Perspective. It's What's In My Cup.

44 OUNCES!

I discovered last week that Sonic has a 1/2 price drink happy hour every day from 2pm 'til 4pm.  It's one of those things that I'm going to look back on in the years to come as life-changing, I know it already.  For years (YEARS!) I've been driving myself to Starbucks and paying too many dollars for really good coffee because I had decided that Starbucks was my go-to beverage on the go. Going to work? Stop at Starbucks first. Going on a trip? Stop at Starbucks first. Going to watch a ballet/gymnastics /basketball/soccer practice/game/recital? Stop at Starbucks first.  But here's the thing, even though I always ordered a VENTI (which is Starbucks speak for LARGE), the 20oz. drink just didn't seem quite VENTI enough, you know?  Enter the Sonic Route 44.  It's 44 ounces of drinking pleasure.  In a handy styrofoam cup. Made to order (which this week has meant diet cherry flavored everything). And if I can manage to get myself to Sonic between the hours of 2pm and 4pm, it only costs me one dollar and thirty-five cents.  At that price, I can hand the server (who's on roller skates for goodness sake! nobody roller skates at Starbucks!) two dollars and let her keep the change and still come out spending roughly .47 cents less per trip than when I go to Starbucks.  I  also get to feel like a big tipper and I like feeling like a big tipper.  It's a fancy sort of feeling, you know?

    I had some time to think about the meaning of the word perspective last week when I spent several days laying on my couch with an ice pack cemented directly to my face trying to do anything and everything to alleviate the excruciating pain radiating from one of my teeth.  Slight back story - at a routine dentist appointment on March 29th, my dentist mentioned that I had a cavity in a tricky location very near a nerve that might require a root canal.  Root canals are expensive, and they're root canals.  Given the fact that I wasn't in any pain, I took the Scarlett O'Hara approach to his root canal suggestion and decided to think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow showed up around lunchtime on April 11th. A return trip to the dentist got me a prescription for an antibiotic (for the abscess. ick) and some pain killers (that never really killed the pain) and a confirmed appointment with an endodontic dentist on the following Monday - a day that was many many painful days away. During those long drug hazed hours spent on the couch, my perspective shifted from "oh no! not a root canal!!" to "I wonder if endodontists make house calls?"  No price is too high for pain relief.  Also, that saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure? Totally true.

Made in America

    And because today is Art Club Wednesday, I thought I'd share Sarah's latest creation. The photo on the right shows a pair of flip-flops that my daughter made during art club this afternoon.  My first thought as she proudly wore her handmade flip-flops around the house was, "Seriously?  My Filipino baby made shoes as part of an extra-curricular enrichment activity at the school that I pay tuition for her to attend?" The number of politically incorrect thoughts that were bouncing around inside my head were almost too much.  I won't share them here, you know, because of the political incorrectness, but goodgollymissmolly, sometimes the universe just hands you the funny. Sarah's already working on a redesign using duck tape . . . because it's more colorful and durable than regular old masking tape.