Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Tuesday Graphs 'n LOL's

song chart memes
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I HAZ DRINKIN PROBLM
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song chart memes
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I'm giving you one right now
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fail owned pwned pictures
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PINATA
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DON'T FORGET! TOMORROW IS THE 1ST, SO BE PREPARED - RABBIT, RABBIT...

Sunday, June 28, 2009

Sunday Drive of A Different Sort

We were driving along the highway on our way to a family gathering a couple weeks back when what do we see but this fellow, driving down the road in total comfort. Well, I guess it was comfortable because I can't imagine any other reason that you would drive with a foot out the window!

It took me a couple tries to get this shot because just as I was about to click, the traffic changed and he pulled his foot in and put his hand back on the steering wheel. Luckily it wasn't long before traffic eased up and the hand and foot came back out. Notice that I didn't get a shot of the lovely wildflowers earlier in the day, or the field of goats. Or a city skyline we passed. Nope. Nothing like that. Just some guy's foot. Oh, and my daughter was driving - I try not to take pictures while I'm behind the wheel, although it has happened a time or two...

Friday, June 26, 2009

A Miscellaneous Adventure With the Snail Household

A few weeks ago we Snail ladies did some summer shopping. While I was at the checkout making a purchase, my daughter's were wandering about the store. When I was finished at the checkout my older daughter began to rush me out the door. I figured she was bored with my store and wanted to move on to one of her choice. When we stopped a couple shops down to browse jewelry she told me she had accidentally broken off a mannequin hand in the store we just left. I asked her what she had done with the hand and she said she had set it on top of the other hand, hoping no one would notice.
I spent a number of years working in retail and knew that it probably wasn't broken. I also remembered that I had my camera along and, much to her embarrassment, I went back to the previous shop to take a look. This is the sight that greeted me. As you can see, our lovely mannequin friend is sporting two hands on one side. I realized right away that the hand wasn't really broken and showed my daughter how the hand fits into the wrist and twists back together. But not before getting a couple shots of her 'handy work'.






A couple of quick pictures (and a lot of laughter) and we were on our way, but not before a salesperson noticed. Thankfully the store personnel were good natured!

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Hobo Joe, Mutant Killer Veggies and Baby-Love

My daughters and I just got back from a trip up to Virginia for a family gathering. While we were away my daughter's boyfriend looked after our cats, so we wanted to do something nice for him in return. We pulled off I-95 at Walterboro, S.C. for the night and the next morning we headed to breakfast at the nearby Waffle House. Just across from us was this:
What better gift to give her boyfriend than a bag full of fireworks? This shop was great: there was a video running that shows you what all the bigger rockets look like so you know what you're getting, and the owner was very helpful, with detailed descriptions and recommendations - sometimes steering us to less expensive things that he thought we'd enjoy more than some we had chosen. He even threw in a few freebies. It helps that this was a Friday morning and we were the only customers in the store. Did I mention that it was quite hot out and that his storefront provided great shade for me to park in while we had breakfast? Yeah, we like Hobo Joe's. (Special thanks to Lance McCord for sharing this photo on Flickr).

After our Fireworks shopping spree we took a side trip down to Charleston, S.C. I wanted to take a break from Interstate driving and scout out Charleston for a future trip. On our way out of Charleston we came across this building:
Looks like a lovely place doesn't it? What caught my eye and had us laughing was the sign in front of the building (you know, the sign I didn't get a picture of...) We were short on time and I didn't turn back to get a photo, so I found this one online when we got home. This is the U.S. Vegetable Laboratory. That's right - a lab for veggies. You know what that means - Mutant Killer Veggies!!

"The mission of the Laboratory since its beginning has been to obtain, through fundamental research, basic information requisite to efficient and orderly breeding of improved vegetable crops for the southern region, and to produce new and improved vegetable cultivars and breeding stocks."

Sure, that's what they want you to think. I bet they're working on some of the greatest biological weapons ever! Things like beets that live up to their name. Artichoke grenades. Water-board-melons. Ears of corn that eavesdrop while the eyes of your potatoes spy on you! Yeah, we had fun with that one for several miles. Anything to liven up a long road trip.

The rest of the drive home was filled with my daughter's sighs and exclamations of how much she missed her boyfriend. You know, the guy she said would miss her more than she would miss him while we were away... Yeah. She has a lot of ooey-gooey nicknames for him. One of her favorites is Baby-Love. The sighing and fretting went like this, "Awwwwww, I miss my Baby-Love!" Repeat that, or a variation of it, every few miles and you too can relive the experience! Occasionally she would doze off and give me a break.

Baby-Love was going to take her out to dinner when we arrived home. Except that life has a way of getting in the way of big plans. Like us taking longer than expected in Charleston, and road construction slow downs. Then things got worse: Baby-Love's grandmother fell and sustained a head injury and he and his dad were possibly going to leave before we arrived back in town. This led to much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by my daughter. Ok, not really but sort of...Anyhow, this certainly led to more texting and calling. So much so that my phone started ringing because my daughter's battery was dying. How convenient that she told him to call/text my phone. Luckily the grandmother is expected to recover. Unluckily, we arrived home too late for dinner out. Not to worry though, they are dining out tonight. My daughter and Baby-Love will still have to endure the agony of separation though, as he is leaving tomorrow for a week. I say it's good for them to have some time apart.

Oh, and he loves the fireworks...beats a T-shirt any day. You know, the one that says, "My girlfriend went on vacation and all I got was this lousy shirt . . . and cat duty."

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Teenagers

This is me. I look like this because I am the mother of teenagers. Well, technically only one of them is a teenager - the other will gain that status over the summer. If you have teens or you've ever had teens you can relate to this picture. This woman looks like she's slightly amused but the hand-over-face expression could easily be changed to exasperation, anger, shock...well, you know.

Teens are an interesting species. Those of you who have parented or worked with teens know that it's possible to reach the peaks of joy and the pits of despair, sometimes within moments of each other. It's some sort of temporary (well, for a few years) bi-polar experience. Yes, they are continually amazing.

Sometimes they really surprise us. For example, this morning my oldest is taking the ACT. That's not the surprise. Her boyfriend is as well. Also not the surprise. Since they had to be up early they decided to stay in and 'chill' last night and get to bed early. Early turned out to be just past midnight. My idea of early and hers are obviously two different things. So, in order to chill they needed a movie to watch. Boyfriend kindly provided the evening's entertainment, which turned out to be.....THE NEVER ENDING STORY. Yes, that was the surprise part. I expected some science fiction, or murder and intrigue or a comedy. But Never Ending Story? My eldest remembers this childhood movie fondly. Her boyfriend was creeped out by it as a child, but apparently not too badly since he owns it. My younger daughter doesn't recall ever seeing it so she watched too and they all had a great time. Who would have thought?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Old Mr. Umph Had a Puncture in His Tire. . .

. . . and he fixed it with a wad of chewing gum.

We used to sing that song as children, does anyone else remember it? I think the 'real' version was Old Mr. Ford had a puncture in his tire. I believe the 'umph' part comes from singing the song and replacing words one at a time with the word umph. You know, like when you sing rounds of B-I-N-G-O and gradually replace each letter with a hand-clap. It's right up there with, "On Top of Spaghetti" and "John Jacob Jinkleheimer Schmidt".

There's a word for this sort of improvised repair: jerry-rigging. The term comes from either a) jury-rigging, a sailing term; or b) the WWII slang for German engineering on the fly. When I was young and first heard this term I thought it referred to my uncle Jerry. It's plausible! He did farming and construction, so of course he would know how to rig things. Then again, my dad, grandfather and other uncles had the same abilities so the term could have been named for any one of them. I didn't really stop to wonder.

Well, just like Mr. Umph, we've all had occasion to make a repair to something using less than ideal materials. There's glue, duct tape and twine. And then there's the more unusual remedies. In early May I was driving to south Florida for my nephew's wedding when a piece of plastic trim around my front windshield came loose. It wasn't a hazard so much as a nuisance, as it kept flapping up in the wind. I pulled off for a rest break and began to search my car for tape. All I could could come up with was . . . a band-aid. Yep, I fixed my car's boo-boo with a band-aid. Got some funny looks but it worked.

I've heard of people filling small nail holes in the wall with toothpaste (basic white, not gel!). My parents once used dental floss to rig the windshield wiper on their RV when it gave out during a rainy drive. I believe they had to thread it back through the side window and give a pull now and then. Once my ex super-glued some small parts together in our car engine when we got stuck on the road somewhere and it held up quite well. I'll bet you can all think of plenty more examples, so tell me about your inner MacGyver - what's one of your creative fixes?

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Tuesday Graphs 'n LOL's

we must be in the wrong place..  often i hear discouraging words.
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fail owned pwned pictures
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NO WAI
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fail owned pwned pictures
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Jazz hands  TAAA DAAA!!1!
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song chart memes
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Happy Tuesday everyone.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Rabbit Rabbit

Are you familiar with this harbinger of good luck? On the first of every month, when you awake, you must say the words,"rabbit rabbit" so that you will have good luck the rest of the month. I read somewhere that if you forget, you'll still get good luck if "tibbar, tibbar" are the last words out of your mouth as you fall asleep that night. Apparently it's extra good luck if it's the first day of your birth month. The two rabbits at left (created by Tom Claassen) were on display in Regents park, London, where they were photographed and placed on Flickr by Baronvonhorne. I love Flickr because you can find everything there, including a nice pair of rabbits.

There are variations on this superstition tradition and I'm not sure where it all started. Years ago (high school) I learned "rabbit rabbit" from one of my aunts (thanks, C*****)! I dutifully repeated the words each month and I even went so far as to wear a pair of rabbit earrings. Over the years I'd forgotten about "rabbit rabbit" until I came across it on a blog called Old Horsetail Snake. The fellow who posted on that blog used to keep up the "rabbit rabbit" tradition on the first of each month. Old Horsetail was an elderly gentleman who was busy surviving beyond his doctor's prognosis. His blog was full of humor and always a pleasure to read. Old Horestail moved on to that great rabbit warren in the sky a couple of months ago, so in his honor I am sharing "rabbit rabbit" with you today.