What Today Brought

This morning in the shower (hush, it is not going to be that kind of story), I realized I was down to a sliver of soap, so after I was dressed I went into the linen closet to get another bar. (It isn't really a linen closet, it's the hall closet, but I like to call it the linen closet.) Anyway, it turned out that the last time I took a bar of soap, it was the last bar, and I didn't write it on the shopping list. Oops. Usually I'm good about doing that, but no one's perfect. So I added 'stop at the store' to my list of things to do after work tonight.

I decided that as long as I was shopping, I might as well go to BJs. For those of you not familiar, it's a warehouse club store, and I just joined through work. I've been meaning to go in and get my membership card, so why not tonight?

Well. The guy behind the desk couldn't find the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation listed in his system. Actually, he found two old, expired accounts, but no current account. Without the account, I get no membership card, and without a card, I don't get in.

There's no arguing with such people. I'll have to find out from work how we're listed in the system, and try again. Meanwhile, I got back in my car, cranked the air conditioning (temps in the high 80s, plus humidity), and took my shopping list to Target (which I had passed on my way to BJs, by the way).

I do like Target, even though my local store isn't as fabulous as it used to be. Is yours the same? More and more often, things are out of stock or out of place. I sense a gradual WalMartization of Target, which is very sad. But Tarzhay is still better than Wally World by a mile.

So I bought a greeting card and paper towels and tissues and detergent and a couple of other things. But?

They don't carry Safeguard bar soap. I must have gone back and forth on that aisle 5 times at least, refusing to believe it. After all that, I still don't have soap.

Don't worry, I won't be trying to use that sliver tomorrow. I have half a bar of something else left over, that I threw under the sink into the "have to clean that out some time" area. It would have been thrown out in the next clean-up, but that hasn't happened yet, so I still have soap for now. Until I find Safeguard. If and when I get into BJs, maybe they'll carry it (and if they do, I'll have a year's supply). If not, I think I got it at Brooks last time. I'll shop around, I'll find some. But it was annoying on top of annoying.

The reason I'm not throwing a real Princess can-you-believe-it hissy fit is that I've had my sense of proportion aligned today. Laurie wrote about her beloved Roy, the story of how she and Mr. X adopted him, and how she discovered his name, and suddenly she was using past tense and I was crying at work (I sometimes sneak a peek at her blog after lunch). It started as a "story" post, a here's something I haven't told you yet, well-written as her blog tends to be, and then she really caught me off guard.

And what I want to say is that my friend's cat died, when she doesn't know me, but in a way I really know her. It amazes me, the way you can get to know someone, not everything about them, but know something very real and true about them, from a distance like this. And because I have gotten to know her, virtually, I know that Roy was to her as Pan is to me, and especially because I was so worried about Pan's health earlier this year, and still worry somewhat about him, I hurt for her the way only one pet-mama can for another.

I haven't read the comments yet, partly because I'm not ready and partly because there are over 800 already and I think that calls for the weekend, you know? So I haven't read them, but I will. And the box of tissues is right here. And I'll probably have to take a break at least once, and find Pan if he's not here with me, and whisper-sing to him,

You are my Pan-Pan,
My only Pan-Pan,
You make me happy,
When skies are gray
You'll never know, dear,
How much I love you,
Please don't take my Pan-Pan away.