Would you like a glove with your salad?

I stopped at Trader Joe's yesterday during my lunch break to pick up some tasty French Market Lemonade for Thanksgiving dinner. Since I hadn't packed a lunch, I decided to try one of their in-house made salads. (Note: I am finding that with the decrease of my nausea, there is a noted increase in my appetite and my stomach is slowly growing outwards. I eat much more often these days.)

I rushed back to my office and started devouring the Fiesta Chicken salad. After about 10 bites, I noticed that there was an odd looking piece of lettuce - a cream colored piece to be exact. After further examination, I discovered that this piece of lettuce was actually the finger tip of a rubber latex glove. I didn't dig around further to see if there was a finger or more of the glove. How does a piece of latex glove get into a salad????

As you can imagine, finding a rubber glove in your salad is quite disgusting and made me loose the little lunch I did eat. Since I didn't have any cash on me to buy something else, I munched on the Anise Licorice Scotty Dogs I purchased for my brother Tom for lunch.

After work, I trudged back to Trader Joe's to get my lousy $3.99 reimbursed. I didn't care about the money - I just wanted to show them what was in their salad. The manager was equally disgusted and eagerly gave me my money back AND nice bouquet of flowers. Though I will never buy a salad or any other in-house made food from them again, I do plan to continue to patronize their unique grocery store for such things like trail mix, French lemonade and cherry tomatoes.

I am thankful for these odd experiences...it is things like this that make my life unique and gives me material to write about on my blog.

Expecting the Unexpected

Here are some signs that we should be expecting the unexpected:

• Finding unusual things touching enough to bring tears. Example: After watching the season premiere of CSI and crying for at least 30 minutes afterwards, Lance asks "Isn't this show about police investigating dead people?" My reply (between sobs) "Yes. But it is so touching!" Lance replies, sacractically, "Oh. Right. Very touching."
• The constant feeling I can only label as "yuck" along with a hate/hate relationship with most foods (especially meats) Did I also mention throwing up?
• An absolute loathing of the smell of my refridgerator and bad breath.
• The need to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. and sleep in as late as I can, despite being a night owl.
• A whole closet full of pants and skirts that no longer fit.
• Cravings for food I swore off when I graduated from college - such as Spaghettios and Ramen noodles.
• Many trips to the doctor accompanied by a handful of ultrasounds that show a little baby moving around with 10 fingers and 10 toes and a strong heart.
• A "D" day of May 6, 2008.

We have come to expect the unexpected in life and this surprise is very welcomed, highly anticipated and fills our hearts full of gratitude. Five years of waiting and we can now await our little miracle!

Halloween Humors

Yesterday was Sofi's second Halloween and she LOVED it. We haven't been good about taking pictures lately but I wished we would have taken out our camera last night and this morning because there were some sweet moments.

For starters, we had to put her doggie playpen fence up around the door so she couldn't maul the trick or treaters or try to steal their candy. Every time the doorbell would ring, she would be posed right next to the fence, looking eagerly back at us like "Well, are you going to answer the door?" She would then proceed to receive adoring pets and comments from our neighbors. She was loving every moment of it.

She did manage to steal a few pieces of candy from the bowl and was on a sugar rush all night. She was driving us nuts with her whining and restlessness.

On her walk this morning, she found a pile of candy that was left on the walking path. Before Lance had a chance to stop her, she grabbed a tootsie pop and refused to let him take it out of her mouth. (She has the strongest jaw hold of any animal I have personally met and a pretty scary growl when you are trying to take something out of her mouth she is unwilling to give up.)

When she got home from her walk, she went and "hid" behind the lazy boy, using her paws to hold the tootsie pop stick as she found out how many licks it takes to get to the center. Being the softies we are, we couldn't take the candy from her as she looked so darn cute eating her sucker. It was a very happy halloween for Sofi.