The Butterfly Circus

This short film is 20 minutes long and well worth every second of your time:

Slipping a gear

Ever have one of those days?

I spend Sunday and Monday driving someone else's car. It was a fun little car and had lots of oomph on the hills of the interstate of our area. Even with the air conditioning on.

Our van doesn't like working as hard when the air conditioning is on. It thinks a little more about the hills and generally acts as lazy as the heat around here makes me feel.

I should mention too, that our vehicle (the brand, not just the one we're driving) had a history of dropping transmissions at pretty predictable times. So when the engine starts straining just a little, I do tend to wonder if this is "the big one" - has the tranny given up the ghost and I'll end up staring at the under side of my van on a hoist somewhere? It happened to us once in St. Regis, Montana. I don't recommend an extended stay in St. Regis, Montana, by the way. Or Fargo, North Dakota. Although that was discs, not the transmission.

But back to today - I left home to run down to the library for some more summer stories. And couldn't help but notice that the engine was revving a little high. I mean, we should have been driving about 120 mph according to the tachometer. But we definitely weren't. (Really, honey.) And then on the first big hill it got worse.

"Oh, no." (Visions of shop cars started dancing in my head.) "This is not a good week for this!"

Turns out I'd left the parking brake on.

Read the fine print

Yesterday I received one of those forwards that occasionally do the rounds. It was from a wonderful friend and I loved the sentiment of it. It began...

"You have been considered one of the 10 prettiest ladies with a kind, warm and loving heart."

Aw, shucks. Me? Really? Gee, thanks. (small blush)

Then I'm supposed to "hit" 10 more women with the message and wait to see if it makes it back to me. But in the midst of all the flattery and prettiness, came this warning:

"If you fail to forward this, you'll have ugliness for 10 years."

What!? What kind of threat is that? 10 years? Do you suppose I could negotiate 1 year off the sentence for each friend I send it to? Ten years, after all, is a long time to deal with ugliness. I mean, come on, I'm living in America, and even 10 weeks of ugliness around the proposed health care reform is too much. There's a saying - "Beauty is only skin deep but ugly goes all the way through." - and I don't know if I would be able to see the light at the end of a 10 year tunnel.

So for the moment, I won't be forwarding this message. After all, I hope you know you're beautiful already. I certainly think you are. But if a message with a pink insect suddenly shows up in your inbox, you'll know I had a bad hair day and I'm hedging my bets.

Out at the Old Ball Game

This week, we celebrated our anniversary by going to a baseball game with the young 'uns. A AAA baseball game actually. (Ahh, romance.) How else would you spend the afternoon when it's 90 degrees outside and there's not a shade tree in sight?

It was a great game and we were pretty well positioned. Not necessarily to catch all the nuances of the game but we were seated by some of the more colorful characters in the bleachers (metal, btw). If you know me well, you know I'm a shameless eavesdropper. As I told a class I was visiting this morning, "If you see me at the mall, lower your voice."

Right beside me was a guy that appeared to be a junior coach of some kind because he always had a comment about the style/form/skill of the various players. Some of them were really informative and some of them sounded like a guy version of cattiness.

"I don't let kids wear those pads unless it's a warm up."

"What a great throw to first! How'd he do that!?"

And right beside him was a young woman (well, not YOUNG young, just younger than me young) that had to agree with everything he said:

"Yeah, I haven't worn knee savers since I was, like, twelve."

"Yeah, what's with the crazy stance?"

But a few rows down from them was my personal favorite - a larger blond lady that knew every player's name but wasn't in the parent box. Every comment was screamed at a volume that may actually have been responsible for the infrequent breeze that blew past once in awhile:

"Remember the Cow - Cow - Count!"

"Make it HOT, Eric!"

"Whoo-hoo! That's the way! JUST FINISH THEM OFF NOW!"

"Put some PEPPER on it, baby!"

It was a great game.


(<-Notice the requisite ice-cream-cone profiled manager in the white pants...)








Oh, yeah, the home team won the game and, with it, the championship. I did notice that part, too.

Potty humor

(Be Warned!- This post contains potty humor. Actual potty humor involving toilets and bodily functions. So turn away now if you're offended by such things!

... LAST CHANCE to TURN AWAY!...)

Okay - you can't say you weren't warned ...

We were sitting at supper (or dinner, if that's the meal you eat in the evening in your neck of the woods, although if you read on you'll figure out we're not that couth) the other night and someone happened to mention that a person (apparently with nothing better to do) came up with an app that sends a Tweet every time his toilet flushes. Which begs the question - do we really need to know that? So somehow, the ways things often seem to at my house, the conversation turned to the sorts of songs or sayings a person might use in that situation (if a person were so inclined).

Here's a few (but only a few) that we came up with (and I'll point out that very few of them came from me):

I Like to Move It (Reel 2 Real, or will.i.am, depending on your age)

Poop Scoop Boogie (Tim Hawkins)

"I feel the earth move..." (Carole King)

"Right foot, lets stomp, left foot, lets stomp, SQUEEZE!" (the original line is "freeze" from Cha Cha Slide by Mr. C The Slide Man)

"How about a nice number 2?" (robot from a hair salon commercial)

"I'm a big kid now..." (from a Huggies commercial)

"... you put your right foot in
And you swish it all about" (adapted from the Hokey Pokey)


There are days I have no hope for my family.

...okay, I gotta stop there and go wash my hands...


*photos courtesy of benedeki and wax115 at www.sxu.com

A bevy of birds

My yard seems to be turning into some kind of wildlife sanctuary.

Last Tuesday, SG and I were sitting on the deck after sunset enjoying the peace (and the evening cool) when we heard something moving down at the bottom of the yard. (Our lot has a decided slope, so 'down the yard' is perfectly appropriate.) SG finally fetched a flashlight and there it was - a masked, furry face peering round the cedar from on top of our fence.

We've known raccoons were around. We saw footprints in the snow last December. We think that's what ate the class turtle several summers ago. We think they've been involved in several of the catfights in the neighborhood. So it was with some satisfaction I finally laid eyes on the critter that's had me peeking out dark windows at the strange noises late at night.

This morning, SG saw two raccoons in the yard. Apparently, having seen us, the raccoon decided we weren't very intimidating and invited a friend to come over. Great.

So later in the morning, when I saw something walking around by our patio, I wondered who else had dropped in. I've already mentioned the kamakaze Orioles and it definitely wasn't them. Pigeons, was my first thought. But that didn't seem right. Pigeons don't herd their baby birds around through my hedge.

It was quail! We had a covey of quail (or a bevy - depending on your taste in collective nouns) come bustling through. Not sure what they were looking for but they sure scrambled around a bit as they looked. I crept into the house to show the kids (that's my blinds up there if you're wondering), then back out for the photo op.

Apparently they're a little bashful. They probably heard me thinking of roast squab at one point. Hey, I've heard the story about quail coming down in the desert! And for sure, the raccoons would find the little ones only a few mouthfuls. I'm sure the quail had to be aware of that too. They scuttled off across our roof before too long.

But they missed one. They might not be too bright but I'll have to look that up. This little guy (below) stayed behind and then squalled at the top of his little bird lungs for a good twenty minutes - "MO-O-O-OM? DA-A-A-AD? AN-Y-BO-DY??!!" I heard a second quail hollering eventually so (presumably) someone came and took him back to the bevy before the cats (or the coons) could track him down.

So now I'm wondering if deer are going to be next. Or maybe coyotes. And mostly I'm praying that the snakes and skunks don't get the brochure that seems to be wandering through the animal kingdom featuring our yard.

Silent vocals?

I've just discovered that the sound is off - kaput - on my computer. I'm guessing that something messed up after the big lightning storm we had a couple nights ago but will have to wait for SG to be sure. We did shut everything down but things on my computer don't always start up in the right order if your eyes aren't crossed, you aren't wearing red and you didn't sacrifice a licorice fish by moonlight the night before.

Until I buy some licorice fish, I hope the sound works on yours 'cause this is amazing. Costumes are kind of freaky, some of the shadows are extremely unfortunate and one of the singers distinctly reminds me of PeeWee Herman but they sound great anyways. So turn it up and enjoy.

And I hope I've got the right version here. CAUSE I CAN'T LISTEN TO IT TO DOUBLE-CHECK, CAN I? There's a couple with really scratchy sound quality so if I posted the wrong one, I apologize and I'll have to fix it later.

I didn't realize how many noises from my computer I depend on ...



'K - now watch it again with funny captions (really, you want to do it in this order) ...