Friday, June 2, 2023

7 Quick Takes about Target Employees Who Should Write a Book on Time Management, Surprise Run-Ins with People Who Aren't Danny DeVito, and the Classic Movie Remake I Never Knew I Needed

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


There was this T-shirt I loved at Target, but the only one I could find in the right size and color was on the mannequin. So I found an employee and explained the situation. She started walking briskly and I followed her, thinking she was going to go check in the back for more or something.

But she went right to the mannequin, yanked off its arms (which were attached to the torso with magnets,) ripped the shirt off over its head, and handed it to me. This took about 2 seconds for her to do.

Before I was finished stammering my thank-yous, she shoved another shirt on the mannequin, stuck its arms back on, and walked away just as quickly as she'd come. I think I found my new efficiency role model.

2


One really exhausting and un-fun thing I've been doing this week is spending a lot of time talking with the assistant principal about a physical incident that happened at school with one of my kids.

After lots of working with the school to figure out exactly what happened and watching the hallway security camera footage, we ultimately decided not to pursue a formal bullying investigation with the school. Given all of the circumstances, we felt like a better outcome could result if my kid and the aggressive punk who started it and escalated it would sit down with the guidance counselor and have a conversation instead.

I have faith that it will work. But if the aforementioned punk touches my kid a second time, I will 100% open a formal investigation, and also start looking for an auntie and uncle in Bel Air just in case.

3


Yesterday as I was leaving the temple for my church, I ran into an old friend who used to live here! She moved out of state in December, but came to a work conference with her husband in the area for a few days and was attending the temple while he was in meetings. She's definitely one of the cutest, sweetest women I know.

Before she moved, she was the Young Women's president here so I thought my daughter would get a kick out of hearing that I saw her so unexpectedly.

When I got home, I said, "You'll never guess who I saw outside the temple today."

My daughter thought for a moment and then guessed, "Danny DeVito!"

Close. But not really.

4


I've been working outside quite a bit (for me, anyway, because I hate working outside) lately, trying to finish my big landscaping project around our mailbox.

With my kids' help, I've shoveled about 5 tons of dirt so far to make a passably-decent looking mound up around our mailbox and surrounded it with a rock wall. There's still more work to do, but once I'm happy with the basic shape I'm going to cover it in 6" of topsoil and start planting plants on it.



While I was out there working on it yesterday, a lady walking by with her dog told me it looked nice, so I take that to mean I'm almost ready to move on to the next step.

5


Every year, I take my kids to J.C. Penney to get their pictures taken. I find this far superior to getting school pictures, both in terms of price and quality of the shots I receive.

After this many kids and this many years, I'm used to seeing a variety of different behaviors in the portrait studio. The kid who is eager but can't fake a convincing smile to save his life. The diva who clearly loves the attention and comports herself like a really short Instagram influencer. The shy kid who just frowns harder when the photographer tries to connect with them. The awkward kid who channels their nervous energy into making chipmunk noises and acting odd until you leave the portrait studio. 

But this time, my 7-year-old exhibited something I've never seen before. He turned into the class clown. During his photo session, he was cracking us all up and had such uncanny comedic timing, it was almost like watching a professional do standup. 

6


My kids' elementary school held their annual art show, where they display things the kids have been working on in art class throughout the year. 

My daughter's class had a display of landscapes they'd worked on, with a background, midground, and foreground. Attached to each piece was an explanation of why the child chose that particular landscape:

My 11-year-old's landscape.

Some of my other favorite captions in the class were "The reason I drew a mountain is because I'd never drawn one before" and "I chose to make a desert because it was pretty and didn't look too hard."

Also, this is not my child's class but look at these adorable clay owls:


I never did anything this cute in elementary school, I'm sure of it.

7


I'm a few years late to the party, but this popped up in my YouTube feed and I had to share it. Remember at the very beginning of the pandemic, when everyone was quite literally quarantined inside their own homes and celebrities were doing all kinds of weird things to stay busy?

This is one of those weird things.

It's a full-length remake of The Princess Bride, filmed by dozens of actors separately in their own homes, using whatever they had at home as props. Someone stitched the clips together and released them in chapters, and this video is a compilation of all the chapters together. 

If you aren't familiar with the movie The Princess Bride, this is going to be dumb. But if you know every line of The Princess Bride by heart like we do, it will still be dumb but you'll also love it and think it's hilarious.


Be careful, you'll start watching this out of curiosity and get sucked in and watch the entire hour. Don't ask me how I know.

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1 comment:

Laura M said...

You were lucky with #1, once the only dress in my size left was on a mannequin and they didn't let me have it.