Monday, February 19, 2007

Tefillat Ha-Derech for Web Surfers

Apparently, these days there's a prayer for just about anything!

Westminster Dog Show...A Look in Pictures

Bill Cosby's winning Dandie Dinmont, named Harry.


All dressed up and no place to go...


A Bedlington Terrier. (the first time I ever saw this breed of dog, sitting in a car and waiting for its owner, I was 9 months pregnant. I burst out laughing so hard, I thought I was going to go into premature labor!)



Old English Sheepdog...with a Bouffant!




A Hungarian Puli. (aka Rasta Dog)

Happy President's Day


How the heck do I know it's President's Day in the U.S., when I usually don't even know what today's date is?!
When I worked full-time as a copy editor, and had daily work to complete, date-stamping everything kept me in check of the day/date. Now that I'm home, and simply doing the odd freelancing, days of the week blur from one to the other.
If it weren't for having to keep track of my children's many extra-curricular activities, and their lunch programs at school...and having the school calendar at arm's length, I'd be COMPLETELY in the dark.
Guess I can also say if it weren't for blogging and hitting the Publish button, and seeing the time and date that gets printed along with a post, I'd also be out in left field.
In any case, I hope you Americans have a wonderful extra day off from work. Come to think of it, I guess some of you have disappeared from reading blogs (read: MY BLOG) this past weekend because you've taken advantage of your three-day weekend and gone off to explore your world or do things with your family. Hope that's been fun.
What do I associate President's Day with? you ask.
I associate it with sales, with mid-season markdowns. Hmmm, maybe I should've traveled to Buffalo this weekend, simply to hit the stores for those mid-season markdowns. Yeah, right, me and thousands of other people -- Canadians and Americans both! (BTW, did I tell you I hate crowds...especially when shopping!)
I do remember being in NYC many years ago, staying with a friend. We'd gone into the city together from Brooklyn, where she lived, and had gone to a couple department stores. She had to leave me to head off to work, and I was left to my own devices to shop and find my way back to the city's outskirts.
What did I end up buying? Well, seeing as it was post-Valentine's Day, and President's Day, many items were being cleared and marked down. In the cosmetics department of one of the larger department stores, I found a gift hat box filled with... Epilady products.
The gift package looked so inviting--plied high with...you guessed it, an Epilady shaver, a facial sauna, moisturizing creams and the like. I believe I paid $60 U.S. for it, thinking it was a bargain. The Epilady, at that time, was still just a few years old and quite the novelty, and it had an Israeli patent, so I was supposedly doing myself -- and my unwanted body hair -- a favor, and doing Israel a favor by buying it.
Then I happily shlepped my oversized purchase back to Brooklyn. And if I remember correctly, no doubt it also became my hand-luggage on my flight back to Toronto.
Well, what the heck was I thinking buying an Epilady shaver for my legs?! I might as well have bought a Weed Wacker (tm)...or even paid for a few sessions of "Rip My Hair Out By The Roots" with a master esthetician -- same difference.
I think the shaver was used twice, the facial sauna was used twice...and they got pushed away into an under-the-sink bathroom cabinet. (okay, they moved with me from my parents' home, to my first "married" apartment, to our first married home and now to our second married home....but still lay low in the master bathroom cabinet.) Every now and again, I take the items out, stare at them and think, "What the heck was I thinking, spending $60 U.S. on this stuff?!"
Does anyone think I might be able to sell "one gently used Epilady shaver" and "one barely steamed-up facial sauna" on Ebay? These are the original designs, you understand. I MUST be able to get something for that!
In any case, I associate my Epilady products with President's Day... Hey, maybe after I hit Publish, I should head to my master bathroom, open that bathroom cabinet door, and take out the Epilady products -- in honor of the holiday.
Happy President's Day, (Epilady) friends...and fellow bloggers!