Pavlov Knew What He Was Doing

Hey, Y'all,
I reckon maybe Pavlov knew what he was doing, didn't he? Do you realize how much we are like those puppies that he trained? Just think about it...like I was doing this morning when the bell dinged on my toaster oven. As you probably know, as an experiment, Pavlov was a psychologist who trained dogs to respond to a bell dinging, by placing food in a dish and ringing a bell. The dogs learned that when the bell rang, there would be food in the dish. They would run to the food when they heard the bell ding. Pretty soon, all Pavlov had to do was ring the bell and the dogs would begin slavering when they heard it.

How many bells do we respond to in our lives? First, there is the church bell, then the school bell, then the telephone bell. Other bells we respond to are the microwave dinging, the buzzer on the oven telling us the oven is ready to use, the buzzer on the alarm clock (which used to be a ringing alarm when we used the old windup clocks, like my mom wound up every night before we went to bed). I am sure you can think of others, can't you?

Yesterday, Allie and I went shopping. My goodness, that lady knows how to shop! I met her at the old Food Lion parking lot near the interstate in Knoxville, and climbed into her van, and off we went. We went first to the West Town Mall, and hit the stores. First we went to Belks, where we found two beautiful dresses and I liked them so well that I bought both of them. They were both discounted forty percent. Then we began looking at hats and shoes. There were none that suited us in Belk, so we went out into the Mall and walked down to Dillards. There we found a light wrap to go around my shoulders with the dress, and then we found a perfect hat. Wonderful! We looked at more shoes. Nothing really hit me there to buy. We even looked at purses, and what we saw was too rich for my blood. Whew!

We then stopped at the Bath and Body Works, and found some hand soaps that were really nice and bought a few of them. About that time we had worked up a pretty good appetite and went back out to the car. It had begun to rain by that time, and we hot-footed it out to the car, and she drove around to an eating place called McAllister's. Yum! We had sandwiches and a side dish. Mine was a chicken, basil and provolone cheese (with olive oil, and I think it had a little sugar in it as well). It was sooooooo good! I chose a small dish of potato salad to go with my sandwich as the side dish.

When we finished our sandwiches, we left and she ran and got the car and picked me up at the door. Following that treat, we headed for Joanne's fabrics, and of course by the time we headed for that place the rain was literally coming down in buckets. You should have seen them falling and hitting all the cars. Ha. Water,water, everywhere!
Lightning was flashing across the sodden skies, and it was an adventure for sure!

Fortunately, there was a good parking place close to the store, and Allie let me out at the door, and then parked the car. She made a mad dash and got inside without too much damage to her clothing. We looked around and she found some cloth for some pajamas she is making for her grandsons, and I found some embroidery cloth to make labels for upcoming quilts that I plan to make.

I had a long time to look around because they had a long line of customers waiting to have cloth cut, and then they had to go through checkout to pay. After I was through looking around, I sat down and waited on a chair near the door. BTW, I did a bit of resting while we were at the mall, because of wearing out doing all the walking we did, but it was good for me to get the exercise. I realized that I am not doing as much walking as I need to.

By the time we left Joanne's it was still raining cats and dogs, and people were running through all the poodles and splashing water everywhere. ha ha. I got a plastic bag from one of the checkout workers and put it over my head to keep my powder dry. ha ha. (Of course, those who know me realize I don't wear any makeup, including face powder. Just occasionally some lipstick to make my lips beautiful. )

We left Joanne's and headed back to the interstate and then on to Sam's Club. I decided to renew my club card and make some purchases. Of course, the rain was still pouring. When we were ready to leave, Allie got the car, and backed it up so that it was near the pick up area where people push their buggies out to load into their cars. She was backed up near the edge of the roof, and we were able to load our purchases into the back of her van, then away we went. I had left the house at 9:30 a.m., and when I got back into my car again, it was 5 p.m. She backed her van up to the back of my car and unloaded my purchases into my hatchback opening of my car. I didn't have to do a thing. Wasn't that so neat of her?

By 5:30, I was home and ready to rest for a bit, but Gramps was hungry by then. You are wondering how he got along while I was gone, aren't you? Well, he was still in bed when I left, and he knows how to get his breakfast. So when I called him about 2:30, he had just gotten up and had his breakfast a few minutes earlier. I knew then that he was doing okay and would be fine until I got back home. I left him a note telling him where I was and my cell phone number, and also told him that the coffee maker was ready to turn on. If he has coffee to drink, he is fine. He knows where "grazing" food is, so I knew he would be okay for a while.

I fixed us a can of chili with crackers, and heated him some coffee, and that was our supper. He was back in bed by 7 and I watched television for awhile, but just couldn't stay awake. I finally gave in and went to bed by 8:15 (nothing good on television), and believe it or not, I was asleep by 8:30. Zonked out! I slept until about 2 a.m. and was wide awake so I got up and played some solitaire, then went back to bed and slept until 7:45 this morning. That's about it.

It looks like we are having more rain today, maybe tomorrow...who knows? It really doesn't matter to me. I love the rain. I am going to make us a sandwich in a few minutes. This is Blabbin' Grammy, signing off for today. Much love to each of you. More later. Bye for now.