Odds and Ends

• Remember stocking hats? No not the Santa ones I wore whilst wandering NYC. The kind from my childhood where the longer the hat, the better. I walked by Claire's at Jordan Creek Mall tonight an saw a longish stocking hat, and remember a striped one I used to have. That thing had to weigh my head down...and was a strangulation threat...yet I survived!
• Claire's advertised ear piercing. I can't imagine doing that to someone. Ugh! My mother wouldn't let me get mine done...so I waited until I visited sister Susan in Denver the summer of my Junior year of High School. We went to the mall and I think the person used a needle to do it. Or my faulty memory could be working overtime! Mother was agast, but she gave up.  
• When I got to ISU my friends and I each got a 3rd earring when we were frosh. Mom cried. "Girls that hang at the roller rink have pierced ears" she said. (those girls musta been the skanks).
• Which reminds me - my black sheep sister Cindy once pierced her own ear. (she only had one earring so she only did one). She numbed her ear with an ice cube, sterilized a needle with liquor (probably our paren't fave Ancient Age Bourbon) and poked her right through. Then she kept it covered with her hair when Mom was around and would put her hair behind her ear when Mom was not. (She was sneaky like that). Eventually though - moms figure these things out. And she had to let it grow back.
• Looking for apartments to rent is kinda scary. It reminds me of the olden days when Paul and I lived in apartments - the last one was in Counciltucky. Yep - Council Bluffs, on Little John Circle right behind KMart. They weren't supposed to know I had a cat (Bucko), and we were successful at pulling that off. I'm not sure we could sneak Odie the wienie dog in someplace.
• In my experience, the worst part of apartment life is the neighbors. They're loud (and walls thin). And rude. In CB the neighbors had a huge fight and their fry pan ended up in the back lawn - complete with the spatula! And that was from the 2nd floor - we were on the 3rd.
• Holding the BCS National Championship on a Monday night on ESPN just doesn't seem like a big deal. Or maybe it's because it's 2 SEC teams and nobody around here is too excited about it.