For all you folks that just don't like mangled Christmas poetry (if you think this is bad, you should see the games we're playing on Facebook)...just don't look. It's beginning to look a lot like coldwork Everywhere, it shows
Thinking of designing a glassmaker's studio? Or remaking the one you already have? Here's a tip: Design your studio for the ENTIRE glass process..which turns out to be a lot more than just the "making" part. If you don't, the day could come when the mess literally locks you out of the studio.
Sure sign you're becoming a fixture at Starbucks: The barrista smiles, says, "Hi Cynthia!" and holds up a paper cup with my name and the only Starbucks drink I know (grande mocha) already written on the side. "I think this means I'm coming in here too much," I joke. "No," she retorts, "It means I have a good memory." Starbucks, though, is joining my pantheon of favorite people-watching places. Hanging out in there, waiting for my order, is almost as good as watching a movie.
324 assorted flower bulbs are giving me dirty looks. This happens every bloody year. These bulbs--and their forefathers--have been reminding me for maybe fifteen years that BUYING bulbs is only the first half of the battle. The other half is PLANTING them, which I regard with only slightly more enthusiasm than a good dose of Ebola. Bulb buying has become a traditional kick-off for my holiday season. Every year about this time I push the cart past a bulb display in the hardware store* and...stop. Wow. 100 bulbs for just $12.99. That's only...lemme see...THIRTEEN CENTS A BULB!!
The man walking into the crowded Starbucks this morning looked out of place. He'd tucked his mud-spattered Ford pickup neatly in between a BMW and a Lexus, strode casually to the front door...and held it open for three different women. "After you, ma'am....ma'am...ma'am..." I found myself wondering if he was for real. He wore workaday cowboy boots, not the fancy kind with stitches and metal trim, but the well-worn kind you usually see home, home on the range. His plain black cowboy hat flashed a greasy sweatband when he took it off, and he was clad in unfashionably dark jeans, flannel shirt and a mended jacket.
"You want a nice pedicure?" Jimmy called to the man standing in the doorway, and laughed. The man smiled faintly, primly, and shook his head. He stood there in full preppie regalia, well-groomed in a fashionably tailored white shirt, tie and dark, neatly pressed slacks. His iPhone was wrapped in a leather case, black to match his polished shoes; he carefully pulled out the earbuds and coiled them into a matching case, slipped the whole assembly into his pocket. He stepped inside the nailshop, and one of the girls bounced up to meet him. "Hi, hi," she greeted, and he slipped out of his sportcoat and handed it to her, "Ready for your haircut?"
How do you distinguish tourists from glasslanders? The tourists are the ones carrying the umbrellas. Glasslanders, i.e., people who've been assimilated into the Portland mindset, think of umbrellas in much the same way that vampires think of garlic. They do NOT carry rainboots or slickers or umbrellas. (Or, as my little sister used to say as a toddler, "ungerbers.")
"Cookies up front," said Monica, as she breezed past my office, "Go see! I made them for Halloween!" Obligingly, I got up and wandered down the hall, rounded the corner to Monica's domain...and stopped, dumbfounded. Spread out on two rolling carts was the most gorgeous array of decorated Halloween cookies I think I've ever seen. There were at least a thousand cookies on those carts, and all I could think was, "wow."
"Your mom has such a cute accent," Lorelei assured me, "If she showed off her figure more I'll bet she'd get lots of boyfriends." I rolled my eyes. "Uhm, I think my dad wouldn't like that, Lorelei," and changed the subject. Lorelei's mom had LOTS of boyfriends, so I knew where she was coming from. She shrugged, and resumed plucking my eyebrows. Lorelei's dad apparently didn't mind that his wife regarded marriage as something you did whenever you didn't have a date, but that sure wasn't the way it worked at my house. Mothers who dated were in the same class as extraterrestrials, as far as I was concerned.
The next time you catch me responding “nothing much” when someone asks what’s going on, would you kindly whack me upside the head? Hard? When I say such things the god of adventures apparently peers down, says “‘Zat so?” …and presses the SEND key. Like today. […]
