The Junk Drawer

I love a good deal. One of the best is combining my grocery store club card with a pile of coupons to realize fairly significant savings. It gets better when my store runs a program where you can redeem points for an additional percentage off, depending on the amount accumulated from past purchases. Dave and I amassed about 1,200 points, so that would earn us 20% on top of our regular savings. We were looking at about 35% off the total bill.

Until we got to the register.

After filling two carts to the brim with a lot of things we don’t buy until this gigantic points program runs, we gleefully queue up to the register. I announce to the cashier with great fanfare that we’d like to redeem our points.

She begins scanning our items and says "Do you want include these points for the bakeware?"

"Bakeware?"

"Did you pick out all your bakeware already?"

"Bakeware?"

Dave chimes in, "Bakeware?"

"Yes, certain pieces are worth certain points and you turn them in against your total points."

Again, Dave. "Bakeware? I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about."

The poor cashier must’ve thought we were on drugs or stupid or both, given our stoney-faced stares and furrowed brows. "We usually give a percentage off discount for the points program, but this time you get bakeware instead of a percent off."

We didn’t want bakeware. We don’t cook. We microwave, we use the stovetop, but we definitely don’t cook. Besides, there’s nowhere to store bakeware since our kitchen cabinets are too small. I’m not happy about this little turn of events. Dave just wanted to get scanned and get out, but I wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

I look at her all hangdog and ask "Where is this bakeware?" She points to a display nearby and off I go to pick out bakeware I have no intention of using. EVER. When I get to the display there’s another woman scoping out what to get and I chat it up with her how this bakeware thing is such a scam. She agrees, "Yeah, they offer a percent off every other time and then we get bakeware now. No warning. Just bakeware."

I choose three items whose point value gets me near the 1,200 mark. I pick them out based on who I think I’ll be giving them to right after I get them home. I think my sisters will like what I selected. They use their ovens.

After packing up all our things, I look at the so-so discount for this trip. I’m severely peeved because it could have been a great one. Today’s discount amounted to only 12%. Had the store run its usual program, it would have been 32%.

Yes, I know we’ll use everything we bought, but it would have been nice for the store to have posted a notice somewhere that this points redeeming period would not get us any kind of savings. Bakeware is not a deal unless you cook, and even then it’s not much to write home about. Bastards.

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After reading my post But I don’t want to look like Cher, my niece Amy wrote me about a cool tool at MyHeritage.com. You can upload a picture of yourself (large, front-facing ones are best) and have it tell you which celebrity you resemble the most.

When I first tried it, I got rather unexpected results:

Imagine my disappointment when it reported, "Sorry, no faces were detected."

I informed Amy that MyHeritage thinks I don’t have a face, at least not in that picture. Because my niece is not as lazy as me, she cropped out just my face and resubmitted it.

Drumroll please………!!!!

MyHeritage thinks I look like figure skater Michelle Kwan. Do you agree?

If you have a face, submit it here and drop a comment in the drawer to let me know who it thinks you look like. Then I can imagine who my readers are!

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I had a commute today to beat all commutes. It started out so normal. But as soon as I turned onto Rt. 512, things got a little interesting.

Route 512 is a four-laned, divided road (highway in reality, given the speeds people drive). I turned onto it and was greeted by a fairly open road. I traveled along for about a quarter mile before coming upon another car — DRIVING THE WRONG WAY.

This is the first time I’ve ever encountered a wrong-way driver, so I didn’t know what to do except to slow down. The first thing I thought was "Who could be drunk at this hour?"

The driver was mercifully driving slowly and weaving around only a little. I decided it’d be best to come to a full stop and put my four-ways on to alert all the drivers behind me. All of us stopped, but the assumed-to-be-drunk driver kept going…. or coming, as it were.

On approach, I could get a better look inside the car. I was wrong about the driver being drunk. The driver was not drunk at all. The driver was an old woman who could barely see over the steering wheel. I shuddered when I saw this. And I shuddered some more when it was obvious she had no intentions of stopping or correcting her mistake.

I just kept sitting there, watching things unfold in my rear-view mirror. There she went, staying in her wrong lane while all the other correct-way drivers got into single file to give her all the room she needed.

After observing her make it all the way to the next light, I had to assume that at some point she’d find her way. Or that someone else would be able to stop her. I mean, what exactly is the protocol for this? Do you call 911? Do you jump out of your car and flail your arms in front of her? Do you dare?

All I can do is thank God she wasn’t driving full speed. Otherwise, this might have been a whole different kind of post.

Lady, I hope you made it where you were going safely. And I hope you stop driving. Forever.

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I break stuff. It’s what I do. On Sunday I broke our toaster while cleaning the kitchen. This is not the first time I’ve damaged a fairly important piece of an appliance and it won’t be the last.

Here’s a rundown of all the fixtures I broke:

The victim: Toaster
When: Last weekend
How it happened: I picked it up by its pushdown button to move it to a cabinet and the whole thing crashed to the floor. The button broke off and cracked into two pieces.
Can we still use it? Yes, the larger of the two pieces slides back onto the metal lever quite nicely.

The victim: Vacuum cleaner
When: About 3 months ago
How it happened: No idea. The metal hook thingy just broke off from cord tension over the years, I guess. And now there’s nothing to wrap the cord around.
Can we still use it? Yes, but it’s only used in the garage because when you turn it on, it smells like an electrical fire. I won’t use it in the house. I shouldn’t even let Dave use it in the garage, but hey, if your husband will vacuum anything, you let him. Bought a new vacuum for inside that won’t spontaneously combust, because, you know, fire bad.

The victim: Carpet shampooer hose
When: Almost a year ago
How it happened: There is a knobby thing that connects to a thin tube that solution runs through. I over-twisted it and now it twists no more. FACT: Duct tape does not fix everything.
Can we still use it? Nope. But I keep it hanging in the garage because I’m too lazy to throw it out. New hose fixture is on the right.

The victim: Garden hose pipe
When: Last summer
How it happened: Ran the lawn mower into it. I’m a pretty spastic mower. I mow the grass about as well as a Flowbee cuts hair.
Can we still use it? Yes, but you have to turn the water on by the nub that remains. A rubber gripper used for opening jar lids does the job just fine. I don’t know why we keep the broken piece.

Because I’m trying to earn knob karma for all the ones I’ve broken, here’s one I actually fixed myself! The previous knob would never secure well enough to keep the door completely closed and our trouble-making cat Lucky would always run full tilt into it and push it open. Because it’s the door to the laundry room, I was always afraid he would chew through the dryer hose and get stuck in the vent (he has a very little brain).

I wanted to surprise Dave with my knob-fixing abilities and decided to install a new one myself. With some phone assistance from my brother-in-law, Dale, I was able to do just that. Lookie here!

p.s. It was fun to watch Lucky run headlong into a door that used to open real easily a minute ago. The skull that protects his little brain makes an interesting sound when it hits wood. Don’t worry, he’s OK.

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Halleluia! All of the work and waiting is behind us. The furniture arrived today! After getting it in place, we realized while we like it, we don’t love it and began having flashes of buyer’s remorse. But that could change after a few days of getting used to it.

Here’s what we like about it:

1. Both the recliner and the couch are extremely comfortable, and that’s the biggest plus. The old furniture was too soft for comfort. No more sinking into the middle crevasse.

2. We think we hit the mark on the color scheme. The dark colors are richer-looking and warmer than the old pieces. The table lamp you see here is from another room. Seeing brass with the furniture tells us that’s what we need to buy. For a while we were thinking porcelain, but not anymore.

Here’s what we’re on the fence about:

1. The recliner is probably too big to be paired with the couch. We didn’t know this because it wasn’t paired with it in the showroom. To make it worse, our living room is so small that this is the only configuration that’ll work.

2. The patterned pillows are a bit much. They actually sent us the wrong ones. We asked for a set of two patterned, and two solid blue (to match the couch). It’s an easy fix, but we’re bugged about it now.

Here’s what could get Lucky killed:

See him under the chair? It’s the first place he went because he likes to play fast and loose with his nine lives. Dave’s already worried that when he gets up from the reclining position, he’ll squash him. We figure Lucky will crawl into the metal folding mechanism, fall asleep in there and get crushed when he puts the chair in its upright position. Lucky may not be so lucky one day.

UPDATE: Ten hours after seeing our new furniture arranged the way you see here, we’re working hard on rearranging it. We’re not making maximum use of the space we have, so we want to figure out a way to move the chair as far from the couch as possible, and put the television in its place.

Not sure how this will all go down, but I’ll post back with another picture if we get it just the way we like. For now, we’re still only liking the setup. We’d much prefer loving it.

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My husband is a klutz. I know it. He knows it. We’ve come to accept that about once a year he’s going to do something stupid to injure himself that requires a road trip to the ER. We’ve been there four times in the last five years. I was thinking he was overdue, until I got the call today.

"I hurt myself again."

"What now?"

"Pulled a hamstring and it’s painful to walk."

"How’d you do it?"

"I tripped."

"Good one."

Since he could drive himself there, I just said "Call me when you get home" and let it go at that. I know he’s in good hands, the hands of all the ER doctors who know him by name.

Here’s a rundown of his visits over the years:

• Poked himself in the eye with an arm of his glasses. Putting them on his face. His face has always been where it is now and I’m not sure how he could get it wrong that time. "Honey, look. The directions say they go on your nose, not in your eye."

• Scratched his cornea while washing his face. Again with the face. Stuck his finger in his eye and then it blew up all freak like.

• Fell off a 4-inch step and sprained his ankle. I don’t let him climb ladders. Or step stools.

• Broke his thumb carrying a TV. His brother dropped his end and Dave’s thumb got in the way.
  

While I’m somewhat sympathetic to his propensity for injury, all I could think of today was "Great. Now how are we going to move the old couch and chair outside to make room for the new furniture coming tomorrow?" He can barely walk.

I ignored all the moaning and groaning while we not-so-carefully shoved both pieces out onto the patio. We’re going to throw money at the delivery guys tomorrow to move the pieces to the curb for trash pickup on Thursday. Only problem with that is they’re coming very early in the morning.

So this is what all my neighbors will be seeing in my driveway ALL DAY LONG. We were hoping to schlep it out there in the dark of night so we don’t look too much like The Beverly Hillbillies. Hey, at least it’s not on the front porch, where all good hillbillies park their furniture.

p.s. The cats are completely stunned at this point. With nothing but cushions and tables in the living room, they either think we’re moving again or we’ve gone the bachelor pad route. As one reader pointed out to me after reading what Lucky did to the new coffee table, the cats believe the house is theirs and they’re not too keen on what we’re doing to it.

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Always on the lookout for things that make it easier for my visually-challenged Dad to see better, I jumped at this giveaway posted on our work "For Sale" board:

I am giving away my beloved telephone with its oversized number keys to whoever can promise to give love and care equal to its comically large digits.

This desk telephone can dial through both tone and pulse, giving the new phone owner the power of choice, which we all know is so hard to find these days, what with the state of the world and all that jazz.

This item is a MUST HAVE for anyone serious about early-90s desk telephones with large numbers, so the phone will go to whomever contacts me first.

I emailed a picture of it to my sisters. "Wow! Look at this phone for Dad!" which prompted a reply from my sister Marlene, "I need that for my cell phone."

When exactly did our eyes get so bad? I wasn’t expecting all these problems until I hit 50 or later. But already I have such trouble reading small print.

I had to use a magnifying glass recently on two products whose labels were impossible to read. I have to take my glasses off to read the newspaper and put them back on to see the TV. I’m giving very serious consideration to buying one of those chains you attach to your glasses so you can wear them around your neck. I don’t care what it looks like. Oh, and I have a lazy eye. I’m a mess.

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Blogger’s note: I did get a greenlight from all mortified parties here to post this picture. I offered to block out our eyes, but then you wouldn’t get the full effect of how stunning we think we look.

I present from the Embarrassing Picture files …. Polyester on Parade!

The scene: Aunt Sybilla’s house
The year: Circa 1970
The style: Early Partridge Family

Let’s break it down:

1. The socks: Not quite a match, eh? You might not have had the pleasure of seeing the socks had we figured out how to sit properly without our pants pulled up to our crotches.

2. The frilly pink tie thing on me. And a belt. And I’m missing a whole chunk of front teeth.

3. The pointy-collared, multi-directionally striped blouse on Ann. You’re gonna poke someone’s eyes out with those things!

4. Michael. Poor, brother Michael, looking like a cross between a young Ringo Starr and Woody from Toy Story. "Yer my favorite deputy!"

5. Are those brown shoes with purple socks, green socks, lavender pants and blue pants? I guess I should be glad we’re not wearing purple and green shoes. I could have so easily happened, you know.

And didn’t anyone think to comb our hair? Cripes. We look like the kids from Oliver Twist, only much more pathetic.

"Please, sir, may we have some other clothes?"

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That’s right. Today is National Punctuation Day. A day to honor all the commas, exclamation points and semi-colons in your life. I plan to buy a cake to celebrate. My justification for buying cake is VERY thin. Here’s a link round-up of my favorite punctuation and language blogs. Enjoy!

Bethany Keeley over at The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks highlights the misuse, overuse and questionable use of double quotes. I "read" it every day.

Patrick Fitzgerald and Amber Rhea write a comical blog about the misuse of the word "literally." It’s so funny, I literally laugh my head off. Well, not really. Last I looked, my head was still attached. Check ‘em out at Literally, A Web Log.

Chris, at Apostrophe Abuse, publishes reader-submitted photos of an "orthographic pet peeve" of his. In my opinion, the apostrophe gets the least respect as a punctuation mark. It’s either being used where it shouldn’t, or not being used where it should, as in it’s vs. its.

William Levin takes us on a visual tour of Lowercase L abuse, when you see mostly uppercase letters on signs, but someone inexplicably uses a lower case "L" in the mix. Why? What did capital L ever do to you?

If you have trouble with language rules, spelling and parts of speech, check out Dumb Little Man for 40+ Tips to Improve your Grammar and Punctuation.

At least for today, let’s all try to punctuate correctly. For any text-messagers out there, you’re exempt. There’s no hope for you, snc u cant evn spl.

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I knew it would happen, but just not this soon. We’ve had our new coffee and end tables for a mere 200 hours. Been enjoying them. Until I moved some books aside on the table and shrieked.

The damage: Coffee table. Three fresh claw marks. Lovely.

The perpetrator: Lucky, the soon-to-be pawless cat. Where’s that rotary saw?

If anyone knows how to conceal scratches on wood, I’d much appreciate hearing from you. We don’t want to make things worse by using the wrong product on it.

While I’m at it, anyone want a spastic cat who never sleeps and doesn’t understand the meaning of "For the last time, get off the table!"?

p.s. Our new couch and chair are coming on Wednesday. I’m sure I’ll be reporting back on the damage to those in no time at all.

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I admit it. I am directionally-challenged and it’s embarrassing. When someone starts giving me directions somewhere, I can only remember the first one or two instructions. After that, I need a picture. Better yet, a chauffeur. MapQuest doesn’t cut it because then I have to take my eyes off the road. And trust me, nobody wants that.

You might figure I’d have the most trouble finding my way around over long distances. You’d be right, and wrong. It’s possible for me to have trouble no matter how far I’m driving. Here’s how I got lost two tenths of a mile from my house.

It was October last year, the day my township was queuing floats on the street behind my house for a Halloween parade taking place nearby.

I drove up to an intersection just two blocks from home. A cop explained that I wasn’t allowed to get through until the parade got underway.

"How long will it be?"

"About 20 minutes."

"But I have ice cream in my car." Surely, melting ice cream qualifies as an emergency and aren’t cops supposed to assist with emergencies?

"You can drive down one block and loop back to Maria Lane."

Simple enough, I think. And then I remember. I’m a dunce. I begin to worry immediately that I’ll get lost in my own neighborhood and I might find myself still driving around by dinner time, and all I’ll have to show for it is melted ice cream and a massive headache. ‘Course, I could eat the ice cream, but then I might do it so fast that I get an ice cream headache. Either way, I’m going to have a headache.

I continue down to the next block and enter what I like to call Suburban Planners Toying with Me. I imagined them all sitting around a big table, then asking a 4-year-old with a box of crayons to draw some figure eights and squiggly lines. "Looks good. Now dump the houses here." There are more roundabouts and cul de sacs than through-streets. I drive through all of them. Twice. "Hi. Me again." Wave real nice. "Just ignore me."

As God is my witness, you cannot traverse this ridiculous maze of suburban streets to save your life, and thank God I have food in the car because I might actually have to save it.

I have a cell phone, but Dave’s at work, so it won’t do me any good. But there might be a series of answering machine messages that go like this:

"Dave. I’m lost. Come get me when you get home. I’m a block away."

Beep.

"Dave. I’m scared. Little kids are pointing and laughing at me because they know I’m lost."

Beep.

"Dave. People think I’m casing their houses. I keep driving past them over and over."

Beep.

"Dave. Tell the cats I said good-bye. I’m never getting home. I ate all the food."

After fifteen $%*@# minutes of driving around in Dante’s seventh circle of development hell, I finally found the cross street I needed to get me home. When I got there, I screamed a colorful expletive I only bring out for special occasions such as this, and gunned it. Look out! There’s a gallon of chocolate chip cookie dough with my name on it.

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Before the Great Furniture Hunt, there was the Great HDTV Television Acquisition. I hadn’t really thought much about our new TV until word got out that we had it. I know it’s an awesome set, but I didn’t know how awesome until I mentioned to a few people what we bought.

People — OK, men mostly — would start salivating and pepper me with questions, as though I’d just told them I rode on the Space Shuttle. "Tell us more! Is it just like they say? Is it like you’ve seen God? Two of my colleagues invited themselves over to watch football, and I’m afraid my Dad’s going to want one for Christmas.

For the record, it’s a 46" Sony Bravia Full HD 1080, WCG-CCFL, 7000:1, HDTV with HDMI. I have absolutely no idea what all that means except that the picture is simply gorgeous, especially when viewing HD channels. And that’s all I need to know. The above picture is a shot I took on the actual set. Soak it in, baby. Soak it in.

Buying this TV was very easy. For me, at least. Dave did all the heavy lifting, researching the differences between multiple brands of HD sets, the features offered on all of them, and what add-on purchases you should make for the best possible viewing experience.

When it was time to make the purchase, we went to Tweeter in Whitehall, PA on good authority that they know what they’re talking about and don’t strong-arm you into making a buy. We were pleasantly surprised at how true this turned out to be. I’d give a shout-out to the guy who helped us, but I just can’t remember his name. Sorry, Tweeter Guy.

Here’s how it all started. It could have gone a lot faster, if I wasn’t so annoyed by the stupidest things. The list is long and I sometimes wonder how Dave puts up with me. But that’s a post for another day.

"Kath, now this is the one we should get. It’s the Sony Bravia XBR3. The best."

"I don’t like it."

"Why?"

"It has a shiny frame."

"Huh?"

"See. It has this stupid shiny frame around it and it’s going to annoy me."

"Why?"

"Because I’ll see all the light reflected in it. It’s distracting."

"Oh, for God’s sake. You hate everything, don’t you?"

"And how long have we been married and you don’t know this already? Where’ve you been?"

Now we’re in big trouble because I’m not going to let Dave buy the set he really wanted and we start looking around at all the other models. The ones that don’t have the distracting shiny frame.

Tweeter Guy is just the most patient salesman in the world. He graciously shows us around and explains all the features of the other sets, trying to get us as close as possible to the desired one. But first I make him change to a different movie that’s running on nearly all of them because there happens to be a big bug crawling around in one scene. I can’t look at bugs, real or otherwise. I can’t even look at them in print. Freaks me all out. Dave rolls his eyes. Tweeter Guy is right on it. He can smell a sale and he’ll do whatever it takes.

Once we have the sets showing non-bug-infested movies, I now insist that he show us other channels. The stores will always demonstrate HDTVs in high definition mode for obvious reasons. It just looks so much better. But I need to see how a non-HD channel will look. He puts on the Food Network and now we have a face full of Emeril "BAM!" Lagasse. Ugh. Switch it back to HD, please.

After about an hour of looking at all the sets in the store, and Dave and Tweeter Guy discussing the finer points between them, we finally settle on the Bravia 1080, which has an un-shiny frame. We plunk down a rather large amount of money and off we go.

When the set arrived, Dave gave the delivery guy 25 bucks to set it up and configure the internal settings just right to get the best picture. And what a picture it is.

There is one fact that I’m sure all the actors and actresses in Hollyweird are lamenting with the advent of HDTVs and that’s that their faces look incredibly bad. I urge you, if you buy an HDTV, prepare yourselves for some of your favorite stars looking really awful in high-def. You can see all their flaws and all the makeup they use trying to hide their flaws. HD is brutally unforgiving. I never want to see Larry King in high-def. EVER.

What looks best, of course, are all the HD channels. With our cable provider we get about 20 of them. Regular channels still look better than they did on our old set, so there are improvements there, too. To give you an idea how mesmerizing it is to watch TV in HD, I’ve become a fan of the Discovery HD Theater channel. It features a program called Sunrise Earth which runs a full hour with a camera trained on a single scene in nature.

Yesterday I watched a sequoia tree for fifteen minutes. A tree. For fifteen minutes. Next week they’re airing an episode called Milk Cows in the Morning and next month is Bison before Breakfast. Swear to God. And I’m going to watch it and love it. Think I’m crazy? You go and buy yourself an HDTV and see if you don’t find yourself staring at cows and bison and trees and come back and tell me if it isn’t the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in the televised world.

I gotta go. Wildflower Elk just came on.

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Does anyone know whether or not there are grocery stores in the Lehigh Valley where you can place an order of deli meats and cheeses in advance, and have them ready for you when you get to the store?

It would seem to me that in our technologically advanced society, where one can order up just about anything via phone or internet, we can muster up a system that keeps me from waiting in line behind twelve other people who need four kinds of cheese and two kinds of meats, all sliced to different thicknesses.

To make matters worse, sometimes my local store has a ticket dispenser available, and sometimes not. Do they not feel like taking people in order some days? I want a ticket!!

It would make sense to me that they can take advance orders. They do it in the bakery section for cakes. Why not cheese? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to make a crank call for 3/4 lb. Heidi Ann Swiss and a half pound Schaeffer’s baloney. They can DO this! No one would abuse the system, I’m sure.

And I’m not even asking that there be a special pickup place for it. I’d get in line like everyone else. It’s just I wouldn’t have to announce my order, one cold cut at a time, and then wait forever while they go to the case, find my item, unwrap it, go to the appropriate slicer, ask me again how much I wanted, walk to the scale, weigh it, not get it right, walk back to the slicer, get a couple more slices, walk back to the scale, get it close enough, and then ask "Will there be anything else?"

I could just walk up and say "I’m here for my cheese." Pick up my order and go. What’s so hard about that?

Me thinks I’m getting cranky again. Is it Friday yet?

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In keeping with my new plan to stop being such a crankypants about everything, here’s something that deserves a hearty shout-out. I joined a friend of mine for lunch last week at the Caffeine Cafe, a great little eatery at 501 E. 4rd St., Bethlehem. Their menu includes sandwiches, wraps, soups, pastry and other goodies.

The owner, Dave Smith, takes great care of his customers and you feel welcomed as soon as you set foot in the door. It reminds me a lot of the Paris cafes my husband and I loved to visit. Caffeine Cafe has a wonderful relaxed atmosphere, you feel completely removed from the stress of the day. They even have free wireless access! Do yourself a favor and head over for your morning cup ‘o joe or a quick lunch. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ve been working through a food dilemma with the owner during my last few visits. On my very first visit, I hadn’t been able to decide on what to order off the menu. So I asked him to tell me what he liked on the menu. (When in doubt, always ask restaurant staff what they eat, since they’ve probably sampled everything). He said stuff he throws together for himself isn’t actually on the menu. I asked him to describe a typical sandwich he makes. It sounded great, so that’s what I ordered.

I promptly forgot what was in the sandwich by the next time I lunched there, so I had to ask him again "Can you make that sandwich I like?" He’s not 100% sure we’re in agreement on what I want, so I explain its contents as best I can remember, and he makes it up perfectly, just as good as the last time.

Fast-forward to my recent visit. Again, I walk up to the counter and ask for "the sandwich I always order, and by the way, I forgot what’s in it again. Yes, I’m a very dumb person."

He looks at me like always and I know what’s coming next. "Care to take a stab at what’s in it?"

"OK, to the best of my knowledge, it has turkey, some kind of cheese, lettuce, tomato, and a fantastic cranberry sauce thing. It’s not a sauce, you know, it’s like a sauce, but not a sauce. Know what I mean?"

He suggests to me the sandwich he’s made in the past, and I finally use my brain and write down what’s in it so I can remember the next time. What I’d rather see happen is that the sandwich go up on the menu board so I can just say "Give me the Number 5."

While Dave’s gathering ingredients, we hit a little snag. He informs me that he just ran out of cranberry mustard (I knew it wasn’t a sauce!) and would I care for the raspberry instead? I’m all about the raspberry and so that’s what I ordered.

When I took my first bite, I realized I liked the raspberry mustard even better than the cranberry. And I don’t quite remember this cheese being the cheese of sandwiches past. It is deadly good. With that, he had just improved upon what I thought was already the perfect sandwich. This, my friends, is the perfect sandwich:

Sliced turkey
Thick slice of Brie cheese
Leafy lettuce and tomato
Raspberry mustard
On rye toast
Pickle on the side

I kidded with him about adding it to the menu and giving it a name, so people (OK, just me) can order it easier. I suggested he name the sandwich in my honor. I’m sure he was kidding when he said he would, but I would bet that if you walked in and asked for "The Kathy Frederick," he’d know what to make you. If you order it, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. No doubt you’ll love the cafe no matter what you order. Bon appetit!

See how I don’t hate everything?

FYI, Caffeine Cafe is open 8-2, Mondays, 8-5 Tues through Friday, 10-5 Saturday, closed Sunday.

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Let’s face it. "The road less traveled" doesn’t exist anymore. Unless you’re lucky enough to be retired, you have to get out on jammed roads during rush hour, compete for space, avoid the idiots and get to and from work without getting frazzled.

Here are ten ways to minimize the hassle, maximize your calm and have a safer commute. They may seem like no-brainers, but if more people would employ these techniques, driving might just be fun again. Or at least a little more tolerable.

1. Leave earlier. This is a hard one for many of us. Getting out on the road just 10 minutes earlier than normal gives you time to pay more attention to the road and traffic patterns. One day last week I left 10 minutes later than normal and it took me 10 minutes longer to get to work.
2. When merging onto a highway, try to get directly behind a big truck. Based purely on observational evidence, I find that most drivers will move to the passing lane if they see a large truck trying to merge. They’re less inclined to do so for a mere car. Use this to your advantage and get right behind the biggest one you can find and follow it as you both merge smoothly. You can always pass it later.
3. Try to get ahead of SUVs and trucks to maximize your field of vision. I drive a small car and find it impossible to see ahead of and around bigger vehicles. Do what you can to safely position yourself behind cars the same size as yours. Then you’ll be ready to react if you see trouble up ahead.
4. Let tailgaters pass you. The only solution to tailgating drivers is to get out of their way as quickly and safely as possible. Let them pass you so you can maintain your calm.
5. Look both ways before pulling out when the light turns green. This takes just a second and can save your life. We’ve all seen other drivers running red lights. Wait a moment to allow for that possibility. I’ve twice avoided an accident by waiting a beat before advancing through the green.
6. Turn your headlights on in any kind of weather. Many of today’s cars automatically turn on your lights when you start your car. If yours doesn’t, consider turning them on manually, even in fair weather. This isn’t so much for you to see better; it’s so that other drivers can see you, particularly if you drive a dark-colored vehicle.
7. Signal early and make your turn only when you can. Let other drivers know when you’re about to turn. If you’re ahead of a tailgater, don’t try to make your turn. Skip it and wait until you can turn with at least three car lengths of open space behind you. I once damaged a tire because I tried to make my turn with a tailgater just feet behind me. I tried to get as close to the curb as possible to allow him to get around me, and in the process, scraped it hard enough to ruin a perfectly good tire.
8. Practice safe cell-phoning. Simply put, drivers cannot possibly concentrate on the road if they’re talking on the phone. If you must make a call, pull over at a safe spot, make the call and then resume driving. It takes just a few minutes out of your drive, but will minimize the chances you’ll cause an accident due to driver inattention.
9. Wear a seat belt. If you don’t care about your personal safety, that’s one thing. But at least think of your family. You are your family’s most important asset. Protect it for their sake.
10. Say a little prayer for road ragers. Pray for them? Are you nuts? Well, sort of. But I’m also a big believer in karma. If you send a little kindness out into the world, it might come back to you when you least expect it. Besides, people so angry behind the wheel clearly need some help and it makes me feel better when I react positively to a stressful situation. And it’s all about feeling better on the road!

If you had a bad commute today, here’s wishing you a better one tomorrow!

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So yesterday new partitions went up in my office. They separate me from a pile of laptops and equipment we loan out to faculty to use in classrooms. I used to have a wide open space, but now I’m almost totally insulated and I have to tell you, it’s very weird. I can’t see or hear people coming, and even when they announce themselves, I’m usually jumping out of my seat when they appear around the partition. I may need to invest in a driveway mirror, a bell, a webcam trained on the door, or all of the above.

I’ll get used to it over time, but right now it feels a little like this:

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I’m cranky this week because it’s been so busy at work that I thought Tuesday was Thursday already. It really felt like four days’ worth of work crammed into two. We have our old ugly furniture paired with our new tables and now it looks like Unclaimed Salvage & Freight in my living room. And we’re starting to wonder if La-z-Boy will ever send us our new furniture. I have to fight for space at my kitchen sink because my fat cat insists on drinking her water straight from the faucet … and I keep letting her. How stupid am I? Don’t answer that. Plus a spider may have just crawled into my cup of coffee.

What better time to post a list of 10 things that annoy me. I’m so in the mood!

1. People who can’t control their car alarms. Guess what? No one cares if your car is getting broken into, stolen or damaged in any way. In fact, is there anything I can do to help?

2. People who pay for groceries with a check. A check? Are you kidding me?

3. Brittney Spears. Tell me, why is she still here? After Sunday’s MTV Music Awards disaster she needs to pack up her lingerie in a really tiny suitcase and call it a day. Call it a career, actually. And take your dancing pole with you.

4. Billy Mays, the ear-piercing, high-octane infomercial pitchman for OxyClean and something orange that cleans everything. I can never get to the mute button fast enough.

5. People who let their dogs crap on my lawn, and then walk away. You’re supposed to be carrying it around in bags, aren’t you? And, by the way, how does that steaming pile of poo feel when you pick it up with your bare hand from the inside of the bag? Reason number #284 why cats rule.

6. Red light runners. Um, you do know you can kill people doing that, right?

7. Microsoft for too many reasons to list. But just for today, you annoy me because you think everyone has the 20/20 vision of an 18-year-old. Why on God’s green earth can’t you make the Office 2007 program buttons bigger? You know, the ones people use a hundred times a day? Plus now to open the File menu, you have to click that big gumball Office logo, that’s if people even know what it is.

8. That lady who drove practically attached to my trunk yesterday who was not only talking on a cell phone but smoking a cigarette. It was fun to watch how you managed that and I did want to see you get into an accident, just not with me.

9. Hard plastic packaging you have to risk life and limb cutting open. Since when did a $10 cable require Fort Knox protection? Seriously, can’t it just go in a box with a lid?

10. This video and accompanying song. I stumbled onto it a while back and now every time I see a furniture commercial, I’m reminded of it. Not as bad as Pop Goes the Weasel, but it’s in the general vicinity. Beware.

Please don’t write me to say "lighten up." If you do, you’re going to make my next list.

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While trying to get to Lauter’s Furniture store in Easton on Sunday, Dave and I got sidetracked by numerous road closings due to what I later learned was the Via Lehigh River Relay Marathon. We tried every conceivable way to get to our destination, but kept getting redirected elsewhere by policemen.

In frustration we turned around and headed west up Northampton St. and as we approached 7th St., I shouted "Let’s stop at Easton Baking!" At least the trip wouldn’t be a total loss. Easton Baking is a fixture in town, been there forever. Located on a tiny residential street, there’s nowhere to park, but nobody cares. You just throw your car in park wherever you want and run inside. The neighbors must love this.

I dart into the store and get in a very long line. I’m not worried about the wait, since it’s moving quickly. Almost too quickly. I wanted time to peruse the selections, but the line moves so fast, I couldn’t get a very good look. It was all just a sugary blur.

I see immediately they have a system here and everyone but me knows how to work it. You get in line at the right, announce your order, have your money in hand and pay on the left. Absolutely no deviation is allowed. If you’re familiar with the Seinfeld "Soup Nazi" episode, this is the bakery version of that. I get the sense if you don’t do it right, an angry mob will chase you out the door and beat you senseless with fresh and crispy baguettes. "No bread for YOU!"

My anxiety is made worse knowing I haven’t a clue what to buy. When it came my turn, I blurted out "Just grab a big box and I’ll point at stuff I want!" I figured this was the fastest way to go about it and would ensure that others behind me wouldn’t punish me for not being prepared. I managed to fill the box with an assortment of stuff I may or may not have wanted.

While waiting to pay, I met eyes with a guy who’d been staring at me a while. I thought for sure he was going to say "You don’t have a clue, do you lady? You silly, stupid woman." What he did say weirded me out a little:

"Has anyone ever told you that you look like Cher?"

"Um, no. That’s a first. Thanks…. I think."

Maybe it’s the longish curly hair, maybe it’s the nose, maybe I looked all drag queen at 11AM in the morning. For the record, I don’t see the resemblance, and neither does Dave.

But it got me thinking of other women people have told me I looked like. Here goes:

Stacy London of TLC’s makeover show "What Not to Wear."
I think we have the same nose, and I can’t say I’m happy about it.

Justine Bateman of "Family Ties" fame. Back when I wore my hair straight. And again with the nose.

Amy Winehouse, who has a popular song out now called Rehab, with a running lyric "They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said no, no, no." She’s in rehab now.

Madolyn Smith Osborne, the actress who played opposite Chevy Chase in 1988’s Funny Farm.

So what do you think? Do I look like any of these women? You can leave a comment, but if you stick one Cher song title, one Cher reference, one Cher anything in there, you’re banned for life.

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With Dave and I being far enough away from our furniture shopping hell experience, it occurs to me now that our adventures weren’t 100 percent bad. There was one bright spot in our travels around the Valley and that’s the Nazareth Furniture Store.

Located at 75 S. Main St., Nazareth, PA, the store is housed in what was once the Nazareth Inn. Built in 1771, the building looks no worse for wear and oozes charm throughout. Their furniture and accessories collection is high end and one-of-a-kind, and that makes them pricier than most other places. It’s also the reason we didn’t buy anything from them, unfortunately. While we loved so many pieces and did consider buying a couple tables, we just couldn’t justify their cost.

What makes the store so fun to browse is that each of the former hotel rooms is furnished and decorated uniquely with its own style and personality. As you weave in and out of each room, creaking and cracking over thick wooden floor boards, you find yourself going back in time. I imagined back when it was a hotel and guests milled about. In the intense heat, though, I also wondered how they managed without air conditioning. When we got to the fifth floor, I just couldn’t take it anymore in the mid-August heat. God, we’re so spoiled.

One other major plus here is the laissez-faire attitude the owners take when you shop. Imagine our surprise when we browsed for a full thirty minutes without seeing even one sales person. They really let you explore on your own and for that we were intensely grateful. When we did run into one floor person, he was gracious and helpful, not pressuring us in any way. We almost wanted to buy something - anything - as a simple thank you for not jumping on us. Our experience at most every other store was the complete opposite, so it was refreshing to be treated more as guests in someone’s home than off-the-street strangers.

So hats off to the Nazareth Furniture Store. You know, we still need new lamps, so we might just take another trip. If we don’t find anything, it’ll still be a fun visit. This place is a real gem!

Blogger’s Note: If you read my blog regularly, you know by now I’m cranky about a lot of stuff. This post is proof that I don’t actually hate everything. Yeah, you’ll still find me complaining about poor customer service, tech support headaches, idiots in general and how badly the English language gets butchered. But I’ll try to sprinkle some kudos around in the future. Stay tuned for more stuff I don’t hate!

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In my line of work, I frequently stand over the shoulder of someone I’m helping with a PC problem. Often I ask them to replicate their problem and when I see how slowly they navigate through Windows I take the opportunity to show them a faster way. Their response is almost always "Oh my God. I’ve been doing it the hard way all these years!"

• Close programs via their Taskbar buttons. Don’t maximize each window, then close it by clicking "X" in the upper right corner. Instead, right-click the program’s button, then click Close.

• View your Desktop in one click instead of manually minimizing each open window until the Desktop is all that’s left in view. First make sure you have Quick Launch enabled. Right-click and empty area of the Taskbar, click Toolbars > Quick Launch. Now you will see the Show Desktop icon next to the Start button. When you want to quickly get to your Desktop, just click that icon.

• Stop digging around for Windows Explorer in the programs menu. Open it by right-clicking the Start button, then click Explore.

• Add program shortcuts to the Taskbar. First, enable Quick Launch in the Taskbar (right click the Taskbar, click Toolbars > Quick Launch). Next, unlock the Taskbar so you are able to resize it and make room for shortcuts (right click the Taskbar, click Lock the Taskbar to remove the checkmark). Finally, drag shortcuts to the Taskbar and release.

• Pin frequently used programs to the Start Menu (only available in the Windows XP Start menu, not the Classic Menu). Click Start > All Programs. Locate a favorite program, right-click on the program’s icon and select Pin to Start Menu. Now that program will always appear at the top of the Start Menu.

• Find files faster. When using Windows Explorer you can type the first letter of a file or folder and Explorer will jump to the first file or folder starting with that letter. Single left-click (not double click) on any folder or file, then type a letter to jump ahead to it.

• To grab several adjacent files at once using only your mouse, position your cursor just outside the files you want to encapsulate, then drag the mouse around the set of files you want to copy so they are shaded. Release the click and you’ll see the files have been selected and you can act on them all at once (copy, cut, move, delete, etc).

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This weekend while trying to relax my crooked back after my high-heeled shoe fiasco, I almost drifted off to a glorious sleep when I was shaken out of my calm by our stupid neighborhood ice cream man.

Now, I know I’m going to get shot down hard for saying this, but there is a special place in hell for ice cream truck drivers who play the same tune over and over again. A lot of people don’t mind the music at all. I’m not one of them. This guy only occasionally rings the bell, which I do find quite charming and nostalgic. It’s when he plays the same song on loop that I want to run out there and throw spike strips under his wheels and smash his speakers with a very large mallet.

I suppose it wouldn’t be all that bad if it wasn’t the particular song he’s playing. Wanna feel my pain? He came down the street just a minute ago and I managed to hide behind some bushes and stuff to get the shot. Go ahead, I dare you to click this.

Seriously, just imagine that over and over, and LOUD, and it just doesn’t stop and you want to rip your hair out!!! I’ve considered going outside with a fistful of cash, then buying up all his inventory so he HAS to leave. But then he’d realize there’s a market for ice cream on my street, and that’s not what we want now, do we?

There is precedence for silencing noise menaces, so I know I’m not the only one who’s annoyed. Boston’s trying to have it banned. And you might