories that this evoked...and even better, while looking up the scary Wrangler doll, I came across another elusive childhood memory! For years, I've been trying to remember the name of these teeny-tiny dolls. I thought the "selling point" was that they were models but I really couldn't remember. Say hello to Glamour Gals!











































You wanted to be a Solid Gold dancer.




You drowned yourself in Love's Baby Soft - which was the first 'real' perfume you ever owned.




You glopped your lips in Strawberry Roll-on lip-gloss till it almost dripped off.

Welcome to the World, Puppy Girl!

The newest four-legged addition to my family was botn at 1:45 AM this morning, somewhere in the wilds of Ohio. Comtesse Chloe Cosette Cartier was the first of six puppies born to my mother's Bichon Frise, Iris. The daddy is a Shih Tzu named Teddy.
Chloe, therefore is a Shichon. I plan on flying out to Ohio for Easter weekend to bring her home. In the meantime, I am going to buy two blankies and send them out there--after a couple of weeks, Mother will send one back, so my kitties can get used to Chloe's scent before she comes home---hopefully this will make her introduction a little less traumatic. Iris and her brother, Ivan, lived with us for 6 months so the kitties have cohabitated with doggies before.
I'm also giving serious thought to knitting a little sweater and some booties for Chloe. Because she is going to be very frou-frou.

Tea and Sympathy

One of the greatest challenges I've faced on a monthly basis since August revolves around my responsibility as logistics coordinator for particular committee for a certain service organization to which I belong. Each month I have to communicate with the vendor who provides a certain necessary service for our monthly events.
Now when I accepted this placement, my predecessor very explicitly outlined her experiences, having held the position for the past three years. In my optimistic foolishness, I thought "Whatever. I'm not going to let someone steamroll me." My thought was that we are the customers, we pay for the service provided, and that's all there is to it.
Famous last words. The past 5 months have seen me frantically typing and printing out reports an hour before the first parents' meeting, crying on the phone when the rep took a week off and forgot to assign us to anyone else in the office, and threatening, erm, I mean *offering* to show up at their office to pick up the information that he kept forgetting to fax to me.
Somewhere along the way, I learned that this individual responds best when I play the role of the helpless female. And believe you me, I'm good at that. Even though it's not really the image I want to project here.
Tonight we had our Mid-Year Leadership Retreat. A chance for all the "power people" to meet, eat, and drink sweet tea. During one of our tabletop discussions, I talked about the challenges I had faced in this situation...and then the best thing ever happened.
One of the women from another committee told me that she, as a school administrator, has had to deal with this exact same office and HER EXPERIENCES WERE EVEN MORE TRAUMATIC THAN MINE!
I know I shouldn't be happy in the face of someone else's disaster, but it was nice to know that our group hasn't been singled out. This vendor rep is an equal-opportunity donkey's behind.
So my next step, even though I only have to deal with this for another 4 months, is that I am going to make phone calls. I am going to see if there are any other alternatives, other vendors who can provide this exact same service. Having worked in HR for 8 years, I'm a firm believer in customer service. Also, I just hate the idea of passing this same headache on to my successor.

Happy New Year!

My New Year's resolution is to blog more and whine less. 2008 is going to be My Year of Great. Corny, I know, but anything has to be better than last year.
I have to admit that when I caught my stovetop on fire on New Year's Day, I did wonder for a moment if that was a Sign that perhaps this year was going to be not-so-great. Then I realized it was a Sign that I need to be less careless in the kitchen.
When I was taking down the Christmas tree this weekend, I lost my balance on my stepladder and I should have down a very graceless backflip off the ladder. Instead I managed to stay upright and on the ladder and only a potted plant backflipped off the entertainment cabinet. Fortunately the plant survived with a minimal loss of soil. So I'm taking that as a Sign of Something Good.
Goals for 2008:
Get in shape (and I've joined a women's only fitness center, and I have discovered that I *heart* the elliptical machine!)
Start knitting again (and apparently my long-lost Knit Nite buddies have a Project Baby Blanket for a community WIP so while it may be too late for me to actually get in involved, I can use this opportunity to make a couple of practice squares to get back in the peak knitting condition)
Maintain a 3.5 (and I've proven to myself that I am actually smarter than I ever believed)
Socialize more (accept more of the invitations I receive)

I gave serious thought about adding "get married and have a baby" to this list, but instead I think I'll aim for a simple date with a man in whom I'm truly interested. It's not a resolution necessarily, but it's a goal of sorts...