Friday Fragments: March 12, 2010

Thanks again to Mrs. 4444 at Half-Past Kissin' Time for hosting Friday Fragments, by means of which I can lure unsuspecting readers to my blog and, yet, don't have to agonize (too much) over what to write!

• I am drinking chocolate-mint tea, sweetened, and with a dollop of milk. Yummy! Not quite a Peppermint Patty, but, I hope, close enough that I’ll lay off the junk food.

• Alpha got some hand-me-downs from the other girl on her hockey team, and I’m finding I have a visceral reaction to the scent. They don’t smell bad – the clothes were all well-laundered – but they don’t smell like ours. I’ve had this reaction before to hand-me-downs from elsewhere. I guess somewhere deep inside me is a mama animal who knows her babies by their scent.

• I was deeply moved at our parish mission earlier this week (one evening’s program didn’t conflict with hockey!). The priest who was leading the event invited the congregation forward to kiss or otherwise reverence the altar. One of the last to do so was the mother of one of the eighth graders. She has MS and usually sits near the back of the church, where the elevator is. She made her way slowly up the aisle with her walker, and her daughter helped her up the steps to the altar. That she would do this voluntary action despite her obvious physical difficulty moved me to near tears.

• We have been living tight the past week – Mr. Sane forgot to record a credit-card payment in the check register, and we suddenly discovered we had next to no money in the account. But it’s payday, so I’ll be heading to the craft store. Food can wait!

• (Actually, it’s change-the-bulletin board time at the school library, and pretty much anything besides construction paper and staples I need to provide myself. It’s not like the public school I attended, with a fully stocked art room. I need to get transfer letters so people won’t have to look at my sloppy handwriting.)

• Food didn’t actually wait – I stopped at the grocery store a few doors down from the craft store. This, however, meant going right past the Weight Watchers center during open hours, so, even though I’ve been looking at the scale this week the way a vampire looks at a silver cross, I went in and got weighed. I asked the receptionist not to tell me what the damage was, though, and I haven’t peeked in my book.

• I’m participating in the 40 bags in 40 days challenge, which I learned about from Jessica over at Shower of Roses. (Not sure I can say she’s hosting, as it’s not a carnival or meme, but....) Anyhow, I’ve managed about 6 bags so far, and by my count, we’re on the 21^st day of Lent, which means I’m doing about as well this year as I typically do when I try to give up chocolate.

• I saw a guy with really bad hair. Really bad hair. Picture Wolowitz on the Big Bang Theory crossed with the mom on One Day at a Time (or any other woman with that .’70s bob). I would have guessed it was a really bad toupée, but it was black with about half an inch of gray roots.

• I don’t suppose anybody knows how to get a “smart” apostrophe at the front of a word (without inserting text the same color as the background)?

• I used to have a change jar, but after the most recent forage for milk money, I have a jar of pennies in which the Tooth Fairy hides her stash of golden dollars. (Don’t tell the kids.)

• That's all I've got!