All Or Nothing

Oh, How This Post Has Changed

It was meant to be a short little description, followed by a few pictures, and concluded with a question.  That I was hoping would then be answered by you guys. 

Instead, it has turned into something entirely different.  And not good different, or even interesting different.  SUCKY different.  I can't find the cord to attach my camera to my computer.  Well, first, I couldn't even find batteries for the camera.  Have I mentioned before how my camera takes approximately three pictures and then promptly runs out of batteries?  Because it does.

So, I stole batteries out of the thermostat.  Ingenious, really.  And then I set forth to take the pictures I needed so desperately, and then ran into the next room to hurriedly post them to my computer before the batteries ran out.  I had taken at least two pictures, and I knew I didn't have much time at all.  However, upon reaching my computer and grasping inside my camera case for the trusty grey cord of connectivity, I found that the cord was GONE.  Ugh.

I HATE losing things.  Not that I believe anyone really likes to lose things, or chooses to do so, but I really, really hate it.  Cody can attest to this.  He knows when I've lost something, because it always results in a phone call to him with me on the other end of the line sighing dramatically and rolling my eyes so furiously he somehow receives "ANNOYED" through the phone line without me even speaking a word.  This, friends, is a joy of marriage.

Anyway, I rarely lose things.  And when I do lose things, I somehow convince myself that I NEVER lose things.  Therefore, I am always looking to place the blame upon anyone else who might have possibly come in contact with the lost item, at any point in time.  No one is safe from my lightning-quick accusations, not even the cats, or house guests who have moved on many months before.

Poor Cody, he tries to help.  He offers what might seem to any reasonable human to be helpful suggestions, but to me are just tiny barbs of annoyance, all wrapped up in patronization. 

"Have you looked in the closet?  You know, where all those cords are" 

"Um, YES, I have, and the camera cord would NEVER be there unless YOU put it there because I don't just haphazardly throw cords THAT I KNOW I NEED into piles in a CLOSET.  Next?"

"Well, there are a lot of cords up in the theater room, you know by the surround sound, all those cords on the ground?"

"AAARRGGGHHH, I already TOLD YOU, I don't just see a cord and say 'ooh, a cord, I'll just put it where I've seen other cords', I always put the cord back in the CAMERA CASE when I'm done!  Where is it?"

"Look, I really don't see why you're calling me at all.  I already told you I haven't seen the cord; I never use the cord, and now that I am trying to help, all you're doing is getting pissed."

"I DIDN'T LOSE THE CORD.  Did you say I lost the cord?  I didn't lose it!  Maybe (enter name of random friend) took it."

"Have they even BEEN to our house?"

"Well, it was here, and now it's not.  I don't know what ELSE could have happened."

"Here's my new policy, Elise.  When you call me telling me YOU'VE lost something, I'm not going to help at all.  I'm just going to say good luck and hang up the phone"

"Yeah, well, that won't be any less helpful than this conversation has been.  Plus, why do you always make policies?  Anytime you don't like something, you make some new policy about it.  That's annoying."

"Good luck!"  Click.

I actually do think I've lost the stupid cord.  And it's even more annoying, because what should have taken 2 minutes (take a picture, post it to the site) has now taken the better part of an hour and a half.  Luckily, right in the middle of writing this (hand to God, it's true, I really am THIS dumb) I remembered that I have a MacBook, which means I have iSight, which means HA HA, stupid camera cord, I have won.

And here are the pictures:

Now obviously I'll be doing some different seat cushions on the chairs.  The current ones are, well...let's be honest here, they're just plain awful.  But!  That's like the easiest fix ever, and I love buying fabric.  So, fun all around.  However, the finish and stain on the chairs doesn't EXACTLY match the finish and stain of the table.  And I don't really like that, plus, I really DO like dining room sets where the chairs are completely different from the table.  In that vein, I believe we are going to paint the chairs, and the color we are considering is a creamy white with lots of varnish.

But - and here comes the question - do you think that painting is the right choice?  Cody always wants to paint wood; if he doesn't like the color of wood even a tiny bit, his ready solution is to paint.  I am what you might call more of a wood purist.  I'll always opt to stain or refinish (unfortunately not really an option on these chairs, as they already have a pretty heavy finish on the existing stain) rather than go for the full-fledged paint job, because unless it's really necessary or you're REALLY FREAKING sure that's what you want, once it's painted, it's painted.  Done.  Finito.  Better like the white varnished chairs, because your only option now is another color varnished chair, and if I can't even decide for sure on white then how will I pick ANOTHER color if I hate it, and oh no, am I making a mistake?

Help.

A Breath Of Fresh Springy Air

I'm working on a little, tiny, site redesign, so if the page is coming up all funky for you, just hit refresh a few times, and things should work out fabulously.

In the meantime, I have a question for you people, and I need your help, stat!  I'll be back with all the details momentarily.

I Wanted The Rain

I used to want freckles.

Not like full-body freckles, where you can't ever tell exactly what color the person's skin tone is and any exposure to the sun results in large blobbish patches where the freckles all run together.  No offense - more power to you heavily freckled people - but that's not what I wanted.  What I wanted was sparsely scattered freckles.  Freckles that looked like a magical wind blew pixie dust across my face while I was outside playing with unicorns and left me with an innocent tomboyish grin.

I always thought the freckles would give me character, and emit the aura of "tough but feminine".  I would sit in front of the mirror, not allowing myself to see my reflection, picturing exactly what I would look like with the perfect smattering of freckles.  Then I would look up, coyly - you know, the way EVERY girl looks in a mirror - and hope for the best.  Despite these efforts, I never ended up with many freckles at all, tomboyish or otherwise.

I used to want to live in Europe.

Sometimes it was Rome, sometimes London, or Barcelona or Paris.  I imagined myself renting a glamorous loft, above a tiny cafe in some downtown square.  I thought how romantic it would be, if I could speak another language, if I could have the experiences I always dreamed were abundant in these foreign cities, if I could life a life of change and interest and be DIFFERENT.

I traveled to Europe, right before I graduated from college.  I slept on the night trains as I skipped from country to country, seeking that feeling, that experience, that would tell me I had found what I always dreamed of.  Instead, I found a lot of fat, snoring men in the bunks above me, a bunch of rowdy Australians on a hostel tour, and a taxi driver who stole about half my food budget for the entire trip.

I used to want to go to law school.

I met people who were going.  I met people who wanted to go.  I heard all about how hard the LSAT was, how hard the first year was, how difficult the bar exam was.  I wanted the challenge.  I wanted to do it, and I wanted to do it better than everyone else.  I wanted to be responsible, I wanted to be impressive.  I wanted to do something concrete, something that I could say, see, here it is, I DID this. 

I took my LSAT.  I scored high.  I applied to schools.  I got accepted to many, and I accepted one.  I decided, upon advice, to work in a law firm for a year before starting classes.  I was told, more times than I can count, that I didn't seem like the lawyer type.  That I didn't have the lawyer personality.  That I was more....colorful.  I knew they meant more scattered, more disorganized.  I got engaged.  I opened my boutique.  I didn't go to law school.

I wanted to be like my best friend.  I wanted people to believe in me, to know that if I said I would do something, that I would do it.  I wanted to be the responsible one, the sensible one, the one who had life planned out and then everything went according to that plan.  I wanted to be respected, and to make smart decisions, and to follow through. 

But I wanted to be free.  I wanted never to be tied down by anyone or anything.  I wanted to be wild.  I wanted to be mysterious, to be wanted, to be desired, to be everything all the music I listened to was about.  And I was the perfect counterpart to my best friend; the yin to her yang, the silly, messed up child to her intelligent, steady big sister.

I thought I wanted a lot of things. 

I still want.  I see a woman who looks like she has 0% body fat and she tells me all I'll have to do is run 10 miles a day, work out for two hours after the run, eat no sugar whatsoever, and go to bed at 9pm, and I can look like her, too!  I think that I want this, until dinner.
I visit friends who live places other than where I currently reside, and want to move.  I go out with them, to fun places, places with no children, places that actually stay open past 10pm, and I wonder what I'm doing, wasting my youth, living in such a boring place.  I think that I want this, until I walk through the door and feel really, truly home.
I see girls with their tiny little lap dogs and think that I would want one.  I watch TV shows about the filthy rich and think that I, too, would like a large mansion and an Audi A4.  I listen to Damien Rice and think that I want all sorts of things I know I can't have.

What I never wanted, though, is to be driving one day in the rain, driving to visit her, driving to the house with the half-finished nursery, driving to the house where plans had been made and were now in shambles, driving to say I'm sorry.  I'm so, so sorry.

I know that I never wanted that. 

Do They Have Valentine's Day In Jail?

I should win some kind of award for Worst Blogging Management Ever.  Seriously. 

First of all, I never post enough.  Have you noticed that?  No?  THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL BUSY READING SOMEONE ELSE.  Because I don't post enough.  Secondly, when I do post, it's always at a terrible time, so my brain associates posting with things like 1) having been awake for 42 consecutive hours and yet still feeling that it's necessary to write 2) being late for any number of things (work, meeting friends, weddings) and yet still feeling that it's necessary to write 3) being miserably sick, and yet still feeling that it's necessary to write. 
I never seem to feel that it's necessary to write when I've had plenty of sleep, am not late to anything, and am enjoying stellar health.   Therefore (and, handily, third), when I DO actually post I am always either sleepy, late, sick, or some combination of the three and I always have too much to say and not enough time to say it and plus my writing skills are questionable at best when I'm healthy, and so, well...hmmm.  You see.  You read this.  You see what the problems are.

Now, I bet you think I'm going to come out with some sort of solution to this.  Like maybe I'm going to try and post every day, even if it's nothing great, blah blah or something like that.  Or, maybe I'm going to find some time, some special time in my week where I can just sit down and really concentrate on writing, you know?  The Art of Writing.

Nope.

I'm going to tell you a story of how I sent someone to jail for Valentine's Day.  Because I did.  Send someone to jail, that is.  And today is Valentine's, if you hadn't yet realized that fact.  And also, if you've only just now realized that, allow me to look at you, just for a moment, with mixed feelings of awe and concern.  Awe that somehow you have managed to ignore this Consumerist of all Consumer holidays, and concern that someone in your life may not feel the same level of detachment towards the day.  Anyway, neither the point nor my problem.  Good luck with that, though!

Today, I sent a lady to jail.  Not just a lady, mind you.  A lady thief.  Some might say that you can't call a thief a lady (or maybe it's vice-versa) but I am just trying to express gender here, not provide a commentary on manners.  This lady, she has come into my store on several occasions and shopped around - never buys, but always looks.  I usually converse with her for most of her visit, and have always found her to be decently pleasant.  In fact, I have (ha!) always prided myself on not being a horrible, snooty boutique owner, the kind who turns her nose up at every other customer who comes through the door, the kind who makes an immediate judgment on the customer's socioeconomic status upon first glance.  I hate those owners, and I have vowed never to become one.  So, I don't care when somewhat scraggly-looking people walk in my store off the street just to look around.  I have given tons of earrings and little bracelets and one really warm coat away to people who come in and actually NEED something.  It's kind of refreshing, really, to see someone who really needs something and then I can provide it.  It's a nice contrast to the people who complain about one missing sequin on their 150th beaded shrug.  Ugh.  Maybe I'm in the wrong business after all.  But I digress.  Back to the lady.

Oh!  Lest I forget.  Many of the shop owners will get together in merchant association meetings and tell each other about the shady characters they had come in their shop last week, and warn each other to watch out, I think they were casing the store, blah blah.  It's nearly ALWAYS minorities, who they target in these little meetings.  Minorities and people who look a little disheveled.   And it's almost never "Hey, I got robbed last week, here is the description of the thief".  It's usually just guesses and assumptions, and I always roll my eyes in disgust and wonder how people can be so hateful and judgmental.  And then I get freaking robbed blind.  And I start to see how people get so hateful and judgmental.

So, my lady thief.  She looks scraggly.  She is a minority.  She fits every stereotypical mold you can think of for "criminal".  And yet, I do not want to believe that it is so.  So I talk to her.  I ask her questions.  I treat her in the same way I treat EVERY customer.  And she steals from me!  First time it was just a shirt and maybe some earrings.  I wasn't sure about the earrings, and I didn't SEE her take the shirt; it was more like she was there and so was the shirt, and then she was gone, and so was the shirt.  You know.  Next time she came in, I followed her around a little more closely.  I didn't want to accuse her of anything, not without knowing for sure, so I just watched.  Then the phone rang.  I turned my back for literally two seconds, and she was gone, with two empty wooden hangers swinging in the breeze of the open door.  One leather jacket and one pair of jeans.  Damn.  This time, one of my employees was almost positive she saw the lady stuffing the jacket into some very large bag she apparently carries inside her jacket.  We followed her out the door, and she turned around to see us watching her walk away.  She then turned her back and sprinted around the corner, leaving me with very little doubt that she was, in fact, stealing.

She came in again today.  I had sworn that if she ever came back, I would ask her to leave, or at the very least, follow her around in such a way that she would WANT to leave.   I was at the store, alone, and was putting a couple of paint cans in the back when I turned and saw her outside my front door.  I immediately stopped what I was doing and met her at the door, just as she was coming inside.  "I got paid today," she told me.  "Just coming to look and see if you have anything new."  I smiled, sort of, and realized, once again, that I don't have the balls to be really mean to anyone.  I couldn't throw her out of my store.  So I started following her.  Like, within a foot of her person, following her.  It couldn't have been pleasant for her.  It certainly wasn't for me.  She grew tired of this game pretty quickly, made a couple of rude comments, and left.  I breathed a sigh of relief, and only then noticed the FOUR empty hangers on the leather jacket display.  I ran outside, holding the four hangers, I don't know why - maybe to bolster my confidence - and began writing down her license plate number.  She got out of her car, yelling at me about what my problem was.  I told her that I was writing down her plates and was going to call the police because I had just watched her steal at least four leather jackets from my store.  She started screaming.   "I didn't steal nothing from you!  Come look in my car, bitch, come look in my car!"  Just that phrase, over and over.  I wrote down the plates, went back into my store, and immediately called the police.  Apparently, once the 911 lady ran the plates I gave her, it threw the whole thing into a bit of a higher gear than I am usually accustomed to when reporting a theft.  The police sent four trooper cars in my direction immediately, and actually nearly caught the lady right then and there, in the parking lot.  She managed to get away (pulling in front of oncoming traffic) and the police turned around to continue the chase.  I'm not sure when they actually got her. 

When the officer came into my store, about 15 minutes after I called to report the theft, he wanted to get a little more information from me.  Could I identify her in a lineup?  Definitely.  Would I be willing to testify to the story I just told him?  Of course.  She is a repeat offender, correct?  Yes, sir, she has been here several times, and stolen from me at least twice.  She's a problem, he told me.  She has committed various crimes of varying degrees all over town and they have been looking for her for a while.  Until now, they never had her license plates.  You did a great job, he told me.  Your boss should give you a raise.

I didn't want to tell him that I am the boss.  I didn't want to tell him that I didn't feel great at all, that there's nothing great about getting stolen from, about getting taken advantage of, and especially about that lady, that thief, proving the snotty store owners right.

 

Nap Dreaming

Doesn't that title sound pleasant?  Ahh, napping, and dreaming, probably cozied up on a couch, enveloped in a soft and fluffy blanket, drowsily whiling the afternoon away.

Yeah, well, that would be deceptive. 

Because, my friends, I HATE nap dreaming.  I'm not sure if it is just my screwed-up subconscious or if everyone suffers from these nappish nightmares.  I've not really heard anyone else complaining of heart palpitations upon awaking, nor have I noticed fellow nappers suddenly springing to their feet, eyes wide and arms flailing, only to retreat into a corner and sit, shaking, hugging their knees to their chest.  So I'm guessing it's just me.

Let's take today, for example.  Cody's truck is malfunctioning, and because he needed the car, he had to drop me off at work today.  At 7:45am.  My store opens at 10am.  And Los Angeles, with whom I do most of my business, is 2 hours behind Texas, meaning that I normally have to wait until at least 11am before starting my re-orders and other Californian correspondence.  And while I have been known to waste an incredible amount of time doing nothing on the Internet, I normally don't start all that until a little later in the morning.  Like, you know - after I don't want to die anymore.  7:45am is something I feel is better left alone and undisturbed, like nuclear weapons and tripe.

(As an aside, I realize that all this talk of early mornings may have you kind of starting to hate me.  Please contrast my getting to sleep in every day to the fact that you do, probably, get a paycheck.  And I do not.  There, feeling better?)

Anyway.  Cody dropped me off, I stumbled into my store, locked the door behind me, and headed directly for the little sofa that sits near the dressing rooms.  Normally a finicky person about germs and who has been where, I didn't even pause as I threw myself down, covered up with the chenille blanket that currently serves to cover the Plaid Awfulness that is the sofa's upholstery, and fell back asleep.

I should have known better.

As soon as my eyes started rolling in their REM cycles, I started dreaming.  My dreams are always very vivid and memorable and definitely in color and all that stuff.  I only say "all that stuff" because at some point in college I decided that I needed to learn everything about dreams (some theory about being able to control your dreams or something) and so I read a few books on the subject.  All I ever really learned was to purposely try and focus on the colors in your dream.  Like, if you're dreaming that you're walking down a street, look at the street sign and try to notice the color.  That will tell you if you dream in color (unusual) or black and white (more normal). 

Anyway.

I dreamed that my store was outside.  As in, just sort of out in a field, outside.  The t-stands and display tables and rolling racks were just sort of strewn about in the grass, and I couldn't figure out where anything was.  Customers would just kind of wander up and ask me if they could try on some jeans, or a dress, and not only would I not be able to locate whatever merchandise they were after, I also had no real option to offer as far as a dressing room.  "So, ummm, once I FIND the jeans, you can just kind of....err....go behind that blue truck over there to try on?  Would that be ok?"  Strangely, no one seemed terribly put off by this, but I couldn't ever find the denim, anyway.

After a while, I realized that the blue truck/dressing room was actually parked directly OVER all of my dresses.  The dresses were kind of strewn about, some crushed mercilessly under the dirty wheels of the truck, some haphazardly hanging over the tailgate.  After discovering a mostly empty keg of beer tipped over near the truck site and soaking several of the dresses in the grass, I decided that my store, well....it sucked.  A restaurant was trying to serve food in the space next to me; they kept climbing on my store fixtures and shelves, trying to erect various signs advertising their sandwiches.  I asked them nicely not to put their signs IN my store, as I was not selling sandwiches and felt that the customer might be confused.  They informed me that since it was Tuesday, they were ALLOWED to put signs up anywhere they wanted.  I sighed, immediately realizing that yes, it was Tuesday, and who was I to try and usurp the Tuesday-Sign-Hanging Rule?  I chased off a couple of stray dogs who were sniffing around the shoe table and trying to make off with a pair of particularly hard-to-reorder heels, and after an employee of mine came in to tell me she was quitting (grass allergy?  too much fresh air?) I started to cry.

I woke up, face imprinted with little chenille lines from the couch, heart pounding, impending sense of doom enveloping me, and looked around frantically.  Everything (of course) was as it should be.  Four walls, a closed and locked door, shelves, tables, racks - even the dresses were present and accounted for and not at all smelling of beer or gasoline.

Now all I have to do is make sure that the restaurant next to me doesn't try to hang any of their food-related signs over here, even if it IS Tuesday.  It'll just confuse the customer, you know?

iSight Is Awesome! Or, The Most Boring Post Ever! (You Choose)

I love my MacBook.  Have I mentioned that?  Because I really love my MacBook.  It has so many interesting features, and I don't even know how to use most of them.  Mainly because I'm dumb. For example, I have been told there is a widget called Flores.  This particular widget is supposed to tell me when I get a new email by blooming prettily as an flowering icon at the bottom of my screen.  Cute, right?  But stupid me, I can't HAVE Flores.  No, as soon as I try to install Flores, the Flores people ask me all sorts of questions about my POP server and various incoming and outgoing mail servers and how to solve the Rubik's cube in UNDER 3.7 minutes and what my original thoughts are on global warning.  Also, how to properly sear beef.  And, as anyone who has eaten with me will attest, I'm not qualified to answer ANY of those questions.

However.  The iSight is delightfully easy to operate (click on the little camera, and it counts down from three!) and so I often take pictures of...well....everything.  Most often, as you'll see, "everything" means "cats".  And this makes "Elise" "boring".  Or, possibly, "crazy".  But, nonetheless, cat pictures!  And different iSight effects!  Yay!

Jill, as shown in the Comic Book effect.

Sophia, as shown in the Colored Pencil effect. 

Elise, as shown in the Pop Art effect.  Don't I look kind of man-ish?

Elise and Jill, as shown in the Sepia effect.  The only way to get Jill to stay anywhere, for any amount of time, is to let her lick your fingers.  She never tires of this, and it's yet another example of her socially deficient personality.

Elise and Jill, as shown in the Black and White effect.  This picture PERFECTLY sums up Jill, and her feelings on the world at large.  See how miserable she looks?  How annoyed, and beaten down by life?  She hates everyone, all the time.  Oh Jill, your life, truly, is difficult.

This is as still as Sophie gets.  I have to hold her down and give her the kiss of death - pressure on the top of her head - for her to sit still at all.  Ever.  Her eyes are yellow and have this funny way of looking like they're narrowed permanently in a glare.  However, Sophie is, far and away, the friendliest, most loving cat I have ever encountered.  In other words, she is the polar opposite of Jill.

My cats, they hate each other.  I keep waiting for the day when they'll be best friends, and will curl up together on the bed and sleep in a cozy ball of felineity.  And all I get in thanks for my dreams of love and peace is this:

"Grooooooowwwwllllllllllll......Grrrrrrrrr....rarururrrrrrrrr...."

"HISSSSSSSSSS!  Hisssssss, hisssSSSSSSS!"

Very pleasant creatures, cats.