Barnes and Noble is put on Sarah's Naughty List.

Hello Everyone!

I trust all my American readers made it through Thanksgiving and Black Friday just fine? This is "Shop Small Saturday"  which is a movement started by American Express (because they're a small business) for people to get out today and shop small, local stores.

Hubby and I do our "shop small" all year 'round by not eating a chain restaurants.  We look for "local flavor" the smaller the better. Love those locally owned places! And yes, I am a fan of my favorite little local bookstore Martha Merrell's Books for books and gifts of all sorts that are local to Waukesha and to Wisconsin.

When it comes to retail and grocery, I tend to shop a bit larger.  I mean, I lean toward stores that are Wisconsin based, (Kohl's, woodman's) or at the very least are Midwest Based (Meijer, Target). But for hardcore shopping, like the holidays, I reach out to good old Amazon.   

Yes,  I'll admit it, when it comes to buying gifts I tend to look online because I can shop at home in my sweats, I get it brought to my house, and I don't have to stand people lines of people who are annoying me.  (This has nothing to do with retail customer service.  I feel for those folks this time of year because they have to deal with the masses and we, the masses, tend to be rude jerks.)

 But, after my experience yesterday, I might rethink the whole "shop small."

Hubby and I spend Thanksgiving with his mom in the town where hubby grew up.  When he's back "home" he likes to get together with old friends.  So, yesterday morning, we met for coffee (Caribou Coffee, a Midwest based coffee chain.) with friends, and had a lovely time.  Afterwards, I needed to get a walk in and suggested we go to the nearby mall (note: I am 99% done with all holiday shopping and most of the shopping I'm going to do for Peaches' birthday in January.) to walk the mall and see the crowds and maybe see the dying Sears store.

That trip involved us also walking through Barnes and Noble.  

I enjoy Barnes and Noble in the way people enjoy window shopping at stores they can't afford. I tend to buy my books and media second hand, and if I am getting a gift in print, I go to my friends at Martha Merrell's. Hubby loves the store, though, as does his mother, so yes, I have been known to spend some money there.

Yesterday, however, we browsed the media area which, as those of you who shop there know, has its own security. What is purchased in the media area must be paid for in the media area.

Hubby found an album that he very much liked.  He didn't buy it, because, you know, it's Christmas, but he did go to the bathroom at an opportune time.  so I picked up the album and went to the counter and waited for the clerk to come and check me out.

And waited.

And waited.

It's Black Friday and there was no one single clerk in the media area.

I didn't want to just walk out of the area, thereby setting off the alarms and I didn't want to walk away from the album to find someone in case someone else who wanted this album picked it up and I wouldn't be able to find another copy.

But I had my phone. So I looked up the store's number online and called it.

And the phone rang. 

And rang.

And rang.

I could hear it ringing at other places in the store.

I had whipped out my pad and pen and was about to write a sternly worded note that involved an expletive and the words "get it on Amazon" when Hubby, back from the bathroom, tracked down someone who told him the register in the media area was broken and that I should go to a regular cashier.  Hubby suggested they put up a sign saying that.  The person he talked to said, "Yeah....probably," and walked away.  

I should note, the store was not busy.  It looked more like a Tuesday afternoon in there than Black Friday.  And, it should be noted, the mall, including Barnes and Noble WAS NOT open on Thanksgiving Day.  My point being...someone had time to put a magic marker to a piece of paper and write "Cash Register Out of Order go to front of store."

Or, maybe someone could have picked up the phone and answered my question.  It's not like they were busy.

We went to the nearest cashier, a young lass standing completely alone, no line at all, at a register.  She asked if I found everything I needed.  I swallowed all of my sarcastic retorts and said, "Yes, although there's no one in the media area to check anyone out."

"Yeah, the register is broken." She answered in a dreamy, just-woke-up-from-a-nap voice.

Okay, so everyone know this.  

"Maybe someone could up a note?"  I ask in my sweetest tones.

"Yeah...probably...." She handed me my bag and went back to staring into space.

Again...this store was not busy.  They'd not been open on Thanksgiving...and at that point, the store had been open for less than four hours.  The other stores we'd been to were swamped with shoppers and the yet the retail helpers were cheerful, knowledgeable, and super, super on top of stuff.  

So what I'm saying is, yes, Barnes and Noble, you're on the naughty list.

As for the rest of you:  Shop small. And when you're out and about, be nice to the retail people. They have a hard job to do this time of year.  And if you can't be nice to the retail people, just shop on Amazon in your jammies.  

'Tis the season of peace on earth and all and if that means some of us stay in our houses, I think we can all agree, that's just fine.

Hubby invents a new way to lose weight and save time.

Well here we are.  The day before Thanksgiving in the US.  For those of you outside the US, tomorrow is the day when families force themselves to get together (generally fighting mass crowds because today is the busiest travel day of the year)  and make nice with each other while stuffing themselves with mass quantities of foods that, on a normal day, we would not eat because most of them are gross or insanely unhealthy. (I mean...seriously, turkey?  A whole turkey?  And...let's take a vegetable...the sweet potato. Now, let's dump a crap ton of butter and brown sugar on it, and then, for fun, let's put marshmallows on top of it.  If you have to put that much stuff on top of a vegetable just to be able to eat it, maybe you should find another vegetable to eat.  Even broccoli only requires cheese to make it edible.)

 Then, if we're lucky, we'll fall asleep in front of 18 continuous hours of American Football coverage and wake just in time to get up and go out to stores that are manned by grumpy employees who now have to work on Thanksgiving all so we can get a moderately good deal on electronics and other stuff
we simply don't need but have to have for Christmas.

Now, if you're an unlucky person, in addition to all of the above, you'll have a to play that most horrible of Thanksgiving Day games:  Let's go around the table and say what we're thankful for.  I hate that game.  Hate it.  It never ends well.  Best case scenario, no one bursts out in tears and everyone says something trite like, "I'm thankful we're able to get together again."  (Which overlooks the fact that the odds are quite good you'd be MORE thankful if you never had to get together with these people EVER AGAIN.)

By the way, I LOVE Thanksgiving. I really do.  Hubby and I are headed out to see my mother-in-law and that might sound terrible, but it's going to be great because my mother-in-law keeps it low key and pretty stress free. I don't have to fake it there. I can wear sweats and watch TV and maybe we'll go see the holiday lights at the local city park, maybe not. We'll just see how things go. Plus, I won't be forced to eat sweet potatoes. (I cannot stress how much I hate them.)

But that's not why I'm here.  I'm here today to talk about a genius idea Hubby hit upon while we were driving home from church this past Sunday.

Due to road construction, which apparently is never going to end in this corner of Wisconsin, there was a detour right at the end of our church's driveway.  Now, we could have taken the back driveway to get out of the parking lot, but we didn't.  Why?  Because we've been going to that church for more than 20 years and we've been going in and out of the front entrance and we forget about the detour every time.  We both just turned 51 this year. Cut us some slack.

Anyway, we got to the end of the driveway and realized we had to take the detour which involved a left hand turn and then driving around a couple blocks to get home rather than taking a right hand turn and driving straight up one street.   In short, we were taking the long way home through a neighborhood that wasn't ours.

I should mention that when I see people jogging, I used to mock them. Especially if I saw fluffy people jogging.  I would make a snarky remark like, "Well, first day of the new diet plan" or some such nonsense.  (See, there's a reason why stuff happens to me. I haven't always been a good person.)  Now that I have two bad knees and two arthritic feet and it's difficult for me to walk much less run, I cheer on anyone, ANYONE who takes it upon themselves to jog outside in public where people can see them.

It should be noted that I don't cheer quite so loudly for the ultra fit marathoners who insist on breezing by me on the sidewalk in the mornings wearing their super coordinated outfits and breathing lightly enough to greet me. Meanwhile, I'm probably wearing whatever I fell asleep in the night before and if I'm more than a block from home, most likely I'm either limping, wheezing, or wishing I was anywhere but outside walking.  Probably all three.

But, when I see a fluffy person jogging, or an old person, or a younger person who has some sort disability, I cheer (to myself) loudly.

Such was the case last Sunday as we drove past houses we don't generally see, I noticed a jogging fella. He wasn't terribly fluffy, nor did his clothes have that "just slept in" look about them. But one thing did catch my eye: how he was holding his hands.

There's a way most people hold their hands when they jog (I've been told.)   Arms bent, hands in fists, arms move back and forth a little with each step.

 Now I have seen a wilder version of this, on someone who wasn't so much jogging as trying to outrun some dogs or a cop or a thundering herd of wildebeests.  (No I don't stop for these things. I'm an observer who observes. I'm not someone who gets involved. Whatever the kids was running from was not nearly as funny as the image you all have in your heads of someone running from a thundering heard of wildebeests. In fact, I bet half of you looked up wildebeest on your phones right now.  And, since many of you reading this are probably on your way to a family gathering where you will choke down those mashed potatoes in silence rather than admitting you never really liked your cousin's husband's hair cut, or whatever ridiculous topic your tribe has that will start a battle, you at least now have a funny image to take you away from it all.  You're welcome.)

Where was I? Oh, right.  The guy jogging.

This guy wasn't holding his arms that way, not at all. He had his arms bent at the elbow, but then both arms where out in front of him, and his hands faced forward, his fingers bent as if he was carrying a long stick horizontally.  Or maybe weightlifting.  

This struck us both as funny.  I started the ball rolling with my tried and true, "What is up with that?"

To which Hubby said, "I'm not sure."

We were quiet for a moment.  Hubby and have been together so long that we know all our stories and we've talked about everything. The only thing we have left is ways to try and one up each other with funny quips.

Hubby said, "It's like that Tim Hawkins video maybe, he's raising his hands to the Lord."

That video makes me laugh every time.   Here you go, take a look.

I said, "Well, he's killing two birds with one stone.  Worshiping God and jogging.  Worship aerobics."

Hubby's eyes twinkled.  I knew I'd lost this battle of quips.  "No," says he, "He's PRAISERZIZING."


Have a happy and safe Thanksgiving everyone...and for those of you who are going out shopping tomorrow or Friday, don't yell at the retail people.  While you were stuffing your face with food you only eat once a year, they had to get ready for work, and now they have to make the same friendly chit chat roughly ten thousand times in the next eight hours.  Be kind.

And for those of you readers no in the US...have a lovely rest of your week!

Is it Fluffy Fit Bit Cheating...or Bad Marketing?

Hello and Happy November!

As a Novelist, I'm buried in the middle of Nanowrimo, which is the annual attempt at writers to crank out 50,000 words in a month, or, as I like to call it, the final countdown to absolute panic because I've set an impossible deadline for myself.  Which is exactly what's happening again this year with my fourth and probably final Nora Hill Mystery:  Freed on the Fox.  I'm pretty excited at how the first 25000 words are coming along...of course I still have to cough up another 25000 to satisfy the NANOWRIMO beast, plus editing, formatting, finishing the cover, uploading, ordering, marketing, and all before a book signing I've scheduled for myself mid January. That seemed like such a huge amount of time back in March of last year...but here we are.

Want to see a rough draft of the cover?  

But I'm not here to talk about my book, not today. Instead I'm here to talk about something that happened a couple weeks ago while I was trying to be a good girl and sing in a church choir.

It was a Thursday night and we had practice. See, this choir isn't exactly like other church choirs. This is the group I call the "Wine drinking choir." That's because we like to gather sometime after practice for something called, "Wine is Fine after Choir Time."  (Some shorten it to WIFACT, but I think that makes it look less fun.)

Anyway a couple Thursdays ago we had to go to a church that was not our to practice with a very well respected Christian artist and his band.  You'd think we'd be on our best behavior.  I mean, I guess we were, but still...there's always down time when you're trying to wrangle multiple groups.   So, while the artist and his band were warming up and sorting things out, we choir members (some of whom had done the whole WIFACT thing PRIOR to practice) were left to our own devices.  Which means we were talking.  Loudly.  About anything and everything.

One of the ladies stood up and shook her arm. It happened to be the arm upon which she wore her fit bit.  This lead to the question, "Does that give you steps if you just shake your arm?"

It's a valid question.  She checked. Why yes, she does get steps if she just shakes her arm.

All Fit Bit wearers know that.

THAT lead to a conversation about how to cheat wearing the fit bit.  

Here's something I noticed about the people taking part in the conversation.   They are the fluffy people.  Which makes sense, because Non-Fluffies don't need fit bits to remind them to MOVE.  Fluffies do, it's how they got fluffy.  We forgot to move.

BUT, and here's the funny part:  FIT BIT markets to the Non-Fluffies.    Think about it, no Fit Bit commercial EVER centers around super fluffy people marching in place at 11:37 PM praying they can march fast enough to get their steps in for the day. NO!  FIT BIT commercials are full of people running, swimming, biking, hiking with their kids who are also unfluffy, also wearing Fit Bits.  Like the woman in that picture right there.

And then the woman in this picture...which would be me...same pose, right (sort of)?  Same expression.  But...um...yeah.

So apparently Fluffies know all the tricks to messing with Fit Bit. This is my point.  We Fluffies should NOT know that you can get steps counted by applauding. Suddenly that fourth grade play your sisters' kid is in is just THE BEST THING EVER and you keep clapping well beyond reason.  In fact, people are staring at you and the kids have already left the gym and are getting out of their felt and newspaper costumes and getting cookies and orange drink in the lunch room.  But you don't care. You're getting steps in!

Fluffy people should NOT know that you can get steps in if you swing your fit bit arm back and forth while you're sitting down.  (This is great for those who like to read or watch TV.  You can get a whole day's worth of steps done and never move a muscle...except your arm.)

So here's the thing I'm thinking:  Fit Bit needs to change its marketing.  Instead of showing us super athletic ultra runners and Tour de France guys riding through the mountains while where their Fit Bits, how about showing us the real Fit Bit wearer: The fluffy girl in the choir who just needs that thing to get to 10,000 steps, and she doesn't care how. Show her doing creative things to get her active minutes in, like walking around the dining room table, swinging her arms back and forth while she's in line at the bank because she's already walked 10,000 steps but has zero active minutes because the thing won't register anything under ten minutes of continuous motion.

Then, if THOSE people lose weight, get fit, feel better about themselves, maybe you've got  winning product. Otherwise, you just have yet another thing the Fluffies will use to measure failure.