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 |  My Blog....Pearls of wisdom and/or foolish mutterings.....You be the judge.... |
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A little of this, a dash of that......epic mood swings.......A LOT of foolish mutterings and occasionally a few words of wisdom. It's a crapshoot. You never know what you'll find in here... |
| I know that I'm not the only one who is not looking forward to the elections in November--not by a long shot. Never before has our country found itself so securely wedged between a rock and a hard place. My approach to the impending catastrophe has been to do the ostrich routine. If I'm not looking at it, it's not happening. Sadly, that is not very effective. Since the day I turned eighteen and became eligible to vote, I have proudly cast my vote in every election since then. I will vote in this election as well, but I will do it with a sense of resignation as I choose from a slate of non-viable candidates the likes of which our country has never before seen. I truly believe if our intention for this election had been to ferret out the two most unpalatable presidential candidates in the nation, we could declare that feat a rousing success. Suddenly, earlier this morning, a lightbulb-over-the-head moment. Is it possible that between the two ruling parties a clever plan has been hatched to reverse the influx of illegal aliens streaming across our borders and to do so completely without the aid of troops, fences, and scores more ICE agents? Now I do not want to give credit where none is due and certainly this smacks of a plan far beyond the mental capacity of either candidate, but..... put this in your thinking cap and let it roll around a bit. Come November, no matter which of the lesser of two evils we end up with, a great many Americans may be high-fiving the native Mexicanos as we pass them on their way in to our country while we are on our way in to theirs. (oh! did I say that out loud?) ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| One day, four United States Presidents get caught up in a tornado and off they whirled to the land of OZ. They finally made it to the Emerald City and went to find the Great Wizard What brings the 4 of you before the great Wizard of Oz? Jimmy Carter stepped forward timidly and said: I've come for some courage. 'No Problem!' said the Wizard. ' Who's next?' Richard Nixon stepped forward, 'Well, I think I need a heart.' 'Done! Who comes next before the Great and Powerful Oz ?' Up stepped Bush and said, 'I'm told by the American people that I need a brain.' 'No problem!' said the Wizard, 'consider it done.' Then there is a great silence in the hall. Bill Clinton is just standing there, looking around, but he doesn't say a word. Irritated, the Wizard finally asks, 'Well, what do you want? ' 'IS DOROTHY HERE? |
| I was incredibly efficient yesterday. I left the house with a kajillion errands to do and came home late in the day with all of them accomplished except for one. I did forget to drop off the dry-cleaning, but our clothes managed to enjoy a nice drive around town in the back seat of my car. Where they still sit... waiting. They'll make it to the cleaners eventually. One of the errands I did accomplish was to purchase a yoga mat. You see, my first foray into the wonderful world of yoga was made a little more difficult by my sliding all over the place when trying to go into down-dog ("remember, this is your rest position, take advantage of it, feel the rest") and plank position ("slowly lower yourself to the ground and now... breathe in as you raise yourself up....") So, I broke out my brand-spankin' new yoga mat this morning in heady anticipation of another torturous round of down-dog, plank position and crane position, yadda, yadda. Sure enough, I didn't slip all over the place this time. That was helpful. I couldn't help but think, though, that the so-called "yoga mat" is nothing more than a bigger version of the stuff that I buy to put in my cabinets to cushion my dishes. It does exactly the same thing - keeps my dishes from slipping around. But, I digress. I finished the hour-long yoga session for the second time this morning. My excuse for not doing it again before now is that I didn't have THE MAT. I don't know what kind of excuse I'm going to come up with now to put it off for another three or four days. I can be fairly inventive, though, so I should be able to come up with something. So, once again, I have a sweet sense of accomplishment at having tortured my body with the obligatory exercise routine. It would just be so much easier if I could look in the mirror and not think, "My God! Who is that fat woman and how did she get into my clothes?" I'd rather be able to look in the mirror and think, "My, what an incredibly attractive fat woman." But somehow I just can't get there. Damn. If only our culture worshipped fat women instead of emaciated skeletons. Is there a country out there that worships fattie-boombahs? If so, I'd like to know about it; and soon, before I waste too much time with down-dog and crescent and warrior two position. Oh, and did I neglect to mention that I'd like to slap the smile right off that yoga instructor's face? Good thing she's on a DVD and not in the same room with me. |
| I bought a Beginner's Yoga DVD about... oh, let's see... a year ago, maybe. Never took it out of the case until last Saturday. In fact, I even hid it away in the closet for a while (okay, quite a while) because it kept looking at me with reproach every time I passed it just laying there on the dresser. With all the talk in Blogville about exercising, going to the gym, blah, blah, blah, I decided I needed to jump on the bandwagon, so I went back to the YMCA and started doing the whole despised work-out thing. Never one to be left out of the loop, you know! Funny how much better I'm starting to feel and how much more energy I have. I always forget about that particular benefit of exercise during the 5-6 year lapse between bouts of guilt-induce exercise programs. I was digging through a box of DVDs with my granddaughter the other day when I came across the aforementioned Yoga DVD. I took it out of the box and put it back in plain sight so it could begin to taunt me once more. But the trick was on the Yoga DVD this time, because I actually put it in the player the next morning and did the whole one hour session. The whole time I was thinking, "Well, this is great for stretching and all and should make me really bendy, but I don't know that it will do anything toward helping me get back in shape." HA HA HA HA!! Seems the Yoga DVD had the last laugh after all. That night I went to sleep happily content that I had fulfilled my promise to myself that I would exercise every other day. I was slyly thinking that I had pulled one over on myself too, since yoga didn't actually seem to feel much like exercise, even though all the books say it counts. Fast forward to about three hours later when I tried to turn from one side to the other in bed. AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!! My stomach muscles were on fire! And not just a few of them either, but every single solitary stomach muscle from the top of my rib cage all the way down to my legs! Then I moved my legs and HOLY CRAP! My thigh muscles and my butt muscles were on fire too. This went on all night long - every time I moved, the little Yoga gremlins were there screaming, "GOTCHA!" Made a believer out of me, I'll tell you! I think I may have found my new favorite form of exercise. |
| I just had the most enlightening experience. My, my, my, the things one can learn sitting in a Mexican food restaurant in Pasadena, Texas. Hubby and I got up early this morning to start working on the long list of things we had to accomplish today. By 3:00 p.m., we had come close to completing the list, when we both realized that we hadn't eaten anything. We had been so busy and intent on getting everything done, that neither of us had noticed how late it was. So, when Hubby looked at me and said, "I have to eat," I was suddenly ravenous. We made our way to one of our favorite Mexican food restaurants where we could gorge on chips and salsa while our food was prepared. We ordered margaritas, of course, because chips and salsa just don't taste right without margaritas, especially on a hot day in Texas. It soon became apparent that we were lagging WAY behind in margarita consumption in comparison to the two men and one woman at the table next to us. Neither Hubby nor I drink a lot anymore, but by the time we had been subjected to the inane babblings coming from the table next to us for about five minutes, I was seriously considering ordering as many shots as it would take to render myself unconscious in the shortest amount of time possible. I've been sufficiently inebriated on enough occasions to know that the volume of liquor consumed is directly proportional to the volume of one's voice. It was obvious that the woman at the next table had already had more than her fair share of margaritas and she was convinced that everyone within earshot (and those out on the street, for that matter) needed to hear what she was saying. By the time our food arrived, we had learned that the threesome at the neighboring table were some muckety-mucks with the cook-off committee for the Pasadena Rodeo. And that they were quite pleased with themselves because of it. The woman wanted to talk about getting naked and about ways they could keep anyone who wanted to be naked at the cook-off from getting arrested. (Evidently, there is more than one reason these cook-off teams "cook" all night and it has less to do with food than one would assume.) One of the men--we'll call him Bob--kept getting calls on his cell-phone from someone who was apparently receiving threats from members of another team. Threats? Between cook-off teams? Who knew these things got that serious? These threats were supposedly in the nature of email threats (which begs the question--how many kinds of stupid must one be to write down one's threat and then email it, thereby providing the threat and proof of it all in one fell swoop?) While Bob was busy big-dogging it on his cell-phone, the woman had turned her "let's get naked" efforts to the other man--let's call him Joe. Joe seemed to be a relative newcomer to the Peyton Place atmosphere of the Rodeo Cook-Off Teams. He was making a determined effort to give the appearance of someone who hadn't just stumbled into the Twilight Zone, but his wide-eyed, "deer-in-the-headlights" look gave him away. Not that either of his drinking companions noticed. They were too busy ordering drinks and trying to impress the hell out of everyone in the restaurant by TALKING IN VERY LOUD VOICES. Ms."I Wanna Get Nekkid" dug her cell-phone out of her purse to invite another apparent member of the Cook-Off Team Muckety-Mucks. When he showed up--let's call him Todd--the three of them set upon him in earnest trying to convince him that something must be done to prevent the arrest of any prospective naked people at the cook-off. Todd wasn't having any of that. He told Ms."I Wanna Get Nekkid" that of course he would have to enforce the "Keep your clothes on" rule (SERIOUSLY? there is a RULE?) if people were offended. "I'm not offended," she said. By this time, we had finished our food and even had a couple of margaritas each ourselves, but we weren't anywhere near catching up to the inebriation level of our neighbors. Which is probably a good thing because I have a feeling someone was getting NEKKID tonight. And it's nowhere near Rodeo Cook-Off time. I guess there must be some training that goes on long before the actual cook-off. You see what I mean? I'll bet you, like me, never knew these finer points of some Rodeo Cook-Off Teams. |
| Was it only yesterday that we struck out for Austin to deposit number 2 son safely in his apartment in anticipation of the fall semester at UT? My Gawd, it seems like it has been days and days. We made it there and back already. Whoosh! Caleb's apartment is on the THIRD floor - so Caleb and hubby had quite the workout yesterday hauling everything up those three long flights of stairs. I stayed in the apartment and unpacked and set things up while they were traipsing up and down the stairs. Got the apartment set up pretty well and then Caleb did much more after hubby and I retired to a motel for the night about 10:30 last night. Got up early this morning and I took Caleb to the grocery store to stock up on some groceries - can't have my baby boy starving or anything. Then hubby and I left Caleb to it at about 1:30 this afternoon and headed home. Stopped at a few antique stores on the way home, but didn't find ANYTHING at all worth having. Darn! Hubby told me that he and Caleb saw a girl walking up the path at Caleb's apartment and apparently she was quite a looker (read: she had big boobs.) Hubby told me, "I could see the want in her eyes." I said, "Oh really, is that right?" To which he replied, "Yeah, she wanted me to leave her alone." After the guys got the trailer unloaded, hubby had me calling around to find a U-haul place to return the trailer. I called one I thought was close (it wasn't) and the man who answered asked me a bunch of questions I didn't know the answers to, so I put hubby on the phone. Hubby told me he answered the man's questions and the guy told him, "I can't handle that size trailer by myself here. I'm an old man - I'm 50 years old." Hubby said he wanted to tell him, "Hey, I'm 51, you're just a whippersnapper." But the whippersnapper gave him the number to another U-Haul dealer to take the trailer to where they apparently hire younger men - real whippersnappers. I'm pretty tired, yeah I know, not near as tired as my hubby who worked his ass off traipsing up and down, up and down, up and down three flights of stairs, but still I'm tired. I'm tired from riding to and from Austin in two days. So I'm going to join tired hubby in bed. Talk to you all tomorrow. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| To all of my dear friends on WDC and my thousands upon thousands of readers, I will be away for a couple of days. Hubby and I are taking our son to Austin to get him settled in his apartment (remember, he is starting at UT in the fall? Why, yes, I am rather proud! How did you figure that out?) So we will be gone for about 3 days and when we return, we will be returning to..... drum roll, please.... an EMPTY HOUSE! Just me and Hubby (well, Maverik will still be here too, but we will be the only humans in the house.) I'm not sure we'll know how to act. In fact, we may just go crazy. Hubby has apparently been reading my blog, and here I was thinking he never read it. He told me last night when we went to bed that he whistles perfectly on key, thank you very much. I started to counter with the fact that to him it may sound on-key, but since he is tone deaf, that may not hold a lot of meaning. But I figured I would just let him read it here.  I wish you all a Happy Fourth of July and I will be back soon to thrill and amaze you with my ramblings. Miss me!! |
| Yay, the Astros won - the score was 7-2. I love going to Minute Maid Park, it's so much nicer than years ago when the Astros played at the Astrodome. That was ridiculous. I'm not crazy about the name of our baseball park - Minute Maid Park. It was hard to get used to not calling it Enron Field and personally, I think that sounded a lot better than what it is now. Of course, it wouldn't really do to call it that now, but still. Minute Maid Park? I know, I know..... money talks. I'm a big baseball fan. Love to go to the games and get all caught up in the excitement, do the seventh inning stretch, sing "Deep in the Heart of Texas", eat hot dogs, drink beer and everything that goes along with the game of baseball. My husband, on the other hand, hates baseball, doesn't care for any of the rest of the stuff that goes along with it and has to be dragged there every time we go. The saddest part of all that is that his company has Diamond Level seats (you know - right behind home plate, just a few rows back from Drayton McClain and George and Barbara Bush. Seriously, some of the very best seats in the house. And how often do we go? Well, let's put it this way - we didn't go at all last year (it was a pretty lackluster year for the 'Stros, but nevertheless, it's baseball, for God's sake!) and the only time we've been this year, was when we went last Thursday. And we didn't have Diamond Level seats because our son-in-law and daughter invited us to go with them. Our seats weren't bad and at least we were at the game. It was a lot of fun. I just can't understand a man who doesn't like baseball. He'll watch boxing and/or cage-fighting all day and all night - two men (or women, even) beating the bejeezus out of each other, but he doesn't like baseball. At least baseball makes sense - there is a rhythm to the game. Okay, I admit I will watch boxing - I even like boxing. But cage-fighting? Are you kidding me? That's just barbaric and ridiculous. Oh yeah, and he'll watch poker for hours on end. I can watch poker for a while, it helps me learn the game a little better. But not for hours and hours. Ad he'll watch golf on tv sometimes. Huh? And he says baseball is boring? Please. That just goes to show you that women are much more adaptable than men will ever be. Here is a list of the activities I have picked up and taken a liking to since we got married BECAUSE HE LIKED THEM: 1. Fishing 2. Shootig 3. Watching boxing 4. Poker 5. Snorkeling 6. Tubing 7. Boating And here is a list of the activities he has picked up because I like them: 1. See what I mean? I will admit that I have broadened my horizons quite a bit since marrying Mr. I Hate Baseball some 31-odd years ago. And that my horizon is not the only thing that has broadened over these last 31 years. I think Mr. Baseball-Hater could learn a thing or two from me, if you ask me. An appreciation for learning to enjoy new things, for one thing. When he said to me, "Hey do you want to go to the ranch and shoot guns with me?", what did I say? I said, "Sure, I'l go. That might be fun." When he said, "Hey let's go fishing," I said, "Sure, I'll go fishing with you." When he said, "Hey sit down here and watch this boxing match with me," I said, "Uh, okay, sure." But I did. And I learned to appreciate the sport. When he said, "Hey, let's go snorkeling, tubing, boating," I said, Okay, sure," and I bought us a big ass boat. I snorkeled in the Caribbean and got coral burns all over my stomach, but I love it anyway. When he pulled me behind the boat on a tube that was deflating and didn't watch me for the "Stop!" sign and pulled me straight to the bottom of the lake, did I stop going? No, I didn't. When he said, "Let's go to Vegas," I said, "Okay, sure," even though I had never had the slightest inclination to gamble. So I learned how to play the table games, especially 3 and 4 card poker and I was the one who said, "Let's stay another 4 days." So, I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is it too much to ask that when I say, "Hey let's go to an Astros game," he should say, "Okay, sure." It's not like I'm asking him to scrapbook or write or take photographs or go shopping, for pity's sake. But that's okay. I'll just comfort myself in the knowledge that I am a much more adaptable person and I'm flexible and he's not so much. So I win. And that's all that really matters, isn't it, ladies? |
| I'm off to an Astros game tonight. Don't have too much fun without me, Everyone. I'll check in on everyone in the morning. Go 'Stros! |
| After reading the comments to my post yesterday, I think that the survey I posted a link to may have gotten lost in the shuffle. Also, please understand that I wasn't trying to get anyone to add another blogger to their list of regularly-read bloggers. Trust me, my list is too long to get through some days, too. Yesterday was just one of those days when a few of the things I read (on some of my regularly-read blogs) really impacted me, and I wanted to share those particular entries because I was duly impressed by them. Anyway, here's the deal. If you have just a couple of extra minutes, please take this survey. It only takes a minute or two, I promise. And I think the results will be surprising and insightful to us all. If you don't have time to do this, no problem. I completely understand. It's just something I think is cool - I'm a computer geek, remember?
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I'm so far right the Tea Party looks like a bunch of hippies!
