Nicole VanPutten

If you owe someone an apology or you need to say hello to your Mom you could send flowers but I find it more practical to use architecture. GeoGreeting! is another Google powered website that until today I didn’t realize I couldn’t live without. Through web technology that I know I’ll never understand, Google has found buildings and structures throughout the world that appear as letters from the sky. Follow the link above, enter your message and you can say “I’m sorry” in a way no one can resist.

Cheers!

Awkward and clumsy is a kind description of myself. I have no natural human ability to balance and my reflexes are nonexistent. I have been known to topple over while attempting to outmanuever the bed in the center of our room. In my fantasies I have cat like skills that take me soaring over large mud puddles without getting wet and ninja like reflexes to catch silverware before it hits the ground. I like fantasies.

I was not attempting to perfect my cat like ninja skills when I tried Sheep Dash this morning, but I am now. I realize that my ability to click my mouse before the sheep cross the pasture will not make my dogs less nervous when I walk by their beds in the middle of the floor, but it could come in handy if I ever own a sheep farm.

To play Sheep Dash click on the link above and use your lightening fast mouse reflexes to tranquilize the sheep before they run to the opposite side of the glen. After 14 tries, I’m a Bobbing Bobcat. Beat that ninjas.

At the supermarket today I had myself convinced the coiffed woman who stepped out of a Gap Ad to grab some eggs was laughing at me and my winter hat and mittens. Usually I’d accept the look as jealousy because I know her stylish navel length cotton jacket and knee high leather boots that covered her nearly transparent trousers did not keep her as warm as my fleece, but today I felt sure she was looking down on me. I had an instant case of the uglies. My own dirty brown  tresses (the color of course, not the level of cleanliness) were whipped up into a frenzied ponytail, my sneakers were tied in double knots to insure the fraying lace ends wouldn’t completely unravel and my face had not been kissed by the sun in months. In short, I looked like, well, me.

As I passed by Ms. Gap Ad I actually looked down! I started searching through my tote like I was not worthy to share the air in the dairy isle with her. As the click of her $400 boots faded I quietly dug myself out of my handmade bag attempting to piece together the loose fragments of my self worth while secretly wishing I too had legs almost as lean as my arms. The graceful thump of a gallon of skim milk landing in my cart startled me back into reality and I was horrified that I’d essentially erased myself in a shallow daydream. My usually over confident ego had disappeared and I sadly found myself comparing my pink t-shirt with the six year old in front of me. I had envy and, as a good non-practicing Catholic, I knew I was in trouble.

I gave myself a good, albeit pretend, smack to the head and started on my internal feel better speech in an unpretentious attempt to boost my plummeted self confidence. As I began my mental pick me up a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind catching me in the middle of a silent debate weighing the merits of being nice or being funny and I stopped short. Those arms, Michael’s arms, were my ticket back to normalcy. You see, Ms. Gap Ad may have perfectly coordinated jewelry, but I have me. I have my spirit, my husband’s arms, my uniquely imperfect body, my brothers and grandparents, and my sense of humor. I was blessed with parents, unconditional love, and two crazy dogs. Suddenly I was the Queen of the Dairy Aisle and I had the matching hat and mittens to prove it.