Today I took Shep to play at the mall playground.  There was a little three year old boy there wearing True Religion jeans held up by a Diesel belt.  In case you don’t want to click that link, kid True Religion jeans will run you between $106- $150.

There are some things in life that I find so ridiculous I can’t decide if I’m amused, jealous, judgmental or offended.  I think for this one I’m amused more than anything.  I mean I could go into starving children in Africa, (or starving YWAMers in Colorado) but instead I just find myself getting used to the Plano lifestyle and not judging, just accepting.  People will spend money on things that I find unnecessary, and who am I to judge?  I will however condescend to be amused and roll my eyes.

Here’s how cute Shep is in his jeans that cost $12.99 - 

I was going through the Stickies on my desktop, when I came across a snippet from an email I had received a few months ago from my friend Kate.  Kate aside from being fabulous is about to begin her first year as a teach in the Plano school district.  As you know, I love to write about Plano and it’s various amusing idiosyncrasies, but I had forgotten about this one.

It seems that as Kate was reading through her Plano teacher’s handbook, she came to a section about absences.  She couldn’t believe her eyes when she read the following about unexcused absences.  I have highlighted the offending line.

“The following are examples of unexcused absences: vacations, trips, baby-sitting, working (including modeling), non-school sponsored athletic events and programs, and truancy.”

Oh yes.  Modeling.  Apparently so many Plano high schoolers model that modeling made it into the handbook as an unexcused absence.  Moment of silence.

Can you picture the school board meeting in which they had to discuss the need the clarify that modeling did in fact qualify as work, and that since so many kids were missing school because of modeling they should go ahead and add it to the handbook as an unexcused absence?  Oh Plano.

Today I am sitting at the front desk at church filling in for my friend Darcy who is the receptionist.  She is in Puerto Rico for Corey and Tayren’s wedding.  Jealous.  It’s ok, Jake and I are going on vacation with our friends Nate and Miriam and their bambinoes in a couple of weeks.

While I sit here, I thought I would tell you about one of our favorite things to do on Saturday mornings.

As I have said before, on nice Saturdays in West Plano, Arbor Hills Nature Preserve is the place to be.  Well on all Saturday mornings, nice weather notwithstanding, Einstein Bros. Bagels is definitely the place to be.  We started going there on Saturday mornings when someone mentioned to us that a bagel date is a very inexpensive way to spend time together.  Since we’re on a tight budget and we like to spend time together, this was an ‘aha’ moment for the Dreyers.  Before Shep was born we would hit Einsten’s every Saturday.  Now we don’t make it quite as often but we still go every now and then.

When you walk into Einstein’s on a Saturday morning, it is usually packed, the smell of freshly burnt bagel crumbs wafting through the air as you stand in line to order your breakfast.  You may be on your way to a soccer game, perhaps you just rolled out of bed, maybe you want to read the paper over a nice bagel and a cup o’ joe.  There are many reasons to go to Einstein’s on a Saturday morning.  Being the people watchers that we are, we have observed several things about the general Einstein’s crowd.  I will now share with you some of our observances, so that next time you want to come to Einstein’s on a Saturday morning, you can look like you know what’s up.

#1 Females between the ages of 12 and 28, if at all possible try to look like you just rolled out of bed while still looking pretty good.  This is a fine art.  It’s important that your hair is askew in a wadded up pony-tail that somehow makes you look cute, your makeup from last night is smuged but not too smuged or wiped off, your shorts are really short (if it’s cold, you can wear your Uggs with your short shorts) and your t-shirt is from some cool event that you may or may not have been a part of.

#2 Girls of any age – carry a purse that cost more than my first car.  This is very important.

#3 Men (and women if you are coming in together with your man), try to wear full biking gear, full tennis gear, or full athletic gear of some sort and come in sweating like you just won the Tour de France over at the Preserve.

#4 Moms, come in with your six year old boy making sure he has spikey, highlighted hair, while you are looking like a supermodel.  If possible, have some sort of plastic surgery, blonde hair, a fresh mani/pedi, and a fake tan.  It is critical that you look better than the highschool girls.

#5 Dads, come in with your child(ren) pre or post soccer game and be sure to be completely oblivious to the fact that they are spilling juice everywhere.  Wear a polo and some khaki shorts with loafers sans socks or sandals with socks.  A visor is also good idea.

#6 If you are like us and you just don’t care, come in looking however you want, sit down, have a bagel and enjoy each other’s company!

On Saturday, Jake and I took Shepherd for a walk at the nature preserve. Now if you live in West Plano and it is a nice Saturday afternoon, the preserve is pretty much the place to be. The preserve is a most excellent place for people watching.

It is at the preserve that one can see Plano folk in all their glory, riding $2k bikes wearing full bike gear looking like Lance Armstrong – on flat paved trails. You can also see families taking walks together, moms with their babies in strollers, and the occasional serious walker wearing his or her (or both I’ve seen his and hers) Columbia hat with a walking stick from REI. Again flat paved trails.

This day I saw something new. Jake and I were strolling Shep along having a great conversation when we saw a spot to let Shep out to feel the grass and touch some rocks. As we were sitting there taking cute photos like this -

some high school girls walked by with a bug net catcher thing. I asked them if they were doing a bug project for school; they were. Now remember we are in Plano, so these girls were wearing cute clothes, had makeup on and their blonde hair was fixed. As they walked past us, a tupperware containing a bug fell out of the Neiman Marcus shopping bag one girl was using to carry her bugs. Neiman Marcus bag? Yes indeed. I looked at the other girls. One of them was using a Coach shopping bag to carry her bugs.  Oh Plano.

The way I see it, this particular situation could have two possible explanations. The first is that being Plano private school girls, they felt they had some sort of rich girl image always to be maintained and when searching for a bag in which to carry their bugs they made sure its origin was some sort of flashy name brand store.  I think if we were being honest, we would admit that we have all done this in some way.  Don’t tell me that you have never gone to your shopping bag supply to give someone a bag for the clothes you’re giving them and selected the one you thought would say something good about yourself.  It could be anything from giving your health conscious friend something in the Whole Foods bag even though you shop at Wal-Mart to giving your snobby rich friend something in the bag from Saks Fifth Avenue that you only have because someone gave you something in it with the same intention.  But you know you’ve done it.

When I was in high school, I had an Abercrombie and Fitch stage.  I had to buy something from Abercrombie every time I went to the mall even if it was something small just so I could be seen walking around the mall with the bag.  I would put other less socially acceptable bags from other stores inside the Abercrombie bag while I was walking around the mall.  Don’t sit there and mock me like you didn’t do the same thing.

Back to my theories.  The trying to present an image thing is one possible explanation of the bug girls’ bags.  The second possible explanation is that being from rich Plano families, those really were the only types of bags they had laying around their houses.  This is how we were all trying to appear when we secretly made our bag selection trying to impress someone else.  Like we do all our shopping at Whole Foods, or Pottery Barn, or Banana Republic or Saks Fifth Avenue or Neiman Marcus.

Have you ever gone into Neimans at Willow Bend?  The ladies that work there greet customers by name and ask about their mothers.  Then they tell them to hold on while they go pull out the ‘pieces’ (clothing that costs more than $100 are referred to as ‘pieces’) they pulled for them because they ‘looked like you.’  I was in there once trying to be inconspicuous (not difficult, the salespeople look at me with this ‘What are you doing here expression) when I overheard a woman telling her sales lady in a bored tone of voice that she had this ‘thing’ to go to with her husband that weekend and she just needed to ‘pick something up’ to wear.  In case you were not aware, you generally do not ‘pick something up’ at Neiman Marcus for less than $300.  But there are people who truly do all of their shopping at there.

I will freely admit that I am not one of those people.