Happy Halloween

It wasn't the most ideal Halloween, weather-wise, but it was a great Halloween nonetheless.  It rained today, and was very cool, damp and windy tonight, but we had our annual Halloween fire and neighborhood party in spite of the weather. Attendance was down considerably from last year - we only had 2 trick-or-treaters, and only had 4 attend the party (well, 5 if you include Rocky the dog) but it was a great night.  I was determined to have the fire in the big burn barrel this year, the weather be damned.  We passed on lighting the tiki torches, but The Old Man scrounged up some dry fire wood and we had a great, warm fire all evening long.  

The evening got off to a great start a few minutes after supper when The Old Man lit the fire in the burn barrel.  Mom came out, all bundled up, with the Halloween candy and Neighbor Steve and Rocky joined us around the fire.  We had a record low of two trick-or-treaters tonight, but that didn't dampen our spirits.  We sat there visiting for about an hour until a light but steady rain started.  Mom bailed on us and went inside, but the rest of us grabbed umbrellas and toughed it out.  The shower lasted about a half an hour and then the party resumed.  We sat there talking about our mutual love of music, talking about concerts we've attended back in the day, and making plans to get together on a regular basis to play and sing.

The best part of tonight's Halloween festivities was sitting around the fire, listening to The Old Man and neighbor Steve tell stories about their time in the military.  I would have given anything to have had a video recorder outside tonight, recording their stories. But as soon as I came in the house, I grabbed my journal and wrote down some notes from their stories tonight so I'll be able to remember them.

All in all, it was a great Halloween night, even though it was just the four of us.  I couldn't think of any other place I would have rather been tonight on Halloween night, unless it was in Las Vegas. 

Another Scary Halloween Tale

It's hard to believe that it's Halloween again.  It seems like just yesterday we were buying candy and setting out our Halloween decorations.  Fortunately for us at The Compound, we live in a prank-free neighborhood.  Others aren't as fortunate.  Sit back as TWIT brings you a story of Halloween mischief.  The story is brought you courtesy of JM, a faithful reader.  Here's her Story of the Missing Pumpkins:

I had five pumpkins stolen off my front porch recently!!!  The world is going to pot.  I can't believe someone would do that!  We believe it happened in broad daylight in my neighborhood that just happens to be called "Sunshine Acres" (my ass!)  They didn't take any decorations though.  My husband said he was going to make a sign and put it in the front yard thanking the thieves (so to speak) but I told him that people would just laugh at us or the same people would paintball our house or smash the pumpkins back on the porch.  We even had a street light recently put in right in front of our house.  Lot of good that did.

 

If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the five missing pumpkins, pleace contact the authorities immediately.  Let's do all we can to bring them home in one piece.

Link Of The Week

If you watched any TV at all this week, I'm sure you saw video footage of the poor marathon runner who slipped, fell and hit his head just as he was crossing the finish line. That's as hardcore as you can get - enduring the 26 mile race only to slip on a sponsor's slick logo at the finish line.  Marathons are run on pavement or concrete, and other than being slick if it is raining, there aren't many other hazards that the runners have to worry about.  This week, I read an interesting article about a marathon runner who is training to compete in a marathon that is about as hazardous as you can get - he's going to be competing in a marathon in Antarctica.  Yes, Antarctica. He's called Antarctic Mike, and he'll be running on snow and ice and will have to endure sub-zero temperatures.  To prepare for the temps, he's been training in a gigantic freezer.  You can check out his website at http://www.antarcticmike.com and read all about it. Once on his page, click on "Antarctic Ice Marathon" and you can learn all about the marathon.  Here's one interesting piece of trivia about the Antarctic marathon - one thing the runners won't have to worry about during the race is running into penguins.  The race is held so far inland that there is nothing that can survive in the area where the race is held.

Way To Go, St. Louis

TWIT would like to congratulate the St. Louis Cardinals for winning the 2006 World Series.  They won the series four games to one, over the Detroit Tigers.  Even though the Cardinals have appeared in the playoffs many times, this was their first World Series win in twenty-four years. 

The Cardinals were the underdogs going into the playoffs.  They had an unimpressive 83 wins in regular season play - the fewest wins by a World Series winner in the history of the World Series. If you add up all of the St. Louis Cardinals' victories since opening day, it adds up to 94 - still one shy of the Tigers' total from the regular season. Which goes to show you that what the experts say is true:  anyone can win the World Series. 

The experts say that this will go down in the history books as one of the least watched World Series, mainly due to the lack of megastars.  The weather also affected the Series, with game five being rained out.  The 'rents watched it faithfully every night, but they did remark last night that they were glad the Cardinals won so they didn't have to watch it any more. 

Freaky Friday

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I watched a few minutes of "Good Morning, America" like I always do.  In case you haven't seen the show lately, during the news and stories, they constantly run the news headlines across the bottom of the screen.  This morning, it was nothing but celebrity-gone-bad news.  First, they said that Snoop Dog was arrested on drug and weapon charges.  Then there was a blurb about Naomi Campbell going to a British police station and turning herself in for something.  And then they told about skeleton-like Nicole Richie checking herself into rehab for her weight issues.  I hope this isn't any indication of how today is going to be. 

Update:                                              

It was pretty freaky today at work, but then again, it's been unusually freaky there for the past few weeks. It poured all day and all night, so that made traffic a fright mare. I've spotted more raccoon roadkill in my travels the past day or two.  But there were some highlights to this Freaky Friday, however.  For one, we were able to fix The Old Man's rocker/recliner, thanks to two bolts from our good friends at Fastenall.  Second, it was Friday.  Which means we don't have to deal with work for two days.                                       

Requested Recipe Thursday

Yesterday was a great day at work.  Even though we were busier than a cat in a sandbox, it was a great day.  Why, you ask? We had cake, hot out of the oven.  The 'Rents made an awesome thing called Monkey Bread.  We saw the recipe on The Food Network last weekend, and knew we had to try it out.  The 'Rents made it yesterday morning and brought it into us at work, hot of the oven.  Even when we started eating it, it was too hot to touch with our hands - yep, it was that fresh.  Throughout the afternoon, people would try some of it when they stopped in our cubicle, and by the day's end, I had several requests for the recipe.  Let me say it's so easy, even I could make it.  Here it is, faithful readers - the recipe for Monkey Bread.  The recipe comes courtesy of the pastry chef at Wynn Las Vegas.

Monkey Bread
Flour, for pan
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
30 buttermilk canned refrigerator biscuits
1 stick butter, plus more for pan
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup walnuts

Butter and flour a bundt pan and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine sugar and cinnamon. Cut refrigerator biscuits in half and toss in cinnamon and sugar mixture. Melt the 1 stick of butter in a saucepan and add brown sugar and bring to a boil; then add nuts. Line the bundt pan with biscuits and pour butter mixture over them.
Bake for about 30 minutes. Remove from the pan when it's still hot to avoid

 

The Old Man Is Psychic

We had another exciting drive to to work this morning.  Yesterday afternoon at the beginning of rush hour traffic, a tanker filled with gasoline overturned on the ramp going from Cane Run Road to the Watterson Expressway (side note: this happened in my work 'hood.  Both west and east bound ramps were closed until about an hour ago, and they also had the expressway closed at that intersection, and Cane Run Road was closed as well.  When we finally made it to work this morning, we were all comparing routes to see who was able to get there with the least amount of trouble.

As I said, the overturned tanker was full of gasoline, and about 8,000 gallons spilled out onto the road and drainage ditches.  Last night, The Old Man said "There you go - gas prices at stations along Cane Run will go up tomorrow."  Sure enough, The Old Man was right.  This morning, gas at one station was $1.98.  This afternoon on the trip home, it was $2.29.  Now if I can get him to predict the Powerball numbers for tonight's drawing, I'll be set.

Kamikaze Raccoons

While the rest of the world is concerned with Al Quada suicide terrorists, I think we have a terrorist problem closer to home.  I think we've been infiltrated by a bunch of kamikaze raccoons.  Today on my way home, I saw four raccoons dead on the side of the roads. Where we live in the suburbs, roadkill is fairly common.  You normally see a variety, though - you don't usually see four of one type. 

The more I thought about raccons on my way home, something dawned on me - as I thought back, I remembered three instances when friends and co-workers were talking with me about raccoons. You have to admit that raccoons are not part of a typical everyday conversation.  And a couple of weeks ago, Diva Stacy and I even spotted a raccoon next door to her home. It was out on the neighbor's patio, looking for scraps by their gas grill.  If we'd been packing that night, you can bet we would have popped a cap in its ass. But I digress.  It was just odd to see four raccoon roadkills in one afternoon within a three-mile stretch of the road.  It's like they're all out right now for some strange reason.  Be careful, faithful readers - the raccoons are out there in full force.

Another Interesting Trip To The Grocery Store

After running errands and taking care of church financial business most of the day Saturday, that evening I decided to stay home instead of going out.  Actually, I did end up going out, but it was just to the grocery store. But not just any grocery store - I drove to the very interesting grocery store where the people talk to themselves.  They were having a sale and we needed a few things, and I had nothing else to do so what the heck.  I had my items in the shopping cart and was in the back of the store by the meat section getting ready to head up to the front of the store to check out, when all of a sudden a young Asian woman stopped me and asked me a question.  She had 3 good sized packages of ground pork in her shopping cart and pointed first to them and said "This?" Then she pointed at the ground beef and asked "Or this?"  I said "For what?"  She said "Spaghetti."  I told her that the ground beef would have less fat than the pork.  That having been said, it dawned on me that she weighed probably all of 100 pounds and could have not cared less about lean or fatty meat. She said "Fat makes no difference; I want taste."  Then she went on to ask me to show her what to buy to make spaghetti.  I figured this young woman had just moved to Louisville, because pretty much everyone in the city knows that I don't cook. 

She said that she had watched the Food Network all day long, but they didn't have any recipes for spaghetti. "Paula Deen cooked ribs," she told me.  So for the next few minutes we went through the grocery store and I picked out the ingredients for her spaghetti sauce.  First of all, when I saw the 3 large packages of ground pork, I asked her how many she was cooking for.  She said "Three."  I told her to put back two of the packages unless they wanted to eat it for a week or two.  I had her pick up a small package of the ground beef so she could mix it with the sausage for the sauce.  She asked about making meatballs.  I shook my head and told her "That takes too long. Make meat sauce.  If you want meatballs, buy the frozen ones.  They taste just as good and are way quicker."  Our next stop was the canned goods aisle. She said she wanted Prego sauce because she saw it on TV.  I told her Prego was fine, and to get a couple cans of mushrooms to doctor it up.   We then picked out a box of Creamette thin spaghetti (my family's favorite brand).  She asked if she needed to cook the whole box or not.  With a definite language barrier, I wasn't going to try to explain the way that my family measures portions of spaghetti (we make an "OK" sign using our index finger and thumb, and however many pieces of the spaghetti you can fit in the circle of your fingers is about one portion) so I told her to use the whole box.  I figured they could heat it up later if they had too much. 

Our next stop was the produce aisle.  I asked her if she had any onions at home; she said no.  So we picked up a small bag of onions, and then one big bell pepper.  I told her to dice 2 or 3 of the small onions and the pepper and add that to the meat when she was browning it, and then to add in the sauce and mushrooms.  I explained to her that once the meat was cooked, she didn't have a lot left to do - the sauce was already cooked and just needed to be heated up.  I had her go over what to do one more time, and then I wished her well with her spaghetti.  She thanked me again and again, and I told her that I hope it turned out ok.  She said "Good, bad - my husband will eat it."  She sounds like my kinda person. 

Link Of The Week

I've had my iPod for ten months, and it's quickly become a valuable part of my ritualistic day.  Anyone that knows me well, knows that I love order and organization.  During the night while I'm sleeping, I have it connected to my computer so it downloads podcasts that I've subsribed to.  In the morning before I leave for work, I disconnect the iPod from my computer and plug in my headphones and I'm off to work.

If you don't have an iPod, you can still partake in the joy I've found through iTunes.  You can download thousands of songs legally, and for about 99 cents each.  And if you do have  an iPod,you can download episodes of popular TV shows and tons of different podcasts, most of which are free.  Most of the TV shows will cost you, but you can still find some that are free to download, as well as many podcasts you can download for free.  Personally speaking, I subscribe to "The Pine Valley Podcast", an excellent pod cast that keeps you updated on my beloved soap "All My Children." 

So please check out http://www.iTunes.com and check it out.  Sure, downloading songs or shows will cost you a couple of bucks, but you're downloading them legally, and you don't have to worry about the government hauling you into federal court over it.

Another Email Questionaire

1. Do you wear a watch?  Only when I'm not carrying my clock purse, which I must say has been the talk of the town this fall. 

2. What's your favorite pizza topping(s)? Olives, green and/or black.

3. What's your blood type?  I have no clue.  It would take me an hour to find my Red Cross donor card.  Ask me again next week.

4. Supper or dinner?  Being in the south, I still refer to the mid-day meal as dinner, and the evening meal as supper.

5. Do you prefer men to be clean-shaven or to have facial hair? I've always liked beards and muscatches.  The soul patch craze right now kinda gets on my nerves, though.

6. If forced to choose, would you rather lose your sense of smell and taste or your sense of hearing?  The sense of smell and taste.  It would be hard never being able to smell Calvin Klein's Obsession or taste a juicy steak again, but I could not go through life not being able to hear music or laughter, or to hear someone tell me "I love you."

7. What's one of your guilty pleasures?  Expensive tequila.

8. What color underwear are you wearing right now?  White. Boring, I know, but that's the way it is when you're in your 40's.

9. Are you allergic to anything?  Nope.  I went to the allergist and got tested and he said I was officially allergic to some type of mold spore, but in the spring and fall I take OTC allergy meds and I do just fine.

10. What are your thoughts on abstinence-focused sex education? Abstinence is the only sure birth control that there is.  But the kids have got to want to abstain for themselves - not just because they know their parents want them to or because their teachers or mentors tell them to - unfortunatley, that's not something we can teach them. 

A Gross Day At Work

It was a rough day at work.  A co-worker was off and the boss was back from a week and a half of vacation, so it wasn't your typical Friday at ZCO. We were busier than a cat in a sandbox, and I was stressed out.  But on top of the workload and stress, I was also grossed out today - something that doesn't easily happen.  You see, for the past few years, I've been eating lunch with some of the guys from the engineering department.  At first, some of their guy talk would gross me out, but any more, nothing phases me.  I can go on eating my lunch and not miss a bite while they're talking about gross things. They've made me pretty hardened.  But they didn't have me quite hard enough for something that happened this afternoon at work.

As I mentioned, a co-worker was off today, and he stopped by after work to pick up a bushel basket of chestnuts that another co-worker had brought him.  Please note that the bushel basket had been setting in his chair at his desk during his day off.  Let me stop the story and say that the bushel basket full of chestnuts was quite the topic of conversation to everyone that came into our cubicle today.  Flashback to the late afternoon: a co-worker from customer service came down this afternoon to pick up some papers from us, and she picked up a couple of the chesnuts out of the basket to take home and show her small daugther.  One that she had picked up had two teeny tiny holes in it.  I told her that they must be worm holes.  We chatted some more and we decided to open up one of the chestnuts so we could see what the nut actually looked like.  I put it on the floor and stomped it with my size 8 1/2 Doc Marten, and we started to examine it.  That is, until we saw a tiny worm in it.  I threw it in the garbage so fast it was a blur.  My co-worker got a big laugh out of me being grossed out by the one tiny worm in the chestnut.  Flash forward to after work.  I was working over trying to catch up and my co-worker stopped by to pick up his chestnuts.  We talked for a moment, and then he picked up his basket and left.  I got up from my desk and started to walk down the hall to the printer when something caught my eye at my co-worker's desk.  There in the seat of his chair was a few dozen of those tiny worms.  I was grossed out.  I actually could feelthe warm water building in the back of my throat.  I didn't know what to do - I knew I couldn't just leave there there to crawl all over our office, yet I was too grossed out to touch them to get them off of his chair.  So I did what any scared woman would do in this situation: I found a can of extra-strength Lysol and sprayed about half the can on the worms.  I kept spraying until they weren't moving.  I left a post-it note on my co-workers computer monitor telling him to not sit in his chair, and then I got the hell out of there.  As soon as I got home, I emailed him at home to warn him, too.  I sure hope he checks his email at home this weekend, or else he's in for a big surprise Monday morning.

File Under: WTF?

Mass. grade school bans tag, other chase games

‘Accidents can happen,’ principal says to mixed reviews by parents

The Associated Press

Updated: 11:04 a.m. ET Oct 19, 2006

ATTLEBORO, Mass. - Tag, you're out!

Officials at an elementary school south of Boston have banned kids from playing tag, touch football and any other unsupervised chase game during recess for fear they'll get hurt and hold the school liable.

Recess is "a time when accidents can happen," said Willett Elementary School Principal Gaylene Heppe, who approved the ban.

While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous. Modified versions now include softer balls and ways for children to re-enter the action.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

"I think that it's unfortunate that kids' lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they'll never develop on their own," said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. "Playing tag is just part of being a kid."

Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.

I just don't know what to think about this.  Once again, the courts and government aren't letting kids have the chance to be kids.  Something like this is going to make the kids scared to even go to the gym or outside at recess for fear they'll get hurt. It will probably make them afraid to play with their little friends at home, too.  They'll turn into little recluses.

In this time where everyone is lawsuit happy, the fact that schools are wanting to CYA doesn't really phase me much.  The part of this article that really trips me out is about a  school modifying the rules of dodge ball to let kids that are out get back in the game.  That's almost as crazy as other schools not letting the kids play contact games because they're afraid of lawsuits.  What is this teaching the kids?  They need to know that life is like that - sometimes there's no re-entering after you're out, and in life there are usually no do-overs, either. You usually get one chance and that's it.  When I was a kid, if you got hit in dodge ball and were out, or if you were playing tag or any other game and were out, you were out; there was no elementary school version of the ACLU to whine to or complain to about being discriminated - you just dealt with it and went on and played something else.  

Good Luck, Judge Shake

It was yet another awesome and uplifting visit to the nursing home tonight.  I know you all must get tired of hearing me go on and on about it, but once again I have to say that I went into the nursing home feeling tired and as stressed out as I could be, and within five minutes, I was a different person.  Mom and I were laughing and joking with the little old ladies at our tables, and we both had a blast.  On our way home, we stopped by the VFW post to pick up some official Ladies Auxiliary documents, and while were there something very interesting happened: a candidate in next month's election stopped by to campaign. 

First of all, there was only about a dozen people at the post tonight, and quite frankly, I wasn't sure how well she would be received.  She ordered a Coke from the bar and started working the crowd.  She took time to visit with every person there before asking for their vote, and she seemed genuinely concerned. I have to say I was very impressed I'd followed this candidate in the news, and I knew that she was currently a Circuit Court judge who was running for a position as Justice on the Kentucky Supreme Court. Most candidates will campaign where there are huge crowds of people, yet this candidate took the time to drive out to the southwest part of the county and visit little ol' Mill Creek VFW Post 5421.  She'll get my vote, that's for sure.

Faithful readers, get ready for a first in TWIT - in the two plus years I've been posting my thoughts, comments and observations in TWIT, I've been careful not to get into politics or religion because, well, just because.  But today, I'm going to push the envelope and am going to make TWIT's first political endorsement.  TWIT is proud to endorse and support Judge Ann Shake for Kentucky Supreme Court Justice.  I emailed her a link to this journal entry and who knows - she might become a faithful reader.

The Haunted Bathroom Update

I'm very happy to report that we can now officially close The Case Of The Haunted Bathroom.  Thanks to the plumbing work of my father, the toilet in the master bathroom at The Compound works properly now, with no mysterious random flushing at 5:00 in the morning.  The "universal flapper" that I bought at the hardware store worked like a charm. Who would have thought that a small $3.99 part was all that was standing in the way of  peaceful night's sleep.  It was great not to be awaken from my beauty sleep at 5:05 this morning to the sound of a flushing toilet.  The night's sleep wasn't without issues, though.  I was awake at 12:30 with an annoying cough, courtesy of sinus problems and seasonal allergies.  You can bet tonight I will be wearing my trusty Breathe Right nasal strip to keep my nasal passages clear and to hopefully keep my throat clear as well. 

The Haunted Bathroom

It's hard to belive that Halloween is just two weeks from today.  Where has the year gone?  You can't walk down an aisle at the grocery stores or drugstores without running into Halloween candy, costumes and decorations.  With all of the drama going on with the sale of the church, the 'Rents and I have been remiss in our Halloween decorating.  We'll pull the aliens and the witch out of the closet as soon as this rain clears up and I'll post some pictures of the The Compound in its Halloween glory.  But in the meanwhile, sit back and let me tell you a story - a ghost story.  For you see, the master bathroom in our house is haunted.  Yes, faithful readers, haunted. 

For the past month, the toilet in the master bathroom flushes by itself at around 5:00 every morning.  I'm not exaggerating on the time nor frequency - the 'Rents can back me up on this one.   Every morning at around 5:00, I'm awaken from my slumber by the sound of the toilet flushing.  And for the past week, it's flushed by itslef two times during the night, making me kinda cranky during the day from getting woke up twice. 

OK OK - you got me.  There's no such thing as a true haunted house - the culprit is a worn out flapper, not a ghost in the bathroom. But it sure makes for a good story, doesn't it?  The timing of this has me puzzled, though - why does the flapper malfunction at the same time evey morning?  I'm a pump expert, not a plumbing expert, so I'm clueless.  Maybe you, my faithful readers, could explain this for me.  In the meanwhile, I stopped at the hardware store on the way home today and bought a flapper (the package said it was universal).  The Old Man just finished putting it on, so now all we have to so is sit back and wait till 5:00 to see if it works or not.

Link Of The Week

It's only mid-October but it's just a matter of time before one of us will get the first of many emails with a link to the infamous elf bowling.  It's dreaded by bosses everywhere because it means their employees will be elf bowling on the internet when they should be working.  Let's get a jumpstart this year and try cat bowling.  Yep, how we can celebrate Halloween with cat bowling.  Visit http://www.club300.ru/public/content/media/humor/cat_new/cat_new.swf and start bowling.  It's a bit tricky - you can't line up the ball on the lane like you can in elf bowling - on this, you just use the space part and press it whenever you think the arrow is where it should be to knock over the most cats.  But I'm sure with a few tries during the day tomorrow, you'll get the hang of it.

I'm Just Like Them

Today was errand day, as it is almost every Saturday morning.  It's the time when I take care of the banking for church and when I go grocery shopping.  Let me stop for a moment and answer a question you must be asking yourself now - "Puddin, we all know you don't cook, so why are doing the grocery shopping?"  As you said yourself, I don't cook, but I do eat.  And who better to buy the food I eat than me.  So anyhoo, I ran my errands and during the course of the two hours that I was gone, I answered three phone calls on my cell phone.  I was wearing my ultra cool Oakley sunglasses with the phone ear piece attached to the glasses frame, so it wasn't like I was driving while holding the phone to my ear or putting items in my shopping car while trying not to drop the cell phone. 

On my way home, a disturbing thought occurred to me: people seeing me from a side view today probably thought I was talking to myself, just like I witnessed the other night on my trip to the Pic Pac.  But for the record, none of the people I saw that evening were using a wireless earpiece for their cell phones; they were actually talking to theirselves.  And if someone had seen me from a front view or back view or a view of my right side, they might not have noticed the ear piece attached to the sunglasses, and might have still thought I was talking to myself.  It shouldn't bother me, but I guess I don't want to be lumped into the same category as the people I saw at the Pic Pac. Who knows?  This afternoon, someone might be writing in their blog about the crazy woman they saw at Meijers today who was talking to herself the entire time she was in the store. 

Road Rage Near-Miss

I'm not proud to admit that on my drive to work this morning, I was almost overcome by a fit of road rage.  No cuss words nor obscene gestures were given,  but they could easily have.  I was going down Cane Run Road, about half-way to work, and I heard a car honking.  I looked in my rearview mirror and side mirrors, but didn't see anything out of the ordinary.  The honking continued, and the road rage started.  I kept on driving, and I noticed the car behind me, and hold hoopty, pull over in the lane next to me, and sped up so he was right next to.  The driver rolled his window down and motioned for me to roll mine down.  The road rage was now a bit stronger.  I wanted to yell out the window "WTF?" but I resisted.  In case you didn't know, I spilled orange juice on the console in the BMW where the switches are to power windows, and now my front passenger window won't go up or down because it's gunked up.  Having said that, the honking driver was in he lane to my right, so I couldn't roll down the front passenger window to see what he wanted.  I looked over in his direction as he was yelling something and then waved, as if to thank him, and then drove on.  Once again, I looked in the rearview and side mirrors and nothing seemed wrong; I didn't see any flames shooting out from the car, nor was there any smoke, so I figured it was safe enough for the remaining two miles to get to work.

I pulled in the parking lot, and got out to survey the car.  I expected to see the trunk open or maybe a tire almost flat. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the little door to the gas cap was open. I'd left it open last night when I got gas.  The driver was simply trying to tell me that the little door was open - he wasn't trying to yell at me or anything; he was just being a kind driver.  I sure was glad that I didn't flip him off.

Update Thursday

First of all, I would like to tell everyone that our VFW Commander, Donnie, is now cancer-free.  He got the awesome news this afternoon.  People all over the city of Louisville have been praying for him, and I want to give a major shout out that our prayers have been answered.  I visited with him this evening, and he and his wife Jan (our Auxiliary President) wanted to thank everyone for their prayers.  They are two of the sweetest people that you would ever hope to meet, and I love them both dearly.  Way to go, Donnie. 

Second, I'd like to give an update on the Fourth Avenue Baptist Church situation. We're waiting now for the final copy of the contract of sale, and once we get that from the lawyer, we'll sign it and then Louisville Church of Christ will be able to worship in the old Fourth Avenue sanctuary and building. While it's sad to close a church, it's very exciting and hopeful to be a part of another church growing and being able to expand.  If the paperwork can be completed, Louisville Church of Christ should be able to have their first church service in at Fourth and Oak within three or four weeks. 

Third, an update on my dear friend Dr. Joe.  He's been back at church the past few weeks, and is looking and feeling great.  I know him well enough to know that the diabetes diagnosis will be just a minor set back. He's making the necessary dietary changes, and is doing great. 

Fourth, I'm very disappointed in myself for my pathetic 0-5 record in the fantasy football league at work.  This time last year, I was in the top 25%.  This year, I'm in last place.  Maybe a miracle will happen this week and I'll win. 

Fifth, and not intentionally last, the plans for Divas Las Vegas II (DLV2) are well under way.  Diva Stacy and I will be flying to Las Vegas on January 26 for three and a half fun-filled days of what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas.  Yep, you guessed it: We will be there for my birthday.  We've both got a lot going on in our lives at work and at home right now, and we can't wait for a few days away.  Oh how it will rock.

Update Thursday

First of all, I would like to tell everyone that our VFW Commander, Donnie, is now cancer-free.  He got the awesome news this afternoon.  People all over the city of Louisville have been praying for him, and I want to give a major shout out that our prayers have been answered.  I visited with him this evening, and he and his wife Jan (our Auxiliary President) wanted to thank everyone for their prayers.  They are two of the sweetest people that you would ever hope to meet, and I love them both dearly.  Way to go, Donnie. 

Second, I'd like to give an update on the Fourth Avenue Baptist Church situation. We're waiting now for the final copy of the contract of sale, and once we get that from the lawyer, we'll sign it and then Louisville Church of Christ will be able to worship in the old Fourth Avenue sanctuary and building. While it's sad to close a church, it's very exciting and hopeful to be a part of another church growing and being able to expand.  If the paperwork can be completed, Louisville Church of Christ should be able to have their first church service in at Fourth and Oak within three or four weeks. 

Third, an update on my dear friend Dr. Joe.  He's been back at church the past few weeks, and is looking and feeling great.  I know him well enough to know that the diabetes diagnosis will be just a minor set back. He's making the necessary dietary changes, and is doing great. 

Fourth, I'm very disappointed in myself for my pathetic 0-5 record in the fantasy football league at work.  This time last year, I was in the top 25%.  This year, I'm in last place.  Maybe a miracle will happen this week and I'll win. 

Fifth, and not intentionally last, the plans for Divas Las Vegas II (DLV2) are well under way.  Diva Stacy and I will be flying to Las Vegas on January 26 for three and a half fun-filled days of what-happens-in-Vegas-stays-in-Vegas.  Yep, you guessed it: We will be there for my birthday.  We've both got a lot going on in our lives at work and at home right now, and we can't wait for a few days away.  Oh how it will rock.

Is It Still A Full Moon?

I know the full moon was last week - and it was the harvest moon, too.  But after a very bizarre trip to the grocery store this afternoon, I'm convinced that it's still affecting people.  It should have been a boring trip to the grocery store after after work to pick up some chicken salad, but instead was filled with many encounters with crazy people.  Every person that I saw in the Pic-Pac grocery store was talking to theirself.  Let me be more specific - the people that were shopping in the store alone were all talking to theirselves; I'm going to assume that people shopping in pairs or in groups were talking among theirselves.  But you get the picture.

This grocery store is in an area of the south end that is an ethnic melting pot, and I heard quite a few different languages today from the shoppers shopping alone.  It was bizarre to say the least.  I know you might be thinking I'm the crazy one here, but the solo conversations I heard today weren't something like we would say when we forgot to pick up the milk or another item.  The people I saw were talking out loud as if they were talking to someone else.  It kinda freaked me out.  One of the shoppers even seemed to be having some type of fit - as he was talking to hisself, every few minutes he would smack hisself in the face and shake his head.  I just grabbed my chicken salad and made a bee-line for the check-out lane. 

Pot, Please Meet The Kettle

I was shocked this morning to read that Jennifer Wilbanks, the "runaway bride" from back in May, is suing her ex-fiance for a half a million dollars, claiming that he defrauded her.  Now, I know I might have a slightly different world view than others, but does she not remember that she defrauded her fiance back in May when she skipped town a few days before their wedding and made up a big story about being kidnapped? 

In case you don't remember or if you've forgotten, Jennifer Wilbanks was engaged to be married to John Mason, and a few days before their wedding, she left her home in suburban Atlanta and ran off to Vegas and made up a big story about being kidnapped.  Her disappearance from Duluth, Georgia, sparked a nationwide search and major media coverage. On April 29, 2005, she called Mason from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and claimed falsely that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted by a Hispanic male and a white woman. She later turned up in Las Vegas, where she made more fraudulent calls.  Wilbanks' repeating of the false claims to investigating officers resulted in a felony indictment of giving false information to police, a charge that could have resulted in up to five years in prison. On June 2, 2005 Wilbanks pleaded no contest to the charge. As part of her plea bargain, she was sentenced to two years' probation and 120 hours of community service and was ordered to pay $2,250 in restitution to the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department. Also as part of the deal, a misdemeanor charge of filing a false police report was dismissed. Wilbanks' record will be expunged if she successfully completes probation.

Fast forward a year and a half, and now the skank (yes, I called her a "skank") is claiming that she has been defrauded.  WTF?  Wilbanks is seeking $250,000 as her share of a home she says Mason purchased with proceeds from $500,000 received for selling their story to Regan Media in New York.  She also wants $250,000 in punitive damages for alleged abuse of the power of attorney she granted for Mason to handle their financial affairs.

In my opinion, she doesn't deserve one red cent.  If anything, she should be forced to pay her fiance, the state of Georgia, and her friends and family punitive damages for the pain and suffering that she put them through.  For those few days back in April of 2005, she put her family and friends through hell, making them think that she had been kidnapped and assaulted.  And she did it all because she wasn't quite ready to be married.  She should be out on a chain gang somewhere in rural Georgia busting up rocks with a sledge hammer.  If by some slim chance that she gets any money out of this lawsuit, I hope to goodness she uses it to pay for plastic surgery for an eye job.

File Under: WTF?

This was a quasi-historic weekend in the 'Ville.  It was the 50th annual St. James Court Art Show.  For those who might not be that hip on our local fairs and festivals, St. James Court (as referred to by the locals) is a a fine arts and crafts show that is held on the first weekend in October.  It's held at (are you ready for this?) St. James Court in Old Louisville.  This area in Old Louisville boasts one of the largest collections of Victorian homes in the country.  That's pretty impressive in and of itself, I think.  The St. James Court show is ranked as one of the top art shows/festivals in the country.  Even though it's billed as a "fine arts" and "fine crafts" show, you can still find a few booths selling the very popular wooden pumpkin or Santa yard sticks. 

All that having been said, it's a major pain  to attempt to drive anywhere remotely close to Old Louisville on the first weekend in October.  Needless to say, our church is just a couple of blocks away from the arts fair.  Each year, we have to put up a sign by the parking lot saying that there is no parking until after the church service is over or else our parking lot would be full before Sunday School started.  This Sunday before church started, I went outside to pay our off-duty officer and I saw a steady stream of St. James people walking down Fourth Street towards the fair.  My curiosity got the better of me, and I asked one group where they had to park.  They said "Almost at Broadway." I wanted to shriek "WTF?" but I just smiled and told them to have a nice afternoon.  It just makes no sense to me why people will go and not blink over spending major bucks on artwork yet they will walk a mile just so they can park for free.  Like they can't afford the $5 or $10 for a parking space within a block or two from the fair?  They have no qualms over spending $350 for a handmade clay pot, yet they're too tight to pay $10 to a school to park in their lost just two blocks from the art fair. 

I, for one, have only been to the St. James Art Show one time in my life - that was about 15 years ago, when Mom, a friend of hers and I went.  At the time, Mom and Dad were the custodians at our church, and they had told her we could park there (it was a Saturday).  That one time was enough for us to knowthat we were way out of our league. But should I decide to go again, I would pay whatever it cost to get a parking spot within a block of the show.  I've said this before and I'll say it again: the older I get, the more I'm willing to pay for convenience.

Link Of The Week

One of my fondest memories as a child was one summer when we drove across the country to visit our relatives in California.  Along the way, we stopped at Yellowstone, the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest and the Grand Canyon.  Until then, all I knew of these places was what I'd seen on TV or on a school book.  Words can't express what it feels like to be actually standing there in Yellowstone, watching Old Faithful spew up.

There's lots of National Parks that we can all enjoy.  Just visit http://www.nps.gov and you can find out about all of the National Parks.  You can search through the National Parks by location or by name.  So please visit the site soon, and take a day or two off from work and school and take the whole family to visit one of our National Parks this fall.  You'll be glad you did.

Fight The Fight, Farrah

While I read the news this morning, I was sad and shocked to find out that our 70's icon Farrah Fawcett has cancer.  The type of cancer wasn't disclosed, but it was said that the cancer is very aggressive and involved a fast-growing tumor.  Even though, Farrah remains optimistic. "I am determined to bite the bullet and fight the fight while going through the next six weeks of cutting edge, state-of-the-art treatment," the 59-year-old actress said in a statement Friday. "I should be able to return to my life as it was before. I deeply believe in one's own positive will to overcome even the most daunting challenges," she said.

As with most teenagers in the 70's, I was a huge "Charlies Angels" fan.  It was kinda like the adult version of "Nancy Drew." Each week (or sometimes two-weeks if the episode was a two-parter) we would see the three Angels solve a mystery.  We could always count on disguises, undercover ops, and even gunfire.  Even though Farrah was on the show for only one season, she is still thought of as the Charlie's Angel.  We were treated to her guest appearances in a couple of episodes each season after she left, so we still got our Farrah fix.

We like to think our icons are invincible and untouchable, but we all know that cancer is not prejudiced - it can attack the strongest and most unsuspecting victims.  Through early detection, Farrah Fawcett expects to make a full recovery from her cancer.  This is yet another reason for all of us to stay on top of things and make sure we get our cancer tests done on a regular basis. 

Good luck on your recovery, Farrah. We know you'll fight the fight and will win.

 

It's Just Not Supposed To Be This Way, Part 2

As the people in Louisville were reading online or watching the news this morning about the funeral of one the five Amish girls executed earlier this week, little did they know that our own city would be facing something just as tragic as that massacre.  During lunchtime today, the news channels were giving us breaking news about a father killing his four children and seriously wounding his wife.  The family were refugees from Somalia, who came here to escape the torture and poverty in their civil war-torn country of Bantu.  The father and the mother had an argument over their four children, and this morning the man just snapped and killed his four kids and attempted to kill his wife.  He went downtown to the main police station this morning and turned himself in, telling the police that he had killed his four children, and gave them the address where to find them.  A father killing his children is one more thing that is just not supposed to happen.

The family lived in one of the south end housing projects; the same housing project that my great aunt Laura lived in for about twenty years.  In fact, Aunt Laura's building was right next to the building where the children were found killed. This afternoon, I thought a lot about those projects - all of the times I went along with my family to visit Aunt Laura.  I was too little to be aware of all of the jokes or derogatory comments that people made about the projects; all I knew was that Aunt Laura lived in this apartment building that was surrounded by dozens of identical apartment buildings.  I played out in the yard and even out in the streets with the kids that lived there; we all paid no attention to the color of our skins or to how much money our parents had or didn't have - all we did was play together. 

We talked about this today at work.  The most common comment was what would cause a person to kill their children.  My answer was that something just snapped inside the person - that's just about the only thing I could come up with. We can't imagine what those four little children experienced during their short lives, especially during their last moments, but they are finally in a peace-filled place now. 

That's What I Call A Fish Tale

‘Monster’ found in Jurassic graveyard
Prehistoric, short-necked plesiosaur was as large as a bus
Reuters

Updated: 3:36 p.m. ET Oct 5, 2006
OSLO, Norway - Scientists have found a fossil of a “Monster” fishlike reptile in a 150 million-year-old Jurassic graveyard on an Arctic island off Norway.

The Norwegian researchers discovered remains of a total of 28 plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs — top marine predators when dinosaurs dominated on land — at a site on the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago, about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) from the North Pole.

“One of them was this gigantic monster, with vertebrae the size of dinner plates and teeth the size of cucumbers,” Joern Hurum, an assistant professor at the University of Oslo, told Reuters on Thursday.

“We believe the skeleton is intact and that it’s about 10 meters [33 feet] long,” he told Reuters. The pliosaur, a type of plesiosaur with a short neck and massive skull, has been dubbed “The Monster.”

The University's Natural History Museum said the reptile was "as long as a bus" with a mouth "that could swallow an adult human whole."

Such pliosaurs are known from remains in countries including Britain and Argentina, but no complete skeleton has been found, he said. The skull of the pliosaur — perhaps a distant real-life relative to Scotland’s mythical Loch Ness monster — was among the biggest on record.

Scientists would return next year to try to excavate the entire fossil, buried on a hillside.

Plesiosaurs, which swam with two sets of flippers, often preyed on smaller dolphinlike ichthyosaurs. All went extinct when the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago.

The scientists rated the fossil graveyard “one of the most important new sites for marine reptiles to have been discovered in the last several decades”.

“It is rare to find so many fossils in the same place — carcasses are food for other animals and usually get torn apart,” Hurum said.

Hurum reckoned the reptiles had not all died at the same time in some Jurassic-era cataclysm but had died over thousands of years in the same area, then had become preserved in what was apparently a deep layer of black mud on the seabed.

At that time, the area of Spitsbergen was under water several hundred miles farther south, around the latitude of Anchorage or Oslo.

Hurum said the presenceof fossils was also an interesting pointer for geologists hunting for oil and gas deposits in the Barents Sea to the east. “A skull we found even smells of petrol,” he said.

I was thrilled to death to read this article today.  I'm going to make a copy of this and show it to everybody that I know to prove the urban legend is true.  For you see, ever since I was a little girl, I've heard people tell stories about how there are school bus-sized catfish in the Ohio River.  Of course I believed them.  Most of the stories were basically the same - the people knew someone who knew someone that was a diver and saw the school bus-sized catfish while they were diving in the Ohio River.  I've seen catfish with heads as big as a human and were three or four feet long, and it dang near scared me to death.  I can't imagine diving and seeing one as big as a bus. 

I guess this proves that such a creature did actually exist, and I guess could still exist today in the form of a catfish. I guess there's probably whales out there as big as a bus - I like to think the one that swallowed Jonah was at least as big as a school bus.  So to me, it's within the realm of possibility that school bus-sized fish are out there.  I'd like to see one for myself, though.  Not that I doubt those archeologists over in Norway - it's just something I'd like to see and be able to say that the stories are in deed true.  Of course, I'd like to see one a bus-sized catfish from the safety of a submarine.

Link Of The Week Special Edition

It's that time of the year again, faithful readers - October is breast cancer awareness month.  This year in America, more than 211,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,300 die. One woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime.  Let me put it to you this way - that's one out of every eight of my faithful readers.  Or one out of every seven female faithful readers and me. In addition, 1,600 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 400 will die this year. If detected early, the five-year survival rate exceeds 95%. Mammograms are among the best early detection methods, yet 13 million U.S. women 40 years of age or older have never had a mammogram.  I'll be the first to admit that mammograms aren't the most pleasant things to do, but they do save lives.  Support the National Breast Cancer Foundation today and give the gift of hope to those in .  Please take a minute each day to visit The Breast Cancer Site and click on http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/CTDSites.woa/wa/gotoSite?destSite=BreastCancerSite&ThirdPartyClicks=prcnbcf.  You can put the site in your favorites so you can can click each day, or if you are very forgetful like me, you can sign up for a daily email reminder to visit the site.  It's that simple.  So take a minute each day and do your part to get free mammograms to women who can't afford it.

It's Just Not Supposed To Be This Way

As I sit here in front of the computer this evening, I'm just not sure where to start in the latest journal entry in TWIT.  To say I'm deeply saddened by yesterday's heinous killings at the Amish school is putting it mildly; as soon as I found out about the shootings when I got home yesterday afternoon I was almost sick to my stomach over it.  Yesterday's shootings comes on the heels of another high school shooting just last week.  When I heard that the girls were all killed execution-style, it made me get weepy.  This isn't supposed to happen to kids in school.  I know it's not supposed to happen to anyone, but the kids today have it hard enough already - now they have to worry about getting shot and killed while they're at school.  It's just not supposed to be this way.

When I was in school, getting shot or killed at school was something just unthinkable.  It never occurred to any of us.  We didn't even see something like that happening in the movies or on TV - it just didn't happen.  Locally, it hit home in 1997 when Michael Carneal, then 15 years old, shot and killed five students at his Paducah high school and wounded five more.  But once he was given a life sentence in prison, we forgot about it until the tragic Columbine killings.  This was a massacre on a bigger scale, and affected the whole country.  After that incident, school shootings unfortunately became all too frequent.  Then yesterday, people were glued to their TVs as the shootings occurred in the small Amish town of Quarryville, PA.  The crime had an eerie resemblance to an attack on a high school in Bailey, CO., where a 53-year-old man took six girls hostage and sexually assaulted them before fatally shooting one girl and killing himself. That attack occurred last Wednesday, the day after the Amish school gunman began buying materials for his siege.

I feel deep concern for my friends that have children. They send them off to school every morning, hoping and praying that the children will return home to them in the afternoon safe and unharmed. Their concern and worry is probably ten-fold what I feel right now.  It's times like these when I'm thankful that I don't have children.

Art Imitating Life?

In case I haven't mentioned it before, I love watching all three of the "CSI" shows.  My favorite is the Las Vegas show, mainly because I love that city so much, but the Miami and New York City shows are very cool, too.  On tonight's episode of "CSI Miami" one of the cases dealt with a subject that hit close to home.  The case involved a huge offshore gambling ship. It was kind of like our Glory Of Rome casino boat, but this gambling ship had one game that our Caesar's casino boat doesn't have: it had a celebrity death game.  This hit close to home because for the past twenty or so years, some friends and I have kept a celebrity death watch list.  Yes, it's morbid, but nobody bets on our list like they were doing on "CSI Miami" tonight.

This shouldn't surprise me that much; people will gamble on anything and bookies will give you odds on anything.  But I've read that the cases on all of the "CSI" shows are based on real cases, so somewhere out there, people have been actually gambling on who will be the next celebrity to die.  That's just not right. 

Our celebrity death watch list started as I said over twenty years ago when some co-workers and I were laughing about one of the local radio DJs who had their own version of the celebrity death watch list.   To pass the time during lulls at work, we started adding celebrities who were old or in bad health to our list.  We don't wish these celebrities any malice nor ill will - we simply discussed who we thought would be the next celebrity to die.  My dear friend MP and I still discuss this.  We email and text message each other when we hear of breaking news about a celebrity.  My current co-workers are in on it, too; periodically, theyll ask me to email them our celebrity death watch list so they can discuss it among their departments. 

We're not the only ones with this morbid curiosity; I did a quick Google search and there are quite a few celebrity death watch websites.  So we're not the only sick ones.

Link Of The Week

Everybody likes to receive an award, be it great or small. Whether we'll admit or not, deep down I think we all want to be recognized for something.  For instance, yours truly was the recipient of AOL's "Journal of the Week" not one but two times, and for that, I give all the props to you, my faithful readers. 

It seems today they give out awards for everything - from what I've heard, in the elementary schools, instead of singling a few deserving students, teachers will instead give an award certificate to every student in the class.  There's nothing like stroking the ego at an early age, is it?  Thanks to our good friends at Party Cubicle, you, too, can personalize and print out an award for anyone you know - even yourself.  Just visit http://www.partycubicle.com and click on "Print Awards" on the left side of the page.  You can choose from dozens of very official looking certificates to personalize and print out.  Personally, I would love to receive the "Fed Up With Everything" award right now.