I saw something cute yesterday...

As I was leaving the mall, I saw something that made me totally grin.

They have a Santa at our mall, for pictures with children, in a big, roped off, brightly colored like... big Christmasy display. The Santa looks pretty good. He has a pretty long whitish beard that is real and is kind of plump, like a Santa. He doesn't wear an all red and white suit though. I think he had the red pants, and then he has suspenders and a holiday print shirt; maybe he just gets warm at the mall. I don't know.

WELL. It was time for Santa's break, and as I walked down to Radio Shack to get my Internet cable thingie, I saw him leaving his giant playpen.

I finished at RS about 10 minutes later. To leave the mall, I usually go through the food court exit. As I was leaving, Santa was sitting at one of the smaller tables, eating. A little boy (probably about four years old) had come up to him while he was eating, and they were talking. As I passed, the boy said "SO. Are you the real Santa or one of his helpers?" His mom watched from the Chick-Fil-A line.

Awesome.

Exciting Work Story

SO. At Job #2 we have massage chairs outside of our store, facing the store. They're big comfy chairs, and if you feed one a couple dollars in quarters it will give you a chair-back-massage. Often, girls from our store will sit there while they're on breaks, because they're more comfortable than the mall's bench seating, even when they're not massaging. The girls will read books there, or eat, or whatever, and if the store were to suddenly become terribly busy they would see it and be able to come back early to help. We can see the chairs from most places in our store.

On Wednesday towards the beginning of my shift, three Mexican men sat on the chairs. And sat there, grinning at us.

And it wouldn't have been a big deal, because anyone can sit on the chairs, and I'd be happy to be getting a massage, too. And we thought maybe they were waiting for one girl that was taking a long time shopping in our store. So it was kind of awkward that they were grinning, but whatever.

EXCEPT! Then the girl left our store, and they just kept sitting, staring at us and grinning.

And it was so awkward. We would be standing behind the counter with the cash registers, and I would turn to my right, to talk to my coworkers, and behind my coworkers I could see man on the end of the row of massage chairs, making eye contact with me and grinning. So I tried to talk to my coworkers without looking at them, and that was weird. A couple times my coworkers would turn and stare back, very obviously. The men just kept grinning. We were all kind of creeped out, and considered calling security. We decided not to, since they were just sitting and weren't talking to us or doing anything, and none of us had to leave yet. They left after watching us for two or three whole hours.

AND THEN! The day after Thanksgiving, they were back. And they followed a couple of my coworkers when they went on a break. So we called security, and they said that if any more funny business went down, we should let them know. The men walked past our store, slowly, staring in, and sat on a different set of benches outside our store.

We called mall security again, and they said they would be right over. They did come, and went to talk to the men. They asked the men what they were doing.

NOW, if I were a creepy man watching girls, I would say "I'm waiting for my cousin. We're shopping, and I wanted to sit here because the seats look comfortable." Or something like that. (Thankfully, I'm not.)

"We like the way the girls who work there look," they told Security. "So we're sitting here to watch them." (At least they were honest?)

Security told them they had to leave our part of the mall, and that if they came back, they would be kicked out of the mall.

Later I saw them sitting on benches about four stores down, towards the center of the mall, but they didn't stay there long, and we didn't have any more problems with them that day.

The End.

A List of Things I'm Thankful For

(in no particular order)

Things I'm Thankful For:

• Abby, sleeping on her back


• Simply Lemonade, Limeade, and Apple Juice, in that order


• BIC pens, because they do always write


• The new bin at Smith's for recycling grocery bags


• My bicycle, and that it's purple


• Wireless Internet


• The Book of Mormon, and the Book of Mormon in Italian


• Hybrid cars, and the hydrogen atom ones


• Lamination


• People that I initially don't like that I end up becoming really really good friends with


• When I run to catch the bus and miss it and then the bus driver stops anyway


• Good artwork


• Pomegranate jelly


• The poem Remember, by Christina Rossetti


• And the poem about the penny [note: I looked for it online, and I found a bunch about tossing a penny down, but it isn't that one. I'll find it later.]


• Podcasting, even though I've never listened to one


• Cafe Rio


• Texting Google, 1-800-GOOG411, and Google artwork for holidays and April Fools jokes


• Italian movies, or really, movies dubbed into Italian


• my GPS


• The GPS things that go in cars and give directions aloud in British or Australian accents


• Being able to tell people (who call me at work) about LDS Family History Centers


• Temples


• That everyone wears white in temples


• People who make a special effort to speak English, even when it would be easier to speak their own language


• People who treat the flag properly


• Pimsleur


• The USPS, UPS, and FedEx


• the FedEx arrow hidden in their logo


• The Constitution


• Homemade bread


• Footnotes


• Research


• Donation of blood and platelets


• Organ donors


• Kids who do the right thing and blame their parents so that they look cool, even though they actually wanted to do the right thing


• Truth (facts straight) ads


• People who are genuine


• Very talented pianists and ballroom dancers


• Free days at museums


• Peace of mind


• Artichokes, but not pickled or fried


• Homemade french fries


• Amy Butler stuff


• Ravelry.com


• Interesting doorknobs


• British people who finish calls by saying "Have a nice day." since they don't tell each other that over there, so they're saying it just for me


• Essays


• Memoirs


• Wikipedia


• Spreadable butter


• Arms


• That I am healthy


• Health insurance, and that mine has good ads


• Apologies, sincere


• DNA testing, which fascinates me


• The placebo effect


• Corazon, Project Linus, Warm Up America, soup kitchens


• People who sincerely believe, and live according to their beliefs, whatever they are


• Maps, in general


• Old maps that show the world as flat


• Endorphins


• Electricity


• Refrigeration


• Down comforters


• Tapestries


• Chairs


• Just DOING whatever it is


• Italian ties, which are very expensive here and often $5 in Italy


• Bartering


• That Abby uses her new cat furniture


• Proraso


• That we used to tease my little brother by blowing kisses at him


• Little miracles


• My colored pencil that holds 8 colors and is mechanical


• People who see me walking places and offer rides


• My gym, even though they're shady, and especially the cardio cinema


• Moleskine journals


• Sandwiches


• Homemade chicken / turkey noodle soup


• That money is really just money


• General Conferences


• Vacuum cleaners


• Cultures


• Pepero Day (11/11!)


• Black rimmed glasses


• Shoes


• Beautiful cemeteries


• That some people don't gossip


• People who over-prepare


• Whatever quote it was that I read on my mission about being consistent


• Examples that people set for me: (LF - enthusiasm and love, AW - pay attention to others, NRW, KJ, BL - service, Yellow's mom - being a good hostess and always making people feel welcome, CB - asking questions, being logical, and putting in hard work, my current bishop - only reads church books, AT - prayer, and so so many other people for other things.)


• Ticket to Ride


• The TTR Reunion 2009


• Punctuality


• Fly swatters and bug zappers


• Penicillin and immunizations


• Comments on pictures on Facebook


• Giraffes


• The Office (especially clean episodes)


• People signaling before switching lanes


• Fresh tomatoes


• BLTs


• Honest mechanics


• Pastrami


• Tacos and Tamales


• Fresh bagels


• Forks


• Disinfecting wipes


• Hope


• Petting zoos


• The song "Amazing Grace", which is not about a woman named Grace


• Sisters that wrote to me on my mission


• Wheaties


• Libraries


• eBay


• The YAM joke (I yam so happy we're having yams for Thanksgiving)


• Cat sweaters

Things I Learned at Work, Sort of.

[I wrote this early Friday morning and kept adding to it, and then forgot to post it. Oops.]

Some new, interesting things that I learned at work this morning by reading ancestry magazine:

- Watermelon is indigenous to Africa and came over to America in the late 1600s when settlers started bringing slaves over. Peanuts, sesame seeds, and yams came from Africa, too.

- Graham crackers were created by a Presbyterian minister named Sylvester Graham, in 1830, to help people fight lustful feelings. "As part of his health regimen, Graham advocates daily cold baths, lots of exercise, chastity, temperance, and hard mattresses." (pg. 25)

- Arsenic and strychnine were used in 1894 for weight loss.

- They've done DNA testing on cats, and basically all domestic cats go back to five mother cats, which were Near Eastern wildcats from "the deserts of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia" about 10,000 years ago. It's the same time and place that wheat and barley were domesticated, and they think maybe those five mamma cats kept rodents from the grain and were welcomed (with their kittens) by humans. They guess that the cats liked the arrangement and adapted, domesticating themselves. (pg. 20)

- Turkey is the only commercially available meat native to America. (pg. 34)