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Picking up a gift for an upcoming baby shower, The Fella and I spent an hour wandering the aisles of the local megastore (where the expectant parents registered), alternately cooing at tiny socks and cursing the shop’s Byzantine organizational system. [Author's note: I just wrote and cut, wrote and cut, wrote and cut some descriptions of the difficulties posed by just trying to buy the specified goddamned adorable towels and socks. You can well imagine.]
As we walked up and down and all around the aisles, I had ample time to notice the wafting fragrance of Fresh New Baby throughout the store, which I assumed came from some of the baby-care goods: salves and powders and unguents. Absently, I noted that the scent came in waves: sometimes subtle, sometimes strong, sometimes unpleasantly potent.
And then I looked up.
The megastore has large vents for air circulation. The vents pump air through the warehouse-sized space.
And anytime we stood under a vent, the baby smell became very strong indeed — oppressively so, even. As we moved away from a vent, the scent diminished, then began to grow again as we approached another ceiling vent.
I’ve done a little cursory online searching with no corroborating result, but I’m reasonably sure that my conclusion is correct: the baby megastore pumps the air full of artificial baby smell.
If any readers have occasion to visit their local baby megastore, I’d love some independent verification on this.
shoe business. After giving to charity perhaps 30 pairs of shoes*, I still have perhaps 15 pairs left. How many do I wear? Two: a pair of leather sandals in the summer (and around the house year-round), and a pair of tall boots in cold weather. In my defense, that’s partly due to an injury sustained in an accident early this year: I cannot wear heels above an inch these days.
*These were crazy rich-lady shoes, too, expensive and fragile and stylish and about 20 years out of date. There’s a story there for another time.
junking junk mail. When I receive junk mail with a prepaid return envelope, I circle my address on the return form and write in big block letters PLEASE REMOVE MY NAME AND ADDRESS FROM YOUR MAILING LIST. THANK YOU!, then carefully fold the entire mailing, including the original envelope, jam it into the prepaid envelope, and mail it off. I don’t know if it works, but it’s quite satisfying.
click. When I ask if you mind having the overhead light off (and I will ask, since I dislike the overhead light) or, more rarely, when I ask if you mind the overhead light on (which means I’m beading with teeny tiny beads or sewing or trying to find my black shirt among a pile of black laundry), I ask by saying “Click?” as I reach toward the light pull.
blocked rage. If you leave your grocery cart blocking the center of the aisle, if you pull your car into the crosswalk while waiting for the light to change, if you jump onto the bus the moment the doors open without waiting for standing passengers to disembark, if you enter the elevator and stand blocking the doors, if you and your gaggle of friends choose the spot in front of the escalator/ the library doorway/ the video drop/ the classroom door to stand around with your dogs and your strollers and your lattes while you catch up, you fill my field of vision with a pulpy red haze of rage. Also, if you have more than two items over the limit in the express lane, I loathe you, scofflaw.
queue. On the other hand, if I’m in line at the library with a lot of books or at the market with a number of items, and you’re standing behind me with just one or two (or you’re behind me with a mess of things but also with a child who is noticeably melting down), I’ll wave you ahead almost every time. If you then gum up the works by not having your library card or whatever, well, see above.
I am participating in NaBloPoMo.
When the occasion arises to watch TV at my brother’s place, I think I’ll make the popcorn while he sets up.
My ex had a similarly baroque set-up, and he fussed and kvetched over me while I learned the necessary sequences to initiate TV-watching and program taping. I became pretty well accustomed to it, able to walk into the room, click a mere six or seven buttons, and settle down to watch a show.
Then came the evil day: he left one of the many remotes on the couch, and in his absence, I sat on it. If my bum knew what buttons it pressed (and in what sequence) to produce that daunting blue screen, it wasn’t telling. When he came home to discover my rash act (She dared to sit!) had prevented me from taping that night’s re-run of Babylon 5*, the house rang with pointed disappointment and condescension.
Did I mention: ex?
*I am so not making this up.
I am participating in NaBloPoMo.
At 6:30 this morning, the scent of ocean struck me even before I opened the door; gleaming pale fog clung to the houses and trees, obscuring the runnel of traffic already building. As I bobbled along, I found myself singing, off-tune and wavering, under my breath.
“There’s a bright golden haze on the meeeeadow
There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow
The corn is as high as —-
I am gonna swat that girl.”
From “Elli” e-mail@whatsis.huh
Subject: Bright golden haze on the meadow
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 14:16:42 +0200
To: “Elsa” e-mail@whosis.huh
Darn you straight to heck, Elli.
At 4:25 a.m., I dragged myself out of an unyielding bed in an airport hotel in San José, and spent the next 14 hours muddling my way through airports, only to arrive in infamous Logan airport bereft of my checked luggage. Evidently the suitcase so enjoyed the worldly sensation of being waved through Customs that it decided to stay in Miami.
I am even more screwed than you might think: since airport security examined my keyring and advised me to stow it in my checked bag (lest I should yield to the temptation to overthrow the flight crew with an extra-large, blunt-tipped safety pin trinket), I can’t go home until my bag arrives. At 6:00 pm in Boston, they were hopeful that delivery might occur as soon as Tuesday morning.
Yes, that was when I momentarily burst into tears. The young baggage agent looked so distraught that I assured her that I knew she was doing everything she could, and that it must be difficult for her. She immediately brought my file back up on her terminal and pecked determinedly at the keyboard, her phone tucked under her chin.
By the time I arrived at my parents’ house in Maine, the baggage delivery agent, who is not supposed to be working tonight and who further doesn’t deliver to Maine, had left a message to expect him between 2 and 4 am. That young baggage agent is my new hero, followed closely by Curtis the delivery guy. By the time he arrives, I will have been up for nearly 24 hours, but I am determined to thank him (and tip him) in person, and to shower my filthy way-laid bag with kisses before wrapping my arms around it and snuggling down for a long winter’s nap.
Tomorrow, there will be less talk of airports, sleeplessness, and filthy baggage, and more talk about glorious Costa Rica.
In a shocking exposé, a Maine couple announces that schools are scheming to teach young people, actually going so far, in some cases, as to use books:
“They see it as, they say, ‘Hey, it’s a book, let’s expose the kids to it, and see what they learn from it,’ ” said Minnon, who with his wife operate [sic] a greenhouse on Route 202 in Lebanon.
The Minnons, parents of a first-year student at Noble High School, object to his class’s study of The Catcher in the Rye. Not satisfied with the school’s provision to allow their son to study another book, the Minnons are attempting to prevent the entire first-year literature class from studying Salinger’s classic.
(link thanks to Bookslut)
So, let me get this straight: the late morning shuttle is just as convenient for me as the earlier one, but is regularly ridden by the very cute guy I love talking to… and also by Mr. Plinky Plinky, the guitar plinker guy?
Oh, I am so torn.
Today the skies (or clouds or atmosphere: I’m not too hot on this weather stuff) are pouring rain, or as our weatherman likes to say, “TROPICAL DOWNPOUR!” Who thought of the umbrella, anyway? Brilliant in its way, but curiously imperfect, if only insofar as I now have a stream of rainwater that had collected in the folds of my semi-furled brolly guttering down my leg and collecting in my naughty-Dutch-girl shoe. Excuse me a moment while I drain my shoe.
Ah, that’s better. Also, here you go.
Elli
Elsa