Unexpected Delivery

Okay, so the day started out normal enough...given that it's my house, "normal" is always a relative term. I drank my usual gallon of coffee, read my email, checked in on Facebook, ate some breakfast, worked on my stitchery. Then, I headed out to check on the annuals that I repotted yesterday. They were looking a little sad from getting too dry, but they'd perked up today, just as I knew they would.

I gave the blue jays some peanuts, and then I checked in on the lettuce. Finally, it is germinating. Only the red leaf is visible, and only four of the five seeds I planted, but it's a welcome sight. From years past, I recall that the lettuce has been surprisingly slow to germinate. Now I have hope, even if I don't yet have enough for a salad...or a hamburger...or anything.

And everybody else is looking good too.

While I was out there, I took note of a bird that was scolding me to beat the band. I looked up to see what all the fuss was about. Not surprisingly, I found this little intruder on the roof, no doubt causing great consternation to the bird.

It was a Zumba day, and I can't even begin to describe the ways in which I dragged my feet getting out the door. Since my goal is to exercise four times per week, and I now have five activities per week scheduled on my dance card, I promised myself I could skip Wednesday's Zumba class if I promised to go swimming on Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, Sue and I will do our regular walk on Friday. Such is my commitment to exercise. I'll admit that Zumba gets easier and easier, and today I actually added a little hop to some of my steps, and even added in some arm movements occasionally. I imagine I only succeeded in making myself look even klutzier, but I felt empowered nonetheless.

My reason for being so forceful about getting out the door for today's class was that I was heading over to my quilter's house afterward to pick up the Intel Underneath quilt. My quilter Erin did her usual good job. This design was nothing special...a pantograph I saw online that I thought fit nicely with the printed circuit board fabric. It's a large quilt...queen size...and so I can't really get a good picture of it all spread out. I'll just give you some peeks until I get the binding sewn on, and then I'll enlist Mike to help me take a better picture of it. For now, here's what you can see of it.

Erin used a lightly variegated green thread, although it's hard to see the color in these images.

Recall that this quilt is for Matthew who will be receiving his engineering degree this summer. I call it Intel Underneath because he was doing an internship at Intel last year. Do you think I can still call it Intel Underneath now that he has a job waiting for him at Hewlett-Packard?

Here's how it looks from the back. I gave it a plain black backing, thinking that the back would look like a giant printed circuit board.

Okay, so I suppose you're wondering what the unexpected delivery was. I have a few things on order. When you live as far out of town as we do, you do a lot of online shopping, and I'm usually expecting at least one delivery...more often than not, I'm expecting several. So when I saw this box at the door, I was a little surprised by the packaging. I said to myself, "Oh, cute...somebody with a new baby used their Similac box to ship something to me."

And I looked at the shipping label to see who sent it.

And I was surprised to see it looking very official. Hopefully, I've obliterated enough of the identifying info that no one will be able to track me down.

So, then I slit the tape holding it shut, and saw this:

And as I opened the lid, I was thinking that it looked astonishingly like an actual box of Similac.

And my chin hit the floor when I opened it all the way and...STFU! (Google it, if you don't know what that stands for.)

It was an actual sample pack of Similac...complete with nipple!

And an invitation to join a support group online. Really?

And coupons! (I do loves me my coupons.)

And an invitation to log onto the Abbott Nutrition website to leave feedback!

"Strong Moms" indeed. Well I had some strong words for them. Holy shitamaroo! (That's a term I made up a while back. It works in these kinds of situations.)

So, of course, I checked with certain family members, just in case the names and addresses got mixed up somehow...although I can't even imagine how that could have happened, any more than I can imagine how I ended up receiving this rather expensive (I'm assuming) sampler pack of a product that I do not now--nor at any time in the future expect to--have any use for whatsoever.

To quote Winston Churchill: "It's a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma."

Weird, huh?