It's All Pretend Anyway

Still in my purging mode,

I smiled when I ran across this photo.

Hmmm . . .

One of us was the Duchess Gloriana,
leader of Grand Fenwick.

One of us was a Page.

Okay, so one was chosen because of her queenly traits.

And the other because she had good legs.

PS

Here is one more for you, Rebecca.
What a special time this was for me . . .
Trio singing with you and Carol

We were blessed.

Who makes those up?

My first hubby and I liked to watch Electric Company—before we had kids. We loved Fargo North Decoder, etc.

I think of that show every time I comment on a blog. When I submit, there is usually a word verification. I am not sure how or why those work because the password is right there for you in squiggly letters. The word is not a real word but is almost-a-word.

Bringing me back to The Electric Company from lots of years ago, and this song:

You can make up a word
Just make it up out of your head
And you can decide what you want it to mean
And how, and how it is said.

You can make up a word.
Your own private personal word.
And then all you do id just say it aloud
And your word will be heard.

When you make up a word
And tell what the word’s supposed to do.
Then suddenly there’s a new word in the world
And it came out of you.

I am pretty sure there are some more verses but you have the idea.

So, yesterday, I commented on some blogs and wrote down my word verification words. Yes, these words are exactly as copied but the meanings are just a guess.

waxingie: Something menopausal women do to their chins

fervies: disgusting little brown rodents

vityllyte: Some kind of healthy diet drink

hussere: Oh dear, something not very good comes to mind

wombi: adjective, meaning dizzy, wobbly, sleepy. Ex: In the morning I take a wombi walk out to the coffeepot

aptol: This is one of those southern expressions, a contraction of sorts, meaning something just right. That’s an aptol good looking hat. (Translated: That’s a right, you all, good looking hat.)

misorin: When you ought to give more but you just don’t feel like it, you are misorin.

So who does that? Who makes up the word verification almost-a-word? Don't tell me they are random because they all have vowels and consonants in normal patterns.

I was just wondering?

Dotted Lines

At FRU last weekend, Holly in marketing, encouraged participants to invite non related friends to family reunions. She gave an example of inviting the friends next door to Grandma with whom we always played who might enjoy seeing the family again.

Afterwards Mary, the Guest Services Director, shared a cute story. I love stories like this and so requested permission to repeat it here.

Mary has a close friend that had been pleading with Mary to attend her family reunion in Texas for the past six to eight years. This family always invites extra friends to their reunion and they call the special unrelated guests their Dotted Lines.

Finally after many invitations, Mary went to her friend’s family reunion this past summer.

She met her friend’s brother.

They will be married in March of 2010.

In the summer of 2010, she will joyfully attend the reunion again—this time as a Solid Line.

Now can anyone make them fly?

Friend Rebecca reported that her broom stood so I tried it as well with two brooms . . . and they stood . . . alone.

Just imagine all of the fun that I would miss if I didn't read blogs.

Would that be with butter or without?

The sun came out on Sunday afternoon . Bob had a church meeting so I decided to go to Morton Arboretum and fill up on some fall color.

The trees have not turned much yet but the day was beautiful and I had a book and a glass of cold cider and settled here to read.

I scooted over for a clearer view.

After a couple of chapters, I decided to walk around the Fall Color Festival for a bit.

The flowers were beautiful!

What caught my attention was that everyone—okay not everyone—but many people were eating delicious looking foods—

That would be a taffy apple bar, popcorn, brats, and corn-on-the-cob!

It was the corn-on-the-cob that was calling my name.

Returning to the car for some change, I discovered that the battery was dead. Nothing happened except a tick when I tried to start the car.

Of course, I did not have my Triple A card in possession but fortunately hubby texts and returned my plea for numbers.

Within an hour, I was all set with a new battery.

Sadly the booths had all closed up for the day. Does anyone want to join me next Sunday afternoon? Can I wait that long?

By George, She's Got It!

Yesterday we went to a White Sox ballgame. Morgan and Grandpa had so much fun whistling at good plays, pitches, pretty much anytime something relatively good happened. Grandpa is so proud of her talent.

Morgan has worked on her whistle for a long time but now she's got it! The-rain-in-Spain-stays-mainly-on-the-plain got it!

I am not talking about the "whistle a tune" kind of whistle. I mean a loud whistle--with fingers, etc. Here is a video so you can see for yourself.




So today, I was totally motivated to learn to whistle. I watched a few You Tube videos but they were not very helpful--except one gave me an idea of something to try.

I have a long way to go.

But I usually can make some noise as long as I am not laughing.

And I can not think of any good use for this noise.

And I have lived without it for a long time.

But an old dog can learn a new trick.

To prove it. I videoed myself because I was even too embarrassed to ask hubby to video me.

And here it is:



And now excuse me while I go wet my whistle.

Small Choirs

Since January, because of this little story, our family uses Small Choir as a Catch Phrase with two meanings.

First it is used to refer to the smell of fire or smoking, i.e. upon passing someone on the sidewalk with a cigarette, eleven year old David quietly notes, “Small choir.”

Secondly, yesterday we were talking about people that choose to believe medical information even after it has been proven incorrect. Susan’s doctor father said, “Some people believe that you get a cold from a draft.”

The conversation began to move on and then Susan spoke up from where she was working a few feet away in the kitchen, “from a giraffe?"

And that my friends is also a Small Choir.

Are You IT?

Nope, I have never been tagged. But I have a more popular sister, Donna, that was tagged. Not that I mind, mind you. Vicariously, I decided to do a geneology of Donna’s tag. And here are the fun things that I discovered.

Like the game Telephone, that we used to play during inside recess when I was in 4th grade, this tag lost some of its quirkiness after several generations. Even so, the random facts were fun to read and so I will list my favorite randomite from each list.

I liked reading Donna’s #4: “I like writing poems. Most of my real-time friends and family know this one. I write a poem every year for my Christmas letter. This year it was based on the "12 days of Christmas", reviewing the 12 months of the year.” She posted this on January 8, 2009. Her blog title is Donna’s Booknook.

Donna was tagged by 52 year old Cindy of Letters from Midlife. Cindy posted on January 7, 2009 that she used to be clinically deaf and was healed by her Grandma’s prayers.

She was tagged by Kristina who posted on January 5, 2009 that her second job was clearing logging slash and thistles at Mt. Rushmore when she was 15 years old. (Her first job only lasted 3 days.) That sounds so exotic since my 1st through at least 50th job was babysitting. Kristina’s blog title is Meadowlark Days and she lives somewhere in the US so I am going to guess Nebraska because of a favorite picture of a meadowlark that we have that we bought in the cornhusker state. But then again, I suppose S. Dakota is a better guess.

Kristina was tagged by Martha who posted on October 27, 2008. Hmmm yes, Kristina, it had been awhile ago. Martha says, “I am going to get some raw milk this week, I have to drive out of state...it's like bootleg, can you believe it? $7 per gallon.” Her blog is called, The Scrumptious Life and she is from Ohio. I grew up on a farm in Ohio. There has got to be less than seven degrees of separation between us. My dad used to squirt raw milk to the cats for a treat while he was milking.

And Martha was tagged by Julie who posted on October 20, 2008. Julie admits, “I don't like chunks in fruit mixes. Fruit pies, jellies, jams, yogurt. I only like 'em smooth. Chunks make me want to gag.” And that reminds me of 11 of my 12 grandchildren. Julie’s husband is in the military on Active Duty. Her blog is We Are All Well Blessed. I want to bless her and her hubby and family. Thanks for your sacrifice!

Julie was tagged by Tiff who posts on The Boren Life. Oh boy, do I need more of someone like her in my life. On October 15th, she says, “I'm an organizational FREAK! My pantry is organized by food type, whether canned, boxed, etc.. and labeled accordingly. I won't even mention the ROY G. BIV action going on in my closet.” And get this, she is a mama of two sons. Wow! Hats off to Tiff.

Tiff was tagged by another mama of two boys, Courtney. Did I mention that I have two sons—although they are now full grown and papa’s in their own homes. And this is Courtney’s quirk that I totally am in compliance with, “I always fall asleep on my right side. Sometimes I think I'll change things up a bit and start out on my left side, but sleep NEVER comes to me unless I switch back over to my right side. I must have been that way in the womb.” Her post on Courtney and the Boys was posted also on October 15th. I am not surprised that Julie (above) was on her task so promptly. Oh, and also, Courtney was the first person that I ran across that posted the rules. So now I know. . .



Courtney was tagged by Jaysi of In Bird’s Nest. Jaysi from Arizona posted her quirkiness on October 14th. “I can only drink certain drinks from certain types of containers. Milk can only be consumed from a glass. Water needs to be in a plastic cup and preferably with a straw. Soda also only consumed from plastic. I don't drink much orange juice, but when I do it must be in a short juice glass. I know it is weird, but I swear it affects the taste!” That actually sounds perfectly normal to me.

Jaysi was tagged by AVT Coach not to be confused by ATV. I resonated with her 2nd quirky fact. She is afraid of cats. Oh yes, and she posted that list including the rules on October 3rd.

I decided to go 10 generations so lastly, AVT Coach (that is so hard to write!) was tagged by Miruspeg of Sydney, Austrailia! And I did not read very far—item #1 before I found common ground. “I normally lock the front door about 10 minutes before I leave the house via the back door. I have to say out loud 'I am locking the door' because if I don't I have to go back and check if I have locked it......obviously my attention span is shorter than 10 minutes!” Miruspeg posted her list on September 30, 2008 on Middle Age Ramblings.

Can’t help it. I have to go back one more. . . because that is as far as I can go. Miruspeg said that she was tagged from 8,608 miles away. Now how did she know that? I have no idea where Octomom lives. I do know that means that Octo has eight kids. You just can’t help but admire her especially when she says, “I hate, hate, hate being a foregone conclusion...so while I may be barefoot, homeschooling and pregnant in the kitchen, I'll be wearing an apple green push-up bra and listening to Billy Squier. Just sayin'.” She wrote this post on her blog titled, Octamom on September 30, 2008.

This is the extent of my sleuthing or as I prefer to think of it my social networking research. To quote my son who once wrote, “I am not nosy. I just like to know things.”