I do like children, normally.

How embarassing for me. Somehow, who knows how, I had missed the memo explaining that today was going to be Bring Your Many Small Children Along Grocery Shopping day at Whole Foods. My oversight is understandable, however, in light of the fact that such a theme day is a horrible idea.

Maybe I'm just used to shopping during the week, when the customers are reasonable and few. Today I literally could not turn around without almost running into a person holding, carrying, leading, or pushing around a baby, toddler, or young child, or tripping over the child itself. Babies in those baby-carrying backpacks, kids sitting on the kids' seats in shopping carts, children in various stages of escape: all over the store.

I understand that many of these people work during the week (as I also do now!) and don't want to spring for a sitter just to do the shopping. But that does neither explain why both parents must go shopping together instead of drawing straws to stay at home with the kids, nor does it solve any of the numerous problems involved with bringing children to the store. Each of these problems has some effect on my shopping experience:

I want to get some cheese from the end of the cheese shelf. Blocking my path to my desired cheese is a mother holding up several containers of olives. She has made the rookie mistake of letting her two girls have a say in which olives to buy, and this has resulted (obviously) in a three-way argument, a maelstrom of phrases including: "but you loved this green kind last week!" and "but THOSE have RED THINGS in them!" and "noooooo! mommmmmy!"

Instead of waiting here and probably getting hit in the head by red things, I think to myself, I will go sample some delicious aged cheddar that the nice sample woman is offering. I, somehow, do not predict that the 8-, 10-, and 12-year-old boys at my 2-o'clock will rush up to the sample table ahead of me and eat every piece of cheese that they do not in the process knock to the ground.

I would go on with my shopping, but only 2 of the 12 isles are passable, due to (A) children pushing carts around, their mothers either engrossed in decisions like green pasta or normal pasta? or in frustrated pursuit; (B) mothers with their two children in two separate carts, pushing one and pulling the other, and leaving crippled display shelves in their wake; (C) couples so completely engaged in comparing the relative virtues of every can of baby food that I cannot get around their giant baby backpacks, nor catch their attention.

The only redeeming incident of the afternoon was that the second of the two children in that one woman's two shopping carts, probably about two years old, thought that my ability to blow bubbles with my gum was the greatest thing ever. It was good that this amused both her and me, because I was behind her mother in the checkout line, and her brother was systematically removing items from the conveyor belt and tossing them back into the cart.

The whole business took quite a long time.

Gainful Employment

I started work yesterday; I’m a Development Editor in the Custom Database division of Pearson Education, a slightly-above-entry-level job, a fact for which I am very grateful. I edit manuscripts and usher custom book projects through development, among other things.

Or rather, I will do all of that, once there is any work for me to do. Right now things are still a little “slow,” because most professors seem to wait for the summer to plan their custom books for their fall courses, so for my first two days of work have largely consisted of things other than editing.

Yesterday, my to-do list in Outlook was as follows:

1. Have someone get me a drawer, and a bulletin board that is not made of metal.
2. Hope that someone brings me a phone.
3. Wash, eat strawberries I brought from home.
4. Find eatery nearby that sells chocolate muffins, purchase and eat same.

I accomplished the last three items on my list yesterday, and today over the course of the morning I received not only a drawer and a tackable bulletin board, but also a filing cabinet, the kind that locks. I also received a key, though I’m not yet sure what it is that I’m supposed to lock up.

For the rest of the day, I’ve been sitting in the office I share with Mary Kate, the other new Development Editor, catching up on the news from Publishers Weekly and gossiping about Kaavya Viswanathan’s plagiarism scandal. We’ve been able so far to finish any tasks given to us within an hour of getting them, so we don’t feel bad about buying shoes online or browsing the Barnes & Noble website. Depending on how well you really know me, you might or might not be able to figure out which of those was done by me, and which by Mary Kate.

Since I had eaten lunch during all that “working,” I used my lunch break today to take a walk in the Boston Public Gardens, home of the famous Swan Boats and less famous but much more fragrant blossoming cherry trees. The air was cool and breezy, the sun was sparkling off the pond, and the swans were looking askance at me, their dark eyes full of menace and promises of swift and violent retaliation should I go near their young or turn out to be concealing any grain on my person.

Why Terry Should Listen To Katherine

This all actually happened, earlier tonight, as I wandered in and out of the room when my roommates were watching the Sox/Cleveland game:

[It's the 7th inning; Sox up by 1]
Announcers: And this will be Schilling's 117th pitch of the night...
Me: TAKE HIM OUT, TERRY! Oh my God, take him out! Do you not remember what happens when we leave pitchers in too long? What happens to Pedro, with the melting down? What happened to Schilling? And what happened to Schilling those other times?
[Indians batter: RBI!]
Me: Did I not? What did I just say? What did I JUST say?

---

[Now it's the 8th inning; game is still tied, Sox have Youkilis on 2nd after a stolen base. There are 1 or 2 outs.]
Me: What? The Indians are walking Ortiz? Are they retarded?
Announcers: Well, it looks like an intentional walk to David Ortiz...
Me: They're walking Ortiz to get to Manny. Ortiz sucks in clutch situations! That's the worst idea ever.
[Ortiz walks, Manny connects on the first pitch]
Announcers: It's back, waaay back.... It's gone!
Me: Why won't these managers LISTEN to me? I'm 2 for 2!

Now the score is 8-5, Sox, and I can only imagine Terry is going to put in Timlin, who will then proceed to give up three runs, thus tying it and sending it to extra innings, like, you don't get paid per inning, Red Sox. Try to win or lose games within the alloted 9, please?

Although, having grown up going to Angels games, I became accustomed to a squintey-eyed fellow named Troy Percival, who would give up nearly or all of the number of runs his team was up by, thus creating "drama" and "suspense" for the fans. Really, we were just pretty sure he couldn't actually see the strike zone from 61 feet away, and would use the home runs scored off of him as a sort of trial and error practice session, because eventually he would start shutting batters down in three pitches. But Timlin doesn't have the excuse of poor vision; he just seems to hate it when the Red Sox don't lose dramatically. Evidence for this? He has given up another run in the time it took to type this. Thanks, Mike. Thanks for reminding me of my youth.