It might as well be spring

The daffodils in this part of South Carolina didn't get the memo that it's still winter.

Our daffys have fast-forwarded three-plus weeks, right into spring.

It helps that it's close to seventy degrees just about every day.

Still, you've got to love their enthusiasm as much as their innocent beauty.

I know I do.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday

Random retail ruminations of the valentiney variety

The week preceding Valentine's Day was, for me, fraught with missteps and mishaps and near-misses and -- I am happy and grateful to report -- swift and satisfying resolution of all of the above.

Still. It was mildly harrowing.

Or at least it had the potential to be.

Allow me to elaborate.

It all began (continued?) on the Saturday before Valentine's Day, when TG and I were out and about, doing a fair amount of shopping, because my best buddy at church had a birthday the next day.

I had her gift but I wanted a stick balloon to go with it.

Except, our search for said item at a certain oversized (and overly vexing) retailer which I will not name, was frustratingly fruitless because out of the hundreds of stick balloons available, not one was of the Happy Birthday persuasion.

They were all Valentine's Day balloons and that's not what I needed. 

I mean, I get it: Valentine's Day is five days away and people are shopping for their flowers and cards and chocolates and stuffed animals and what-not, and as a cutesy add-on, a ninety-seven-cent stick balloon fits the bill nicely. 

A cheap thrill, as it were.

But holy smokes, people have birthdays in February too! Leave two or three birthday balloons out for those people.

Nope. None to be found. The landscape had been cleansed of everything resembling a birthday balloon.

So TG and I moved on, and he had the idea of going to Dollar General where they were sure to have birthday-themed stick balloons.

There's one near our house (a DG, that is), and so we went there, and after asking a nice young man wearing a name tag whether we might find any non-Valentine stick balloons on the premises, and being told noooo ... don't think soooo ... we found them with no help from anyone.

They were right over by the greeting cards, which made perfect sense. And there's a minute of my life I wasted asking for help when I didn't need any help. Let that be a lesson.

Having secured my birthday balloon for Joyce's present, I also scored a few Valentine-themed stickers and a small craft project to do with Dagny during the coming love-obsessed week.

Then I decided to go in search of one more item -- a certain kind of cosmetic bag at a certain negligible price -- which I found instantly and was all, wow, look, cool, I'm getting this.

So it was that upon checkout, we had items in two bags (the super-find cosmetic purse going into a plastic bag all its own). Except, when TG was paying I grabbed one bag (the one with a stick balloon sticking out of it and stickers and such stuck down inside it) and walked out.

TG followed me and as we got into the car (actually I first attempted to get into a car that looked just like ours ... not even the same make and model ... but it was dark ... both the night and the cars), TG and I were chatting about something or other.

The Raven was perpendicular to the store, as we'd just backed out of our parking space and were ready to roll, as it were, when in my peripheral vision I noticed a sudden flurry of movement.

Turned out it was the DG cashier, another nice young man, running -- literally sprinting -- towards our car, brandishing my forgotten bag which contained the second half of our order.

I opened the door (I have difficulty finding the right button to push to lower my window, especially in the dark, so I didn't even try) and thanked him profusely and took my second bag, wondering how I could have forgotten that.

The next day, after church, it was decided that TG and I would take Dagny out to lunch and back to our house for a nap. It was a cold, rainy day and she naps better at my house than at home.

Audrey wanted a quiet afternoon to herself and who can blame her?

Brittany and Andrew joined us at one of our favorite places for Italian -- TG and I were both peckish for lasagna and Dagny's order is ALWAYS spaghetti.

I do believe that child would walk into an ice cream parlor and order spaghetti. She'd order spaghetti at Starbucks. She'd ask for spaghetti at Five Guys Burgers and Fries. She'd request a dish of spaghetti at Vinny's Vegan Venue.

With no shame.

When we go over to Andrew and Brittany's for dinner, somebody stops by the store and picks up a microwaveable single-serving of spaghetti. That way we'll be able to have a conversation while Dag is occupied getting the noodles onto her fork and into her mouth.

But at an Italian place? Yeah; spaghetti. And she eats five or six bites, then the rest goes home in a box. But what sacred silence while she manages those half-dozen bites.

That Sunday -- the one before Valentine's Day -- was no different. Except, as the fates would have it, Dagny was wearing a winter-white dress. The Nautica number we got her for Christmas.

My lasagna got cold from the number of times I jumped up to re-drape her with napkins.

When she was finished? Her outfit was decorated with so many orangey spaghetti-sauce spots, I knew I'd have to treat the stains and wash the frock while she was snoozing in my bed that afternoon. There was nothing else for her to wear back to church that evening.

Oh well. I am so blessed to have a bottle of Spray 'n Wash on the shelf in my laundry room. I know how to use it, too: Spray. Wash.

But when we left the restaurant? I was about to board The Raven when our waiter came out wildly waving something white.

The box containing the remainder of Dagny's bisketti.

Because I myself had asked for said box, placed most of the child's entree inside it, and promptly left it on the table.

Great save by the vigilant waitstaff of Papa Gio's. He could've just pitched the box. Saluto.

I should introduce him to the nice kid at DG who ran after me the night before with my left-behind cosmetic bag. They have so much in common.

That afternoon, while Dagny slept, TG watched over her and I went shopping.

I do that maybe one Sunday afternoon a year; it's anything BUT my habit. However, I had a major Kohl's (I go there maybe once a year too) discount, and I wanted to shop for the birthday of one of my kids who likes certain lines of merchandise at Kohl's.

Why on a Sunday, you may ask. Because I was dressed and had already been out and about, and Sunday afternoon is limbo time.

As in, it was something productive to do in a dead two hours without having to get gussied up to go out on a weekday when I'd rather stay home.

So to Kohl's I went, and I wasn't there long at all before I found exactly what I needed. I think I ended up with four things.

Except, when I got home, my bag contained only three things. And a receipt for four things.

I called Kohl's. I asked for the department where I'd been shopping and where I'd actually checked out.

The kind (if ditzy) sales clerk remembered me (it had been all of sixteen minutes), apologized, and assured me that she had my missing purchase. She'd neglected to put it into my bag.

She offered to leave it at Customer Service with some Kohl's Cash included for my trouble, since I'd have to go back after church that night to fetch it.

I was tempted to ask her why she didn't fly out of the store behind me, waving the missing item, and stop me from leaving without it. And whether she'd like to meet the guy from DG and the guy from PG, because they could show her how it's done.

But I didn't.

Is there a moral to this story? No. Except, check before you leave anywhere -- ANYwhere -- to make sure you're taking away everything that's yours.

Speaking of what's mine, TG gave me some beautiful (costume) jewelry for Valentine's Day. Good and gallant and charming man that he is, he let me pick it out.

And since I bought it online, there was no checking out without what I'd he'd paid for.

As a surprise however, TG left the mug pictured at the top of this post, beside the coffee pot on Valentine's Day morning (I get up later than he does), with a romantic card.

Funny Trump-isms aside, if my husband of nearly forty years really thinks I'm a great wife, beautiful and terrific and fantastic, compared to whom all other wives are total disasters?

He's delusional. But that's the kind of romance I like.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Saturday

May all your problems be mall ones

I'm fifth from the left, wearing the black velvet coat. Outside Rich's, Perimeter Mall, Atlanta, Christmas 1977 or '78.

Oh hey. Today I am moved to explore a certain topic to which my consciousness has been raised by two things: my last post, and a post on Shorpy.

As to Shorpy, let’s just say I’m addicted. Not a day goes by. Maybe this type of thing is not for everyone, but as far as I’m concerned, a site with nothing but commentary-free (except for the awesome Shorpy-community comments and Dave’s occasional acerbic-sarcastic corrections on grammar, spelling, usage, and general knowledge) historic pictures with clever titles is, to me, catnip with a side of Junior Mints.

As to the mall part, I could write a ream on how much — and why — I detest shopping malls. 

To illustrate, let me assure you that as a rarely-broken rule, nowadays I decline to go near a mall except to buy makeup at Dillard's when Lancôme and Clinique are in gift. And even then I take pains not to come within sight of the interior mall part; the soles of my shoes touch only the shiny floor of the anchor store. 

The reason is that for the year between college and marriage, I was a salesgirl at Evans, a dress shop at Southlake Mall in Merrillville, Indiana (the "Chicagoland" area). My territory was the coat department.

(It’s the very store — and department — where I bought the black velvet coat. Only, that was a whole year before I became an employee.)

Much like this year's Chicago weather in the news, and as I have previously outlined here, the winter of '78-'79 was bitterly brutal even by the rigorous standards of what’s colloquially and affectionately known as "da region" by dese, dem, and dose guys.

I rode to work with my roommate, Leah -- she being, of the two of us, the only one with transportation -- because she worked in another store in the same mall. Only, we had anything BUT the same schedule. Work it out: I was stuck in the stale recycled air for hours either before or after my shift, wandering, with nothing to do. 

Unless my adored fiancé could come and get me, of course -- but as a teacher and basketball coach, he worked long and odd hours too. We couldn’t even get officially engaged until the season concluded.

(There’s more than corn in Indiana; there’s hoops, and in the Hoosier State, it's more than a game. It's a religion.)

Looking back I wonder why, during my long lull times, I didn’t simply sit on a bench and read a book. Or write one. Or people-watch. Or shop — I love shopping. 

(Or at least, I used to. Now I point and click, and that suits me just fine. Going out among people is becoming more and more of a chore. I could easily become a recluse. What am I saying? I’m semi-reclusive as it is. Ask anyone. Ah. Subject for another day.)

But how many Orange Juliuses can one person drink? How many times can one cruise around the fashion displays at Casual Corner before putting something on layaway? How many engravable items can one consider buying from Things Remembered?

(Actually, I did buy TG an engraved letter opener from Things Remembered for Christmas that year. Forty-plus years later, it's as shiny as when he removed it from its box and said, that's nice. And it's still used on a daily basis to open our mail.)

I think during that winter before my June wedding, I may have been distracted by love-sickness. It’s a distinct possibility. There’s also the fact that, dressed for work in an elegant shop and with a hard bench to sit on, I found it difficult to relax enough to enjoy a book. Maybe I just wasn’t being very bright. Or chose the wrong book. We will never know.

Be all of that as it may, that did it for me as far as shopping malls go (and I wish all of them would): after the experience of a winter confined to a large space full of strangers and no windows, the smells and sounds of a mall almost instantly bring about a case of the fantods. 

On Shorpy, however, yesterday over early-morning coffee, I studied this post, featuring a photo of the first-ever actual shopping mall as we know them today. And I let it speak to me. 

I admit that I'm drawn to the concept of a mall — stores, restaurants, good lighting, climate control, mood music, a fountain here and there — and as far as that goes, Southdale Center looks to have been a fine one (actually it is still in existence and operational). 

There was a time when, as a kid, I would have loved going to a place featuring floor-to-ceiling birdcages full of parakeets. A store like Woolworth's, with a lunch counter (next to coffee shop, two of the most delicious words in the English language when spoken together), would've been a huge draw too.

Hamburger and fries, with a real milkshake? Yes please. 

But with no mall needed, I still remember the smell that greeted your nose when you walked, holding to the hand of your mother, into a downtown Sears Roebuck store in the ‘60s, before downtowns as serious shopping destinations faded to memories and the ghosts they rode in on.

The aroma emanated from the candy and nut counter, and it seemed to me that it pervaded every corner of Sears Roebuck. 

It was sugared warmth trapped in a display case under lights meant to induce drooling, sweaty palms, impulsive pointing, and pleading eyes — the kind that made your mother relent after the initial we’ll see and reach for her change purse.  

It was pecans snuggled with caramel under blankets of chocolate. It was plump cherries and snowy coconut and sugar-frosted jelly fruit slices and soft peppermint taffy and peanut butter fudge and almonds robed in exquisite pastel shells. It was decadence and playfulness and wish fulfillment of the intensely treat-centric variety.

What floated out from the candy and nut counter at Sears Roebuck was a presence as much as it was a scent and I can smell it in my mind to this day. No mall could ever match that fragrance.

Well, wait. There are those pretzels as big as bicycle wheels. And the cinnamon rolls as big as your head. Okay forget it.

So at one time prior to 1978, it’s possible that Southdale Center in Edina, Minnesota, would have held a strong allure for me. Except it’s in Minnesota, which in winter is even colder than Illinois, so if I’d had a choice, I would’ve passed on it for that qualifying detail alone.

Nevertheless, you can see from the picture above that on at least one occasion I did go to a mall voluntarily with my mother and some of her friends from church. From pictures taken on the same day as this one, I know that we had a festive lunch at the Magnolia Room in Rich's department store, which anchored the Perimeter Mall in Atlanta.

I've no memory of why we would have done that. 

Nor do I recall why I'm whispering in my mother's ear as the picture was snapped, but most likely I'm suggesting that when this lively party breaks up, let's you and me find someplace to get a snack.

Hastening to my conclusion, I'd like to tell a small story that, technically, is not mine to tell -- it was contained in one of the comments by a member of the aforementioned Shorpy community, on the post about Southdale Center.

And it struck a chord with me because of the similarity to a story that is mine to tell, and which I in fact did tell, in this post on this web site, in 2008.

Both stories involve parakeets and children.

While I like to think my story is humorous enough in its own right, the Shorpy commenter's tale is funnier -- not least because it wasn't intended to be.

Said commenter told of being a small child -- the youngest of four -- growing up on a farm in Minnesota in the 1950s when Southdale Center opened to great fanfare.

Since the family lived an hour's drive from Edina, and Mom didn't relish driving on the freeway, there were exactly two excursions per year to the mall. Once every six months, they'd plan the trip and drive to the big city and spend the day at Southdale. They'd buy new shoes and eat cheeseburgers and admire the parakeets.

It was a big deal.

One year, the children persuaded their mother to buy one of the parakeets, with all the gear that went along with it. The parakeet lived for years, but eventually died. As they do. On the next scheduled visit to Southdale, the family chose a replacement bird and purchased it.

Except, this second budgie perished on the way home. When, back at the farm, they opened its little paper traveling carton, all they had was a parakeet corpse.

What would you have done? Driven immediately back to Southdale Center -- or if not immediately, at least by the next day?

Hashtag me too.

But that's not what happened. Mother-from-Minnesota, practical farm wife who disliked that long drive, wasted no time fussing or fuming. Instead, she popped the dead parakeet into the freezer, along with the dated receipt for its purchase.

And six months later, she presented a partially-thawed dead bird to a clerk at Southdale Center, and asked for, and received, yet another replacement bird.

The commenter does not reveal (may not remember) how long that third bird lived, from which I took that it enjoyed a normal life span -- or at least that it didn't buy the farm on the way to the farm.

If only every problem were so deftly and simply solved. When they open a mall selling that, I'll stifle my urge to panic and be there on opening day.

And that is mall all for now.

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Happy Monday :: Happy Valentine's Day Week

Dog days

Oh hi. Did you miss me?

I'll take that as a yes.

For the past two weeks I have experienced, not mere distractions; I have had even greater distractions that distracted me from the original distractions.

In fact, there were a few moments in there when I feared that my hair had actually caught fire.

But no. I have all of my hair -- un-singed -- and my brain did not explode. And I am among the living.

And in a practical sense, not significantly the worse for wear.

So here we go. 

What do you think about all of this weather? 

As I ask this, my second question of the day, our projected high temperature here in Columbia is 75 degrees.

Last week when, on the worst day of the polar vortex, it was 22 degrees below zero -- actual temperature -- in Chicago, I paused to reflect on our visit there last August.

Chicago is my favorite city in America. TG shares my enthusiasm, not least because he's been a die-hard Cub fan for nearly 50 years.

I love the Cubs too, but not in the same way and certainly for not as long. But Chicago? I'm pretty sure my affection for Chi-town exceeds TG's.

Not that it's a contest.

Having lived in Chicago several times as a child, and having lived thirty miles from it during most of the '70s, all of the '80s, and the early part of the '90s, I've experienced its weather more times than I care to remember.

There was that time -- January 20, 1985, to be exact -- when Chicago's all-time low temperature record was set. It was 27 below zero that day -- lower by five degrees than last Wednesday's low.

And then there was Saturday, December 24, 1983, when the temperature -- not counting wind chill, and you must count the wind chill -- sank to minus 25. There are no words to describe that kind of weather to someone who's never felt it, so I won't try. 

But on that Christmas Eve, while I was at home with three-year-old Stephanie and nine-month-old Audrey, baking cookies, TG left to go a few miles away to the hardware store.

When he was ready to head back home, and attempted to start our car, the vehicle declined to acquiesce to his request. TG called a friend, who came to help him. He eventually got home.

I do remember wearing a red silk dress to church services on Christmas Sunday, so apparently the car recovered.

And I won't bore you with tales of the brutal weather we endured in the Chicagoland area throughout the mid- to late '70s. You could look it up.

Suffice it to say that at least once while TG and I were dating, when he'd come to pick me up at the mall where I worked, the doors to his Toyota Celica were frozen shut and I had to climb in the window.

I was lean and lithe back then. Not to mention eager to hang with my beau.

At one point during that winter of 1978-79, there were 40 straight days in which the temperature did not rise above freezing. (Not a record for Chicago -- that was in 1976-77, when for 43 straight days the highs were below 32 degrees.)

Fast forward -- and I do mean fast -- to last August. While we were in Chicago to take in the city sights and delights (the restaurants! I can't even) plus a Cubs game, they were having a whole string of days with temperatures in the nineties.

On Monday, August 27th, our first full day there, the high was ninety-seven. Also by no means any kind of record for Chicago. But still.

My hair didn't ignite that day either, but I texted to Audrey -- who revealed that it was significantly cooler in Columbia-- that if I'd been at home, I wouldn't have left the house in ninety-seven-degree heat. 

And yet there I was, walking up and down Michigan Avenue in the unofficial furnace of the Midwest. Fry an egg on the sidewalk? Forget that. You could show an egg the sidewalk and it would fry up in its shell.

Right where TG and I walked, it was 119 degrees colder last Wednesday in Chicago.

So there you have it: the vagaries of the weather. We were in the Windy City during the Dog Days of summer, and as intense as that was, I'd go back to that tomorrow before I'd want to be there when it's 22 below zero.

These K-9s for Cops dogs have decorated the streets of Chicago for a few years now. I'm a dog person so naturally I snapped as many as I could even though I was in dire need of air conditioning.

Yesterday? It was fifty degrees in Chicago. In February! I've been there when it was fifty-five -- with wind and rain -- in July.

So it's true what you've heard: If you don't like the weather in Chicago, wait ten minutes.

Which is about how long it's taken you to read this post. For which I thank you.

And that is all for now.

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Happy Tuesday :: Happy February