Southern California Rain Storms stream extra shopping orchids

It is raining!

“In Southern California?” Nazy asked.

“I know! They told me:
It never rains in Southern California. But it shouldn’t be a surprise because we live in a time of very strange and stormy events.”

“I can see where this is going, Dan.”

“Strange: like having ‘Values Voters’ elect a value-challenged narcissistic dotard who suffers from neuron-deficit-disorder and synaptic collapse syndrome.”

“Perhaps it’s just strange because it’s raining even though the rainy season is over.”
arrow at hula hoop

“Perhaps. But I see Storm(y) Clouds on the horizon.”

And, on a totally unrelated subject: Nazy, not content with exceptionally healthy eating habits, spends time each morning doing exercises. She is particularly adept with the
hula hoop. She is even using a highly modified, extra heavy version to “shape and sculpt”. Arrow also really likes the hula hoop. When Nazy stops exercising, Arrow stands in the middle of the hoop and turns himself around.

It seems to work — both Nazy and Arrow are very trim.

Editorial note: Nazy actually likes green
things — like vegetables and leafy ‘stuff’ including (gasp!) kale, collard, chard, spinach and lettuce. If I actually liked that stuff (in my opinion, cooked spinach tastes like grass soaked in gasoline) then eating healthy wouldn’t be a challenge.

On Wednesday as usual, I picked Tiger up after school. We pass the Roosevelt Elementary School on the way to our house and..

“There’s the Roosevelt School, Tiger.” I said. “We’re almost home.”

“And Rosa isn’t there.”

“Of course not. Tiger, Rosa was your teacher at the Montessori School. Not at the Roosevelt School.”

“That’s why it is funny Dan.” Tiger continued laughing.

“Funny?” I asked.
Tiger haveing fund swimming March 2018

“Yes, Dan.” Tiger sighed, assured that he was dealing with a simpleton. “Rosa isn’t at the Roosevelt School.”

Tiger continues to enjoy his swimming lessons. Now that he can swim the entire length of the pool — without floatation aids — he is finally willing to play with the floatation devices. And..

“I’ve told him that his seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.” I explained to Nazy — who was baffled.

This week Nazy received a ‘special offer’ from Nieman-Marcus. It was..

“…. great, Dan. 45% Extra off the
entire purchase.”

Naturally, we made some time for a quick excursion to Camarillo where Nazy, emboldened by the special, extra 45% discount offer, did some serious shopping.

Note to readers: The
men’s section of Nieman-Marcus was 5% as large as the women’s section.
arrow at orchid show

And then — we checked out — where it turned out that the 45% was interpreted strangely by Nieman-Marcus.

“So it’s not extra?” I asked gaping at the gargantuan bill.

“It says that
some exclusions apply.”

“It says that in a very small font,” I replied. “But it says
Extra 45% off entire purchase’ in a very large font.”

“Well..”

It turns out that Extra 45% meant that if you picked something that was discounted by less than 45% than (assuming the item wasn’t excluded), you got a 45% discount…

“You got an
extra 45%” the clerk claimed.

“Actually, this particular item was already discounted by 50%, so I didn’t get an extra anything.” I declared. “
I better make sure that they didn’t charge an extra 5%,” I thought.

Naturally I continued to complain on the drive home…

“This is the second year in a row that we’ve fallen for this scam.” I concluded.
Arrow and Nazy waterfall march 2018

“I guess you should improve your memory,” Nazy replied. “I like what we bought.” Nazy thought.

The week was not only memory challenged, it was technically challenging. I finally got the Apple TV to sort of work and sort of got the streaming device to kind of work.

“Kind of work?” Nazy asked. “What does that mean?”

“I want live TV, Nazy.” I explained.

“It is live.”

“It’s a repeat, Nazy.”

“It’s the news.”
people orchid

“I want new news. But I’m just hearing that the White House is in chaos. A senior advisor has resigned. (In disgrace most likely.) The ‘President’ is lying, the NRA wants more guns, the GOP Speaker of the House is spineless…”

“That’s the news: same old, same old.”

Not only did have problems with the news, I couldn’t get the Apple TV to do what I wanted it to do: access my iTunes music subscription and display the images that I selected. But it would only play a subset of the music that I’d bought (and downloaded) and, with a plethora of caches, buffers and bugs, it continued to display the photos I’d chosen five years ago when I bought the Apple TV device.

“Now I remember why I stopped using that thing,” I thought.

The annual Santa Barbara Orchid show took place this week. Nazy and I took Arrow to the show: he really liked the waterfalls.

Nazy and I
really liked the orchids — and the Arrow.

“I particularly like the ones that look like faces,” I noted.

“Me too!” Nazy agreed.

“It reminds me of our trip to Tokyo.” I concluded.

To see more orchid photos, please click here.


For last week's letter, please click here

Dan and Arrow


dan and arrow orchids March 9 2018

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