Thursday, September 14, 2017

It's My Treasure Now

Hey, Friends.

This post has been in the making for a while. The story happened a few months ago at a thrift shop. I didn't write about at the time because I told myself I should wait until it was more "seasonally appropriate" to do so. Last night it hit me that now would be a pretty opportune time to do it, and so I went to bed all excited about my plan to finally write the story up this evening.

Friends, have you ever had an idea late at night that you think is brilliant, but come the morning you are second-guessing the wisdom of your late-night decision making? That has been my day -- arguing with myself about whether I should do this or not.

I find the story amusing, but I'm also a giant dork. There's really probably a very small audience who would even care about this. Then again, that's probably true about pretty much everything I post here. I might come off looking just a tad ridiculous, but I'm pretty sure sure that ship has already sailed. The most popular post I have ever written is the one about taking a shower with my shoe while fighting off my nemesis, the spider. Ridiculous has already been reached and exceeded. You all seem to keep reading and enjoying my posts, so I must be doing something right. I like to think it's because I'm an amusing, lovable dork. Please don't feel the need to clarify that if I am wrong.

Okay, enough babbling. On to the story! I'm calling it:

Thrift Store Treasure

Our story takes place back in early Spring. Winter was finally loosening its grip on the world, and everything was becoming a little more green. This is largely irrelevant, since the entirety of our story takes place in a thrift shop, but it helps to clarify the "seasonally appropriate" comment I made above. 

I was minding my own business, looking through the racks upon racks of clothes in the store.  I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I do remember being surprised by the large number of people that were in the store.  

So I was flipping through the rack of dresses in front of me, half looking at the stuff and half watching this woman three long racks away from me. I don't know what the hell she was doing, but it was a very involved process. She was very slowly flipping through each article of clothing, and most of the time she would just shake her head "no" after looking at each one. Occasionally she would lift a shirt up, lay it on top of the rack, and then bend down and examine every inch of it while running her hands over it. Maybe she was looking for imperfections or damage to the clothing -- I honestly have no idea. She had her own small rolling rack with garment bags on one end, and about 10 items on the other end that had passed her inspection. I'm guessing she either takes her clothing very seriously or she has her own store somewhere and was looking for deals to sell at a higher price later.

I fully admit to being a people-watcher. I had never seen anyone do this in a thrift store before, so I kept checking in on her progress as I browsed. It was kind of fascinating to see what got the okay and what was rejected.  

About 30 minutes later the magic moment happened. She was making such slow progress that I was now about 2 huge racks behind her. She flipped to this one shirt and quickly bypassed it as a t-shirt with writing on it. In that brief moment I caught a glimpse of part of the writing on the t-shirt.

Not possible!  The writing on that shirt cannot possibly say what I think I just saw. I kind of froze for a moment while my brain tried to process it. I realized that I had to go find that shirt and see what it said.  

I couldn't just run over there and shove this woman out of the way to get to the shirt in question. That would be incredibly rude. I decided to just play it cool. She flipped by that t-shirt pretty fast. I probably read it wrong. I would summon up whatever amount of chill I possessed and try to remember where it was. No need to draw attention to the treasure I may or may not have accidentally spotted. I'd just keep doing what I was doing, lollygagging and working my way through the racks. I'll get there eventually. Besides, what were the chances that anyone else in the store would care about that one particular shirt?

I will admit that my dawdling started moving at a slightly brisker pace. Any browsing was just my sad attempt at acting like I was paying the slightest bit of attention to what was in front of me. I was keeping my eyes pretty much glued to that t-shirt until I reached that rack.

One rack. One rack away from my potential treasure, and these two older women were standing right in front of the t-shirt. They were chatting away, idly flipping through the shirts. The one woman looked at my shirt and just kept her hand on it while they continued talking.

This could not be happening! I didn't even know if I really saw what I thought I saw, but they absolutely could not take that shirt before I got there. Damn my stupid dawdling!

I will admit to resorting to an attempt at mental telepathy at that point.  *Move away from the shirt. You do not want that shirt. Keep going. Ease on down the aisle and step away from the shirt.*

Now, I'm not even going to suggest that my mental powers had anything to do with it, but they did eventually move on without the shirt. It's far more likely that they just happened to be standing there when they got to a particularly juicy bit of gossip. The shirt was still there, and I didn't really care why they moved.

All pretense at chill disappeared at that point. I had almost lost my potentially-precious shirt once. I made a beeline for that thing as soon as they left the area.

I got to the rack and started flipping through the shirts. I had not counted on there being quite so many white t-shirts with writing on them in that general area. After flipping through like 20 other shirts, I finally found it and.....it actually said what I thought it did!


Why yes, this would be the shirt at the center of our story.

Not to be too blunt, but I was totally fucking amazed at what I had just found. I was 99% sure I had completely misread that thing from a distance. Now, I'm sure there is more than one person in the world with that name, but there's only one that I can think of off the top of my head.

  • How does this even exist? Who made this thing and where did it come from?
  • How in the hell did it end up in a thrift store in Poughkeepsie?

At that point my inner teenage fangirl took over, Friends. Clearly, none of these people understood the treasure that had fallen into their hands. It needed to belong to someone who would appreciate it. The fact that I spotted it from across the store was clearly a sign. Fate, destiny, kismet -- call it whatever you wish. My inner fangirl declared that it was my sacred duty to buy the thing and give it a good home.

But first I had to check the price. Not to poo-poo the sacred duty and all, but I was working with a budget here. Where the heck is a price guide when you need one? I had seen one at some point, but my brain had turned to mush and I had no idea what price was reflected by a green dot sticker.

Turned out, green dot = $2.

Sacred duty shall be fulfilled! (Sacred duty was also a lot less expensive than I thought it would be.)

Sacred duty also did not involve bothering to check the size of my new-found treasure before purchasing it. I could wear this thing as a dress. That is why you are looking at a picture of it on a hanger and not on me. I'm sure it will make for totally comfy pjs closer to Christmas. 

And that, Friends, is my story.  

You're probably wondering how this is "seasonally appropriate" right now. You might be wondering a lot of other things as well, but I'm just going to address the first statement. 

Yes, I am well aware that it is September and Christmas is still months away. I have not totally lost touch with reality. I have decided that it is "seasonally appropriate" because Logan Henderson  -- the name on the shirt -- has a birthday tomorrow, and is releasing a new song on Friday. (His birthday might actually be today by the time I finish writing this, proofreading it, editing it. You get my point.) There is a thought process behind all of this. It's birthday season, in case that wasn't clear.

On the off-chance that Logan ever actually sees this and reads it...

Hi Logan.

We've never met. You don't know me, and I don't know you. I follow you on Twitter and I dig your music. BTR was great, but I really love the music you are making on your own and can't wait to hear more of it. I'm not a creepy stalker, I swear! I've seen countless posts in the last couple of days about your upcoming birthday, so I thought I'd share this story as a little gift.

Unless you hate it. Then we can both just agree to pretend like this never happened and go on with our lives. You can make music, I'll buy it and listen to it, and sometimes I'll reply to you on Twitter.

Are we cool?  Hope so.

Happy Birthday!

Tammy
@tammyshampoo on Twitter







Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Let's Talk About Texas

Hey, Friends.

Last week I had thought of writing up a big post about Texas. I chose not to do so at that time. The impact and the scale of the storm just seemed to get worse every time I saw the news. I didn't feel it was appropriate to share my ramblings here when so many people had lost so much.

I don't know that now is a particularly "better" time to do so with Hurricane Irma headed to Florida and already having devastated some islands.  It is what it is.

As I've mentioned, my brother lives in Corpus Christi, out on Padre Island.  He and his family are fine, thankfully, as they were away at the time Harvey hit.  They were lucky to only suffer minimal damage at their home from the storm.

Port Aransas wasn't so lucky.  13 miles.  That's the difference from the minimal damage my brother got, and the people of Port A.  I love Port Aransas!  I visit  every time I am down there. My heart goes out to the people who lost their homes and their livelihoods.  I can't even imagine what it is like to go home and see nothing recognizable left.

Even scarier?  This is even closer to my brother and his family.  It's owned by the family of one of my niece's friends.





And then the flooding in Houston!  It was like the storm was hell-bent on making sure everyone knew just how many different kinds of damage and horror it could cause.

I know many of you have already donated to a charity to help the people who lost loved ones, their homes, and/or their livelihoods.  Thank you for doing so -- from the bottom of my heart.

Maybe you haven't donated yet.  Maybe you just don't have the money.  That's totally understandable. It doesn't make you a bad person or heartless.  Everyone has their own circumstances to consider. Maybe you plan to donate in the future and just can't swing it yet. That's fine too. There have been fires in L.A. (still burning actually, about 80% out last I saw), and Hurricane Irma is on a path of destruction as we speak.  Lots of people, all over the place, are going to need to help.  Choose an international charity if you wish.  I'm sure the people in Mumbai could use your help as well.

Maybe you want to help, you want to donate, but you just don't know what to do. There's been a lot of conflicting and (in some cases) misleading information floating around online in the last week as to which charities are "good". Go with whichever one makes you happy. Personally, I think it takes a special kind of asshole to berate someone online for where they chose to make a donation to help other people. But that's just me. It's seems to have become a constant thing in the last week.

If you have a little extra money, let me share this: Laguna Little League

That's a link to the fundraiser for my nephew's little league in Corpus Christi.  Their fields got destroyed by Hurricane Harvey. As you can imagine, baseball fields are kind of low on the priority list with all of the damage that happened in the area.

I'm not saying baseball is more important than people.  By all means, please give as generously and as often as you can to help the people who have lost everything!  As covered above, a lot of people need help.  Consider this an option being offered.  It might just seem like a baseball field, but it could help bring back a sense of normalcy for some kids in Texas.

Let's try to end this on a positive note, shall we?  I went back through my pictures from various trips to Texas over the years.  These are some of my favorites.


My brother and sister-in-law got married on the beach in Port Aransas



Sandcastles on the beach on Padre Island



Schlitterbahn when it was still under construction



Pelicans at the National Seashore



Bob Hall Pier as seen from Mikel May's



Moby Dick's in Port Aransas




View from the tower in the park in Port Aransas




Palm trees at sunset



 While waiting for the ferry in Port Aransas





The National Seashore








 Taking a stroll with my brother






This is one of my favorite parade floats ever!



I'm not big on "selfies", but here you go, for those curious souls amongst you.  From the Dia de los Muertos Festival in Corpus last year.  This was taken after we had left, so the makeup is looking a bit rough.  No judging.