Signs of Fall 2014

My favorite little punkin' heads. 

Preparations for Frank's costume.

Scarecrows in town:

The Coffee Cowboy. 

The Moan-a Lisa. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. 

The best sign of all? Turning off the a/c. 

Saturday PhotoHunt: Barbie

I see in the news that Barbie isn't doing so well any more.  Too much junky pink stuff, in my opinion. I loved Barbies when I was a kid. I had a big dollhouse at my father's house. At home, I also made elaborate rooms from cardboard boxes.

For a period of time as an adult, I acquired the "collectible" ones that live in their boxes.

These are a few of my favorites.

Housekeeping Wars, In Which I Battle the Millenium Falcon

The planets collided this month and in addition to having almost my entire house in disarray due to new carpet and carpet cleaning, I also had to absorb another load of things from my father's house.

On the one hand, I now have two more dressers, one of which is earmarked for Ernest's bike gear, to replace a stack of plastic bins and cardboard boxes. I have been working on Ernest's room (with his permission) and it looks really good. You've never seen so much floor space in there!

The Millenium Falcon fought me every inch of the way. Way back when, around 2007, he coveted this seriously expensive lego. I indulged that child, so I bought it. But I stipulated, "when you clean up your room to my satisfaction you can have it." That didn't happen until 2013! Meanwhile, the set was discontinued so it became very collectible on eBay. He could have sold it and made lots of money, but he wanted to build it. It was so huge, there was no place to put it. It rested on its box next to his bed. It got dusty. The cats jumped on it and dislodged pieces. I had to move it somewhere to have the carpets cleaned so he said I could rebox it. It fought being reboxed. Oh, the cat can easily knock pieces off but when I try to get it apart? I had to give up and put it in a large plastic bag.

On the other hand, I have six seven eight large boxes of slides.  I wonder if I could fit them into the second dresser. That would be win/win.

It is a good opportunity to go through the house to ugh clean and purge.

Handy even cleaned out his nightstand, which was his own little personal disaster area.

But I will be so glad when I am done and everything is back in place again.

Saturday PhotoHunt: Funny

I thought it was pretty funny to see a one-man band with no man.  I call it "No-Man Band."

Please visit the Saturday Photohunt for more funny business.

Repurposing

It's always nice to find new uses for old things.

My little red wagon was a real help in getting the Costco load in the house.

This old wooden Dr. Pepper box makes a great garden supply holder.

On a more complicated level, Handy and the boys made this bird house from old fence boards.

How about you? Have you repurposed anything lately?

Bluetiful

Just a few blue photos that have been hanging around my computer.

I've always been fascinated by these VW trucks. This one was so shiny.

The door to our room at the Taos Inn.

Blue bottle tree at Elmer's Bottle Tree Ranch, Oro Grande, CA.

The Glare

Sometimes the bright afternoon sunlight leaves a blinding patch of glare on the floor. If it's in my line of sight for too long, I can develop a headache. Sometimes I throw a dark blanket over the spot.

On this day, Homer just made the glare worse. Even Fifi was glowing.

Over or Under: In Which I End the Debate Once and For All

The experience on my road trip has put to rest the age-old question of whether the toilet paper should go over or under.

Out of the COUNTLESS restrooms I encountered, only THREE had the paper under.  Hotels, restaurants, gas stations, rest stops, attractions: all the rest, if they had paper on a roll, had the paper over.

You can bet that I fixed those 3.

Case closed.



Footnote: There was an astonishing LACK of SEAT COVERS throughout the country, until I got back into California. I think I encountered only one or two restrooms with paper seat covers.

Saturday PhotoHunt: Rock

The PhotoHunt this week is "Rock."

Here is a variety of rocks from our recent road trip.

My son's dorm room doorstop, a perfect wedge-shaped rock.

George Washington's home at Valley Forge, PA.

Evans City Cemetary, PA.  Site of "The Night of the Living Dead" graveyard scene.

Washington's profile at Mt. Rushmore, SD.

Petroglyphs and petrified wood at the Petrified Forest National Park, AZ.

Desert View Watchtower, Grand Canyon National Park, AZ.

Thematic Photographic: Patterns

Carmi at Written, Inc. hosts Thematic Photographic.  Stop by there to see more patterns.  Spokalulu has some too, along with haikus. 

The woodpeckers have been busy making patterns on this tree.

Small Town Life: Shipping

So your son needs a new phone and of course it gets shipped to you at home (even though he put in his shipping address on the website) so you have to re-ship it to him.  You go to the Postal Annex which does Fed Ex shipping because the last time you used the UPS Store their overnight shipping took two days.

The man at the counter recognizes your name, even though you've never been there before, because your husband was in a couple days earlier getting something notarized. Then he puts in the college zip code and says, "John Doe?" No, but he's Ernest's classmate. His mom ships him a lot of things. We heard he got 12 boxes the first week.

Well, I hope the phone gets there. He still managed to call last weekend from his girlfriend's phone. That was sweet of them both.

Wouldn't You Know It #2

It takes you years to get new carpet in the room with the missing piece, and you finally get new carpet on a Friday.

By Monday morning a cat has barfed on it.

Tony, Tony

I used to post about the concerts we went to every summer.  This summer, nary a one. I did have tickets for Jack Johnson on Labor Day but we had to sell them because of the road trip. What is it with people nowadays? Handy sold them to a co-worker who didn't have any cash. Or checks. She said she would go online and have her bank issue a check. A week later, no check. When asked about this, she miraculously found some checks in her purse. We cashed it right away and fortunately it cleared.

There are so many things I would like to go to but they are outside of Handy's preferred genres. I go to car races with him, so why not try something new? I eventually stopped asking and now I just buy myself single tickets. I saw the opera Carmen this summer, and I'm going to the ballet in two weeks.

That brings me to the current story.  A few years back, Tony Bennett played at our local casino. (I don't go to many shows there. While the auditorium is non-smoking, the casino floor is not. It's so unpleasant to swim through the fog and crowd to get to the show.) Chatting with some other female family members, we thought, wow, we really wished we had gone. He had a show scheduled this year on October 2nd at a really nice venue. However, I had dinner plans with my former co-workers. It turned out to be a good night NOT to go because the power went off all over town and the show was cancelled. Our Mexican restaurant kept right on cooking, bless their hearts.

So when I found out Tony Bennett was rescheduled I snapped up one of the few available tickets.

While the audience skewed towards folks older than I, there were some younglings too. An adorable little girl in a sparkly lavender princess dress. The young couple behind me, shouting "Go Tony!" and whoo-hooing like it was a rock concert.

His first recording:



Great show. Although some of the audience left when the lights came up and missed the encores, including one of the most famous songs. We all know this one:



So many wonderful songs. They just don't write them like that any more. He closed with one of my favorites.



I left my heart with Tony Bennett.

My Husband's Lunchbowl

Some time ago we saw a show on the Travel Channel with featured some really strange restaurants. One was The Modern Toilet Restaurant in Taiwan. Handy has a coworker friend who lives in Taiwan who actually went there and sent us pictures. Unfortunately, I can't find the pictures.

As a gag gift, I gave him a toilet bowl cup. It seems he actually uses it.

A Tiny Portrait

Tiny moves very quickly and it is hard to get a good picture of her. But I think this might be one of the best cat pictures I've ever taken. She has been going outside for a couple months and she loves it! So many places to explore. She has made friends with our new neighbors and their dog Little (real name, not a pseudonym!) and gets lots of petting there, too.

Homer is totally indifferent to the third cat idea.  He doesn't care as long as he gets his kibble.  And if his kibble is restricted, well, there's now an extra bag of kibble in the cupboard. A smaller bag, that's easier to knock over and get his head into. You saw a picture of that the other day.

Blood Moon

I took these around 2:45 a.m.

I'm not sure why I have that ghost moon.

I went out again an hour later and couldn't find the moon! The fog had rolled in and the sky was dark pink.

Notes to Self

Every once in a while, I need to tell my Self a few things.

• If you use the word "Shopping" in a blog post title, you will have at least 259 spam comments.
• If you think for many many years you should take piano lessons again, Do IT. It's awesome.
• If your husband buys a guitar, don't be surprised if he gets frustrated and returns it after two weeks.
• If you're happy because your sick cat gained the weight back, watch out.  He will get too fat and need to lose some of it.
• If you keep on dropping your phone, odds are it's eventually going to crack.

What have you told yourself lately?

More Messy Business

This was my weekend for messy things.

For several days we've been battling a fly infestation. Francine has been crazed with delight since bug catching is her favorite hobby. But there were too many, even for her. After the third time she skidded across the floor and hit the wall, it just wasn't fun anymore. Swat! Swat! Swat! I let the corpses fall to the ground. Most were behind the TV. By Sunday we thought we got most of them so I vacuumed them up.

Saturday, a certain cat (name redacted to protect feline dignity) left the litterbox with something dangling from its derriere. Said something detached itself in small bits all down the hall and into the living room. Certain cat settled down to groom said derriere but seemed to totally miss the messy spot. We gave the cat a brief rubdown with a warm towel and cat got very excited and licked the hand of the person holding it.

Who me?

Sunday, I discovered an infestation of ants. They were all over the water dish and Homer's meager ration of kibble.  Fortunately for him, I had left the pantry cupboard unlocked and he was able to get in and assuage his hunger in Tiny's kibble bag. (This photo is not from the actual moment...it was taken another time.)

 

Thematic Photographic: Messy

This bird was hard at work, cleaning off the messy bugs on the license plate. 

Taken at Calico Ghost Town.

Thematic Photographic is hosted by Carmi at Written, Inc.