Uncategorized | Stray Junior Mint

Posted on January 14, 2018September 18, 2019 by jsmith

Buildable Volume Mascara, or: It works! It all works.

Lately, my fortysomething body hasn’t given my eyelashes much love.

I’m not gonna lie, I used to have really long eyelashes. As with my really long toes, I’d always considered them one of my better features. Stepping out in flip-flops and a bit of mascara, I needed only to bat my eyes and flash my feet and hearts were mine for the taking.

But in the last few years, my beloved lashes seem to be getting shorter and sparser. They seem to be, well, disappearing. (And yet my long toes remain. And are only getting longer.) I’ve been told that lash loss is one of the awesome benefits of aging but not to worry–the new hairs growing on my chin will more than make up for it.

Last week, however, I learned that all of this was going to change. How? With a tube of the latest, greatest, miracle-making mascara. The sales “girl” (pretty sure?) at Ulta informed me that this new-and-improved formula would make my lashes thick, full, and oh-so-long, due to something called “buildable volume.” I asked her what “buildable volume” was and she graciously explained it to me.

Posted on January 3, 2018March 26, 2018 by jsmith

A Bob Ross Christmas

The most coveted gift received in the Smith home for Christmas 2017 wasn’t wireless earphones or a pair of Nike Zoom Vapors. It was this:

A Bob Ross Chia Pet!

Could you die? Like a standard Chia Pet isn’t cha-cha enough, they go and Bob Ross it up? Dee-vyne!

It’s like his name was in the air this year. A few weeks ago, my son had a friend over who was waxing poetic about how freaking awesome Bob Ross is. I found this delightful, having assumed that Bob Ross was forgotten with my generation of Shows We Watched While Faking Sick. Turns out he’s still stippling strong via You Tube. Who knew?

The following week, we received a Christmas Card which was, without a doubt, the Grand Prize Winner of the Annual Unspoken Christmas Card Contest (don’t pretend you don’t rank them as they come in.) Check out this symphony of awesomeness:

Could you die? Who has friends this Ross-ome? WE DO.

That’s three Bob Ross sightings in three weeks. Shoot, I haven’t been that Ross-ed up since I cried “mono” in the twelfth grade. (I almost didn’t graduate, but I did get five straight weeks of the Bob Ross/Love Connection/Family Feud afternoon lineup. You tell me who’s the smart kid.)

Posted on December 31, 2017March 26, 2018 by jsmith

The (second) most wonderful time of the year.

Who ever said the “most wonderful time of the year” was Christmastime?

A dad, that’s who. I’d bet my figgy pudding on it.

Ask any mom when the most wonderful time of the year is and her answer will be the same as my answer, and my mom’s answer, and my grandma’s answer and my sister’s and my best friend’s and the grouchy neighbor lady’s down the street: the most wonderful time of the year isn’t Christmas, it’s the week after Christmas. For every mother, everywhere. Because as of December 26, a mother is no longer responsible for turning every euphemism in the blessed canon of carols into a living and breathing reality. You see, the holidays have a way of taking the blood, sweat and tears of us moms and wrapping them in candy-coated words like peace and joy.

Peace and joy? Really? Says who, the self-checkout voice at Target that asks you–once again–to “Please. Put. Your. Item. In. The. Bagging. Area.”? You’ve heard this grim electronic suggestion at least ten times this December, and yet are never able to persuade the robot inside the scanner that your item is ALREADY IN THE BAGGING AREA; it’s always been in the bagging area, it was born in the bagging area. It’s 2017; why can’t a fake human understand this? So now the “Attendant” light is flashing on your screen and you’re stuck waiting for a real human to help you, even though the whole point of self-checkout was to avoid waiting for real humans in the first place because, naturally, Target has but two real humans working but two real checkstands at 4:00 pm on December 23.