Monday, September 02, 2013

School shopping

The beginning of the school year in the USA must rival Christmas for the amount of money being spent! Last week we got a note from my son's teacher for this year listing the supplies he will need to bring with him. Fortunately, his school provides many of the things he will need - not all public schools in the USA do. He needed a 3 ring binder (I emptied one of mine for him), pencils (we rounded up a dozen from around the house) and 2 notebooks (I picked some up at Staples earlier this summer when they on sale for 1 cent each.) DONE. 

When the kids are old enough to be heading off to college, the shopping list will not be that short of course.  I went to Target last week and had a hard time finding the things I needed. There are women's clothes somewhere behind those boxes. 


Almost all the aisles in the store looked like this - piles of fridges, microwaves, TVs - all the college essentials ;-) 

Monday, August 05, 2013

God Save the Queen!

Hmm - I saw this at the supermarket checkout last week and wondered why if the Queen really is dying and has decide to name William as her successor, no other news agencies other than the Globe have reported this fact? Oh yes, that would be because the REPUTABLE news agencies try to stick to reporting facts!

This was last week's front cover. I didn't take any photos this week, but they're still harping on about the Queen dying! Here's the image of their front page from their website:
For whatever reason, (selling papers?) the Globe has it in for Charles and Camilla (and Obama.) Here are some of their recent headlines:

 DRUNKEN CAMILLA COLLAPSES OVER KATE'S BABY
NEW MOM KATE RISKS LIFE FOR ROYAL BABY
KATE KICKS CAMILLA OUT OF THE DELIVERY ROOM!
CAMILLA'S CRUEL INSULT LEAVES KATE IN TEARS
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA BUGGED WILLIAM & KATE
CHARLES & CAMILLA CHEAT DEATH
CAMILLA THREATENS TO REVEAL CHARLES' GAY SECRETS
DYING QUEEN QUITS - EVIL CAMILLA GLOATS
DEFIANT CAMILLA'S SHOCKING VOW TO BE QUEEN
ROYAL BABY SHOWDOWN BETWEEN KATE & EVIL CAMILLA
DYING QUEEN COLLAPSES FOLLOWING CONFESSION TO KATE
PRINCE CHARLES WALKS OUT OVER CAMILLA'S INSULT
QUEEN ELIZABETH HAS JUST MONTHS TO LIVE!
BOOZED-UP CAMILLA INSULTS PREGNANT KATE
KATE'S NEW HOME BUGGED - DID CAMILLA DO IT?
CAMILLA'S EVIL PLOT TO SEIZE THE THRONE
PREGNANT KATE FLEES ROYAL FAMILY & EVIL CAMILLA
QUEEN NAMES WILLIAM NEXT KING!
KATE'S ULTIMATE 'DIANA' REVENGE ON CAMILLA

Good grief! The sad thing is, there are people out there who believe this rubbish! 

Monday, July 01, 2013

Fireworks!

You can tell it's getting close to the 4th of July when signs start appearing at the side of the interstate highways warning that fireworks are illegal in this state. They're not illegal in most neighboring states, so people go there to buy them and bring them back here for their celebrations. Of course, the fact that fireworks are not legal in this state doesn't prevent anyone from marketing to us - we even get cards in the mail advertising a big firework store just across the border. The cards do warn (in teeny-tiny print) that fireworks are not legal in all states, but they'll still sell to us anyway!
Warning fireworks illegal

Penalty jail or fines
Cities and towns can have firework displays of course, and there's always plenty of choice since the 4th of July celebration is often not held ON July 4th! Within a half hour of here, you could see fireworks on:
  • June 22
  • June 28
  • June 29
  • July 3 (in 3 different towns)
  • July 4 (in 3 different towns)
  • July 6 (in 3 different towns)
A friend commented recently that he thought the fireworks we were watching weren't as loud as they had been in the past and I suddenly remembered going to the 4th of July fireworks when I was in graduate school (26 years ago!) and thinking they weren't very impressive - more noise than flash. The best firework show I'd ever seen before that was on Bastille Day in the French Pyrenees. We were sitting on a hillside above a football (soccer) field, and not only got to see the fireworks that were being set off from that field, but also the ones going off in two towns in the valley below us. I didn't bother going to any firework shows in the US for many years after that first, disappointing, one!
Most years now we go to two shows - an official town one, and an unofficial one.  This one is held at a lake that has a lot of summer cabins around it. Several of the cabin owners set fireworks off after a day of canoeing, barbecuing and just generally relaxing at the lake. Everyone there chips in some money towards the cost of the next year's fireworks and there's some unofficial rivalry between the 2 ends of the lake as to who has the best show. They are always set off very safely from a metal boat moored in the middle of the lake. These are pictures from a couple of years ago.


Tuesday, April 02, 2013

So nice to know that the Post Office cares!

The US Post Office is in financial trouble and in an attempt to save money is hoping to end certain Saturday deliveries. I have had my issues with them - letters from the other side of the state taking 10 days or more to arrive here for example. (Yet small packages marked 'Surface Mail' regularly arrive from the UK in under a week!) It seems they are trying hard to keep our business though. Today we received a damaged piece of mail that was wrapped in a plastic bag:


Can you see through the plastic bag and tell what this precious piece of mail was?



Yes, it was junk mail - an L.L.Bean catalog that no longer had a cover. You see they aren't planning on stopping all Saturday deliveries - only first class mail. The junk mail will still get delivered - though of course it seems to be the only kind of mail we get nowadays anyway. So how is not delivering Saturday mail going to save them money exactly?


Saturday, March 02, 2013

Stay Dench!

I was watching the Graham Norton show last night and heard the phrase "Stay Dench!" for the first . . . no . . . second time. The first time I heard it was on the same show last week when someone in The Red Chair was wearing a Stay Dench shirt. Graham asked him what it meant, and the bloke wearing it didn't know. This week, Graham started by saying that his entire couch this week was 'Dench.'

I love that a 78 year-old lady has become synonymous with cool! She said she's going to buy her family 'Dench Gang' shirts. I'd like this one - though at 30 pounds it's not cheap!


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