The Trappings of Fame

I'm famous at my grocery store. Or, maybe more accurately my reusable bag collection is famous at my grocery store. 

I did a light trip to the store tonight to pick up some essentials and veggies and my ever-refilling Rx. As I cruised up toward the front of the store to ring up my purchases I passed by two check out lanes with the weird cashiers and picked a lane with a bit more of a line, but no weirdo at the helm. 

The cashier gave me a knowing smile as he rung up the rest of the groceries for the woman in front of me. I had a moment of, "Oh my God, he knows who I am. Why does he know who I am? Does he recognize my green coat? Does he think I'm cute? That's giantly weird if he does because I usually shop with my husband."

As the cashier started ringing my groceries, he asked, "Did you get a new bag from another store?"

Ah, that's how he remembered me. We had discussed my vast collection of reusable bags before - and he always gets confused by the reusable wine bag from Zupan's. I try to pick up a bag from every grocery store that I visit for work. Oddly enough, this means that while I have reusable bags from Wegmans, Hy-Vee, New Seasons, Central Market, D'Agostino's and others, I don't have a bag from Safeway, where I do 90% of my grocery shopping.

"How many of these bags do you have?" the cashier asked. 

I had no freaking clue, so I made up a number.  But when I got home tonight, I counted up my reusable bags. I have 12 bags from grocery stores around the country, and six others from other places. And I think I actually have a few other bags in the trunk of my car. So there might be more. I could do the shopping for about a dozen Thanksgiving dinners and have room to pack it all up.

But for tonight, it meant that I had three bags of groceries, and 15 empty bags leftover to haul home. At least the boy scouts would be proud of me for being prepared.

How Romantic

Scene: Eating artichokes, candlelight dinner

Me: Want to clean off the rest of this and eat the heart?

Will: Yeah, let's rip into this sucker Temple of Doom* style.

Happy Valentines Day!

*My least favorite movie ever.  I had serious nightmares about everything in this movie.

Things That Make Me Happy

Today has been one of those days. 

I cried at work. And since I work at home when I'm not working in other states, I get to deal with things like answering the door to let the cable guy in looking a (hot?) mess. Even mustering up what was hopefully a cheerful, "Hi! Thanks for coming to fix our cable, here's where we are having issues kthxbye!" didn't really hide the swollen red eyes and snotty nose. 

I do pride myself on being an optimist, seeing the glass as half full. So in the spirit of looking on the bright side of life, here's my list of things that made me really happy today:

1. Top Chef started! OMGOMGOMG - two chefs from Boulder are competing this season! I have to say that Boulder has become quite a culinary hot bed in the 6 years since I re-moved here. Frasca and The Kitchen get written up quite often. And now, chefs from Centro and Jax are in one of the best shows ever! I was already quite excited for the new season, and now I'm simply giddy to cheer on the home-town heroes!
2. Will! Due to the fact that Will works from home too, he could hear the conversation that made me cry through my ear piece. Not many people are lucky enough to have their husband give them a well needed hug during tough work conversations. Also, we had a good laugh coming up with a story about why a police car was heading into our neighborhood as we headed out for dinner tonight. We thought either our cat was busted for dealing catnip, or our elderly neighbors were busted for dealing pot. When we got back home, there wasn't evidence to confirm either scenario, though the cat was still home. So clearly he hadn't been hauled off to the clink. Also, we don't really think our elderly neighbors deal drugs. But if you knew them, you'd think it was a pretty funny idea too!
3. Noodles & Co! Nothing like a big plate of delicious carbs to make everything better. Okay, maybe not the healthiest response to stress, but at least I ate something other than mac and cheese.
4. My college roommate, Carrie's, new nephew! Haven't met Parker yet, but he sounds beautiful even though he was 11 days late. New babies put life into perspective and hearing about this new guy makes me happy.

So I'm going to wrap up my day, snuggle with my cat, and get a good night of sleep. Tomorrow doesn't have any mistakes in it yet, so wish me luck that I can keep it that way!