My Crazy Road Trip

I've been having a hard time trying to figure out how to describe my trip. I want to use a word like "transcendent" but it seems like a foofy word. I did look it up however and it pretty much describes what I'm trying to say. I just don't like using foofy words. And Jazz hates the word "awesome" but at least it doesn't sound foofy. And don't even ask me what foofy means.
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My Daughter and I left just after noon on Wednesday the 5th. (I'm just going to refer to her as MD from now on to save my two fingers a little wear.) We took 121 out of the metroplex to avoid Dallas because anyone with half a brain, which is about what I have, does not want to drive through Dallas. We were all giddy and excited which everyone is on the first day of a road trip and had an easy trip to Memphis even though it was quite a drive - around 440 miles. I did see two deer down in a valley off of the freeway at one point and that was cool. I don't remember what time we got to Memphis because I've never been a clock watcher type of person but I would guess it was around 9:00 pm give or take an hour either way.
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We had a lot of energy after checking into our hotel so we went out to party on Beale Street:
I think I actually took that picture the second night. That little light in the center is the full moon. I was right and it was quite similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans except the streets were wider and the bars were larger. It was like Bourbon Street super-sized with different music. The next day we were going to walk over to the park on the Mississippi river but it was too hot and muggy. We walked just far enough to see the river, proclaimed, "There it is!" and headed back to Beale Street for more beer.
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Since we'd had a good party night Wednesday night, we didn't feel the need to repeat it and got to bed at a decent time Thursday night. We actually made it out before check-out time on Friday by a few minutes which is a big deal for me. Friday was not so good, roadwise.
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After a few hours, traffic came to a dead halt and I'm nervous about being crushed from behind by a semi after what happened to Magazine Man's parents and had also happened recently in my area so I was craned backwards for a while ready to jump out of the car. MD had to P while we were stuck in that so it was quite tense for a while but at least we were slowly crawling forward. We finally got around a jack-knifed 18-wheeler and were okay but it wasn't fun or anything. Then a few hours after that we were blocked again and finally figured out that we were in Friday night weekend traffic for Dollywood. That was horrible. Oh and some time that afternoon the bathrooms had turned really bad. We both decided we would never go to Tennessee again by choice. When we finally reached the Tennessee/North Carolina border mountain pass it was very dark. MD was really a trouper. If you've ever driven Interstate 40 through that mountain pass you know how crazy it is. She was on high alert as we went through crazy twist after crazy turn. It was like a rollercoaster. But not fun.
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When we had to leave the interstate to head north up to the Pisgah National Forest where Mom was, it got worse. I had to call Mom about 10 times and MD kept getting irritated. At the end as we were slowly creeping up a gravel road and saw my step-dad at the end of their driveway, we had never been so happy to see him in our lives. It was around midnight.
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We did not visit very long and all went to bed and by the time I woke up my brother and nephew were already there. I woke up when I heard my brother's voice asking about snoring. I thought he had heard me snoring but found out later he was making a joke. But I DO snore.
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Here are the pictures we took before they left on Sunday:

Except for riding with my brother to the store on Sunday morning, I never left Mom's mountain place. It was such a beautiful place. They have hummingbird feeders and and birdseed out to attract all sorts of critters. I could do a whole story on the hummingbirds and the crazy cardinal, but I want to tell about the family.

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I have always had a special bond with my brother's oldest child, but have never really gotten to know the youngest boy that I will call AC. Well, now I have. I had such a great time connecting with AC. I would have to say that except for the special bonding with MD during the drive, the next best part was getting to know AC. We are A LOT alike. That Saturday night we played the game Cranium. I partnered with AC and MD partnered with my brother. We had a blast! Playing Cranium that night was really the highlight of the trip for me. Later that night AC went out to look at the stars. I followed him out and we discussed astronomy. I told him that I had brought my planisphere and he was quite impressed. He also has one. Then he said, "Well, we really need a compass." I said, "I brought one!" I bet he was surprised.

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On Sunday after a group breakfast, MD, AC and step-dad went to Mt. Mitchell State Park. My brother, Mom and I got to spend the day together, which was very nice. They left in the early evening and after dinner, Mom and I played Scrabble.

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Monday we decided we did NOT want to drive back through Tennessee. We started out on 80 south to hit the Blue Ridge Parkway. We were having a great time until we started down 411. That was mistake. If we had known, we would have gone to 75. But we didn't. After creeping down that road for freaking ever, we finally bought a map and discovered we could cut over to 75 and hit Birmingham to 20. We made it past Birmingham and went through to Tuscaloosa where we spent the night at a RATmada Inn. It was icky to say the least.

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On Tuesday we drove down to beautiful Vicksburg. We had planned to do some sightseeing there but it was hot and muggy so we left early. But they had a nice bar. A few hours down the road we hit hell. When we got to Monroe, Louisiana we came to a dead stop. I did my truck watch again, prepared to jump and run. But this was worse. There was no moving at all.

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I feel bad complaining about it as I was not the dead guy, but it really sucked. MD who had been the awesomest driver trouper person ever up until this time, became slightly unhinged. The only time traffic moved was when some brave (crazy?) soul drove down through the median and turned around to head back the other way. MD finally got the idea we could make it across the median and make it to the exit ramp on the other side. And that's what we did. It was scary crossing the median as it had quite a dip and we had to cross the highway on the other side, but we made it. When we went down that exit ramp, we crossed back over the highway to the mall/shopping center on the other side and went into a restauarant to get directions out of there from the locals.

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Up until that stop, MD had been undecided about spending the night in Shreveport or going on home, but after that, she was ready to settle for the night. I called My Sweetie and asked him where we should stay and he looked it up and told us Diamond Jacks. It was the best hotel room we had had. Even better than our fancy Westin in Memphis and only cost us $69. We had some steam to blow off and that was the place to do it. We had a fun party night and woke up the next day and made it home in about 4 hours.

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The really best part of the trip was all of the time with my daughter. We had a LOT of laughs and made great memories and oh yeah, I had some collards:

I'M BACK!

What a long crazy trip. I have LOTS of pics to download and sort through. And Scarlett, that animation program is some software that came with Carole's Logitech camera. It has all sorts of different things you can do besides the animation. I'm thinking about buying one for myself because it looks like lots of fun. I'll be back later with a trip report and pics. And boy is my typing rutsy rusty!

And I'm Off!

Trip Prep

It was funny when I opened Google Earth today and saw that my yellow pushpins were pretty much arced across my road trip route. We're just days away from trekking across the country to party in Memphis and visit Mom.
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I've actually had dreams about maps because I've spent so much time studying them. I'm the navigator. Friday night I spent hours printing out my individual Mapquest pages:

I stapled them together in sections and labled them. I think they weigh 2 or 3 pounds. I won't have computer access so I need to have all the information that I may need with me. And I've also made lots of notes. I'm trying to find the perfect balance between having all the info I need and having the trip being a free flow thing. I think it's all good so far.
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I'm such an airline travel type person that the very idea of being in a car and all the freedom that that entails has made me almost giddy. There are no "how much can I fit into this suitcase" restrictions. I'm starting to realize that I need to think about how much (little?) I can pack into my daughter's car because I want to take a million things. Just because I can.
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Now I need to relax because the busy time will be here in just two days. I can't wait!

A Pet Peeve

We always talk about our pet peeves, but most people have never seen one. I was all set to do a post about a pet peeve and I realized I needed a picture, so I "took" one. This is my pet peeve. His name is Max.
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Actually my latest pet peeve is the phrase "that being said..." What's the point of that? Seriously, we all know it was just said because you just said it and we have ears. Why do people use that expression? This guy named Mike Aubrey must have used that phrase four times last night in maybe 14 minutes of air time on the HGTV show "Real Estate Intervention." He was presented as a "Real Estate Expert." And guess what? The people he was intervening(?) did not take his advice. Would you take the advice of someone that followed every third sentence with, "that being said...."? Yeah, me neither.

Decorating on The Cheap

Saturday I decided to wash my shower curtain. The one in my shower (a shower stall) is just clear plastic so I can look out the windows over the bathtub. I realized recently I could not see out the windows or even see the clock that hangs between them. Yeah it was that bad. Anyway, as I was pulling apart the rings, one of them broke. I hate when that happens. That happened the last time and Carole gave me a spare ring. But I was out of rings. I began to covet the shower curtain rings in My Sweetie's bathroom:

You may remember that shower curtain from a post about a year ago about cheap bathroom decorating.

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Today after MOW I had another fun afternoon with my daughter and we did some shopping and I found a cool set of seashell shower curtain hooks for only $5.99:

Since I'm slightly dyslexic (beer dyslexia, I think) it took me a few minutes to figure out how to put these things on but I got it:

And speaking of cheap decorating, a few weeks ago when we went to Hobby Lobby, I bought a cool piece of paper for 59 cents (I'm too lazy to look up how to make a "cents" sign or even find out if it exists). I thought, "Hey! I'm going to take this cool piece of paper with palm trees on it and cover the light switch plate in the beach bathroom!" After I got home and looked at the switch plate, I realized that there was an outlet just 18 inches or so away from it. I knew it would look stupid to just cover the one. I've covered a light switch plate before, but not an outlet cover, so I called the expert: my neighbor Carole. She does these all the time and they are really cool looking. As you have probably guessed by now, she offered to do them both for me and they came out great!:

She really puts a lot into it and has it down to a science. In this next picture, you can see the cross-hatching:

I know! How cool is that?!? Anyway I think the point of this was inexpensive decorating. So for less than $7.00, I got the two cool switchplates and the shower curtain hooks. Oh, and I get to use those old tan shower curtain rings on my shower curtain. It's all good

My TV and Movie Wish List

There are 3 books and 1 book series that I would be ever so happy to see turned into video magic by Hollywood. I'll start with the two that have been done before. "The Count of Monte Christo" has been rendered as both theatrical and TV movies and also as a TV miniseries. Well guess what? All of them fell short. Oh that last theatrical release was decent, but let's face it, you can't pack a story that big into 131 mintues. I want to see this done as a 12 part TV series. Unfortunately Hollywood doesn't seem to like to do one-shot series production even though the Brits have been doing it for years. I had hoped that the great success of "Band of Brothers" which they ran in 10 parts would have opened some eyes. And I wish they would do the same for Stephen King's "The Stand." The 1994 TV mini-series did a decent job, but again with time constraints as well as cost, it fell short. I realize that the costs of showing NYC, as well as all the major highways completely shut down would have been prohibitive in the past, but with today's CGI, it could be done well and at a tolerable cost.

Speaking of CGI, Piers Anthony's Xanth series is long overdue. Because there are 27 of these books and it is an open ended series, this could run for two or three years. We currently have the CGI to create all of the wonderful creatures from these books. And I want to see them! I imagine this show would be the new watercooler show of this century. So Hollywood, please do this and do it right! And right soon.

Last but not least, for my big theatrical release move, I want to see Theodore Sturgeon's "The Dreaming Jewels." When I first read this in the early 80's, I thought, "What a great movie this would be and George Lucas could pull it off." With the CGI we have now, any good director could pull it off, but because of the dark and creepy nature, I'm thinking maybe Tim Burton should do this one. Or Jonathan Demme.

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So Hollywood, please do these things for me and quit making movie versions of 70's TV shows. Your bank accounts will thank you. As will I.

Food and Games Weekend

I really had a great weekend and I also have a new addiction:
GAMES: We got an advance copy of the Wii Resort game and started playing some games Friday night, but the one game I can't stop playing is the archery one. You use the "nunchuk" which is a seperate part that plugs into the main controller, so you really do pull back your string. Without the tension of course. It's more about the aiming and lining up between the "bow" and the "arrow." And I LOVE it! We also did this crazy canoeing game. I realized we looked like crazy idiots while paddling and I'm thinking of trying to get a video of that. We also found karaoke on our TV cable box and had a lot of laughs with that. You'd be surprised to find out that you don't know all the words to a song that you think you know. And I can tell you right now that neither of us can rap. And I mean even "rap lite." We sucked. But it was funny as hell.
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FOOD: I got this crazy idea, a variation on a theme, you might say, about beef stew. I love beef stew and I love potatoes, but it seemed to me that potatoes sort of get lost in beef stew. They seem to lose their great potatoey goodness. So when I saw Tyler Florence (A TV chef) put a big round scoop on top of his beef stew, I thought it was mashed potatoes and a lightbulb went off. But what happened was, when I watched the show, I saw that he did the same old thing with the potatoes and the scoop of stuff was actually a horseradish cream sauce. I love horseradish but I'm not going to put it in beef stew. Anyway, so the visual I saw gave me the idea and I did it:

On Saturday I made the stew without the potatoes. I boiled Yukon Gold potatoes and then hand mashed them, leaving small soft chunks with drizzled melted butter and a tad of parsley. Then I plopped a big scoop of potatoes on top of the stew. It was delicious! And On Sunday, I turned this:

into this:

It also has artichoke hearts in it. It was so good that I didn't realize until I was cleaning the kitchen that I had forgotten the penne pasta. But calorie wise, that's probably for the best.

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It was nice having a really relaxing weekend with fun games and good food and I hope you had a great weekend too. Bon appétit!

Goofy Pic From Lo

I guess they ran out of cows?

It's All Better Now

(My Bad!)

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I haven't mentioned MOW since I've had to pick up from the new site and that is because it had turned me into a crabby bitch. When I got there the first day it wasn't too horrible. I had maybe 12 people. And I was training that girl so I had a helper. The next week I had 14 and I was pretty irritated and thinking about quitting, then afterwards I let it go, but then, the next Wednesday I had 16 people and basically went berserk. I was furious and even though I kept telling the helper lady, "I'm sorry if it seems like I'm taking this out on you," I still felt the need to apologize to her the next time I saw her.

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So what happened was, after I fumed and fussed while packing my stuff that third week, as soon as I got to my car I called the office. I told them that A) It was bad enough that they moved the place so out of the way, but B) SIXTEEN people was RIDICULOUS! I was seriously in a rage. She misunderstood me and said, "So you're quitting, you won't be back?" I said, "No. I wouldn't do that, but you will have to find a replacement for me because 16 people is too many." I told her there was no reason I should have two pages of people. Then, THEN, and this killed me, she said, "Sixteen is our maximum and many of the others also have 16 people." I snapped back with "Really? (And you have to picture that word drawn out to last about 7 seconds) ...That's odd, because the lady in there said she couldn't understand why MY list was so long when ALL THE OTHER people's lists were so short." So the MOW office lady said she would call me later after my route and we would talk about this.

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She didn't call until the next day and she told me she had dropped four people from my list. We had a calmer talk because I was comfortably at home on my couch and not out in my truck in the heat in a RAGE. But for some reason, the next Wednesday I was all irritated again and then even last Wednesday, even though My Sweetie took the day off to go with me, I still felt crabby.

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So last night (Tuesday night) I had a very loooonnng talk with myself. I realized that every Wednesday morning when I left the house I would get mad all over again about the new pick up site. I also realized that this accomplished absolutely nothing and just made for a bad day. I decided to be chipper and do something different and I ran my route backwards starting from the north end. That actually makes more sense since the new place is so far north. Yes, another one of those, "Why didn't I think of that before?" things. It was all kinda funny doing it all in reverse and I realized I had parked in front of that fire hydrant and had a good laugh. (I snapped that through the back window of my little truck. And that's the trailer with all those feral kittens.) I won't park there again - it wouldn't be so funny if I got a ticket.

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And after my strange backward route, which went very smoothly, I treated myself to catfish. And it was delicious:

Then I spent the afternoon at Pocket's drinking beer with my daughter and we laughed so hard we had tears. I hope our trip will be like that and I hope the rest of my Wednesdays will be like that.

My 600th Post

Over the years I've seen various people celebrate some round number of posts and I always thought, "Oh yeah! There's a marker number on here somewhere." But I always forgot to keep up with it. So a few weeks ago when I noticed I was getting close to 600, I thought I'd mark the occasion (I hate that word! I have to look it up every time I use it.) I'm also getting close to my start date 4 years ago (August 30, 2005) so it seemed like an appropriate time.

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I used to read Jammie J's blog and leave 4 or 5 inch long comments. She kept telling me to start my own blog and after some thought and figuring out how to keep it anonymous, per My Sweetie, I started this. The name of the blog was obvious because the Rudyard Kipling poem "If" is my favorite poem in the world and really meant a lot to me after my car accident in 1980. "Geewits" was already my e-mail and sprang from "G WITS" which was my NTN gamer name for a long time.

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I've had such a fun time getting to know different people from all walks of life as well as being from all over the place. (Them I mean. Okay, sometimes I am also "all over the place.") I used to follow a blog from a distraught and rattled soldier in Iraq before the government shut him down as well as an old retired man that liked to talk about his garden in some small town near Houston. I've made and lost friends as well as getting to know people that I feel like I will know forever. You know who you are.

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On that note, I'd like to thank all the people that comment here on a regular basis. You make my days fun and when I talk to actual physical people I always call you my "blogger buddy." I love my blogger buddies. You know who you are. Thanks for all the comments and perspectives and support. I really do appreciate it.

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I'd also like to thank my silent readers. I'm not going to say, "Please comment!" because I realize you have your reasons. I read some blogs myself that I do not comment on. I get that. But here's a shout out to the readers from Presque Isle and Frenchville, Maine. To Butler, Pennsylvania, Fort Collins, CO and Prince Rupert, B.C. And here's a special Texas "Hey!" to my silent readers in Carrollton, Garland and Plano, Texas.

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Thanks everybody for making this fun for me! I hope I have 600 more.

I Can't Believe I Never Thought of That!

I'm one of those "gardeners" that is loathe to chop off perfectly good blooms for the good of the plant. Yes, I know you are supposed to, but I have always had a hard time doing it. My own mother has always told me to do so and she always has the most beautiful flowers. And there's even a "Star Trek" saying regarding the one and the many that I can't think of right now and may not even apply to this.
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Anyway, that one petunia above that I really, really like grows like a weed and I did have enough sense to realize that I seriously needed to start lopping it off. Suddenly I had one of those lightbulb moments and I thought, "Why not bring them indoors and put them in water?"

These pictures really do not do them justice as they are a deep rich jewel toned purple that is just lucious and I'm not even a big fan of purple. The point of this post though is that it had never occurred to me before to bring the "perfectly good blooms" inside to enjoy. For some reason, petunias just seemed like yard plants. So as usual, my brain went through that whole "Why didn't I ever think of this before?" thing, except this year it has been different.
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I think everyone has those "Why didn't I ever think of this before?" moments throughout their lives but for some reason, since my last birthday, instead of thinking it like that, my brain goes, "It took me 48 years to think of that?"
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Why 48? I have no idea, but that's been my thought process since April. Is it because I'm getting close to 50? Does that make me subconsciously feel like I should already know everything?

I have no idea what the 48 thing is all about, but I'm glad I came up with the idea to bring the lopped-off petunias inside to enjoy. And speaking of great ideas, Lo told me about a website for people like me. It really came in handy tonight when we went to see the new Harry Potter film. it's:
http://runpee.com/#app=5c9d&e1bd-RunPeeID=6.63.0&b35-selectedIndex=0

3 Things I Know For Sure

ONE: When Seals and Crofts sang "Summer Breeze" in 1972 they were not talking about daytime in North Texas. If you get a "breeze" here in the daytime it feels like when you pop open a hot oven to look at whatever you have baking in there. And it does not make you feel fine.

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TWO: When Hoagy Carmichael and Johnny Mercer wrote "In the Cool, Cool, Cool, of the Evening" they, too, were not talking about North Texas in the summertime. The best you will get here (and it does not make for good song lyrics) is: the tolerable, tolerable, tolerable of the evening.

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THREE: When fashion experts come on TV and say, "You can convert this simple summer day dress into evening wear by adding a classic jacket" they are not talking to women in North Texas. If you put a jacket on over your dress here in the summer you will die. Right after people laugh at you for being stupid.

The One About My nephew

I have a nephew that I'll call "Timmy." Timmy is Timothy the fourth as in "Timothy Middle Last IV." His name started with my grandfather Tim Sr., then Dad - Tim Jr. and my brother Tim III. The women in our family, meaning Mom, SIL, and myself decided to break the chain and call him Timmy instead of Tim.
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Timmy was born and raised in North Carolina and I have lived in Texas his entire life but we have always had a special bond. We sometimes would not see each other for up to two years but there was always an instant connection. He came to Texas by himself when he was 13 to spend a week with us and we had a blast. He'll be 21 in October. He's really a great guy. He works and is going to college to be an architect and I bet he'll be a great one.
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Even though I've been back to North Carolina since the beach trip of 2008, that was the last time I saw Timmy. I called him on Tuesday to tell him that Kate and I were taking a road trip to visit Mom at the mountain place. He said he would be in Delaware that week staying with a friend on the beach but they (he and his girlfriend) would be driving back on that Saturday and he would make a detour to see us in the mountains.
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This led to light chit chat about how we will all be road weary and then as conversations tend to do, we moved into talking about driving. I told him that Kate, my daughter was probably the best driver I knew. He said that he was a very good driver also. I said, "Well of course. I taught Kate, and your dad taught you, and we both learned from Dad who used to be a truck driver." Well Timmy had no idea. He was all "He drove a truck?" I was surprised that he didn't know and told him that Papa (my granddad and his namesake) owned a trucking company in the 50's. He also did not know about that. I told him that I had a picture somewhere of his great granddad standing next to a truck with his name on the door - Timmy's name also - and that I would bring a copy to him.
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He seemed really fascinated by this information and I was fascinated myself that he did not know any of this. I think it's sad that so much family history gets lost. I've been working up to a post about all of my unknown family, but this was what I thought of as common family information and yet, he did not know. When we are all together in the mountains in a few weeks, I will certainly get Mom to tell Timmy everything she can remember about his great granddad. It just seems like something he should know.

Must. Vent.

I'm really not much of a venter. Okay, yeah I've had my moments with the MOW changes and the neighbors' cat, but there is something I just have to get off my chest: People, stop using the wrong words!
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My number one complaint is the "your" and "you're" misuse. It's really driving me insane. I'm turning into that guy from the Pink Panther movies that gets the crazy eye. Last night was the last straw. I've been researching my August road trip with my daughter and was checking out the blues clubs on Beale Street and the website I found for SILKY O'Sullivan's misused "your" twice. ON ONE PAGE.
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I realize that anyone can mistype something on occasion, but twice on one page? AAAARGH! Where were the proofreaders? This was for a business!!
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I have come across several blogs that do the same thing. There was one lady that seemed pretty interesting, but in one post she used "your" for "you're" more than once as well as "there" for "their." In ONE post. I said to myself, "Yeah, I can't read this blog anymore."
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And why is everyone spelling "lose" "loose" nowadays? That is popping up everywhere.
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Here's the deal folks:
-Their means "belonging to them" as in This is their party and they can do what they want.
-There means "some place" as in Place the keg there so we don't get beer on the carpet.
- Lose means "misplace" as in I didn't mean to lose my keys.
- Loose means "not tight" as in I like these jeans because they are loose.
-Your means "belonging to you" as in This is your blog you dumbass so quit using the wrong words.
-You're is an abbreviation of the words "you" and "are" as in You're a dumbass if you keep using the word "your" when you mean "you are."
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Disclaimer: If English is your second (or third) language, you are exempt from all of this and yay! for you for being able to communicate with people in another language.
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I feel better now.

I'm Getting Too Old For My Crazy

I may have mentioned before that every Friday night we watch the week's worth of "Jeopardy!" although I may have forgotten the exclamation point in the past. But it is part of the title. Anyway I was just starting to slice up my beef fajita quesadillas for our dinner when I heard insanely loud cat screams from the garage. I yelled out a few very loud expletives and ran screaming into the garage. I didn't even see the asshole cat from next door although I know it was him, I just saw poor Barney run under the car. Meanwhile, My Sweetie was in here on this computer. He did not hear the cats, but he certainly heard me. So he came running behind me. I told him what was going on and he did a body check on Barney to make sure he was okay. I closed the side door to the garage and came back inside to finish plating the food. (And maybe "plating" is not a real verb, but they use it on the Food Network.)
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We sat down to eat and watch "Jeopardy!" and I was HOT. And by hot I mean getting a lot of answers that no one else could get. I may have told you before but our ritual here is that if you answer correctly and none of the contestants get the answer, you yell "AND ONE!" It's a basketball term in case you do not follow sports. What I may not have mentioned is that I also run around and do a crazy end zone dance (which is a football term if you do not follow sports) when I get one. I started to think that the crazy adrenaline rush with the cat fight had somehow stimulated my brain.
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We pause the show a lot to do various things and I was clearing the dinner plates and realized my right shoulder was REALLY sore. I figured I must have done something crazy when I ran screaming into the garage. I rubbed some ActiveOn on my shoulder and we started the show again. The next time I had an "AND ONE!" I jumped up and threw my arms up, yelled "OUCH!" and realized that's how I must have disfrinagled something in my shoulder to begin with. I guess I'm getting too old for my crazy. But I doubt it will stop me.

My Weird Dream Brain

I have lots of bizarre dreams every night, but in the last two weeks, they have taken a really goofy turn. For the past few weeks I have been playing Mahjong Titans on my computer for an hour or so before I go to bed, so my weird dream brain converts even the most mundane things into a mahjong game. The other night, I was "grocery shopping" in my dream and I was doing it, of course, mahjong style. It looked something like this:

Since I am lucky in that I only have to be woken up once a week, the other six days, I get to sleep until I wake up naturally. Or I should say "naturally." Because there is nothing natural about the way I wake up most days. What happens is, instead of just slowly waking up, my weird dream brain will insert something outrageous into my dream to get me to wake up. And if that doesn't work, it will just keep going. This morning I was dreaming I was in some sort of old west setting complete with costumes and everything. We were all from the present but for some reason we were supposed to "play along" and pretend we were all from that time. It was all going along fine until one lady couldn't find her shoes and slipped on some purple jellies like these:

It totally broke the whole mood of whatever we were trying to do, but it didn't wake me up. So just after that, a giant fake plastic bright green alligator head that was about the size of a large truck burst through the wall. THAT woke me up.

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My husband gets a kick out of the strange dreams I have and the strange wake up things like the alligator crack me up. I usually spend the first 10 minutes of my day shaking my head and saying something to myself like, "Hummingbirds with automatic weapons! Heh, heh, heh."

Don't Make Me Jump Off This Spaceship!

We were wondering why the SciFi Channel had just changed its name to SyFy and My Sweetie sent me this article about it.
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I took offense at this part:
He told TV Week, "The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular."
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Reallllly? I love sci fi, as do many of the women I know. And as the article also mentions, how do they account for the $375 million success of the last Star Trek? If they think only basement nerds went to see that movie, they would be dead wrong.
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What's even stranger is they just debuted a new show "Warehouse 13" which has science fiction all over it and is one of my new favorite summer series. And I am of the "female audience."
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If they had just said, "We needed a name we could trademark" I would totally get that from a business perspective, so why did they have to drag me, "the female audience" into their argument? Pffffft!

The Trip Ahead

I've often mentioned that My Sweetie sometimes brings home little prizes from work. He gets all sorts of random things. Last week he brought home this little blank-paged book:
As soon as I saw it I said, "That's great! I'll take it on my trip!" I won't have access to a computer for a week on the road trip I am taking with my daughter in August, so I thought it would be perfect for keeping notes on what I do each day. Then I thought that on the back page I would make a list of goofy things to talk about when we get bored. So far I've come up with this:

That first one took my second husband and myself all the way to St. Louis from Fort Worth. Which was 10 1/2 hours of drive time. You'd be surprised by how many old expressions like "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" and "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" there are. Well I can tell you that there are 10 1/2 hours of them. And maybe we even missed a few. But anyway, I was hoping some of you might have some suggestions of things to add to the list. And I don't mean any of the regular stuff involving billboards or license plates or cows or the alphabet game which we played ad infinitum all those years of picking up my daughter from her dad's house. What I'm looking for are odd or goofy topics that will require some time and thought. And hopefully a few laughs.

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By the way, on the dog thing, I think I'd be a yorkshire terrier because they are highly excitable and quite yappy. Oddly, I do not like yorkshire terriers. But that sort of makes sense since they always say that no one would like to hang out with themself. And if I had to be a yorkshire terrier, I would certainly hope that my owner would tie my hair back because I absolutely detest having hair in my face.

48 Hours? Whuut?

Man! Talk about your circadian rhythm being off. The last two days felt like I had displaced myself from the space/time continuum. Filling the unforgiving minute? Hardly. I don't know why I was so floogy, but the last two days spun by like all the clocks had been sped up. Either that or my whole self was going at 3/4 normal time. I felt like I was rushing and going nowhere and couldn't quite catch up. It was very disconcerting. I hope when I wake up later today, I'll be back on real time.

Another 4th of July

Happy Birthday to the good old U.S. of A.!

The land of the free and

the home of the brazen brave!

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And as usual here are:

THE FIREWORKS!

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Now I must go start my next project

which begins with this:

Which Way to the Harness Store?

I saw a claymation TV commercial tonight that had a cat in it and my weird brain went, "I want to make a clay cat!" So I made this little guy:

That's how any and all of my creative endeavors come about. I get a brain zing and then I want to do it. It's the same with anything: a meal, the footstool, the coffee table, the cat pillows, my sponged bathroom walls. But I don't really have any control over it. When a bunch of you said, "You should have your own TV show!" I laughed because I can't just do this stuff. It has to happen on its own.
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And the really weird part is, after I've actually done something I look at it and go, "Wow! I can't believe I did that. I couldn't do that again if you held a gun to my head." This old sketch of comics was in an old spiral notebook:

I used to run across it once in a while and it still amazes me. The last time I found it, I cut it out and framed it - and I still can't believe I drew that stuff. Well, except for Snoopy. I've been drawing Snoopy since I was in Junior High. I think I drew those in the 80's and I remember that I was reading the comics and had a sudden urge to draw some of them. It was totally a one time deal and has never happened again.
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I just wish I could somehow harness these creative spurts and use them at will, but I can't. And it's really pretty goofy to be walking around in your own house constantly asking yourself, "How did I do that?"

Hooked On....

I have an obsession with hooks. I love hooks and have all types everywhere. I have a hook on almost every door in the house and some doors have hooks on both sides. When we bought the house there were a few hooks on the backs of the bathroom doors and that was good and all, but they were plastic and the stick on type. The pic to the left there is a magnetic hook on my fridge. Magnetic hooks are great and I have several in my garage. The plastic hooks in the pics below were already here with the exception of the "over the door" hook, which I think is a kickass invention. My very favorite hook is a metal work hook that I bought at Main Street Arts Festival several years ago. I have that on the coat closet door. The metal worker artist gave me his card but the number was no good after I left a few messages. I wanted to buy more stuff, but he never called back and then the number was dead. I don't know what that was about. And he's never been back to Main Street. Anyway this is that hook:

Something about it makes me think of Dr. Seuss. Maybe it reminds me of Little Mary Lou Who's hair or something. I'm not sure, but I really love it. Here are some examples of more of the hooks here.

Another thing that came with the house was a peg board in the garage and I really love that. I mean, it is HOOK CITY.:

I actually had lots more pictures of hooks, but I realized it really was starting to feel like overkill. I can't help it. I really love hooks. I think a perfect house would have hooks everywhere. Do you have something like that in your house that you are a fanatic about?

The Crosswalk Guard

I don't want you guys to get the wrong impression. I'm not a Suzie Volunteer kind of person. And maybe you're thinking, "But you've been a volunteer Meals on Wheels delivery person for nine years" and that would be true, but I do that for my own selfish reasons. What happened was, back in the day, I somehow became a crosswalk guard at my daughter's school. I seriously don't even remember how it came about. And that's not me in the picture above. As usual I stole that from Google Images.
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The picture below was taken from Google Earth, and the school has not only changed its name but added a bunch of buildings.

But the grey central U-shaped part was the elementary school when my daughter was there. I was the crosswalk guard for a year or two. My main spot was where it says "My Spot" although I sometimes took care of spots two and three. You can actually see the crosswalk marks in the picture. What you can't see is that the road there had severe drainage problems. Heck that whole city had severe drainage problems. And by city, I mean tiny little DFW suburb. It's probably one of the smallest DFW suburbs.
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Whenever we had a crazy rainstorm, that whole little road there would be under several inches of water. I did not know that when I signed up for the thing.
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Over time, I experienced some rain there and just felt sorry for the little kids, but one day it was really bad. I mean really bad. It was probably 6 or 7 inches deep that day. So every little kid that walked up to cross, I would actually pick up and carry across the street. The water was really deep! After about 10 or 11 kids, my back was starting to say, "Stop that!" The rain was pouring and the water was rushing, but I kept slogging on. After a few more trips I returned to the school side. I turned, ready to grab another kid and there was a boy standing there expectantly with his arms out ready to be picked up. He came almost to my nose and was very chubby. I just looked him over and said, "I'm sorry. I can't pick you up." I felt terrible and he looked crushed. We're standing there in the pouring rain and there was nothing I could do. So I said, "You're almost a man now. You can do this!" He smiled and ran through the wash.
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That was the very worst day of being a crosswalk guard. I hope I didn't make that little kid feel fat. Or feel bad that I didn't pick him up. I hope he turned out okay.