Not Exactly a Brain Surgeon

I refuse to stand for this any longer! My own stupidity, I mean.

I'm a guy who doesn't do details very well. On the whole I am okay with who I am. But there's one area where I have lost patience with my lovable, old self. It has to do with groceries and lists.

As I have written previously (but am too lazy to look up the references which is okay because no one would bother to check them anyway, and I really don't blame you for being such a sensible steward of your time), I have a problem with groceries and lists. Almost invariably, I fail in either the making of that list or the shopping of same. It's not that it happens on occasion; it's that it happens frequently: so frequently that I'd pull out my hair if I still possessed a strand or two.

This time around, I managed to get all of the ingredients on the list for my Hamburger Noodle Casserole: pasta, beef, stewed tomatoes, cream of tomato soup, cream of celery, onions, and green peeper. Yup! They all got on my list. But they didn't all get home: namely, the green pepper. It was on the list; I just plain missed it.

I could forgive myself the occasional goofup, but we are talkin goofups plural. It happens over and over again. More frequently, it's that I don't get all of the ingredients listed in the first place, but it can be that I simply miss picking up an item that's on the list. Either way, it drives me crazy. I drive me crazy.

So, I made up some new rules. (i) Cuppa will double check the lists that I make, especially when I have copied the ingredients from a recipe. (ii) I will rewrite any haphazard list in an orderly fashion to make it more difficult to overlook something when I am shopping. (iii) I will take a writing utensil to the store and carefully cross out items as I place them in my cart. (iv) If I forget to bring a writing utensil, I will borrow a stubby pencil from the bakery department. (v) I will steal the dangblasted pencil if I have to.

Having decided on this protocol, I went shopping. This time, because we love our tender moments of togetherness, Cuppa came with me (isn't it touching?) and did the bulk of the shopping whilst I stared into space and did what I do best — gathered much mental wool. Towards the end of the expedition, however, she made a fatal error in judgment ... and left me to pickup the coffee cream, butter, and juice from the dairy-end of the store. I managed fine with the juice and butter, and the fact that the store was out of coffee cream wasn't my fault.

What was my fault, however ... was the buttermilk that I so sincerely added to the cart. Cuppa had written butter on the list, which you may recall I was able to obtain, but somehow my brain added another version of butter to the list — buttermilk. So you see, even when I don't forget to add items to the list and/or I manage to retrieve every ingredient on said list, I am likely to make up a new version in my head and add items willy nilly.

The thing is that although I will never be asked to perform brain surgery, I'm actually not all that dumb. But I sure feel dumb when I keep doing this ... over and over ... and ...

Conversing with Buppa

Cuppa has already posted this clip of Nikki Dee and me on the weekend, but I like it and can't resist. It takes fifty seconds.

Speaking of Spectacles ...

... as I was the other day, Somebody got a little silly the other night when we were visiting the kids. The hat and ball came from a collection of hand-me-down goodies that were brought over by a friend that day. She grabbed the sunglasses that were already in the house. And so the fun began.



She was getting a lot of reinforcement through family laughter, so she made the rounds visiting this person and that person.





At the same time and not visible in the previous photos, she was also wearing rubber boots from the new grab bag of goodies that I mentioned.



Of course, some one of the rest of us had to get in on the clown act. I mean to say, she deliberately ta ta-ed these items to me. I don't know why she picked Buppa, but what could I do but comply?



A good time was had by all, but some might have had more fun than others.

A Convergence of Two's

Be careful for the planet is in a powerful phase, and it's all our fault because we have caused what is known cosmically as A Convergence of Two's. Okay, so I'm making up the cosmic part but not the two part. You see, Cuppa has recently turned sixty-two, and even more recently Zach attained the ripe old age of two months. Meanwhile, the fabulous Nikki Dee will become two years old within two weeks. All this within the passing of one calendar month. So, be afraid; be very afraid.

I haven't been posting many photos of Zachary lately, partly because he's always about the same. Most often, he's sleeping, and when he's awake he's generally looking about placidly. It's even easy to forget he's around. To wit: we were over for dinner, so he was placed out of sight and out of harm's reach (aka Nikki Dee's reach) while we were eating. He was awake the whole time but so quiet I forgot all about him. To this day, that has never ever happened with his big sister. For some strange and inexplicable reason, one is always aware that Nikki Dee is in the room.

Nevertheless. we do mange to get snap some shots from time to time, and here are a few taken on or near his second month birthday.

A Spectacle of Change

The little one is changing. Obviously, her vocabulary is growing, but often, I can't put my finger on what is different than yesterday, for example, but I can still sense it. I know she's changing but I can't always say how. Is she sitting on my lap longer and listening to the story more? I think so. Sunglasses are one small indication but sure indication though. Not long ago, she wouldn't wear them, but now she does: even puts them on herself. Not long ago, she would put them on upside down. Suddenly, they go on right side up.

What doesn't change is just how much I love this kid.

Foto Friday

Saint Al Revisited



I mentioned Saint Al last week. Once the job was completed, I put my meagre Photoshop skills to work and made a thank you card. I've pasted a copy of the front of the card above. I had intended to use a halo to put over Al's head in a picture, either on the outside or inside. However, once I found the image below, I couldn't resist superimposing his face. We think it's pretty funny, and I think Al does too.



And here's a little collage representing some of the job that I printed as a little memento for both him and us.



Thanks again, Mr Saint Man.

Pearly White is Fine, but Really Now ...

Seriously, when is enough enough? Lately I've been even more bedazzled than usual by the spectre of super white teeth dazzling my eyeballs from the little screen that I confess to watching too much of (but I do watch on DVR and eliminate the commercials).

Up to a point, I applaud it: the desire to look better. I will even go so far as to say that I took some steps to lighten my teeth a number of years ago. As we got ready for my daughter's wedding, I decided that I needed to do something about my yellowing fangs. So, it came to pass that I had my dentist make trays (molds to fit over my teeth). Then I would put some sort of whitening agent in the trays, press them into place, and leave them on for the night. The process did some temporary good, but I didn't much enjoy sleeping with those things in my mouth, and years later discarded what was left of the whitening agent, for I hadn't used it up in four years or more.

So, I don't have anything against the notion really, but my goodness folks, there needs to be a limit. These days, I am seeing whiter than white, to the point where it looks gaudy and phony to these old eyes. Again, to me and probably not to anybody else on the planet, both Tyra Banks and Steve Harvey looked over-the-top-white on their recent Oprah appearances. I would look at them and then glance back at Oprah to reassure myself that she was showing some common sense. And she was; her teeth seemed to be in the normal-white range, and they sure looked fine to me.

Let's get a grip, shall we? Pearly white is good, but too many mouths are unnaturally white, well beyond pearly, and they just jangle me the wrong way.

Having said that, I understand that it's how I see and value this phenomenon, and it may not be, will most likely not be, how most good folk perceive it. But I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for the opportunity.