Shopping For Heavy-Duty, Steel-Reinforced Work Boots

  Have you ever had someone run into the back of your foot with a shopping cart? Hurts, doesn't it?

Well, the other day, just as I finished saying, "Be careful. Don't run into me." Doodlebug smashed the grocery cart into my innocent, unprotected Achilles tendon as if the cart was a 2-ton boulder, rolling downhill and my ankle was a tender new flower shoot, just poking out of the ground in spring.

And as you can imagine (picture the boulder and the flower) my poor sweet foot sustained some damage.

But as soon as I was able to stop clutching the front of the cart and pull my teeth from my lip where they were locked in an effort to stifle the screams of pain, I moved to the side of the ice cream aisle, wiped up the blood and applied a band-aid. I was then able to finish my shopping with a minimum of limping and whimpering. And I only had to change the band-aid a few times to keep from dripping on the floor! Grocery shopping can be so much fun!

Now I'm off to buy some heavy duty work boots, steel reinforced, for next week's shopping trip.
 
Quack!

A Sparrow Necklace

Our House Cat:

 

Poor confined kitten
Staring forlornly outside
Why can't I go out?

**********

A line of sparrows
Along the edge of the roof
Like beads on a string
 

 Quack!

I Get Sick Just Watching

  Not too long ago we visited the State Fair. Lots to see and do. Here's a few of the things we saw:

Little sleeping chick

What better place for a nap

Than in a warm palm

**********

Twirling overhead

dizzying, spinning, circles

I'm sick just watching

Quack!

GIANT Milky Way!

  This is a cake I made recently for my Mom's birthday. Not only does it look like a Milky Way, but it has many Milky Way's melted into the cake batter. It's not quite as delicious as a real Milky Way, but hey. What is?

Giant Milky Way
My mouth waters just looking
Let me have a bite

Quack!

Fuzzy Puffy Pants

Funny little owl
In his puffy fuzzy pants
Needs a matching scarf

---

Raucus shouts for food
Get out here now and feed us
Jays demand peanuts

Quack!

Tiny Suns

 

A light on the deck
Spiraling, spiking petals
Pots of tiny suns  

Quack!

Again With the Haiku?!?

  Here we go again! I have some photos to share, and nothing worthwhile to say. So, I wrote a few haiku. This is what you have to look forward to for the next few days. Lucky you!

 

State Fair attraction-
A pile of piggies snoozing.

Ears, hooves, snouts, oink, stink!

---

Is that a poodle?
A giant, puff-headed dog?
Or just a llama?

(Just because I write haiku it doesn't mean they have to be good haiku!)
 
Quack!

I Ran. I Ran So Far Away.

  So, how many of you out there save up old stale cereal, cracker crumbs and cookie detritus and store it in your car? Come on! Someone? Anyone?

Well, I've been known to. No, it's not in case I drive my car into a ravine during a snow storm and want to have something to sustain me (although that could be a side benefit). If that were the case I'd pack granola bars, canned food, a can opener and jugs of water. It's for those days when I'm driving through a parking lot with the ducklings and we see a flock of seagulls (and I ran, I ran so far away) - standing on one leg, the other curled into their fuzzy under-feathers for warmth, shivering and looking downright miserable as the rain pelts their wings and they look at me with their sad little beady black eyes.

I know I'm not the only one who feeds them because as I carefully drive into their midst and lower my window, deliberately pushing scenes from the movie Birds out of my minds, they start to make noise and crowd around the car, leaving a safe 2 foot buffer. They know what's coming! And then we toss out handfuls of old stale cereal, broken cracker bits and crumbled cookies.

They make an unholy racket and gobble up all the bits and as we drive off some of them move in to get the stuff that blew under the car, and a few always follow the car for a bit. I expect they are saying thank you.

Quack!

Fat, Pre-Diabetic, Hypertensive Chipmunks

Since we put out our bird feeder this summer we've gathered quite an array of wildlife. We've had visits from birds of all sorts, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits and groundhogs. They love the free seeds!

We've also had visits from neighborhood cats and hawks. They love the free snacks too. (Chipmunks have a very loud squeak!)

Besides just being entertained by their antics, there are other benefits as well. Thanks to the squirrels I have a nice garden of sun flowers growing in my pots from all the buried sunflower seeds. Occasionally I'll see a squirrel digging at the roots of a sunflower plant, no doubt looking for the seed he knows he buried there! We also have quite a few interesting plants - probably millet and goodness only knows what else.

I've also discovered that this may be a good way to clean out the pantry without feeling guilty about throwing away the stuff we haven't eaten before it was too old and stale to be any good. The other day I found some of those bright orange peanut butter cracker sandwiches. The ducklings were fond of them for a short period of time, but now no one will touch them. And these were pretty old besides - past their 'best by' date. So I thought I'd try them out on the wildlife. Animals always like peanut butter and they don't care if it's a little old.

I've seen the squirrels nibbling at them. They pick one up in their little paws, turn it this way and that, sniff it, nibble the edges, turn it, sniff it, nibble the edges, then drop it and pick up another one - hoping that one will taste better. (the taste of store bought snacks rarely live up to their smell).

I just know what's going to happen. We're going to end up with a backyard full of fat, lethargic, pre-diabetic, hypertensive rodents. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with bright orange peanut butter crackers, but it's probably  not a healthy choice for a chipmunk (or arguably, a person). It's definitely not something their little bodies are used to. I mean, how often do they come across wild peanut butter crackers? With food coloring, salt, sugar, preservatives and other unmentionable chemicals? Not too often I think.

Now I'm torn between
1) Only feeding them healthy, natural nuts and seeds
2) Cleaning out the pantry and feeding them all sorts of garbage - saving money on seeds, but fattening them up like tiny little Paula Deans.

So hard to decide!

Quack!

Embellishments, DooDads, Whosiwhatsits, Thingamabobs, Dodingers and Flappabitties

About 5 years ago we (the Ginormous Duck family) visited Walt Disney World. We had a great time! (And by that I mean I've forgotten the whining, crying and grumpy moments and only remember the glowing, warm-fuzzy, sunny, fun bits.) And now we're going to be going again. Probably the last time we'll go as a family, mainly due to the cost. But after saving up for 5 years we managed to scrape up enough for another visit and are really looking forward to it.

And, just the other day I finished up my scrapbook from our last trip there. Yes, it took me five years to do it. (hanging my duck-bill in shame). Now, it's not like it took me 5 YEARS! to complete it. There were several very long breaks in there! But the overall time span was 5 years. And if we hadn't planned this latest trip glob only knows how long it would have taken.

Tangent here, the ducklings have been watching an uber-cool (I know, the word-uber cool is so NOT uber-cool, as Sweet Pea reminds me very often) TV show lately called Adventure Time. I really enjoy it. Did you notice I said 'glob only knows' above? The lovely LSP, or Lumpy Space Princess, often says "Oh my glob!" I like it and plan to use it often. Get used to it.

But back to the main topic. Yes, it took me 5 years, but now it's done. Thank glob! Finally! And I still have a little time to get prepared for the next batch of memories, and by that I mean, the next batch of papers, pages, embellishments, doo dads, whosiwhatsits, thingamabobs, dodingers and flappabitties. Maybe this time I'll be a little more efficient.

Or maybe not.

Quack!

Who Got The Better End of This Deal?

The other morning after my shower I reached over to the tissue box and innocently pulled out a tissue. Sounds like a nice simple everyday task, doesn't it?

Well, from said tissue dropped a critter with many legs. I swore. He stared up at me from the sink, all 8 legs poised for action and all 8 eyes trained on me. I was thinking fast and covered him with an overturned cup, then turned and ran.

The hubster, hearing my swearing, got out of bed. (He's awesome like that. Some people, upon hearing their wife swear, would feign sleep, or run screaming from the room. But not the hubby - he comes to my rescue even if may mean that he ends up being the one who needs rescuing).

But anyway, I left. I politely asked him to dispose of the many legged critter in the sink. I would  much rather deal with attempting to raise my almost-teen daughter from bed to get ready for school.

Wait a minute! Who got the better end of this deal anyway?

Quack!

Fairly Mellilow

  So I'm taking a training class for work and the break room is right across the hall from the classroom. Are you with me so far?

Now, said break room has the usual coffee and unhealthy snacks. It also has a CD player and a stack of CDs. Each day it plays some innocuously mellow music. Some days that music is better than others. The other day was Etta James - that was nice. More recently it was some way-too-mellow jazzy stuff that insinuated its way into my brain crenelations like worms in rotting meat. It was very difficult to pull it out and boy did that feel gross!

But I discovered there is a step beyond way-too-mellow jazzy stuff burrowing into my brain crevasses. Behold the horror of the day prior:

It didn't start out too badly. Even I can stand very small doses of fairly mellow Barry Manilow (or Mary Banilow as I prefer to call him). But after listening to a rousing rendition of Oh Mandy, followed by the upbeat and uber-lovely - I Write the Songs and the soothing and romantic - Looks Like We Made it, it started in on Copacabana. At that point it was far far far into the 'way-too-much-mary-banilow' category. And when I found my leg starting to bounce and my body starting to sway in time to the music I decided it was just over the top too  much! It was bad enough I was being subjected to endless Barry Manilow, but another thing altogether to have my body betray me and start moving in time with the music! Traitorous!

So, I went over to the break room . . .

and . . .

I . . .



turned that CD down!


Oh, I'm sorry. Were you expecting something more. Something involving shattered CD players and CDs spinning across the break room? Some cursing of the Mary Banilow name? Sorry to disappoint you. All I did was turn it town. Not off, just down. But boy did I turn that thing down! Way down! Now-no-one-can-hear-it down. Ha ha ha ha!

And before this class is over I'm bringing in some Five Finger Death Punch or maybe All That Remains. And I'll put that in the CD player. And I'll turn it up. Way up. Muah ha ha ha ha ha.

Quack!

Somber Piguin

  A few months ago one of our two guinea pigs passed to the great clover field in the sky. That left us with one little piggy. We don't want to get her a companion for a couple of reasons:

• Despite her cuteness and sweetness, cleaning the cage is a pain in the ass! Guinea pigs are foul little critters who poop and pee endlessly! I'd like to NOT have that cage to clean someday.
• She never seemed to appreciate her companion anyway. She seemed to be more of an annoyance than anything else  - just someone trying to hog all the hay - and I don't think any other companion would be more welcome.

The remaining piggy is a fat little thing - little rolls around her middle and several chins - many more than the one who died. But since she's been alone she has slimmed down considerably. I think now that the competition is gone she's lost the urge to eat everything in sight before the other pig can even look at it. She's still plenty healthy, just slimmer.

And, in addition to losing excess weight, she's also lost a bit of hair. I understand that it's not that uncommon with guinea pigs. I'm giving her some extra vitamin C to see if that helps. But in the meantime, we have this funny little chubby piggy with a hairless belly and balding spots on her sides. It feels very strange. I can only imagine how it feels to her when I pick her up with my ice cold hands. Yikes!

She reminds me of one of those weird hairless cats! I sometimes call her 'Somber Piggy', named after a cat, 'Somber Kitty' that we came across in the book 'May Bird and the Everafter' and its sequels. We really enjoyed those books and that name is awesome. So, our poor little lonely balding piggy not only has to put up with the indignity of losing her belly fur, but also has to put up with a strange and somewhat ridiculous nickname of 'Somber Piggy'. But really, is it any worse than her other nickname, Piguin?

Quack!

Feed Me Or I'll Eat Your Face (Adventures in Catversation)

  For some reason the cat will often have conversations with me. It's very cute! Well, recently we had a conversation like this:

Cat: Meow
Me: What are you doing kitty?
Cat: Meeurgh
Me: You're so cute. Are you talking to me?
Cat: Merrrow
Me: Come over here and sit with me.
Cat: Mrrrr
Me: Come on sweetie. Sit with Mommy.
Cat: Meeeeooww
Me: Do you want to play?
Cat: Mrrow
Me: Peek-a-boo!

She then pounced, jumping to the back of the couch where I was sitting, looked at me, then left.

And I thought that was all there was to it. Silly me. This is what was actually going on:

Cat: I'm hungry.
Me: What are you doing kitty?
Cat: Starving. Can you fill my bowl?
Me: You're so cute. Are you talking to me?
Cat: Yes I'm talking to you woman! I need some food here!
Me: Come over here and sit with me.
Cat: Sit with you? I don't have time for that! I'm wasting away here. Let's go!
Me: Come on sweetie. Sit with Mommy.
Cat: Shut up already with the sitting! Get me some chow!!
Me: Do you want to play?
Cat: No! I don't want to play. I want to eat! Eat!
Me: Peek-a-boo!
Cat: Idiot! [pounces] I should eat your face! [turns and leaves] I'm out of here dumb ass!

We discovered the truth of the conversation as soon the hubby glanced down the stairs to see her empty bowl glaring at him accusingly, light glinting off the cold, licked-clean metal and piercing his eye.

I apologized to her and filled her bowl. I'll have to make sure I listen the next time. She's smarter that I give her credit for.

(I'm very glad I can't hear what those meows actually mean. I suspect they are very close to what my imagination tells me.)

Quack!