Saturday, February 28, 2009

Plan "C" Just Isn't As Good As Plan "A"

Today was a plan "C" day.

Originally, we started out with plans to have my brother-in-law, Bill, come for the day along with my brother Jim. I was so looking forward to a day of family, and laughs, and reminiscences, and hopefully edible food.

Stuff happened, and Mr. Bill had to back out of family day. That's ok, on to plan "B", the one where brother Jim would make the trip and all the fun previously planned would still come to fruition. Well, once again, stuff happened.

Jim happens to be on vacation this week, and do you want to know how he's spending his week of vacation? Home, sick. Ugh, that boy sounds absolutely horrible. Needless to say, there was no Jim today. However, the guy is really sick and in no mood to cook. So, if anyone is in the neighborhood of his house, please stop by! He is in need of some chicken soup, or a sandwich, or a hot meal. Something he doesn't have to cook; ready to eat. But, for your own health, leave it in the porch and call and tell him it's there. Sorry, brother. It's the best I can do to help you out from here!

There you go. That's how you get to plan "C". What was plan "C"? Movie day!

It started with Ron finding something to watch on tv while I made us sandwiches for lunch. Air Force One with Harrison Ford (his best movie, in my opinion!) was just starting on one of the cable channels. We watched maybe the first 10 minutes, and decided it was going to be hunker down and enjoy a movie day. But, if we're going to enjoy a movie, I'd rather it not be on a cable channel all chopped up and full of commercials. I happen to own a copy of this movie. Ok, it's a VHS but I still own it!

I grabbed the movie and my newest crocheting project (a whole other story) and we watched the movie from the beginning. Dang, that is one GOOD movie! I almost broke Ron's hand a few times, but we enjoyed the movie.

We did decide to get something productive done between movies. We tore the fish tank apart and gave it a good cleaning. Poor fish. They needed a good scrubbing. Now the fish are fat and happy and clean!

Once work time was over, we were back to movie time. We went through our video collection and chose The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis as our second feature. Need I say any more about Bruce? Wow.

So, there was our Saturday. I missed out on family day. And, now I'm afraid to fly again and afraid of the dark again. Plan "C" kinda sucked in hindsight.

Feel better, Jim! You were missed!

Sunday, February 22, 2009

My Two Cents Worth

Ron and I went to see Gran Torino today, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood.

I have been a huge fan of Eastwood's ever since he got out of the spaghetti westerns. I gotta tell you though, this was the worst waste of celluloid I've seen in a long time. This was one piece of crap movie.

Could he have hired ANYone that could act??? Grandma was ok, the rest of the cast should be arrested for impersonating an actor. Geez.

If you haven't seen it, don't. If you have, well, like us, there went two hours that you will never get back.

This has been my two cents worth.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I Actually Won An Argument!

The argument was with two men, in a parking lot. Unfortunately, it wasn't with the two men I live with!

Tuesday was my big out day. I went out all by myself! No driver assistance. C'mon now, once in awhile, a gal has to break free.

First stop, post office. Ok, I only stalled out my car once. I guess I'm not so used to that clutch anymore. Second stop, K-mart. I know, I know, this IS an exciting life!

I walked around K-mart, just trying to enjoy some alone time. I looked at this and that, and even picked up a few things. A few of my purchases was some storage totes. I guess I'm trying to make some order in my life. Nothing says order like Rubbermaid.

I had two 21-gallon totes, plus a smaller tote and a few sundry items. I was in the parking lot trying to put my stuff in the trunk of my car. The trunk in my car is surprisingly large. From the outside, it doesn't look like it would be.

I have my cart, my trunk is open, and I'm trying to do most of this stuff one handed which wasn't working. Two "gentlemen" were walking through the parking lot and both of them felt the need to stop and tell me that there was no way those totes were fitting in my trunk. I said, "really?" Both kinda chuckled that chuckle I've heard before. The "I'm going to humor her until she fails" chuckle.

I don't have much in my trunk, but I did have one item that was getting in my way. I pushed it back a bit, grabbed the totes with two hands, and they both went into the trunk, straight up. The rest of the stuff was nothing with most of it fitting into the totes.

I looked at the two guys and said something like "I guess it's going to fit" and I closed my trunk and went to put my cart in the corral. I got a few dirty looks from them, but no apologies or atta girls or anything. It's ok, I did my happy dance back to my car, proud of myself for going out alone and for fitting all that into my trunk!

I also did a happy dance in my driver's seat all the way home. I unloaded my car, then pulled my car into the garage. I thought it was a good day.

Ron and I were going to go out for lunch today and I said let's take my car! When we went into the garage, we saw that the trunk was wide open.

I know from experience that leaving your trunk open will run down the battery of the car because of that darn little light in the trunk. Sure enough, there wasn't enough power in that car to unlock the doors with the clicker!

Moral of the story is that I might not be smart enough to close the lid on my trunk, but I WAS smart enough to win an argument with two men! So there!

Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday The 13th

I have a great Friday the 13th story!

I got fired today, via the FedEx delivery man! C'mon now, that's a great story!

Yes, today the FedEx man showed up with an envelope for ME. The envelope came from my corporate office in Atlanta. Imagine my surprise as I read that as of 2/11/09, my position was no longer being held open. Hmm. Phone lines must have been down since this is the first I've heard of it.

So what do we have here. I no longer have to look at a boss that has previously hit me with a car and laughed about it. I no longer have to listen to his thoughts on how he wants to kidnap a little girl off the street just for fun. I no longer have to deal with a boss that steals money from me, just because he's the boss and he can. I no longer have to listen to his diatribes on women, minorities, gays, senior citizens or anyone else that isn't a WASP. Aside from the financial thing, how can this be a bad thing?

So now I am brushing myself off, and getting ready to turn the page to get to the next chapter of my life. And, work on healing. Tomorrow will be another day.

But for now, I got fired by the FedEx guy. That's just funny, I don't care who you are.

Monday, February 09, 2009

I Hope It Will Be Worth It

Every week, brother Phil and I have a date at the library. We take books back, we pick up more books. I do love my library.

I have a couple of lists of books that I want to read. Before we go to the library, I will look up a few in the library's system and I can see if what I want is in stock at my local branch. If it is in stock, I can also see exactly where in the library it would be. I love my library AND the electronic age!

If my local library doesn't have one of the books I'm looking for, I can see if any library in the Cleveland system has a particular book. If I can see they own a copy, I can put a hold on a book. Usually, the books I am looking for are not new releases, so I can get a requested book in a few days. I get an email stating my book is ready, I go to my branch and the book will be sitting on a particular shelf with my name on it. Piece of cake.

Once in awhile, I have to get on a waiting list for a book. Again, I have never waited too long to get through a queue to get my requested book. Until now.

I have heard a lot about the Twilight series of books. I guess there are four books in the series, and the first book has been made into a movie. I know, it's about vampires. That is one of the last things I of all people should be reading about. But, the target audience for this series is young adult, so how bad can it be? It seems to be so popular, I at least want to judge for myself if all the hype is true or not.

On January 6, 2009, I put a hold on the first book, Twilight. I was # 364 in the queue for this book! For real? I have to wait for 364 people to read this book before I can read it? It's a good thing the library has a bunch of copies!

It is now February 9, 2009 and I am up to # 100 in the queue!

Maybe I'll get a copy of this book by June. I sure hope it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, it's a good thing I have a gazillion other books on my list I want to read.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Get Your Motor Runnin'

Head out on the highway! Lookin' for adventure, and what ever comes our way!

Can you see me? Born to be wild?

Saturday, the local Harley Davidson dealership had a party. We love parties, so we went. Hey, any excuse for free hot dogs and beer, plus plenty of Harleys.

When we pulled into the parking lot, Ron said to me that he's only looking, he is not buying. I, however, made no such promise.

We went into the Harley dealership, had our hot dogs and beer and met a nice salesman named Joe. We talked, we walked around, and I think I fell in love. Can you just see me on this bike? C'mon now, it's ME!

Ron was fond of a few touring bikes, but this one had my name all over it. My new buddy Joe and I are in discussions regarding formal lessons. Before I spend this kind of money, I should be able to drive one of these things.

As a side note, I did drive one once, but it was MANY years ago and it was after MANY beers, so it was something I definitely should not have been doing at the time. But, I digress.
We continued to walk around, checking out the new bikes and the used bikes and talking about signing up for lessons.

We were at the dealership towards the end of the party. As time got closer to closing time, a handful of the Harley employees started moving a few of the bikes away from the front of the showroom. Another employee started sweeping the floor. Dang, that's one way to get people out! Start working! But, no, that wasn't it.

We watched two more employees struggle to move an arch from the service area to the showroom. This arch was adorned with orange and black bows (Harley colors) and some little piggies (HOGS, get it??!!). There was to be a wedding in the showroom! Hello? Who doesn't love a Harley, but c'mon now!

We didn't stay to crash the wedding, as we weren't dressed properly. Well, Ron did have his leather jacket on, but we had no other Harley regalia with us. We finished our beer, talked again with Joe, and we left. For now.

Like a true nature's child, I was born, born to be wild!

Eggs Update

Well, we tried.

And, we've learned a lot, so maybe if there is a second attempt, it will be more successful!

The eggs, when they are viable, are amber in color. If they turn white, they are no longer viable and the dead eggs will immediately start to develop a fungus. One of the tricks is to get the dead eggs out quickly so as not to infect the good eggs.

We did have a few eggs that hatched , but they never got big enough to call them baby fish! The first thing to happen would be tails sticking out of the eggs. We got to that point!

From what we've read, these eggs would start hatching in three to seven days, depending on water temperature. Sure enough, on day three, we started to see movement in the breeder tank. Every day, it seemed that there was more and more movement.

However, in spite of treating the water and trying to keep the white eggs out, we lost the battle.

It was a fun project though and we did learn a lot. Maybe next time.

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

25 Random Things About Me

I read a lot of blogs. Sometimes, I borrow ideas from other people to write about. One of the blogs I read recently had a list of 25 random things about this person. Hey, it beats the heck out of those insipid chain emails! Read it or not: In fact, I'm not sure I HAVE 25 random things about me to tell you!

1. When I was about 17, I stole my Dad's new car to take my lazy butt to the store. He wasn't due home from work (as he took the BUS to work every day!) for another 20 minutes or so, so I thought I had time. I drove the eight blocks to the store, the eight blocks back only to find the neighbor across the street had parked his car almost exactly where Dad's car had been parked at the curb! I had to knock on his door, confess to him what I did and beg him to move his car to save my life! I owe him one.

2. I still hate flying.

3. I love seedless grapes. Frozen or unfrozen.

4. My friends, Ruth and Jeff, from Ripley NY came to Ohio to visit me about six year or so ago. We were driving around over by Ohio City when we saw someone had set a bus shelter on fire. Jeff, a volunteer firefighter, calmly pulled over and put out the fire. Nothing to see here; he got back in the vehicle and we drove away. A true, quiet, hero.

5. I tended bar for 10 years.

6. Coincidentally, or not, I dated an abusive alcoholic for 10 years. Go figure.

7. I hate peas. And lima beans.

8. I am color blind.

9. My favorite color is blue. Or at least I think it is. Being color blind I guess I can't really be sure.

10. I love to watch Judge Judy. I think because she looks like my Mom.

11. I hate my feet.

12. I am afraid. All of the time. Of everything.

13. I was almost arrested; twice. The first time, the DUI laws aren't what they are now, and the police officer that pulled me and Maura over for my sitting on the car door half out of the car let us go with a warning. He shouldn't have done that. The second time, a friend and I were filling an acquaintance's car up with snow. The acquaintance was an idiot. The cop was a friend of mine. The cop said if we just walked away, he'd let us go. We walked. I owe him one too.

14. I went to a baseball game at the Astrodome all by myself! Astros vs Cincinnati. The scariest part was finding my car by myself in the parking lot after the game.

15. Right now, my favorite food seems to be Chinese food. I could eat it every day.

16. I love hugs. I can't get enough of them. And foot rubs too! The best!

17. I have a lot of nightmares. And weird dreams.

18. I love reality TV. I seem to add more and more shows to my list every year. This year, I started to watch The Bachelor. I can't tell you why I am watching this, as it's a freakin' train wreck! How could 25 beautiful, educated, supposedly intelligent women demean themselves like this on national TV? How can these women, 2 hours after meeting a total stranger, profess their love for this man and their desire to marry him at the end of the show? Hello??? A train wreck. I just can't look away. Insecurity is a terrible, terrible thing. Nothing like the awesome reality shows like Big Brother, Survivor, Top Chef, American Idol, Hell's Kitchen, to name a few.

19. I have an addictive personality. And, CDO. That's Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but in alphabetical order, the way it should be! Pogo pushes all my buttons; that's why I can't stop. I'd be an alcoholic if only alcohol didn't make me throw up.

20. I am easily offended. You may not know it, but I don't forget.

21. I feel better mentally when I can escape reality into the fantasy of a book. My favorite books are police or detective or mystery books. The kind where good triumphs over evil. Yeah, that makes things good in my world.

22. I wish I could dance.

23. I have been blessed with the best siblings, E.V.E.R. A great boyfriend, too! Bonus!

24. I am allergic to eggs; I can't eat them without severe gastric distress. I had two eggs over easy on Saturday and I was sick through Tuesday! But they were some damn good eggs.

25. Tomorrow always scares me. I don't know what's coming, but I am not ready for it. Every night, it hits me that a tomorrow is just around the corner. Scary.

Damn, I could probably go for 50 random things about me! Who knew I could ramble! Yeah, I know. Better question is who didn't think I could ramble!

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Eggs - Day One

I know, I know. Another fish tale. But, hey! I haven't had much else to write about!

Here is a better picture of the eggs on our scrubber. The scrubber is safe and sound in the breeder tank with the netting around to protect any hatched eggs.

At the very top of the picture is one snail that will remain safe for the moment! I don't want to upset the breeder tank to try to get at that one snail. Trust me, there are many more snails in there for smooshing!

One warning that we've read about separating the eggs from the parents is that this can cause the parents to start fighting, as if blaming each other for the loss of eggs. This will sometimes stop the pair from future breeding. I was kind of worried about that. Yes, I am over here worrying about the feelings of my fish!

However, I think we're lucky. The parents, since they can still see, smell and almost feel the eggs, are still united as a team in protecting their offspring. This picture you can see mom on the right watching her eggs while dad is off to the left shooing away the silver mollys who came to feast.

Hopefully, mom and dad will continue to watch over their brood, safely tucked away from them. Who knows? Maybe by day six or seven we'll see little tails sticking out of the eggs! That's the next step in their growing. Their tails stick out first! Here's hoping I can capture THAT with a camera!

Friday, January 30, 2009

We're Grandparents!

Don't get too excited! This is another fish story!

In case you're new here, we have a 65 gallon fish tank with community fish. (Don't get me started on THAT decision!) We have some live bearers, silver mollies and red wag platys, both of which we have successfully bred. The life span of the red wag platys has been short, but we do have at least 20 silver mollys from the original four that we started with.

To stop the population explosion, we also have some blue gouramis. They are wonderful for keeping the fry population in check! We have never been successful in getting them to lay eggs, let alone hatch any. That's ok, they are a lot of work to breed, and I'm allergic to that much work.

When we first set up the tank, we tried to get angel fish in the tank. We had a horrible time in the beginning trying to get them to live for any length of time. We had to go through about a dozen or so before we got the water just right and all that. Out of our original dozen or so, we only had one survive.

Our lone survivor has thrived! Her body alone is at least as big as the palm of my hand, with her fins making her larger than my hand. She's beautiful! But, I thought she must be lonely, being the only one of her kind.

A few months ago we were in the fish store and they had a total of four little bitty angels. We bought them all! Their bodies were about the size of a dime and they were so cute! You really can't sex angel fish at that age (or at least I can't!) so we had no idea what we had.

The four have grown and thrived and played well with all of the other fish in the tank.

A couple of weeks ago, Ron was upstairs on a conference call so I stayed downstairs to stay out of his way. I was in the living room when I noticed two of the angel fish sliding one at a time on their bellies up a large flat leafed plant. It was mesmerizing! It took me quite awhile to realize they were laying eggs! Woo hoo! We were lucky enough to get a breeding pair! At one time or another, Ron, Phil and I were at the tank marveling at this tiny yellowish marvels! The thoughts of all these baby angels were running through my head!

Unfortunately, morning brought the reality that someone in the tank had a smorgasbord of caviar the night before. There was not one little egg left.

So, there you go. It was beautiful to watch, but no success. We thought if they laid eggs once perhaps they would do it again.

Today was the day!

We have a scrubber in the tank. It's two pieces, one goes inside of the tank and it has a soft scrubbie that goes against the glass. It is held together by a magnet that has a soft felt piece that goes against the glass on the outside. It's a great tool to keep the glass inside of the tank clean. You just grab the piece outside and work it up and down the glass. The magnet keeps the inside piece up against the outside piece and voila! Algae gone on the inside of the tank! When not cleaning, we keep it on the side of the tank, and I run it around every couple of days to keep the glass clean.

Today I was at the tank, inspecting my fish and I started thinking about angel fish eggs. I looked all over the plant they used before as an egg depository but I saw nothing. I looked the rest of the tank over and there they were! On the scrubber!!! From what I understand this is not an optimal place for the angel fish to lay their eggs. They prefer a flat rock or a pipe that goes from the ground at an angle to the side of the fish tank. We don't have that, so I guess they are making due!

This first picture on the left is taken from the outside of the tank. You can see our water level is down about an inch (hey, it needs a good cleaning! What can I say?) and you can see the white scrubber against the glass on the left. If you look closely, or click on the picture, you see little yellow dots on top of the scrubber. Those are the eggs!!! And, that is the proud daddy fish standing guard over his offspring just to the right of the scrubber! I know, it's kind of hard to see but there are about 200-300 eggs on that little space!

This picture on the right was taken from above the tank looking down into it. You can again see the little yellow spots on the scrubber at the top of the picture.

It's really hard to take pictures of the fish in the fish tank! But, maybe you can get an idea of what I'm talking about.

To say the least, we are thrilled! No, we're not looking at becoming angel fish breeders. But, a few new fish in the tank at no further cost to us would be wonderful! Plus, who doesn't love babies? Even if they are fish?

Also, at this time of the year with the cold and snow and gloom, it's good to have something like this to get excited about. Yes, I know, I need a life!

Ron read up on how to get the eggs to turn into fry, or baby fish. Of course, what is recommended is a lot of work. Remember, I'm allergic to that kind of hard work! They suggest first a 2-1/2 gallon tank for the eggs with it's own filtration system, then a 5 gallon tank, then a 10 gallon, and finally back to the original 65 gallon tank. Yeah, right. I don't think so.

But, Ron thought he wanted to try to get at least a few fish to hatch and not get eaten through the night. We're going to do our version of the hard work!

Ron took the inside part of the scrubber and placed it in a breeder tank. This is a little plastic tank that sits by hooks on the inside of the tank. The plastic keeps the other fish away from the eggs or fry, and we also have a netting around this in case any fry do develop and go like they are supposed to, out the hole in the bottom of the breeder tank to get to the plants and rocks below. Ron is going to try to keep them segregated in the main tank until they are big enough to make it on their own. We'll see.

Just so that everyone is up to date on everything going on in our fish tank, to round off our "children", we have our plecostomus, Fred. Fred is nice and big and healthy and at least 7" long. He's hard to measure (yes, we've had a ruler in front of the tank before trying!) so that is a guesstimate. I think I'm pretty close. And, our newest addition is snails. Ok, they were an accident.

When we bought the last batch of angel fish, I wanted to try live plants as well. Live plants help keep the water in balance. They are relatively cheep, so I picked out three plants and off we went. I asked the sales kid what I needed to know about live plants. Did they need washed? Were there any special instructions? The smart aleck said "yeah, just put them in your tank". Cool. I can do that.

What he didn't tell us that if you put live plants into your tank, chances are VERY good they are coming with either snails or snail eggs. You wanna talk about breeders? It is amazing how quickly the freakin' things reproduce!

And, yes, JoBeth, I have finally become a snail smoosher. You stick a finger in the tank, smoosh the snails in reach against the glass and the fish fight for the smooshed goods. It's pretty gross, but it has become the favorite food of the angel fish.

Between the three of us, we smoosh at least 30 snails a day. A day. Who'd have thought? Eww.

Monday, January 26, 2009

A Party In The Making

Don't ask me why, but today I watched part of Ellen DeGeneres' talk show. In the life of the show, I've maybe seen two shows. For some reason, it was on the tv today. That was a great thing!

Today was Ellen's birthday. For her birthday, they had to play whatever game she wanted, and she chose blindfolded musical chairs.

Check out the woman in yellow named Karen. She so made this game! All I know after watching this is that for my next birthday, we're playing blindfolded musical chairs, and I want this woman at my party!

I know, the video is nine minutes, but hang in there. I was laughing so hard at this I wanted to pee my pants!

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Just When You Think You've Heard Everything

I'm still scratching my head over this one. I guess it beats the three shells method!

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Bad Hair Day

I had my hair cut a couple of weeks ago. I didn't go for a trim this time, I had a LOT taken off! Now it's just about shoulder length, but not by much. I'm very happy with it.

When I got it cut, the hair dresser dressed up my hair with a curling iron. Who doesn't love curls? I haven't used a curling iron since high school.

For my birthday, my sister Cathie sent me a curling iron and hot rollers. I have no idea really, how to work either instrument. I decided to start with the hot rollers. It took only one phone call to Cathie to ask what the extras with the rollers were for (one set of plastic clippies and one set of metal U's. I still have no idea what the metal U's are for.) and I was off.

I got the rollers heated up and installed in my hair. After a few minutes, the rollers came out, a few finger rubs through my hair and I LOVED it! It wasn't too curly, just nice body, and relatively easy. I emailed Cathie all excited and told her I looked so cute! Of course, she wanted pictures.

The batteries in my camera were dead, so Ron offered to take a picture with his phone. From his phone, he does some voodoo where he plugs his phone into his computer and he can then put the image on my desk top. He told me where the picture was and I went to grab it to put it in the email to Cathie. Here is what he sent:


Yeah, good thing Ron's cute, I can't be mad at him. And, for the record, I came out looking a LITTLE better than this!

Monday, January 19, 2009

That Was Helpful

With me being home so much lately, I have been trying to cook dinner most nights.

Since I have very few recipes in my repertoire, I have been asking for help and ideas on how not to cook the same five meals every week.

In comes my sister, Cathie! She gave me a magazine subscription to Taste of Home magazine. While the magazine is great, even better than the magazine is their website. Once you sign up for their website, not only can you search all their recipes, but you can put the ones you like in a recipe box so you can go back to them at any time.

Another great feature is their grocery list option. I pick a couple of new recipes a week, put them on my grocery list, then print out the list. The list has everything needed for the recipes I've chosen. The list is then divided into sections of the grocery store! So, spices will all be together, meats together, produce together, etc. It's awesome! Then I take the list to my cupboards and cross out what I already have. I have spent many an hours on this website!

Today I was planning my menus for the week and decided I wanted to make scallops with alfredo sauce. I've tried a few jar alfredo sauces and I've not been overly excited about any of them. I wanted a home made alfredo sauce. It couldn't be that hard.

So, I went to my new favorite website, and in the search window typed in "alfredo sauce". In return, nine pages came up that all had some kind of alfredo sauce in it.

One of the things I like about this website is that the recipes all seemed easy, and the ones I've tried to do I did with no problem. That said, I randomly chose six recipes from the first three or four pages to see if I could get a good recipe for alfredo sauce. Yeah, each and every one of them said under ingredients, "one 17 ounce jar of alfredo sauce".

Duh.

I could have done that without searching the doggone website! Luckily, a little more digging and I found an actual recipe to create the sauce from scratch.

So, scallops alfredo is scheduled for Wednesday night.

Tomorrow, I am making what I make best for dinner: reservations at Applebee's!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

The Day After

The best part of the day after my birthday?

Breakfast was left over pizza! Lunch was leftover cake and ice cream!

Oh, yeah. That's why I love birthdays!

Friday, January 16, 2009

It Came In With A Bang

Yes, today is my birthday.

Out of 365 days in a year, I think your birthday is the best day of the year. After all, many people celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, 4th of July, Arbor Day, etc., but your birthday is all for you. People who know you and love you should tell you on this day that they are happy you were born. People, it's all about the phone calls, the cards, the emails. Yes, I live for my birthday. I am awake at midnight to usher in my birthday and I stay awake until midnight to say good bye to my birthday for another year.

This year was a pretty good birthday for me. It actually started on January 15th, at 11:55 pm. Let's go back to that time last night:

My sister Cathie lives in California. For as many years as I can remember, Cathie calls me at midnight to start the birthday celebration with me! Last night, she called me at about 11:55 pm my time.

Cathie was sitting outside with her dog, talking on the phone with me. Suddenly, even here in Ohio, I hear the loud, long screech of tires followed by a large BANG. Anyone who has been anywhere near an automobile accident knows that sound.

Since it was dark, Cathie couldn't see what happened, so she grabbed her flashlight and was going to check on the driver. It ended up that an SUV laid down some series skid marks on the road, crossed the road, flew over the ditch and wrapped around a tree. Cathie was on the scene with a couple of other neighbors within a minute of the accident. The fire and rescue squad was right behind them, and they were there trying to cut the driver out of her SUV. At last update, the driver was conscious and answering questions, but was not getting out of the vehicle without a lot of help from firefighters.

So, that's how my birthday started with a bang!

I had a good family day. I spoke to, heard from, or saw all of my siblings! That is always a darn good day! I heard Cathie and Jim sing happy birthday, just like Grandma used to do it, accent and all! I don't care how many times you hear those imitations, it always gets me right here. Yeah, that was a good thing!

Michael came over with cake and ice cream and joined in on the pizza party with me, Ron and Phil. (Did you read the last post that it's freaking -13 degrees here? There was NO way I was leaving this house to go out in the cold!) It was a great pizza party, and Michael even provided the cake! We added candles, and I had them blown out before the fire department had to be called!

There was even a surprise video chat with my niece JoBeth and her husband and two little boys. Like I said, a darn good day!

Now, I'm going to enjoy the last 42 minutes of my birthday, sitting here on my heating pad and just enjoying the quiet.

I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Happy Day To Me!

Today is my birthday!

And it's -13 degrees outside according to my MSN homepage.

-13.

Yes, that's a negative number.

It may be my birthday, but I think I'm staying home!

Call me!

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Now That's Talent!

Ok, this might have been seen before, but I thought it was worth repeating! This is way too cool! Turn your speakers on and enjoy.

And, thanks to Ruth for sending this to me!


Sunday, January 04, 2009

Dumbed Down Day

Ever have one of those days where you are missing a few too many brain cells? That was my day on Saturday.

There was no extraordinary reason for the lack of brain cells; it just seemed like some of my important brain cells decided to take the day off. Lucky for me, it wasn't the cells that controlled breathing or my heart beating or anything like that.

Let's start with dinner. (Recipe to follow this blog.)

Phil had a hankering for something that our sister Barb used to make for him. I told him if he could find a recipe, or remember how it was made, I'd be glad to make it. He did a web search and did find the recipe on the Betty Crocker web site. Cool, I can follow directions.

Or, so I thought. For a simple recipe, I forgot to add two ingredients. I guess they weren't major ingredients (like the meat or the onions) but none the less, I forgot the salt and the cheese. The dinner was still ok as I remembered about the cheese with three minutes left to bake. Instead of being IN the pie, the cheese was ON the pie. As for the salt, well, the salt shaker on the table got a work out.

So, dinner wasn't catastrophic, but I know I could have done better. Where do you go from dinner? To do the dishes.

I rinsed the dishes and loaded the dishwasher. There is one well on the inside of the door where you add the detergent. There is another well where you add the rinse stuff. I'm not sure exactly what it does but your dishes are supposed to be streak and spot free if you keep this stuff in the machine. Maybe once a month I have to fill this well with the rinse stuff and today was the day since the well was empty.

I opened the cabinet under the sink and I saw bottle of yellow liquid detergent and a bottle of orange stuff. Since I knew I didn't want the liquid detergent, I grabbed the orange stuff and started to fill up the well. It was too late when I realized that this stuff was way thicker than it should have been. Yeah, I really goofed up. This was orange liquid dish soap (bought because I didn't like the yellow stuff) and what I should have grabbed was the blue stuff. Yeah, now you tell me.

I did what I do best. I yelled for Ron. He and Phil came running and I told them my story. We couldn't clean out my error without taking the whole door apart, so Ron thought the best course of action was just to turn the machine on and let it run it's course to get the orange stuff out of there. I may end up running the dish washer a few times to make sure all of that extra soap is out of there, but at least the good news is that after one washing I don't have a floor full of soap bubbles.

See, nothing terrible, just a lot of dumb mistakes today. And, the best is here for last!

My sister Cathie lives in California and we've finally got into the 21st century and decided we wanted to try video conferencing. Hey, even my almost seven year old great-nephew can do it, so why can't I? Ron hooked me up with a camera and a microphone and Cathie and I decided that tonight was the night to see if this would really work.

At the appointed time, we met on MSN Messenger. A minute to install the camera into MSN and we were up and running. Well, video anyway. I had no sound. I futzed and futzed, trying to open every menu that I could, trying to find a button that said either "sound" or "volume". Nothing. Dammit, it can't be this hard! Finally, I again yelled for Ron. He gave it a cursory look to see if there was an easy "sound" button but alas there was none. He wanted to sit down and start searching to help me figure out what was wrong and it suddenly hit me! I had the sound shut off on my computer! DUH! The constant sound bothers me on the computer, so I turn the volume off. Yeah, that was my problem.

So, Cathie and I had a great face to face chat, the first time in over a year! I even marked this situation properly. Before the chat, I got out of my jammies, took a shower and got dressed in real clothes! My poor sister had to see me naked before (She helped me out for a week a few years ago when I had surgery. Poor girl had to help me in and out of the shower! I'm still sorry for that, Sissy!) and I didn't think she deserved to have to see me in jammies with my hair in a pony tail. Definitely the down side of the 21st century.

A few brain farts today, but no injuries. All in all, that makes it a damn good day.

Now, if anyone is interested, here is the recipe, in full, from the Betty Crocker web site. It really was pretty good and very easy.

Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie

1 lb lean ground beef
1 large onion, chopped (1 cup)
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup Original Bisquick mix
1 cup milk
2 eggs

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray 9" glass pie plate with cooking spray.
2. In 10-inch skillet, cook beef and onion over medium heat 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until beef is brown; drain. Stir in salt. Spread in pie plate. Sprinkle with cheese.
3. In small bowl, stir remaining ingredients with fork or wire whisk until blended. Pour into pie plate.
4. Bake about 25 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Monday, December 29, 2008

That's Just Wrong, Page 16

Take a good look at this picture. Go ahead; I'll wait.

Tonight, Ron and I went to Sam's Club after dinner. I shop Sam's Club the exact same way each time I'm there. I go up and down all of the aisles on the left, across the back and then up and down all of the aisles on the right. I pretty much stay out of the middle of the store.

The last aisle on the right comes through the candy aisle and then we go over to the cash registers. As I'm walking through, looking if anything catches my eye, here is what I see.

Middle shelf, left to right, is Double Bubble bubble gum and York Peppermint Patties. Top shelf, left to right is Fruity Snacks and on the right is Imodium. Yes, Imodium. You know, the anti-diarrhea medicine?

Now, I understand merchandising to a point. I know that in the grocery stores near the pork roasts I will find sauerkraut. By the cereal will be some bananas. I get it. But for what reason would someone stock the Imodium in the candy aisle? I mean, for real. If you were looking for Imodium at Sam's Club would you think to look in the candy aisle?

I think we can all agree . . . That's Just Wrong!