What a Geek!

Today started off crappy.

I’d heard the Pattie LaBelle pies were being reissued by Walmart and, since the in-store product portion of Walmart's website and facebook page are crap, and since no one ever answers the phone when I call to see if the pies are in, I’d made a trip to Walmart during the week to see for myself – Thursday I think, found nothing, and decided to make another trip this morning.

So getting dressed after breakfast and coffee, I all of a sudden heard that tell-tale “beep” from the microwave which tells me the power is going out. Sure enough, the TV went down and lights were out.

No worries, though I, as I was mostly ready to head out the door anyway. I just hoped power would be restored by the time I returned.

On the way out the door, I found management had posted yet another Notice to Enter Dwelling.

G*&D^%$I#!!!!

This one is for Monday and is under the category of “Other: Fire department inspection”.

G*&D^%$I#!!!!

All these inspections are soooooo tiresome.

On the way down to the car, neighbors stopped me to complain about the power outage.

“No coffee”

“No breakfast”

“I didn’t realize everything here is electric. This is cause for moving.”

Seriously? That’s a silly reason. It's not like you're on life-saving equipment, the power goes out and you're dead.

I was just grateful I didn’t dilly dally around this morning and had everything out of the way before the power went out.

At Walmart, I learned “There are no pattie pies in the warehouse. A hundred came in early this week, but sold out immediately.”

I’m done.

It’s not that important. I just wanted to see what the hubbub was about, but it appears you have to have a hookup at Walmart to get a pattie pie.

I wasn’t annoyed though, because the trip allowed me the opportunity for a fourth Random Act of Christmas Cheer, with an interesting background.

Driving into Walmart’s parking lot, I spied two police department trailers, police officers and horses.

When I thought about it later, in light of the recent terror attack, the sight of law enforcement should have been of concern. At the time, however, all I remember thinking was Ooooh horses.

There were no shortage of trees around where the horses were located, so I parked and pulled out an ornament for my Random Act, with the idea of getting one of the horses in the background.

Not wanting to get myself shot, I told the closest officer what I was doing, and she went to the trouble of bringing her horse over so I could get a closer shot.

After snapping a few photos, I thanked the officer, turned to the horse and said, “Thank you too horsie.”

Horsie?

What a geek thing to come out of my mouth. What am I … age 2?

Power restored by the time I got back to the complex, and in a much better mood because of the horse encounter, I worked a little on that never-ending needlepoint project until time to head down to the Cookie Swap.

Was a nice way to spend a few hours.

Only five residents signed up -- no surprise, because we have a lot of diabetics here, but eleven showed up, each bringing cookies to swap.

Please note someone has tweaked that first tree the residents decorated. Word is, the tweeker was Nurse Ratched herself … perhaps so she can find a reason to take credit.

Creepy Guy was hanging around outside in the patio area, waiting for someone to invite him in or take a plate to him (his usual modus operandi) but, when one of the ladies said, “We should invite him in for cookies”, I quickly interjected, “Swap. This is a swap.”

Other than that, we only had one other moocher show up, but that was way later when we were ready to give cookies away, so I was fine with it and, at conclusion of the event, one of the ladies took a variety bag of cookies out to Creepy Guy – who had left, but was back hanging around.

The Baker made three types of cookies. Actually, four, but she said the power had gone out while the fourth was in the oven, causing the cookies to become soggy; so she tossed those. Other than that, and mine, most of the cookies were store bought.

We also had Mexican Hot Chocolate.

I had coffee and stayed away from the cookies, even those made by the Baker. THEN, Older Sister brought in peanut butter cookies her daughter made for us.

I rationalized, “Peanut butter is protein”, ate two, brought three back for later.

The event was lively, with Christmas music playing, sugar in everyone’s system, and talk turning to the upcoming Christmas Party. As I imagined, not many have signed up. I did learn, however, the event is being catered ... and catered by the same people that catered last year’s Christmas Party, so I’m in.