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We’re baaaaaack. Took a long weekend up in New Hamster with the kids and the sister and the niece and nephew. Much fun was had by all.

We now have the following inside joke terms that I will not explain.

“Pooks”
“Yahtzee!”
“My Blackberry stopped working”
“I’d like a cup of that”
“Mumbler!”

I think I lost this little blue notebook that I bought three weeks ago and was using to journal and track expenses etc. And I’m REALLY unhappy about it. But that would be the low point.

We did tell the kids that the next time we go to Storyland we’ll be with our grandchildren. Not that they didn’t enjoy themselves, but I think by the time we’d even go back up there they’ll be too old to really enjoy it (not at those prices!)

And Ruggles Mine (www.rugglesmine.com) was a huge rip off pricewise, but the kids LOVED it. What are you gonna do?

We rounded off the day dropping a c-note at Staples on school supplies. Two kids in high school and one going into 3rd grade…how many pencils and erasers do we need again?

Okay, while we wait for Sue the BBQ Judge to check in on the Ayer BBQ restaurant recommended by reader Jen, I will present you with a short radio play based on my breakfast and an email thread between Mr. Dump and I.

Feel free to find another person to play the parts of Cafeteria Cashier Carol and the Narrator. Or you can simple use two different voices if you can’t find someone else to play along.

Narrator: I believe there’s a limit to how much yogurt one should have for breakfast. *burp*

[Jody puts 1/2 a salad bar cup (16oz) of blueberry/yogurt combo on the salad bar scale in the cafeteria.]

Cafeteria Cashier Carol: That’s $2.50. You know, if you fill the cup we charge a flat $2.95

Jody: Really?

Cafeteria Cashier Carol: If it was just fruit, we’d weigh it, but there’s a flat price for a full container of yogurt with fruit/granola.

Jody: Oh, well charge me for a full cup. [Returns to the salad bar to double the amount of fruit and yogurt in the container]

Narrator: This is the equivalent of McDonalds charging you 89 cents for one pie, or 2 for a dollar. But it’s never for something really good. You know, if you get the Bacon Lover’s Bacon Bucket instead of the side order of three pieces, it’s only forty cents more…
[End Scene]

Like the grashopper and the ant, I finally realized I’d better start preparing for winter. Okay, so I didn’t gather seeds, but we did do a very New England-y thing…we hit 3 different LL Bean Outlet stores in 1 afternoon (Concord, Manchester and Nashua NH). Haul for my family = 1 pair of pants, 3 different fleece items (1 pullover, two windproof jackets) 2 sweaters, 3 t-shirts, a winter hat and a tote bag that, miraculously, had my actual initials on it*. Total spent? $200.

If you’ve ever had the pleasure of shopping LLBean, and buy a personalized item (backback, totebag, luggage, lunchbox, etc) you can return it. I have no idea why you would unless there was a flaw, but the outlet stores are full of these new and unused returned items. Some with first names, some with last names. I was joking that I was going to get something with someone else’s name to use for undercover work when Mr. Dump, helping me look for a good fake name, actually found one with my actual initials. I have NEVER had that happen.

It was as if the Virgin Mary had appeared in a grilled cheese sandwich, you see? Or Abraham Lincoln in a potato chip. Some things are just touched by the hand of God.

Good Lord, would you terrorists just cut it the heck out? I mean seriously, just STOP IT. Were you raised by wolves? Leave our airplanes alone!

I saw today that they may ban carry-on luggage forever. How are we defining that, by the way? I saw one guy say he wasn’t allowed to bring a magazine on board? Are you serious? Are we going to have to fly naked? If I can bring a small bag (purse, whatever) on a long boring flight that I can put water, gum, and if appropriate, tampons in, I can’t fly. I just can’t.

I’m NOT going to check my camera, by the way. So what about that? And no business person is EVER going to check a laptop. So they either better work this out, or we may as well padlock the airports because the airlines will go out of business without, well, business travelers. They make up the bulk of the full-price ticket buyers anyway. I can fly my little family of 3 easily for what I sometimes paid for one business trip ticket.

No bags at all? That isn’t possible. Maybe the guy in the CNN article misunderstood. I hope so, because we’ve been talking about doing long range planning for our next vacation, and my first assumption was that it would involve a flight.

By the way, you’re talking to (or listening to, as the case may be) someone who got in a plane less than a week after 9/11. I have put up with the outrageous, horrific security situation, including the Orlando airport’s fantastic plan to physically go through people’s CHECKED suitcases IN FRONT OF OTHER PASSENGERS. This was on the way home, and they randomly chose me, the person whose bag had all the random souvenirs and junk in it. So there we are, at a folding table right next to the huge line of people trying to check in, and they are opening my suitcase with [some] dirty clothes and plastic bags of souvenirs, which were just sort of thrown in there, in front of God and everyone. Completely humiliating, but we were terrified to so much as sniffle around the security guys. Thank GOD they stopped doing that. But anyway, I’ll just stay local until they figure out how to let me take the National Enquirer and feminine hygiene products on a plane, thank you.

There should be an accent over the first e. I can’t put accents in post titles. Well, I don’t think I can. And I’m typing on my phone so everything is limited anyway.

I was looking at a cleaning product box and saw “la poussi`ere” and realized that would be a cool name for a comic book character. I suppose it would have to be a bad guy.

La Poussiere. Don’t mess with him. He’s on the loose with an appetite for innocent blood.

*”the dust”