EXTRA! EXTRA!

I've finally had the chance to get caught up on a major entry from last week - that is, the blog of our trip to Scotland. So if you're just tuning in now, please look below to February 23rd's entry, which includes the story and lots of photos.

That's all for today; worked the night shift last night and it's all I can do to type my name without misspelling Grout as "Goup" or "Snout". Cheerio!

THE BIG SOMETHING-0

Another birthday that we are not home for, this time Alan's big day. I won't say exactly HOW BIG of a day, but it's a major one. So HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS to you, Alan (a.k.a. "Pop").

A little more on Alan, for those of you who aren't familiar with this great guy. Other than being Ray's dad (which makes him pretty cool in my books), he's funny, intelligent and really caring. I know that if there's ever a problem that I need to go to him with, he'll give me a carefully thought-out, insightful answer. We enjoy comparing our impressions of various novels and suggesting new ones to read. When I'm feeling down, he'll harass me until I get out of my funk and remember that after all, life is pretty darn good.

Alan started out as a wee troublemaker boy - according to reports from brother Clive - and in the intervening year or two (or twenty, or fourty...) he has worked in various interesting careers (engineer, social worker, fisherman, potter), married a terrific gal and raised a fantastic son. I know that his friendship is valued by many people and that the artistic gift he shares through the pottery he and Joan make is admired and appreciated by the thousands of people who buy their art. And, of course, he continues to be an adventurer with his hobbies in astronomy, computers and boating.

Here's to you, Alan! We'll drink to your honour today!

SNOW DAY

I wish. Actually, it has been snowing every day here for the last week but despite the frequent flurries nothing white has stayed on the ground. So we get the benefit of snow, without the hassle of crazy roads etc. Some areas have been hit harder by the late winter blast, though, and have suffered economic meltdowns as the trains stop running, the roads become impassable, and people fear to leave their homes - with about an inch of snow on the ground. Seems that Brits are even worse about dealing with snow than Vancouverites, and that says a lot.

Speaking of Vancouver, I've been following along on the CBC this week the tale of record February sunshine and warm temperatures. For the second time in a few days, I find myself jealous. Cambridge is a very beautiful place, but until it warms up it is difficult for me to enjoy its full bounty because I end up shivering as we walk and cycle about. No need to point out the obvious; I am perfectly aware that I am a wimp. Perhaps I need to increase my body fat content to help shield me from the cold, or, better yet, I could grow out my leg hair to increase my insulation. But that would prevent me from trying on clothes in those communal fitting rooms; what a dilemma!

SO JEALOUS

Of two things:

1. My mom, granny and sister are together for a girlie weekend in Edmonton. I'm actually not jealous of this event so much as wish I could be there with them. I could even withstand the frickin' cold, just to join in on the fun. But I am with them in spirit and am certainly looking forward to a full update on the fun - hint, hint.

2. I am listening to Vancouver radio, via the wonders of the internet, and have just heard that someone won the Zed Effects contest. This is a contest in which the station plays a tantilizingly familiar, but very difficult to guess sound on the air, and has callers try to put an object/event to the sound. Each time a caller guesses incorrectly, the winning jackpot increases by $100. This last sound has been driving me crazy for weeks and tonight someone finally figured it out, thereby scoring themselves a cool $17,400. Just how much fun could I have with that little bit of pocket change?!

SHEEP, SHEEP, EVERYWHERE A SHEEP

Unsurprisingly, this wee island known for its pastoral countryside dotted with sheep actually DOES have sheep everywhere you look. Ray and I took a road trip up to Scotland this past weekend - our first official road trip since our arrival here - and the weekend's theme was definitely "Sheep". More on this point later.

Friday morning saw us up bright and early with our rental car (driving!!! on the left side of the road!!!) and we actually managed to find our way out of Cambridge without too much trouble. After consulting our map, we headed up the highway, following signs conveniently labelled "The North" (we were able to follow these signs all the way to Scotland, and by the end of the weekend had developed a theory that the signs would continue to say "The North" until reaching John O'Groates). After catching a quick lunch in the rather industrial city of Doncaster - and getting lost in said city, because it appears there is no such thing as an "easy off, easy on" town in this country - we continued towards the Scottish border and then turned west towards the town of Newton Stewart, where our friend Warren is spending the year teaching at the local highschool. Warren kindly showed us all around town and took us to dinner at a great restaurant before allowing us to crash on his pullout couch.

Our drive took us through some very beautiful and varied country, from the flat
Midlands of England, the rolling hillsides of Yorkshire, a region of moorland, and then the pastoral countryside of Dumfries and Galloway county. Think lots of sheep (of course!) and rugged castles in various states of ruin. Because the Scottish/English border has been heavily disputed over the centuries, there is an exceptionally high density of castles in this region (in order to secure the border), as a consequence of the fighting over the land, the castles have all suffered some pretty serious breaches and attacks. All of which makes them very, very cool from this Canadian's perspective.

Here are some shots from our first day. Two points to keep in mind: (a) please pardon the blurriness of some photos, as they were taken from a car rocketing through the countryside, and (b) the small white blobs everywhere are - what else? - the ubiquitous sheep.





The three of us set off on Saturday towards Edinburgh, with a quick stop along the Scottish coast:





We also checked into another small town for Warren to pick up some kilt accessories (being of Scottish descent he has been busily getting the entire ensemble together) and then it was smooth sailing the rest of the way into the big city.











Edinburgh was a lot of fun to wander around because it is so different from Cambridge. We were jolted out of our small market town mentality by this larger, very gothic-feeling city with rather severe (but attractive) architecture, dominated by Edinburgh Castle. Of course the castle was one of our main points of tour, with stops at pubs (where else!) for sustinence, whiskey shops and trinket stores along the way.









We wound up our day with a "ghost" tour through an underground close - which is basically an old alleyway on which people lived and worked, but then was literally covered by new buildings about a century ago, thus preserving the original structures below the city - and a brief stroll through the Old Bailey graveyard, one of the most haunted in all of Europe. Not bad for our first day in town!

Sunday started out with more of the fine but frigid weather (note hair flying in the wind and the "I'm having fun but DEAR GOD I AM FROZEN" look on my face in the Mons Meg photo above) we had been enjoying all weekend, and we enjoyed a great breakfast at our hotel before piling back into the car and taking Warren back to Newton Stewart. Then we were onto our epic drive home, this time following "The South" signs, through the edge of the Lake District, the Pennines (mountain range), the Yorkshire Dales, and back through the Midlands. Partway home it started to snow, but thank goodness it wasn't sticking on the roads. I absolutely loved our drive home through many of the smaller highways, because we got to travel through the rolling countryside which in turn lead to several more photo ops:







The weekend in summary: more sheep than I could count, Ray very successfully navigating both the left-hand side of the road AND roundabouts, and the strengthening of my love affair with the English countryside. Not such a bad way to spend a weekend, if you ask me.

SOPHISTICATION IS NOT MY MIDDLE NAME

The shop that I work at doesn't have the nicest fitting rooms. They need a re-fit and can get a bit stale smelling on busy weekends. And so last week I was pleasantly surprised when I visited another shop to buy a jumper and found their fitting room a completely different creature.

Instead of a small, poorly-lit room with a single mirror, the other fitting room was HUGE (as in, a good 10-12 feet square), had mirrors on all sides, and was lit up like a ballpark at night. I could try on my jumper and admire myself from all angles - and it worked, I bought what I had tried on. I left the shop thinking, no wonder people say our fitting rooms are not the best.

My co-workers couldn't stop giggling when I mentioned this experience to them. You see, I had assumed (yes, I know what they say about people who assume) that the other shop had only one fitting room because they are a small shop and they weren't very busy when I was there. But no - I had been the lucky sole occupant of a COMMUNAL changing room. All those mirrors and lights? BAD IDEA when you are self-conscious or have not worn the most appealing of underthings (not saying either statement applies to me, but still!!) and you are changing next to some random guy off the street. You can't even turn your back, because those pesky mirrors offer tantilizing views from all angles. The lighting also creates a "all the better to see through your thin white shirt, my dear" opportunity.

I have now re-evaluated my viewpoint on our small - but private - fitting rooms, and have decided that this tale can be summarized in three simple points:

1. ALWAYS wear cute undies and make sure your legs are shaved before going clothes shopping in Cambridge (don't worry, Granny).
2. WHAT would I have done had I been happily changing, only to have the door whipped open and a fellow shown in? I suspect I may have shrieked and caused a bit of a scene.
and
3. I am SO NOT sophisticated enough to handle this! (Yet)

STEALTH OR SOMETHING LIKE IT

With the weather steadily improving I am able to cycle to work almost every day. However, it seems as though the winter rains and winds have taken their toll on my trusty steed - known in these parts by the name of "Sally" - and I have developed a rather conspicuous rattle when I cycle about. Or rather, I've developed a collection of conspicuous rattles, because I've yet to be able to isolate which part(s) of Sally is/are generating the racket. It may be time for a good ol' fashioned Spring tune-up.

While it is slightly embarassing to draw stares from other cyclists, particularly those mounted on superior models (i.e., with more than three gears), I console myself with the optimistic belief that the rattles simply add to the Cambridge Character of my mode of transport. It gives me an air of authenticity - "her cycle rattles so much that she must have been here forever, cycling on that same bike!" - and makes me stand out from the crowd of hundreds, nay thousands, other cyclists in town.

And with the return of tourists, I am starting to appreciate the rattle of my cycle making its way along the path renders a bell superfluous. If I ever do end up running someone over, they can't claim that they didn't hear me coming.

TRULY, WE DON'T HAVE A GOGGLEBOX!

I have to defend our gogglebox-less-ness to two distinct groups of people:

Group A: My coworkers and other random folk who want to know which contestant I think will win on "I'm A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here!" (ah, the joys of British reality television) or what I think of so-and-so from Corrie (i.e., "Coronation Street", the world's longest running soap opera) snogging off the set, etc. My reply to these inquiries - that I don't, in fact, have a gogglebox and therefore I don't have the fuzziest what they're talking about - is always met with the same response. Silence. And then the obvious answer dawns on them, "Of course! She's Canadian, and when would she even have TIME to watch television in between building igloos, feeding the sled dogs, and wrestling moose and beavers?".

Group B: The TV license police, who are convinced that no one in Britain can survive without television, therefore Ray and I MUST have a television, and an unlicensed set at that. You see, to watch a gogglebox in England you must first pay a "licensing fee" of 120ish pounds per year - and this is to get four stations: BBC1, BBC2, and two others whose names I've forgotten (seeing as I don't tune into the stations). I've been warned that these stations are full of educational (and therefore boring) programming, making it necessary to get cable if one wants to watch something truly entertaining (such as "Eastenders", or fancy shows imported from the US such as "Friends"). Sky Cable tacks another 40ish pounds a month onto the bill, and we are far too cheap to go in for that, resulting in our gogglebox-less state. But I digress.

The TV police "have a list of every dwelling in England without a television license" (quoting their first threatening letter), and our address is on that list. Furthermore, they have "sensing equipment that can detect an unlicensed set from 20m" (quoting their second threatening letter) and, by the way, "Did you know that students cannot afford to be caught without a license" (again, quoting the second letter). Kiss my Canadian, moose-wrestlin', gogglebox-less ass, TV police. Good luck finding this set.

UNLEASH THE HOUNDS

It is half-term week in many parts of England, including Cambridge. This means that schoolchildren are not where they ought to be: namely, AT SCHOOL.

Instead, they are running amok in the town and more importantly in my shop. I could understand this if I worked at the children's division of Gap, but not in the adult store. I'm sorry, but unless you are at least my size - I fit into the smallest size of everything we carry - and have plenty of cash to burn, my shop is not the place for you to be. More importantly, it is not the place to a) run laps around the displays (for the younger ones) or b) make out with your boyfriend in the checkout line (hopefully, only for the older ones). Yes, we can see that you have a tongue and that you know how to use it. Charming.

Normally, I truly appreciate the company of wee ones. Little ones are adorable - recall my bopping to the store soundtrack entry - and the older ones are generally polite and well-spoken. But a pack of British pre-teens is an entirely different ball of wax, and witnessing their antics this week gives me a much better appreciation of what our friend Warren, teaching at a highschool in a Scottish village for a year, is experiencing.

The British have a really great word: yob. This slang word, the backwards spelling of "boy" (not a coincidence, I might add, in a most sexist fashion), means a "lout, yokel or hoodlum" according to Merriam-Webster. This may offend some of my British readers, but it has come to my attention that a certain percentage of English schoolchildren are yobs (and this week, yobs-at-large). They are loud, obnoxious, and even slightly threatening in a way that I've yet to discern in Canadian kids. I asked my British co-workers why children are so horribly-behaved, particularly in school or in public (i.e., away from their parents) and the matter-of-fact answer was "Because we can". This theory is certainly corroborated by Warren, who has had a never-ending issue with his students and their unruly behaviour. Discipline is almost a foreign concept, even when the students are outright misbehaving or acting aggessively.

The most interesting aspect of the whole badly-behaved children issue, to me, is that the vast majority of yobs grow up to be terrific adults. The terrific adults seem, for the most part, to be unconcerned with the yob-ness of their offspring. I guess it all turns out well in the end...until then, Warren - good luck with 'em!

A VALENTINE'S WISH

That you woke up with a smile on your face (or as near as it comes, on a Monday morning).

That you have someone special to share your life with, who doesn't even mind when you crawl into bed after a long night of blogging and stick your icy-cold feet on their toasty legs.

That if a special someone isn't currently in your life, you recognize how much your family and friends surely love you, and that someday, the perfect someone will appear.

That if none of the above applies, you aren't retching at my sappiness. What can I say - I am a very lucky girl to have Ray as my valentine.

KEEP OFF THE GRASS

As promised, Ray and I took a walk along the Backs (the backs of the colleges along the River Cam) this morning before I had to go to work, and came up with a few shots. I've only a couple because it was cold and we were more interested in walking - and staying warm! - than stopping for the perfect shot, but you get the idea.


The croci are starting to come up in a profusion along the Backs. These ones haven't quite bloomed yet, but in a week they'll be truly spectacular. If you've seen photos of blankets of flowers in Cambridge, and wondered if they'd been PhotoShopped, I can personally attest that they DO exist.


What can I say, I'm a bad-ass. Do you think I can get Ray censured for letting his mate sully the lawns of St. John's College? (Note: you can't read it but may have guessed that the sign I am standing behind says "Please Keep Off The Grass". What is it with the British and their immaculate lawns, safely kept behind the "Please Keep Off The Grass" signs? Don't they know how perfect the lawns would be for picnicking, or better still, a good gallop across on horseback?!).


Over the fens between our flat and the rest of town at sunset - not bad, eh?

GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

I swear that I am staying true to my intentions (and resolution) to maintain this blog, but regular readers will figure out that today's entry and those for a few days on either side have magically appeared all at once. I will admit to monkeying with the time-space continuum to do this - just to let you all know that I AM THAT POWERFUL. Keep this in mind the next time you consider doing something that may displease me. Not to mention any names, but Ray, this may mean YOU (firmly tongue-in-cheek).

In any case, please know that I am not forgetting to blog, I've just been held up with the most mundane of excuses - I've been working my butt off lately. I think I've mentioned before that I come up with many of my entries while folding clothes like a drone, but then am too tired to type them out when I get home. The result: many saved-up entries appearing all at once (thank goodness my memory is still intact!) and that much more reading fun for ya'll when I do finally get around to sitting down to type for a decent amount of time.

TWITTER-PATED WITH SPRING

As per my second-to-last post, Spring is in the air and it is lovely, lovely and lovelier still. I am drunk on the beautiful weather, brisk sunshine and the beginnings of flowers. To wit: I had a whole other entry worked out for today's blog, but my walk to work was so stunning today that I decided I just had to comment (again!) on Springtime's wonders. Unfortunately I was camera-less but have vowed to take Ray on a walk soon to capture the scenic delights.

I actually don't have much to write beyond Wednesday's comments, because it is so difficult to capture Spring's ephemeral wonders in prose. Michael Ondaatje may have a shot, but I am stretching my limits just by using the word "ephemeral" in a sentence. I just hope that, wherever you are, you are beginning to taste the heady pleasures of Spring for yourself. Even in Edmonton, Miss Kim, where it is butt-crackin'ly cold.

Note: Those of you who have no clue what "twitter-pated" means, I hereby command thee to run to the nearest video store and rent yourself a copy of Walt Disney's Bambi.

POTENTIALLY BIG THINGS IN THE WORKS

Superstition keeps me from mentioning more, but dear family and friends, keep your fingers crossed for me today.

(Ha! Suspense! I sure know how to keep you addicted to this blog.)

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

Evidence that spring is upon us here in Cambridge:

1. It is no longer frosty and icy in the mornings.

2. The swans that were greyish-brown in November are getting their full white plumage.

3. Crazy folk are actually PUNTING on the river again. The newly-adult swans are learning to flex their muscle and preparing for a season of punter intimidation in the quest for Fitzbillies chelsea buns.

4. The return of tourists. Almost ran over a flock today on my way into town.

5. My cycle has started to rattle and hum - not in a good way - signalling that it may be time for a post-winter tune-up. Let's hope I remember to do this before we suffer a critical failure and say, lose a tire on the way into town.

6. Colleges are revving up for their May Balls (major social events of the year). Ray and I are fielding questions from non-students about attaining ball tickets. Perhaps I could become a scalper if I decide I need a break from retail?

7. Flowers, including snowdrops and daffodils, are starting to bloom. If this is what it looks like in February, I can hardly wait for March/April/May.

7. The grass is starting to grow. You know that "green" scent (hard to describe)? Well, Cambridge is full of it.

9. It is warm enough that I think it is a good idea to go outside without my long jacket and scarf.

10. It is not quite warm enough that once I get outside without my long jacket and scarf, I am comfortable without them!

OLD SCHOOL

Last weekend I had my first Saturday off work in a very long time - what a treat! The day off meant we got to kick up our heels with an old friend from elementary (me) and high (Ray) school - some of you will remember Kristoph. Kris, as he is now known, lives in London and works for a bank while he finishes up his accountancy program. Something tells me that he's going to be very rich in a few years; obviously, he was wise enough not to do a degree in Animal Science.

Kris is a huge rugby fan so we ended up spending most of Saturday afternoon in a pub watching Wales defeat England in their first Six Nations match. While that sentence may imply that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to rugby I am in fact a complete neophyte to the game. After continuously questioning Kris ("What?! How can that not be a penalty?!" and "Wait a minute, which way are they trying to move the ball?") and Ray - while Kris was in the loo (sideways whisper: "Which team is England, again?") - and watching the entire match, I have decided that anyone that plays rugby is a suicidal maniac. For those of you not familiar with the sport, think American football without the padding or the breaks, add the hits of hockey's Todd Bertuzzi and the occasional crotch kick ("Sorry, mate"), and wrap it up in a tourney like the Six Nations that pits old foes such as England and France against each other. However, despite the roughness onscreen and Kris' own scars (he has played since highschool), I was surprised to see that no one was carried off the field. Interesting sport, this rugby. Ray and I may have to take in a game or two this year.

Kate, I know you are a fan and was thinking of you and how fun it would have been to have you in that pub with us. It would have been a mini-Gibsons/Langdale reunion! So perhaps, girl, we can entice you over here for next year's tourney??....

MORE CYCLE ISSUES

Some of you may not know this, but in England it tends to rain. A lot. Cambridge actually has a pretty similar climate to Vancouver, but the nature of the rain is different. In Vancouver, the clouds roll in about October 20th and we don't see the sunshine again until, say, April. There have literally been stretches of several weeks in Vancouver when not a single day offered a ray of sunshine to detract from the ongoing rain. It still rains often in Cambridge but the wind is good for something other than messing my hair - it tends to make the clouds move overhead rather quickly, and I've yet to notice an entire day when the rain didn't stop for at least a little while. We even get days when it doesn't rain at all, or perhaps just a sprinkle or two.

You may be wondering how this all relates to cycling. Well, when I get up in the morning and prepare to head into the town centre to go to work, I have to decide whether to cycle (6 minute commute) or to walk (20 minute commute). I should mention that I hate cycling in the rain because I am a wuss, and worse still, a wuss without a helmet so if I ride in the rain my hair is not only windswept but plastered to my head in the shape that the wind has left it. If it's raining when I set out the decision is simple - walk it is! Slightly more risky is the beautiful sun-shiny morning with a stiff breeze: great now, but what sort of clouds is that breeze bringing our way? The real gamble comes on the majority of mornings when it is grey and blustery but not actually raining. We are virtually guaranteed a shower at some point in the day, but will the downpour coincide with those few minutes 9 hours into my future when I am cycling home?

No matter what the weather holds, I always cycle prepared: backup plan for ditching the bike at Darwin College on the way home if it is in fact raining too hard (for my liking) to cycle home, and a cover for my seat in case it rains during the day. Unpleasant is too mild a word to describe forgetting your seat cover and having to cycle home on a cold, wet seat. One's spouse, of course, inevitably finds the wet seat print on one's derriere amusing and giggles when he enquires if one has wetted their trousers. Therefore, it only took a couple of these incidents for me to ALWAYS REMEMBER to take my seat cover with me wherever I go.

The only snag in my plan is that many other folks appear to forget their own seat covers. On multiple occasions I have gone to pick up my cycle at one of the huge bike racks downtown, content in the knowledge that despite the soggy weather at least my seat was still dry, only to find that my cover had been, ahem, borrowed by someone else with less foresight. Left with a wet behind AND no seat cover!

This has happened enough times that I am getting sneaky. In case you are curious, the mystical seat cover is nothing more than a plastic bag - had considered buying a proper cover from a bike shop, but once my simple cover started disappearing there was no way I was going to invest in something valuable to steal. I think the secret to its desirability lies in the fact that I tend to use bags made of heavy plastic rather than any old grocery store bag (have you ever noticed that those bags tend to have holes in the bottom??). So perhaps someone parks their cycle near mine, notices my heavy plastic seat cover and compares it to theirs - holey plastic grocery bag, or no cover at all - and decides that the heavy plastic is the way to go. The sneakiness comes in in that I am now using a dark-coloured plastic bag, rather than a white one which tended to stand out and announce its presence to all. Have yet to have the dark bag swiped (two weeks with the same bag is now a record!) but if it keeps happening my next recourse will be to write a note on the bag itself. Something like:

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF STEALING ME, YOU ARE A MEAN PERSON. DON'T YOU KNOW THAT MEAN PEOPLE SUCK? AND MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU'LL REMEMBER TO BRING YOUR OWN D*MN SEAT COVER.
PS. HAVE A NICE DAY!

SNORKERS??!!

FACT: Ray calls sausages "snorkers". Does anyone else agree this is a more appropriate term for the (in my humblest opinion) unappetizing British fare? In this country, it appears that snorkers are a daily inclusion in most peoples' diets. It is not unusual for someone to talk about having their Sunday roast AND sausages, or breakfast with sausages, or lunchtime sandwich with sausages, or heck, sausages mid-afternoon for their own sake. Cambridge even has a downtown stall that sells hot sausages (not unlike Tube Steaks back in Canada) for when you get that midday sausage craving.

(And now, don't read further if you love snorkers)

I have been unable to consume anything resembling a snorker or hotdog since the fourth lecture of my first animal science course. Does anyone else realize just what exactly is in these things? Snorkers were invented in times when food was less plentiful and therefore it was important to use everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. Admirable sentiment but there is something in me that just doesn't do reconstituted animal bits. Mix those bits with preservatives and it actually gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I am happy to report that my kitchen, uncoveted though it may be, is a SNORKERS-FREE ZONE. This will probably be well-received news to some of my future guests; for the rest of you, there is always the stall in the market!

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY

This morning I had a great experience at work. A worried-looking woman came into the shop and when I asked her if I could be of help, she replied with a greatful "Yes!". As I spent the next half hour helping her find clothes (it was quiet in the store this morning), she told me a bit of her story and why she was looking for new clothes, leaving me moved.

You see, she had been losing a lot of weight lately and was having trouble finding clothes that wouldn't drape off her - not a problem unfamiliar to myself. But unfortunately her small stature was not due to a high metabolism; rather, her husband had recently passed away and she (understandably) was finding it difficult to maintain her weight as she grieved. Her teenaged children were noticing the weight loss and companions were giving her a hard time about how her clothes no longer fit (just what a recent widow deserves be hassled about - not). She had been left feeling not only alone in the world, but lacking her beauty and desirability as a wife.

Together, we worked our way through the shop and selected clothes that she thought were beautiful and made her feel wonderful to wear. We were able to find clothes that FIT, so she didn't feel as though her temporary thinness was a glaring fault. And when she left the store, she came over to give me a hug and tell me that I had made her forget her situation for just a little while this morning, and thanked me for helping her to find clothes that made her feel good about herself. And obviously, because I am typing this story into my blog, I was touched by the whole experience.

It's funny how something as superficial as clothing can - please let me not be smote upon the spot for writing this - make such a big difference in someone's day. I'm not suggesting that I'm getting sucked into a consumerist, fashionista mindset but I can appreciate the value in making a person feel good about theirself. As I myself am still clueless about clothing, I certainly appreciate the help of knowledgeable salespeople when I'm looking for something to make me feel beautiful - perhaps, for some shoppers, I am the knowledgeable salesperson. Who knew I had it in me?

P.S. See...staying positive about my work these days...

ROCK ON BABY, ROCK ON

You know your store plays a good, upbeat soundtrack when all the wee ones (those members of species Homo sapiens aged between 15 and 36 months) walk through your door and immediately start bopping along to the music. Better still, there is a full-length mirror next to said door and the wee ones love to watch themselves bop, twirl and fall over admist much giggling.

Oh yes, my friends, I can find amusement anywhere.