Mother's Day Flowers -- An Explanation

A note to my fabulous Sister-in-Law to explain why she may or may not ever get the flowers I sent to her...or why they may arrive multiple times. No, I am NOT going to include her name here.

Dear XXXXX,

I tried to send you flowers for Mother's Day -- I really did.  I ordered them early, for delivery on Friday to be sure they got there on time.  I even picked an arrangement it said was available for "same day delivery".

I ordered flowers for my mother at the same time.  My Mom's  arrangement arrived early Friday and were gorgeous, so I took that as a good sign.  I told my brother to expect your flowers at your house, and he was going to be home most of the day and it was all going so well!

Then came the phone call, around 5pm my time.  My first clue that things had gone awry should have been when they could not pronounce your first name right, or even close to it.  Then came the bad news: they were not going to be able to deliver them that day.  They were all apologies and wanted to reimburse me and give me a credit, etc. How is this possible?  How could New York get flowers delivered within the first 4 hours of the selected day, but after 7 hours I am being told it is not possible in Texas?

I asked if I could substitute a different arrangement,  maybe that was the problem.  Not possible. 

Could I just have them delivered the next day then?  The man on the phone was stymied for a moment, then told me it was not possible and he would have to check with the the postal service or UPS but it probably wouldn't be ready until late next week.  WTF.

I will admit that at this point a became a bit cross short-tempered bitchy with the man on the phone.  I was on my dinner break from work, running errands and trying to have time left to actually eat something  This nonsense was the last thing I needed to deal with.  To steal a phrase from a friend, I kind of "Went New York" on him.

I asked what the schedule for the postal service or UPS had to do with anything since the website said it was guaranteed for same-day delivery by a local florist.  He sputtered a bit, then said it was a mistake on the website and they would have to remove it.   I asked if I should re-order for a different day, would they actually get delivered then?  He guaranteed it.

We went back and forth a bit more, but in the end  I was given a refund and a credit for future purchases. 

So I immediately went back to the website and placed yet another order for your flowers.  Supposedly they would be delivered yesterday or today.

When I checked my email this morning I saw that the refund had indeed gone through.  Fearing that some galactic screw-up was in the works, I went to the website to check on the second order I had placed for you.  It told me I had no orders.  

You have got to be kidding me.

Fine.  I will place a third f$&*ing order  for these flowers.  Now this is what I see when I go to the website:

Are you serious?  No florists are delivering on Mother's Day?  One of the biggest days of the year to make money on flowers, but apparently not in Texas.

So more flowers have been ordered.  Hopefully, eventually, you get them.  In theory this should occur tomorrow, but I'll shocked if that actually happens.  Who knows?  Maybe the order that magically vanished will arrive as well and you will get multiple deliveries.

I swear if I win the lottery I am going to move to Texas and become a florist -- a florist that actually has flowers and freaking delivers them like they say they will.

The tl;dr version:  Happy Mother's Day to my fantastic Sister-In-Law!  One day, hopefully, flowers will arrive at your house!

The People From the Attic

I bought my house about four years ago. It's an older, bungalow-style house built in 1935.  The guy I bought it from was really nice.  He left all the paperwork about the repair work he had done while he owned it, he knew it was my first house so he left me a ton of furniture which was awesome since I had none.  The place was sparkly clean inside and in the garage.  I literally could not have asked for a better person to buy from.

The attic was also spotless, except for a broken drawer from a piece of furniture that wasn't here, and in the drawer were three old black and white photos.  He was so thorough about everything else that I can only assume these are not his relatives.  He had to have known they were there, as I spotted them immediately.  I can only assume that they were there when he bought the house a decade earlier, so he left them where he found them.

After I had lived here a bit, I discovered a name written in the cement in the basement -- presumably when the floor was poured or patched.  It happened to be the same last name as a gentleman my parents are friends with.  Turns out his family lived here many years ago, when he was growing up.  He didn't recognize or know the people in the photos from the attic though.

I have no idea how to track down whom the photos might belong to, but I decided they shouldn't stay up in the attic.  Judging from the background, and knowing this area was very different back in the 1930s, I think it might be the original owners or their family.  The background looks similar.  I dusted them off, framed them, and I have them out in my house amongst many other pictures.

I realize it would be an Internet Miracle if anyone actually recognized these people, but why not try?  Below are the photos I found in the attic.  If you happen to recognize them, please let me know!  Otherwise they will stay here in my house, out where they belong instead of in a dusty attic.

Little Girl

Little Girl and her Mother, I assume.  Maybe in front of a new car?

It appears to be the same car

Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- AKA I'm Still Watching The Marvel Movies In The Wrong Order

** I feel ridiculous even having to say this, but this obviously is going to contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the movie yet and don't want to know even the tiniest of spoilers, don't read this!  You've been warned.  I don't want to hear any complaining. Are we clear?  Good.**

I'm still watching the Marvel movies, and I'm still hopelessly out of order.  I haven't seen the first Captain America yet, but I have seen The Avengers so at least I know that much going in to this movie. (Not for lack of trying -- I've got a request in for the first movie at the library, but apparently everyone else wanted to watch it as well so I'm still waiting.)

My friend, bless her, tried to catch me up on the entire first movie before we saw this one.  Luckily the good folks behind the movie also realized that there were probably going to be a bunch of clueless fools like me watching, so they included some backstory.

First of all, apparently our theater has Dolby Make-You-Vibrate-In-Your-Damn-Seat-From-The-Bass surround sound.  Holy shit!  I felt like I was in the explosions, and that was just in the previews.  Not a spoiler or relevant, I realize.  On to the movie!

Captain America has learned some new ass-kicking skills, folks!  He is much more badass than in The Avengers.  That being said, Cap, when the bad guy on the boat basically double-dog dares you to put away your shield, you do not do it!  And you definitely should not be taking off your mask and throwing it to the side!  I felt like I morphed into Captain America's mother.  "What do you think you are doing?  Put your mask back on right now, young man!"

And Rumlow?  This mother f#*ker drove me nuts the entire movie.  Die already, would you!  He got his ass kicked so many times he should have been in a damn hospital somewhere, not back in the next fight.  Falcon left him -- I'm not going to spoil that much -- but he should be dead.  DEAD!!!  

I'm not sure if they meant the identity of The Winter Soldier to be a Big Reveal.  They dropped a lot of hints in the movie ahead of time.  Even I, hopelessly behind things, figured it out right away.

I really enjoyed the movie.  It was not just about the fighting and action sequences -- which were great, don't get me wrong -- but also the plot about information being power, and how that power is used by those who possess it.

I really was worried for a minute that Captain America was going to die.  It would be my luck to get sucked into a movie universe only to watch one of the main characters get killed in one of the first movies I see.  I had to keep reminding myself that there was another Avengers movie coming soon, so he wasn't going to die.  I wonder if The Falcon will get to come back for that?

I was surprised that Hawk Eye didn't show up in this one.  I kind of thought he and Black Widow had a history, maybe worked together outside of The Avengers.  (I have not read the comics, but it really felt they they had history together that would make it plausible.)

I think maybe I need some sort of a timeline for the Marvel universe movies.  Now that I have seen The Avengers and know that all of these guys can work together when they want, it causes me some issues. Take this movie, for instance.  It's all about information and who has it, S.H.I.E.L.D. is having some problems, and the bad guy has this super-strong metal arm.  How the hell does Tony Stark not know this shit is going down and get involved?  It seems hard to believe he didn't notice this little blip on his radar.  Why the hell didn't anyone call him for help?  Was he busy doing whatever happens in Iron Man 3? (I haven't seen it yet -- don't spoil it!)  

Also, stay after the credits roll, folks!  There is an extra little bit at the end.  And what do they show?  Hydra has  Loki's tesseract-staff thing from The Dark World.  OMG is Loki coming back?  If you have been reading, then you know I got sucked into all of these movies because of Loki.

This next thing is not remotely a spoiler, but something that has been pestering me since I watched the Avengers.  Captain America's hair really bothered me in that movie.  The blond looked bizarre to me.  Maybe it is because I had seen Chris Evans in another movie first with dark hair.  Some people are bothered by action or special effects that don't look great and want to nitpick them apart, some people get annoyed by little things like a California license plate in the movie and it is supposed to be Colorado. I get bothered by hair color that does not look right.  It doesn't always happen -- hell, I thought Orlando Bloom was really blond all through the Lord of the Rings trilogy-- but when it does it just bugs me for the entire movie.   I honestly do not know why, but Captain America's hair drove me nuts in the Avengers.  Scarlett Johansson as a red-head worked.  I went into this movie fully expecting Captain America's hair to irk me, but it didn't.  This time it worked.  Maybe less obviously blond?  I really don't know.  I'm assuming he must be blond in the comics.  (**Edit:  I'm right.  My friend did the research and Captain America is blond in the comics.**) 

In short: go see the movie.  It was really good, and very nicely left a lot of loose ends for further development.

**I never said these were going to be super-important spoilers, filled with deep thoughts.**

Siblings Day?

Apparently today (well, yesterday if you want to be technical) is Siblings Day.  I've never heard of it before, but it must be true because I read about it on the internet!

I'd feel shitty about not knowing it was Siblings Day, except I'm pretty sure my brother has no clue either.

So here's to my awesome brother, Brian!  He lives far away now, and I miss him all of the time.  Here is a picture of us looking super cool back in the day.  I'm going to guess from our fantastic attire that it was the 1980s.  That, and I appear to still be taller than him in this picture.

Ties were apparently very cool.

While we are on the topic of holidays I did not know existed, I looked up my birthday and apparently there are several very exciting options that I could also celebrate on that day:

Love A Tree Day -- Kind of thought that was covered by Arbor Day, but maybe they mean love in a very different manner.

National Bike To Work Day -- That's a pretty cool idea.

National Sea Monkey Day -- I shit you not.  This might be the winner, folks!

Wear Purple For Peace Day -- To get aliens to come visit the planet, peacefully.  No really, read the link!

Let me know if you have a preference for which awesome holiday I should celebrate in conjunction with my birthday.  

I'm totally leaning toward sea monkeys.  Seriously.  That shit needs to be recognized!

Camping Memories

Yesterday I went on a hike in Bowdoin Park with a friend.  I've been to the park several times, but something about hiking through the woods made me think back to my days as a Girl Scout.  We had some interesting camping experiences, one of which was at this particular park.

My mother was one of my troop leaders, and our troop was together pretty much from day one of Brownies until we all moved on to other things in high school.  We had a lot of good times, but several camping experiences are memorable for the things that went wrong.

For example, I vividly remember one time when we were camping in Bowdoin Park.  We were staying in the lodge there, thankfully, because the weather was most uncooperative.  It rained the entire time.  I don't mean a little sprinkle -- more like Noah should have been building the f#$king ark behind the building. A homeless man tried to climb into the building through a window.  I'm sure he had probably been staying there all along and was just as surprised to see a bunch of Girl Scouts as we were scared shitless to see him. I also remember the board path through the marsh area, as we walked through that several times. By the end of the weekend everyone had to hike back out to the main road because the road to the cabin was such a spectacularly muddy mess that no vehicles could get in.  Fun times!

There was also the Camp Out With the Caterpillars.  I think we were at Sharpe Reservation for that fantastic adventure.  It was supposed to be a regular camp out, but it is memorable for the tent caterpillars.  They were incredibly bad in this area for a few years.  On that camping experience they were so bad that we had to wear a bandana or a hat whenever we were outside because it was literally raining caterpillars down from the trees.   I remember when we were leaving that we turned up the radio in the car because the caterpillars were so thick on the ground that we could hear them squishing as the car drove over them.  Did you know it is possible for squashed caterpillars to make the road slick enough that a car will lose traction, and roll back down a hill?  Totally happened.  I was in the car and my mother was driving.

A third awesome camping experience was at the Jubilee held at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds.  That was really interesting because there were so many troops there.  I remember all of my troop being incredibly jealous that a troop of older girls got to order pizza for dinner, and we had to cook ours over the fire -- you know, like Girl Scouts are supposed to do.  There was also supposed to be bad thunderstorms and lightning, so the organizers made everyone go and sit in the permanent exhibition halls that are on the fairgrounds.  We diligently went up into the hall, and the people in charge kept telling us to move back and sit against the walls so that everyone could fit inside.  My mother took one look at what was going on and told all of us to move away from the wall.  Why?  The fairgrounds are pretty flat, until you get to the area with the halls which are up on a hill, and the halls happen to be made out of metal.  They had moved everyone into big metal buildings on the highest point around, and then told us all to sit back against the big lightning rod.

We had other camp outs that went much better, of course.  Those stand out in my memory simply for the extraordinary circumstances we found ourselves in.

Shout Out to Troop 154!  We were awesome!

An Eggscellent Find

So I was in the store the other day, and I came across the oddest candy:

Yeah, that's right:  Gummi Fried Eggs!  Who comes up with these ideas?  I can understand the cola bottles, cherries, peach rings -- those are all things that are already sweet.  The traditional bear shape makes sense if you think teddy bears and trying to appeal to children.  I'm even down the with gummi severed body parts they sell around Halloween.  They are macabre, a little twisted, and I buy them every year.  

Of course I had to buy these immediately.  Who knows when I will see gummi fried eggs again?  I'm not sure why they are out now.  I'm guessing anything egg related is supposed to be associated with Easter.  They were strangely alluring in their weirdness.  

I decided the best way to showcase my special find was to make cupcakes.  I have no good reason to make them; they are purely to celebrate the magnificence of the candy.  I'm taking them to work tomorrow because what the heck am I going to do with that many cupcakes?  They would petrify into little cupcake paperweights.

Behold!

For the record (and to keep my coworkers from being grossed out at the idea of what they might be asked to ingest): the gummi fried eggs taste vaguely like vanilla, or marshmallow.  I can't really put my finger on it.  

While awesome, it still seems like a strange choice of food to recreate in gummi form.

In Which I Continue to Watch the Marvel Movies In The Wrong Order

In case you are just joining us, I watched Thor for the first time last week.  I kind of latched onto Loki as my favorite character (don't know what that says about me).  I finished and had to watch The Dark World immediately afterward.  I was not happy with Loki falling off of Asgard at the end of the first movie.

I did not find out until after the fact that I needed to watch The Avengers as well.  I had been sucked into the whole Marvel Universe thanks to Loki.  I don't know that much about superheros -- don't watch most of the movies, haven't read the comics.  It's a whole new world to me.

Last night I decided to watch The Avengers -- or Part II of the Loki trilogy, as I considered it.  Joss Whedon is involved with this?  Awesome!  I loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I knew who Thor and Loki were, obviously, so I wasn't going in completely clueless.  Oh look!  Iron Man is in this, too.  I've actually seen the first Iron Man movie because Robert Downey Jr. was in it.   Captain America! Holy cow, I remember watching a cartoon version of Captain America when I was little.  I remember the theme song and everything!

In re-runs, people.  I was not around in 1966.

The Hulk?  Totally know who he is as well!  This is going so much better than I had hoped.  I watched that on television too, when it was Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno.  

No clue on the rest of them.  Never heard of anyone named Hawkeye or Black Widow.  I have only heard of S.H.I.E.L.D. because of the commercials for the television series.

This should be good!  At least I wasn't completely clueless.

I realized immediately that I was going to have to go back now and watch Captain America starring Chris Evans.  Add that to my list of movies to catch up on.  Apparently he already knows what the Tesseract is, and he was a popsicle for many years.  I remember none of that from watching the cartoon series.

Ah, Loki.  You are still chockablock with issues: Daddy problems, Brother problems, power hungry, jealous, vindictive, hurt.  I love the complexity, your warped brain and world outlook.  You are so damaged. That being said, I have a problem with your plan right from the get-go.  Loki, my lamb, what are you doing cutting such a bad deal with these creepy-ass alien dudes?  I get that they gave you a cool scepter, and knowledge of the Tesseract.  However, for someone so smart and cunning who usually looks out for himself, I think your plan is a bit short-sighted.  You want to take over the Earth and be King, and piss off your brother, I get that.  I understand that you may need an army to take over the Earth, but you are going to give them the Tesseract in exchange?  Really?  That's the part I have a problem with.  You should really consider reneging on that part of the deal.  You might be King of the Earth, but you will still be their bitch when they have unlimited power.  Keep that Tesseract for yourself, honey.  I'm sure you can come up with a way to use it to take over the Earth without these other guys.

I absolutely loved this movie!  I watched it again directly after finishing, just to catch bits I missed the first time -- like Captain America giving Fury the $10.  I love that Loki just kind of kicked back and watched Thor and Iron Man beat the stuffing out of each other in the woods.  I probably would have been much more upset about Agent Coulson if I hadn't already watched The Dark World and spoiled that part for myself.  I feel like I am missing a lot of back-story with Hawkeye and the Black Widow.  

The writing was great as well.  There were some terrific lines in the movie.  A few of my favorites:

-- Hawkeye: "Doors open from both sides."  So deadpan, like everyone should have figured that out already.

--Stark: "Loki, he's a full-tilt diva." 

--Loki: "I don't threaten...You are but words" when talking to the creepy alien leader.  So perfect.

--Fury: "I recognize the Council has made a decision, but given that it's a stupid ass decision I've elected to ignore it."  Rock on, man!

I was left with one big question after watching the movie, and it is probably due to my lack of familiarity with the Marvel Universe:  Who the hell is The Council?  I get that Fury answers to them, but who are they?  Are they supposed to be world leaders?  

I have so many more movies I have to watch now.