Silver Lining Saturday part XV

Welcome once again to Silver Lining Saturday - where every week, it's Thanksgiving!

okay, okay, enough of that announcer crap.

But it has been another wunnerful week, let's recap!

Well, it was Thanksgiving on Thursday, and we had a nice one here with just the 5 of us. The dysfunctions of my family-in-law do tend to be more apparent around the holidays, but we made it through this one okay. And I'm thankful that Magnum has gotten better at standing up for himself and his values, thusly elevating our black sheep status. Sheesh, talk about your silver lining hunting...

And as far as the actual Thanksgiving day goes, we had a very nice one. I cooked all the traditional stuff - it was all eaten up, and the husband and kids were genuinely appreciative. And we do have lots to be thankful for, everyone's health for example. We had a full day of playing-outside time in honor of all that good health. I think even the dog was extra thankful.

Kids were on break from school and Magnum took the week off from work. My work schedule was lighter than usual too, so we had more time for some good ol' R&R. I actually did go and see the movie "Twilight". Magnum tagged along. I warned him that the audience would probably be a bunch of 15 year-old-girls, and he had NO problem with that *rolls eyes*. We enjoyed the movie - was a nice little "escape", and I can certainly see the appeal to the teen girl crowd.

And I mentioned that our week also included a day at Memorial Park. It's nice to get away from the daily grind and just go out and play with like-minded people... like we did when we were kids... and not think about bills and government bailouts and dirty toilets and whatnot. It was a good systems flush.

Now it's the weekend, and December is upon us. I took a raucous, snowy run this morning in 24 invigorating degrees! I am thankful for my physical health, and I'm thankful that everyone returns to school and work next week (that's for my mental health).
.

now we're cookin'!

AAaaaaaaaaah.... Woke up to the smell of cooking flesh this morning.

Got my turkey S-L-O-W cooking, put it in at bedtime last night. So now it's officially Thanksgiving and I'm in more of a cooking mood. We went out yesterday, got some fresh air at a local park and got rid of the domestic doldrums, so now I'm ready for some culinary adventures.

Chaco and Wolfgang cut up the park sidewalks with their rollerblades while Meego terrorized some ducks and geese for a while before hitting the playground aparati.

It was a nice day to get out. I'd been feeling a little caged with Magnum and the kids all home from work and school this week. Causing ruckuses and making messes and talking about the food they're going to eat - that just magically appears in that fantasy land of theirs. I was feeling a bit abused.


So the fresh air and people watching the park provided was a good thing. Got outside the box.

Meego successfully

and unsuccessfully hiding

from the camera.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all of my blog friends! I'm truly thankful for all of ya's!

Love and kisses,

Abby<--------- (That's webdings for "Abby". Cool that it's got 2 bicycles, no??)

Abby
.

bon apetite

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. The guy on the radio this morning kept referring to it as "Turkey Day" and it started to bug me.

"Here's the weather forecast for your Turkey Day".... "Here's what you should know about closures on Turkey Day".... "Our program lineup for Turkey Day is..." I don't have a problem with people who say "Happy Holidays", but c'mon. Turkey Day? He doesn't even need to say "Thanksgiving" if he doesn't want to. Just say "Thursday" or "Tomorrow", I'd be good with that, but "Turkey Day"??

I know people put much preparation into their Thanksgiving meal. I'm just cooking for the 5 of us this year, so no pressure. I made my last stop at the grocery store yesterday, and if I forgot something, well, too bad. I'm not going there today. No way.

I do like to cook. If I've got the time. And the proper equipment. And the food is interesting. And someone will actually eat it. Uhm, remember when I blogged about the Army recruiter in High School telling me I could "do anything but cook"? And remember how I'd felt a bit offended? And perplexed about how he could get that from an ASVAB test?

Truth is, deep down, I know he's right.

I see cooking as a creative activity, but I don't worry about it much. My own tastes are very simple when it comes to the actual eating part. Cooking is just a pastime - like making mud pies or paper snowflakes. I don't particularly like eating in restaurants either. It's just "recreational eating".

But I do try, most of the time, to be a healthy conscientious meal planner. Somebody's gotta do it.

I saw this meme over at Brandy101's and thought it seemed timely and worth thinking about on Thanksgiving Eve:

#1. What's the worst tasting food you've ever eaten?
Oh, GAG, that's gotta be flax seeds. I got some of those a while back because I'd heard they're supposed to be good and healthy. Thought I'd throw some in with a bowl of oatmeal. Don't do it! DON'T!! I deplore you!!! Some people offered me alternative ways to get some flax, but I just can't go back.

#2. Share a funny or embarassing story about a meal you've made.
Did you know that if you don't put enough sauce on the bottom of your casserole dish for a "quick pasta casserole", the pasta doesn't cook? At all? I do. Now.

#3. What food do you burn or have problems cooking most often?
I guess I'll go with bacon. Such fine lines there between too squishy, just right, and burnt.

#4. Name two foods you'll be eating on this Thanksgiving.
That remains to be seen. I'm planning the traditional turkey/stuffing/gravy/yams/etc. But if something gets ruined, I just don't really care enough to try to fix it. There's always peanut butter and pickle samwiches.

Thankfully.
.

the last thing I said?

I was sitting in traffic yesterday.

Again.

Sitting. Inching ever so slowly forward. Stuck in a traffic jam. This was the second time in less than a week, I'm beginning to wonder what's up with that. Again, it was a bad car crash on the interstate. Are the car-crash gods following me?

Last week, I was heading home from a tutor session. Took me nearly an hour to go 5 miles. Multi-car crash. Yesterday, I was heading downtown for a different tutor session. Car had crashed into a parked semi-truck. There was a fatality. All south-bound lanes were closed. Find an alternate route.

So as I've spent an inordinate amount of time, literally just sitting, in traffic, I've been thinking of mortality. Of how short life is. I started thinking about people that probably don't know how important they are to me. What if I never saw them again?

So the car crash gods have gotten through. I've gotten the message. I'm going to be more "authentic" (pardon the Oprah-ism). I think I do okay at this, but I could be better. I gotta hand it to their timing too. Two car-crash jams in a week, my birthday right in the middle.

Oh, and we watched "Cloverfield" last weekend. A similar message there, and rather thought provoking if you can get passed the nauseating shaky camera effects. Seems to be a theme with me. Think about it. What if YOUR city and friends were eaten by a big monster? Do they know how you really feel about them? Better tell 'em!
.

Silver Lining Saturday, part XIV

Welcome to this week's episode of Silver Lining Saturday!

For one thing, yes, yesterday was my birthday. I don't really make a big deal about my own birthday anymore. Once you can drink, drive, and vote (preferrably not all at once), what's the dif? And, definitely, once one becomes a mom, one's own birthday pretty much takes on the same priority as waxing the lawnmower. BUT, it's still nice to have people say a heartfelt, "Happy Birthday!", and I did get some of those... after a bit of prompting.

On that note, there was the Neighbor Flanders lunch. I told her that I would be "in and out" a lot on Friday. Upon arriving in after a particular out, I found a message from her on my answering machine informing me that she would be delivering my lunch in about a half an hour. The call had come in about a half an hour prior, so I braced myself for impact. She arrived a few minutes later armed with a takeout bag from Zio's Italian Kitchen, complete with salad, entree, roll, drink, cake, packet of plasticware, and personalized birthday card. I felt horribly guilty that she had done this after all the work I put into avoiding her. She assured me that she "just wanted to", and I suppose I should be thankful for her thinking of me, silver lining that it is.

And on the food frenzy theme, the Thanksgiving Feast at the elementary school was a fun success. Coincidentally, I did, in fact, have mashed potato duty (looks around, paranoidly wondering if any school peeps read this blog), gravy too - a double dipper! There was a very large turnout of parents, and we could hardly scoop fast enough to keep up. I served with some fun moms, and I didn't have to cook anything nor clean up!

I'm thankful that my flexible work schedule allows me to do this school volunteering stuff while still having a job that I find fun and rewarding. One of my tutor students informed me that he scored well on the test that we had prepared for. He's happy. Mom's happy. Everybody's happy.

We won the office football pool again at Magnum's work. I don't remember how many weeks we've won, but we've actually got a pretty decent record going. We do our picks together as a family, and the kids get a share of the pot if we win - gotta get that gambling ethic instilled early. Plus, it provides a good outlet for Magnum's competetive nature and keeps him from griping (too much) about the government.
.

corn of plenty

I'll be heading out in a little while to go to the Thanksgiving Feast at Meego's school. Yep, they pull out all the stops - set up a full buffet line, complete with whole roasted turkeys (not the wonderful "turkey loaf" with fluorescent green gravy we all remember and love from our own school cafeteria days). As a PTO SUCKER... er... volunteer, I get to work the serving line.

It's actually quite fun. Most of the kids get all dressed up and their parents come in to eat with them, also all dressed up. Meego is wearing a pair of camo cargo shorts and an nondescript t-shirt, his typical M.O. He's not a real dress-up kind of guy, and I figure that's one battle I don't need to pick.

Me, I'll break out the girl clothes for the occassion - being a server and all. Last year, I was corn. Maybe this year, I'll be qualified to move up to mashed potatoes. We'll see. Just don't make me carve. Sterno fumes and sharp objects are not a good mix for me.

AND, this feast duty thing serves as excuse #4 as to why I won't do lunch with Neighbor Flanders. I appreciate everyone's advice on my Neighbor Flanders dilemma, but despite the potential for colorful blog entries, I'm going to continue my evasion tactics. To those who have said, "G'head! who knows? You might have fun!" - thing is, I HAVE. I tried saying yes to her invites early on and that's how I KNOW this would be a Lunch of Eternity, and I don't mean that in a good way.

So, off I go to sling some public school Thanksgiving hash. May the sterno fumes be wafting a-plenty!
.

hold the guacamole

Well, what a good class we have here! So knowledgeable of your SOHCAHTOA's and PEMDAS's and FANBOYS's. And extra credit for Jerry for remembering FOIL for expanding the quadratic, and I'm rather curious as to what MYLEGS refers to.

Let me just say that I don't remember EVER being taught any of those mnemonics or whatevers when I was in school. We just learned the stuff the old boring way. I do remember a little ditty a friend of mine from the Catholic school told me for remembering the order of planets in our solar system, but that's it.

I'm thinking I should give prizes to those who were the first to give such good answers, but I'm not sure what to award. Maybe later, I'll rummage through our own little Land of Misfit Toys.

_______

Now, on to a little dilemma. Okay, so some of you know of Neighbor Flanders. For those who don't, a little recap. Neighbor Flanders is my (surprise!) neighbor. She lives across the street. Ever since we moved here 4 years ago, she's been trying to get me to do stuff with her - to build up to this best neighbor buddy thing. I don't want to be best neighbor buddies with Neighbor Flanders.

She's not a bad person or anything, and on the surface, we have lots in common. For lack of a better explanation, I can only say that I just don't feel that she and I are "compatible" with each other. I JUST FIND HER A LITTLE STRANGE, OKAY? I just can't bring myself to just tell her that I don't want to do stuff with her. I get out of her invitations by siting a conflict of schedule or some such. And she just hasn't seemed to be getting the hint! PART OF HER STRANGENESS, I THINK.

She hadn't called me in a while, so I was thinking that maybe she was finally getting it. But NO. Yesterday, she called. She wants to take me to lunch for my birthday that's coming up. UGH!! Now, I know what you're thinking! Just go out to lunch with her already, how bad could it be? OH, it could be bad. AND, I've found that saying yes to her only eggs her on to request MORE!!

Anyway, I told her that I just have a really busy week, and Magnum is out of town for a few days - all true. But the truth is, if it was a friend that I actually wanted to have lunch with, I could've found the time.

Certainly there are worse dilemmas, but this has been ongoing for 4 years, and I feel a bit frustrated. And now she says she's going to MAKE me a lunch and just bring it over. Guilt GUILT!!

I think of myself as a very what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person - don't have much problem being honest with people, but this Neighbor Flanders thing puzzles me. Fiddlesticks and Shaving cream! (I gave up cussing, remember?)

Just venting. In the meantime, I'll let you know what she makes for lunch *sigh*.
.

blood thirsty

I just got back from grocery shopping. Monday mornings it's the typical mom crowd at the grocery store. A couple of stay-at-home-dad types too. So cute with their little coupon wallets.

Anyway, I want to see that movie Twilight. I don't know why. I haven't read the book, although I'm like a gazillionth in the queue at the library. I'm not usually a soft-sell when it comes to these hyped movies, and I know the target audience is the teen crowd, but I just want to go see it. Must be that whole obsessed love thing. With a bad boy - a really bad boy - no less.

But there I was at the grocery store and happened to see that they had two copies of the book. Did I buy one? NO, I just don't buy novels, unless it's like at a book fair where some proceeds go to a good cause or something, or if it's a book I know others in the family would want to read. But, alas, it seems that no one else here is at all intrigued by an obsessive love story between a teenaged girl and a vampire. I guess that means that no one here will particularly care to go to the movie with me either. That could actually be a good thing.

It's just as well I didn't buy that book. Work is pretty busy right now, so I need to get back to the FANBOYS and the PEMDAS and the SOHCAHTOA's and stay away from silly vampire novels.

Bonus points - and maybe a prize! - for anyone who knows what FANBOYS, PEMDAS, and SOHCAHTOA's are. The more explanatory the better.
.

Silver Lining Saturday part XIII

Ooooh! Part XIII - lucky 13! I know, 13 is supposed to be UN-lucky, but it's always been lucky for me, so I like 13. Then again, it's bad luck to be superstitious.

Still, it feels like it was a good week, so time to give it some thought and find out why:

I mentioned that last weekend we went to.... "that" park (don't make me type the whole name again). That was really a fun afternoon. We hadn't done that kind of "family fun" few hours thing in a while, and I was thinking earlier in the day that I really should get some work done and just let Magnum and the boys go, but then changed my mind. So glad I did. We frolicked around, everyone had a good time, and I threw the frisbee until my arm was about to fall off. Made a few catches that would make even the best frisbee dogs jealous, I might add.

We had our monthly elementary school PTO meeting this week. Some readers who've been here a while might remember that I was feeling serious PTO burnout last year and wanting to hang up that volunteer badge. The only reason I agreed to stay on another year was because a friend of mine was taking over as president this year and she'd asked me to stay as treasurer. Many on the board the last few years just rubbed me the wrong way, like they were doing the PTO thing just because it looked good on the volunteer section of their work file. Or they wanted to impress people with their title of "PTO President of Little Neighborhood Elementary School". Impressive as that is *COUGH* I think people should be on a PTO board for the school and the kids. That's why I was in. This year, a lot of those snooty snoots are out, and we've got the aforementioned new president and several new members that are in it for the right reasons. PTO is fun again.

The fall weather has been great, then yesterday, we had this cold front move through. I woke up to go running this morning in 17 degrees F. WHoo, invigorating! I was thankful for my UnderArmour Coldgear and that blasted balaclava. I really have a love/hate relationship with that balaclava.

I'm thankful for my students, both the newer ones and the longer standing ones. They are sincerely trying to improve their lives and reach goals they've set for themselves, and that in turn inspires me.

And, since I haven't said this specifically in a while, I'm thankful for my blog friends. Always entertaining and inspiring and educative and supportive and challenging (you WordTwist people!).
.

I, (state your name),...

I was at the usual place at the usual time talking with the usual people when one of the usual people says, "AHA! Your name is Abby!" And I'm all, "what?".

It was yesterday, after school. I was near the bench. You know, the bench between the rear door of the school and the playground. The same spot I can be found on most school days at that time, waiting for the mass of school children to come streaming out, newly freed from their school day shackles.

I'm there at that time most weekdays as are the other 4 or 5 people who routinely pick up their kids at that spot. We see each other and we talk about all manner of things. Weekend plans, troubles with kids, funny stories, sad stories, troubles with spouses, troubles with teachers, work stories, hobby stories... Things maybe we don't even talk about with our neighbors, because we don't see our neighbors as often.

Yet, we never really took the time to introduce ourselves, not by names anyway. I learned that one woman's name was Julie only because one day she wasn't there, and someone said, "Where's Julie?". Until then, she was "The Blonde Chick from Canada". Another guy was "The Parrot Dude", because he was a cook at a restaurant called The Thirsty Parrot. Another guy is "Trina's Dad". Then theres "The Big Guy" because, well, he's a pretty big guy.

It was Trina's Dad who revealed that he now knew my name. I had just left our monthly PTO meeting and still had my official I'm-allowed-to-be-in-the-school-building-because-I-signed-the-official-sign-in-sheet-and-stuck-this-official-school-visitor-sticker-on-my-shirt sticker. Half the time, I don't even bother to write my name on those stickers, but yesterday I did. So there it was for all to see.

So Trina's Dad knows my name. The Blonde Chick knows my name. Cell Phone Guy probably doesn't, he's not very interested in us it seems.

But now I'm wondering. Who was I to them before I showed up with a name??
.

fizzix

When my kids were babies, or even before they were born, I wondered paranoidly about their personalities. I mean, what would a half-Abby half-Magnum baby turn out like?! Yikes!

Turns out our 3 kids have all turned out, so far, like… well… themselves. All unique. Some things in common with each other, some things at polar opposites.

I probably wondered most about Chaco since he was our first. I kind of pictured this Jimmy Neutron type kid, with the lab in the basement, blowing things up. And, well, it seems that the prophecy has been fulfilled.

He’s a good kid and a bit of a science geek. He managed to land himself in high school physics this, his freshman year. Recently, he was given an open-ended assignment to demonstrate his knowledge of Newton’s 3 laws of motion.

The project states: “Your project may consist of any approach that is appropriate and meets the criteria in the grading rubric”. Then it goes on to list a few suggestions: “Short story, Music or song lyrics, Video or film, Drama performance, Art illustration,” etc…

So Chaco chose to create a graphics video. It’s like a hobby to him anyway. Homework that was fun?! What more could a geek freshman ask for!? I know I’m a little biased, but I thought it turned out quite well, considering what was asked of him. So I unashamedly present Chaco’s Newton’s Laws of Motion:

I will admit that, during the time that he was working on the project, if he acted up, the threat of taking his laptop away was veeeerrrrrryyyy effective. I took advantage of the fact that he didn't have to make a computerized video, and if he was unable to finish this project on the laptop, he would have to resort to "Plan B" of my choice.

I chose that he do an interpretive dance.

Thank God and Isaac Newton that it never came to that.
.

now let's not get carried away

It was a fine weekend here. On Saturday, we felt the need to go outside and play.

After much deliberation and compromise and a bit of whining, we settled that we would go to a popular local park with the mouthful name of "America the Beautiful Park". I was not on the committee that chose the name of that park. I expect that lots of taxpayer dollars were spent on consultants to come up with the name "America the Beautiful Park", but I've always found the name "America the Beautiful Park" a bit cumbersome.

Where should we go? Let's go to a park. Okay, which park do you want to go to? How about America the Beautiful Park? Okay, America the Beautiful Park is a nice park, let's go to America the Beautiful Park. Anyone else want to go to America the Beautiful Park? Yeah, we want to go to America the Beautiful Park too. Okay then! Let's go to America the Beautiful Park!

So it was decided. We loaded up Econoline the Beautiful Van with various America the Beautiful Park things like Trek the Beautiful Bike and Razor the Beautiful Scooter and In-Line the Beautiful Skates. Oh, and don't forget Wham-O the Beautiful Frisbee.

It was an America the Beautiful Afternoon. America the Beautiful Park has lots of wide open space to America the Beautiful frolic. The kids all rolled around on their various America the Beautiful Vehicles while Magnum and I tossed around Wham-O the Beautiful Frisbee. Three college aged looking America the Beautiful People joined us on the field to play some America the Beautiful Soccer.

There was an Air Force game just starting not too far away, so we were often buzzed by various America the Beautiful Fighter Jets. So just a nice America the Beautiful Day experience all around. America the Beautiful Kids were playing on the America the Beautiful Playground, America the Beautiful Dog Walkers were romping around the America the Beautiful Pathways.

I understand that America the Beautiful Park's name was derived from the America the Beautiful Song that Katharine Lee Bates wrote while overcome with America the Beautiful Emotion during a trip to the top of Pikes Peak. So thank you, Kathy, for that.

Oh well, I doubt the name will change. Unless some aliens decide otherwise.
.

Silver Lining Saturday part XII

Welcome to another fun-filled episode of Silver Lining Saturday!

In case anyone failed to notice, this week featured election day. Things pretty much turned out the way I expected they would. Note the non-provocativeness of that statement, non-confrontationalist that I am. I am thankful that the campaigning is over. This battleground state business is the pits, I look forward to no more mud spewing from my TV/ radio/telephone/mailbox.

On that note, I'm thankful that the election day bake sale was a fun success. It was nice to have the election to give us an excuse to have one. I enjoyed working with some of the other cool moms, and I wasn't stuck working a shift with any weird moms (you know they exist). Our intent was to not only raise some cash for the school, but also to be a "friendly neighborhood presence" as one PTO maniac put it. I think we accomplished both. It was cool to have some of the older voters stop by for some baked goods and comment on how they remember serving on the PTO and doing the bakes sales and stuff at the school many years ago. Some people bought whole armfuls of stuff to take back to the office. Others put money in the jar without taking even one cookie.

Work is busy and that's good. I remember the managers telling us teachers that people often decide to go back to school when the economy's bad, and that is certainly proving true in my schedule in the form of an increased number of GMAT students. I won't say that I'm thankful for the poor economy, but I'm thankful for the work.

Along with that, I'm thankful that the kids are being responsible at home during those windows of time that both Magnum and I are at work. Chaco and Wolfgang pick Meego up from school on some days, and they even remember to check that he has everything - which he hardly ever does - and go back to retrieve the necessary item(s) when he doesn't. Something I often forget to do when I have Meego pick-up duty.

I went for a run this morning, and it was perfect outside for such a thing. With the change in the clocks last week, I could actually see where I was going. And, as I ran by the local gas station, I noticed that gas is now at $2.03/gal. What??
.

nothing of particular substance

*sigh of relaxation*

Just felt a need to sit here and update, even though there's really nothing to update about. The whole work thing and being head of a household thing are putting a cramp my blog time.

The weekend has now begun, and I'm contemplating different things:

Computer geek son Chaco has one of his computer geek friends over. They're doing fun creative things on their respective laptops. Whatever happened to getting together with friends and wreaking havoc down at the local playground or something? By the way, don't tell them that I have no idea what they're talking about.

A friend of mine, who is going through a divorce, is going on a date to a hockey game tonight. She gets really loud at hockey games and nearly got kicked out of one once. I hope she doesn't scare her date away, but I won't be surprised if she does.

As for me, I will be hanging out at home watching a Family Movie. Someone was asking me about running earlier this week. How far do I run? Why? Those familiar questions. I think I figured out that I like to run because I don't go out and scream at hockey games, I don't go out and party and dance all night. Gotta do sump'n. Gotta.

It's nice to go out and see that most of the political signs have been removed. As for the ones that are still up.... HEY! PEOPLE!! COME GET YOUR STINKIN' SIGNS!!

Aaaaaah, that's better.
.

an allocation of pity, 006

Happy post-election day. I will forgo the political punditting. There's WAAAAY too much of that going on as it is. Besides, I don't like to talk politics here, and the husband and I hashed it out enough. It's a good thing his and my political opinions are aligned.

I will keep it clean and just say that the election day bake sale was a success. I don't know what the final take was, but the donation jar was filling up at a pretty good rate when I left. And the lemon poppyseed bread was being scarfed as well. I purposely didn't make brownies or chocolate chip cookies because I figured everyone and their grandma would make those, and I was right. Go for that lemon poppyseed road less travelled I say!

Sooooo, in a totally unrelated to politics road, I got an award from Freak Magnet. See how purdy?


AS it usually is with these things, I'm supposed to do some work now that I won the thing. Freak Magnet is a relatively new reader here, so I will forgive her and actually play along I suppose.

I'm to post 6 random things about myself and then pass the award along. Sheesh! Random things I haven't posted already?? I mean, I've already confessed to kissing a gay boy, to cheating on my husband's zucchini, to having awful handwriting. What else? Too much probably.

Can I cop out of the award giving? Because there's too many deserving winners? Beej, Anna, Linda, Brandy, Jerry, Judy, Terri, Herb, Rants and Whimsy - whatever her real name is, Laurabelle, Pendoodles... Ack, yes there are too many. And I'm too lazy to provide links to all those bloggers. Go find them.

Oh well, here goes:

1. I've never had chicken pox, but I've had chicken.

2. I once played footsie under the dinner table with a boyfriend only to realize that I was playing footsie with said boyfriend's dad! Wait, that wasn't me. It was a good friend of mine. WHEW!!

3. I still have all my original parts - appendix, tonsils, ovaries, uterus, wisdom teeth - but my two front teeth are fake.

4. I've never eaten sushi, but I've eaten alligator... and fishtix.

5. When I was a kid, I was annoyingly afraid of any and all dogs. Now I like 'em.

6. Patrick Dempsey does nothing for me, nor does George Clooney for that matter. Now, Daniel Craig on the other hand....



<---- click, he get's bigger!

The latest James Bond installment, in theaters Nov. 14.






Hubba hubba! I'd even play footsie with his dad!
.

easy like Monday morning

Two lemon poppyseed loaves and a round of antibiotics please.

That's kind of been my morning this Monday. Our elementary school is having a bake sale tomorrow since it's a polling place. Might as well cash in on the vote. With everyone voting early or mail-in, we'll see how many turn out on the actual voting day. A friend of mine went to vote on Friday and was faced with a 3-hour line, so she said, "Screw it. I'll vote on Tuesday". That raises my hopes for bake sale success.

So I cooked a couple of lemon poppyseed loaves - from a mix, whatever - and they have been successfully dropped off at the election day bake sale staging area. I'll be working the morning shift by the way, my fellow Americans...

And you know the cat got in that scrap last week. He seemed to be healing up well enough, but then he started to stink to high heaven! Upon examination, we discovered another facial wound. Nasty puncture that almost went all the way through his upper lip. "Does your face hurt?? 'cause it's killing me!", I told him. He didn't laugh.

We drowned him in antiseptic all weekend and he started to smell a little better, but I took him to the vet's this morning. Here's some more gore:

EEEEEEEWWWWW!!!

And another of the nose:

Anyway, no infection yet, and he got a nice shot of some new antibiotic that will hold him off for two weeks. He's acting his usual self. In fact, he keeps badgering us to put him outside at night, he's looking for a rematch with Smokey, stupid cat.

So that's been my morning. That and Cookie LITERALLY got pissed at me for taking him to the vet's.

Gotta go clean the cat carrier now...
.

Silver Lining Saturday part XI

Whoo, another week, another Silver Lining Saturday!

For one thing, we survived Halloween without anything burning down or getting Teepeed, so I suppose that's something to be thankful for. And speaking of which, I went to Meego's party, and it all went off without a hitch. A very capable Party Mom took the reins, and I was happy to be her minion. Also, Meego remembered a flight suit he had collecting dust in the closet, so that was his costume. I didn't have to sew a stitch or hot glue anything!

Wolfgang happily took the little bro out trick-or-treating after transforming into an evil Nazi.

I've raked about a google leaves this week, with a google more (how much in a google? Google it!) still left on the trees in the front yard. In true silver lining form however, the weather was beautiful this week, so I'm thankful for that. If you're futily raking leaves while a bunch are still on the trees, might as well be doing it in beautiful weather.

I got two new work assignments this week, and I'm qualifying to add another test to my repertoire. I'm thankful for my job and the fact that I find it fun and interesting and geeky.

I'm thankful that the cat, Cookie, was not shredded any worse than he was after his latest fight. That opponent was one big sucker! Don't know where he came from and I haven't seen him since.

On that note, I'm thankful for two of neighbor Flanders' kids who came and told us they'd broken up the catfight and that Cookie was bleeding. Both those kids are very allergic to cats, but jumped into the fray anyway.

And, yet again, I'm thankful for my friends - real life and virtual. Life would be SOOO dull without 'em.
.