Oddities

I must say that, despite living in a house overwhelmingly occupied by females, the general stereotype about fashion ("You have enough clothes; you have too many shoes") really doesn't apply. Eleanor pretty much abides by the Guy Rules on the subject- one black dress pair, one brown dress pair, plus some assorted sneaks and flipflops- and Emily is not much more diversified than that. Trouble is, when one particular favorite goes missing, there's much more likelihood of a 6 a.m. Cute Flat Emergency, and so it was with the kid early last week.

As with most important things in life- including property damage and farts- we tend to blame the dog. Tasha has had a greeting behavior for all of the almost seven years we've had her, where she responds to the arrival of any given human by fetching one, but only one, random article of footwear to present to the newcomer. (I've speculated she may have originally belonged to a peglegged pirate.) So when Monday morning came and the cute purple flats were down to a singular quantity of cute and purple, we figured Tasha had grabbed the other one in a fit of canine happiness and buried it someplace. Cellar, garage and back yard were all unexplored options, but we turned over just about every unturned stone in the house proper, without success.

That is, until Dad did the laundry the other night.

I hauled a load of "dry" out of the dryer to make room for a new load of "wash," and as jeans and towels tumbled into the basket, I heard a very shoe-like thud. Somehow, the kidlet had pulled- literally- the ultimate escape act from her clothes, depositing pants, underwear AND one purple shoe in her hamper, where, joined by massive quantities of other clothes, it went undetected for an entire wash-rinse-dry cycle. The pair has been happily reunited, leaving the AHS Fashion Police to wonder why one shoe seems cleaner than the other and perhaps a half-size smaller.

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Eleanor made yet another yummy dinner the other night, this time a combination of garbanzo beans and good ol' fashioned Wegmans ground beef in a lettuce wrap.

Come to find out today, though, that there may have been an extra ingredient on the menu:

Wegmans announces recall of fresh ground beef due to possible e.coli content

Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. has initiated a recall of the following fresh ground beef products with‘use-or-freeze-by’ dates from 10/10/07 through 10/29/07:

* 80%, 90% and 95% Lean Fresh Ground Beef, all packages sizes.  Also includes product sold from the service meat case.

* 80% and 90% Lean Fresh Ground Beef Patties in the 4-patty pack only

* All Ground Beef, Pork and Veal blends, including Century Farm brand

* 85% and 91% Food You Feel Good About Fresh Ground Beef sold in the service meat case

There is no truth to the rumor that they are changing the name of their signature healthy-meat product to "Food You Feel Good About Until You Embrace the Porcelain Altar"

Our house will be the ones with the really sick rats out in front after feasting on the half-package I tossed this morning.