Archive for the 'Silliness' Category

HFM: Tax Dollars Well Spent

August 1, 2008 | Silliness

Last week I was sitting at my desk in the kitchen when all of a sudden, my desk lamp started buzzing and flickering.  And then I heard the sound no one in Texas wants to hear in July — “vwooomph!”   It was the final mournful gasp of our of A/C unit.

 

The outlet on the wall behind my desk kept buzzing and sparking and popping, so I unplugged everything and then AD and I looked around the house to see what was amiss.  I smelled a faint electrical smell from an outlet in Sean’s room and two of the breakers in the fuse box had popped off and wouldn’t go back on.  But beyond that we didn’t see anything obvious, like flames licking out of the attic.

 

Since three other houses in our neighborhood have caught fire since we’ve lived here, we called the fire department and asked if they might come by and look around and just ensure us that we were in no imminent danger, but would it be possible for them just to mosey over without all the trucks and sirens and all that, to just take a look see?  No. It turns out that’s not how they do it.  If they can’t run the sirens they won’t come. It’s in the fireman’s handbook.

 

About 30 seconds later three hunky firemen (hereafter referred to as HFM) show up at my door and I let them in. Of course I let them him.  Because they are Firemen.  Hunky firemen.  Hunky big-red-truck-drivin’ firemen, so see, I had to let them in. Plus I had called them.   

 

I took them into the kitchen to show them my now not buzzing, not flickering, not doin’ nuthin’ unremarkable electric outlet.  The head HFM points some sort of heat seeking magic gun at it and declares it “not hot”. So I said, “Hey big boy why don’t you point that thang at me?” No I didn’t really say that.  I don’t think I could say that without laughing. Or being laughed at.

 

When I turned around to show him some other unremarkable outlets here at the House of Antique, I noticed that the other two firemen were gone. I looked over into the den only to see the feet of one of the HFM sticking out of the tent colossus that Sean had constructed out of sheets, an 8-ft ladder and most of my dining room chairs. It was indeed a tent fit for an emir and apparently too enticing even for professional HFM to resist.

 

The HFM with the magic gun coaxed the other two HFM out of the tent and they checked everything out thoroughly as I followed closely behind, you know, just to answer questions or to offer to mop their brow.  At the end of their inspection, the chief HFM reported that we were in no danger.  I said, “Are you sure? Because I think I could use some CPR.”  Yeah, no I didn’t say that either. 

 

When they were done, they had Sean put his hand on the wall and then they showed him how the magic gun could “see” the handprint left behind by the warmth of his hand.   He thought that was terribly groovy.  As they left, they took Sean out to the big red truck and let him sit in the driver’s seat and ring the bell and that pretty much made his whole summer.

 

All in all a fun afternoon for everyone.  The HFM got to play in Sean’s tent, Sean got to sit in a fire truck and ring the bell, I got a visit from three HFM and AD got to buy a new compressor for our A/C for $1400.

 

 

A Tale of Two Dogs or A Dog With Two Tales

July 25, 2008 | Silliness

Dog Tale #1

By Antique Mommy

 

Sunday we hurried home from church, looking forward to the meal that we knew Papa George would have waiting for us.  As we came to a stop at the intersection of a busy street, my mother-in-law Cleo, who was in the front seat, spotted a little Yorkie (little Yorkie is redundant, I know) wandering dangerously near the street.

 

“Oh I’ll bet someone has turned her out!” cried Cleo. “Look how skinny she is!”

 

“Should we stop and get her?” I asked from the backseat.

 

But just as quickly as the little dog had appeared, she disappeared.  She had scampered off and out of sight.

 

“She probably lives around here,” said Antique Daddy with absolutely no concern. “She’s probably headed home.”

 

No one agreed with him, no one meaning Memaw, Sean or me. We were all certain the little Yorkie had been abandoned and was about to starve to death.

 

Nonetheless, she was not to be seen, so we went home to eat our Sunday dinner.  As we were sitting around the table, the little starving Yorkie came to the door and peered in hopefully through the glass. 

 

I jumped up from the table, not willing to dismiss this as a coincidence. Clearly God intended for me to look after that dog as twice He had put her in my path.  So I let the Yorkie in and she made herself right at home.  I picked her up and tried to get a look at her collar, which was kind of hard to do because my face kept getting in the way of her tongue. The only number on the tag was the vet’s number, which I called, but of course, the vet was at home eating Sunday dinner with his family, so he didn’t answer the phone at his office.

 

Papa George’s Schipperke, Missy Ann, was not so keen on our uninvited guest, so I put Little Miss Yorkie outside on a chain, just outside the front door with some food and water.  Yorkie looked to be amused and bewildered at this act of charity. Or maybe that’s just how Yorkie’s look all the time, I don’t know. 

 

Twenty minutes later, an older gentleman pulls up out front looking for his Yorkie. Yorkie recognizes her owner and wiggles and wags and bounces on her back legs and waves her front feet.  The older man pads up the front walk in his house shoes, breathing heavy.  He is quite obviously relieved to $ee his Yorkie.  The old man and the Yorkie exchange kisses and hugs.  He thanks me kindly but tells me that she runs off from time to time.  But always comes home.

 

The old man tucks his Yorkie under his arm, heads down the walk and gets in his car.  I watch them drive away.  I sigh as I head back into the house.  I returned to the table and my now cold food knowing that I had left the world a just a little bit better than I found it before lunch.  And my heart swelled just a little.  On that Sunday I was not just a mother, wife and daughter — I was a humanitarian and rescuer of Yorkies not in need of rescue.

 

(Cue epic music theme from Gone With The Wind.  Fade to black.) 

 

Tale #2

by Antique Daddy

 

We saw a skinny dog on the way home from church, probably headed home.

He came to the door while we were eating. His owner drove around looking for him and saw him tied up out front and came and got him.  The end.

 

 

TV - A Vast Wasteland, But Now With Crabs!

July 10, 2008 | Silliness

I don’t watch much television. 

 

I’d love to look down my nose and proclaim that I’m above investing my time in the vast wasteland that is television and that I spend my time reading classic literature instead, but that would be a lie.  Unless you consider Little Critter classic literature.

 

No, the reason I don’t watch much television is because apparently I’ve got time management issues.  I don’t have time to watch TV.  I want to watch TV, I want to join in the conversation about what’s going on with Jim and Pam at The Office or who Simon is ripping to shreds, but I just don’t ever seem to have an opportunity to park it in front of the television.  By the time I get my tribe fed and bathed and in bed, it’s way past prime time.  And if my tribe is not in bed, there’s no watching TV. There are only interruptions interrupted by interruptions with a lot of swashbuckling and explosion sound effects in between interruptions. 

 

And yes, for the record, I know of this Tivo thing, but we don’t have it.  We might like to get Tivo but unless someone breaks in our house and installs it for us, we’re not getting Tivo because in order to get Tivo we would have to make a decision to get Tivo and then where to get Tivo and is Tivo better than something else and then there would be months of research and spread sheets and comparison shopping until such time as Tivo became obsolete.  Which is why we still have VHS.  We are not in the technodark due to lack of money, but due to our lack of ability to make a technodecision. 

 

So then.  By the time I get to sit down and watch TV it is well after prime time and what’s on always seems to be The Deadliest Catch. 

 

Ergo, I have become addicted to The Deadliest Catch.  While all the cool kids are watching Lost and American Idol and The Office, I’m watching men out at sea in need of a bath and a shave. 

 

True to my nerdy form, I never seem to be in on what everyone else in the country is talking about around the water cooler.  Back in the 90s while the rest of the country watched that new show, ER with Dr. Ross and Nurse Hathaway, I chose to watch Chicago Hope with uh, can’t remember. ER is still on (although it is a very sad and tired show that jumped the shark so many seasons ago) whereas Chicago Hope lasted about two seasons.  That’s me — always on the trailing edge of what’s hot and happenin’. 

 

That I am so invested in a show about crab fishing is perplexing given that it takes so very little to make me seasick.  Seriously. One time AD took me to a lovely bayside restaurant in Sausalito, one that sits out on piers over the water.  He made sure we were seated at a window table so that we could hold hands across the table and gaze out upon the water. About halfway through the meal I was so green that I had to go outside and lay down on a park bench.  All that to say,  watching the fishing boats rise and fall, and dip and sway in the swirling and churning icy waters, even on the small screen, makes me a little green.  In fact, just typing that sentence made me a little queasy – yet I can’t turn away from my crab fishermen.

 

I don’t know what it is about that show that is so captivating.  It is just this sexy combination of soap opera, danger, roughneck bad boys and um, crabs.  I pathetically know all the names of all the boats, the crews, the captains and how many pounds of crabs they have caught and how they are ranked among the other boats.   When I drive by Red Lobster or peer into the seafood case at the grocery store I wonder if those crabs came from Sig’s boat, The Northwestern or maybe Phil’s boat, the Cornelia Marie.  And then I wonder how Phil is doing with that blood clot and why can’t Phil and his sons get along  b’cause I know deep down they really love each other.

 

So yes, while the rest of gals are swooning over Jim’s unkempt hair and the way he mugs for Pam and the camera, Sig is my TV boyfriend.  Jim sells paper, but Sig – he drives the boat. 

 

 

 

 

 

You have Jim at the office.  I have Sig. He drives the boat.

 

 

When Bad Things Happen To Good Laundry or Hey! There’s An Alpaca In My Dryer!

July 2, 2008 | Silliness

Sean is a perfect husband in training. That is my goal as his mother — that he would grow up to be a good partner and helpmate to some lucky little girl.  And by good partner, I mean a man who knows how to cook a few things and put his dirty underwear in the laundry basket without confusing the two.  And really ladies, isn’t that all we want in a man?

 

Okay, no. That’s not all we want, not even close.  

 

So far, Husbandry 101 is going well. Sean can crack eggs, make toast and imaginary soup.  And every morning he makes his little bed in his own way, puts his jammies in the laundry basket, dresses himself in mostly matching clothes and then brings me a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Okay, I just made up that last part, but the rest? Pretty good, eh?

 

Unfortunately, Sean is not yet a discriminating launderer. And here I will put the blame squarely on the Y chromosome, where it belongs.  Someone else I know who lives in my house who also has a Y chromosome put someone’s brand new linen walking shorts in the dryer on high heat with the towels.  And she wasn’t happy. 

 

At any rate, the other day, when Sean got up and dressed himself, he put his jammies in the laundry basket, but he also put his Pull Up in the laundry basket too.

 

And I say unfortunately (I said unfortunately two paragraphs ago but understandably, you may have  forgotten) because it was only after I was taking the clothes out of the washer and putting them in the dryer that I noticed all these odd little squishy balls of squishy stuff on everything.  And at that time, I wondered what exactly is that squishy stuff?

 

So it seemed well and good to me that this was a job for the dryer because the dryer has more time and patience than I do when it comes to picking a zillion little squishy balls of squishy stuff off a carload of wet laundry. So I just shoved everything in the dryer, made the sign of the cross, slammed the door shut, turned the dryer on and then ran away.

 

When I came back later to retrieve my clothes from the dryer I found an alpaca in the lint trap.

 

So, a little science lesson here:  Those squishy little balls of squishy stuff in Pulls Ups? Itty bitty freeze dried alpacas. Just add water and heat.

 

 

Oh hai!

 

 

My Stupid Memoir

April 24, 2008 | Silliness

I don’t know who Mylie Cyrus is. Why would I? I’m not a ten-year-old girl nor do I have one living in my house.  What I know about her, was thrust upon me by my home page browser which recently announced (cue trumpets) – she is writing her memoirs.  

 

I leaned into the computer screen to get a closer look at this Mylie person.  It turns out that she is 15.  I’m sure she’s a remarkable young lady and all having worked so hard at being born to someone semi-famous, but really, what memories and wisdom can one have possibly accumulated at age 15?

 

Here’s an example of what my memoir at age 15 would look like:

 

I was born.  Nothing happened until I was two.

 

When I was two I discovered that my brothers hate me. Their lives were ruined the day I was born.  I had found my purpose in life.

 

Age 3-5:  The Stupid Years With A Side Of Brothers.  During these golden years, I spent most of my time imitating the stupid stuff my brothers were doing like jumping bikes off homemade ramps and seeing how long you could hold a firecracker before it went off.  Sometimes I made up my own stupid stuff which usually involved the creative use of scissors.

 

Age 6-9:  The Stupid Years With A Side of Barbie

These years mostly consisted of playing Barbie and fighting and making up with my two neighborhood friends Kim and Cheryl.  When I wasn’t fighting and making up with Kim and Cheryl, I was fighting and not making up with my brothers.  It was during this time that I made my brother Jim so mad he threw a wrench and hit me squarely on the nose, which come to think of it, kind of explains a few things.  During these years, I spent most of my intellectual property wondering if the nuns wore underwear.

 

Age 10-15:  The Stupid Years With A Side of Puberty

Take one artsy, highly sensitive young girl and throw in a surge of estrogen and you’ve got enough stupid to write a book.  Hey maybe that’s where Mylie got the idea.

 

Age 48 and Beyond: Still stupid after all these years, but now with a baby on my hip.

The Fishing Trip

April 14, 2008 | Photo Essays, Silliness

Sean:  Ho dee doh dee doh! I’m going fishing!

Sean:  Oh crud. Dogs. No one said there would be dogs.

Jerold, the dumbest dog on the earth and No Name, the second dumbest dog on the earth:

“Duh, hey… whatcha got in that lunch box? Snausages?”

Sean: Aaaaaah!

Dogs: Snausages? Duh hey come back!

Sean: Oh crud, they’re gaining on me!

Dogs:  SNAUSAGES!!

Sean: Aaaaaaah!

Dogs:  Duh, hey, wait up! I’m hungry! 

Sean: Aaaaaaah!

Sean:  Aaaaah!

* * * * *

I would have stopped to comfort him and run off Dumb and Dumber, also known as Jerold and No Name – but I was too busy playing with my new camera that takes three pictures per second! And laughing.  I supposed this could count against me come mother’s day.

The New Fruitcake

December 11, 2007 | Antique Junk Drawer, Silliness

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Sean and I were shopping in Sam’s the other day when we spotted this. 

As I looked at the wall of Yard-O-Beef, I imagined the Hillshire marketing folks sitting around a conference table at 4am, bleary eyed, shirts untucked, everyone needing a shave and shower when someone said, “Why not call it Yard-O-Beef?” And then everyone said, “Great! That’s a wrap. Let’s go home!”

And really, who wouldn’t want to find a Yard-O-Beef under the tree on Christmas morning?

Yard-O-Beef! The new fruitcake!

What’s the most unusual Christmas gift you’ve ever received?

Balloon Watch ‘07

December 5, 2007 | Silliness

Yesterday I noticed that the balloon was gone! I was so excited because my life is that dull.

I checked the floor for its rubbery orange remains. I combed through the entire tree like a monkey grooming another monkey for ticks. I checked under the tree, but no balloon.  Where did it go? Did some extremely tall person break in and steal my balloon?

And then I looked up and saw that it had merely moved to the other side of the room, a new place from which to taunt and torment me.

In its current location I must look at it every time I pass through the living room.

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Penance: Three Hail Mary’s And A Trip To Wal-Mart

December 3, 2007 | Silliness, Wal-Mart

The other night I dreamed that I died and went to heaven and when I met Jesus at the gate he said, “Remember that time you busted my head off?  Well take this.”  And then I was cast into hell, which was actually Wal-Mart on a Sunday afternoon.

And remember that part in the Bible that says if your eye causes you to sin that you should gouge it out and if the left hand causes the right to sin, then you should cut if off?  Well apparently my right hand was feeling really repentant about the whole dropping Jesus on his head thing because in the shower on Sunday, while I was shaving my legs, my right hand “slipped” and tried to slice off my left hand. Luckily, the left hand has always been a pretty agile and wily kind of hand and was able to zig and then zag and then serpentine and it got off with what I thought was just a nick in the nail, no blood. Yay for the left hand, boo for the right hand.

But later, as I was making the bed and tucking the covers under the mattress, swiftly executing the perfect hospital corner that is essential to a well-lived life, I realized I had sliced my fingernail deep into the quick because a thread from the blanket caught the….. and oooeeeowwee! Wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued. Yeah. It was a near death experience.

Then later that day… (cue Twilight Zone music) I WAS in Wal-Mart and verily I say to ye, it was hell. I won’t describe the kind of hell Wal-Mart is on Sunday because I know y’all are sinners too, just like me, and have probably been cast into Wal-Mart on a Sunday.  It causes you to rethink your life, doesn’t it?

So I get in line with my necessities – plaid wired Christmas ribbon, tortilla chips, more plaid wired Christmas ribbon – and wait for all eternity as the snot encrusted little boy in line behind me, who is standing in the back of his mother’s cart eating a cookie, keeps trying to wipe his mushy cookie hands on the back of my shirt.  And as I’m trying to dodge cookie boy, the elderly man in front of me is telling me a long and involved story in what may or may not have been English.

When it’s finally my turn to check out, I put my stuff on the line. Chatty Cathy, who grew up to be a cashier at Wal-Mart, sees the bandaid on my finger and asks what happened. Without thinking I told her that I cut myself shaving.  She stopped scanning and asked incredulously, “You shave your hands?”

And because I am rotten and wanted to mess with her and be the freakiest person she had to check out on a Sunday, I just nodded and offered no further explanation.

A Fetching Young Man

November 30, 2007 | Silliness

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

One of the many benefits of having a 4-year-old about the house is that you can easily convince them that going outside to fetch the newspaper in the freezing cold is fun!  Later I’m going to show him how the Swiffer works!

Santa Needs An Intervention

November 29, 2007 | Silliness

Photo Temporarily Unavailable

Somewhere over Dallas, Santa made the unfortunate decision to stop by the drive-through liquor store.

Otherwise Occupied

November 7, 2007 | Antique Junk Drawer, Silliness, Wivian

In case you were wondering who my company was yesterday, it’s my mommy.  She’s still here.  Sometimes I like to be coy. 

The upside to that is that she is occupying my child which means I can do other things, like go get my teeth cleaned – just a little hobby of mine, something I like to do in my spare time.

The downside to that is she can’t vote for me which means I’ll probably win this prize. So, maybe you could get your mother to vote for me? (That’s once every 24-hours through November 8th! Operators are standing by! Call now and get a set of Ginzu knives with every vote!)

I leave you with this “that’s my boy” moment.   The other day Sean came home from school and told me that the teacher asked the class to name a fruit for the each letter of the alphabet.  As expected, he said “A” was for apple, “B” was for banana and I think he said “C” was for canna-wope.  I asked what fruit started with “D” and he said doughnut. 

Yep. That’s my boy!

Oops! How’d that get there??

Jell-Oh!

October 9, 2007 | Mildly Amusing, Silliness

 Photo Temporarily Unavailable

I found this book in an antique store in downtown Tuna.  It made me laugh for a variety of reasons.  Not the least of which is the use of the word “fascinating” in reference to Jell-O.  Jello-O does not make the list of things I find fascinating.  The other reason I laughed is because I am tacky and have a 10-year-old boy living inside my head.

The Chocolatey Will Of God

Silliness

True story.

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk thinking about how much I would enjoy some chocolate and in keeping with my promise to myself to not buy any Halloween candy until at least the 29th, I had none in my house.  And I was bemoaning that fact. 

About that time, the doorbell rings and it’s a cute little Catholic school girl with pigtails selling chocolate bars for $2 each.  Earlier in the day, I had found $2 exactly in a purse that I hadn’t carried for a while and the $2 was sitting on my desk.

You don’t have to hit me over the head — clearly, God wanted me to have chocolate, so much so that he was wiling to have it delivered.. 

And on the back of the wrapper, there was a Sonic coupon, so in order to fulfill the will of God for my life, we are going to Sonic for dinner tonight.

Who says God is mysterious.