I Was WAAAY Too Cute!

C'mon now, was I a cutie patootie, or what??

This is me (on the RIGHT) and one of the two dogs we had briefly while I was growing up. This one is Rags. Rags was half sheep dog and half poodle. Hey, somehow it worked. What I remember most about Rags is that when it was time to walk him, he took the rest of the kids for a walk! Seriously, he would drag them from here to there and back again. It was not easy to walk this dog. Well, for me it was! For some reason, he knew there was no way I could keep up with him, so he'd walk like a little old man with me. I could hold the leash with one finger and he'd never get away from me. Dang. How could I go from dog tamer to being so terrified of them now? Go figure!

Anyway, I was going through some old junk the other night and I came across this picture. I remember my t-shirt! This was a hand me down from my sister, Cathie. The front said over and over "sock it to me" from the old Laugh In show. I loved that shirt!

Now here's a segue from this picture to what happened to me today!

I'm not a big breakfast eater, but I do enjoy an Eat 'n Park breakfast buffet now and again. I've been having a hankering for their buffet. I don't know if it's at all Eat 'n Parks, but the one by us only has the buffet on Tuesday and Saturday and then a brunch on Sunday.

So I talked to Ron and Phil and even got them to agree to go to Eat 'n Park for the breakfast buffet this morning. Not much, other than food, would get the three of us out of the house at 7:30 in the morning!

So far, so good. We were all up, dressed and out the door. We even had a great breakfast. And then, the horrible event occurred. The server brought us the bill. She charged us for THREE senior breakfasts! HELLO????

Ok, Phil I can see. (Sorry, brother.) But Ron doesn't exactly look like he's a senior citizen and I sure as heck don't!! In spite of the picture above being taken in 1968 when I was five years old!

Looking back, I guess I wasn't too offended. I did take the discount!

Neighborhood Watch

One thing about not working, you need to find other things to do to occupy your day.

My crocheting is coming along nicely, thank you very much! I'm over half way done with the whole thing and I'm impressed with myself.

So now I've also taken on the job of watching the neighbors. Hey, I can't help it. My crocheting chair looks out of the window so it's not my fault that I happen to take notice of the goings on.

Like the other day for instance. I was sitting in my chair, and what do I see? Across the street, a man is sort of walking down the road. When I say sort of, it was more like stumbling rather than actual walking.

This is an old neighborhood. There are alleyways through almost all of these blocks. The alleyway that goes across the block across the street is used a lot. I see cars coming and going through there all the time. This poor guy fell right at the end of the alleyway.

At first I almost thought he tripped. I waited for him to get himself up, but no, he seemed to be down there for the count. By the time I rallied the guys to go and check on him, he was working himself to a sitting position. Finally he did get himself up and continued stumbling his way back down the street. Yeah, you could miss good fun like that if you weren't watching!

The next bit of fun happened to be caught by Phil. It was after dark, and he went downstairs for something. Once downstairs, he saw the police activity right on our corner. Of course, we all went running!

On the ground on the corner was a guy and a bicycle. In the street were two police cars and one ambulance. Our first thought was that he was hit by a car. But, there were no other vehicles in the immediate vicinity. For all I could tell, it was the same drunk I saw earlier laid across the alleyway. It was dark, so it was hard to tell. The end of that story was the ambulance left without him and the two police cars also pulled away without him. I know, I know. If I'm telling a story, I should have more details than this.

Lastly, we have one of the trouble houses in the neighborhood. This house was filled with teenagers who did love to point their stereo speakers outside and dance on the porch to the volume at full blast. Yeah, we all love that, don't we? I guess if that was the worst that they ever did, I should consider myself lucky.

Well, last weekend, it seems that they have moved out. On Sunday I believe it was, there was about five or so bags of garbage outside. Then, every day, the pile has gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. Keep in mind, garbage around here doesn't get picked up until early Friday mornings. Well, we've been looking at this all week. And, of course, the never ending line of lookie-loos that come routing through the garbage looking to take away anything they can. Bags are torn, crap is blowing loose all over. What an eyesore.

Now you can see our yard. Crap from across the street has blown all across our yard shown here. This is putting it lightly. I took this picture a few days ago. Today I went out to pick up all of the crap and you'd be surprised at what I found!

Now, we police our yard often. The street we live on is relatively busy, and people seem to love to drive up and down throwing crap out of their windows. Common items in our yard are cigarette packs, beer bottles, liquor bottles, candy wrappers. I've also found condom wrappers, condoms (I don't want to know), homework, utility bills that aren't mine, among other things. Keep in mind, I do put protective gloves on when I clean up the yard. Part of my germ phobia!

Today's bounty had new items. I can't be sure they were all blown over from the garbage heap next door or if they were items thrown from passing cars. Today, I found a dip stick. You know, that thing in your car that you pull out to see how much oil is in your car! I also found two sets of wiper blades, in their package. Too bad they were too small to fit any of our vehicles. I also found a wheel that looks like it came from a coffee table or something of the sort. That I'm guessing was chucked from across the street. All in all, I had one garbage bag full of crap.

Tomorrow morning the garbage men come. It will be interesting to see how much is left on the ground and how much is actually picked up.

Yeah, watching in this neighborhood is definitely an interesting experience!

WTF??

C'mon now, if this had been the rule 20 some odd years ago, none of us would have graduated! This is ridiculous!

Not Fair

Sunday night, I was tired. I was yawning by 7:00 and it didn't get any better as the night wore on.

Finally at about 10:00, I headed to bed. I read for awhile, (Robin Cook's Vector in case you're curious) and was asleep probably between 10:30 and 10:45.

Then came 12:30 am and I was awake. Not just a little awake like I need to pee and then I'm going back to bed. No, the kind of awake that you know it's going to be awhile until your head hits the damn pillow again.

Basically, I had a two hour nap. It's now 2:24 am and I'm bored. There are two other people fast asleep in this house so I'm trying to stay relatively quiet. There is only crap on tv and none of my favorite informercials are playing.

As a side note, c'mon now, there are a couple of informercials that are really good! Not good as in I'd like to buy that, but good as in they are definitely entertaining. One that comes to mind is that Magic Bullet. This informercial takes place in someone's kitchen supposedly, with bunch of their friends sitting around at the counter.

There is a British guy and a blonde girl. This Magic Bullet is supposed to replace your food processor and a bunch of other kitchen appliances. They make an omelette, frozen drinks, grind coffee beans, make pesto sauce among other things. I think the best part of this infomercial is one of the "guests" of this couple demonstrating this appliance. She is just like my Aunt Aggie! Right down to the house dress and cigarette hanging out of her mouth! Yeah, that's why I like that one.

Another goodie that I love to watch but do not want to buy is the GT Express 101. I think what I like about this is the hostess, Cathy Mitchell. I'm not sure what makes her the "kitchen expert" that she is reported to be, but I'm telling you, I could watch her demonstrate this dang contraption until the cows come home. My favorite is the chocolate cake she makes and puts a small candy bar inside for a "surprise". The only thing that's a surprise is that the candy bar somehow doesn't melt and just ends up a lump inside of the cake. Classic!

My last favorite informercial is the spray on make-up. No longer just for Tammy Faye Baker, now we can ALL apply it with a spray hose! I can't find a link to it now, but I'm sure most of you have seen it. Again, I could watch this stupid thing over and over.

So, if I gotta be up all night long, the least they could do is play my favorite informercials. I know, I have digressed off topic. What do you expect from me? It's almost three in the freakin' morning!

Beat That

This is a new record!

With gas prices what they are, I at least stretched my dollar as far as it would go.

I had filled up my gas tank on the morning of my car accident, 9/19/08, at over $4 a gallon I might add. That tank of gas lasted me until 3/10/09! Can you believe it? As an added bonus, I only spent $1.79 a gallon on the fill up!

Now that's making my money last.

Of course, getting lugged around by Ron and Phil has also helped in my cause. I am not going to ask them how much more gas they've used carting me around!

If You Hear Me Scream, Come Running

Yesterday was laundry day.

While Ron was humping the laundry downstairs for me, my job was to open doors and turn the lights on. As soon as we got downstairs, I thought I heard a noise. I am especially attuned to strange noises in and around this house. As you know, it's not unusual for a noise to be "strange" around here!

But I heard a noise, something like a scratching. Since it is my belief that unless it's paying rent, it doesn't live here, whatever was scratching I knew didn't belong. I put a death grip on Ron's arm and said "listen!" Sure enough, a scratching was coming from somewhere.

Ron hunted down the noise while I got in my ready-to-make-a-run-for-it stance. He finally followed the sound to the source. As best as he could figure, a bird was caught in vent from the hot water tank! Geez, that ain't good.

My first question of course was "could it get into the basement?" Ron thought the opening on our side was too small for a bird to get in. I remember when we had the bat in the basement. Reading up on bats I remembered that a bat needed a hole smaller than a dime to wiggle into. I was kinda worried this might be a bat!

Ron assured me that it was probably a bird and he was just trying to find his way back out, not into the basement. Sometimes, Ron can be very convincing. He offered to take the whole thing apart and get the bird out, but then I feared that it might not be a bird and whatever it was, could end up in the basement. What a dilemma!

So, Ron stayed with me in the basement while I sorted clothes and got the first load going. Shortly after that, he headed out for awhile. Holy crap, I was on my own to deal with the noises in the basement!

When it was time to go back downstairs, I told Phil the onus was on him to keep me safe. I told him, "If you hear me scream, you better get your butt down to the basement!" He did come and check on me during my first trip downstairs, but I'm happy to report that I hear no noises. After doing six loads of laundry, there were no scratching or banging noises in the basement. I am hoping that the bird or whatever did find its way out and it's not stuck in the vent. Yeah, that's it. It found its way outside again.

Just in case; if anyone hears me screaming down there, please come running!

Itches And Stitches

You know, getting fired from your job, really plays havoc with a blog. Being cooped up all the time, it's hard to come up with a blog story!

Here's what I do have. A story about itching and a story about stitching. First the itching.

About a month ago, I got a new pair of blue jeans. Way cool, huh? Well, I wore these jeans for two days, before I washed them. I developed a terrible itch that I was blaming on the new jeans. It's right where the waist band hits, about an inch wide strip, but here's where it gets weird. I itch half way around my body along that line. From where my belly button is all the way around my left side back to where my spine is. I itch. I itch bad.

I really did blame it on the unwashed jeans. I thought maybe some fabric dye, or just the roughness of the new jeans was irritating me. Unfortunately, it's now a month later and I still freakin' itch! At times it's almost unbearable.

I've had Ron check me over pretty closely. He can see no rash, no bug bites, no irritation other than my scratch marks. I've work old and worn jeans, but I still itch. I've worn elastic waisted shorts and I still itch. I wear no pants, but where my shirt touches that half band area, causes me to itch. I've tried hand cream, Gold Bond powder and even Benedryl ointment. Nothing is making it better. It's bizarre.

Any itch remedies would be appreciated.

On to the stitches side of this story.

As most of you know by the towels you've received from me recently, I've taken up crocheting again while I've been laid up. The towels just weren't challenging enough any more plus I have more finished towels here than I have people I know. (If anyone needs more, let me know!)

I've eluded to a new project in my previous blog post. Here's the story.

I bought a few books of patterns for afghans. I picked probably the hardest one in there, but it is so the most beautiful of them! Here is a picture of a work in progress, to give you an idea.

Here is my workspace! The afghan is a bunch of squares with raised pansies. Then you sew the squares together and voila, an afghan is made!

I need 54 squares. In the middle I have a bag with all 54 centers. On the right is one completed square! Underneath all of that is my instructions.

Each square is done if four parts, as there are four colors in each square. The center, the pansie petals, the leaves and then the outer square.

This picture was taken a few days ago, so now I'm up to two completed squares, probably 20 or so completed with the pansie petals and a few more with the green leaves. It's like I'm on a mission with this thing.

If you gotta be laid up, it's good to have a hobby. I've read more books than I can count since I've been off, so this is a nice addition to occupy my time.

Anyone need an afghan? This is definitely one I will do again!

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!

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!