“The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”
Today was an unexpected sleep in late day. I won’t even admit what time it was when I finally crawled out of bed. Because I had no cream, the dog and I, as soon as we came downstairs, went to Dunkin’ Donuts to buy my morning coffee. Good thing they have a drive-up as I didn’t even bother to get dressed.
As soon as the sun goes down, it gets cold now, a lingering cold, the sort you know is here to stay. Tonight is supposed to be in the 30’s, yup, I said the 30’s. This morning, during my jaunt, the sun was out, but it has since disappeared and has left us with a gray, ugly day, the sort of day which invites coziness and a good book, but, alas, I do have to go out to get the cream for my coffee.
My mailbox will soon disappear. Everyday the pole on which it sits sinks further into the ground weighed down by the catalogs my mailman has to deliver day in and day out, but, luckily, this is a rural route so Bob, my mailman, has a truck which is a good thing as I figure most of his route, maybe even much of the world, is being inundated by catalogs. Yesterday there were twelve catalogs in my mailbox. Three of them had threats, “This is your last catalog unless you order;” however, I am undaunted by these threats. Go ahead, stop my catalogs. I dare you!!
I admit some catalogs make me salivate. William Sonoma and Crate and Barrel are two of them. I also love Napa Style and VivaTerra. I look through each of them and make a mental list of what I’d buy if I had money and room for all the purchases. I even turn down the corners of the pages so I can go back and be tempted.
Back when we were kids we only needed one catalog, the king of catalogs: the Sears Catalog. It had everything anyone ever needed. I always thought it had a bit of magic about it. From its toys pages came our lists for Santa, including catalog numbers so Santa would have no doubt exactly what we wanted. We looked through those pages so many times they got wrinkled and dirty, but we still looked over and over again. Maybe we’d changed our minds or just maybe we might have missed something the first ten or twelve times we looked through those pages.
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Tags: catalogs, coffee, cold, dunkin-donuts, Sears catalog
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October 12, 2012 at 12:38 pm
Verlander
And so we have sit and wait – if Baltimore wins game five tonight the ALCS begins in Detroit on Saturday and Sunday, if its the wankees, then our Detroit Tigers head out to see those Bronx folks on the same days. To make it worse (and I hate weather reports) we are expecting rain Saturday and Sunday
I am in place for Sunday at Comerica if its Baltimore, otherwise its midweek at the ball park
Verlander
October 12, 2012 at 12:50 pm
My Dear Hedley,
I don’t think Baltimore has it in them though all of my wishes and hopes go with them. They just don’t seem to have the pitching depth, but maybe, just maybe, their bats will spring to action.
What a game Verlander pitched!
It would be great to start with the first two games at home instead of in wretched Yankee Stadium. I hope the weather holds and you get to go to the game on Sunday!!!
October 12, 2012 at 1:00 pm
Kat, I was busy texting around at 1.00 am this morning. Verlander pitched a beauty – he clearly told them give me the ball and I will get it done.
I used to think that Jack Morris was the best pitcher that I had seen for Detroit, but not any longer.
In 2006, I saw the Kenny Rogers masterpiece against the yankees, and walked in to the stadium with a business associate who was literally wearing a Yankees batman cape. It was the night before the MSU-UofM football game and I was wearing a Sparty baseball cap – I got a ton more guff than my chum in the aforementioned cape.
October 12, 2012 at 1:19 pm
So far I’ve only gotten two catalogs and one of them was from IKEA, a place I haven’t been to for over twenty years now 🙂 But I feel we get less of them now days, to bad I like to go through them 🙂 The one we wanted as kids came from a company called Hobbex, they had absolutely everything in that one, like Yours from sears and it too had numbers clearly written beside the item 🙂 Only those buying from Hobbex get that catalog now days and I miss it 🙂
19F here this morning and I’m already tired of it 🙂 but´the sun shone all day so I won’t complain 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
October 12, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Christer,
Maybe you should buy something from Hobbex, and I’m certain they would then send you their catalog.
I look through most of them out of curiosity. Sometimes i do see things I covet but I usually have enough self-restraint not to buy stuff.
I don’t balem you! That’s too cold too soon!!
October 12, 2012 at 1:34 pm
MDH,
I figure UofM is never too be disrespected any time, any where but most especially before the big games!!
October 12, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Both my kids are Spartys which by default makes me a Tuition Sparty. Such is the following for UofM that the term Wal Mart Wolverine is widely used.
Sparty has won the last five and they head for Ann Arbor next Saturday
October 12, 2012 at 3:13 pm
MDH,
Chuckling here: Wal Mart Wolverine!
October 12, 2012 at 3:30 pm
Costco on a Saturday morning is the informal gathering point for the Wal Mart Wolverine. They tend to bunch, be heavily (careful choice of words) detailed in maize and blue and consume samples at a spectacular rate
October 12, 2012 at 6:16 pm
MDH,
We have no Walmart so I am missing the show!!
October 12, 2012 at 6:56 pm
Hi Kat,
I left in rain and came home in sunshine.
Lots of computer aggro today which involved troubleshooting the modem, router, modem cable and computer. It also involved a trip to the Apple store for a new router and a fair amount of bad language while installing same. Somehow I began the day with slower than molasses running uphill in January on Pluto speed internet and ended up with ultra high speed internet. I know this because the load light on the modem is flashing green instead of amber. Oh, the strange and wonderful things you learn when you have to call Comcast with a stupid question. 🙂
I expect I will be ultra surprised at my cable bill.
I haven’t been to the post office box in 5 or 6 days so it will probably be stuffed with catalogues. Most of them get chucked into the recycle bin at the post office. I do check out LL Bean and my favorite knitting catalogues and then chuck them into my recycling bin.
Enjoy the (soon to be colder) day. 🙂
October 12, 2012 at 7:22 pm
Hi Caryn,
The opposite happened here-the day was ugly but the morning was lovely.
I hate computer problems as they make me feel quite helpless. I give it a try but most times I have to cll someone or bring it to my computer guru. My PC is still out of commission, and I don’t miss it all that much.
Most of mine also go to the recycle bin at the dump, but I do look through them with Christmas in mind
October 12, 2012 at 7:04 pm
The US Postal Service is going to raise the rate of the first class stamp in January in an attempt to try to make a profit as fewer people use snail mail and more use E-mail. If they raise the rates on the catalog people maybe they will stop stuffing our mailboxes and instead stuff our digital mailboxes. At least the digital ones won’t sink and the paper doesn’t fill up the dump. The best Christmas catalog is the one from Nieman Marcus. The late Stanley Marcus started including extravagant his and her gifts in the 1950s. Each year people wait anxiously to see what outrageously expensive and unusual gifts are on this year’s cover. Here’s the link to the this year’s unusual gifts:
http://www.neimanmarcus.com/christmasbook/category.jsp?itemId=cat44770736
It was warm and partly cloudy today again. This is the weekend of the “Red River Shoot Out” at the State Fair of Texas. It’s the annual University of Texas against The University of Oklahoma football game which will be played in the Cotton Bowl at Fair Park here in Dallas tomorrow. The big party will begin in Downtown tonight and continue through Sunday morning. The game has been played in Dallas for over 100 years because we are neutral territory halfway between Norman Oklahoma and Austin Texas. The cry of “Hookup Horns” and “Boomer Sooner” will be heard in all the local clubs, sport’s bars and on downtown streets. The Dallas police have the crowds well organized and the number of shootings has been reduced over the years but the drunk tank will be full by midnight with revilers from both schools.
October 12, 2012 at 7:28 pm
Bob,
They recycle mine at the dump so they come to a good end. Filling my e-box drives me as crazy as the ones I get in the mail. That Neiman-Marcus catalogue always made me wish I had tons of money as some of the stuff is amazing. Thanks for that link!!!
I can’t imagine such hoopla for football. I love that the game is played in neutral territory-I guess that keeps the madness within acceptable boundaries.
October 12, 2012 at 7:40 pm
The madness has only been acceptable in recent years when the cops got tough. In the 1950s the UT fans drove a truck loaded with wood down Commerce Street until they reached Akard, which is the center of downtown. They pushed the wood out of the truck in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic and crowds. The students lit up the wood and created a bon-fire. The fire department took a long time to get through the crowd to put out the flames.
October 16, 2012 at 10:16 am
You know about Catalogue Choice? It’s a free service whose mission it is to save trees and protect your privacy. Give them the info they need that’s found on the address label of the offending catalogue, and they do the rest. It works. We’ve reduced the number of useless books we received manyfold.
http://www.cataloguechoice,org
October 16, 2012 at 10:40 am
Ralph,
I didn’t know about it-thanks for the help. I was afraid the catalogs would bury me!!
October 16, 2012 at 10:17 am
Just realized I put a typo in the URL. Cataloguechoice.org. I put a comma instead of a dot.
October 16, 2012 at 10:43 am
Ralph,
I noticed it but thanks for pointing it out!!