I Love My Family

Aren't my parents too cute? They certainly are wonderful!

And look how handsome my four-footed brother is... He's such a treasure, Mom and Dad are lucky to have him!

Twas a Good Day on the Farm

Cole Farms and Pineland Farm that is...

J2 and I were able to spend Saturday afternoon together. I arrived at her house after a day of getting to a buttcrack of dawn rendevous out in the rain but the people never showed, buying and lugging cat food and litter around but meeting someone else at Wally World, getting a gift from the Universe at Staples (THANK YOU!), coming home to change the cat boxes, fitting a nap in there, making a pit stop to get air in tires and pick up something for Gpa before my trip, and trying to avoid all the Prom-mers.

We went to Cole Farms to eat. A total diner experience. YUM! We had to wait for a little bit and TJ decided he wanted to swing before dinner. This is my favorite of the bunch I took of him.

Of course, you have to finish off your meal with a good old-fashioned hot fudge sundae with sprinkles you get to put on yourself. J2 and I shared the Muddy Raft (picture a brownie bigger then the palm of your hand, inch thick, big scoop of vanilla ice-cream, slathered in hot fudge sauce). Heaven!

Chicken Vista! Next we visited where J2 works and got to see some farm animals.

Extreme chicken close-up! The chickens were very chatty the whole time we were by them, they would follow us around the perimeter bawcking constantly. Sort of like peepers but chickens instead.

These two little darlings only let me take about 3 shots of them, blurry coz I didn't want to scare the shit out of them with the flash. Look at those little pink snouts. Soooo cute.

Inside the barn were tons of baby cows having a early evening snack.

All of the calves wanted to lick TJ pretty badly. Every time he got close and was kinda still, out came a cow tongue to try a swipe at him. He must have smelled sweet from his sundae.

At J2's house, TJ was put to bed and the adults played Wii. Quite the experience. I suck. Let's just say if I came in 11th out of 12 for the MarioKart, I was thrilled.

Apparently I'm Neglectful

and a bad mommy.

I may be reported to the DCS - Department of Cat Services - for turning my heat off too early.

Thus forcing my youngest to huddle around the heating vent on the stove after I've finished making myself something nice for dinner.

Coz it's all about me and not catering to my feline children who are covered. in. FUR.

I believe this will be the Bambi-eyed approach Moomin will be taking when the DCS official shows up to determine if I'm still fit to keep the kits.

Truly pitiful and pathetic, isn't it? Here I am all bundled up in about three layers of clothes, wearing socks, slippers, and using blankets for TV viewing/reading in the evenings as there is no reason for the heat to be on if it's warm during the day and I come home to this... After all the pampering, feeding, scooping, vetting, playing, cleaning up after yarfs, and basically making my house into cat-heaven with all the cat trees and toys and walk-onable surfaces, not to mention making an extreme sacrifice to feed them some wet food at dinner now.


Figures.

Top 10 Heinous Current Fashions

Bonus: 70's prints/colors - totally self-explanatory, excuse me while I go bandage my eyes.

Number 10: Pit Purses - Women just aren't ready or willing to give these lovely items up yet. Seriously, if I wanted a place to store my armpit sweat, it wouldn't be a purse. What's the use of having a purse jammed directly into your pit? Oh, so pickpockets can't get into them? Well, I hate to break it to ya, they can get dollar bills out of painted-on-pants and you wouldn't know it...

Number 9: Camel Toes - This has been around for awhile, but there are still plenty of women walking around with pants two sizes too small giving us all a nice shot of the V formation the front of their pants make all because they just can't admit their true size is one that fits them appropriately.

Number 8: Hoochie Skirts - Forget about bending over to pick up anything in these, much less getting out of a car. Ditto going up/down stairs without giving your fellow humans a long look at your goodies. I think they're cute on the hanger, but having my skirt skimming the bottom of my butt cheeks now that I'm no longer in my 20's is just plain asinine. Not to mention I plan on keeping my spider veins and cellulite TO MYSELF!

Number 7: Buttcrack Pants - These are just NEVER going to GO AWAY! I'm sick and tired of the array of butt cracks I come across during the course of my day. Recently I was exposed to butt crack at an elementary school and it wasn't kid crack coz their pants were too big, it was adult crack coz their damn pants were too small!

Number 7a: Buttfloss - Usually accompanies butt crack pants, coz it isn't a full butt crack viewing experience unless you see a brightly colored piece of floss delving into the depths.

Number 6: Dresses with Pants - Who thought dresses with slacks was a good idea, thank god this is on it's way out finally.

Number 5: Boob Pucker - This started about a year ago and is now EVERYWHERE! What is this you are asking? It's that gathering of fabric between, below, or to the side of the breast areas on shirts that will allow the fabric to stretch to accomodate your boobs. Originally it was found on plus size clothing, then it morphed onto dressier T-shirts for any size that are usually cut on a bias, but it can now be found dress shirts and dresses. Nice ideal, but unfortunately in the real world, the boob pucker doesn't entirely disappear and people's eyes are drawn to the strategically placed visual cue of wrinkles between, under, and/or around your boobies. And for the A-cup women, truly a pitiful sight, talk about accentuating the negative.

Number 4: Caucafro - I'm hoping I'm the coiner of this term, but most likely someone else coined it first... this is that white teenage boy rat's nest wannabe afro coz a) he can't be bothered to ever cut his pseudo-currrly hair, b) he's trying REALLY hard to be something he's never gonna be no matter how harrrrrd he tries, or c) at some point he thinks a really strong wind will scatter his seed like dandelions. And they are constantly scratching like they have nits. In a word, fugly. Get rrrreal.

Number 3: Sausage Casing - This fashion statement will always be with us as long as there are women who insist on shoe-horning themselves into sweatpants or active wear clothes that are too tight, thus creating a set of human sausage links. Where are the T-Rexes when you need them?

Number 2: Muffin Topping - Any low rise pant will do this, even if you're considered skinny. This is when the pants cause the skin around the waist to form a roll so that when one wears tight shirts, midriff baring shirts, or just lifts up their arms, their waist looks like a muffin does when it bakes over the tin. And for some godawful reason, this super unattractive trend has been allowed to continue for years. People, where are your REAL friends and why are they letting you out of the house??!!

Number 1: Vajayjay Shorts - New, hot off the clothing presses. I've seen these shorts the last few warm days on highschoolers waiting for the bus - nice statement huh? Wonder how comfy it is sitting with the seam of your shorts wedged so far up your vajayjay, it's like a gag? Hopefully these shorts are sold with Nair coupons or a free bikini wax, coz if you've got anything wild goin' on, these shorts are gonna share it with the world!

Thriller Thursday7

In lieu of a story or excerpts... I thought I'd share what I discovered just this very day.

For my grandfather.

Being a proactive traveller, I decided to check out the local venue that carries most of the "As Seen On TV" products for the Space Bags, especially the ones for travelling. You know, to get more in a carry-on sized bag coz I'm all about having choices unlike my minimalist mother.

So I'm wandering around when all of a sudden mine eyes are attacked by...

The KING KONG of remotes!!!!! RRROOOOOWWWWRRRR!!! That being said, I took many a second, third, fourth, finally a fifth look, and damnit, I bought it for Gpa!

I got him one like mine (teeny one shown above) last visit, but I think this new Monster (sunday Sunday SUNDAY) Remote will be much better for him. He will actually be able to SEE what's on the buttons and it will be next to impossible for him to lose - at least that's what I'm gonna tell him! He doesn't have anywhere close to the million things this thing can tap into, but he will be able to operate the TV with ease!

ROAR!

Thriller Thursday6

"Ray"

I asked my "make each other laugh until one of us has to pee" coworker to share some of her supernatural experiences and she kindly did so...

Her house was built in 1851 and still has a number of original old features in place like the wide hardwood board floors, stair railings, shed connected to the house, fireplaces, afterthought pocket kitchen with the sink in the hallway that used to be a pump. Ray was the owner before her and he lived there for a long time with his visually impaired wife. She told me that the couple was known to be rather eccentric and a bit paranoid.

She said when she bought the house after he died, she found double and triple locks on all the outside doors. She also found many of their things still in the home: rugs in bad condition, wood, flour sifter, "old weird" dishes, and the bed he'd died in as well as a huge mess she had to clean up before she could move in. She decided to keep the sifter and the dishes, but the bed just plain creeped her out. She and her husband stored it in the shed for some time while they decided on how they were going to get rid of it.

Eventually they threw the bed on a friend's bonfire.

Some of the strange happenings:

1) Once she was taking a shower when the bathroom light that was on went off. It was off for about a minute when she decided to shout "Ray" and the light went back on. She yelled "off limits" to get her point across that haunting her in the bathroom was NOT OK and it never happened again.

2) There were two fruit baskets hanging on either side of the microwave in the kitchen. When she got up very early one morning at 3am to go pee, she saw one of the fruit baskets swinging back and forth. She said there was no breeze and if there had been the 2nd one would have been swinging as well but it wasn't.

3) She was falling asleep in her bedroom with her cat when she heard a hissy whisper that said "Chrisssssssssss". She said she "whipped around and told Ray to leave".

4) One time, she was coming down the stairs and walking into the first living room when she saw what she thought was the flick of a white towel going into the second living room. Like a white towel swinging behind her husband which she thought happened. So she called her husband and he wasn't there and there definitely wasn't any towel.

Her husband swears the house has never had ANY supernatural activity just as emphatically as she swears these things happened. She said things slowed down after the birth of her daughter and now that she's a toddler, #4 was the last thing that's happened.

She said she's never felt threatened or scared, but that sometimes she was being watched and she'd tell Ray to back off and leave her alone, which he always did.

Most likely the two huskies, one kitty, one toddler, and two parents have been enough to convince Ray there's no more room for him and that's why things have all but stopped. He's probably exhausted with trying to compete with them!

Last Photo Class

So my last class was tonight. The high school was locked becoz it's school vaca this week and we had to migrate to the town's public library community room where the librarians went all Wicked Witch of the West on us because we weren't READY to leave right on the dot of 8pm. We all had to present our most recent work and have everyone critique it, which took some time.

I was told that I am "most innovative", "have a great imagination", "have a surrealistic eye", "my abstracts are disturbing and sinister at times but we're drawn to them", I "am always showing them something different but still within a theme", they "look forward to what I'm going to bring to class", and that if I "don't have a show in a gallery within a year, my teacher and classmates - who will be invited or else - will hunt me down and smack me upside my head".

Here are their top 5 picks out of the 10-12 I showed tonight.

The other pics are easy to see, this more abstract one is me - my camera - my hand in that order.

I'm seriously thinking about a show. Gotta lot of work ahead of me if I do, but I have some great contacts now: my teacher wants me to keep in touch while I do this, he's willing to help with the critique end of things, and he has ideas of where to show, one classmate is going to help me with PhotoShop Elements 2.0 and knows a lady who has a printing business that might be willing to not only print my stuff but post my stuff on her website to sell, and another wants to be my cheering section so that I will share the wealth once I become rich and famous. Hah.

So I have my work cut out for me in pushing myself forward and staying enthusiastic even when it seems like I'm getting nowhere.

Monday Minutiae

For those who like itty bitty details...

It was another busy weekend.

Saturday:

Up at 8:00am, fed cats, showered, went to one of the local drugstore/pharmacy/magazine rack/beauty aid/as seen on TV product sellers to transfer a buttload of pics from my memory cards to CDs, got walked thru the process, DooBee left me on my own, they told me it would take about 15-20 minutes, time which I spent delightfully in Borders browsing for much MUCH longer than 15-20 min, came back, picked up my CDs, merrily drove home to check them before going out to take more photos, turned computer on, loaded first CD, 5 fucking pictures, unloaded it, put 2nd CD in, 5 fucking pictures, jammed CDs back in cases, slammed out of the house, drove fast back to drugstore, waited steamily in line, explained the 5 fucking pics on each CD, turned out DooBee left at an important juncture not fully explaining a very small but very vital step that I did NOT do, they redid my CDs and did not charge me, I spent the next 15-20 min in Fashion Bug being thoroughly appalled at horrendously fugly tops the industry apparently thinks the "everyday woman" actually wants to look at much less wear, got my CDs, went directly to my streamlet to take photo class pics, spent about an hour and a half doodling around taking many godawful photos, came back home, didn't stop for anything to eat because I got all ADD and decided the yard needed my immediate landscaping attention, raked dead leaves and tops out of the beds (wheelbarrow full), picked up ALL dead branches that fell into the entire yard over the winter (more than a wheelbarrow full but I MADE IT FIT), removed the wheelbarrow's worth of pine needles from around the hydrangea, came back inside to play with just-taken-pics forgetting to eat yet again, got frustrated, finally ate late lunch/early dinner, fed cats, and dropped into Chair of Death and read my book.

Sunday:

Up at 7:30am, picked up clutter, vacuumed all rooms (carpets and hardwood), shook out throw rugs, dusted all living room/kitchen/dining room surfaces, cleaned bathroom so it sparkled, co-worker and his daughter came over, daughter met Moomin who did his best to sniff as much of her as he could, we all went out back, I took some pics of her in the big Kscope and some action shots of her with the big therapy balls I have, they left, I played with the photos just took, got hungry and was about to make soup when Mom called to invite me to Chinese food lunch, YES, ate lunch with Mom and Dad, Riley in car, Blizzard for dessert, then 7 loads of laundry with mixed hanging to dry and dryer loads, watched bad non-TV and Rock of Love Reunion (when did the Headbanger's Ball ex-video jockey, Ricky Rackman, get all frenzied, yelly, and crap - like a cheesy game show host?) while laundrying, separated undies, matched socks, folded Tshirts, put all dry clean clothes away in respective places, brushed teeth, got in bed, and read til sleepy.

Monday:

Got up for work, did the grillion (grooming-million) things have to do to get ready for work, reassured cats I would be home to feed them dinner, arrived at work, showed co-worker the pics of him and his daughter, did work, went to 10am meeting, came back to email from co-worker telling me I took fab pics of his daughter and that I'm quite the photographer, glowed, ate lunch, went to 1pm meeting, from there went to 3pm meeting, after that went grocery shopping, came home, put groceries away, fed cats like promised, prepared homemade chicken soup with ingredients just purchased, while that simmered I cut up and steamed yellow and purple cauliflower for my lunches this week, then messed with several photos in prep for making prints tomorrow for my last photo class, went pee (FINALLY, what's wrong with me that I completely forgot to do THAT?), whipped up some noodles, had bowl of soup, watched non-TV, landed on Nemo, and now I'm ready for bed.

Whew!

Last photo class tomorrow. I'm gonna miss the assignments and the pushing me to push myself.

Thriller Thursday5

These excerpts are from the book Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places by Brad Steiger.

Route 666: The Southwest's Devil's Highway (pg 408-409)

"Although US Route 666 is now officially known as US Route 491 or 393, the legend of Camino del Diablo, 'the Devil's Road', will be long remembered. The original naming of the highway had nothing to do with the Number of the Beast, or Antichrist - 666, as given in Revelations, the last book in the Bible. The highway was so designated because it was the sixth branch of an interstate route then known as US 60. The section linking Chicago to Los Angeles became the legendary Route 66. And the Four Corners detour from Route 66 was renumbered 666 in August 1926. But some say labeling the road with those numerals made it Satan's own road to perdition. The 190 miles of the former US Route 666 starts at Gallup, New Mexico, wends it way through 70 miles of Colorado, then ends in Monticello, Utah. According to numerous eyewitness accounts, on nights of the full moon, a black 1930s-vintage Pierce-Arrow roadster has appeared and run scores of cars, trucks, and motorcycles off the road. The ghostly automobile has been linked to at least five deaths. Dr. Avery Teicher of Phoenix spent ten years documenting reports of the phantom Pierce-Arrow and the howling hellhounds that materialize to terrorize anyone foolhardy enough to pull off Route 666 and admire the desert landscape. According to Dr. Teicher, two members of a biker gang had both of their arms chewed off by the fiendish ghost dogs, and a third biker had 90 percent of his face eaten away. The least threatening of all reports from the Devil's Highway are those of a phantom female hitchhiker who vanishes whenever someone stops to give her a ride. On January 21, 2003, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson stated his support to change the name of US 666. The change became official in may 2003."

A Vanishing Restaurant Outside of Amarillo (pgs 440-441)

"In the early summer of 1987, Sam and Clara were traveling to Amarillo, Texas on a business trip. Shortly after midnight, they decided to stop to eat at a quaint, rustic-style restaurant that neither of them had ever noticed on previous trips to the region. They remembered that the food was prepared in an excellent down-home country style, and that the waitress, the cook, and even the other customers were so friendly in a sincere manner that Sam and Clara truly meant their promise that they would stop back again. 'And we tried to do exactly that on our return drive,' Sam said, 'but that great littl down-home restaurant was nowhere to be seen. We even looped back a couple of times, thinking we might somehow have driven on by. We even got into an argument, each of us insisting that we remembered exactly where it was. We just couldn't find it, and since the hour was getting very late, we drove on.' Because their business required a number of return visits to Amarillo, Sam and Clara traveled that route on three consecutive weekends, each time keeping a watch for the restaurant with the wonderful cooking, but it seemed as though it had simply vanished. 'Since then, we have driven that route a dozen or more times,' Sam said, 'but we never again found that friendly little restaurant.' Indeed, Sam and Clara may have been extremely fortunate. What if the 'friendly little restaurant' appeared and disappeared every few years? A kind of Texas-style 'Brigadoon'. They might have been lost in time and space for decades. But at least the food and the company would have been good."

Someone Fuzzy Is Going to Cut Their Tongue

I just came back from class all high on oodles of praise and visions of showing my pics and selling them and just feeling SO GOOD and CREATIVE when while typing this I hear...

Clink clink clink clink in the kitchen.

It's Doodle trying her damnest to lick any chz remnants off the knife I used to cut a small bit of chz off a wedge for a pre-bed snack (as all my bananas are currently TOO green to eat right now and my stomach was eating itself, cornflakes for supper doesn't last very long). And it's a sharp knife too.

So I had to go and wash it off to make sure there is not even a hint of a scent of chz still on it.

The visions of her tongue cut in half and it being my fault have quite deflated my big ego balloon.

Assignment for next week is to take pics with "intimacy, action, interaction, and/or emotion". Any one, two, three, or all of the above. Should be interesting. Hopefully the sun will be out this weekend so I can take pics, it's hard to take them after work, not nearly enough light.

Yes, I am whining!

Some Photos for Class Tomorrow

I was told at last week's class by the guest speaker/presenter that I had "native talent and a good eye". And this from a guy who does simply amazing stuff with his camera and PhotoShop. My teacher wants to be "surprised" by me this week. Hopefully these will do the trick. They're my favorites out of a whole slew of pics of water, reflections, mirrors, and different settings.

I've Been Project-ing

Sorry I haven't posted pics of the big Kaleidoscope but I got a bee under my bonnet and decided this weekend was now or never for this project.

I didn't make anything, I de-constructed something.

I took up the carpet in my bedroom and spare room.

So this is what my weekend looked like:

Saturday: get up at 8am, feed cats, procrastinate a bit by reading and falling back asleep, waking up to move all the stuff out of my bedroom, vacuum the carpet, rip carpet up, roll it up, loft it out the window (accidentally breaking several branches on the azaela bush OOPS), rip up the padding, loft it out the window, tackling the tack strips (a whole lotta fun, let me tell you), carefully digging the staples out of the hardwood floors that the installers went crazy putting in the padding, vacuum the hardwood floors, scrub them with Murphy's Wood Soap on hands and knees, move all the stuff back in the room with some rearrangements, then fall into my Chair of Death to zombie-watch TV while every muscle group located in both my upper body and my butt region aches like the dickens.

Sunday: get up and get moving at 8am after feeding the cats, move all the stuff that can be moved out of the spare bedroom (leaving the empty husk of bunkbeds and the computer table (with computer still on it coz if I unplug or unhook anything - it ain't going back together right), vacuum carpet, rip out carpet (manuevering it under the table and bunkbeds - that took some creative double lifting and rolling, and pushing and swearing on my part), safely lofting it out the window onto the driveway (no bushes injured this time around), rip up padding (easier then the carpet to get under the beds and table), loft it out the window, tack strips which were even more uncooperative than my bedroom, even more staples (apparently the carpet installers were under the impression they were putting in permanent carpeting, NOT), vacuum hardwood floors, wash them on hands and knees (what can I say, I'm old fashioned and like to get up close to know I'm getting the dirt), put everything back but with changes and rearrangements, sometimes rearranging several times, only to fall again into the Chair of Death with same muscle groups severely stressed out.

I watched Fifth Element and Rock of Love 2 - nice non-brain functioning TV with three very exhausted cats on my lap. I'm not sure exactly what made them exhausted, they slept thru the entire process. Maybe it was because they didn't sleep yesterday and today it was old hat. Been there done that heard that hammering isn't for us let's sleep. Only Moomin would check in every now and then to see if the hot air register hole was still there and try to fit his head into it, when that didn't work, he shoved his foreleg in.

Thus a major project that has been years in the wings is completed. And the rooms look great! It will be so much easier vacuuming up the cat dust bunnies that will be multiplying now that spring is officially here.

Thank goodness.

I'm going to bed.

The BIG Kaleidoscope...

I promised you pictures of the Kscope but dangnabit, it was extremely cloudy on Sunday and as a result all the pics I took of it were blurry and useless.

And I spent the day in my PJs.

But, I did some more experimenting with low light.

I promise, promise, promise to post pics of the Kscope itself as soon as I can. I'm sorry I didn't take pictures of the making it process. I always forget to do that until whatever I'm making is complete and untakeapartable, like with recipes. But I do have the components which I can take pics of so if you want to make one, you can print them off and show the parts to the nice friendly DoBees at Lowe's.

I Made Something Incredible

I had a thought. A very big thought. A huge creative thought.

So I went to where one can buy things to make huge creative thoughts become reality. Lowe's.

I got a cement tube. 3 slim long rectangular mirror strips. Clear packing tape. Big-ass cable ties.

I made a big kaleidoscope. And, really, I mean BIG. The cement tube is 10" diameter and the mirrors are 8"x36".

I put the mirrors in a triangular form, cable zip-tied them solidly together with no gaps between them. Then I slid the form into the cement tube, securing the ties with packing tape. I made a "viewfinder" and taped that onto one end and then made a rim on the other so it won't slide out.

Yes, it's gosh-darned heavy, but I'm not thinking of lugging it around much, it's meant more for stationary pictures and timed shots. It's definitely not pretty. I will take pics of it tomorrow and share the glory of it's hugeness!

I've been experimenting all night. Here's some of my favorite shots. I tweaked the brightness on the second MM shot, makes it looks sort of painted or Warholish.

I couldn't resist doing some self-portraiture. One of our photo class assignments is to play with light. These are kinda dark, but I think it suits them. Click for bigger to really get their effect.


I'll be playing more with it tomorrow to see how natural cloudy light works...

Oh For Those Days of Innocence

I went to a recent hospital booksale and there wasn't much there. I went over the room searching for certain authors and subjects first like I always do and then did a second go-round in case my specific blinders missed anything. I found this on the go-round and almost didn't buy it. I put it back but then picked it back up, flipped thru it, giggled at the contents and some of the text under the headings, and decided I could not pass it up. I'm very glad I didn't, I have been laughing what remains of my ass off! This lovely find "is based upon Harford Powel's epoch-making article entitled 'Bed Manners', which appeared in Vogue, December 1, 1933." These authors decided an article just wasn't enough for a "subject [that] has never before been discussed in print, and deserves the careful study which [the authors] have given it." I present to you (click for bigger view)...

"How to bring sunshine into your nights." Whoa, Nellie! This book is two volumes in one, the first volume's illustrator is far better than the one for the second volume.

I think my favorite chapters are #s 5, 9, 10, 13 (like yatchting was an everyday occurrence), and 14 (I know trains were).

See what I mean, more interesting to look at and more highbrow witty.

My favorite chapters in Vol 2 are #s 7, 8 (I'd like to see this advice work today), 9 (referring to a favorite subject), 12 (are sick people ever charming?), and it's companion 13 (don'ts for sick people).

See what I mean about the different type of illustrator? Not so attractive and highbrow.

If you are interested and lucky, maybe your library could find this book with an interlibrary loan!

MadPuppy's Scan Request

for taking him down Memory Lane! Hope this is the hard cover edition (the top one, bottom is the paperback) you remember!

The book I cheated, er used, for Thriller Thurs4.

Riley Makes a New Friend

So Riley got to meet my friend J2's son TJ. Small boys make him skitty. The whole time TJ was visiting him, you could tell Riley was thinking, "well he smells human, but he's alot smaller than the humans I'm used to, and a lot faster. I can't tell where he's gonna go next and he keeps coming towards making super high pitched noises that get my ears all a'ringin'. I don't know whether to be afraid or amused. Oops, here he comes! I gotta jump and run again! Where's my big people so I can hide behind them?"

Coming in for a sniff that's treat enhanced.

Riley needed some food encouragement to approach unfamiliar small boy who moves in unpredictable ways thus making Riley super skittish.

A boy, a dog, and some bubbles. What better way to spend the afternoon?

Doin' the Lucky Dog Dance!

Both these boys are sportin' fools and get all bestirred when it comes to tennis balls!

Thriller Thursday4

I have to admit, my life is not personally full of supernatural happenings or experiences. I've been wracking my memories trying to come up with thrilling episodes and other than strange but true barely coherent party stories, I got nada. So I present to you a mixed bag from a book sale find of mine called "Strangely Enough" by C.B. Colby. The blurb on the front of the book says "100 Hair-Raising Tales to Fascinate and Intrigue You! Fact or Fiction? Real or Imagination?" You're not getting 100 and I'll try to contain the tidbits to the Fact and Real ones.

Lost TV Signal (page 43)

"... In the early days of television some sets retained a picture long after the program was over... In September 1953, many television screens in England suddenly carried the identification card and call letters of TV station KLEE in Houston, Texas, thousands of miles across the Atlantic. The image stayed on the screen long enough for several viewers to take pictures of the remarkable occurrence. TV usually fades out after about 150 miles [this was back in the day, stop laughing] unless helped along with electronic devices and relay stations. In 1953 this was not possible... What really startled the TV world was the fact that when the British broadcasting engineers contacted KLEE in Houston to tell them of the unusual event, they learned that the station had been off the air for three years. Since that time, no KLEE indentification card had been shown. Where had that picture been for three years? Why did it only appear in England an how did it get back from wherever it had been?"

New England's Darkest Day (pages 29-30)

"... one of the most unusual dark days happened back in the spring of 1780, on May 19, ... May 19th dawned as bright and clear as usual, except that there appeared to be a haze to the southwest. This haze grew darker and soon the whole sky was covered with a thick cloud which was travelling northeast rapidly. It reached the Canadian border by midmorning. Meanwhile the eastern part of New York and Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut were becoming darker and darker. By one o'clock some sections were so dark that white paper held a few inches from the eyes couldn't be seen. It was as dark as a starless night. Apprehension soon turned to panic. Schools were dismissed and lanterns and candles were lighted in homes and along the streets. One New Hampshire town history reports that chickens and birds went to roost,... Many people gathered in churches to pray and await what they assumed was the Judgment Day... That night the darkness continued and it was noted that by the light of lanterns everything seemed to have a faint greenish hue. A full moon was due to rise at nine, but it did not show until after one in the morning, when it appeared high in the sky and blood red. Shortly afterwards, stars began to appear, and the following morning the sun was as bright as ever after 14 hours of the strangest darkness ever to panic staunch New Englanders."

The Vanishing River Boat (pages 61-62)

"... It happened in June of 1872 near Vicksburg, Mississippi, on the great winding Mississippi River. This was the era when stern-wheelers were thick upon the muddy waters. The 'Iron Mountain' was one of these - a monster of a boat, with a length of nearly 180 feet and a beam (width) of 35 feet. She was powered with five huge boilers, and was only eight years old at the time. This day in June, she stopped off at Vicksburg on her way from New Orleans to Pittsburgh, loaded with cotton and molasses. She was towing a string of loaded barges, as was the custom of many of the river boats. She completed her business at Vicksburg, unloaded her passengers and took on more for the trip upriver. Then she pulled away from the dock. Her barges swung out behind her as her great twin stacks belched smoke and sparks and she headed north around the bend in the river - into oblivion. What happened around that bend will never be known, for the 'Iron Mountain' completely vanished - passengers, crew, cargo, and all. All that remained was the string of barges. The first sign of anything unusual was when another streamer, the 'Iroquois Chief', had to swing out of the way of a string of drifting barges coming downstream from around the bend in the great river. She turned and caught the barges and finally brought them to a halt. She expected another steamer to come and claim them - but none did. Later examination showed that the tow cable had been cut, not broken - an action usually taken in an emergency to save a steamer at the expense of losing the barges. These were the barges that had been behind the 'Iron Mountain'. But what happened to her? There was not the slightest sign of debris, either from the huge ship itself, its deck-piled cargo, its many passengers and crew. There was no sound or smoke from a vast explosion or fire, no floating bodies or wreckage. If she had suddenly sunk, some debris, bodies, or cargo would surely have come to the surface. The great ship, its cargo and 55 persons aboard her had utterly vanished from the face of the earth. To this day no one knows how, why, or where she went."

What? Me Eat Poop!!??

It's just a Tootsie-Roll, I swear!

For more "poop" on Riley (my fourfooted canine brother), go to Wednesday's Child (my mom).

Happy Easter!

Mom's tulip.

Waaayy up close!

Easter sprinkles K-scoped.

Hope the Easter bunny was good to you too!

Thanks for the White-Trash Ham and sprouts and taters, Mom!