Today I'm pulling into the bank following a black car that looks vaguely familiar. A Solera, I've heard of those once upon a time. Even the license plate looks like I've see it somewhere before. It has a Florida Gator on it.

Aha! It is Mike's old car which DT-sD now drives. So she pulls off to the side of the drive to gather her wits and banking materials. I pull up right next to here, stop and roll down the window. HA! Nice little surprise! I suggest after her banking transaction she come to the house to pick up her mail, which includes this dirt cheap jewelry she orders online, to the tune of .25 cent earrings. How you make a living selling that is quite the mystery. Why don't they just pay us to relieve them of their earrings?

Her mail also includes a solicitation from Bob Jones University. They want money to transform the dining common. DT-sD wants to know why they didn't have such a modernized dining room and food when she was a 9th grade academy boarding student several years ago. Beats me why they didn't.

She wonders why I bother handing her a letter from BJU, it hits the trash faster than even the postcard reminder from her former dentist, my childhood friend. The postcards remind that DT-sD might want to consider coming in for a cleaning appointment since it's been 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, etc. since the last time she had her teeth cleaned. To no avail have I tried to tell the dentist's receptionist that DT-sT has moved on.

Then she has an invitation to rejoin her monthly hair care products club. And a something or ruther from the bank.

Also in her mail pile, for lack of a better place, a blue beads on elastic bracelet that was part of a bunch of blue beaded bracelets on elastic I gave her for a Christmas present. This stray one I discovered recently, this little set came from my gift box. DT-sD scorned these bracelets many moons ago. But this year after opening her Christmas presents she announced, What do you know, I like everything you gave me this year. She even liked one of the gift bags. She was as shocked as I was. Even though I love to spill beans, I refrained from telling her the beloved blue beads on elastic bracelets were her rejects from long ago. Now they are fashion recycles. He, he, he.

She has been having this sinus trouble for a month. Yet she worked the lunch shift at the restaurant. She said the tables look at her funny when she opens her mouth and sounds like Darth Vader. She has been spending the night with friends to avoid inhaling mold fumes in her sleep. Always sumpin', right?

Hey, guess what? I remembered the brand I wanted to tell you about the other day. I found a great new product. Bottled water. Bottled water you can actually OPEN the top without permanently gnarling your wrist in the process. I tell you what, I'd had it with some of these dopey bottles. One brand, to save money and the earth, no doubt, made their caps so small you could barely find the it much less get a grip and...hello...open it. These caps are clipped on so tightly it's beyond absurd. I'd have ten monkey fits three times a day, just opening my bottles of water. Seriously, life is too short for this kind of nonsense.

So, I saw a new brand of water at Sweetbay grocery store. Kelley Springs. Looked good to me, pure spring water from right here in Florida. But boy, when I got it home and gave the usual death grip to the lid, I was in for a MORE than pleasant surprise. This cap just spun off like a charm, so easily, in fact, I wondered if the seal had been broken. But all the bottles are like that. It's because they only have about three points (instead of the usual 20) where the plastic is attached, you know, the perforated little plastic nibs. BRILLIANT! Even my mother could open it, and that is the grand test of all. It's effortless, I'm telling you. It even feels good, try it.

I can tell you this much, Kelley Springs is the only brand I buy from now on. Period. And there is actually a swimming hole at the springs, too. (Probably not the point where they bottle the water). My mother was great to take us to visit the Florida springs when we were kids. Nothing like jumping in an ice cold natural pool of the purest clearest water. Somehow, though, we never got to this spring, and it's right near Apopka, I think, where we went to boarding school.

Of course I had to Google Kelley Springs, this is how I found out about the swimming. I was Googling because I wanted to THANK them for saving wrists and tempers everywhere. But I couldn't find the exact website...somehow. Now I shall have to telephone instead.

So, I am spreading the word. And just you watch, when I go to Sweetbay tomorrow, there will be no Kelley Springs bottled water and they will tell me they stopped carrying it, in my honor.

My house look so bad that I told Mike he could not bring his visiting boss over here or he might lose his job. Gads. I feel the mood descending to turn into a whirling dervish. But first, tomorrow is my friend's CAbi clothing party, which I wouldn't miss for anything. The refreshments and her house are too fab.

Then I have to pick up a painting I commissioned for Mike's boss. It's a picture of his product can. That's one thing I figured he might not have. Man, I hope he likes it. It's a thank you for the Germany trip he gave us. The artist, my friend, is hoping I like it, too. Jeepers, I hope I do like it. We went out to dinner and we got home there was a message that she wanted to drop it off at our house because she was eating dinner on our side of town. THANK THE LORD we were not home, NO ONE can see my house right now. Not even you.

Okay, run out and buy Kelley Springs water and save your wrists. PLUS, it tastes wonderful, better than any of the others. Robby and Jazzi love it. Robby has been a wild man lately, totally insane, the little sweetheart. He has learned to open the kitchen cupboard doors. Rats.

Good night, my blogging babies,
KEM

JEO says she has no use for restaurants that have their tables two inches apart.

I love someone who doesn't mince words.

Here is what DT-sD had to say when she calls tonight and sounds like she's dying. (Don't you just love when your kids call you late at night and sound like they were just shot or run over and with their last little lift of a finger are calling to gasp their farewell words?)

All raspy and breathless-like, with a lot of commotion in the background, she exhales, If you still claim to be my mother, why didn't you give me your curly hair instead of sinus trouble? (Remember, she insists she is adopted, but I have sad news for her, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.)

Well, that's what I thought she said, so I repeated it back to her and she agreed that that's what she had, indeed, said.

I suggested she move out of her moldy apartment, since she's had said sinus infection for a month. And she does live in a moldy apartment. She can have her old room back here at the house, as long as she doesn't paint it.

Then she wants to talk to Mike. And guess what? Remember that French restaurant I told you about and JEO referred to above? Where we ate for our anniversary 3 nights ago, 5 days after the fact?

Well. It was a cold night and as we left the restaurant, we saw all these people seated at tables outside. And it was chilly, I'm telling you. Now I know why they were eating out there, it was roomier.

But guess who two of those peeps were? DT-sD and her young man. But we didn't see DT-sT and her young man. We were too busy heading up the street to go visit DT-sT at the restaurant where she works. Three blocks in the cold later we are informed she is not working tonight.

So back we go, three blocks. We end up in the French Bakery next to the Cassis restaurant and buy a chocolate eclair because Mike needs change for the valet. Then we slip into our car with our little sacks of French morsels and off we go. TOTALLY unsuspecting.

But in actuality, DT-sD and young man have watched this whole scene unfold. Yes, they have observed our every step while we were in sight. We have never met young man, even though he's been around for 8 months, in and out. Thank the dear Lord my hair looked good that night (for me). It's very unnerving when someone meets you but you don't meet them, even when you find out about it 3 days later. I feel like I was a player in a movie or something. Pretty tricky of them, wasn't it? And now I've lost my big chance. I mean, not two days earlier I asked if we could meet him one of these centuries.

And if this isn't ridiculous enough, I texted DT-sD right when we got home. I said, We stopped by your restaurant to see you tonight. She replied immediately, I didn't work today. I said, We found that out. Then we chatted how she wants a big house and will never have one and I said, Who needs a big house anyway, and then she said, Me. Then I said, Well, be sure you can afford a maid then, and btw I'm reading The Help.

Now, you think about this for a second. She was probably sitting at the very same spot where we walked by not 17 minutes earlier. And I'll just bet you they were laughing all the way to the bank...or whatever.

Now young man is back up north. Can you even believe this? I hope I get invited to the wedding...when there is one...if there is one.

Speaking of The Help, the author is not afraid to have one of the main characters regularly taking the Lord's name in vain (I had to look up how to spell vain in Exodus 20 just now, remember way back when I blogged about the three spellings of vain, but I could only think of two and forgot there was a third spelling until my mother spelled vain for me and I was surprised to find it was spelled not my two ways, I really have a hang up with vane, vain, vein). Hey, maybe that character gets saved in the end.

Anyway, it is definitely not THE HELP who swear like that, they are church going women who have respect for God. Still, it really takes away from the book for me, TOTALLY UNNECESSARY to swear using Jesus and Christ like that. In fact, it curdles my blood. I hope Kathryn Stockett, who is otherwise a brilliant author, is reading this. There, my piece, peace, peas is spoken.

And with that, my friends, I am out of here. You know what? I had a day where I woke up feeling rested, even after small sleep. And not only that, I made chicken salad, felt good all day, my back didn't hurt and I got a lot done in general. I was calm and happy even though my mother got her cast soaking wet...again. And I picked out bricks for our new walkway we have to have installed before someone trips on uneven boards or rides a board to some region under the earth and we get sued. I picked these out with minimal fuss. Fuss, yes, but minimal. AND I feel totally confident about my decision. Will someone please tell me what on earth is going on? This person I just described is definitely not moi (I use moi because I never know if I should use me or I in these situations, so I play dumb). Thank you.

I suddenly have a sore throat. Please pray this is not a you-know-what. Oh dear, I was excessively grouchy yesterday and positively giddy today. This is not a good sign...at all.

KEM