putting the mantra into practice

"Get busy living, or get busy dying." ~ Andy Dufresne, from Shawshank Redemption

How I got busy living today:

• met a parent and student for coffee; walked him through the process of writing two different types of essays (which he missed due to a serious injury that had him home bound for about six weeks)
• took the younger two to the "boat" park (which features an eye shaped sand pit) even though it was a chilly 50 degrees here (now, now - be easy on we cold sensitive Californians. Fifty degrees to us is like 25 degrees to you)
• strung Christmas lights across the front of the house even though Christmas is a just few days away

fake + uggs = fuggs

My Fuggs are not fugly. But they are warm. And they are fuggs. No doubt about that. The tell-tale sign is that the sole of the shoe is the reverse pattern of a real Ugg - as if someone bought a real pair of Uggs and used the sole of the shoe to create a manufacturing mold by pressing each shoe into wet plaster.

The other tell-tale signs are the obvious typographical and grammatical errors on the very real looking "note of authenticity" and "customer care" cards.

Notice in the last picture that at the end of the first paragraph the contraction "you've." There is an extra space between "you'" and "ve." Minor. Now read the first sentence in the second paragraph. "In order to arrain the sumptuous color of these boots..." Arrain? That isn't even a real word. Did they mean to spell "arraign?" Are these boots on trial? No doubt about that either. And that's what's gonna happen to these guys when the US government discovers that the "Uggs International" company has been selling fake product. And finally, at the end of that same paragraph, notice that "some dye transfer may occur onto light "colothing..."" Such as on kinickers? Oh my.

So I feel terrible. I try to tell myself that these are factory seconds and not contraband stitched by the nimble fingers of children and purchased off the black market. And even now as I wonder how such items can make it through customs, I marvel at how cleverly the packing slip refers to my purchase as a "gift."