Another day . . . another blog. That's how it works.

So guess what is right up there with ovocatoes and citrus? FIGS, Baby, FIGS. I'd had a hankering for some lately, and then at last there they were, oh joy, many boxes of the plump little guys stacked neatly in Rollin' Oats, a sensible grocery store because it's SMALL and you can get in and out lickety-split and not spend hours untold wandering the aisles of some SUPERmarket, getting lost in mind and body and never finding the figs. Well, I'd like to know what is more fabulous than a fresh fig? Nothing, that's what. It's so DIFFERENT. And it's so much fun to eat something that, without question, goes way back to the Garden of Eden, you really can't go back much farther than that. When Adam and Eve took and ate of that forbidden fruit, the most pathetic moment in history, wow, guess what was their very next act? To sew aprons out of fig leaves. Does this make anyone besides me wonder if the fruit of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a FIG tree? I don't know, that thought is brand new to me, it sprang into my head unsolicited and quite of its own free will while I was vacuuming hair tonight. I had just had a Fig Fix, that was the trouble. Actually, Adam and Eve were probably too scared out of their wits to dare touch the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil again to pluck its leaves, even though that would have been convenient because they were RIGHT THERE. But the very first humans were in WAY too deep. They must have yanked off leaves from some other tree, which, obviously, was the fig tree. I'm thinking maybe God didn't propagate such a significant tree anyway, yet figs are still with us today, thank goodness. Yeah, so it's true, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was probably not a fig tree. Wow, did that make ANY sense. It did to me, that's scary. Anyway, most of us have kind of assumed the apple was the fruit, at least there seems to be a general consensus among early artists, and the power of their suggestion has lived on, I'm not arguing that.

So, anyway, I had a TO DO LIST that I made up last night. When I came downstairs this afternoon, there it was on the stove where I can't miss it and it said, EAT BEANS AND GO TO TARGET. Remember that can of baked beans Mike snubbed? Well, three days ago I opened and ate half the can for breakfast and three days is my limit for leftovers. I got that great idea from Dear Abby. In one of her columns she was APPALLED that ANYONE would consider eating leftovers BEYOND the THIRD day, how NUTS can you get?, and that to do so would land you smack dab in the ER after, say, the first rotten bean. Also, AskMarilyn says that she presumably has a limited number of calories she can consume in her lifetime and she's not about to squander them on GROSS food. So, my three days were up and the beans had to go down the hatch, not the garbage disposal, because my pet peeve is wasting food, even though I just threw out some aged cherries. Rats, how could I let cherries bite the mold? I LOVE cherries, they're right up there with figs, citrus and acacadees.

So, CHECK, hey, where's the check mark on the computer? Hmmm, they need to add that in. Hey, I see two eighth notes, never saw those before, but I'm afraid to press that button, there's just no telling. CHECK BEANS. Now I need to get to Target but first the mall is calling. It's calling loudly and clearly because I want FREE STUFF and I want it NOW. I want my FREE you-know-what from VS. I suddenly want to give my brother-in-law a birthday present from Clinique so I can get my FREE little gift bag, which I had just given one to my sister for her birthday. I was SO TEMPTED (see Adam and Eve above) to steal the blush that's like lipstick and the wee mascara AND the tiny tube of Even Better cream that Marie Claire Magazine said is one of the "25 new products that will change your life." WHO would believe THAT? If a skin tone corrector is going to change my life, I am in SERIOUS TROUBLE. But I'm seriously curious, too. See, I had bought my sister that Even Better cream in the big size for her birthday, because it sounded so great, don't you know, and that got me the free gift bag, which, as I said, had the mini version of same cream to try. Oh boy, I wanted to try it. But it would have looked ultra tacky to rip open the plastic sack and help myself to the darling little minatures I coveted and then just dump what was left in the cloth zip bag. I asked Mike, Would it be okay . . . ? He said, Absolutely not. I didn't want to be a crumb of a sister, so I left it alone. When she received the gift she called to thank me and first thing she said, I LOVE THE GIFT BAG, all that little stuff looks so cool. Figures.

Back to the story at hand. What was it? Oh yeah, AND, I also want to get a FREE escalator ride in the department store. I think my blog from yesterday has been subliminally chanting ever since, Go back . . . go back to cruising the escalator . . . up and down, up and down . . . yeah, go live a little . . . go back to your granny roots. So, get a load of THIS. The escalator was BUSTED. The moving staircase was at a perfect standstill and roped off with yellow caution tape and barricades. PERFECT illustration of the things that can only happen to KEM. I go into a department store about twice a year and can't even get an escalator ride, which is a given in a department store, a FREE escalator ride! So we had to take the boring, claustrophobic elevator up to housewares. I have a TERRIFYING elevator story to tell you someday, and that combined with the fact that I suffer SEVERELY from claustrophobia, well, elevators have about as much appeal as being buried alive.

So, we get up to the Fiestaware display. I'm telling you, Fiestaware is cheerfulness personified. They incorporate every color known to man and then make up some more. I wanted new dishes a couple of years ago and I picked Fiestaware because of course it goes charmingly way back. AND it's made in the USA. AND it's lead-free. My friend and I were discussing what colors I should get, one placesetting of each color and go hodgepodge, or what? Normally, I always get everything in safe, boring, wonderful white. But THIS time I was going to break loose and go WILD. Besides, my friend bossed, YOU ARE NOT GETTING WHITE. So, I went in the Beall's department store and told the nice lady, I CANNOT buy white dishes again. She said, WHO ON EARTH WOULD BUY WHITE FIESTAWARE? I would, breathed a small, still voice. FIESTAWARE IS ALL ABOUT COLOR!, she told the truth. I liked the lady, she had attitude. So, she helped me pick out eight pretty colors, it was very exciting and took forever. At home I unpacked the dishes and laid them all around, mixing up the colors, a purple mug with a red bowl, with a pink plate, oh, millions of possibilities . . . and became completely nauseous. The next day . . . I promptly went back to Beall's to return them. I have the kind of luck where the lady who helped me the day before was staked at her post, the front door, to greet customers. What's she doing here for Pete's sake? Lady, go away, you never knew me. I tried to sidle past her, but she was prepared, she had watched me loading up the cartons from my trunk to a cart, the brazen little thing. She said to the man who had also assisted, OH NO, look what I'm afraid I see. She said to me, You've got to be kidding! I am not. I have come to exchange the colors, just like every other lady who ever bought Fiestaware, I asserted with false assurance. She rolled her eyes. I said, All these colors are just too crazy for a girl of bland taste. She said, Well, you are NOT getting white. I AM getting white, I contradicted. And I did, white and tangerine, like an orangesicle. So, at least only half of my dishes are white. Tangerine reminds me of orange juice in a paper cone, duh. Then Laura gave me the yellow Fiestaware individual casseroles. So, tonight I find myself at Dillard's admiring blinding lime green Fiestaware. But it was all for fun, mainly so I could have a FREE escalator ride, that was my excuse for riding the escalator, FW on the second floor. The salesman proudly held up a divided vegetable bowl, FW makes this EXCLUSIVELY for Dilliard's he boasts. Excellent peas of knowledge. Then I spotted the Clearance where there was a peacock blue FW mug for $1.54, regular price $8.50. One of my white mugs got chipped and got chucked, so I got it. It was PRACTICALLY FREE.

Now, Target, 1/2 of the main object of the day. Target flyer said if you bought two things off this list, that you could get a $5 FREE gift card. I'm telling you, marketing is aimed straight at the gullible . . . me. Nothing on the list appealed except paper towels, because I'm out. But then there was a jar of Regenerist Sculpting Cream by Olay. It comes in a shiny red jar, just like Eve's apple. It purports to lift a sagging jowl. Hmmm. But guess who doesn't believe in wrinkle cream? You already know it, 'cause I already said it. I don't. How on earth is a mere soggy cream supposed to be any match for real wrinkles or drooping chin flesh that ain't goin' nowhere 'cept deeper and lower, for crying out loud? It's not and it doesn't. So someone please tell me how come I jaunted (KEM word) out of Target at the stroke of 10:00 PM swinging a sack of Rengenerist Sculpting Cream by Olay in the red shiny jar with silver lid? Sculpting cream??? Now I've heard of everything. What is it? Plaster? What do you do with it? Smear it on, let it dry and then pick up a chisel and hope you turn out a Michelangelo? Gads, what next?

Will let you know what's next,
KEM