you're in good hands

apparently, while i was in vegas my son recognized someone on tv. the allstate guy came on tv to talk insurance. my son pipes up and says, 'barack obama.' my mom told him it looked like barack obama but it was really the allstate guy. my son then informed her it was indeed barack obama. i can't say which political party he stands for yet. because he does like elephants best.

we're in trouble

dinner theatre

will: look a sqa-whirl.
me: i think it's a bunny.
will: oh, how doing?
will: what he doing?
me: it looks like he is eating dinner.
will: is he having crackers and cheese, too?

under pressure

you know they make these things now called plastic bags. they conveniently come with a zipper on them. to keep the air out. but when you leave the air in them before you close them it really defeats their purpose. i sure wish my husband would read this blog.

hit parade

a day to remember. how will i ever forget? this morning we decided to take the kids to the memorial day parade. uptown. they don't have a downtown in ten miles south of common sense. just an uptown. don't ask. i didn't. the parade was to start at eleven. in the morning. and i know they take awhile to reach you. especially if you are unknowingly at the end of the route. we waited. and waited. and while we were waiting we had a chance to see some of the cream of the crop. i should say witness some of the cream of the crop. the home grown cream of the crop if you will. forget the fire trucks and ambulances. we had a show right in front of us. first there was the bull mastiff. he was fully intact. and proud of it. we heard, 'is that one of them mastiffs?' at least one hundred times. and one guy had to yell to his wife that had walked ahead of him, 'and i guess he is a happy guy too. look!' yeah, buddy. we are all aware of his pink crayon. thanks for pointing that out. and then there was ink lady. otherwise a really cute girl. minus the bar stud in her upper ear. the tongue stud. and god only knows what other piercings we thankfully couldn't see. until she dropped her pants. yes, ladies and gentlemen. ink lady walked over to a friend and they met right in front of us. she proceeds to tell him she is limping because she had just gotten some new ink laid down. and she had those rip away pants on. you know the kind that if you pull on them the snaps come apart. well, she pulled a little too hard and they all came unsnapped. exposing her new ink from the top of her hip all the way down to her knee. and like you had to ask. yes. a thong. and you thought my kids were looking at the clowns. nope. all that even before we set eyes on one float. so, the ceremony finally starts. at twenty to twelve. and it would have been a really nice ceremony if they hadn't chosen boomhauer from king of the hill to mc the thing. we didn't know what was going on. except the uptown business association needs to invest in a longer flag pole. i think the band got out about three notes of the star spangled banner and the flags had already made it to their final destination. at the end of the parade my husband and i turned to each other. and i knew we were both thinking the same thing. our kids aren't even going to have a chance.

totally pointless

a few months ago i created a note on facebook. the task was to complete the questions using song titles. from only one artist. i, of course, picked johnny cash. i thought it turned out pretty good. and plus i am out of material.

are you male or female: boy named sue
describe yourself: i walk the line
how do you feel about yourself: sixteen tons
describe your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend: it ain't me babe
describe your current boy/girl situation: ring of fire
describe your current location: san quentin
describe where you want to be: i've been everywhere
your best friend is: 25 minutes to go
your favorite color is: man in black
you know that: don't take your guns to town
what's the weather like: cry, cry, cry
if your life was a television show what would it be called: folsom prison blues
what is life like to you: rusty cage
what is the best advice you have to give: understand your man
if you could change your name what would you change it to: jackson

pure construction

i think we have all heard the michigan toursim commercials. i love them. i love the music. i love the dialog. i love the voice guy. i get a lump in my throat. and it brings a little tear to my eye every time i hear one on the radio. or see one on tv. today i heard a new one. for downtown grand rapids. take an adventure. to downtown grand rapids. well, there is truth in advertising after all. i lived in grand rapids for over seven years. i attempted to go downtown. on several occasions. and then i just gave up. because, for the most part, you can't get there from here. it's an adventure alright. good luck with that one.

fine print

i saw something that struck me funny the other day. i noticed on our bottle of mustard that they felt the need to draw attention to the fact mustard is low in carbs. a big, new display on the side of the bottle. it's a condiment. when was the last time you consumed so much of one condiment you were worried about how many carbs it contains?

fast lane

today i was behind a car that had a bumper sticker. the bumper sticker read children are a gift from god. i wanted to let her know gas pedals are a gift from god too. so step on it.

super size

yeah. i am fat. but just because i am fat doesn't mean that i don't care what i look like. or what i wear. i am in shape. the shape of a square. and it's hard to get clothes to fit a square. my favorite online store has shirts i can still get on. i am not saying they fit. i can only say i can get them on my body. but when i click the button for my size the colors diminish. right before my eyes. it goes from a bountiful mix of colors to about seven. and it's always these seven. white. black. navy. brown. salmon. lemon. melon. the dark is fine. for winter. but what makes these people think we want to look like a fruit salad in the spring and summer is beyond me. and that people actually look good in these colors. it's probably the same people that came up with the three-quarter length sleeve. keep sewing people. no one likes them.

delilah

someone. please. shoot. her. and put me out of my misery.

hammer time

i think it takes the average person about two and a half minutes when using the facilities. i used to think it was a nuisance when the kids followed me to use the facilities. today i don't feel that way. at all. instead of using the main bath i decided to retreat to the master bath. as i was using the said facilities i heard will yelling that he was hammering. this is not unusual. however, this time he said banana muffin in the same sentence as hammer. and though we had just spent a half an hour earlier in the day making his favorite banana muffins it would have never occurred to me that he would really hammer a banana muffin. with a shovel. on the chair. in the living room. it also didn't occur to me that when he said he was wearing a new hat that it would be a lampshade. apparently, while will was hammering, the destruction diva had tipped over the lamp and tore the lampshade off of it's form. and will thought it was a pretty good fit.

one ringy dingy

our son has been pretending. and it's been comical. to say the least. this is an excerpt from yesterday's phone conversation.

will: hello (as he holds his ear to the phone). my name is me. wrong ear (switches ears). i'm will here and i'm watching bob builder.

this was after he had just eaten his lunch and said: it actually tasted pretty good.

actually, huh?

seriously folks, i don't make this stuff up

i can't. i am not that good. while we are on the subject of names for business establishments i recently heard an advertisement over the radio. my mind immediately went where no mind should go. but look who is talking. it was for big o. i wanted to know where it was. and how much it cost. surely they can't sell that. at least not over the radio. and then they started to talk about tires. i still didn't get it. big o tires. and then it hit me. o.

me love you long time

i pass this restaurant every week on my way to wal-mart. it is located in elkhart. the funny thing is i am always a bit skeptical when i see a chinese restaurant in someplace like elkhart. it is a one hundred ten percent blue collar town. so when they have to call attention to the fact it is yummy by calling their establishment yummy chinese restaurant it leaves me a bit suspect. what is even more funny is that i didn't notice the other hysterical tidbit on the sign. i hope you enjoy this as much as i do.

animal attraction

last weekend we decided to take the kids to the zoo. a nice relaxing trip to the zoo. or so we thought. if we could find the effing zoo. so, here we are again. printer is still not hooked up to the new laptop. garmin is still not purchased. yet. i write the directions down and off we go. to south bend. now, in south bend or anywhere in indiana for that matter, there is a lack of street signs. i don't know if people steal them. or they just don't even bother. we were to turn left on a certain street. well, apparently we missed the street. or more than likely the sign wasn't even there to begin with. we end up in downtown. and then we end up in the not so nice part of town. never fails. besides, i don't even think there is a nice part of town in south bend. anyway, we turn back around and see a police officer parked in a church parking lot. so we stop. i get out of our car to approach and ask her for directions. she has to call dispatch. because even she can't tell us an easy way to get there from here. i am standing outside of her patrol car. i begin to feel a little uneasy. she was taking her own sweet time. and i appreciated her assistance but i kind of felt like, pardon me, my dick was out hanging in the wind. i mean she was in a bullet proof vest. and i wasn't. we get the directions and off we go. hey, there was even a sign for the zoo. but not when we got to the actual street we were to turn on. so, we had to turn around yet again and managed to actually find the zoo. i guess you can only get there from the east because there was a sign coming from that direction. now, what was once a relaxing trip to the zoo turned into a stressful ride of a whole lot of cussing. it appeared to be quite a nice zoo. there were lots of animal exhibits. it would have been even better if all of those animal exhibits actually had animals in them. and you know when your zoo is in the ghetto when the giraffes are packing heat. i included a photo of the lion because if there was an animal in an exhibit it was sleeping. this zoo reminded me of the time we went to detroit to visit our friends. it too was the same way. lots of animal exhibits. but no animals. but their lion took the cake. it was awake. i will give it that much. but it was so old it was gray. and when he opened his mouth instead of a roar it let out a meow. kind of ironic. don't you think?

things that go bump in the night again

if you recall we had a chupacabra back at our old house. or so i thought. until i discovered months later it was really one of those tractor lawn sprinklers in our neighbor's yard. well, the chupacabra has struck. again. now i know it is not a tractor sprinkler that needs to be greased this time. and of course my husband is never around when it, or they, are lurking. a few weeks ago i was minding my own business in the wee hours of the morning. i started to hear this sound. i could not place the sound. but it was moving. and moving closer to the house. at a rapid pace. there must have been thousands of them. it sounded like a dove. but then it sounded like a turkey. and i couldn't look out the window. because i was frozen with fear number one. and also because it was dark out. whatever it was it went away. and fast. i attempted to make the sound for my husband. he just looked at me. like he always does. i hadn't been under attack for quite some time until the other day. it woke me out of a dead sleep. there was only one this time. and it was on a saturday. score. for sure my husband would wake to sound of a lurking chupacabra. nope. sound asleep. until next time, chupacabra.

wardrobe malfunction

never fails. i have about three things i can wear in public. because nothing fits. and that is an entirely different subject. so when we go out somewhere i only have a few select things i feel comfortable wearing. when we are ready to go out as a family i get dressed and then start getting the kids around. usually, about the time their shoes are on my husband walks out of the bedroom dressed. in the same freaking colors i have on. every. time. now, to him because his khaki shorts or pants have pockets on them they are different than my khaki pants or shorts. but when he also has the same color shirt on as i do it just looks plain tacky. like the family all wearing the same hawaiian shirt. he did this to me three days in a row once. the funny thing is i don't even care any longer. i just find it funny. especially since he already has seen what color i am wearing before he gets dressed.

a cut above

yesterday we did something we never thought we would do. or had to do. or wanted to do. we bribed our son into getting a haircut. with mcdonald's. and now that is the only time he is getting it. his hair hadn't been cut since the incident. the one in which will threw a holy terror fit in the middle of the haircut place. one that he had been to many times. and refused to get his haircut. kicking. screaming. and alone with his dad. it had never been an issue in the past. his dad took him lots of times and never had a problem. not once. until that day. well, his hair has been growing ever since. his dad has refused to take him again. and i can't say as i blame him. in recent weeks he has looked like shaggy from scooby doo. i think we could have put one of sophie's hair accessories in that mess. or as my mom likes to say it looks like he combed it with a mix master. well, both me and my husband went yesterday. and will sat their in that chair and didn't move an inch. he even told the haircut lady he was going to mcdonald's for lunch. and even haircut lady commented on how good he was sitting in the chair. after will was done with his french fries and dippin' sauce we were back home. and you could tell. he threw a fit the minute we walked in the door. at least he is good where it counts. but the mcdonald's effect sure wears off fast.

family heirloom

on this mother's day i wanted to honor my grandmother. she lived to be ninety-seven years young. her grandchildren and great grandchildren knew her fondly as great gramma pea picker or ggpp. she could work circles around me. on any given day. she said doctors didn't know anything. as they are just practicing anyway. she drove until she was ninety. this photo of her was taken when she was ninety. she was always dressed to the nines. always had to have a pocket on her shirts too. for her hankies. she liked her jammies too. when she was ninety-three i bought her a new pair of jammies. leopard print. she thought they were the cats. and her hair was never out of place. she cut her cabbage for coleslaw up by hand so fine and even it would make a cuisinart weep. if you told her you didn't like a particular kind of food she would tell you that it was brain food. she loved to garden. and grew her own vegetables, fruits and nuts. and when she wasn't busy with that why she was cooking and sewing. and canning. our lasagna will never be the same without her tomatoes. in 2007 on the seventh of october she spent her last day with us on earth. a few days before she passed my mom was with her while she was having a breathing treatment. she hadn't been able to talk much. she fought a little when the mask was being placed. the nurse tried to explain that it would help make her breath easier. ggpp reached up and took the mask down. looked the nurse straight in the eye. and said bullshit. there isn't a day that goes by that i don't think of her. at least once. and wonder how she managed to get the things done she did in one day. when i can't even to manage to get my teeth brushed most days. rest in peas ggpp. rest in peas.

get in line

click on the photos to enlarge if you wish.

this hysterical landmark was right near our hotel in arizona. as you can see there were cars lined up to the road. line was doubling even. and blocking traffic. all for drive-thru tobacco. come on, people. i can see it now. the next convenience at wal-mart. coming to a store near you.

low battery

i found out yesterday why when you buy something with batteries they don't last long. as i was checking out at wal-mart last night there were two kids with what looked like their grandparents in line behind me. not unusual. they were about seven and eight. as i waited for my groceries to get bagged i looked back toward the two kids. the one kid had some kind of a laser he had picked up in the checkout lane. he was shining it in the other kid's eye. continually. apparently, he was trying to see how long he could stare at the blinding, retina burning, red laser light without blinking. so after what seemed to be a half an hour the kid finally blinks. and then it was the other kid's turn. and now you know.

fight club

i went to wal-mart tonight. my parents are coming for the weekend. so i needed to stock up before they got here. yeah. the redneck is moving in. already. at least on thursday nights. the first fight i witnessed was a mom telling her teenage daughter to knock off what she was doing. because it was driving her damned crazy. her words. not mine. then a younger couple was arguing in the beer and wine aisle. i am guessing they were at odds with what flavor of mad dog 20/20 they were going to purchase. she wanting buck bunny. and he wanting lightning creek. all i know is i made it out of there without a black eye. and my mad dog 20/20.

from the mowfs of babes

oooooooh, look. at. that. when will saw a bulldozer at a vacant lot in our subdivision.

oh, that's different. when will was given a shiny silver spoon with a funny handle.

he's so cuuuuut-ah. when will sees any animal. any at all.

can i (fill-in-the-blank)? why sure you can. when will wants to do something. and then answers. himself.

look at that doggy in the window

http://www.wirefoxrescuemidwest.com/rescue_website_006.htm

who wouldn't want this dog?! yeah, i know. all of you that have already heard about him. you should see his new pad. it's a palace. he sounds like an outstanding dog. makes me wonder why somebody didn't want him.

hey look kids, it's big ben

my mom has always said signs are for people who know where they are going. man, is she right. i'd like to add sign guy to my hitlist. a couple of them. they deserve a punch in the face. on the way to the indianapolis airport last week there is not one sign for the airport. not one. not on 31. not on 465. and to make matters worse both my husband and i thought the other looked at a map. neither of us did. but we will just follow the blue and white sign. the one with the airplane on it. right. surely there must be a sign when turning from 465 west to 465 south. right. well, you know how that entire trip ended up. and then there is the sign guy in three rivers. yeah. i have done this twice now. once while my husband was driving. and once while i was driving. the sign for 60 east is not at the street where you are to turn right. it's at the one before it. now, there may be a sign at the street where you are supposed to turn. but we wouldn't know. because we always turn at the wrong one. and when dropping the dog off in chicago. oh, that was a sight. you can't see any sign you need to see. there is always a semi in front of the sign you need to see. and this time i had a dog on my lap. with his ass in my face. wondering why it is taking so long to get to the vet this time. but at least i always know the right way to go on the return trip.

dead dog walking

it was our last morning with sully. his little rat bastard self was carted off to his foster home today. i bawled. i bawled the entire way there. i bawled the entire way back. i am bawling as i type these words. as you are aware this little son of a bitch was a thorn in my side. for five plus years. until it was time for me to leave him. when i went out to the car to bring in his overnights bag, yes, plural, at the foster home he waited at the door for me. like he couldn't hardly believe i would leave him. after all of these years. figures. he knew the jig was up. but that is just the way he is. i actually really loved this dog. really.

missed it by that much

the little rat bastard is still with us for one. more. day. he is like a boil. i think this is his 2,849th life today. his foster mom called yesterday. oh, he is still going. i can assure you that much. but just not until tomorrow. there was a conflict with one of the transporters for another dog that is being placed from her house. so, we have to wait day. the foster mom wanted to make sure she had her undivided attention when our dog got to her house. i appreciate her thoughfulness. it is no problem. besides, we didn't have anything scheduled. aside from consuming large vats of pure grain alcohol. and a parade. oh yeah. and fireworks.

on the fence

it is common knowledge that when one uprights a fence in their yard they are to maintain both sides of the fence. whether the weed whipping detail falls in the owner's yard or their neighbor's yard. it is also called common courtesy. even if you are a michigan state trooper. and have a rottweiler.