A sad tale

It starts out happy.  I needed some various around-the-house items (a can of WD40, some screw anchors, that kinda thing) plus was low on some grooming stuff like deodorant, toothpaste, etc., AND needed some groceries, so I decided to take a trip to the Super Walmart in Chino Hills.  It's a pretty good haul--maybe 15 miles--but since I needed such a variety of things, I thought it might be a fun field trip.  And it was!  As I wandered through the store--it's big and I don't really know the layout, so I was drifting--I happened upon an aisle full of tiki and luau themed party goods.  Right before my eyes, two clerks were marking all sorts of things, leis made of little silky flowers, bead necklaces with tiny palm tree and parrot charms on them, Gilligan-style hats made of Hawaiian print fabric, sunglasses with tiny umbrellas on the sides, etc, down to either $.10 or $.25!  Yes, ALL of it was either a dime or a quarter.  

I immediately thought of the fifteen goodie bags I have to make for my choir kids for our upcoming end of the year party, and squealed with delight!  I grabbed 15 leis, 15 Hawaiian hats, 15 necklaces, 15 sunglasses, etc. etc. and threw them into my basket.  I also got all the luau themed paper goods and partyware I'd need to feed all 35 or so kids in our two elementary choirs.  I was SO pleased with myself!  They even had CD's of luau music for a dollar, so I grabbed one of those, too.

I quickly realized, looking at my full to the brim cart, that I would have nowhere to put my groceries and the other things that I'd actually come for unless I grabbed a second cart, and that seemed like a recipe for disaster ("clean-up in aisle 3, clean-up in aisle 3") so after thinking it through, I thought "OK, I will buy all this stuff and put the bags on the shelf under the basket of my cart, then go back through the store and get the other stuff I need and go back through the line to purchase it.  Which I did.  I paid for the stuff, carefully knotted the top of each of the plastic Walmart bags full of luau crap, lined them up in the area under the basket (which I think of as the kitty litter zone) and headed over to the grocery area of the store.  Once I had my whole list checked off, I went back through the checkout line for round two, then out to the car with my many, MANY purchases.

Here's where it gets sad.  I hauled it all in when I got home, put the groceries and household stuff up, and then decided to lay all my adorable goodie bag purchases on the dining room table where I could stand and gaze and marvel over their cuteness AND their astounding cheapness!

But when I laid it all out, there were no 15 adorable little Gilligan hats.  There were no 15 multicolored silky flower leis.  Two of the bags must've fallen off the bottom of my cart.  I was unreasonably upset.  I almost cried.  I called the Walmart and tremulously asked if anyone had turned in my bags.  They had not, of course.  I mean, it's Walmart, for crying out loud.

I told myself, "Calm down.  Easy come, easy go.  It was $3.00 worth of stuff, for heaven's sake."  But I just couldn't forget it.  I kept going out to my car and looking again, hoping I'd somehow overlooked the two bags.   I paced around and worried about it.

You know what I did, right?  I drove 15 miles back to Chino Hills, part of it involving going the wrong way during rush hour, to see if my lost goodies had been found, or if there were any more leis and hats.   They looked at me like I was nuts at Customer Service, but the most disheartening part was the luau aisle.  It was stripped completely clean.  NOTHING was left.  Nothing at all.   One sad, torn lei lay on the floor in front of the empty metal shelving.  

So back into my car I got to drive all 15 miles home, for the second time in a three hour period.

And that's my sad story.

All this bounty on my dining room table, but all I can think of is what I lost...

Our biker hangout of choice

Cook's Corner

(Actually, it's the only biker hangout in our neck of the woods.  Suburban Orange County is not really biker country.)

It's Memorial Day!

And we don't have any plans.  No cookout.  No family gathering.  Nobody dropping by.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Nada.

Sounds pretty nice, doesn't it?  

Star Trek

See it!  If you were a seventies kids who grew up watching reruns of Star Trek every day after school, you will LOVE this movie.  It was SO much fun!

Mother's Day

So I read the rest of what you broards had to say, and I have to agree with the spirit of it all.  It seems a holiday (holiday?  it's not, exactly, is it?) guaranteed to make everyone feel slightly bad about themselves--mothers and everyone in their families.  Whatever you do for your mother, you have this vague feeling that it wasn't quite right, or else it reminds you that your mother is no longer with you and that makes you sad, or if you are a mother, you feel sort of bad about things no matter how it works out.  I feel guilty that I even participate in a day that seems to have been established with the intention of making my family feel bad.

That said, my Mother's Day was a good day.  We didn't really pay much attention to it being Mother's Day because we had to go to a wedding out of town yesterday, and weren't home this morning.  The wedding was in the pretty winery town of Paso Robles, at a very pretty winery and inn.  Because we were only a half hour from San Simeon, we decided on a whim to try to see Hearst Castle while we were in the area, so this morning we got up kind of early and drove over to the coast.  We were uncertain if you could get in without reservations--it used to be rather difficult.  But they've changed the way they organize their tours, and we were able to hop right on a bus and go right up to the castle.  It was a dazzling place, and now I've resolved to re-visit Citizen Kane to get both sides of the William Randolph Hearst story.  (All the propaganda at the castle and its visitor center is very pro-Hearst, naturally.)

One touching moment, though--my sweet, absentminded professor, laid-back hippie son sent me flowers.  I was absolutely astounded.  He's never done anything remotely like that in his entire life.  Just...wow.