ipadness

Before the last trip, I ordered a beautiful, all the bells and whistles, (in fact so many I accidently ordered a keyless keyboard) beautiful ipad. It seemed to take forever to arrive, but, finally arrive it did.

I made arrangements for Kevin to have the ipad while we were in Shanghai. He would sync it with the lappy I was not taking and get me some cool apps and set up the ireader. So, off to Courtenay and I left it with him.

In great anticipation we picked it up yesterday. He showed me all the cool stuff and some little helpful tricks. Yayyyyy!!! My main goal with this puppy is to make it not necessary to carry my heavy lappy on trips. This little critter is so much more practical and easy. If its really good, we will get Bill one as well.

So this morning I got up really early and decided that I would do all morning compy things on this new thing. Firstly, it was dying. So I hauled out the cords and keyboards etc...and hooked it up to my laptop to charge it. It wouldn't charge. What the heck?? Upon investigation I see that the lovely sleek expensive cover I bought keeps the slot where it sits in the keyboard dock too high. It will not connect to the keyboard if I use that cover. Crap!!!! Ok I won't be using this cover.

I boot up the Sun to read as I do each morning. I actually don't read the sun first, I read the Province. But....on ipad it puts the whole paper in such a form that you can't just click on The Province...in fact I can't find it anywhere. And the paper isn't by the page like on my lappy it. It has the artlcles listed and I can't tell what page its on and there aren't any buttons to push to email the article. Ok. I won't be using this to read the paper.

Alright....next on my list facebook. After figuring out that you can't see anywhere that it is loading, and poking the screen over and over, a box popped up that told me to knock it off. Ooops!!! Finally I was looking the facebook home wall. so far so good. As I scroll down, I see someone posted a few pictures I would like to see. Tap tap. Tap tap. TAP TAP!!!! Finally!! So I look at six or seven pictures and now I try to go back to the home page. Nope. There is simply nowhere to simply go back to home page. I end up having to go right out and back into facebook. Ok, I won't be using this to surf Facebook.

I took some pretty cool pictures yesterday of my grandson. I even loaded them onto the ipad really fast and easily. So now I think I will email them to a few people. So, after a half hour of screwing around, going to google to read all things ipad, I finally figure out that you can only mail five pictures at once, you can't make them smaller and it takes about five minutes to actually send once you hit the send button. So I won't be using this thing to send photos home on our trips.

Now I am curious. Kevin put a bunch of really cool tv shows on my external harddrive to watch while we are on our trip. So I get it out and get it plugged in and start looking on the ipad for a usb port. It doesn't have one. No tv shows on the ipad.
Ok I won't be using the ipad for watching anything.

I have discovered though that it plays all my music library and plays a mean scrabble game. Also, if you can figure it out, you can read books on it. Yeah Right one thousand dollars and it plays music. Shoulda done more research. My bad!!

fat lady store vent, no its an event turned into vent

Ok I can write this freely because no one 'cept my daughter is reading this and she will surely forgive me. The subject today is the FAT LADY STORE.

I went down to the FLS today to see if there were any summerish and nicish shirts on sale. I know better than to try to buy pants, there just aren't any that fit me (Aryn can vouch for this for me.... can't you?) So I get Bill to drop me off whilst he goes off to Starbucks for coffee. In I swoop and today it is busy in there. It isn't usually. I like it when it is busy cuz I can scope out what stuff looks like on other fat broads like me.

But today!! Oh Lord in Heaven!! I couldn't believe what I was looking at. As I swung jauntily through the door I did notice there were more people than usual. I didn't really start to notice the difference in todays shoppers right away. As I started around my usual route ... first to the left along the side wall, then zig zag backt through the middle then do the far wall etc.... it began to enter my psychy that the women in the store today were larger than usual, in fact they were a whole lot larger....in fact that were huge....over 500 pound huge!! What the heck? I say to my self. So, I started to look in earnest. Holy Hannah!! As I gazed around I began to feel smaller and smaller and smaller and smugger and smugger and smugger. Now, it isn't very often a fatty like me gets to feel small and smug. I began to notice the side glances my way, at my hair, my shorts then my legs ... So I couldn't help myself. I started to sashay and swoop just a little. Then I found my self holding up small (by comparison to what they had to try on) cute little shirts from the smaller trendy side of the store. Then I swung these gorgeous little numbers (none of which would fit me, they do have a few smaller clothes that I can't wear ) up into my arms and strutted over through the ladies to the dressing rooms. I took notice of the women as I went.

Honestly, they were so fat they were mishapen. There butts were so big they could only wear stretchy stuff. Their boobs were sagging and penduous, their stomachs hung down over there thighs. And makeup!! What the hell was that about. It became obvious that these women had all come together and knew each other and I felt they must some how some way belong to some kind of weird club for the really fat. So I slowed down and started to eavesdrop to see if I could pick up any hints. As soon as I did that something else immediately made itself obvious. They sounded funny. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Now I felt like I had walked into a strange and unrecognized world. This is MY store, those ladies that work there are MY people that help me, these big odd women just didn't belong here. i was beginning to get creeped out.

Well I did pick up a few things that would fit and dashed off to an empty change room. The stuff fit, looked good, was cheap so off the register. I just arrived at the counter seconds before a really large woman with fire engine red hair and a load of red iipstick. She stood by patiently waiting. At the end of my transaction, the saleslady handed me a promotion coupon for the end of August. I handed it back saying I would not be in town. She said pass it on to someone. Suddenly this large lady in waiting came to life and said "Yes, they are a truly good deal. I wish we lived here. I would, like, totally come back and use it!!" HOLD ON!!!! Her voice! Her chin!! Her Adam's Apple!! Her wasnt a her at all. Her was a he. All the hers were hes. OMG!!! They were men. Every last one of them. Cross dressing, really really fat, weird, MEN!!! I was transfixed. I had to make myself leave or risk making a spectacle of myself.

I still can't believe what I saw. I wonder if their wives know? I would truly resent having a husband that could wear my clothes!!! They had better not be there when I go back, thats all I can say.

things you come home to- a Purple Room Vent

I have an amazing and wonderful family. Each and every one of my kids and husband is exactly the person I love them to be.
That being said.......I have a family that never ever picks things up, puts things right, puts things away or just randomly does a kind act for the household good. I shall give some examples and keep in mind that every time I come across these little things I am thinking about my sister's family or my best friend's family. This just wouldn't happen in their homes. It just simply wouldn't.

I went out the front door to get the mail yesterday. Lying over under the edge of th house was a big fat orange. An orange. Why? I ask. Why would an orange be just lying there under the edge of the house? The only way it could have ended up there was when the groceries were set at the front door when I went shopping, three days before we left for Shanghai. That is a full two weeks that orange has been laying there. And I know as sure as I am sitting here, that ten years from now it will still be there, or at least the dried dna of it would be. Would this happen in Kathy's house? Would this happen in Cookie's house? I think not!!

The fridge.....OMG!!! Today I took a few minutes to take some things out. This is what I removed....two ziplock bags of runny potatoe salad from Monte's party two days before we left for SH. Soggy, melting runny cucumbers. A half full jar of left over sangria. A styrofoam container with withered dried up pieces of duck. A ziplock bag of something so bad I am not sure what it was (I think it was coleslaw from the party). Old packages of sandwich meat, green sandwich meat. Two containers I wouldn't even open. Would this happen in Kathy's house? In Cookie's house? Hmmmm mmmmmm nope.

Over by the toaster was a bread bag with completely green moldy hot dog buns. Under the couch were three socks, not matching and not clean. There was a bottle cap tucked down in the crease of the leather divider of the coffee table. There was a vase of very dead flowers dropping their stuff all over the buffet. Would this happen in THEIR house? NO IT WOULDN'T!!!

Ok I have vented and I feel better. Plus now that I have done all that....the house is cleaner! And I have always spouted the house rule, "IF IT BOTHERS YOU, DON'T COMPLAIN, GET OFF YOUR DUFF AND YOU DO IT!!" And that is just what I did.

home again home again jiggity jig!!!

I will not hold myself responsible for what I write. I am so jetlagged its stupid!!

What an amazing trip Shanghai was. Immersing oneself in another totally different culture, even for only a couple of weeks, is such an eye opener. You come home different and likely very grateful for what you have here.

Only this time we had to come home to one less doggie. Our old Homer had to be put down (thank you Aryn and Andrew). We miss him terribly. He was such a humble unassuming easy dog and he went so fast at the end. We didn't have time to adjust to a life without him. Every noise we here we think its Homer then remember. And poor Aryn had to do this once before for us. Years ago our old dog Lumpy got too sick to carry on and she had to take him into the vet. I hope she doesn't get a complex.

Well, a few minutes ago another disaster and catastrophy has arisen. I can't talk about it just yet but this one is a doozy. Oh Lord, give me strength. TTYL