Girassol

Here's What I Like:

Harvest Fresh Natural Foods.

I went there today to get groceries and not only have they built this adorable tree house inside the store where you can sit and eat, and not only did they have delicious Portuguese caldo verde ("green soup") that I sat and enjoyed in said tree house, but when I got up to the register to pay, the checker handed me a little gift bag and told me I could even go and pick out a carnation for Mother's Day.  I'm not even a mother, and they still gave me free stuff!

The gift bag was printed with these cute little pink flowers and contained samples of Lemongrass & Clary Sage shampoo and conditioner, Ultra-C Cream ("Defends against free radical damage as it helps improve skin texture!"), a set of six votive candles in a scent called "Strawberry Fields" (they SO know their target market!), a coupon for 10% off my next purchase, and my personal favorite thing -- an audio tape called "Natural Progesterone: The Multiple Roles of a Remarkable Hormone."  Oh, how I love hippie stores! 

Give me free stuff and I will be loyal to your business forever.  Even if your organic cauliflower costs $7.13 a head and your deli is out of Gruyere cheese.

Here's What I Like:

Having a warm, sunny day with rain showers overtop of the sun, so that at the exact moment I'm leaving work there is a perfectly clear, bright rainbow right in front of the snow-capped mountains.  Breathtaking.  Absolutely breathtaking.

Here's what else I like:  after seeing that rainbow, which made me totally happy, turning on the radio and hearing Blind Melon's song No Rain.  Really, what better song is there for a rainbow-with-snow-capped-mountains kind of afternoon?

And here's what else I like:  WINNING SOMETHING OFF THE RADIO.  People, I have NEVER won something off the radio.  Right after Blind Melon finished singing, the announcer guy gets on and says that there's a contest going on and they're looking for the right answer to the question, "Churchgoers do this 25% more than non-churchgoers.  What is it?"  I listened to several people call in with answers like, "Have more sex," "Donate more to charity," and "Shine their shoes."  Finally somebody guessed, "Eat more," and the announcer guy goes, "Close -- it does have something to do with eating." 

Now, I am a churchgoer and I like to eat.  So I thought I'd give it a whirl.  Also, the prize was four tickets to the new movie The Interpreter.  By this time I'm thinking, "I've been an interpreter.  It's, like, my CIVIC DUTY to win these tickets and see if this movie has anything to do with anything."  I called three times and got a busy signal, and the fourth time it actually started ringing.  I was almost about to hang up, thinking for sure someone had already answered correctly, when I heard the announcer guy ON MY PHONE, TALKING TO ME.

ANNOUNCER GUY:  "What's the answer?"
ME:  "Is it that they eat more fruits and vegetables?"
ANNOUNCER GUY:  [cue exuberant announcer guy voice]  "THAT'S EXACTLY IT!!!"
ME: "Yaaaaay!"
VOICES IN MY HEAD:  "Yaaaaay???  Who ARE you?  You're on the RADIO.  How 'bout you stop talking like a dork already?"
ANNOUNCER GUY:  "You got it!  Who's this?"
ME:  "This is Audrey."
ANNOUNCER GUY:  "Audrey, what made ya come up with that?"
ME: "Umm.... [giggle]"
VOICES IN MY HEAD: "You are KIDDING me.  This is not hard.  Tell him it's because he said it had do do with eating and nobody else had guessed that yet.  Tell him!  Duh!"
ME: "Well, I don't know... [giggle]"
VOICES IN MY HEAD:  "Say something witty!  Say something clever!  Say SOMETHING!"
ME:  "I just guessed... you know... like, 'Don't kill,' and maybe they don't wanna eat animals, or something like that."
ANNOUNCER GUY:  [stuttering, clearly thrown by the fact that he's talking to a total dork]  "Y..y.. yer right on, good job!"
ME:  "Yay!"
VOICES IN MY HEAD: "Shut up.  Shut UP!  You did NOT just say 'yay' again!"
ANNOUNCER GUY:  "You just scored premiere passes to go see The Interpreter, starring Nicole Kidman and Sean Penn, OK?"
ME: "Right on, thank you!"
ANNOUNCER GUY:  "Tell me what station just gave them to you!"
VOICES IN MY HEAD:  "Oh, crap.  What station is this again?  Look at the dial!  Look at the dial!"
ME:  "101.9 POP FM!"
ANNOUNCER GUY:  "Good job, stay on the line."
VOICES IN MY HEAD:  "There are SO many more witty things you could have said just now.  And I hope you realize that ten years ago you would have laughed in your own face for listening to a pop station."

So the voices in my head think I'm a complete and utter dork and I've sold my indie soul.  So what?  I WON SOMETHING OFF THE RADIO!  I was so giddy after this little exchange with the announcer guy that I ran into the house and turned on the stereo so I could TAPE MYSELF sounding like a dork on the radio when it aired a few minutes later.

Now I just need to find three people who DIDN'T hear me sounding like a dork on the radio that I can take to the movie.