Why You can't Unwrap a DVD

This is off 60~Second Science. Amusing and really only 60 seconds. It's just a law of nature they say. PFFFFTTHHPPPPTTT!

Mother (Nature) May I?

May I please have a day without gale force winds and aching cold? Just to do some yard clean up? PLEASE? I wouldn't mind another big snow storm, but I'm tired of the arctic cold with no white stuff! Wind, wind, wind! Cold, cold cold! Rain, sleet and ice! ENOUGH! And I love winter! Well, snowy winters. Tuesday was supposed to be nice. Past tense. *SIGH* Can I just get out to work on the ponds and yard without having to wear 4 layers of clothing and gloves and a hat? It's all I ask. Mother may I have at LEAST one nice day for clean up?

Tales From the Front Step-With my eyes closed. In the dark.

I'm sure I will soon have more exciting tales from the front step. I was just sitting out there, thinking about all these stories. I sit and think out there often. Hashing out issues and ideas, listening to the wind and wildlife. Just sittin-n-chillin. However. A couple things you should never do while out there thinking on that front step. Do not sit out there with your eyes shut. I do that. To visualize stuff. I shouldn't. It's dumb. Things come around the side of the house and steps. They sneak up on you in the dark that way. Skunks, possums, cats, mousezillas, frankensnails, spiders and bugs for starters. Bad enough as it is. The others? They would be the bigger critters. Like the 50lb rabbits and woodchucks, the deer and the coyotes. (which freaked my ass right out when the whole pack howled in the back yard this winter. HOWLING! IN THE BACK YARD! YIKES! *I was on the front step*) Yeah. EEP! And. The. Big. Cat. When I say "Big Cat" I don't mean a larger than normal felis domesticus. I mean a Cougar/Mountain Lion type cat. The one that has been sighted in the area. For years. I HAVE seen a reliable picture of a ginormous paw print from next door. RELIABLE people have seen this thing. It's been on the news for cripes sakes! So, note to self? Don't be a dummy and sit with your eyes closed. Jeeze! And turn the dang light on while you're at it! That would be the other dumb thing. Sitting in the dark in the wild boonies. *What were you thinking! Put your big pants on!*

Tales From the Front Step

Yet another tale. What? You thought I said I was told nothing ever happens here? Well you'd be correct! I WAS told nothing ever happens out here! Seems like these experts (who have lived here for 20 years) were wrong! This involves the 2 town cruisers, a deer (we assumed) AND the town Animal Control truck! Only a few nights ago! It was a bit of a puzzle at first. Once again out on the step. I see a big SUV or truck pulled over next to our field. Hmmm. Wondering what's up. Flashers are going, I didn't hear or see anything. No people, no thrashing or screaming in the underbrush or from the field across the street. Went back in, thought nothing of it. Maybe someone broke down or something. Went back out an hour later, no truck. Well. All done with the visual interest. So I thought. 2 or 3 hours later I'm back out on the front step. Cruiser 1 and cruiser 2 are slowly cruising up and down the road using their search lights to check out the fields. Back and forth. Then another truck joins in. This time, everyone is still up. So I yell down the hall to ask what's on the police/fire scanner for Town of Rural right in front of the house. I get "What?" *Sigh* I Repeat. So that brings everyone down the hall and out the front door. We realy must look like loonies to the cops by now. And my brother-in-law has slept through all these exciting episodes! I'm told the truck is Animal Control. Ahhhh. I put 2 and 2 together. Fill them in on what I had observed earlier. That truck or SUV must have hit a deer. Could have been a coyote, but more likely a deer as we have quite the infestation. We all stand there for the show. I wave at cops 1 and 2. They are used to me by now as I wave at them every night as they go about the town keeping us safe. I observe for a while longer. Up and down the road they go. Pull over, shine the light, move on. Hey. Wait a minute. No one gets OUT to look. You can NOT see into the brush well, even with no growth on it now, from the road. *Pffft* Our tax dollars hard at work. Is Bambi gonna jump out at you with shattered limbs and jack your vehicle? I think not. Plus, they were all armed. Deer VS. Vehicle 101: injured deer, shot fired, report. Standard deal. For Bambi's sake, I hope they did find it, or that it wasn't a very traumatic injury. That deer was probably in Canada by midnight buying cheap pain meds.

Tales From the Front Step

Just so many exciting things have happened here in Really, Really Rural land. Mostly at night. Did you know we have more than 2 cop cars in Rural Town? I did not know that until I was firmly reminded that Rural Town can and does employ more than 2 cops and can afford more than 2 cruisers, and NEW ones at that! WOW! Watch out for the sarcasm dripping off your monitor and onto your keyboards folks. But I digress. This story is about an idiot looking for a place to hide from the two town cruisers searching for her. Again, I am outside for a breathing treatment... I see a car coming up the road, slowing down and kind of turning into driveways. Hmm, maybe lost. Pulls down my brother-in-law-the-cops driveway. Must have had an omen and backs up and back onto the road and pulls into our driveway. Now. Hello? I had the light on. I AM IN FULL VIEW, CAN'T MISS ME! DUH! She's creeping slowly up our drive and stops so I can't see the nose of her car. I mean, right the hell next to me! She thinks she's HIDING? The town cruisers come screaming from both directions and pull in after her. LMAO. Cuff-N'-Stuffed her. I'm still sitting there, hand on my chin, quietly watching the whole process. Cops #1 and #2 say hello, tell me they will get the car towed right away, drunk driver, blah, blah, blah. I smile and nod. I watch the cruiser pull out to wait for the duty wrecker. It shows up and loads and goes. Cop #1 sits for a bit and begins writing up his report. Now other people in the house have been up and standing behind me, watching the last bit. Break out the popcorn! So much excitement for the evening in the boonies! Be still my heart! I'm told nothing ever happens out here!

Tales From the Front Step

This is a short one. Exiting out the front door to go for a "breathing treatment" one evening, I stepped down and heard/felt a horrible squishy-crunchy-splat. Leaping off the step like one of Disney's lovely ballerina hippos from Fantasia (1940), I look back to see a poor tree frog with a wet spot around it. Classic cartoon images run through my mind of eyeballs and tongue springing out like New Years party horn favors. "Oh, nooooooo..." I go down for a closer look and see it's still alive, it's poor little froggy heart beating at mach 10. I blew on it and it hopped off into the creeping myrtle. I like to think he/she hopped back off to it's favorite tree to screech happily for the rest of the summer. Um. Yeah, so? I like to think it lived happily ever after once Me-zilla stomped on it. Not end up on some froggy operating table with someone yelling "CLEAR!" ZZZZTTTT! Or eaten due to decreased mobility from it's guts being popped. EWWWWWW!!! (pic of tree frog in "Harbingers of Spring" blog.)

*note to self

you have a good idea for a blog. try to work the angles to vent frustration and make it humorous.

Happy Easter and Christos Anesti!

NOTE TO SS: "Christos Anesti"

"Christ is risen!," to be responded with "Alithos Anesti" "Truly He is risen!"

SS, you have until April 27th to throw it around. lol. Right. Greek Easter is April 27th. Mmmmmmm... LEG OF LAMB! *DROOL* Growing up I got to celebrate both Easters, Red eggs AND multi-colored ones. Ham dinner and leg of lamb. Went to church during Holy Week, got my palm, etc... Traditional Greek Orthodox church. I love being greek. I wish my family had stayed more with the traditions and foods. *sigh* But with time, families grow smaller with the loss of loved ones and things change. This year I am celebrating both and I am actually going to dye some eggs tomorrow after we get home from dinner. Not red though, I can't remember the right Rit Dye color. So multi-color it is! And yes, I know it is up to me to carry things on, at least the parts I can remember and the ones that were special to me. Hopefully someday I will be able to pass them on to a next generation.

iheart ipod!

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This is for SS. She's a little blue and a bit under the weather.

"Freelance writer Karyn McGovern's column runs the third Monday of the month."

Can you believe how freaking-gosh-darn-stinkin'-proud I am to see this in our local paper? It makes me giggle! It makes me grin! She makes me laugh out loud! I look forward to every publishing! It makes me so terribly happy that a girl I grew up with (a friend of mine, even!) has made it. And yeah. She did. Today the Cape. (Move the freak over Alicia B-B!) And look the fuck OUT world! My girl's a writer. Something I always wanted to be. (Maybe some day.) But for her-her little box of hope cracked open and you can finally see the light. YOU GO KK! I just want you to know how proud I am of you. We shall toast over Merlot and Sangria.

How I got from Cat Stevens to paranoia at 5 in the morning? I was whacked out on Rollaids!

I was ruthlessly sick. I mean heartburn so bad I was afraid to spit because it might break through the earths crust and do some damage to the core. I tried to fight it, but I hurled. Painfully, I might add. All to the betterment of my stomach. The bile dragon was evil, so hot and horrible I swear I heard my teeth enamel crack. I know I whimpered a lot after gagging it all up. So after brushing my teeth a few times and cleaning up after myself, I wanted nothing more than to go back to bed. Shivering and miserable, I crawl back under the covers and try to warm up. The leftover warmth in there helped a little. I try to get my brain back into sleep mode. *WOOOO-SAAAAA* Relax, shut down. I ran through my internal soundtrack because it was annoyingly set to Jack Johnson. Who I actually like, but he was driving me crazy playing the same refrain over and over inside my head. So I scroll through some easy listening favorites to calm down/fall asleep with... James Taylor, no, struck me as to annoying as well. I've overplayed you got a friend. Tommy Dorsey? How did he get in this section? Jeeze. Carly Simon? eh. Then mocking bird came on. nooo,no... tooooo up, I want peace, I want shhhhhness. Carol King, off Tapestry? No... hmmm. Cat Stevens. Well, alright then. Let's listen. So I'm playing "Oh Very Young" in my head. Singing along. Then my brain kicked in with the thinking crap and memories. Jesus Tap dancing Christ, mayIbestruckbyightninglordfortakingyournameinvainamen. Cat Stevens. Whom I LOVED as a baby. I sang along to his songs with my Daddy as a little girl(and my lovely multi-tasking little brain got nostalgic and weepy over my dad for a minute before it kicked back to the paranoia thought. and OMG, pls don't let me be crazy like my DAD!), as a teen I got some of his albums, still love him as an adult. Then ~SCREEEEEECH~ Wait a minute? Who the fuck is Yusuf Islam? And am I going to be on a terrorist watch list because I googled him (10 years ago) and went to his website???? He's not even let into this country still. I think still? *SIGH* Paranoia. Jumping from thought to thought, which I won't even BEGIN to explain the process of. (back then...) Jeeze, should I venture into the land of free information? Am I going to be in trouble for googling him up now? Put on some government watch list because I have a penchant for a 70's easy listening rocker who converted to Islam before I was even 7 years old? You may laugh, but these thoughts were on my mind. Back then and even right now. It wasn't long after that I saw on the news the Taliban was destroying the priceless Buddhist figures, those massive statues. My heart was breaking seeing such beauty destroyed, because if you are a student of ancient and medieval history, you know what that means. You know what's next. When some faction takes over and starts destroying a peoples cultural heritage, the shit is going to hit the fan-but soon. And you know what? A couple Septembers later it did. So all this terrorist shit, and the Islamic religion, lordforgivemeforusingbothinthesamesentence. *I have nothing but respect for others religion.* So all this stuff made me paranoid. LMAO! How much of a sheep did it make me feel like? BE AFRAID! Yeah? BAAAAAA! Screw that. My innocence is still intact. I love Cat Stevens music. If it's going to soothe me to sleep, then so be it. I'll be damned if I'll let the ass-hats and bureaucrats of the world make me paranoid and afraid to look. Now get OUT of my head so I can listen to some Teaser and the Firecat and go BACK to SLEEP! Btw, here is a Wikipedia link for Cat Stevens: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_Stevens I am very aware none of this makes sense to anyone but me, but I feel better for sitting up and blogging it. Now that I spit it out, maybe I can clear that space and plant a nice soothing and happy little Bob Ross landscape there. Hey, it's MY head! *QUIET IN THE 8 TRACK BOOTH!* "Ohhh very young what do you leave us thisss timeeee, you're only dancing on this world for a short while, and though your dreams may toss and turn you now, they will vanish away like your dads best jeans, denim blue, faded up to the sky." Sigh, sitting under my happy little Bob Ross tree and listening to Cat Stevens. All inside my tired little melon.

Harbingers of Spring (AKA "The Red-winged Blackbird has Landed" and "On the First Day of Peepers")

I find myself talking to the wildlife out here in Really Rural Land lately. About 3 weeks ago, I noticed the male Red-winged Blackbirds had arrived. I yelled at them that it was 17 freaking degrees out. "GO BACK! IT'S NOT TIME YET!" Yeah. Right. No turning back migration. The females showed up in a separate flock a week later. *insert wise ass comment about smart females here* Three nights ago, I noticed some tree frogs squawking at each other. "HEY! SHUT UP! It's 28 degrees out here for cripes sakes, Go back to bed!" And today. *SIGH* Today, it was the first day of peepers. Friday, March 14th 2008. (Per-request of SS, here's what peepers look like below.)Made for an interesting phone conversation to my fellow winter enthusiast and snowstorm cheerleader, SS. ~Ringy-Dingy!~ (BTW, I had just spoken to her seconds earlier, hence her enthusiastic greeting.)
Her "Yeah?"
Me: "Hey! Guess what I just heard!?" (in a happy sing-songy voice)
Her: "What?"
Me: "PEEPERS!"
Her "REALLY?????" (squeal of delight)
And we have some excited rambling about spring, changing our door wreaths, yadda, yadda, yadda...

I have also seen some crocus blooming at SS's on the warm side of her house
and tree buds are getting fat and turning red. Almost Pussy Willow time-if not already!?I miss the Snowdrops as there are none in my immediate area, but I bet those have already mostly gone by. The daffodils are coming upand the mild days are really warming up. It's inevitable. The signs of spring are showing. The first day of spring is the 20th of March. I just looked it up. I still want my big snowstorm, and so does SS. (You can purchase nice round stones at the edge of the village green for $5 a stone... I am sure the two of us will be gathered up by a torch wielding mob any day now for our snow loving tendencies and tied to the old hitching post to be stoned to death.) We still have a way to go before short sleeves, flip flops and grilling, but the coming attractions are heartening. Nostrababe here signing out with a sweet sound of spring... This one's for you SS!

Caving in to the Bloggies

OK, OK! *sigh* I caved. I did have a blog elsewhere. But now I feel compelled to share. I will be pulling blogs off the old one to post. Some of the more witty and humorous ONLY. I'll try not to share the crapola with no shinola to it. Hey... It's my blog! You get what you get!