Wow, I didn’t realize Etsy was so onto it!

Check out their front page selection this morning, carefully timed to coincide with the New York Times feature on Steampunk.

I love the Steampunk look, and if I wasn’t so old and entrenched in suburbia I just might have dabbled… 

In any case, the petticoats (and I would want to wear petticoats and corsets) would get in the way of chasing after the kids. 

While on the subject of Etsy (but no longer on the subject of Steampunk, which I think I will just continue to admire from afar), I came home with some amazing estate finds on Saturday and I have been busy preparing them for sale in my store. I just posted these beautiful glasses, for example, which I love love love! But I found so much stuff that I just couldn’t keep it all.

Especially as I also bought myself a set of 64 crystal glasses from the same source. There is a glass in there for every occasion, including occasions we never have, and it seems the previous owner never had either. Just how many glasses do we need anyway?  I feel so greedy and decadent! 

But they match! Match! Imagine that! 

Today I took a trip to Kroger to buy Bar Keepers Friend , which according to reputable sources will clean my Pyrex without scratching (and it works! I just tried it and OMG it works!). 

Since a “Fuel Low” warning was coming up when I thought to press reset on the car’s computer, I decided to fuel up while I was there. 

A couple of things occurred to me while standing at the pump. One, there is a sticker stating a $75 maximum for paying at the pump with a credit card - unless it is a Visa card in which case the maximum is $50.

Kroger, you are not keeping up with the times. Please take the time to examine Exhibit A, my receipt from today: 

The second thing I noticed was this message when I finished and hung up the nozzle: 

THANK YOU PLEASE

While I was pondering this apparent example of ESL I realized that underneath was the message:

TAKE YOUR RECEIPT. 

I would have taken a photo but I didn’t want the cute guy on the other side of the pump to think I was taking a photo of him. Yes, it still works that way, even when you are old. 

We had a successful weekend. Everybody managed to stay mostly amused and unusually quiet for two whole days!

Of course 

 this helped.And this.          This too.

But still.

There was, however, a lot of excitement last night Inzaburbs. My fault.

The Daddy has been nagging me for weeks to bring home crawfish from one of my many shopping expeditions, despite the fact that crawfish season is more or less over. So I was dancing with joy yesterday afternoon  when I found an enormous tub of the things at the local supermarket. 

The Wictor and T-Bot were intrigued, as was The Daddy when we finally made it home and showed him our spoils. 

“Ummmm…” he said with a puzzled expression on his face, “…they’re… alive”. 

Unexpected glitch there. This brain was disengaged at the point of purchase. We have always bought crawfish ready cooked before, and I neglected to think ahead to the killing spree that would have to follow. But, actually, no problem, for it was here that my breton genes kicked in and I coolly and calmly set a pot of water on to boil. 

While it was heating up I turned my back and this happened: 

Feisty little beggars.

Much screaming ensued. Because Baby Sister decided the escapees were going to jump off the counter and bite her. They didn’t. They did move their pincers around though, and in a very menacing fashion. 

I’ll spare you the details of what followed, except to say that when their time came, they were dispatched, quickly and painlessly. And they tasted very nice. 

Finally we have progress on my site redesign! 

It’s nowhere near done yet but I decided to put it live anyway because I could wait another month for the fine tuning to be completed. Or even another year. The Daddy is a Man Who Does too Much. Still, he was kind enough to rescue me from my own personal hell, where I was tinkering and quite frankly getting nowhere fast.

And all I had to do in exchange was make him a cup of tea. 

Then as he was showing me what he had achieved he started getting excited about all the opportunities. We could put a button here that does this! And you could do that! And whizzamijigs and whotsits! 

And I said Yes! Cool! Sounds Good! I’ll pencil that in for 2am!

My SUV currently believes that an “Oil Change Required” warning is somehow more important than a “Door Ajar” message.

Something is seriously amiss.

So what happens if you are on your way to get your oil change and don’t see that your door is ajar? There you are, feeling all holier than thou because you are actually going to maintain your vehicle, when boom! a door opens and a child flies out onto the pavement! Or, if your offspring is strapped in like oh, 30% of the children around these parts, maybe it’s your groceries or your handbag that goes. But still, I would sue. 

Who designs these things? Somebody with no imagination? Yes, I know, you can press reset. But who wants to go pushing buttons all over the place? Or sequences of buttons because hello, they couldn’t just make it easy for harassed Moms with already tired fingers? 

But by far the best news is that an Oil Change Required warning takes precedence over the Door Ajar and the Fuel Low warning. So great, on the way to get my oil change I also run out of gas. Could be a blessing if it happens before my passenger door swings open. Or not. 

OK, I admit it, I am just bitter because my extremely incompetent now ex-mechanic forgot to reset my oil change message, and not for the first time. So, being lazy of finger, I am driving about with that warning etched on my eyeballs. Yet the oil is good! It is sufficiently smooth! Or sufficiently gluggy or whatever cars thrive on. But anyway, changed already. 

In short, not only is my car badly designed, it is also lying to me on a daily basis. 

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Wait a minute - did I say my car? I meant to say “trashcan”. My SUV is currently an enormous mobile trash receptacle. Actually no - it is a dumpster, retrofitted with 4 wheels and some childseats. Ford Dumpster - it actually has a nice ring to it. 

Things are out of control, though I do what I can. A few months back I even bought one of those in-car trash bags, a really cool one with laminated insides and a velcro strap to hang around the seat. But then it filled up on the first day and nobody could be bothered emptying it. We just continued throwing our junk into the passenger footwell like before. And then when I did think about it, several weeks later, I realised there was a rotten apple core welded to the bottom. I washed the bag (at arms length) and it has been “drying” inside out in the laundry ever since. 

So! Ideas please, people! I need my car to at least maintain the illusion of respectability. And that is a little difficult when I open a door and two grahams and an empty juice bottle fall out (although not as embarrassing as the time a McDonalds wrapper blew out and across the road).

But purlease. Do not even dare to suggest banning eating in the car. That would lead to low blood sugar and low blood sugar is bad. It leads to ultra-violence and rants like this. 

Let’s just say you are 50 something and sitting minding your own business in a suburban haircutters, when you hear the following conversation. How would it make you feel? 

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Mommy: “T-Bot, you can go sit up the front, they have magazines and books…”

T-Bot (squirming): “Mommy? Where? ”

Mommy: “In the seating area. The lady is going to cut Baby Sisters hair, it will only take 10 minutes ”

T-Bot (loudly): “Mommy, I can’t sit there. There are OLD people. Mommy, I don’t like OLD people”. 

Mommy (squinting to see): “You mean, um, hrghmm… OldER people…”

T-Bot: (up an octave): “No Mommy, I can’t sit next to them. They are really OLD!” 

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Not being in my fifties yet, I am still pondering on how it would make me feel. Is this cute or bratty? Would it be cute coming from a 3 year old? But bratty from a 6 year old? I still haven’t decided. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt.