Wistful Gypsy: August 2024

Yesterday was JP's birthday...or as he would say "just another day".

God, I hate people who say that about their birthdays.

I get that it's his day and he can do with it whatever he wants, but I sort of like the idea that there's one day out of 365 "just another day(s)" that is not an ordinary day. It's a special day because you were born on it and if you are not of the mind to celebrate that single, remarkable,God-given, life-affirming event...well, I guess that's your right ~~to be a curmudgeon~~.

However! Your apathy toward the day can possibly drive other people nuts - especially if they're me someone who fervently believes in celebrating birth days.

So the day went like this: breakfast on the back deck, enjoying the lovely cool morning we were lucky to have..a trip to Lowe's for some house projects stuff...a few hours of outside house projects...

JP had a rare 3-day weekend which was really, really nice except for the part where we couldn't do much of anything because it was too freakin' hot.

How are people outside in the inferno weather we've been having? Because my lungs have not been the same since my double lung collapse (pneumothorax) in 2009, I literally cannot breathe once the temperature hits more than 80°F-ish and especially when the dew point and humidity are at the Saharan desert levels even though the Sahara desert is 5,863 miles away from my location in Delaware.

None of this weather stuff wound up mattering much on Friday. We awoke with excitement and a "seize the day" outlook. Yay, 3-day weekend! kind of thing.

Then, as we were enjoying our morning coffee, we noticed that our well pump wouldn't stop cycling after the yard sprinklers ran. This prompted a bunch of phone calls, then a visit from the emergency plumber because our regular plumber was on a jobsite and couldn't get away right away.

The emergency plumber inspected the situation and said "oh, big problems" and "you have 3 options", then provided three quotes for those 3 options - $2000, $4000, $6000.He also advised that financing was available!

Thankfully, JP realized he was a crook and sent him on his way. Our regular plumber came by a few hours later, laughed heartily at the 3 estimates we were given, then proceeded to upgrade our entire system (which did not have "big problems" afterall) for the very fair price of $1600.

Those emergency service companies have their place if, let's say, you are in a real bind/emergency, but know that they will always charge you excessively. My advice is to get in touch and establish a relationship with a local guy who also handles emergency calls before you have any problems.

That was our Friday, which ended with wine time inside the house because it was too hot to be on the deck.

On Saturday afternoon after spending the first half of the day asking each other multiple times "what do you want to do?" and answering with "I don't know, what do YOU want to do?", we decided to take a ride to an antique place we've been to before that's just over the border in Maryland, thrilled that it's just under 30 minutes now from our new Delaware house. Nothing makes me happier than walking around these kinds of antique stations looking at a bunch of ~~junk~~ things that I could possibly buy and clutter my house with.

When we arrived and entered the store the lady at the counter said "Hello..." and before we could respond in kind, finished with "....here is a key for you to lock your bag up" as she extended her arm toward us with some kind of key dangling from her fingertips.

"I'm sorry, what?" I queried.

"You have to lock your bag up in a locker," she stated.

"Uh, I don't think so," I stated back, sweetly.

For an awkward moment, she stood looking at us as we stood looking at her.

I was contemplating just leaving during that awkward moment but I wasn't sure what to do because sometimes I'm a hothead and I can sometimes overreact a teensy tiny bit when I think someone is being an &*$#* unreasonable person and also, it was Africa hot outside and we'd already wasted half the day not knowing what to do with ourselves and I didn't want to go home and go back to asking each other what we wanted to do.

Instead I said "well, no, I'm not locking up my bag" and then I took my wallet out and JP put my bag back in the truck.

I then proceeded to walk around the place telling JP sort of loudly not to touch anything because I didn't want anyone to think he was trying to steal one of the very many ~~$2 garage sale junk items~~ valuable and priceless antiques the place is overly filled with .

I was a little bit mad.

Then I got a little bit madder when I saw a couple of other ladies who were customers walking around with their handbags over their shoulders. Granted, mine was bigger than theirs but it wasn't as if I were walking around with an empty IKEA bag slung across me.

At one point even JP said that he was pretty mad, too.

Because, here's the thing: if the first thing that happens when I walk into your store is that I am made to feel like you think I am a potential criminal, I'm not feeling warm and welcomed and it is very likely that none of my many credit cards are going to be used in your establishment on that or any other day in the future.

Also, I'm not handing over my handbag to a stranger to handle. What if there's a fire while I'm shopping and my handbag burns up? Who is going to reimburse the $8,294 I had in my wallet (yes, I carry that much around with me ALL the time!)? What is the store policy for that? What if I have an asthma or heart attack at the back of the (dusty) store and have to now walk through the store to get to the counter and wait even longer for someone to unlock the locker where my bag is being stored so I can get the inhaler or nitroglycerin and hopefully not die in the meantime?

The point is that people keep important stuff beyond money and credit cards in their bags and if a store has some kind of "hand over your bag because we think you could be a thief with that thing" policy, then I'm not shopping there that day or any other day.

I get that shoplifting is rampant and stores need to take actions against that. We were in the grocery store the other day and the laundy detergent was secured in plastic boxes that had to be unlocked if you wanted to purchase any! When I was a manager at a Borders bookstore, the hotspots for the highest incidence of theft had more cameras and were monitored more closely by employees plus some of most stolen items were locked up and had to be asked for (the religion section was #1 for theft, not kidding). I do not get arbitrarily treating some customers as potential thiefs - i.e. requesting that I lock up my bag but other ladies didn't have to.

By the way, here is a picture of the handbag I was carrying that day:

12" ruler and Perrier bottle for scale. So, you can see that it's not a gigantic bag in which to steal antiques (:::eye roll:::). That set of vintage china is probably not going to fit in there.

More info: Is It Legal For Stores To Force Me To Leave My Backpack At The Front Desk
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-legal-for-stores-to-force-me-to-leave-my-backpack-at-the-front-desk-whele-I-am-shoping-front-What-if-I-have-valuables-in-it-and-I-dont-wish-to-leave-it-with-strangers

We tried to go to Rehoboth on Saturday night but the traffic was insane. We moved one block in 20+ minutes so we skedaddled out of there and decided that we wouldn't go back until season was over. Instead we drove through Lewes and wound up running into these two:

I got a new graphics tablet that beats by a mile the more expensive Wacom ones I've been using.

Now that summer is starting to wane, I can feel my mood lifting and recently felt my creativity stirring to create photo art again. Summer is so terrible for me and I genuinely spend my days just existing. It's wonderful when I start to feel hopeful again and more myself. It kind of took me by surprise when I felt the need to create a new photo art piece but I went with it. The Wacom tablet I had is terrible and messes up my computer so I had to create this piece using the mouse. It's not my best...but not my worst either.

Flickr featured it by giving it the Explore award, which is a really high honor. Having an image chosen for Explore means that your work was singled out for its excellence. It's given to 500 members each day and considering that on average 25 million (!!!) pictures are uploaded to Flickr each day...you can understand why being chosed for Explore is such a really big deal.

You can see it on my Flickr account by clicking HERE and see all of my art on Flickr HERE..