They Love the Sound of Their Own Voices

I'm listening to a Stanford college lecture through iTunes called "Leading the Good Life: Lessons from the Greeks." It reminds me of one of the things I hated about college -- the long-winded professors. This guy's got one hour to get through his lecture. He's told us in his introduction that he's going to cover five important philosophies. He's still making the introduction, though, and it's 15 minutes into the lecture. He's told us what he's going to do immediately after the lecture. He's told us how important this lecture is going to be to us. He's told us how we all want to lead the good life. But he's only just beginning to get to the substance of the lecture. And to think I had to spend $600 per credit hour for this blather when I was an undergraduate.

My Own Little Shoplifter

Kendall turned 18 in April. In May, she was caught shoplifting. She had to pay $200 to the store, and she has a court date, too. (And since she doesn't have a job, it means that I had to pay $200 to the store. She promises to pay me back, but realistically, I don't think my chances are very good.)

From the Colorado Revised Statutes: "Concealment of goods is commonly referred to as 'shoplifting.' If a person conceals unpurchased goods owned by, held by, or offered by a store for sale, whether the concealment is on his/her body or somewhere else, he/she may be charged as having intended to commit the crime of theft (18-4-406). An adult or an emancipated minor who takes possession of any merchandise from any store without having paid for it will not only be responsible for paying the actual price of the item, but also a fine paid to the owner of the store for not less than $100 and no more than $250. The parents of any unemancipated minor will be responsible for paying not only for the stolen item, but also he fine to the owner of the store (13-21-107.5(2-3))."

Thrift Story Junkie

That's me. I love popping in to the neighborhood thrift store on my lunch break or after work to see if I can score a treasure. Everything's so affordable that I can indulge my urge to shop without running up huge bills. I can indulge clothing whims, too, quite affordably. One season I decided I was only going to wear skirts and so I did. The downside of all this is that I have a ton of clothes. My closet and dressers are bulging. Somehow a whole bunch of clothes spilled out of my closet yesterday and lay there in a huge pile. I wasn't sure how to get it back in so I put the pile on my bed. It will probably move back and forth from my floor to my bed to my floor for a few days until I finally have time to purge the closet and dresser and find room for it all.

The moon was beautiful this morning. It's full. It was almost directly ahead of Mel and me as we drove west into town. Behind us, the sun had just come up. The moon hung over the western mountain range for a few moments, looking huge and bright against the dark morning sky, then slipped away behind the mountains, moving so quickly we could see it sinking. Smaller, smaller, just a tiny bright sparkle, then gone.