Not-so-super market

The other day, I had to make a quick run into town to the grocery store. Usually I go to the big grocery store with the really awesome deli and has a layout that mostly makes sense. However, on this particular day, I needed to go across the street to Safeway. It is smaller with narrower aisles and has a layout which defies logic. I don't go there often but I needed cans of frozen lemonade concentrate. Safeway brand lemonade is the only kind I use in my iced tea. (Other brands make it taste too lemony.)

Shortly after arriving at the store, I realized they were undergoing a major rearrangement. As I mentioned, the previous layout was just weird. Batteries seemed to be hidden in a corner. Boboli pizza crust was next to the bottled water instead of in the bread aisle. So would the new arrangement be an improvement?

They had handy dandy guides to help customers. I needed spaghetti sauce and pasta. According to the guide, this was located on an aisle named "Office." Huh? Apparently, "Office" was the mysterious corner where batteries had previously been located. OK. I found spaghetti supplies. I also needed burrito stuff. What do you know? Mexican food was right next to the pasta aisle. How convenient. Or so I thought. I found refried beans, salsa, taco sauce...but where were tortillas? I checked the guide. It told me they were at the end of aisle 11. Which was on the other side of the store. I found the tortillas eventually. Right next to...the pharmaceuticals? Whose bright idea was this? If they wanted to place tortillas at the end of an aisle, it should have been one closer to the other taco stuff.

Fortunately, there is a big Super Safeway I can go to. It's just a little farther from my house. I think I will get all my lemonade there from now on.

Or I can go to the other big grocery store with the awesome deli. The same one that puts cat food and toilet paper on one aisle and dog food and paper towels on another.

Things I've learned from watching TV (and movies)

1. Never climb up something when you are being chased. You will always end up trapped at the top.
2. If Jessica Fletcher shows up in your neighborhood, LEAVE TOWN IMMEDIATELY! Also, take someone with you so you always have an alibi.
3. If you are about to be executed by an evil genius, he will most likely start telling you all his evil plans. He will spend so much time doing this that the good guys will have just enough time to rescue you.
4. If you run across a dead body, don't touch it or pick up the weapon lying nearby. (This seems like a no-brainer, but people on Matlock and Perry Mason never followed this advice.)
5. Living with or close to the Ingalls family of "Little House" fame was somehow detrimental to children as it made them prone to run away from home. (What was with that family? Funny how Laura never mentioned any runaways in her books.)
6. Office buildings in NYC and other large cities are filled with funny people where humorous things happen constantly and nobody ever really works.
7. A pregnant woman always knows the second she goes into labor. (Something must be wrong with me. It took me hours to figure it out.)
8. There is always a way to keep ahead of an explosion if you are a good guy.

See what I've learned? Who says too much TV is bad for you? I'm going to see if I can learn something new from TV right now.

Olivia, The Supercat?

This is our cat. Her name is Olivia. She is probably almost 15 years old. I don't know her birth date, or even her birth month. All I know is that my mother-in-law had her for 6 years and we have had her for 8 1/2 years. So, in short, she is a very old cat.

However, I am beginning to wonder if she is part something else. Last winter, we had very cold temperatures. Nothing below zero, but record lows for the Puget Sound area. Since Olivia doesn't have a litter box, she needs to go outside to do all her business. Well, despite the cold, we made no exceptions. She was put outside. I'm sure some would think this to be cruel, but hours later, Olivia came to the door asking to be let in. And she was perfectly fine. No doubt, her abundance of fat and fur protected her. At least, that was our theory at the time.

More recently, I began to wonder if Olivia is impervious to more than cold temperatures. As shown in the picture, Olivia decided that her favorite sleeping spot is a narrow ledge right next to the stairs. However, I don't think this is a good idea. For one thing, her wide girth has caused her to get off balance and topple off more than once. The other problem is she leaves brown dirt smudges on the white paint. So we could either clean this area several times a day or do something to keep the cat off of it.

My husband found some spray that, when applied, keeps cats (and dogs) away from certain areas. He saturated the ledge with this spray. Within seconds, the entire upstairs was filled with a not-so-pleasant odor. The cat stared at her favorite spot, but didn't go on it. Problem solved? No way. Within ONE HOUR, the cat was back on the ledge.

A couple weeks later, we again tried it. We saturated the spot twice within a few minutes. As soon as the spray had dried, Olivia was carefully positioning herself on the ledge.

So our cat seems to be unaffected by cold, repellent spray, and also the passage of time. (She is, however, affected by fleas.) I am beginning to wonder if she is immortal. Maybe she is some sort of mutant super cat with powers that make her impervious to all kinds of things.

Either that, or I have been watching way to much SyFy channel lately.

Quandary about laundry

About 150 years ago, all laundry was done by hand and hung up to dry. It seems like that would have been a lot of hard work. Today, with automatic washers and dryers, laundry has gotten a lot more simple. Or has it?

Sometimes it seems like my life revolves around laundry. Even when I don't have any to do, I catch myself wondering if I have to transfer something from washer to dryer. And even though it doesn't take me as long to get things dry (hooray for high efficiency washers!), laundry seems to have a lot of steps to get through.

1. Collect laundry baskets from bedrooms. (Yes, I actually trained my children to put their laundry IN THE BASKET.)
2. Sort into loads. As you sort, check each garment for stains.
3. Check all pockets for tissues, Starbucks receipts, and loose change. (Keep money for yourself. Consider it a tip.)
4. Treat stains.
5. Load clothes in washer and turn it on.
6. Do something else for about 45 minutes.
7. Take clothes out of washer. Separate out items that must be air dried.
8. Put remaining clothes in dryer and turn it on.
9. Do something else for about 45 minutes again. Wash next load.
10. Take clothes out of dryer.
11. Hire your kids to fold them because now you have to make dinner.
12. Two days later, discover stuff left out to air dry from previous laundry day. Put items away.
13. Begin process all over again.

See how many steps there are? How can this be simplified? Maybe I can cut down on the amount of laundry. I wonder if my kids would mind having just one outfit apiece.

Well...I guess they could have two. After all, they will need something to wear while I do laundry.

First Day(s) of School

Well, it's that time of year again. The kids are back in school. This year we had two first days of school. That's because only the freshmen went to the high school the first day and the upper grades started the second day. So for me, Wednesday didn't seem like the first day of school because only one kid went. Thursday was the second day of school, but the first day for my high schooler. I could go on and make this more confusing but I won't.

I decided to spend Thursday morning watching a movie, one that I wanted to watch by myself. I will not reveal which movie it was. Let's just say that Netflix considers it a tearjerker. I started this little tradition last year on the first school day, enjoying a quiet house and watching some movie that my kids don't care for.

Now that the first few school days have past, I need to spend those quiet hours doing housework and catching up on things that I put off during the summer. Of course, after the first week, the house will seem TOO quiet. But that's why I have an iPod.

Crayons is a drink?

When I'm thirsty, I like to go to the fridge and get nice drink of...Crayons? Yes, apparently there is a new drink called Crayons that comes in colorful containers. It comes in fruit punch flavors as well as sports drinks. The only ones I could find at my local grocery store were sports drinks.

After doing some research, I found out that they are not that bad. The fruit punch has less sugar than similar drinks and taste less sweet, making them palatable for adults. The sports drinks are lower in sodium than comparable drinks. Crayons got many good reviews.

If the fruit punch varieties ever show up at my grocery store, I may give Crayons a try. But they are expensive. The 8 oz cans cost over a dollar each.

Drink Crayons, everyone!

Music to my ears

I have always enjoyed piano music. Especially instrumentals, no singing. When I was a kid, we had a record by Frank Mills that was mostly just piano music. (If you don't know what a record is, ask someone over the age of 35.) One of my favorite songs on there was Music Box Dancer. Sometimes I just sat in my mother's rocking chair and just listened to the music.

Recently, it occurred to me that I have an iPod. Of course, the reason I wanted it was so I could listen to all my favorite songs whenever I wanted to. But would Frank Mills music be available for downloading? It was! So I downloaded all my favorites, including Music Box Dancer, Spanish Coffee, and other familiar tunes.

I am usually reluctant to admit what I have on my iPod (let's just say there's a lot of 80s pop music) but in this case, I am letting the world know how much I love piano music. But it's more than just loving piano. When I hear those songs, it's like going back in time to my childhood. Once again, I can sit in the rocking chair and just listen to Music Box Dancer. I can dance around to Spanish Coffee.

And who doesn't want to back to their childhood once in a while?