The whole story is here, but the gist of it is this: b!x has been all over online trying to find this Bailey’s hat in a size large. He wants to wear it to his Dad’s memorial celebration on May 25, which means he needs to get one by May 21, before he gets on a plane to come east for the event. (His Dad passed away on April 10.) There are none available online by the deadline.
Here’s the challenge. If there’s a men’s hat store anywhere near you, dear reader, could you call them and see if they have that hat, which is a black “Johnny” braided (straw) porkpie from Bailey (item # 81680), size large.
If they have the hat, please leave a comment here letting me know how b!X or I can get in touch with you and arrange to have to hat bought and sent to him.
Again, there’s no way to get it on time online, so b!X is hoping someone out there will make a miracle and find him one that he can get on his head by May 21. (It’s a son-father thing.)
THIS IS A HAT EMERGENCY!
Well, why not.
Soon after every birthday, I take a photo of myself. My 68th birthday was last Tuesday, and here I am, way past the time when I would normally touch up my hair color. I’ve begun to go gray:
I took this photo with a new webcam that I just hooked up so that I can video conference with my grandson, who will soon get, from me, one of those indestructible XO laptops that are no longer available for private purchase. It comes equipped with a webcam. In order to buy one for him, I had to buy one for a child in a 3rd world country.
I went to visit my kindergartener grandson and family last Sunday, and I’m sure that, as a result, I have a few more gray hairs. By the time I left on Tuesday, both my daughter and grandson were seriously sick with sinus infections and the construction of a second floor had begun on their home. After I left, the workers had accidentally put two sizable holes in their first floor ceiling, letting the cold in and further endangering their health. You can read about the fiasco on my daughter’s blog.
I wish I could have stayed to help out. My son-in-law has his hands full. He even had to take time off from work because my daughter now has laryngitis and can’t talk at all. Just imagine how that works out with a chatty 5-year old.
Ah, if only there were such a thing as a Star Trek Transporter.
I guess I don’t have enough distraction in my life because I seem to spend too much time buying and/or trying new products that look interesting.
Recently I was sent some samples of a skin moisturizer called Theraplex. I was particularly interested in the Emollient, which is supposed to help the kind of skin I have on my feet — winter dry and scaly. So, after getting off as much of the callouses and outer dry skin as I could with my new PedEgg (see below), I slathered on the Theraplex emollient and put on a pair of socks for the night. I ran out of the samples after two nights, but by then, my feet were almost as soft as a baby’s butt.
The one complaint I have about the Emollient is that it makes your feet feel a little tacky to the touch. But putting socks on and letting the moisturizer soak in overnight makes that complaint a very minor one.
I also tried the HydroLotion on both me and my mother. While it did a great job as a protective moisturizer, neither of us liked the way it felt on our faces — too sticky.
The ClearLotion, on the other hand, smoothly soaked right in. When I used it on my 91-year-old mother’s face, my brother (who didn’t know I had done that) commented that she must be feeling very relaxed because she seemed to have fewer wrinkles.
So, thumbs up for the Emollient and ClearLotion. The HydroLotion needs a little more work.
What doesn’t need any work at all is the PedEgg, which, as far as I’m concerned, does exactly what the ads say it will do.
And so does the Samurai Shark. For the first time in memory, every pair of scissors and every knife I own is sharp.
As the moment of the Solstice approached the beach at York, Maine, the sea turned an irridescent aqua and the sky poured up from it into a haze of that “sky-blue-pink” that no one believes is a real color — but it is. Real. And then the sun slipped behind the houses of the beach town, the sea vista slid into silver and then cerulean, and the stretch of sky above the dimly lit shoreline hung out a perfect slice of moon.
I had forgotton to bring my camera, what with having to remember all that paraphernalia. You know, Tibetan bell, rune stones, words — all that stuff of art and poetry and human hope. But more on that later.
For now, suffice it to say that I’m back from my five days at Long Sands, York Beach, with bronchitis and a low-grade strep infection that’s raging high-grade in my throat. Ya’ can’t win ’em all.
Aside from a one-day trip north to Freeport to the L.L. Bean and The Children’s Place outlets, we spent most of the week reading and walking on the beach. This was usually my view when I was ensconced at the cottage (that’s my bare toe-polished foot sticking out in the middle of the picture):
As usual, I didn’t bring enough books to read, so I picked up a spur-of-the-moment paperback when we stopped at Hannaford. I Love You Like a Tomato — in the voice of a young female Italian immigrant, who keeps trying to make her grandmother’s Old World magic work in her troublesome new world. You don’t have to be Italian to love Chi Chi Maggiordino who, tries, as she says to “put to GOOD use the power of the Evil Eye.”
When I wasn’t reading, I was walking on the beach — usually without my camera. Except for the one really rainy day, when we went poking around the snail-covered rocks at low tide.
As it turned out, we spent the nicest day shopping. And eating lobster. Twice. And looking for toy rockets for my grandson.
There were supposed to be three of us, but it wound up there there were only two. When it came to our plans for the Solstice, however, we included the third in absentia. Three. You have to have three.
