Author: cmglife

Exotic Currency

Published on by cmglife3 Comments

Today I was in the store buying a pair of sunglasses that would fit over my glasses. I know they make prescription sunglasses, but I am too cheap to buy them and I would probably lose them anyway. I thought this was a great compromise. My children are so embarrassed by me wearing my regular sunglasses over my glasses. They make me look I’m wearing those old fashioned mad scientist’s goggles.

Anyway, I counted out cash, 29 dollars, and handed it over to the cashier. She looked at me as if I’d just given her a handful of monopoly money.

“Oh,” she said,” I don’t usually take cash.” She counted the exotic currency while I was busy shoving receipts and stuff back into my wallet that had been freed when I took out the cash.

“Are you going to pay with some cash and some on your card?” she looked confused holding the money up.

Then it was my turn to look confused.

“There’s only nine dollars here,” the poor thing says.

“Oh,” I say, “I must’ve put the twenty back with the receipts!” And I gave her the twenty.

Then, trying to be helpful, she asks, “Do you have 16 cents, so you don’t have to break a dollar?”

Why couldn’t she just have left well enough alone?

“I think so,” I say and start digging in my coin purse, being careful not to give her the stray hair that is at the bottom. I put the 16 cents on the counter and kind of edge it over to her.

She begins to count it, picking up one very shiny coin to examine.

“This is an interesting one, ” she says and holds it up for inspection.

I’m thinking this girl has got to be kidding! It’s a *!?* penny for god’s sake! Then I realize what she’s got.

“Oh, I’m sorry, that is probably an English penny,” and I go into to a rambling explanation as to why I have an English penny in my coin purse, “I was in England in June and I haven’t gotten around to giving my coins to my dad.”

The question begs to be asked. Why do I still have those coins in my purse? Why am I carrying them with American coins? This has been an accident waiting to happen all along.

 

How Vain Can I Get?

Published on by cmglife

About 5 months ago my first granddaughter was born. It was out of state so I was staying at my daughter’s house.

Emily and Paul left for the hospital.  After a couple of hours Paul called from the hospital to tell me that Emily was in labor and it was time to come down. I had just gotten out of the shower and was just about to blow dry my hair. The dryer broke. Luckily I did finish my bangs first. When my hair air dries it becomes curly in some spots, wavy in spots and straight in yet some more places. I look like I’ve dried it by sticking my head out of a moving car. Oh, well, I thought this isn’t about my hair it’s about the birth of my granddaughter, see how selfless I really am?

We arrived and it was just as Paul had said, Emily was in labor, but only just beginning. She was still lucid and just sitting up. So I mentioned my hair dryer and she casually suggested I use her dryer which was in the bag she had brought for the hospital. At first I resisted because, I mean how vain can you be? Daughter in labor, mother blow drying her hair straight in the bathroom? But I did it anyway, I am ashamed to admit. It didn’t seem so appalling at the time, but in retrospect I really should have refused.

Word to the Wise

Published on by cmglife

Never buy and download songs to your iPod after you’ve had a glass of wine (or maybe two, who’s counting). Especially when your 16 year old son says,” Hey, Mom, I’ve got some songs you’d like!”

I’m cleaning today and listening to my iPod as I always do. To my dismay “Hit and Run”  comes on (and many more follow). It’s a song described by my son as “pop punk”. Oh the shame.

Hang Ten Atlantic

Published on by cmglife

We were in England last June. It was a different kind of a trip because my kids were along this time and I wanted it to have a bit more activity than simply visiting the relatives and seeing old things. One of the things I planned was surfing. My son, Tristan, 16, was very gung ho about the whole thing so I signed him up for lessons. I know, kind of unusual thing to plan in to do in England.

As the story continues, we made the arrangements but the date was cancelled because the “waves weren’t big enough” that morning. They said check back tomorrow. So we decided to go look for something else to do instead.

We were free for the whole afternoon so I took a chance and did a search on the Garmin for castles. Up came “Lynfield Castle” that wasn’t too far away. It was only 40 or so miles, that was alright, we had all afternoon. My dad was game, and of course we were, and more of course, I was!

We drove, and drove and drove. The roads we were taken down! The hedges were so huge on some of the roads it was claustrophobic! I had terrible premonitions of other vehicles coming the other direction, but strangely one never did!

Finally after driving for a good hour we arrived in Lynfield. I pealed my fingers from the dash and got out. Lynfield was a pub, a few houses, a church and the “castle”. Which wasn’t a castle at all, it was a first century prison!

Now the surfing story begins. We headed down to the beach and stopped at the lessons place, they said the waves were good today. After Tristan got his full body wet suit on he headed out. We noticed we could tell him apart from the other surfer students because he was the only one with his shirt on backwards.

While we were hanging around the surfing shop, Allison, 10, decided that she would like to try. After much discouragement, (from me) she decided on body board surfing instead. She got into her full wet suit.

Out to the beach we went. The waves were crashing that day. The weather was very cold for those of us not in wet suits, us being my dad and I. We watched as Tristan had his lesson. He seemed to be getting pretty good form there on the beach.

After a half an hour or so of lessons they headed into the water where the “form” that had been attained on the beach turned into a bunch of scrambled arms and legs. Occasionally his head would pop up above the froth of the waves, but none the less it was not a pretty site. Tristan continued on though. Taking his board and walking out to the break, waiting for a wave, hoisting himself up effortlessly and falling. His new nickname is now “hang four”.

So after watching Tristan for 10 minutes, Allison finally decided it was her turn to try. I attached the strap of the body board and off she went crashing into the waves. She seemed to be having a hard time of it. The waves kept throwing her all over the place and the board kept hitting her in the head! This went on for a few more minutes until I got a tap on my shoulder from the life guard. He said,” The strap is supposed to attach to her ankle, not her wrist!”

We fixed it to the correct limb and it was sort of better. Allison doesn’t have much patience, especially when it’s something new she’s learning. She kept at it though.

She was supposed to stay between the two tall flags located on the beach. The only problem was she kept moving further into the flagged area designated for surfing only, not body boarding. After yelling and waving our arms a lot to get her attention didn’t do any good, I waded out up to my knees trying to get her to pay attention to the flags. Finally, the lifeguard gave up too and flipped on his lights and sirens. That got her attention. She got over to her side, flipped the body board over and it hit her in the head again. We are always on pins needles with Allison’s temper; it has been a terrible thing in the past. And today was no different. She stomped out of the water and up on the beach slamming the board down with a “Damn board”. It had to be bad, she’s only 10 and not allowed to swear! I didn’t even say anything. I was just glad I didn’t have to pick up any body board pieces!

The Walrus

Published on by cmglife

Right now I am listening to my 10 year old daughter singing along to The Walrus by the Beatles. She has Rock Band the Beatles and knows all the songs.  This time she is listening to it on You Tube on my iphone.  I know the words of the song and I am cringing during a certain refrain in case she sings about the “Boy, you been a naughty girl you let your knickers down. ”  Luckily she skips over that part, somehow it has gone by unnoticed.  How could it go unnoticed?  She knows all of the other words.  I used to sing the same song when I was her age.  In our house we only had The Beatles, Roger Whittaker and Johnny Mathis albums. I don’t remember what I thought about that part of the song, probably took it at face value and moved on to the Koo Koo Ka Chu chorus!  Ah innocence!

ADD Laundry

Published on by cmglife

Housekeeping, especially laundry, with ADD has its special challenges, like it never gets done!

When you do laundry in my opinion that’s all you should be doing, any distraction at all is detrimental to the process. My laundry never gets finished. I sometimes do the right thing and take all the laundry baskets out to the living room where there is a big area to sort and make piles. I have devised one of my own systems. My stuff, husband’s stuff, kids stuff and towels. So far it hasn’t caused too much problem. The odd pink whites here and there over the years, it’s worth it, my system works!

On this particular day I have no plan, I’m just picking up piles from the individual rooms and stuffing them in the washer.  So I pick up one pile and put it in the washing machine, put the detergent in and turn it on. If I stayed there or somewhere close and waited for it I could have it done in record time, but no. I have to watch tv, read a book, get on the computer, do the dishes, get on the phone…….

So now the load number one is still sitting in the washer for 20 minutes before I remember I am doing the laundry. Twenty minutes, not too bad, I have all day. Next I put load number one into the dryer, dryer sheet and turn it on. Then it’s load number 2, I put it in the washing machine, put the detergent in and go finish what I was doing. Right, I can’t remember what I was doing before load number two, I’ll start a something new, that’s a better idea.

So another 20 minutes go by and I think about the laundry then realizing the dryer takes an hour so therefore there is at least 40 minutes left. I keep moving on. One hour goes by and I remember the laundry in the dryer, go to take it out and take load number two out of the washer to put in the dryer, but….. did you catch it before? I didn’t turn it on! This has been going on all my adult life. If I go to hell, this would be my hell, laundry. There is nothing I hate more!

After you get it out of the dryer, it’s still not done.  Doing laundry is like going grocery shopping, it’s such a process! Write the list, go to the store, buy the items, put the items on the checkout counter, put the bags into the cart, take the bags out of the cart, put the bags into the car, take the bags into the house, put the groceries away. And you haven’t even made dinner yet! I’m exhausted just remembering.

Back to the laundry, after they’re out of the dryer then they have to be folded. My husband tries to help out; he’s not one of those that doesn’t do any housework. He has to, it just wouldn’t get done sometimes, it’s more about self-preservation than charity. To keep the clean clothes separate from the dirty, he pours all the clean laundry on the couch. That is great if it ever gets folded. By the time I get around to it, the kids have sat all over it, half the socks are in between the couch cushions and my leopard print  underwear are the only thing visible from the front door when the neighbor stops by. Sometimes he’ll put it on the bed so I am forced to fold it and put it away so I can go to sleep.

Putting laundry away is the one process that never gets completely finished. I’ve had my son’s socks and underwear on my dresser since last week. I’ve got a stray belt and pair of shorts still lying on my nightstand.

While I’ve been writing this I am doing laundry and I’m going now to check to see if I put the dryer on for the wet load, because I didn’t the first time and now it’s 6:00 in the evening. I started at 8:30 this morning.