Senior moment

So, having dropped some stuff off at the thrift store, I decide to have a bit of a look round, that being a nice little de-stresser for me. I happen upon a bowl by Thomas O'Brien and a knife from IKEA. When I went to pay for them, the cashier totaled my purchases and then said

Cashier: Oh wait, it's Tuesday, you get the seniors' discount.
Me (not quite understanding what she was saying, but hearing clearly the word "discount"): What discount?
Cashier: Senior discount -  10%.
Me: The simian discount?
Cashier: Sen-ior, Sen-ior, Sen-ior, Seeeeen-yooooour discount.
Me: Oh, the senior discount, yeah sure,  55 and over right?

I think it's time to do my roots.

It's not often one gets a chance to see the exact price of their dignity, to see in cold hard cash the value of their esteem. In my case it was 49¢ ; the amount my senior discount saved me. The bowl still makes me happy tho'.

Robbie Burns said it best - and he uses a lot of exclamation points, so you've got to love that.

 O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

 (English Translation)

O would some Power the gift to give us

To see ourselves as others see us!

It would from many a blunder free us,

And foolish notion:

What airs in dress and gait would leave us,

And even devotion!

Robbert Burns, To A Louse, (1786)

Me and Richard Simmons

In what I suspect will prove to be the highlight of our trip to Paris, today I ran into Richard Simmons. We had returned to the Rodin museum because last night as we were leaving Ciara cried on account of missing the part of the tour inside the house. So we spent another couple of hours (no hardship for any of us, still loads to see and it only costs 10€ for the whole family). We're finished up in the house mid-morning, so adjourned to the gift shop. While nosing around, Evan asked me if a black watch tied around a black ball was a grenade, and I heard someone laugh behind us. I turned around and saw a man dressed all in white including a small pair of white feather wings, like angel wings. I said hello (of course I knew who he was, I first heard about him from reading an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer in the '90s about how he had helped this woman from Bryn Mawr lose over 300 lbs and I was a HUGE (pun intended) fan) and so we had a little chat.
I said he looked fabulous (he did too and when I put my arm around his waist for the picture he was firm) - he called me adorable and wondered if I was Canadian.

Trying to act cool around Richard Simmons at the Rodin museum.

We parted from Richard and spent the rest of the day visiting Paris and finished off with an evening at the Louvre. We went first into the gift shop (ground floor) and I split up from the family, browsing around the books while they went upstairs. I was thinking that it would be funny if I met Richard Simmons in the giftshop of a museum again. A little while later I ran into Doug and he told me "Richard's here". Now Doug has two bosses named Richard.

I asked: Richard Mount?
Doug: No
Me: Richard du Bois?
Doug: No...Richard.
Me: You mean Richard Simmons, oh my God, I was just thinking about him. Where is he?"

Doug told me he was upstairs so I hurried above (took the stairs naturally, my homage to the king of exercise) and found him at the jewelry counter. I was very excited to see him, he said "How nice to see you again" and I launched into my story about just thinking how funny it would be to see him again etc. etc, being very excited but wanting to play it cool, 'cause it's Richard Simmons like, and he said "Byh byh now". BURN!!
We stayed until closing time at the Louvre, kids held up pretty well. I had been to Paris many time before but had never been to the Louvre. Could have gone back for another day. I walked all over. My favorites were eighteenth and nineteenth century french paintings.