Letters From Home

Vengeant mentioned a week or so ago that he needed more socks. For any mere mortal this would not be a particularly difficult request to fulfill, but since Veng wears size 15 shoes, locating the accompanying socks requires special skills on the part of the sock buyer. Mainly, the ability to find the one rack of extra large socks in amongst the regular size offerings, and the wisdom to know which stores have even the one rack of extra-larges, without charging the same prices for socks that they would otherwise apply to a brand new Mercedes.

For anyone else in a similar situation, the key is Penneys in the Galleria, the regular men’s sock-and-undies department, and plenty of patience. F’zer and I headed over there today. I thought I’d have to persuade F’zer to go along (and did actually mention the magic word “Rubio’s” as an enticement) but it turns out he needed some more socks, too. So while he easily located the bag of tube socks he wanted, I started poking through the racks of dark-colored dress socks. I only had to go through two racks before I found the extra-larges, but not in blue or black as Vengeant had requested. The only available color appeared to be an indescribable color somewhere between black and very dark green. However, they had a lot of them, in different thicknesses, and I reasoned that under dark colored pants nobody was going to notice what color the socks are. So I grabbed some.

We then went over to the Big & Tall department, where I occasionally have reasonable luck finding stuff for Veng. Penneys says BIG and tall and they mean it; most of the clothing there is sized for guys who are oh, about 6′5″ and 485 pounds. However, this time our luck held and we snagged one white shirt and two pairs of slacks in Veng’s sizes. Woohoo!

We then strolled down the mall to see what’s changed at the south end since the last time F’zer was in there, and it was his idea to go browse in Lane Bryant. I usually don’t shop there even though I like their clothing, because getting anyone to wait on you in there is a lost cause. That was no different today. I saw no sales clerks on the floor, although the cashier insisted (to someone seeking a sales clerk) that there were in fact two out there somewhere. F’zer picked me out a lovely skirt, and I got a t-shirt to go with it, and then (wow, what a terrible chore this was) had to pick out a second one in order to get the twofer sale price. I also picked out two pairs of earrings. Then I approached the checkout, and discovered that the woman behind the counter couldn’t make up her mind whether it was appropriate to focus her attention on the customers trying to pay for things. She kept darting back and forth between the cash register and a TV that was apparently supposed to be playing a video in the back. The woman in front of me had to stand and wait through four back-and-forth dashes behind the counter; each time the customer would take one more step in the credit-card approval process, the clerk would be over messing around with the TV. So the clerk would come back, press one button, go off to the TV again and the customer would be left in the lurch, waiting for the clerk to press another button to complete the next step in the transaction. I wouldn’t have put up with that for a minute, myself, and would have asked the clerk whether the customer or the TV was paying her salary and to choose the object of her attentions wisely thereby, but I wasn’t first in line at that point. She doesn’t know how lucky she was.

Having gotten my items paid for (the clerk apparently abandoned the TV to its own devices) F’zer and I headed off to Michaels and then Rubio’s. At Michaels I finally got the replacement cutter for my Fiskars paper trimmer, and a nice frame that I intend to use for pictures of my parents. On the way out, I saw some essential-oil warmers on clearance for $3, which I thought was an OK price. Unfortunately, it was only the two icky colors that were on sale. The color I wanted, wasn’t. Hmm. So I handed F’zer the one I wanted, and one of my two 50% off coupons and asked him to get in line in front of me. I used one coupon on my frame and F’zer used the other on the oil warmer and thus got it for less than the clearance price. Yay!

Then we rewarded ourselves for our shopping savvy by having lunch at Rubio’s, which has a couple new items on the menu and now offers flour tortillas instead of only corn. Rubio’s has without a doubt the best fire-roasted salsa in town, and I wish they sold it in jars. But it probably wouldn’t taste as good that way.

And then, having emptied our bank account and filled our tummies, we wended our happy way home. Leftovers from the party for dinner tonight, yay!

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Typical Infmom progression.

* Look at list of things-to-clean-before-party.

* Begin with living-room alcove full of photo storage boxes and personal tchotchkes.

* Pull everything off shelves in order to clean shelves.

* Clean shelves.

* Start putting things back.

* Go to locate earthquake-sticky-stuff, which is nowhere to be found.

* Decide, what the hell, there’s time to run over to Home Depot and buy more earthquake-sticky-stuff.

* Walk out door to go to car, discover that computer glasses are still on face, drop glasses into outsize zip pocket of new Victorinox bag.

* Decide, at Home Depot, to buy some almond gloss enamel to paint the doors in the living room, which have been half-paint-half-varnish for heaven knows how long.

* Find that locating a simple quart can of almond varnish is a far more difficult task than expected, and locating earthquake-sticky-stuff even more so.

* Pay for items via self-checkout.

* Return home.

* Discover that computer glasses have fallen out of bag at some point between home and mid-Home-Depot.

* Discover that cat has peed on kitchen rug and pooped on laundry room floor despite clean cat box with brand new litter.

* Saturate kitchen rug with Nature’s Miracle. Put on washing machine.

* Walk back in kitchen and step in residual Nature’s Miracle on floor in bare feet.

* Stick items to shelf in alcove. Return photo storage boxes to their shelf.

* Shove all other residual items from alcove into Trader Joe’s bag to be dealt with later. (this is the Official InfFamily Method of dealing with Extra Stuff)

* Notice that we don’t have enough plates to eat dinner on, and the floor in front of the sink where the rug was is still damp.

* When F’zer calls to announce he’s on the way home, suggest going OUT to dinner.

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I got off to a fast start. I probably realized about as soon as consciousness itself dawned that I was smarter than the other kids. Like Isaac Asimov before me, I was secure in that intelligence. I could almost always figure stuff out, in and out of school. It was a confidence builder even as I failed to connect with most other kids socially in grade school.

Once we moved to a new community where the other kids hadn’t gotten in the habit of hating me, life was very good indeed. I was adequately popular and academically accomplished enough to make me one of the few people I know who doesn’t look back on the high school years with a great deal of I-was-too-hip-for-the-room angst.

When I got to college, though, all bets were off. Released from a moderately toxic environment of battling parents (who would soon agree to divorce) instead of moving ahead, I drifted. As the saying goes, I never let my school work interfere with my education. I flunked a class, freshman year, thus killing any chance I had of getting into the Oriental Institute’s Egyptology program, which is what I’d pinned my dreams on.

Where would I be, had I not derailed myself by focusing on my social life instead of my studies? A question with no answer. No one knows.

I’d like to believe that I could have done what my daughter is now doing, reaching the heights of academic achievement. Certainly I could have, intellectually. I intensely regret killing my own chances at a career in Egyptology, that much is certain.

But… had I gone on to that kind of demanding graduate-school environment, there is no doubt I would never have had the husband and family that I do today.

I recently did some idle Google searching and turned up the personal page of someone I knew in high school, someone who has a long list of impressive achievements to brag about (and brag she does). It left me feeling massively under-achieved. There’s no way I can catch up to that.

On the other hand, would I have wanted to give up the husband I got, for the career I wanted? And never known the children I had, in exchange for equal bragging rights?

I don’t think so. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio….

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It seems to me that one of the main problems with the USA today, if not the main problem, is that the politicians are, for the most part, completely out of touch with reality. They exist out there in Politicianland somewhere, where they can imagine themselves to be potentates of old and force everyone else to play along with the fantasy.

I think it’s way past time We the People brought this game of Fantasy Rajah to a halt. Here’s how it’s done. The New Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, if you will.

First of all, Congressional salaries shall be three times the national average, adjusted annually. That way, the only way they get richer is if we get richer.

Second: The President gets four times the national average, adjusted annually.

Third: Local politicians’ pay will likewise be pegged to that of their constituents, adjusted annually.

Fourth: In no case will politicians’ vehicles, fuel, food, utilities or housing be paid for by We the People or by anyone other than the individual politician. And that applies to every politician from the President right down to the local dog catcher. No more free lunch.

Fifth: Members of Congress shall be forbidden to purchase property in or near Washington DC. They shall be required to live (rent free) in housing provided by We the People. All other costs associated with living in that housing shall be the responsibility of the individual politician. Perhaps We the People should purhcase the Watergate complex for this purpose.

Sixth: Members of Congress shall be mindful of the fact that their homes are not in Washington, but in the state and/or district from which they were elected. They shall be required to maintain offices in their place of election, at their own expense, and return to those offices in person at least once each month, at their own expense.

Seventh: Congressional and Presidential perks and pensions shall be phased out ASAP. Members of Congress are already individually wealthy and they don’t need to be sucking up We the People’s money in perpetuity. Each member shall be required to participate in Social Security and shall have to purchase health (and other) insurance on the same basis as self-employed people. Congress shall not be considered a “group” for the purpose of purchasing insurance of any kind.

Eighth: Members of Congress shall be required to stick to the business of governing and shall be forbidden to get involved in legislating social issues of any kind. There shall be a strict schedule of legislative issues to be considered, with the budget taking primary importance. Not until the important issues of national government are dealt with shall any other issues be permitted on the agenda except in case of true life-and-death emergency for the nation.

Ninth: Members of Congress shall be required to canvass their constituents on each issue and vote the way the majority of the people back home would feel on each issue. What the politician feels is irrelevant, since he or she is there to represent the people back home.

Tenth: No change in politicians’ perks, salary, or benefits may be voted on by the politicians themselves, All such changes shall be permitted only by referendum of We the People. If we say no, there shall be no appeal.

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Yesterday, we bought a wireless router and I tried valiantly to get it to work and failed. I set it aside and figured I’d get someone else to work on it today. However, overnight I had something of a brainstorm. The new wireless router is the same brand as the older wired one, and even looks the same (except that it has an antenna on the side). Its IP address is also the same. Therefore, why couldn’t we just exchange the wireless router for the wired one?

F’zer wasn’t so sure he wanted to do that, but he humored me by trying it. And since he knows a lot more about these things than I do (note to self: Networking class at GCC this fall FOR SURE) he got it up and running almost immediately.

And the high-tech wireless cards in the high-tech laptops in the house connected immediately. My laptop, being nearly ten years old and having equally geriatric technology, took a while longer. But I was determined, and I kept on clicking on stuff in the D-Link configuration utility till it threw in the towel and cooperated. Bwaa haa haaa, better wireless connectivity than I’ve ever seen before. Now I can sit in the living room and blither all day, assuming I want to do it at Pentium 150 speed, of course.

And in other good news, my new Swiss Army Bag arrived today. Even though it doesn’t fit in the closet as well as my old DayTimer backpack did, I love it already. And I took an old DayTimer student binder that I’d had kicking around for ages, sawed the ring mechanism out of it with a jeweler’s saw, and turned it into a “tool shuttle” a-la the Levengers’ catalog, for a grand total of $0. That’s my kinda project, for sure.

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This was my first attempt at creating a bumper sticker. I love CafePress.

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My brother Swifty is 50 today. Too bad I didn’t think to do some SWIFTY IS FIFTY shirts via CafePress or something. I did send him a shirt that says WORLD’S COOLEST UNCLE.

One thing about being the oldest is that you get to remember a time when there was just you, before those other guys came along and spoiled it all. I don’t remember the actual day Swifty came home from the hospital, but I do remember that he was a cheerful, good-natured kid.

Which he still is. I just wish his favorite recreation wasn’t going to the racetrack. Because the minute Swifty bets on a horse, the horse inevitably becomes convinced it’s pulling a milk wagon and it’s got all day. At least that gives Uncle Swifty a good long time to sit in the stands and tear up his tickets.

Hmm, guess mabe I shouldn’t have mentioned tickets in the same paragraph as Swifty………..

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I’ve been thinking about resetting my Zire and reinstalling everything just to clean up a couple of messes I created when I removed the old data card and inserted the new 1 gig one. But I appear to have lost, somewhere, the archive disks that had a lot of the stuff I downloaded for Palm platform over the years (grrr). So I started browsing various web sites to see if I could find more e-books to read in MobiPocket format, since I couldn’t find the original set that I had.

MobiPocket’s site has a bunch of freebies. And that’s how I found myself staying up till nearly 1am re-reading Anne of Green Gables on my Zire. I’d forgotten how much I liked that book. And in re-reading it, I realized how much its content had gotten mixed up with the storyline of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm in my mind. They’re pretty much the same story. And I read both books for the first time at about the same time in my life.

More fun to come, as I re-read The Three Musketeers and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and King Solomon’s Mines. With barn-burner classics like that, who needs new books? (says the Infmom who came home with three of Kathy Reichs’ books from the library today)

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With a lot of expert help, I’ve set up my own editorial space. My essays will appear here from time to time. Questions, comments and constructive criticism welcomed.

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