My Fashion Faux Pas

Oddly enough, driving home the other night in my 60s hippie get-up was not my fashion faux pas. Nope, I reserved that experience for today.

The end of March means that snow tires must come off the cars, by law. So I had plans to take my car in to get my tires switched out, since I would be riding with Lea to work today anyway. My mom was going to take her car to the dealership, because her low coolant light is always on, but every time she checks the fluid, it's full. So maybe there is a blockage or something. Or maybe it's something worse. But either way, she was going to take her car to the dealership. So I set my alarm for 7:30 (this is a true sacrifice for me... ;)) so that I could follow her to the dealership, take her to the funeral home, and then take my car to the tire place where Lea would pick me up. So my alarm went off. And I called my mom's cell phone from the warmth of my bed. Call me lazy, I don't care. I was going to get up, just wanted to make sure she didn't forget our plans. Hahaha. Well, she had decided the night before that she would just have someone from the funeral home follow her over there later in the day to take her back to work after she dropped it off, since she didn't know when the dealership opened. I said, "Well that would've been nice to know yesterday." Since then I could have slept another hour. But whatever, so I tried to go back to sleep. And then my mom called my cell phone ten minutes later (I think cell phones make us lazy....) and asked if I was getting ready. I was like, "No! Why?" Well, she thought she was going with me to the tire place to turn in my car and then take me to the funeral home where Lea would pick me up. And so, in the end, I gave up that extra hour of sleep (because let's be real... I was already too awake to go back to sleep "good" anyway, so I might as well get up). And that's exactly what we did. So while getting ready for the day, I knew I wasn't working at the funeral home, since the plan was to go to Morgan's softball game with Lea. So I threw on jeans, my toe socks with flip flops, and my new bright yellow Children's Summer Reading Program (SRP)shirt. I had worn the adult one a couple weeks ago, and thought I'd wear the Children's. After all, it's sitting there, I paid for it, and I might as well use it, right? Plus I was curious what the yellow would look like on me.

You're probably thinking I looked like a big yellow bus and that that was my hideous fashion faux pas. Well, not exactly. Yeah, it's bright yellow, and yea, you can see me coming for miles. Like a ray of sunshine. Hahahaha. But that's not the issue. Once I got to the library, the Children's Librarian said, "Well, someone's wearing their SRP shirt a little early this year." Ah yes, the subtlety was so lost on me. Whatever. I said, "Oh really? I didn't know there was a specific date when we could wear them." Well, that resulted in an email to the staff. Because we don't want to ruin the "unveiling" of the t-shirts in June by wearing the shirts 2 months before then and thereby lessening the "impact" (her words, not mine). Yeah, you're so right... We wouldn't want that. Nevermind the fact I didn't see a single kid in the library today. Nevermind the fact that the shirt doesn't indicate it's for the Summer Reading Program (so you'd have to be a pretty swift kid to pick up on the idea that that's what it's for and not some random shirt I picked up in Panama or something -- which is why I picked yellow, after all, since it has a toucan). So that was my fashion faux pas. Who knew I could so totally ruin a whole Summer Reading Program by wearing a shirt in March? Yikes.
And P.S... Looks like I just ruined it for all of you as well. I'm so uncouth. Eh, what can you do? Maybe next time she'll send an email reminding people to wait until she says "go!" on the shirts or maybe not order them in December. Otherwise, when I buy a piece of clothing, I'm kind of prone to assume I can wear it whenever I want to... (Especially when nobody was particularly bothered that I wore the adult shirt twice).
And if you think that's the most ridiculous thing to happen at my library job... Well, you have another think coming. I have stories of magazine competition (and I ain't talking about Glamour and Redbook trying to outsell each other) and shelving checklists that could curl your eyelashes. I actually posted one story on here, and then removed it for a few reasons. But look for it in the memoirs one day. Or just email me and ask me about it. Seriously can't make this stuff up...

And P.P.S... The softball game got cancelled after all, because it was supposed to be a home game, but it was supposed to rain here, so they moved it to the other team's "home" which is about an hour North, meaning we wouldn't be going. And then it actually did rain there, so they cancelled it. And guess what? Not a drop of rain here. In fact, it was an absolutely gorgeous day, and it was even warm enough to cause me to glisten (aka sweat) when I got into Lea's stuffy car after work. Then she and I went and ate Mexican for lunch since neither of us had anywhere to be. And then she dropped me off to get my car. Which the tire place even fixed whatever was up with my emergency break. It went out a couple weeks ago. I just resigned myself to it being one more thing falling apart on my car...

And P.P.P.S... My mom never got around to taking her car in. Which is why I planned for her to do it first thing, because I know she'll never stop to take it in in the middle of the day.

In other news... On Sunday, in my Sunday School class, one of my students (she's 12) said, "Um, not to be rude, but you have gray hair." Spoken like a true pre-teen. I said, "Yeah, I know, it's all here in the front." Then she added, "You have a lot! You're getting old!" Yep. I know that too. Hahaha.

And back to today... After getting my car and dropping off my spare keys with my mom at the funeral home (and laughing with her and Sue about some ultra-outside-of-the-box-to-the-point-of-absurdity ideas), I went to Target to get more biodegradable pots and currant tomato seeds, and, on a whim, cilantro seeds. Because I love that stuff! And this way, if everything grows and produces, I'll have almost everything to make that fresh tomato salsa and I'll have picked it all from the garden! So when I got home, I planted almost everything. It got windy and cold once the sun started going down, so I quit, but here's what I have so far:
Which leads me to another Sunday story... So the Sunday before last, right before choir practice, the choir pianist turned to me and said, "Would you be willing to sing one of these or all of these next Sunday?" What she had was 3 pages of way old songs (which, it turns out, were from the Children's songbook back in the day). I told her I would be willing to sing them with her, but not alone. So that's what we planned. She is a very strong alto, while I sing soprano, because I don't have the talent to sing anything but melody :). So the plan was for us to practice at her house one day before we were to sing in Relief Society. She called me Saturday, and I told her I'd be at her house by 3. So I showed up, but since I had gone there after work, I didn't have the music with me, but I figured she would. Well, it turned out she couldn't find it. So we didn't end up practicing. I said I'd make every effort to get to church early to plunk it out roughly so that at least I'd have a clue what the tune was, because I'm also not a sight-reader, and I can't hit a note if I don't have something to go by... (I was still house-sitting, which is why I didn't have the chance to play the piano in the garage here...). Well, I had a longer drive than usual since I was house-sitting, so I didn't make it early enough. But it was okay, because I'd also found out that through massive miscommunication, a very musically inclined couple was asked to sing the songs. I figured, "Hey, fine by me! I'm off the hook!" Yeah, it seemed weird that a guy would be singing in Relief Society with his wife, but whatever. Well, by Relief Society, Jolene (the pianist) came over to me, and smiled as she sat down. And I knew... I said, "It's us, isn't it?" She said, "Yep, it's us. The others thought they were supposed to sing these songs a capella for Primary." Hahaha. I bet that was a fun experience showing up in Primary to sing these songs when the whole Primary is like, "Huh?" So in the end, we just got Christina (the wife of the musical couple) to play each song through once before we sung each one. It was awful. And I couldn't stop laughing. And I had to stand away from Jolene, since she's a strong alto, and I couldn't hear my part, so my voice was all over the place! But anyway, how does this apply? Well, because like I said, these were old Children's songs. And so you can imagine they were kind of simple. And the tunes were, well, interesting. As were the words. And here's one of the ones we sang (the lesson was The Word of Wisdom).

Little Brother Vegetable
Little Brother Vegetable, sat within a dish,
Cooked and seasoned spicily as you'd ever wish.
Said Little Brother Vegetable, "Just you look at me!
I'm the food of hidden treasure; Eat me and you'll see!"

Little Brother Vegetable, Brings good health to you,
Cheeks grow red as any rosebud, Eyes will sparkle too,
If you want lots of vim and pep for your work and play,
Better eat your vegetables Ev'ry single day!
-Maryhale Woolsey & Mildred T. Pettit

Okay, so I'll admit it's kind of cute. The tune is jaunty. But can you imagine a very unschooled singer up there trying to guess at the right notes for this song?!? And this is why there was no way I was doing these alone (even if I had practiced). I only wish we'd have made it an event for the female choir members as a whole. Either way, I guess I'll hope my Little Brother Vegetables will grow so that I can eat them spicily from within my dish. :)

Well, I guess I was feeling chatty. Because I sure wrote a lot. I did pause halfway through to eat homemade mac & cheese. Because FYI... My mom makes the best homemade mac & cheese 99.95% of the time, hands down. (The other .05% is when she uses whatever cheeses we have in the fridge, and they don't always mesh well, or when she tries a new recipe that calls for apples. Ew.)