Brain Soup

There are a zillion things buzzing around in my head this morning.  Making it rather difficult for me to hone in on one subject to discuss.  Yeah, even more difficult than my normal subject hopping, scattered dialogue....

In no particular order, these are the ingredients in my Brain Soup:

• Bizarre weather/Natural disasters/Super moon
• The Biggest Loser (Hong Kong Housewives Edition)
• Gross-out illnesses that kids bring home from school
• Surprise!  People exceeding expectations.
• Superfoods (If Chocolate and Wine are good for you...how come not Bacon?)
• Online Shopping...and why it is infinitely more satisfying than the real thing
• Birthday Party Planning (somebody is almost seven, lord help me)
• Things I Need to Do to Prepare our home /myself for A Puppy

If I sit here long enough, the list will expand to a length that might actually suffice as a post in and of itself.  And while that would be somewhat cathartic (I mean, unloading my crowded, if dissheveled, brain is kind of like taking a shower), I don't think it would make for very interesting reading.  So, in the interest of keeping this manageable I'm going to expand upon just a couple of these.

First.  I have to give a shout out to Circus Dad, who went under the knife valiantly on Friday.  No, he did not get "Fixed".  Why does everybody assume that when you say "My husband had surgery today"?  He had surgery to repair his shoulder, and other than it taking a long time and his having to stay the night in the hospital for observation following the General Anesthetic, he came home in a good mood and relatively chipper.  I had completely prepared myself for a weekend of The Big Baby Show (which Circus Dad has Mastered, I might add).  Normally, if he gets so much as a sniffle or a case of the flu, the entire family needs to operate in silence and treat him like a Hospice Patient.  I had the girls prepared to have to wait on him and treat him gently and Remain Upstairs, Quietly.  But he did none of those things!!  He seems to have completely stayed on top of the pain, he's managing his own medications and exercise schedule and he's not even asking for anybody to bring him drinks/ice/rub his feet.  I actually don't know what to do he has so Exceeded My Expectations.  It makes me want to be really nice to him. What's that all about??  It so goes against my snarky nature.  The girls and I will be making him cookies when Family Movie Time is over (Tom & Jerry, The Movie...which I give zero stars, in case you were wondering).

Second.  Unrelated (or so you might think), and a complete non-sequitor.  Online Shopping.  It will not surprise anybody to hear that I love to shop.  I think most women do, at least to some degree.  I know a good number who say "I Hate Shopping" but given the right set of circumstances, the right environment and an unlimited budget and say I could turn any woman into a dyed in the wool shopaholic.  My Ex-Pat and Geographic Circumstances have led to me becoming an Expert Online Shopper.  Tell me what you are looking for and I can find it for you.  I can probably also figure out how you can get it delivered to your door.  Even if you live in a cave in Pakistan.  Now, the thing about Online Shopping is that you don't ever have to feel SalesGirl Pressure.  You can peruse the departments and designers that you might never feel comfortable walking into in real life.  For instance, I grew up in the Booming Metropolis of Denver, Colorado.  Until 1990, we didn't even have a Saks Fifth Avenue.  I think Nordstrom finally arrived sometime around 1999.  So, the High End stores of my childhood were The Denver (department store), Broadway Southwest (again, a department store) but mostly we hit Target and Mervyns.  In Denver, you can go shopping in jeans and a t-shirt and it's fine.  In fact, I've seen a number of people at Target in their Pajamas....but that's its own thing.  So, until you go inside a fancy department store you don't realize that SalesGirls actually give you the up and down look and snub you if you walk into a store and they deem you Unworthy.  I have never gone back to Neiman Marcus at the Cherry Creek Mall in Denver since about 1998 when I went in looking for a dress and was totally snubbed by the salesgirl.  Strangely, I've shopped in fancier stores in other cities and not had that experience...dressed equally grubby.  Nonetheless, it's not an experience I want to repeat.  I mean, seriously.  She was wearing a nametag and being paid by the hour.  What gave her the right to decide I wasn't worthy??  Looping back around.  If you go to Neiman Marcus (and the like) online, you can scour...explore delicious designer fabrics, shoes, handbags, designs and outrageous splurges.  One of my FAVORITE pastimes is to fill online shopping carts with dream ensembles.  At any time, if you click on my browser history and find a store website (Williams & Sonoma, Anthropologie, Saks, Piperlime, Sephora, Crewcuts...I am all over the boad) you will find a shopping cart full of treasures.  More often than not, I never buy anything in them.  But I walk away ruminating on how cute that pair of skinny jeans on Gilt.com were, or debating the must-have-factor of those Alexander McQueen Flats.  My ExPat Status meant, for years, that I could fill the carts and never do anything about it.  Recently, however, there is a new company (Fifty-One.com my ExPat friends...bookmark it!) that acts like a clearing house for Big Stores with large online operations.  They gather up your order and then ship it internationally.  It costs slightly more, but you actually get what you want.   When The Gap Group of stores started shipping internationally I actually did a Happy Dance.  You'd think I wore a lot of Khaki.  Not So...but I think it's like anything.  If somebody tells you that you can't have it, you want it all the more.  I challenge you to try it.  Go to Piperlime.com, click on Top10 Trends or Rachel Zoe's picks...and just add the things you like to your cart.  Don't buy them.  Just do it.  Then walk away.  You'll be thinking about whether those outrageously cute Chloe espadrilles could be justified if you wore then 3 times a week for 4 months.  And if you decide that they are still too overpriced, you can just leave them there forever.  Fun, right?  And you never had to show anybody your in-need-of-a-pedi toes or get a nasty look by the salesgirl.  And the kids have not been neglected by those 15 minutes of escapism for mommy.  You can thank me later.

And as the credits to this truly deplorable film begin to scroll, I leave you with this thought:  the Alexander McQueen flats ARE To-Die-For (I think I need to go check see if they've gone on sale)....and I need to make the cookies for The Husband.  I hope you've all been blessed with somebody Exceeding your Expectations this weekend, too.  Maybe someday I'll get to the other ingredients in the Soup.  Maybe.