Sisters

Today I got an e-mail from my sister Ruth, which is lovely, and always makes me very happy, especially since a) she is in Germany for a year, and b) she was on a trip-within-the-trip to Portuagal, and didn't have computer access.

And then seconds later, I got a message from my older sister Sarah! Who lives in Mexico, and from whom I had not heard for more than a year! She had just discovered the last e-mail that I had sent her, which had somehow gotten lost for (say it with me now) more than a year. Amazing!

Lagniappe

Okay, here's the scoop.

Last night I stopped at the Salvation Army on my way home from work. I was kind of cross, since Joe had asked me to pick him up at Nick's on my way home, and I had tried to, but he had then gone to sleep and hadn't come to the door. Even though I had warned him specifically about this, when I called as I was leaving the office to say I would be there in fifteen minutes! So I stood there ringing the bell repeatedly, all to no avail. ARGH!

ANYWAY.

So. I had stopped at Salvation Army, and was tooling around my usual sites within its doors -- glass and china, picture frames, books and sweaters. I found a piece or two of china and a little box of small spools of thread of many colors. And then I found a sweater set -- a truly beautiful one, the color of golden brown sugar, with long cable diamonds running down the front. A two-piece set, and they wanted to charge me for each piece separately, so the set cost almost fifteen dollars, but still -- I will get many many days of wear from this set, and it's even a little too big for me, and so very pretty! So, in my estimation, completely worth it.

However!

When I got home, I was laying the set out to look at it and gloat over it. And, as I spread the cardigan out on the bed, something sparkling caught my eye as it rolled out onto the quilt. And guess what it was?

It was a diamond ring.

Perhaps not real diamonds, it could be cubic zirconia -- feels fairly light for the size of it -- and that's another thing about it -- it's also slightly too big for me! So I'm wearing it on the second finger of my hand, not even the ring finger.

But there it was! In the pocket of a sweater that I bought at the SALVATION ARMY!

A DIAMOND RING!

I mean, it's like a stupid scene in a poorly-written movie, too good to be true in several different directions at once!

Ten smallish diamonds, in a gentle curve, in a gold-tone setting. Really just as beautiful as my wedding ring was.

But not my wedding ring! A very pretty ring, and TOTALLY FREE!

Sometimes Fifteen a Day: Or, the Generation Gap

Well, Nameless Agent strikes again, but this time it's an agent that I really like! And I feel slightly guilty for posting this post about him, but it's too good to pass up. I think, anyway. And anyway, he is far too elderly and unaware to find this and read it. Not that he isn't an intelligent human, he is, and knows his job. It's just that the whole technological world has pretty much passed him by.

Anyway.

This past Saturday, I am at the Second Saturday class, and during the break, Nameless Agent comes up to me. We exchange greetings, and then he says, in an undertone, with his hand on my elbow, as though this is a private matter, which he is asking me as a special favor:

Nameless Agent: "When you send out these e-mails, you know, with things like class schedules, would it be too much to ask for you to put (Name of Company Being Withheld By Request) on them?"

Me: You mean in the subject line?

Nameless: "...well, on them where I can see it?"

Me: "...Sure, no problem. I'd be glad to."

NA: "Because it's just too hard for me to tell, with my eyesight, and all, which e-mails are important. I just delete them all, unless I can see that they are actually to me. I mean, you know," and here he lowers his voice even more to make sure I get this, "sometimes I get fifteen messages A DAY."


! ! ! !

"Allergies, allergies...

...something's living on my skin!/ Doctor, please, doctor, please/ open up, it's me again!"

I took a Benadryl this morning,and a few hours later I am overwhelmed with sleepiness. Fortunately, (or unfortunately) there is no one in the office today, and the phone has only rung once. Course, it's only ten-thirty -- things could heat up later, but right now, I could lie down under my desk and sleep.

Not that I will, you understand. But I COULD.

Question re: Geese

Now that the nest has five eggs in it, (very tempting they are, too!) and is still right there on the roof, it causes me to wonder. If they do hatch (which seems sort of up-in-the-air at this point -- no pun intended) how will the goslings get down off the roof and into the water? I mean -- I know a baby owl or vulture is of course raised to flying age in the nest up at the very top of a raggedy old snag. Even robins are taught to fly from high up. But ducks and geese, I've always seen waddling down to the water and learning, first of all, to swim.

So? Perhaps I should just eat the eggs now and save their parents the heartbreak of seeing their babies die, one right after the other, from a ten-foot tumble!

Big Ol' Goose Egg

Joe called me at work today. Quite excited.

"Guess what, Mom!"

"Well, what?'

"I went out on our balcony to shake the mud out of my clothes so I could wash 'em, you know? And one of the geese ATTACKED me!"

Me: (skeptical) "Really? Attacked you?"

Joe: "Yup! And you wanna know why?"

Me: "Oh, yes, I'm dying to know why!"

Joe: "Because there's an EGG!"

Me:"......an..?"

Joe: "An EGG! An enormous one! An enormous egg, just sitting there on the roof of the patio below our deck! Just sitting there!"

And there is. The mother goose was sitting on it when I got home, so all I saw was her smooth back and lovely feathers as she craned her neck around to look warningly and threateningly at us.

Friday Already

Yes, it is -- a grey, chilly day, drenched in rain, and spray, and other manifestations of water. They are predicting a sunny Sunday, however. Which would be a very good day to go and visit my parental units. I should call them and see if they are going to be home.

"...besame, besame mucho..." I do like this song. It's funny to translate it and see how it loses its flavor! "Kiss me, kiss me a lot..." Not much there!

So when I come in to the office and find a snotty little note written by a person of obviously limited intelligence, what would be the very best sort of response? My response was to laugh, but what would be the very best, for everyone involved?

The note, which is from Nameless Agent, of course, says (and I quote) "Please add legal size paper to the machine, I almost never come to the office, and when I come the machine has no paper!"

There really isn't a best answer to that, is there? Because what Nameless Agent needs from it (obscure, I'm afraid) is not going to be compatible with what I need -- to laugh and shake my head, and not allow myself to be even mildly annoyed with her wooly thinking. Since, come on -- the number of times she is in the office has nothing to do with whether or not there is paper in the printer -- nor does it add even slightly to the distress-level of the absence of legal-sized paper. But obviously to her it does!

I've taped it to the wall of my desk, and I grin every time I look up and see it.