Cedars, Shopping, Royals

It made Fio feel warm and fuzzy when she saw that even more cedars along DB Woods Road had been hung with colorful Christmas decorations. Dressing trees is a sweet thing for people to do--and to make it even sweeter, she's noticed that the decorations are gone by New Year.
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Fiorella visited a dollar store yesterday and filled up on felt stockings, Russell Stover chocolate bars, and some silver-sheathed pipe wire things that she's hoping can hold her tinsel ropes to the trees along the driveway. Today, she'll visit with friends in Austin, pick up earrings from the jeweler that she'll be giving to her senior daughter-in-law for Christmas, and stop by Walmart to restock el estantes de la despensa con Shredded Wheat (the shelves of her pantry with Shredded Wheat), which Target is out of and H-E-B doesn't carry anymore.
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A special Christmas gift to Fio is the news that Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are engaged. Fiorella likes happy endings, which she hopes they will have.  

Handicapped Parking

After meeting with her critique group at Starucks inside Target, Fiorella returned to her baby car to find a red sticky thing had been slapped on the door warning her that if she ever parked in a handicapped spot again, the authorities would be called and her car hauled off. Scribbled acrossthe bottom of the thing was "Because of you, a wounded verteran did not have a place to park today!!!"

Now, Fio, a born rule-follower, accepts the fact that she was in the wrong. However, that shaming postscript made her mad. In the first place, she thinks suspects the "wounded veteran" reference was metephorical, that her sleek little Miata was what pissed somebody off. In the second place, Fio disagrees with the curreent veneration of every person who's ever donned a uniform. Soldiers are just like everyone else. Some are good, and some are bad. Some lead exemplary lives, and some are rats, no matter what kind of injury they have received.

Fio accepts guilt, but rejects the shame.

Fiorella Rides Again

Fiorella may have had a discouraging time--make that a devastating time--on Tuesday, what with her entire book getting deleted, but on Wednesday, her Austin day, she, friend Paula, Brother, and his wife had a great time laughing and exchanging stories at Dan's Hamburgers. On the way home, Fio bought Easter candy, which is always uplifting, and stopped in at Click Computer Repair, hoping against hope, and Click came through. Travis not only resurrected Phillipa, but taught Fio about something called a recycling bin. Then, high as a kite, Fiorella stopped at Target and was able to buy five boxes of shredded wheat, which hadn't been on the shelves the day before when Husband and a friendly store employee had searched for it. And when she got home, Fio added a cartful of rocks to the driveay murita and took some nice bluebonnet pictures, which she can't show you until Minnesota Son, who's visiting next week, teaches her how to post pics on her blog without messing up.

 So today's a new beginning, and Fio has a light day planned. Primarily, she will work on Phillipa's story, then call the church to find out when she and Austin son should be getting their art in. On the side will be laying down rocks, sorting family photos, paying bills, practicing piano, and, of course, studying Spanish.

By the way, Fio needs more opportunities to practice her Spanish. Does anyone out there know of an instructional DVD or a small local class?

Photo, Computer, Sonia, Easter, Spanish

As you probably figured out from yesterday's post, Fio tried to add a photo onto her blog, but ended up messing up the post instead. She promises not to try this maneuver again until some knowledgeable person is standing behind her and telling her exactly what to do. Apparenty a big part of the problem is that she has a Droid and her blog is on gmail.
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Speaking of computer problems, Fio is not thrilled to announce that she accidentally deleted about three hundred pages of text and notes as she was closing down from reviewing her current work-in-progress. Luckily, she has a Carbonite back-up and is on good terms with Click Computer Repair.
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In a complete change of topic, Husband is training Sonia Dog to close the back yard door after herself. It's going to take a while, but it will be worth it.
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Fiorella has plans for Easter. She'll buy enough chocolate tomorrow to take some around to the neighborhood people who have helped her with her murita de rocas (little wall of rocks), which should be finished off in a couple of months, maybe sooner. Spoiler alert: Fio will be wearing the bunny ears Husband picked up for her at Target yesterday.
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One more thing--Fio has decided to check out Target and Walmart for DVDs for people who are trying to learn Spanish. Duolingo was too repetitive, and telenovelas talk too fast.

Pretty Pink Dress

For about four months, Fiorella has been casting sidelong glances at the little girls' dresses in Target, and now that reality has struck, she finally went into the appropriate department to look through the baby clothes. But there wasn't that much of a selection, and Fio was picky--only the most beautiful little dress in the world would do for Baby--and she finally found it, pink and pretty with a wrapped rose at the waist. She'll try to add a picture of it to this post, but don't count on it. Fio is uplifted by her grandmotherhood, but her electronic skills are still rock bottom.

What's Happenin'

Fio found Husband's wallet and hearing aids, which have been missing since he came home from the hospital. Now to find her credit card and wedding ring, which disappeared within the last few days. She had to use cash in Target and her checkbook in H-E-B. Talk about back to the Dark Ages.
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Time to haul out the Christmas decorations. Not only Austin son and his wife, but nephew Barrett and his wife have volunteered to help Fio decorate this year. And Minnesota son and his wife will be coming down from winter wonderland to join us for the big holiday dinner.
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Stand in line--Fiorella is giving away her treasures piece by piece. She wants to simplify her life.    

One, Two, Three

Fio is ecstatic. When she went to Target to pick up the copy of Lucifer's first season she had ordered on line the night before, she encountered a young woman from Poland behind the counter who was kind enough to teach her how to say "Hello" in Polish. So, Fio's first joy was Lucifer, and her second joy was czesc. Fio's third joy was outside the store, when she realized the barriers were down on the roads and construction work to the west of Target. Not a single person was on the site so ever-curious Fiorella drove down it, noting the wide boulevard, the curbs, the unearthed rocks that she could sneak back in and pick up later, and--oops--the sudden drop-off just over the drop to the river.

It was the rule of three again.

Verizon Is a Loser!

Casa Fiorella is incommunicado.  The handsets won't work and neither Fio nor her husband were able to contact Verizon to report the matter (a pox upon their house).  Then the electricity went off.  And yes, Fio and Husband pay their bills.

Fio drove down to Target and  bought a cord phone, but it wouldn't work either.  Maybe it's the phone jack.  Maybe Fio and Husband will end up having to communicate with smoke signals.

Oh, the electricity did come back on.  Apparently the new neighbors across the street had something to do with the outage.

Maybe they killed the handsets too

Credit Card News

Good thing that Fiorella hadn't memorized the number on her new credit card, the one issued to her when Target was hacked, because now Home Depot has been hacked and Fio's getting another replacement card with yet another new number on it.

What's next?  Starbucks?  FedEx-Kinko's, Barnes and Noble?

Pretty soon the credit companies are gonna run out of numbers.

Daily Report

Husband really does love Fiorella.  He gave her several days worth of the old-style crossword puzzles he found when he was cleaning out a drawer, he stopped by Target on the way home and bought her seven boxes of Shredded Wheat, and he spent more than an hour battling his way through a strangely recalcitrant Amazon to get Fio the romance novel she wanted to read to put her mind on the right track for writing revisions.
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Sonia Dog will be a full-fledged adult mastiff on April 21 when she turns two-and-a-half-years old, and you can tell already that she's leaving her teenage years behind. But let a deer cross her path . . . .
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Husband is taking a day off so maybe he and Fio can clear out more of the garage.  Lots of interesting things are showing up, but they still haven't gotten to the boxes that haven't seen the light of day since they moved in nine years ago.
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Fio feels good this morning and hopes you do too.

Hippity-hoppity

Chocolate is Fiorella's crack, especially if it's shaped like a long-eared rabbit.  She can usually resist Hershey bars and even bypass chocolate chunks, but rabbits--chocolate rabbits!

Bunny-wise, though, it's been a bad year for Fio.  She crowed about  buying six marked-down Russell Stover chocolate rabbits at HEB, only to discover later that they had crispies in them, which means Fio could not consider them to be true Easter bunnies.  After Son had taken the crispie critters off to work with him the next day, she went out and bought another set of chocolate rabbits, at Walgreen's this time, stowing them in the trunk of her car while she spent a pleasant hour visiting with Friend Jane.  When she got home, even though the day was cold, four of the rabbits had melted.

Yesterday. she tried Walgreen's again, but all the Russell Stover chocolate rabbits were gone.

Oh, well.  She'll try Target and HEB tomorrow.  Wish her luck.  Maybe she needs a rabbit's foot.

The Great Shredded Wheat Quest

You already know that  when HEB stopped carrying Fio's favorite breakfast cereal, Post's Original Spoon-size Shredded Wheat, Fiorella started making regular visits to Target to stock up on her early-morning crack, and she would buy at least four boxes at a time to be sure she didn't run out. (Thus are hoarders born, but that's another story.)  However, when Fio got down to her last box two days ago and Husband tried to replenish the pantry, the shelf at Target was bare.

Panic set in.  If neither HEB nor Target carried Fio's cereal, did that mean Post had stopped making it?  Would Fiorella have to switch off to Cheerios?  Thus when she drove into Austin the next day to meet Friend Joan, her secondary goal was to scout out a  supermarket that might still have a couple of orphan boxes of said Shredded Wheat on its shelves. But HEB drove driven out Albertson's and Randall's years ago so what was left?

WALMART! 

With breath bated, Fio entered WalMart's door, found the breakfast cereal aisle, and walked slowly down it, searching for the familiar bright red boxes.  No luck, no luck, no luck. . . .Was her quest to be in vain?  Would she be deprived of Spoon-size Shredded Wheat forevermore? But no!  Here the boxes were, at the end of the aisle!  Up high, of course, where they always are, but Fio is skilled at establishing a toehold on the bottom shelf and stretching her fingers to tip the boxes off the top shelf onto the floor.  She snagged five whole boxes,and would have grabbed the remaining two if God had just given her longer arms or two more inches in height.

Glowing with triumph, Fio drove home.  Yes, once again, the efforts of Fiorella Plum had saved the universe.  She lugged her paper bag (which cost 10c because the WalMart was in Austin) into the house, dumped the boxes on the kitchen island, and arranged them with military precision so the household males could gaze at her with respect and awe,  .But Fio had to take off for ARWA as Husband came in and before Son arrived.When she returned at about ten, Husband was in bed, but Son awaited her with a sly smile.

"Count your boxes," he said.

Fio complied and discovered that what had been five was now seven.

Son's smile broadened.  "I stopped by Target and they'd restocked."

What a relief!  Fio gets tired of continually having to save the universe.