Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Color during a drab day

lots of pretty bromeliads at the UM botanical garden







back to thrift store shopping. I need a few more chairs The blender on the table makes all kinds of noise


I shouldn't complain because it is way too warm to snow. There was some list saying that Michiganders have the 2nd worse winters in the country (Minnesota is ahead of us). Hmmm...Michigan is not all the same. The Western portions and the Upper peninsula get way more snow than we do. Up north also is colder though due west is warmer. In the SE, we probably get more sun than the rest of the state. Still it is quite drab outside and very little sun.

First stop, got a mani-pedi. Although I still have been getting manicures, I have neglected my feet as who sees them now? But I might  resume yoga and have agreed to go to a water aerobics class. Taxol messed up my nails, especially my toe nails. One of the toes still has a thick nail though the affected portion is getting smaller, it is ugly. I was the only customer for most of the time I was there and I seemed to get the deluxe treatment. While massaging my calves, he asked if I worked out everyday because he could feel all my muscles.
There is a Seinfeld episode in which Elaine swears her Korean manicurist is talking and laughing about her to the co-workers but she doesn't know for sure as she doesn't know Korean. So she brings George's father along who happens to know Korean. The workers at my place chat and laugh together in Vietnamese. Yeah I think they are laughing about how big my feet are and probably how hairy I am though I make a special effort not to have any excess hair. Now all my nails are Mainely (sic) Lobster so at least they are colorful. I had gold then silver glittery nails for the holidays.

Then to the Botanical garden with a friend. Lots of orchids and bromeliads in bloom plus the greenhouses are quite warm. It was a nice outing.

Today was super senior day at the Salvation Army. I swear I will take a break. As I was trying a beaded silk Bob Mackie jacket over my shirt ($2..probably was more than a hundred originally), a nearby woman remarked that it was too short for me (it wasn't) and asked whether I would ever even wear it and would I be willing to throw something out in my closet to make room for it. This woman was wearing a shirt covered with food stains and was quite unkempt but still thought she could be a critic. I said for $2, if I only wore it once, it would be worth it.

I have since tried to find the jacket online unsuccessfully. Turns out that this was probably bought on the Home shopping network in which you can buy other jackets in 5 easy payments. I think if you can't pay for it in one payment, then you shouldn't be buying it.

A better deal was the table and chair set for the grandgirls though it was hard to put the table in the car.

What's on the tonight's program? I was supposed to go to a co-worker's birthday party but it has been postponed as the birthday girl is ill. I am to go to a follow up visit with the pediatrician to discuss Maya's progress on her ADHD drug. She can sit still to put together fairly large puzzles. She also worked on decorating the gingerbread house last week for more than a half hour. Previously, she would do something for a minute or two then move on so we are seeing some progress. We will see if she is still losing weight.

Tomorrow is Steve's and Oliver's birthday. We will see if we can celebrate Oliver's a bit early tonight.

4 comments:

Elephant's Child said...

Hooray on Maya's progress.
Sigh on the know-it-all in the store. Did she want the jacket for herself do you think?
Loved the botanic gardens visit.

Starting Over, Accepting Changes - Maybe said...

My husband comes from Michigan (Grand Rapids) and we lived in a town named Bad Axe (on the thumb) for 18 months early on in our marriage. The winters were bad, but being young, I did not mind it that much. Today, my joy of snow is completely over. Michigan, though, is a beautiful state and your summers by the lakes are just beautiful.

Snowbrush said...

I didn't even know I hit publish, but the comment was suddenly gone and the "blog owner approval" notice appeared, so I guess I did. Still, I'm going to run it by you again just in case. So if you got the first (which surely you did), just delete this one because it's the same thing.

Michigan and Minnesota have the worst winters of the fifty states?! I wonder how anyone came up with that. For one thing, as you pointed out, the weather can vary enormously within the same state. Maybe you’ll recall that I spent two winters in Minneapolis, and I often felt very glad that I didn’t live in Duluth or International Falls, both of which made Minneapolis seem like what it really was called, i.e. “The Banana Belt of Minnesota.” Another (relatively) good thing about Minneapolis was that it only got four feet of snow per year which was no more than a third or even a fourth of what some places over in Wisconsin got. Now that I’m in Western Oregon, when I think of winter, I think of short gray days and drizzle. I prefer them to extreme cold and snow, but when a Minnesota day was windless and sunny, a high of zero or less really wasn’t that bad.

By the way, be forewarned that I’m going to come to Michigan, mug you, and bring your Botanical Garden back to Oregon. I so need such places as that! I am also in desperate need of a truly first-rate art museum, so if you have one of those nearby, I’m going to load it into my RAV4 alongside the garden and bring it back to Oregon.

Sue in Italia/In the Land Of Cancer said...

Well the Detroit Institute of Arts is quite good, home of a massive Diego Rivera mural. As it fills up an entire room, it will be hard to stuff in the RAV4.

I used to embrace the snow and go cross country skiing every day that I could. I wore out my skis and new balance issues, due to chemotherapy, make skiing scary; plus I am even more afraid of falling. I do remember the calm skiing gave me plus the better attitude during winter. It's been a month though since we had enough snow to ski on. Maybe some day, I will buy more skis assuming global warning does not make snow a thing of the past.

Detroit once was listed as a top down hill skiing destination. What? Turns out the listing was based on the sheer number of ski hills made from trash dumps and expressway pit leavings. Detroit is as flat as they come.

Recently my hometown of Corning, New York made the list of coolest little towns you haven't heard of but need to visit. That I agree with.

Followers

Blog Archive