random thoughts – Day 2,106 (Monday) – vase from italy

Christmas approaches like a runaway freight train and Mom and I went into the shopping fray today. It wasn’t quite panic shopping, but it’s getting close. Route 2 at 9:45 a.m. was on the nutty busy side of things and I hope I don't need to leave the house again until the weekend.

We went to Kohl’s, where I slipped into my old role as an employee and tidied things as I went. You can take me out of retail, but apparently you can’t take the retail out of me. I told Mom how when I was feeling stressed in Lowell, I used to go the very messy Family Dollar near my house and tidy up the women’s clothing aisle to relax. Yes, I know it’s weird. It’s barely the tip of the iceberg.

At Kohl’s, I got a few small things and also a gift of sorts for myself. It’s a vase with a made in Italy tag taped to the front of it, right next to the price sticker and the clearance price sticker. The Italy sticker that held the string with an info tag about the hand painting, care, and origin of the vase was easy to remove. As I struggled to remove the price stickers my only question was “why”? More specifically, “why were the price stickers on the outer visible surface and not on the bottom of the vase?”

Vase from Italy.

It seemed like there was the potential for scratching the glass with the removal, which would be less noticeable if it happened on the bottom. It took a few minutes to scrape them off with a fingernail and then get the remaining residue off with a dish cloth. The entire time I was afraid I would drop the Il Quadrifoglio hand painted, decorative-use-only-not-intended-for-food vase. Luckily, that didn’t happen. It now sits on an awkward glass shelf in the bathroom. For now, anyway. When the Christmas stuff goes away it may be resettled in the dining room. 

I did a search on the origin of the vase (being the curious nerd that I am) and my clearance rack “hand-painted by skilled artisans” vase is from Montespertoli, in Metropolitan City of Florence in the Tuscany region of Italy. Now I feel kind of guilty that with my 25% off coupon I paid only $7.50 for such a lovely item that seems grossly undervalued. I’m sure I’ll eventually get over it, but I might not sleep tonight.

Back in Gardner, we went to The Good Earth garden center and I bought potting mix and a new pot for my recently underperforming Christmas Cactus. Help is on the way, dear plant.