Although in fairness, there are things I do even less of than blogging, such as logging, flogging, clogging, bogging, hogging, jogging, slogging, and playing the home version of “Jeopardy” in my birthday suit. Okay, so that last one might be higher on the list, but not by much. Really.
ANYway, I had a few spare moments, so I thought I’d wander in and tell you ALL the interesting stories I’ve gathered up!
Sure wish I could remember some of them.
If only I’d had a way to write them down in an easily accessible manner, possibly using an electronic input/output data storage device. Or even a pencil and paper.
Well, let’s try it anyway.
I have a new clock. The old one—my pushpin clock that I’d made way back while I was in school—had to be stuck into a cork square (because my office walls are plaster over depleted uranium and can’t be pushpinned into) and then the cork in turn had to be stuck to the wall. The adhesive was such in name only, however, causing both clock and cork to come adrift and fall to the floor during the times I was absent of my office. Stupid “adhesive” squares. Anyway, the new one is from one of Martha Stewart’s very own Third World sweatshops, which I’m sure is tastefully decorated with found objects arranged in clever patterns that cause the workers to have calm healing energy and be at one with their simple and obviously superior low-carbon-footprint lifestyle. Or something. Anyway, I guess it’s been discontinued since I can’t find it on the Kmart (pronounced “kmart”) website. It has a satin aluminum frame with a convex lens and a black face with silver numberations, and thankfully it DOES keep time and DOESN’T fall off the wall.
That pushpin clock sure does have some good memories attached to it, though.
Oh well.
Let’s see—well, what about politics? Yet another election cycle seems destined to be frittered away with no one stepping up and challenging his or her competitors to a Texas steel cage death match. Why is this? Back in the olden days, this is what the Constitution called for in determining who’s fit to run the country, and yet here we are, acting like it doesn’t say that at all.
Science? Look, if those clamdigging scientist guys were really all that smart, instead of just killing Old Nasty for sport and telling a bunch of reporters, they would have gotten some hot blonde to crack it open with her high heels and made people pay to see it. As it is, they’ve just got an old dead clam.
Entertainment? Emily Deschanel in a Wonder Woman costume. I have heard that Bones is loosely based upon the life of a real forensic anthropologist, but no matter how loosely, I still find it highly unlikely that said anthropologist ever dressed up in such an outfit whilst simultaneously tracking down some deranged clown guy. And frankly, I do not care.
Local interest? Rush Propst. Of all that I’ve seen and heard the past few months, I can say one of the saddest things in this whole mess is that unlike Bear Bryant’s mother, Rush’s mother never seems to have told her son, “never wear your hat inside the house.” And he calls himself a role model.
Weather? Sure is nice outside. I think I’m going to go for a walk.
See y’all later!
Why, in that bastion of red in one of the reddest states around, the University of Alabama! I had an asbestos inspector/project manager class that lasted all of last week, so I was even LESS in touch than usual. Good class, though. They do a very nice job and it was as enjoyable as anything about fibrous carcinogenic rocks can be.
Everything else is a blur, including several of the times I got home after a long day of coursework and took Middle Daughter out for driving lessons. She's actually not bad at it. We took an even longer jaunt yesterday, and she seems pretty settled. She makes mistakes, but doesn't freak out and get all flustered by them. At least not outwardly...
Let's see--Pup's doing fine, Kitty needs more exercise, Oldest continues to be overly melodramatic, Boy needs to shave, and Tiny Terror is working on being co-queen of the overly melodramatic. What I get to see of Miss Reba is pleasurable, but right now it's ONLY seeing, as her whole body hurts after taking a hard sit-down stair tumble last week while I was in class. Seems she missed the top step at the house and hit the first seven steps with her bottom and back before coming to rest on the landing. She's got bruises, and does NOT take kindly to my repeated suggestions that she needs me to massage the affected area. Go figure.
Anywho, I got a week's worth of work to catch up on.
I signed up a while back for e-mail updates from some of our local television stations, and for the most part these have been less than satisfying from an information point of view, but, hey, they're free and you never know when something good might show up.
Such as the one I just got, which proclaimed with much shouty-all-caps--
I replied back with thanks, and with the hope that one of the imporvements will be the use of a spell check device of some sort.
But I had somehow wound up in the gymnasium, and for some reason I couldn’t find the stairs to get up to the upper level. A lady told me there was a set of steps around the corner in the locker, so I went around the corner, but the locker was empty. I asked the person next to me where the steps were, and I was shown something like a vertical drawer that had a padded front. This pulled out from underneath the upper level, and it contained a giant extendable ladder. I figured out that you raised the ladder, and then climbed up it to get to the seats. Odd, but what the heck, right? Right.
I raised the ladder and clambered up the rungs, which were also padded and upholstered like the front of the drawer had been, with a soft squishy sort of beige Naugahyde attached to polished metal bars. It didn’t add much to the feeling of security, but I went on up anyway, rickety thing swaying back and forth.
I got to the level of the seats, and toyed with the idea of going all the way up to the top of the ladder, which by now stretched all the way up into the rafters of the gymnasium. It was already so wobbly, though, that I decided I’d gone far enough and carefully edged off the step onto one of the bleacher seats, where I stretched out to watch the game and sleep.
Remind me never to eat grilled chicken ravioli before bed.
ANYway, still not much in the way of enough free time to blog, but enough to stay abreast of the events of the day.
More or less.
The little pup Patches finally decided he’d try out his barking. He’s got a nice bark. Loud enough, but not too loud. Big enough to sound like a real dog, but not so loud that it’s disturbing. Small, but not yippy or yappy. And he only barks when there’s actually something to bark at, not just when everyone else in the neighborhood barks. I hope he doesn’t grow out of that.
Nearly killed myself yesterday. Or more precisely, was nearly the victim of patricide. We (the three younger kids and I) were outside playing keepaway with Patches’ glow-in-the-dark mini football. (He wasn’t playing, just watching us.) Anyway, I’d managed to get in the middle, and in a ploy to appear disinterested, would not try much to catch the ball as the kids tossed it back and forth, and didn’t make a lunge for it when it landed on the ground. When I saw that none of the kids were going to make a run for the ball, which had landed only a yard or so in front of me, I leapt after it and scooped it up in triumph and started trotting away when I was suddenly and without warning WHALLOPED in the back by Rebecca, who’d (too late) seen me grab the ball and decided to get it back by running after me and trying to grab me. The whallop threw me off balance, and since I was already trotting down a very slight downward slope, and what with the momentum of my doughy, formerly-athletically-gracefully mass now hurtling increasingly out of control toward the ground, it was pretty apparent terra firma was going to win a round.
I tried mightily to react appropriately. Back in the old days, my feet would have caught up with my now forward-plummeting torso. Or I would have deftly dropped a hand to the ground to arrest my top-heavy bulk. As it was, my little legs tried to run, but were hampered by the combination of age, and slick-soled wingtip dress shoes on slick grass. My upper body was firmly in the grasp of the earth’s gravitational field and the laws of motion, and despite my most valiant efforts, I crashed heavily onto the yard, digging a big ditch with my right shoulder and arm, and a smaller one a few milliseconds later with my knee. The overall effect was something like what happens when you have a runaway wheelbarrow full of wet cement. It was at this time that the puppy decided this looked like a very fun game indeed, and rushed over to snuffle and cold-nose me in uncomfortable places.
At least I did retain possession of the ball.
Alas, dignity took a beating.
I was able to have a nice supper of grilled chicken ravioli afterwards, so there is that.
Our prayers go up for you and the rest of your family, Fritz.