Old Dog, New Tricks

Currently watching: "Criminal Minds: The First Season"

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.--Mark Twain

I think the above quote would sum up Chris's views on school completely. He's finishing up his degree in seven more online classes . . . oh that those seven classes would just fly by, haha. These are the interesting things he learned from his marketing class:

• French men wear twice the cosmetics as French women
• In Germany, Vicks cold medicine is called "Wicks" because Vicks is a slang term for sex.
• In Japan, the closest name to Kit-Kat bars is "kitto katsu" which roughly translates to "I hope you win," making them a token of good luck and heavily consumed over exam time.
  
  So, these are the things I've learned this week . . .
• When you feed ducks, sometimes they get happy. REALLY happy. Wednesday morning, I found a nest with a mama duck outside the apartment stairs. When I came home that evening, the nest was gone. So I went looking for it, found hungry ducks, fed them some leftover flatbread from my lunch. They really enjoyed it, so much so that . . . well . . . I thought it was a wrestling match but . . . umm . . . Have you ever seem male duck genitalia? Yeah, it ain't pretty.
• Cleaning makes a happy house. Thursday, I had had enough of mess. So I went nuts. It's lovely, and I want to keep it lovely.
• In line with that last lesson, it's amazing how much hair a small cat can shed. I vacuumed my couch, and it is now a completely different color. Wow.
• Express used to make the perfect pair of jeans. The perfect dress pants. The only jeans and only pants that fit me. Now, suddenly, they don't make my size. I cannot find my size online or on the shelves in jeans. I can't find business pants in the right size or style, yet. I will keep the hope . . . I hope . . . I hate pants shopping. You have no idea.
• "Retail Therapy" does exist . . . if you can actually find things without a spending ton of money.
• If your library materials go missing, it's either evil spirits or the system plotting against you because you used a friend's library card (big no no). Today, a woman came in to ask if we had found her DVD, one she swears she turned in, one she swears we have and aren't checking in because we have it in for her, that we're stealing her money and are out to get her. "Harrassment" she called it. "I will not be harrassed anymore! I did not live to be sixty-two to be harrassed! It's just wicked to harrass innocent people! Making me look irresponsible. I have grown children and grandchildren, all with Masters and PhDs. Don't try to make me look like an idiot!" She went on to describe how people have been chasing her down to rearend her car to force her to ride a bike in the Florida heat. How people are turning off her water and electricity to make her look bad. "You need to find someone else to harrass. I know you're lying. I know you have that movie. You find it, you hear me?" Then she stepped back, looked away and said, solemnly, "You know what I'm doin? I'm renouncing the evil spirits here. The evil spirits that took my movie from me, that are harrassing me, making all this trouble. I'm renouncing them. You will find that DVD. Stop playing these games with me, and find it." I was completely speechless.
• Bright pink or red lipstick brings out a woman's facial hair. As awestruck as I was by this woman's thought process, I was mesmerized by her mustache.
• According to "Criminal Minds," all serial killers are puny, impotent, extremely intelligent, over-arrogant, abused, OCD white guys recently put under traumatic high stress . . . who may also be photographers. I think I can totally go tracking killers now. Thank goodness for prime time television.
• Chris says he could use this knowledge to successfully mix and match multiple profiles to royally confuse the FBI if he is ever driven to murder . . . only in defense of the innocent, of course. Hmm, good job, honey.
• Reconnecting with old friends is lots of fun. Julie, my sister-in-law and high school best buddy, and I spent a girl day out for the first time in over a year, maybe two. It was great.
• It doesn't matter what other people think. God created us, knows us inside and out, and He loves us anyways. He's behind us all the way, so those other mortals we're so concerned with . . . we shouldn't be. Jeremiah 1:8, 17-19.