The original version of this can be found over at Comics Curmudgeon; taking a look at it might prove illuminating.
| Daily Photo | Comments (2) |
Two website-related little things:
1) I don’t know if you guys are reading the Weekly Links there off to the side. I hope you are; they’re really fantastic things. Sometimes, when I really like a certain crop of links, I’ll leave them up for TWO weeks just to make sure you’ve had a chance to click them. But in the interest of keeping all this stuff in one place, I’ve created a Weekly Links Archive. It’s under the "Links" tab up top.
2) I’m not completely sure if I can do this, but I do have to say that any political ads that appear on this site should not be taken as representative of the author’s views. You should all know that, but just in case you don’t.
| Interweb | Comments (0) |
Helena has tagged me. I’d like to be all cool and say that I hate memes - and really, I do, the idea of them. But dammit, they’re fun and Helena’s so cool that I was kinda giddy to be tagged by her.
Helena herself posted, before tagging me, about the strange and often-irritating nature of memes, and chain letters, and the superstitions surrounding them that are completely ridiculous. So while I’m not worried that my junk will turn black and fall off, I am in the midst of a major allergy attack and my energy is limited to pretty much the amount it takes to type and to answer questions. So, in the spirit of pooping on superstition, I give you THIRTEEN (THIRTEEN!) random facts about me:
1. Sometimes at the gym, when I’m done working out and my shirt is all sweaty, I find it really hard to get my shirt up over my head because it’s constantly sticking to me. This wouldn’t be so bad except my head inevitably gets caught in there, I start to feel claustrophobic, and panicky. If you catch me on a really bad day you’ll see me jumping around the locker room, my shirt at some weird angle up over my head, my trapped arms flailing about, crying, "Get it off! Get it off!" But not usually.
2. (A follow-up to Helena’s fact about cereal). My favorite cereal is and always has been Rice Krispies, though I realize as I write that that I haven’t had Rice Krispies in probably over a decade. My favorite way to eat them is with a banana cut up in the bowl, though when I was a kid I thought of this as something reserved for special occasions, and so the only time I ever had them that way was when we’d go stay with my grandparents.
3. On July 15 of this year I’ll be exactly the same age my mom was when she had me.
4. I have the phone number of the Public Information Office of the U.S. Supreme Court on a post-it on my computer at work.
5. Like many people, I have very little desire to have children if I can’t be a stay-at-home dad.
6. Riffing on the children theme for a minute - if I ever do have children, I’m going to be THAT parent: it’s highly likely we won’t have cable in our house, though we will watch a fair bit of PBS and The Simpsons, and we’ll do lots of crafts.
7. My phone number doesn’t spell ANYTHING, according to phonespell.org.
8. I can sing the entire Animaniacs "Nations of the World" song right off the top of my head, though I tend to slow way down when I get into Africa toward the end; I always have to think about it:
9. I like Hootie and the Blowfish, and I absolutely DO NOT care who knows that.
10. This morning on the way in to work I was thinking about who I was going to invite to our Christmas party this year.
11. When I was in the 4th grade we all had to write letters to President Bush. I was the only one in the entire school who got a response - some stupid form letter and a book with pictures of Barbara Bush in various rooms in the White House. The other kids treated me like a rock star, but I thought the whole thing was incredibly dumb.
12. The older I get, the more it becomes apparent to me that I have mild dyslexia.
13. I don’t think 13 - or any number - is unlucky.
14. But just in case.
Okay, who do I want to tag? How about these people:
and Whoorl.
Whew!
| Interweb | Comments (0) |
Every year I’m convinced that my hydrangeas aren’t going to come back up, that THIS is the year they stay dead because of my negligent and unflinchingly bad care, but every year they’re back.
| Daily Photo | Comments (0) |
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to present my first tomatoes:
I’m not sure I can adequately express my excitement about having helped in the creation of these tomatoes, except to tell you that when I saw them, I squealed like a little girly piggy, fer sure.
Yesterday my coworker Gwyn brought me and my boss - who also is an avid gardener - some raspberry plants that her boyfriend had dug up from their garden. They needed to thin their bushes out, and she immediately thought of us. They sat in a pot with only a little dirt, no light and no water yesterday at work, but I put them down as soon as I got home yesterday. So far I’m not *too* hopeful about them, but there’s a whole lot of compost and manure under them and they’ve been watered no fewer than 4 times in 12 hours. Still, for the moment they look a little pathetic:
So pray for the newest addition to this garden. They’ve been watered and fed and watered and then fed some more, and it should be noted that they look a tiny bit better now than when I put them down, but only just. At any rate, if they work out I’ll have raspberries as well as blueberries and blackberries. The blackberry bush I put down last week, the one I got from Home Depot, is going nuts; it’s had about 6 inches’ new growth since I put it down:
This week I also took a chance and put down some of my cucumber seedlings. Here’s a lesson in gardening for you: always grow more seedlings than you’ll need. Best case scenario? You’ll have a whole bunch of extra plants you can give away to loved ones or other gardeners. What will probably happen, though, is that some of your seedlings will die after transplant and you’ll need the extras to fill in. Here’s hoping the latter is not the case with my cukes:
I also put down some carrots, though I don’t have a great deal of faith that they’ll do very well, or live at all, actually. But it’s always good to keep hope alive.
| Growing | Comments (0) |
My first real job - besides mowing yards and walking dogs for my neighbors or doing chores around the house - was in a small telemarketing operation in south Oklahoma City during my senior year of high school. It paid the most of any of the local phone sales outfits - eight dollars an hour - and I’d just bought the only car I’ve ever financed. Seventeen though I was, I suddenly found myself saddled with a monthly car payment of $217.53, which I was all too happy to pay, and so I went out and got myself an honest-to-God job.
Telemarketing is quitely likely the single most degrading kind of work on the planet. Quite likely even more so than prostitution. We were given a normal looking little beige phone and a stack of index cards with phone numbers on them, and a big, long, color-coded script with questions and answers.
Part of the script was that we were told to ask for the woman of the house; the rules were strict that we must never give the pitch to a man.
The boss explained it this way: "Men aren’t going to buy anything from you. They have good business sense. It’s much easier to talk women into things."
I cringed at him; he handed me a bottle of Lysol to spray down the receiver of my phone.
The men, when they did answer, were often threatening, as we weren’t allowed to even tell them why we were calling, only that we needed to speak to Mrs. So-And-So, or, barring that, the "Woman of the House." I got more than my share of guys who thought I was some no-good suitor coming along to steal their wives out from under them.
As if, I always thought.
Even worse than the men, though, were the children. Have you ever seen a two-year-old answer the phone? One day, this happened (and yes, my handbasket is all ready to go; I am going to Hell):
"Hu-low?"
"Hi! Is your mommy there?"
"Mommy?"
"Is your mommy there?"
"Hu-low? Mommy? Mommy?"
"No, I’m not your Mommy. Is your Mommy at home?"
"Yes."
"Can I speak to her?"
"Hu-low?"
"May I speak to your Mommy? Can you go get your Mommy?"
"Mommy? Hu-Low?"
[gritting my teeth together now] "CAN.I.PLEASE.SPEAK.TO.YOUR.MOMMY?"
"Can I speak a Mommy?"
"YES! The lady! Mommy! The big lady who lives with you!"
"The Big Mommy?"
"Yes! To! Your! Mommy!"
"Mommy?"
"No, I called to talk to you! What’s your name?"
"[something indecipherable]"
"Well, I just called to tell you that Santa is dead! DEAD!"
The child immediately starts crying on the phone, wailing, "SANTA!" After a few seconds I hear another line pick up.
"Who the hell is this?" asks an angry woman’s voice.
My heart leaps into my throat and I immediately hang up the phone.
| I Have A Story | Comments (3) |
I stole borrowed these antique skewers from my mom for the first cookout we had after we moved into this house, and I’ve, um, never quite found my way to giving them back to her. We make shish-kebab almost every time we have people over, as they’re super easy and delicious, and with these skewers and a wide assortment of vegetable color they always look absolutely fantastic.
| Gorgeous Little Things | Comments (0) |
Last weekend, in the midst of all our fabulous relaxifyin’ and general laziness, we also participated in our neighborhood garage sale. We’ve been trying to get rid of the last bits of detritus from when we redesigned the back porch, and our first garage sale didn’t quite go as well as we’d liked. The good thing about a neighborhood garage sale is that you have 50 other homeowners putting stuff out for sale the next day, and all your more experienced garage salers - the people who scour strangers’ front yards day and night in an attempt to find used items - will go from house to house. We sold almost everything.
Sam enjoys garage sales. He gets to hang out in the front yard with us and walk up to complete strangers, begging them to pet him. We were worried that some people might be afraid of or allergic to him, though, and so we tied him down with a stake I bought for when we take him camping. He did great; it gave him the freedom to move and walk around a bit without having to be completely immobile and without me worrying he’d get a bit too excited and dash out in front of a car.
I walked across the street to the neighbors’ sale about noon and found something that I knew Sam HAD TO HAVE. I got Sam a Dog-Loo.
MAN OH MAN did he love that thing; he took to it immediately. He went almost immediately inside and didn’t come out almost at all:
It’s basically a doghouse, right? Only MADE OF PLASTIC AND SHAPED LIKE AN IGLOO! It got pretty hot that afternoon, and Sam was able to keep cool. He even managed to catch a nap:
He definitely didn’t want to leave his dogloo when it was time. But he did come out a few times to get some lovins:
Now it sits in the backyard and Sam still seems to enjoy it, though he sorta forgot about it the other day when he got caught in the rain whilst doing his business. Oh well; he’ll get used to it.
| Sam Fridays | Comments (2) |
Skirvin Hilton Hotel, downtown Oklahoma City.
| Daily Photo | Comments (2) |
Last night as I was packing my stuff up to leave the office the tornado sirens went off. We all piled into a room downstairs and turned on the television there. Immediately I was struck with a bolt of fear - Brian had left work a few minutes earlier and there was a very actively tornadic thunderstorm headed directly across his route from work to home. The scariest part was that the meterologists were saying that any tornadoes that would come from the storm would most likely be wrapped in rain and fog, and therefore invisible. There was no cell phone signal in the room we were in, and so for several minutes I felt my heart stop in my chest, hoping to God Brian knew what was going on. There is nothing worse than not knowing if someone you love is okay. Nothing worse.
Finally I got him on the phone and he was fine. The storm was nowhere near me - or so I thought - and since I only live a half-mile from my office I declared I’d take my chances and try to get home, which I did with no problem. Later in the evening I went to the gym like I always do, and everything seemed fine.
Little did I know that, half a mile from my house, the straight-line winds had knocked the steeple off the chapel at Oklahoma City University and caused structural damage to the building. Check it out:
| Oklahoma, The Power Of Two | Comments (1) |