Category Archives: Just stuff…

Words, Urns and Shotgun Shells

Posted on May 4, 2012 | 10 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Mandy, Our Husky-Basset Hound Mix

I begin this morning with a plea for help – someone (probably from Britain, since they use the word “mum” for “mom”) has been searching my blog the last few days for information on husky-basset hound crosses.  Please, please, please whoever you are, put me out of my misery and tell me why you want to know!  I’ve already been fortunate enough to “talk” to another dog owner who has a husky-basset hound cross, Neda, who owns Sawyer and would love to add to that number!

Frosted Flakes

Frosted Flakes Box

I went grocery shopping Sunday night, and had only two things on my list – napkins and Frosted Flakes.  True to character, i.e., The Perils of Absent-Mindedness, I came out of Winn-Dixie with two different types of roast, four instant packages of rice, a large number of apples, three types of ice cream, Italian bread, spaghetti, Ragu sauce, apple sauce and canned green beans along with various other items – but had bought neither napkins nor Frosted Flakes.  I didn’t have the heart to go back for them either, so I guess we will live without napkins or Frosted Flakes this week.

Flip Flops

The results of Monday’s poll are in, and by a score of 3 to 1, you have declared that it is, in fact, evil to put peanut butter on your daughter’s flip-flops if they are left out under the sofa to encourage the dogs to destroy them.  There were also two “other” votes, but unfortunately the poll did not save the word with “other.”  If those of you who voted “other” have time, please leave a comment letting me know what your “other” word was.  However, alas, based on the vote, Kayla’s flip-flops are safe.  And it was such a fun idea to fantasize about!

Dictionary

Words

Yesterday, I learned that it is not only my daughter that can make funny mistakes when it comes to words.  My art teacher is going to have her gallbladder out, and while I was at my lesson, she and I were joking about what she would do while she was “incapacitated.”  A high school age student, also in the room, looked up in horror and asked, “Isn’t that when they sever your head?”  I swallowed a laugh (I’m getting very good at it), and said, straight-faced, “No, that’s decapitated.”

Grecian Urn

In the “that can’t be true but unfortunately it is” range of stories, I came across the oddest advertisement on the internet yesterday.  A company called lifegems.com advertised that it would create a “certified diamond” in the lab from the “ashes/carbon” of “your loved one.”  Cremation is, in fact, used more and more often, but really, folks, somehow the idea of wearing Aunt Bessie’s remains in a diamond eternity ring is NOT appealing to me.

Of course, this company is not the only free enterprise seeking to find a good use for cremated remains.  I heard on the radio a couple of months ago about a little company here in Alabama that two men have started where they will, if you so desire, take cremated remains and use them in shotgun shells.   This being the South, the radio news team found Billy Bob from Nowhere, Alabama to interview about the idea, and Billy Bob proclaimed that he could rest easier knowing that he would be used after death to bring down a five point buck!  Only in Alabama.

And on that macabre note, I wish each of you a good weekend!

Nancy

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Catching Up

Posted on April 18, 2012 | 18 comments

Hi Everyone!

I thought I’d use today’s post to catch you up on various happenings.  

First, many, many thanks to Bassa at Bassa’s Blog, who has awarded me the Just Kidding award.  Here is the link to the award post:  http://bassasblog.wordpress.com/2012/04/17/35-today/

Per Bassa, the award is given to “those who bring a smile and chuckle in our lives; or appreciate our humor and brighten our day with their posts.  They [Author’s note:  I assume “they” refers to the inventors of the award] said that to receive this award you need to have a good sense of humor, and appreciate others who like to have a chuckle or laugh with you.” There are no rules attached, either.  Simply receive it, and enjoy!  Still, since I can, I am going to award it to a couple of the blogs I read.

Bassa, the Caucasian Shepherd, when she was a puppy.

If they hadn’t already received it, I definitely would give the award to Bassa and her tall person for Bassa’s Blog.  Bassa is an 18 month old Caucasian Shepherd dog who lives in the city of Tbilisi in Georgia.  Bassa  and her tall person write about their adventures and share pictures from their walks in and around Tbilisi on the blog.  De and the little person round out their family, along with a new addition – Barnaby, a kitten they rescued and whom Bassa is training. 

A picture of the new-born lambs up at thekitchensgarden; they were born in the last day or so.

I also would check out Cecilia’s blog, TheKitchensGarden, where she shares her adventures on her and her husband John’s self-sustaining farm, recipes and stories from her past in New Zealand. 

Another fun blog is Kana’s Chronicles; Kana looks at the funny side of life, but spares no punches either.  It is a difficult line to walk to remain funny while staying unabashedly honest, but she walks it well. 

Sadie Lou, the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, at Just Ramblin'

Just Ramblin’  is another dog blog, replete with pictures of Miss Stella, a young Newfoundland, and Sadie Lou, a Chesapeake Bay Retriever.  It also is a blog replete with amazing photography; Just Ramblin’s author is quite a photographer! 

Miss Stella, the Newfoundland "pup" at Just Ramblin'

Oh, and you shouldn’t miss Lisa’s blog, The Big Sheep Blog, where she looks at the funny vignettes that arise in daily life from a sarcastic …  smart aleck unique point of view.

 I am sure there are many more of you that deserve this award, so please forgive me if I have left you off the list.

The Sooty Tern Pastel

To turn to another topic, congratulations to Mark K. and  Lisa F. who won the drawing for my sooty tern notecards.  They will be mailed to you soon.  (My family will tell you that my normal definition of “mailing soon” ranges anywhere from three months to the current record of three years.  Actually, the three-year item never did get mailed; the relative it belonged to just came back to visit after three years and remembered to take the item home with her.  However, I will try to make it sooner than that for the winners.) 

Finally, our move is proceeding fairly well.  We have gotten the essential furniture and other items to our rental house, and are settling in.  I have taken Kayla back to her old school and picked her up two days so far, and have managed to survive getting up at 5 a.m. without too much trouble.  

Our New House

I have some pictures of our rental house before we moved into it I will share with you soon; anyone wanting pictures of the house once we are completely settled and set up the way we want will have to wait a while; there is quite a bit of arranging still to do. 

Tyra

Those of you interested in the dogs will be happy to know that Tyra has adjusted to the house in a way that is quite amazing.  It helps that the house is smaller than our old house, and that it is all one story with only two small steps that she needs to navigate. 

Darwin

This is Darwin’s first move with us as a family, and it has caused him a little anxiety.  Sunday, Darwin dived into the back of the Escape when we opened it to get something out, thinking we were going back to the old house.  Not wanting to be left behind, he refused to come out of the car.  I couldn’t coax him out, but Mark finally convinced him that it was okay to come out, since we were staying put.

Mandy, Our Husky-Basset Hound Mix

Mandy –  well, Mandy is happy about anywhere with only one small problem, which any dog owner will recognize.  Mandy requires specifically placed geographical locations to complete certain necessary biological functions.  Those spots, unfortunately, could not move with us to the new yard, although the grass in the new yard looks even better to me than the grass in the old yard did.  However, Mandy has not yet found anything in the new yard she is very comfortable with.  That problem should solve itself naturally quite soon. 

Bassa now, along with her kitten, Barnaby

And on that last indelicate note, I will say thanks again to Bassa and the tall person.  Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Coal Tar and Cordless Phones

Posted on March 29, 2012 | 10 comments

Good morning Everyone!

One of the joys (at least for a woman) of shampooing your hair is the way your hair smells once you finish.  The shampoo manufacturers, well aware of this, deliberately design their shampoos to have all kinds of interesting scents for their users.  Whether you like lavender mixed with freesia, or strawberry/passionfruit/banana or kiwi lime, there is a scent for you.  Unless….

I have a scalp condition (oh, heck, we’ll call a spade a spade or a rose a rose or however the saying goes and say dandruff) that recently has flared up and it was necessary last week for me to try something that corrects the condition more aggressively.  I decided to try a Neutrogena product, T/Gel.  While no scent was listed on the bottle, I didn’t really worry about it, although I did notice that the active ingredient was coal tar.  Knowing shampoo manufacturers, I was sure that there was enough other stuff in there to make it smell good anyhow.  Boy, was I wrong!  Let’s just say that without copious amounts of conditioner, people think an airplane tarmac is approaching before I round the corner.  Even with copious amounts of conditioner, the faint scent of Eau de Asphalt lingers around my hair for a day or so.  The only things I can say for it is 1) it does work very well and 2) you only have to use it twice a week.

Now on to cordless phones….

We have a phone system that provides us with three cordless phones.  The master unit is in the kitchen, and handset 1 sits on it.  Handset 2 sits on a charger in the den.  The third charger unit is in our bedroom on one of the bedside tables and Handset 3 is supposed to reside there.  The reasoning behind getting a system with three cordless phones was partly to make it  impossible to completely lose all three phones at any one time.

I am quite sure that reasoning works well for normal people, but for the talented disorganizer such as myself, it is a complete fallacy.  In just one or two phone calls, I can lose all three hand sets.  One day, as I searched in frustration for a phone to answer, the phones rang long enough for the answering machine to come on.  This was a plus, since at least I knew who to call back.  Then I went on a phone search odyssey, to finally discover Handset 1, which should stay in the kitchen, in our bathroom, Handset 2 buried under three pillows on the couch in the den (at least it was somewhere in the right room) and Handset 3 comfortably resting on top of the washer in the laundry room.  Even I had to stop for a second and marvel at the combination of absent-mindedness and disorganization that created that particular arrangement.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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Science, Gone to the Birds

Posted on March 15, 2012 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

While I was out walking Tyra today at 6:30 a.m., which due to the time change my body still unhappily believes to be 5:30 a.m., the entire area was covered in fog.  Not the thick, can’t see in front of your face fog, but the kind of fog that softens the lines of the trees and the road and the lake around you.  If you don’t have to drive in it, it is beautiful.  But, strangely, the new moon, which was still out, was sharp and clear in the sky above – yet surrounded, from my earthly perspective, by fog.  I wonder how it did that?

The birds were wide awake already also, singing their hearts out.  I didn’t hear the woodpecker (the only sound I would have recognized besides a crow’s caw), but there were multiple songs in the woods around me, which made me wonder why birds sing in the morning.  I looked it up, and alas, because there is no definitive answer and none of the existing theories are particular attractive to me, I don’t have a good answer for you.  I am choosing to believe that the birds sing in order to greet the day, until the scientists make a final decision otherwise (and I’m sure they will).

It is fascinating to me, though, the mysteries that still exist for us in nature.  Just using the bird song example, mankind has known for centuries, if not millenia, that birds sing in the morning.  Even so, in the year 2012, we don’t have a definitive answer as to why.

One of us could try just asking the nearest bird that would stand still long enough to hear us, but I can just imagine that conversation:

Person:  Hello Bird.  Can you tell me why you are singing this morning? 

Bird, named George (all in bird language):  Hey, Fred, get a load of this dude!  It almost looks like he’s trying to talk to us. 

Fred flits over for a minute:  That’s silly.  Everyone knows humans can’t talk.

Person:  Are you trying to tell me something? 

Betty Jean, from the nest:  I think he is trying to talk.

George:  He may be, but it’s not coming through.

Fred:  Hey, you want to have a little fun? 

George:  What do you mean?

Fred:  I could start to dive bomb him like I thought he was threatening Betty’s nest.  I bet I could have him running in six seconds!

George starts laughing:  That’s a good one.

Betty Jean:  Fred, don’t you dare!  He isn’t bothering us.

Person pulls out notebook and writes.

Fred:  What’s that he’s doing?

Betty Jean:  I think its called writing.  I nested in a bush near a window one year, and they … um… write… in two ways – the way this guy is doing it and somehow by hitting small black rectangles and watching a white big rectangle while they do so.  I’m not sure why, though. 

George:  Oh, that part’s easy.  Humans have the worst memory in the universe, so they have tried to cope by …. I think the word is “record” things.  

Person turns to leave.

Fred:  Hey, guys, watch this! I can make this human freeze in one move.

Betty:  Fred, you better behave.

Fred: No worries, Betty.  In fact, I’ll probably make his day by doing this.  

Fred flies down to five feet in front of Person, who immediately stands still, watching. Fred hops around, doing bird things at random, like singing, cocking his head and watching Person, poking his beak in the ground, and making Person turn in a circle slowly by hopping around him in stages.

Betty and George smother giggles.

Fred calls up from the ground:  I can do this for hours, and the Person will stay right there and watch.  Silly, isn’t it?

Betty:  Oh, that’s funny, Fred, but George, dear, I’m hungry.

George:  Okay, Betty, I’m on my way.  Hey, Fred, enough play for now; we’ve got work to do.

Fred, reluctantly flies back into the woods.

Person recedes in the distance, scribbling notes the whole way.

Another victory for science!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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The Robocalls have stopped!

Posted on March 14, 2012 | 4 comments

Good morning Everyone!

For those of you who are not from the United States, or who do not follow political news, there was a primary held in Alabama yesterday.  FN.    When the polls closed at 7:00 p.m., every person in the state of Alabama heaved a deep sigh.  No, it wasn’t with satisfaction because we completed our civic duty by voting (I don’t know the percentage of voter turnout in the state for the primary, but I am sure we weren’t anywhere close to 100%).

It was a sigh of relief at the fact that the robocalls will finally stop.  After Super Tuesday, which was March 6, every household in Alabama with a landline was inundated with calls from recorded spokesmen delivering messages from, or about, the various presidential candidates.

(To the candidate who called in the middle of the one network television program my family makes time to watch every week, Alcatraz, we weren’t going to vote for you anyhow, but the call during our favorite TV show clinched it.)

There were some families, my sister included, who the day before election night, gave in and unplugged their phone for the evening.  (We had done so Sunday during our afternoon nap after it was interrupted with calls.)

We should feel honored, I guess; at our house we got at least five calls directly from at least two separate  presidential candidate (‘s voices), one from a candidate’s wife (‘s voice) and one or two from various groups telling us why not to vote for a particular presidential candidate.

I think the entire state was a little bemused by the onslaught of phone calls;  this year is the first year in a long time that the Alabama primary had any relevance in the presidential election process (we used to have our primary in June, and by that time the nominees for both parties had been selected) and the first year ever since someone (and whoever they are, I hope they are inundated continually with all kinds of robocalls themselves) invented the robocall for political purposes.

So last night at 7, the people in the great state of Alabama snuggled down into their couches, content to watch the election results, or some other television show of their choice, or read, or play games or whatever, free in the knowledge that the dratted phone was not going to ring with a call from anyone besides someone  we knew, or that at least had some direct connection with us.

It was bliss!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

FN.  For those of you not familiar with the election process in the United States, here is my best thumbnail sketch.

There are three levels of elections:  federal, state and local.   Federal elections are those elections that involve the positions that will be in charge of the federal government, that is, the government that rules the country.  However, our constitution says that the federal government can only control certain things, and leaves many powers to each individual states, which the states control with their own state governments.  (We had state governments long before we had a federal government).  So state elections involve important positions in the state governments.  Local elections deal with local areas, such as counties and towns.  State and federal elections are held every two years.  The President of the United States is a federal position, and elections for president occur every four years.  This is one of those four-year presidential election years.

We have two main political parties, although there are other groups out there, the Republicans and the Democrats.  A primary is where the individual parties choose who their candidate for president will be.  This year, there is no contest on the Democratic side because President Barack Obama is a Democratic and no one is running against him in the primary.  There is a contest on the Republican side, since there are several people who would like to run for President as a Republican.  The primary election, which is what we had here in Alabama yesterday, is the time when the Republicans in Alabama (and probably some Democrats, but I’ll explain about cross-over voting another time) chose who they wanted to be the presidential nominee, as well as selecting other Republican candidates for other state and federal offices.

The final election is in November.

Clear as mud, isn’t it?

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Pants

Posted on March 2, 2012 | 4 comments

Good morning everyone!

Quill Pen

Between my job as a lawyer, my writing here, e-mails, that wonderful, terrible, addictive game, Words With Friends, and some other writing that I do, I usually write a great many words in one day.  In the course of doing so, every once in a while a word will strike me as strange, and yesterday, it was the word “pants” which started me wondering – why is the word “pants” plural?  For that matter, why are most words involving things we wear on our legs (with the exception of variations of “panty hose”)  plural?

We wear, on other parts of our anatomy, a shirt, a blouse, a T-shirt, a hat, a dress (well at least some of us wear a dress occasionally), a skirt, a suit.  We wear a belt to keep our pants up.  We wear a scarf, either for warmth or decoration.

Givenchy Scarves; Photograph from Wikimedia Commons by Themepark Mom

We do wear shoes and socks, but that makes sense, because there are two of them, one for each foot.  The same is true for gloves and mittens – they are not connected, and we wear one on each hand.  If I am going to wear one, I say I am going to wear a mitten on one hand, and a glove on the other, making the singular/plural use logically consistent.

Motorcycle Riding Gloves

But when it comes to our legs, we wear pants, trousers, slacks, shorts, tights, leggings and jeans. Even things that hold our pants up in the years before elastic or belts (apparently) were plural – suspenders.   In years of yore, little girls wore pantaloons.

Pantaloons peek out underneath this little girl's dress from 1838.

The only other things that we wear that are treated the same way are eyeglasses – there is really only one unit. but glasses and spectacles always are plural, also.  (Notice I have to say “are glasses” not “is glasses” even though technically  if I am wearing glasses, I am wearing one item.  Of course, the store that makes glasses charges me as much for them as if I really were getting two units of something and not one, but that involves the science/art of economics, which makes my head hurt.)

We even went out and made another word, monocle, for glasses with one lens, rather than just calling it  a “glass” because it only involves one eye.

Actress and Screenwriter Ruth Gordon wearing a monocle in November 1919

I have read through a couple of on-line etymologies for the word “pants” and while interesting – through a long chain of events, the origin for the word “pants” comes from a Christian martyr, Saint Pantaleone, who was beheaded six times, and each time his head reattached and he continued to live  (Pantaleone basically means “all compassionate” and I guess being beheaded six times and having your head reattach would certainly help you in being compassionate)  – eventually they all can be boiled down to “see trousers.”  When you look at “trousers,” the etymology explains that the root of the word “trousers” is the Scottish “trews.”  No one explains why “trews” is plural.

A painting of Sir John Sinclair wearing trews - they look like pants to me!

That just struck me as odd.

Trousers - they still look like pants to me!

If anyone has an idea about why pants are plural, I’d love to hear about it!  Otherwise, I am afraid it will be time soon to go back to research the Ugg Clan’s family history one more time….

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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A Touch of Spring

Posted on February 20, 2012 | 5 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Today we are going to switch gears just a little bit, and take a moment to share some of the early signs of a Southern spring.

A patch of daffodils, also called jonquils, in full bloom

These pictures are extraordinary, not just because of the beauty of the flowering plants involved, but also because I took them the first week in February!

Tulip Tree in full bloom in central Alabama the first week of February - extraordinary!

Normally, the yellow bells and daffodils start their show towards the end of February in the third or fourth week, and the tulip trees in late February/early March, but not this year!

Yellow Bell (aka fuchsia) Bush

It is easy to miss the beauty of the yellow bells, and very hard to capture it on camera, but this close-up may help:

Camellias are a bit different; each bush seems to bloom on its own schedule.  The small camellia bush by our front door likes to bloom in December, but these pictures are from a bush in our town square that has decided to put on a bit of a show this year.

Camellia bush in full bloom

The camellia is the state flower of Alabama, and here you might be able to see why.

Camellia in full bloom

I think it would be fun to sketch that bloom in watercolor pencil, one medium I haven’t tried yet.

Here are some buds in various stages of bloom.

Camellia buds

The problem, of course, with blooming this early is that a frost is almost certain to occur sometime in February and early March, if not later, and this year was no exception – a week after I took these pictures, we had a night where the temperatures got down into the 20’s.

One last look at the tulip tree before the frost took care of the flowers

That finished off every tulip tree that was blooming, but the daffodils/jonquils survived, as did the yellow bells (also called fuchsia.)  Yellow bells are amazingly cold-resistant; I have seen the blossoms survive and flourish after experiencing temperatures down into the low 20’s.

A branch from the amazingly cold-hardy yellow bell bush

I heard another sign of spring this weekend – somewhere in the woods, one of the woodpeckers was back and active.  The “tat-tat-tat-tat-tat” sound of a woodpecker pecking is pretty unmistakable, even with the other birds’ songs thrown in.  I learned the rhythm involved last year, when we had a pretty, but very confused, woodpecker who sat on top of the street-light across from our house and kept trying to peck into its top.  It was a persistent bird; he or she kept at it for about three days before going to search for more malleable wood.  I like to think that it was that same bird, older and wiser now, that I heard Saturday.

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Modern Inconveniences: Electronics Cords

Posted on February 17, 2012 | 13 comments

Good morning everyone!

I intended to upload some pictures today and discuss the unusually early harbingers of spring that appeared the last week in January, but in the wild scramble to find the camera, along with the correct cord for downloading pictures to the computer, I got sidetracked.

Standard Electrical Outlet

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…..  Sorry – wrong story.  Still, a long time ago, we had both electrical appliances/machines, and enough electrical outlets to match them.  Things that you plugged into the electrical outlets were fairly simple – in the bedroom, you plugged in the television, if you had one for it, and lights; in the den, you plugged in the television , possibly the radio/stereo and lights, and in the kitchen, without counting the major electrical appliances such as the refrigerator and the stove, you would plug in a toaster or a toaster oven.   Throughout the house, you needed enough strategically placed outlets in order to be able to run the vacuum cleaner.

And that was about it.  It was fairly simple to match the outlets to the required gizmos.

There are seven things in this picture that must be plugged in to an electrical outlet - Can you find them all?

But then, electrical equipment began to multiply.  Looking back, I think it was the television equipment that started everything.  Someone invented cable, and the cable box and about the same time, someone else invented the VCR.  Ergo, instantly, two more cords were needed.  One of the very earliest home computers was a Commodore 64.  The Commodore 64 worked by using the television as your monitor, so if you had a Commodore, you needed another plug for the Commodore unit.  Video games were born, such as Pong – a green screen, two white lines for paddles and a white dot that you and the other player (or you and the computer if you didn’t have anyone to play it with) hit back and forth across the screen – and another plug was required.  At first, most of us just plugged various articles in and out as needed – after all, there was no reason to leave the Commodore or the video game plugged in all of the time – but a few brave souls ventured out and discovered the power strip.

By the time the electrical equipment revolving around the television had a good running start, the electronics revolution had also started, and home computers and car phones arrived on the scene.  Home computers required at least three separate outlets – one for the monitor, one for the processing unit and one for the printer.  Because the computer industry did a good job of warning us about what would happen to the (then very expensive) computer equipment with one good lightning stroke in the area of your house, we all felt the need to buy surge protectors, which were conveniently designed with many additional plugs so that you could plug in as many as 16 separate items through one plug on a two plug wall outlet.

All of this was still manageable, however, because once things were set up, they rarely needed to be unplugged and moved around, unless you were rearranging furniture.  Some creative use of power strips and surge protectors might be required, but once you got everything plugged in, the power cord stayed right where you left.  Until…..

The Cell Phone

The mobile electronics revolution began.  Car phones started this round.  When Mark and I were first married, car phones were basically unheard of.  You called from a land line when you could, and otherwise you had to wait until you and whomever you wanted to speak to were in the same place.  The first car phone I can remember having was known as a “bag phone,” which was a handset about the same size as a regular phone contained in a bag about the size of a lunchbox.  It could be charged by plugging it into the wall, or, if you had the adapter, by plugging it into the cigarette lighter in your car.  It still wasn’t too hard to lose this cord, since everything coiled into the bag.

But with the advent of the car phone, the mobile electronics revolution accelerated, and now my life is saturated with electrical cords – cords for the laptop, cords for the digital cameras, cords for each cell phone, mine and Mark’s, cords for various PDA’s that we have used and discarded over time, cords for my Kindle (Mark had once of the first hand-held Hewlett-Packard computers back in the early 90’s, and I can remember using something called a Sony Clie once upon a time), cords for the laptop(s) and probably some I have forgotten somewhere.

Our Graveyard for Obsolete Electronics Cords

For the disorganized individual who loves electronics (and I just can’t be the only one out there) it is a disaster waiting to happen.  To go back to the search that started this post, I spent five minutes going through 10 different cords before I found the one that I needed.

A few things have helped.  I have discovered that the Amazon Kindle cord works well for recharging the cell phones Mark and I have, and one or two of our cameras, so when we’re traveling, as long as I remember to pack the Kindle cord (and since it involves reading, I probably will remember to pack the Kindle cord) we are covered for most of the electronic gizmos and gadgets we will have with us, except for the laptop cords.  Mark found  a charging station for the cell phones, also, that sits on the kitchen counter, so the cell phones recharge in a predictable place.  (Don’t, however, ask me to find the cord that is supposed to sync my phone to my computer; once I started getting error messages every time I tried, that cord faded into oblivion.  Some archeologist is going to find it two thousand years from now and conclude that our civilization practiced ritual strangulation with strong black cords with funny ends.)  Camera cords are a bit dicey, though, because cameras are portable and need to be recharged as well as access a computer for downloading photos, which gives me three different points at which I can lose the cords.  That’s too many for the organizationally challenged like me.

The power strip by my bedside table - the one empty slot is reserved for my laptop.

There really is no point to this lament – I’m going to continue to use, and lose, and find these cords no matter what difficulties are involved, because I am hopelessly addicted to anything that makes beeping sounds, gives me messages and has flashing blue lights anywhere on it as long as I don’t reach the blue or black screen of death – unless someone out there gets the bright idea from this post to design the universal cord – one cord that meets all your needs for any electronic gizmo no matter what it is or when it was made.  I’d have to have about fifty of them to be sure I had one available when I needed it, but I think it would be an improvement.  I think.

Have a great day and weekend!

Nancy

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The Perils of Absent-Mindedness

Posted on February 8, 2012 | 6 comments

Good morning!

After I sat in the drive-through lane at Wendy’s for five minutes only to discover that I was sitting behind a parked car, which explained why the line wasn’t moving, I decided to reflect upon the perils of absent-mindedness.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

1) Traffic stoppage.  I have sat at a four-way stop sign waiting for the light to change, wondering why the people behind me were so impatient.  (Note to self:  Stop signs won’t change to green.)

2) Unnecessary car repairs.  Mark and I had to swap cars one day.  I was in the Ford Escape, and became quite annoyed when it wouldn’t start – only to realize that I had been pressing the air conditioning on/off button in a vain attempt to get the car to start, rather than putting the key in the ignition.  (My Hyundai has a push button start.)  I was grateful to have discovered this before I called for a wrecker.

3)  Retracing steps.  I work in an office building with three flights of stairs, and I am on the top floor.  It can be quite inconvenient to leave my office, travel down to the basement, forget what I came for, and have to travel back up again three flights to the point of beginning to remember what I needed.  Good exercise though!

4) Retracing steps, part deux.  I have been known to walk through the house repeating over and over again the item that I need to carry back to a particular room just to be sure I don’t forget.

5) Retracing steps, part trois.  (Ha!  And you thought I didn’t know French.  Actually, I don’t; I’m just guessing that “trois” means “three” in French – it could be the French version of Troy for all I know.)  I also have had to turn the car around at various points along various routes because I forgot to stop at the one place that I had intended to travel to when I left my point of origin.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

6) Taking extra trips to the store.  I have been known to leave the house for one specific item from the grocery store, return back 30 minutes later with $100 worth of groceries, and realize that I never did get the one thing that I really needed.

7) Finding food in odd places.  I have found the peanut butter, and various non-refrigerated items in the refrigerator; I have found the ice cream in the refrigerator and not the freezer; I have found the milk in the cupboard once or twice.

8) Voice overuse.  My family has become very patient about repeating their menu choices – I ask in the den, take the ten steps to the kitchen, and realize that I have forgotten what they said, and have to call out the question again from the kitchen.

From Print Shop 2.0 Professional

9) Poor wardrobe choices.  Wearing your night-clothes to work is normally not recommended.  Wait – that’s just a dream I had!  I have, however, discovered that I was wearing mis-matched shoes.

10) Giving adult responsibility to a 10-year-old.  My daughter has learned quickly to remind me to stop somewhere when she sees that I am about to miss a turn.  I am very grateful that she has not learned to comment upon the phenomenon.

11)  Having something to laugh about – Priceless!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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Cars I Have Known – George I and George II

Posted on January 31, 2012 | 3 comments

Good morning Everyone!

Most Americans spend a lot of time in their cars.  At least, most Americans in the mid- to small size cities without subways and good bus systems do, as do most of us in the rural areas.  In the rural/small town areas of this country, in fact, cars are essential to reach the bigger cities when we need doctors whose specialities aren’t present in our community, more advanced hospital treatment than our solid, dependable and beloved local hospitals can provide or we need to buy various items that we can’t find in our towns.  In small towns and rural areas, our cars are also essential just so we can get to our jobs, which often are located somewhere other than our town or community (trust me, there isn’t bus service between two small towns such as, for example, Rockford, Alabama and Goodwater, Alabama).   My commute is about a 45 minute commute (35 miles) and I am lucky to have such a short one. 

For whatever reason, some cars stay just cars the entire time they are with us, while we each have other cars that rank as “special” cars – cars that somehow were not “things” but personalities and that, beyond all reason or explanation, we learned to love.  My first car and its later successor were such cars. 

George I was “my” car until I graduated from high school and went to college, leaving him in the worthy hands of my sister.  He was a 1960’s something light blue Volkswagen Bug.  (The official name of the Bug was the Beetle, but somehow Bug stuck in the imagination of the American populace.)  George II was a gift from Mark for our anniversary years ago.  Mark found an old Volkswagen Bug for sale, and in secret renovated the car to look exactly like George I.  It was a wonderful gift!   (Both cars were in our possession before the age of the digital camera and so unfortunately I don’t have pictures of them to share with you, but combing the internet I have been able to find pictures that come very close to what George I and II were like). 

The Back Seat - Note how the driver's side front seat is folded back to give you access to it.

George I stayed in my family from the time I was in about 2nd grade until after I was married, a span of almost 20 years.  For those of you who never got the chance to meet a Volkswagen Bug, it was a very basic vehicle.  It only had two doors, and to reach the back seat you had to pull a lever that would allow the front seat to pull forward.  George I and II’s interiors were black.

A Bug Engine in the back of the car

The engine of the Bug was essentially air-cooled, although there is some sort of a thing-a-ma-bob-er in the engine that was normally packed with oil – maybe the air filter???  (Mark, help me here if you read this!)  The most unique characteristic about the engine of the Bug was that it was in the back of the car, while the trunk was in the front.

Bug Trunk in Front

When I was about Kayla’s age, our family was stationed in Taiwan as part of Dad’s job in the Navy, and during that time period George was the family car.   George’s back seat could comfortably fit three small girls, and if you threw in the boot, we could squeeze in a few more children at least.  One time, George managed to transport four adults and five children on a trip outside of the capital city, Taipei.

The space between the back blue seat and the grey fabric on the wall that you can see if you look closely was the boot.

What was the boot?  I haven’t been able to find a good picture of it yet, but the boot was basically a space in the back of the Bug between the back seat and the back metal part of the car about 12 – 18 inches wide and four feet deep and as long as the body of the car, which wasn’t nearly as expansive as it sounds.  Still, it was big enough to fit small children (hush – this was before mandatory seat belt laws and air bags) and a bag or two of luggage. 

Sample front interior of the original Bug. Ours didn't have a basket.

The interior of the Bug was unique also.  The steering wheel was narrow, and had the then Volkswagen symbol, an outline of a castle, in its center where the horn was.  The Bug was solely a manual transmission car, so the gear shift was the lever in the center hump of the floor board.  The Bug had no air conditioning, beyond what I called 4 – 55 air conditioning (4 windows open at 55 miles an hour), which made driving in Alabama in the summertime once the Bug became my chariot in high school interesting, to saw the least.  The Bug had a heater though.  The heater was in the floor board and powerful enough that you would have to move your ankles out of the air flow every so often if you didn’t wish them to be burned.  (Why didn’t I just turn the heater off?  Because the heat, as plentiful as it was on the floorboard, hadn’t quite risen to the top of the car yet.) 

Note the Castle symbol on the steering wheel - and no, we never had fuzzy dice on our rearview mirror.

Both George I and George II were faithful, uncomplaining, dependable and in spite of their idiosyncracies incredibly fun to drive, and I miss them even while I am grateful for my current vehicles and the modern comforts they provide. 

Oh – and the battery was under the back seat, and you had to remember to add water to it periodically. 

What about you?  Do you have a car in your past or present that has been more than just a mode of transportation for you?  I’d love to hear about it if you do!

Have a great day!

Nancy

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