Today’s question is:  Why doesn’t anyone bag their groceries at the grocery store? (or at least help?)

Background:  The lack of self bagging is really annoying me lately.  As the state of things are these days there simply aren’t enough grocery store employees to get the job done like there used to be.  Nowadays there is about 2 baggers for every 3 or 4 cashiers.  I almost always use the 15 items or less lane.  And without fail there is almost always a line.  I watch the people in front of me, because you can only look at the bologna on the magazines for so long.  Every single person stands there while the cashier rings up their stuff, processes their payment and bags their groceries.

I wonder what they are thinking sometimes, is it:

1. man this is great, one last thing to count on, someone else bagging my groceries.
2. gosh I’m kind of in a hurry what is taking this guy so long to bag my groceries, maybe I’ll tell  him what to do to speed it up a little.
3. too bad this guy won’t push the cart out to my car and put them in there too, that would be the bomb for sure.  Who cares if he’s slow as molasses, I don’t have to do it, yeah!
4. I hate touching meat packaging, and diary, and how many people do you think have touched that produce, I’m not touching it more than I have to, thank goodness this cashier is doing it for me!

Seriously, how hard is it to bag your items youself?  I do it all the time.

This morning some lady was in front of me, with more than 15 items (in the 15 items or less lane), and she stood there and waited while they cashier painfully slowly bagged her stuff.  She seemed to get noticeably annoyed that he wasn’t doing to her standards and I just stood there rolling my eyes wondering why on earth, if she has such an opinion, she didn’t lift a finger and help a little?  I mean what is this world coming to?

Do people really see the cashier bagging their groceries as part of their grocery store right?

I’m here to tell you that I am quite certain the cashiers do not get paid enough money to get attitude from someone standing around dictating how to bag their groceries.  People should start doing it themselves.  It certainly helps makes the world go around.

Today’s question is:  Why are little boys infatuated with mohawks?

Background:  My boy has begged and begged me for a mohawk for the past couple of years.  Every time I cut his hair he looks up at me and says “can I please have a mohawk?”  to which I firmly reply, “no”.

Nice aren’t I?

When, he needed a hair cut the other day and the standard question came up, I met it with a ‘yes’ instead of  ’no’ and here’s the result……

He enjoyed every second of making faces and showing off his new do.  His sister’s couldn’t get enough of taking pictures of him too.

So I won the good mom award for the day……..

because I only let him keep it long enough for the pictures and then it was back to the cutting room.

For the record, I absolutely hate mohawks, with a passion.

My boy got 10 whole minutes of his mohawk.  Luckily, he’ll have the pictures forever!

Today’s question is:  How do you know dog is man’s best friend?

Background:  This is a joke my husband told me and every single time I think of it or hear it it absolutely cracks me up.

Paul:  How do you know dog is man’s best friend?

Me: ? (our dog likes me a hell of a lot more than you!)

Paul:  if you put your wife (that’s me) and your dog (who loves me more) in the trunk of a car for 1 hour, who is happy to see you when you let them out?

Me:  LOL (laugh out loud)

That is how you know.  I’m not exactly sure about all dogs but our little maltipoo would be doing the happy dance when the trunk was opened, me? not so much.

Today’s question is:  Why does an over abundance garden inspire?

Background:  Of course I know why, if I grow it it must be used.  Therefore, after cutting up cucumbers and dipping them, eating cucumber sandwiches and making tomato, cucumber, olive and feta salad I had to think of something new for my over abundance of cukes.

Soup.  I decided to try cold cucumber soup and I am so very happy I did.

If you have never had cold cucumber soup you must try it.  On a hot day it hits the spot like no other.  And it has been hot here in Chicago.

Today’s question is:  Why is the saying: “No good deed goes unpunished”, true?

Background:  I almost posted this exact question a year ago about some other thing I did that ended up causing me a bit of heart ache.  Maybe punishment just follows me around?

I have a friend that is out of town and she asked me if my daughter could water her plants.  I agreed and then promptly forgot all about it.  She wasn’t leaving for over a week and we were leaving for vacation the next day and you know, it sort of went in one ear and straight out the other!

Luckily my friend had the sense to send me a note reminding my daughter to water her plants.  It had been raining so luckily everything was fairly soaked.  I walked the dog and went to check on her plants the next morning.  They still looked good, but I noticed when I left the yard that I had burrs stuck all over my skirt, on my butt.  The dog had a couple too.  Bummer, I picked and picked until I got them all off.  The dog was left looking like this: (I had to cut the hair in the middle of his head to get the burrs out)

When I got up this morning I decided that the dog and I would water the plants when we were out for his morning walk.  It’s expected to be in the high 90′s today with a heat index of up to 106 F, so watering was a must.  The dog and I arrived, I was smart enough to use the walkway on the other side of the house to avoid the burrs.  I let the dog roam while I gave everything a good soak.

Then we left and went home.

I noticed the dog kept rolling all over the carpet and I wasn’t sure why he was being so itchy.  But I was in a hurry to get the kids out the door for their camps.  I came back, let the dog out of his room and noticed he didn’t eat, very strange.  Then he started doing the rolling thing again.  I went to pet him and noticed he had burrs stuck all over his little face (tiny burrs).  Then I checked his body and they were stuck to his feet too (must have hurt walking home on the sidewalk).  I spent the next half hour or so picking or cutting the burrs out of his hair.  He had a few there were literally on his lip, poor guy.

here’s what I got:

Now, of course, tomorrow I will not be bringing the dog along to water.  Maybe I’ll even make my daughter do it after all!  Packy (packer) will remain here with the kids looking cute and happy as ever.

Good deeds, I’ll keep doing them, regardless of the old adage.

Today’s question is: is there anything better than a fresh tomato? (hand picked from your own garden)

Background:  I was gone for an entire week with the kids.  While I was gone I asked my husband to keep an eye on my tomato plants and pick what needed to be picked.  He’s no gardener, that is for sure.  One day I called him and asked how the plants looked and he replied, I have 6 tomatoes in the refrigerator.  I almost choked.  He then stated that he thought they’d ripen in there (note to self: have husband read a gardening book).  Thankfully, I can use those tomatoes for sauce and it will all be fine.

In case you didn’t know, tomatoes should never be put in the refrigerator and if you are growing them yourself, do not pick them before they are ripe unless you plan on making fried green tomatoes.

Anyway, many, many tomatoes have ripened since I’ve been home.  The weather is simply perfect for the delicious plants.

So, this morning I cut one up and made myself a little caprese salad.  It was so good I just may have another one for lunch.  Check out how good these tomatoes look:

Tomatoes, if you are not growing them, you should.

Today’s question is:  Why aren’t all art museums the same?

Background:  I’m being facetious.  All art museums definitely should not be the same.  However, yesterday I took my kids to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in NYC.  I became a member in January when I was in NYC with my man, knowing it would be great fun for the kids this summer.  We walked in and my boy said “take us to the miniature room mom”.   I about laughed and explained to him that we were not at the Art Institute of Chicago and not all museums are the same.  This museum has other things that he would like too.

He looked skeptical.  I took them up the first flight of stairs and there was the first, most amazing, in the eyes of the kids, exhibit.  It was the screaming exhibit.  Basically, anyone can scream into a microphone, the speakers are set to reflect the sound off of the wall.  The louder the scream the better.

We stood there for a long time while my kids decided if it would be embarrassing to scream in front of a bunch of strangers.  They decided, no way.  And then my boy walked right up there and screamed as loud as he could.

We promptly went up to the Matisse exhibit.

The entire time we were in the exhibit my boy begged me to take him downstairs so he could scream some more.    And that he did:

Thank goodness not all museums are the same!

Today’s question is: Why does spending the day reading make me feel guilty?

Background:  I always feel like I have limited time to read.  Reading is the one luxury I rarely allow myself.  It makes me feel guilty.  Why you ask?  Because in order to read all day you have to ignore every other thing in your world, everything.

I ignore:

my kids
the dishes
the laundry
packing for my week long trip
my husband
my dog
the toilets that need scrubbing
vacuuming
scrubbing the floors on my hands and knees
eating real meals
my garden

Reading can really get in the way.  But when the book is worth it, well then some of the guilt falls away.

Saturday, I really wanted to finish _The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo_ by Stieg Larsson.  I read all day and I still don’t understand how on earth I was able to get packed for my trip, make my husband a batch of meatballs to eat while the kids and I deserted him, and make dinner.  But I did it.  Of course, I had 40 pages left when I passed out that night and I didn’t have time in the morning to finish the book before the flight, so I had to lug the book with me.  Now I’ve picked up the next one _The Girl Who Played With Fire_ in the airport and so far it’s really, really good!  No guilt on this trip!