I need protection!

I need protection....

but I can't decide on the look.

Biker-serious as in the body armor above?

Something protective but playful?

Or Head to Toe protection?

I've got to do something....today I'm nursing a sore heel...two weeks ago....a hurt elbow.

I cringe every Tuesday now.....wondering what part of me they will get.

Where do I go to get hurt every Tuesday?

The Grocery store.......on Senior Citizen Discount Day.

You think I'm joking?......You should come and ride shotgun with me on a cart....on a Tuesday.

I used to shop on Friday mornings....but now that I go to the gym early on Tuesdays....I switched days.

I noticed something a little different the first time I shopped on a Tuesday morning.

First of all, there was a bus parked outside the store from the local senior center. But ...really....why should that affect my grocery shopping?

Ah.....because it means there's an unusually high number of senior citizens armed with steel carts in the store.

The first time I tried this new time zone out....a very pleasant lady drove her shopping cart right into my buttocks.

Me and my cart were pulled over by the freezers in the frozen food aisle....while I checked my shopping list. A gray-haired woman was steadily moving down the aisle....and although I was standing next to the freezer doors....her spatial judgement must have been a little off...because BAM!!!! she hit me right on. I jumped sky high on impact.

"Ouch!"

"Oh deary, so sorry. I didn't see you."

Being at optimist, I thought ...yes I am so delicate and small she could barely see my butt ...even though it was draped in tight black leggings with a wild pink stripe across the back.

"Did I hurt you?"

What was I going to say? Yes? Ouch, damn you? Watch where you are going?

Hey, I'm going to be that age someday and so are you.

"Ha ha ha (imitating Mitt Romney)...No... no ...of course not..lots of padding....Ha ha ha."

She swooped pass me and waved. I rubbed my butt...wondering if it was inappropriate to borrow frozen chicken thighs from the freezer to press onto my throbbing backside.

The following week....I suffered my first wing injury.

This results when you are pulled over and looking into your basket or bending over to look into your purse for a coupon/or list. Both elbows are out to the side....and therefore fair game.

An elderly bruiser nearly took my right arm off.

"Ouch!"

He passed me by and gave me a dirty look...Obviously because it was Senior Citizen Day and I had no right to have my elbow sticking out past the cart impeding his well-deserved...I-paid-my- dues-and-you-haven't-yet....right-of-way.

A day later I had a nice black and blue mark to remind me of this friendly AARP-ER.

Yesterday, when I hit the grocery store....I was prepared....I looked around before I stopped....I listened for the soft purr of the motorized sitting shopping cart....I avoided clumps of seniors laughing and talking next to deli...sampling cheeses and looking innocent.

I made it!

I got through the entire mega store....in one piece. See...I was misjudging and stereotyping senior citizens. I just had a few episodes of bad luck....it could happen to anyone from anyone.

"Ouch!"

I'm hopping on one leg.

"Sorry," the sweet grandma said with a smile ...as she pulled her shopping cart off my heel.

I need protection, I thought, I'm going to have to wear adult floaties on my appendages....or a sumo suit......or give up and switch my shopping time back to Fridays....when all the moms and crying babies clump.

"It's okay," I said smiling.

"Oh these Tuesdays can be busy....but every penny counts these days. Good thing we can take advantage of the discount."

"We??????" my mind is mentally screaming.

"WEEEEEEEEEEEE?"

She smiled sweetly again...

"OUCH" I thought....

I turned around and stared at her glasses...hoping they were smudged.

Enough of Romney and Newt...Please! David-Relief

"Eat Me?"

Protest Art in Europe ......

Eat Less Meat...or no Meat.

Connections by Jack Anderson

We are all connected, one unto another.

A bulb in my hallway has burned out.

I keep fitting new bulbs into the socket.

Nothing happens.

Then I find in my hallway a switch I have never noticed before.

I flick it on and off, on and off.

Nothing happens.

Three blocks away, in their apartment, a wife calls to her husband,

"Henry! Come quick! The lights seem to be going on and off for no reason."

Jack Anderson

Student Domestica

Some things are hard to admit....
but here it goes.....

I have become a "Student Domestica"

My blogs are more spaced out because all I'm doing for now....is studying ...and working on my house.

My bat mitzvah is set for October of 2013. It sounds a long way off until you start looking at the vast amount of Hebrew I have to know, say correctly and read. I also have to cope with "Hebrew freeze" which means one evening I'll sit down and read something out loud and the next night I'll look at a letter or word (from the very same text) as if it was an alien that landed right on my study sheet...and say, "What the hell is this letter?...and my brain freezes....ala Rick Perry.....and won't budge...and I can't pronounce the word.

I must say ...I have admiration for Rick Perry....because when this happens to me...I don't say "Ooops" ...interesting expletives fall out of my mouth. You have to give Perry credit for not saying something a lot more potent than ..."Ooops."

My house. Oh my house. 16 years we've lived here....prior to moving to the South...we moved about every 4 years. When that happens you tend to discard and slim your belongings because it's too damn expensive and costly to move junk.

But when you sit in a house, all cozy and warm, for 16 years....well....I have an attic....I have storage....and it's easier to just "put something away" than do something with it....especially if you dealing not with one or two people...but 5 people in a household.

So when I brought stuff up from my parent's house, it was a tipping point....boxes and boxes of their stuff and enough of my own stuff for me to shout...."ENOUGH"....and so I set a goal of one year.....one year....to go through all the upstairs bedrooms....get rid of Legos and cute character lamps cluttering up my young adult childrens' closet and pull up rugs and repaint etc etc....also to go through the attic and the garage.

So between studying and house and some community volunteer responsibilities..I've really become Ms. Student Domestica.....and days whip by and I shake my head and say....is this all I have moved? But I've got to get it done....because I don't want this to be a 5 year project...I have things to do and places to go.....as soon as I finish this.

In fact....I'm waiting to hear from the travel agent I just enlisted.....Looks like this summer it will be Rome, Israel, and Jordan and maybe Egypt...I realized I haven't scared myself in a while....so I told her after the group part of the trip is over.....could she find opportunities for me to travel solo and head into the Wadi Rum in Jordan and maybe the Negev and maybe Petra and maybe Sinai? I'm waiting to hear what she might suggest.....should be a nice break....from study and peering into closets and into boxes I've hidden under pretty skirted tables. How clever I was to stash all that stuff......

If you have a cat....You Totally Understand this......