MY MIND WANDERED — and never came back!

I’ve decided to take the day off and try to catch up on some of my IRL activities. This photo explains it best. Have a great Wednesday, Everyone. See you tomorrow.

see more dog and puppy pictures

http://ihasahotdog.com

You know what my idea of a good day is? It’s any day that I don’t find my name in the obituaries. If my life was a country song it would be named something like:  ”I’m Hangin’ By a Thread Please Hide the Scissors”.  The days keep flying by so quickly I often need  Dramamine for the motion sickness.

Each time I round a corner I’m afraid I’ll bump into myself coming from the opposite direction. And so it is with most of us in this fast-paced get it done yesterday society. We have become a generation of “hurriers”.

I don’t know why we humans think we need to get so many things done in one day; there’s always tomorrow, and if there isn’t, then we won’t need to worry about it anyway. I remember when my sister and I were children, growing up in the late fifties and early sixties. Is it just me or did the days seem to last a lot longer back then? And that was before the Uniform Time Act made daylight saving time a federal issue in the US.

We had few of the modern conveniences we have today. Nothing was automated, everything was done manually, by real live people, not a machines. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry back then. People had time to sit down together to talk and visit. I remember in the evenings when friends and family would gather on the front porch to rest and unwind after a long day. The grown-ups talked about grown-up things, while the children chased lightening bugs across the yard, jumped rope, played tag and Red Rover. The sky was further away and the stars were a lot bigger, the air was much fresher and ten o’clock was late. We were usually yawning and tired by the time the good-nights were all said and everyone had gone home. We would go inside and get ready for bed, happy and exhausted, secure in the knowledge that we were loved.

Everything that needed doing got done back then and yet nobody hurried. Time, for us, wasn’t measured on a clock. Instead it was measured by how long we could jump rope without missing a step, how many wild strawberries we could find or the number of fish we caught in one day. Time was making garlands of daisies and buttercups to wear as jewelry, building a playhouse in the wood shed, holding the warm wiggly body of new puppy or kitten, or discovering baby chicks newly hatched. Time wasn’t something we saved; time wasn’t wasted; time was well spent.

I remember waking up early, while the dew was still heavy on the ground. Walking barefoot through the soft grass, picking morning glories before they closed their faces against the sun. Golden honeysuckle grew wild along the Nolichucky and its sweet scent filled the air, unequaled by any perfume that could ever be made by man. Butterflies added splashes of blue, yellow and brown among the white blossoms of the mock orange tree in the corner of the yard. If happy had a smell, this would have been it. If time could be relived, this would be it.

As is only natural and always expected, times have changed since my childhood.  Of course every generation says that and I’m sure it holds true for all.  I wonder if it is the fact that we were children, without the cares and responsibilities of adulthood, that makes us think life was a lot more simple back when.  I wonder if the children of today will look back on this time and remember it as “the good old days”.

I smile now, remembering  how my grandma would always say “Lord-a-mercy. How everything has changed since I was a young’un. This world is going to the dogs and the children nowadays are nothing but little hellions”   I suppose we all wax a little nostalgic when we begin to look back at yesterday. Perhaps by living through a few wars and a multitude of different occupants of the White House, we’ve earned the right to recall ‘the good old days’.

The world is a lot better today in some respects, and a lot worse in others. Technology and medicine has made tremendous progress and our lives are made better for it. We have better schools, better roads, better means of communication and better jobs.  We just need to sort out the better from the worse, use our own good judgment that the Lord gave us, and be more thankful for the simple things than we are. We need to sit on our front porch more, talk with our neighbors, maybe chase a few lightening bugs or smell the flowers.

I’m just thankful for another day that I wasn’t in the obituaries. It could happen. After all, I’m only passing through this world. I don’t plan on staying.

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Author’s note: This might be another repost from TBTB  so if you’ve read it already, I apologize.  

Have a great weekend everyone.

Good Mooorniiing Blogosphere!

Shadow here. Hope you’re having a great morning so far.

My huMom had to go see her veter-a-narian this morning, and she left me in charge of her office. Well  actually Sheba and I flipped a bone for it and I won. I think I won — Sheba told me I did. She ate the bone before I got a chance to look at it but I don’t think she’d lie to me.  Actually, she seemed kinda pleased about it.  Wonder what’s up with that?

There is a heads and tails on a snak bone isn’t there?

Anyway, I’m running the office today and if you need anything, help yourself.  I’ll just be lying over here on this cool floor  dozing, off-and-on.  You’ll have to escuze the dirt on my noze and pawz.  I was out digging in my bone garden when Sheba told me about the office gig this morning.

Poor huMom. I hope her veter-a-narian doesn’t clip her toenails or make her have a shampoo… Oh Noze!! What if they have to take her temperature!!  Oey Vey! Poor huMom!!!

I wonder if they give her snaks afterward like they do for Sheba and me. Hey, maybe she’ll bring some of them home.

Errr… since you’re here anyway, would you mind answering that phone?  I just  got comfortable…

The huMom will be back tomorrw. I think.

Thank you and have a nice day.

Jeff Foxworthy made his fortune making fun of Southern folks. The Beverley Hillbillies and The Andy Griffith Show grossed mega millions and these shows are still earning royalties. There have been countless movies too numerous to mention, that poked fun at us as well. But now I would like to take this opportunity to tell y’all a little secret. It ain’t true. They made all that stuff up!

Yep. All lies. All those non-Southerners have been duped.

Besides being one of the most intelligent groups in the world, folks from the South also possess a sixth sense. It’s called common sense. (often referred to as horse sense) Yes. We learned early on that you can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar. We live by the motto “Haste Makes Waste”. We are slow, but we aren’t stupid. We figured out that folks “Up North” laugh at us whenever we poke fun at ourselves. And the more they laughed, the more money we made from our fun poking. See what I’m saying?

Now I will admit that nearly every small town in the South has a Gomer Pyle, a Jethro Bodine, and a few Ellie Maes, Aunt Beas and Andies. But when you study them really closely, you’ll see that they are really Einsteins in overalls.

Show me something that’s broken and I’ll show you a Southerner who can fix it. It’s a rare thing for a Southerner to take something into a shop to be repaired. The majority of the males were taught how to tear down a car engine, or any other engine for that matter, and put it back together, before they were taught how to drive. A lot of our ladies can do that as well. They were taught by their fathers and grandfathers how to build houses, long before they had need of homes of their own.

They can hunt and fish and grow their own vegetables, grind their own grain, make their own whiskey, wine and beer. In fact if you put a few Southerners on a deserted island, with only a hoe, a saw and a hammer, in no time at all, they would have a whole new state developed, complete with antebellum mansions, a general store, a church, a school and a couple of factories up and running. It’s due to that sixth sense called “common”.

And the food! You have never tasted food until you’ve had it Southern style. Country ham, red eye gravy, grits, cat head biscuits. The aroma alone is enough to make your tongue slap your brains out.  Southern ladies are taught only four methods of cooking. They either fry it, bake it, barbecue it, or roast it. And they never do any of this without lots of grease, salt and/or sugar. Forget saute, poach, blanch, steam, puree, or garnish, nor do they serve the food as a presentation, to be admired for its creative style and elegance. ( you’ll never witness it being placed in the middle of a huge plate in a pool of sauce, then crowned with this, and dusted lightly with that, decorated with something else, then served up looking like a glob of house paint with the sponge left in it.) They chop, stir, flip, pour, add a pinch of this and a dash of that, then when it’s cooked they put it on a plate and holler “Come and git it!”.

Never tell a Southerner to hurry. He just doesn’t do that. Southerners like to drive slow and brake often. They’re a friendly bunch. They can’t wave to their neighbors if they’re driving 97 miles per hour through town. They like to make each day an experience, and make it as much fun as possible. It is a common site to find clumps of them, shaking hands and hugging one another, everywhere you look, from the grocery store to the post office. To not say, “Howdy, how ‘re you today?” is considered a huge faux pas. No matter how much they need to get done in a day, they always find the time to chat. What they don’t get done today will be there tomorrow anyway. They take life slow and easy because they’ve learned that one’s time here is short enough anyway without rushing through it.

Southerners are not hesitant to speak their minds, or to fight against injustice, but they have learned to do it in a tactful, soft-spoken manner. If you have ever been upbraided by a true Southerner, you might even come away feeling like you just received a compliment.

Of late, there has been a huge influx of Yankees on our sacred Southern soil. Maybe it’s time we looked into a little immigration reform for the South. Perhaps Homeland Security should station the National Guard near the Mason/Dixon line, and have them check everyone who is crossing to make certain they have acquired their Redneck visas, and passed the test for their Southernship.

Another thing that I would suggest is that if a Yankee is going to immigrate to the South, then he should be made to learn the language. This is for their own safety and well being. They need to be able to speak slowly, drop the ‘ings’ from all words ending with i-n-g, know the difference in a house far and a fur distance. Minor points I will admit, but very important in the event their house catches far. They need to know that the far department is a fur ways down the road and that they should call immediately when the first puff of smoke is discovered. Also they need to pronounce it as “house far”, so they will not be misunderstood and confused with the County Fair that might be in town that week.

Recently a poll was conducted to determine why so many Yankees are now moving to the South. When they were asked the question, “What do you like most about the South?”, 87% of them said it was because the people were so friendly. 10% said it was a toss up between the people and the beautiful scenery. The other 3% said something, but their accent was so sharp and nasal that we couldn’t understand what they said. We’re guessing they said it was the moonshine, and the homemade blackberry wine.

Let me now leave you with this one last word of caution. The information contained in this article is just between the two of us, so don’t go tellin’ everybody up there in the North. They might not laugh at poor ole Foxworthy’s redneck jokes anymore. Then he’d have to move up there and live in the subway, or in a box in an alley someplace.

I didn’t realize until yesterday that I have been given an award. This one came from Dennis the Vizsla, one of my favorite pups. Dennis is a rescued Vizsla pup, and he was adopted by some very nice folks several years ago.  To learn about his time spent wandering in a canyon with his brothers and sisters, you can read about it here.

Anyway, Dennis has a very happy home now, where he gets into all sorts of mischief with his family: Tucker, another Vizsla, Trixie, a mix breed pup, and a cat named Trouble.  The four of them hang out in Paris Hilton’s purse, at the mall, being chased by weird scientists, being stalked by people who look like Nick Nolte, and traveling into space to save the world from meteors that threaten to crash into earth.

Thanks for the beautiful Sunshine Award, Dennis. It made my week.

If you haven’t read Dennis’ blog you need to rush right over and introduce yourself.

Have a Happy Easter Everyone.

Thanks again Dennis.

I love awards and I love sunshine, so you’ve made me doubly happy.

I opened the door on my kitchen cabinet the other day to get a coffee cup, and I immediately found myself being  beaten about the face and head by falling dishes.  I ran from the kitchen dodging plates, cups, glasses and a few other things that I never knew belonged in a kitchen cabinet in the first place.  In all my years as a cabinet door opener, I have never seen so many dishes falling out at the same time.

Now I don’t mean to complain. I love it that Wayne is so wonderful and helps me with the housework.  I just wish someone could explain to him the rules of dish stacking.  Like how the plates do not belong on top of a stack of cereal bowls, and the glasses are not arranged in a pyramid. And how the smaller pots go on top of the larger ones and not the other way around. I don’t dare say anything myself for fear of hurting his feelings and possibly losing his help around the house.

You see, I’m just not that big on housecleaning.  I used to be. Back in my twenties and late thirties. Then I got older and I’d like to think I got a little wiser.  I used to worry all the time if the house got dirty. In dirty, I mean did I have dust bunnies underneath the refrigerator? Did the wall behind the couch need cleaning? Should the floors be cleaned more than twice a day. Did I remember to mop the driveway and vacuum the lawn today?  I was so naive back then. I thought these things were important.

Then the grand kids came along and I realized that one does not die from grape jelly on the drapes, a glass of milk being spilled on the carpet, or from half eaten apples and  cheese sandwiches hidden in the china cabinet.  Nor do crayon marks on the wall and little hand prints on the windows and mirrors constitute sending the children to a Juvenile Correctional Facility.  I learned that it’s much more fun to play hide and seek with the them, than to follow along behind them with a dust mop, a sponge and a bottle of bleach.

I’ve even allowed the dust bunnies to grow large and fluffy underneath the refrigerator and I haven’t seen the wall behind the couch in over a year. I don’t worry about the small things anymore. So what, if the tables get a little dusty. I don’t scold the kids if they write their name in the dust. (as long as they don’t write the date.)

I’m very lucky though to have a husband who enjoys helping out around the house.  Not all women have this. I’ve heard their stories and I shudder to think of having to lift a man’s foot up off the floor in order to vacuum under it (once or twice a month).

I have learned to tolerate clutter, to function in a house that doesn’t resemble the operating room at our local hospital. I still clean occasionally, as needed.  And yes, you can still eat off my floors. Only now you don’t need to drop you own food. You could probably find enough cookie crumbs and chips already lying around down there to make a meal. Not to mention dog biscuits and raw hide chew bones.

Actually, Wayne is a better housekeeper than I am. And he’s fast too. The grand children can come for a visit and while I am still hugging them bye, he has their toys all picked up, their dishes have been whisked to the kitchen and loaded into the dish washer, and not one garment remains from all of their clothes they had strewn across the house.  I don’t know how he gets everything put away so quickly…and I suppose I don’t really want to know. That’s the reason I never open  the closet door in the guest bedroom.

It seems that everything we buy these days is sealed in childproof wrapping? Why do the manufactures feel the need to shrink wrap everything with an indestructible material? Each time we attempt to open something we’ve purchased, we’re forced to go next-door and borrow the neighbor’s chain saw and blow torch to get the plastic from around the item…and these are the things like snack crackers and chips.

To open up a kid’s toy requires a jackhammer and a pound of C-4 explosives.  It takes two days to open the package and the kid plays with the toy for five minutes then it breaks. Why don’t they make the toy out of this same material? Toys would last for centuries if they did.

And the last thing on earth that we need when we have a pounding headache is a bottle of pain relievers packed in a bottle with a lid that works like a Rubik’s Cube. Press here, pull this, turn that, flip this — they should have just put the pills in a Japanese puzzle box. At least it would look pretty while we’re ripping off our fingernails in an attempt to open it. Finally we just throw the whole thing against the wall and flounce off to bed.

On the occasions when we do manage to get the bottle open, we have to spend an hour picking cotton before we get to the actual contents. Of course we could have gotten one of the kids in the house to open it and saved ourselves all that time and aggravation.

You want to know something that amazes me? Technology. I know that the microwave has been around for decades, but I can’t help but be fascinated whenever I nuke my food.  It’s so fast.

Once I tried making a cup of instant coffee  in my microwave. It disappeared. I think it was beamed into another Galaxy.

Do you ever read the labels on the food you buy?  They lie to us. Constantly. For instance, why does it take five minutes to make instant potatoes? Why does lite beer weigh the same as the regular beer? Why is a package of cookies that are fat-free and sugar-free the same size as the regular cookies? Shouldn’t you get more cookies in the package if they’re missing some of the ingredients? And why do they sometimes cost more? Seems to me like we’re paying more to get less.

Things like this just irritate me.

I guess a lot of things irritate me. I’ve become an irritable person. Maybe it’s all the caffeine I have been consuming lately. But I love my coffee. A day without coffee is like a day without orange juice…for the people who like orange juice…

When I was a little girl my grandma would pour a little of her coffee into the saucer, blow on it to cool it, then drink it from the saucer. I wonder if this was a generation thing or a southern thing.

Do you believe in flying saucers? No, not the kind that’s followed by flying ashtrays, cups and a frying pan, accompanied by loud screaming and name-calling. I mean the UFO kind.

Why do they call it a UFO sometimes and other times they call it a flying saucer? Is it because once they identify it as a flying saucer it is no longer an Unidentified Flying Object?

I wonder what kind of fuel is used to power a UFO. Does it run on gasoline? Kerosene? Maybe it runs on caffeine. It could, you know.

I’ve heard that too much caffeine can make a person extremely nervous.  Some people talk a lot when they get nervous. They just go on and on about everything and their conversation jumps from one thing to another. It can be downright annoying sometimes.

I drink a lot of coffee. Do I seem nervous to you. Am I babbling? I suppose I should cut back on the caffeine. I should probably switch to decaf, but I don’t know if I would like the taste. I think it must be the caffeine that gives the coffee its flavor.

Maybe I should just stop drinking coffee. I wonder if they make decaffeinated coffee tables. Maybe I should switch to using a milk crate.

Are you sure I’m not annoying you…

Someone once referred to writing humor as “lying for a living”. While humor writers don’t actually lie outright, we do often stretch the truth until it resembles the worn-out elastic waistband on a pair of old bloomers.

Actually being a humor writer is like having a chronic illness. You can treat the symptoms, but the disease is still there. You can keep it under control most of the time by reading about global warming or by watching C-span, but there is no cure. It’s something you have to learn to live with and try to keep under control the best way you can. I’ve, been managing my obsessive writing disorder, or OWD, since I was in my twenties. Frankly I have an easier time managing my diabetes.

In the years that I’ve been writing my humor column, I’ve been asked the same two questions by countless readers. The first question is “How do you come up with something funny to write about each week?” and the other question is “Do you mean they actually pay you to write that nonsense?”  To the second question I always answer, “Sspsspt!” And then I try to give an equally sensible answer to the first question, like “Number 5′” or “Philadelphia”.

Contrary to what the famous writers of real literature would have you believe, there’s a great deal of work involved in writing a humor column. For one thing you have to actually think. I don’t like thinking. It makes me tired and I usually quit after the first ten minutes and file my nails or stare out the window.

It’s just that there are so many things out there for a humor writer to write about. The ideas are endless. Like for instance…umm…well actually I can’t think of anything right now, but I’m sure something would be funny, if it happened.

Anything can be funny when you look at it with a warped mind. Ideas, much like people, come in all shapes and sizes. I get some of my best ideas when I’m doing something other than writing…like when I’m trying to sleep.

Sometimes I’ll be all snuggled in and drifting off to sleep when suddenly along comes a new thought that makes me laugh. I try to ignore the pesky thing but it nags at me until I get tired of swatting it away like a bee at a barbecue.

Finally, in order to stop the nagging I get up, stumble to the office and write down the idea, and then here comes another swarm of thoughts followed by a few more. Before I realize it the one idea has escalated into a column, I’ve written over a thousand words, and the sun is peeking in through the window. And most of the time nearly 990 of these words are about as funny as a massive dose of poison ivy…or Nancy Pelosi.

It’s kind of like rowing a boat with a rope. Now if you’ll excuse me I have to stare out the window.

Do any of you remember how back in March of 2007, the news reported on the trial of country singer-songwriter, Willie “On The Road Again” Nelson and his sidekicks Poncho and Lefty…no wait a minute, it was his tour manager David Anderson and his sister Bobbie Nelson…anyway, they were spared jail time in a court hearing by pleading guilty to a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession?

The court hearing stemmed from an incident that happened on September 18, 2006 just a few miles east of Lafayette, Louisiana. According to several news reports, Nelson’s bus was travelling along Interstate 10 at a lightning speed of two miles per hour, when it was stopped for a routine commercial inspection and the officer smelled what appeared to be the putrid odor of Pepi Le Pue. The state trooper then searched the bus for the offending skunk and discovered about 1-1/2  pounds of marijuana and 91 grams of hallucinogenic mushrooms.  When confronted with the evidence and questioned about the large bag of weed and the poison mushrooms, Nelson replied, “Man, I’m starved to death. You gonna eat that doughnut?”

Willie Nelson and four other passengers on the bus were cited for possession and released. In addition to being cited for possession the driver of the bus had his commercial driving privileges suspended and they all went to the nearest Waffle House where they ate happily for the next three hours while admiring all the pretty colors.

The court hearing that week resulted in Nelson and Anderson being fined $1,024 each. Both were placed on probation for six months and while Nelson could have been sentenced to six months in jail, he was slapped severely across the wrist and ordered to wash his hair. He was also advised to combine both his braided locks into one long French braid down the back of his head. Nelson was heard whistling the tune, “I Smoke Pot and I Like it  a Lot” as he left the courthouse.

In light of that tragic state of affairs, Hollywood filmmakers, in a moment of sheer genius, decided to do something that has seldom been done before. They made a movie from current events ripped straight from the headlines. The new movie promises to  be an even bigger box office hit than the movie “Snakes On A Plane”. They have titled this newest cinema enema, “Roaches On A Bus”.

Critics who have reviewed “Roaches On A Bus” gave it a two thumbs up and one pointing sideways, calling it “the smokinest movie of the decade”.

Nelson, now 76, still remains an advocate for the legalization of marijuana.  The driver of Nelson’s tour bus is now a passenger.

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This week’s Stupid Criminal Award goes out to the 17-year-old who broke into Bella Office Furniture in Kennewick, Washington yesterday and proceeded to use the store’s computer to fence the stolen items. According to the news report, the teen spent five hours inside the store, bartering the stolen items online, watching porn and visiting his MySpace account. Rumors are that the store manager has now hired the teen and made him head of the sales department.

Actually, I made that last part up, but wouldn’t it be funny if he had been able to sell half of the stuff in the store. Maybe called it a midnight madness sale.

In other news this week, there was a report of WMD’s discovered in Owensboro, Kentucky. The weapons of mass destruction were actually the lactating breasts of a 31-year-old female who was arrested for public intoxication. According to the reports, before being placed in her cell, the prisoner was changing from her street clothes into the standard inmate jumpsuit while a female officer stood watch. The woman attacked the officer by squirting breast milk in her face.

This leaves me with the puzzling question: “What color was the jumpsuit?” I’m going to go out on a limb here and say orange. Oh, yeah, and I’m also wondering why, if this woman was breast feeding, was she drunk in the first place. Wouldn’t the baby get drunk from the milk? Oh…yeah… that’s right, she didn’t care. Maybe she had eaten habaneros earlier and thought her milk would be like pepper spray.

Finally, it looks like Sara Palin might be showing her Alaska to the public once again, this time through a reality show called Sara Palin’s Alaska. According to reports, A&E Networks and Discovery Communications are two of the networks who are interested in buying Palin’s project. The show would focus on the ex-governor giving a guided tour of her native home state, visiting fishing boats and taking a trip to a gold mine, among other things.

The former vice presidential candidate is asking for between $1 million and $1.5 million per episode. However in order to keep up with the fast paced shows like “Dog the Bounty Hunter” and “Deadliest Catch”, I’m sure Palin will have to add in a few moose hunts and maybe a tour of Russia from her front yard.

Earlier today, an unnamed source hinted that the show may be narrated by Katie Couric.

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