My rear-end is fine, thank you

There was a story on the news a few months ago about David Beckham rear-ending some motorist on the freeway in California.  "Imagine that," I said to Em, "imagine getting rear-ended by David Beckham." To which she replied with complete horror "Aw, mom, that is gross." 

Why does everything I say get turned around to be innuendo?  I didn't mean it that way, but now I just say that every so often just to get her mad. It's fun pushing the buttons of your teenage kids, you know?

We were on our way to visit DePaul University in the city yesterday and traffic was insane. Mix in some snow with the already packed lanes of traffic when the car in front of me slammed on his brakes. I barely stopped in time and looked into my rear-view mirror to see the whites of some saucer-shaped eyes and the white knuckles of the driver behind me who barely missed my bumper as well.  I said "Oh, damn, we nearly got......" BAM!  Car Number 3 plowed into the gal behind me, who ricocheted into me.   Swell.

And I was driving Joe's car. The car that he loves.  The car that is relatively new. Yea.

We are all fine. Nobody was hurt, the cars were all driveable. Illinois Dept. of  Transportation came and escorted us all to the nearest safe roadside area to exchange information and everyone was pleasant enough under the circumstances.  The only car that really suffered any damage was the middle car--poor gal, her Mercedes got it on both ends, while my car and Car #3 were relatively unscathed.  That'll teach ya to spend the money on a Mercedes.

After all was said and done, we finished up and headed on our way to our college tour.  And it ended up being a nice day. 

But you know, I couldn't resist teasing Em that I was rear-ended by TWO people--both a guy AND a gal.  And while that was a very exciting, it wasn't like being rear-ended by David Beckham. The kid is beyond horrified.

Bingo.

The nice thing about email is that you don't have to fake cough for your bosses' sake....

My alarm went off at it's usual 5:30 a.m.  The new wacky radio host was up to something obnoxious and silly as Hobbes walked the length of me to plop himself square on my chest. If I wasn't awake, I was now--Hobbes sees to it that he gets his morning cuddle. It's how we start the day. Every day.

Except I couldn't take it yesterday.  I laid there and I thought "I can't do this" --and I didn't. I shut the damn radio off and silenced that nutjob morning host for the moment. And I fluffed my pillow and turned over.

As I lay there, my heart pumped for the thrill of tossing it all to the wind for the day. It was a "snow day" of sorts, a personal day, a mental health day. Whatever you call it--I was playing hooky from work and I wasn't going in. 

My heart pumped with joy while the beat reverberated in my head--oh, the things I was gonna do! (Well, after I slept in for a couple of hours.)

I could lay there and read my book. I could finally get through some of those Photoshop Elements tutorials. There were all those marching season photos to be uploaded to Snapfish. Oh, there were bills to be paid and shirts to be ironed---nah, hate that.  There is the pool to join and laps to swim.  I could run to the bank and stop by a little gift shop in town that I like. I could go shopping--no wait, had to pay tuition = no money.  I could catch up on all my blog reading. I could finish that quilt in the closet. I could start a whole new quilt.  I could.....I could.....

And all my plans for sleeping in for another hour or so died.  I tossed and turned. I fluffed my pillow a cabillion times and took my covers off and put them back on a cazallion more times.  Then Em's alarm went off and the cats got antsy for their food. Hobbes starting singing some cat song about going outside to see the birdies....

and I was forced to end my relaxation right then and there.

It was nice to have the day to myself, but I ended up not doing anything really fun, which was kinda sad. I paid bills, stripped the beds and did laundry. I read a little bit and then blog hopped for awhile.  I logged onto my work email and answered a few things too.  I let Hobbes in and out about 100 times and got the mail. It was all blah and nothing really fun--unlike the adventures of my mind those few hours beforehand.

And I sort of came to the conclusion.....

that playing hooky wasn't as much fun as it used to be.  I think I need to work on this.

I am an Idiot

For those of you on Facebook, have you seen that new game "Words with Friends?"  It's actually Scrabble, but they don't call it that.  And your friends can all invite you to play and you get letter tiles like Scrabble and there are bonus squares that boost your score, but it takes weeks and weeks to actually finish a game because you take turns and sometimes people don't take their turns for days on end, and....and....

I just hate that game.

Really.

My problem is that I play it like I play Scrabble.  I make words with the letters given to me and I play them.  This version lets you plop letters in all sorts of weird places and then you click on the button and it tells you if it is a word or not.  It's kinda like the Russian Roulette of word games--and you don't have to know all these words to play them.

So, when I play, all my competitors come up with snazzy words that I never heard of and they get like giant scores while I'm busy building 3-letter words that even hamsters know and I have like no score at all.  I stink at the game and I get my hiney kicked every single time I play. 

Maybe the word is getting around that I stink at WWF and everyone who wants to feel really, really smart, or really, really good about themselves can play me and win. Which makes them feel good and makes me feel really stupid.....and really crabby. So, I hate the game and I don't want to play it anymore.

Please, if you are on Facebook, do not ask me to play Words with Friends. It depresses me.  I'm not smart to begin with, but this game just proves it to the entire world........and to me.

Unless you want to play it like Scrabble--then I will play ya.  I've got my dog-eared copy of a dictionary right here to check your words. And I'll make you tell me the definition--because I don't know a lot of big words apparently.

Semi-Wordless Wednesday - Belleh Up!

Grace says that frogs do go belly up sometimes...

but in a good way. 

(Ohhhh, so that's what they are doing when I'm 

at work!)

Thanks, Grace. :)

Do you want that ultra-roasted?

Winter deposits me in the house, secluded from annoying neighbors, but surrounded by the everyday friends/enemies of our lives--otherwise known as appliances.  I swear they know they've got me cornered, and they are taking full advantage of their chance to aggravate me.

While the weather is nice, it is easy to ignore the bad ones, but winter has me facing my foes--those appliances that I hate.  They just seem extra-annoying when it's just me, my coffee and them on a Saturday morning.  There is nowhere to run, I have to face my demons, even if they are made of stainless steel and plastic.

My toaster oven insists on burning my toast, right in front of my face every weekend. It taunts me--making me turn this dial and that one, cranking the timer that you can never set for an actual "time" like 30 seconds or a minute.  This metal man is more random with the likes of 28 seconds or 1 minute 32 seconds. And there are no real numbers on the dial--it's sort of like spinning the roulette wheel of cooking. Will it cook? Will it burn? Stay tuned to find out!! Arrrgggghhhh.

I swear the damn thing snickers as I stand there, watching the glow of my toast, lightly browning.  It takes forever to brown,  so I lose interest, and I walk away to do things like start the soapy water for dishes or fill my coffee cup.  It is then that it instantly goes from tan to an angry BURNT--in seconds.  Mere seconds! And it doesn't just blacken my toast--it has to go the whole distance with billowing smoke from the crumbs burning under the rack, the window on the door steams up, and it reeks the stench of a thousand pieces of burnt toast.  It's dramatic, this toaster oven.

If we had some sort of history together, or if the darned thing was old, I could understand. But it is not--we just bought it last year.  And while that thing whispered sweet promises in my ear as it sat on the shelf on the store, it lied. It lied about it's features. It lied about how efficient is is and how it is going to look so nice on my counter.  It lied about the great toast it was gonna make and how much I was gonna love it. It lied like a dog. And I bought those lies--in more ways than one.

I do not love you, Toaster Oven. I 'm hoping for a terrible kitchen accident to happen--say, maybe a little short circuit perhaps, or a tumble into the soapy dish water (unplugged, of course).  I dunno, just something to justify tossing this piece of conniving junk into the trash. Why we don't just cut our losses and get a new one, I don't know. Until it dies, I suffer. (I come from a long line of sufferers, so I do it well.)

And I eat black toast--all the while cursing the damn thing.

The Frog Test

I have this thing that I call the "frog test".  It's my method of determining if a frog is dead....or just hibernating--which is a big deal around here.  We don't want to be holding services for a froggy who is just sleeping, you know.

This is the extent of my frog knowledge:  frogs are cold-blooded. They slow down as it gets colder and then enter a hibernation that lasts the entire winter. Frogs need to hibernate to live a long life--well, for frogs that is.  Sometimes, they'll pop up for some air if the ice melts off the top of the pond--especially if you have that odd rainy winter day. There is just something about raindrops that beckon them, I don't know why.  Then they go back down for more slumbering until Spring comes.

Every so often, we get a froggy who is acting odd and I'm not sure if they are dead, dying, hibernating, or something in between.  I don't like leaving dead frogs in the pond  because, come spring, that is not such a nice thing to clean up.  Dead frogs are mushy, stinky, and those mile-long tongues have a way of eeking out of their mouths.  It is not fun to fish out of the pond, let me tell you.

The Frog Test:  Testing to see if a frog is still alive entails the fish bucket (one that is only used for fish and frogs--no soaps, chemicals, or cleaners allowed....EVER), warm water mixed with cold pond water, and some time.  Tossed into the warm water, a froggy will start to revive and become more active.  This is a hibernating frog.  Any frog that doesn't become more active is considered a dead or dying frog.  That always makes me sad.

When in doubt, I always toss a frog back into the pond for a week or two--then I watch closely.  Upside down is not a good sign. A hibernating frog will still move slightly and no frog would willingly be upside down.  After some time, they get a bit stiff, their mouths open, and that tongue starts thinking about where it's going.  I try to nab them out at that point. 

So, it's sad to tell you that I lost my frog this week. It was a little guy--one of the taddies, no doubt.  New frogs are more susceptible to die because they may not have had enough food stores for the winter.  They can die of fungus too, and god knows what else.  Either way, some make it, some do not.  But each life lost is a blow to me--I don't take frog deaths lightly. It makes me sad and even the brightest day is dulled by a lost frog.

I sent Joe out Saturday to take care of the frog who we knew was dead in the pond.  Em and I were out running errands when he did it, but he reported in later, saying that it really was dead. Then he added that he found some unfrozen soil next to the house in which to bury him.

And that is why I love that guy. 

The Hounds of Winter

Writers block--you know it's bad when you start eyeing the appliances for stories.  Seriously.  I have an entire post about the good cop/bad cop thing going on with my new Oreck vacuum cleaner versus the year-old toaster oven we all hate.  Now if that isn't scrambling for a post.....

I'd say it is me, but I'm noticing that more than one of us is struggling for posts these days.  Maybe it's the weather. Maybe it's the time of year.  Maybe we all just get writer's block at the same time.  Either way, I'd swear about half the of the blogs I read and enjoy are closed or are closing up shop. What gives? 

As I head into my fourth year of The Duck and Wheel, I begin to wonder if I have run the course. Do I have any more stories or is this just a dry spell?  Do I really need to go back and join the pool for stories?  Are the adventures of my Orange Stripey cat all that exciting? Do people really care about my toe? Do I mail order tadpoles this summer or do we just quit raising frogs? I dunno. These are big questions for a gloomy winter day.

And while I ponder these and other big questions, like "Do I really have too much acid in my stomach or is it a matter of too little stomach acid?", I begin to realize that winter doldrums have set in--and we still have March to get through.

I was flipping through old blog posts the other day and I found one from last year that just seemed fitting--it was called "February is Stupid".  And yes, I believe it is.  Nothing is going on.  There is no nice weather or things blooming in the yard.  The cats and I are hunkered down, still hibernating and not doing much of anything.  Work is work....and boring.  We see friends and do fun stuff--but who wants to see the report of that on the Duck and Wheel? It's just sort of a "blah" month--you know, it's kinda "stupid" according to that wise person on the radio whom I quote.

And as I ponder everything from "Is that frog really dead?" to "How am I gonna survive without updates on Brownie the Wonder Dog and Spike the Hotness Monster?", I take a deep breath and know that I DO have more stories.  I'm just in that time of year when nothing is going on--well, nothing to write about anyway.  I just have to get out there and find the stories in my every day life.

In the meantime, stay tuned for that appliance post....