Category: miscellaneous

It’s nice to know it isn’t just us little worker bees who suffer from this affliction.

HINT: One of my bosses is named, Mr. Burgess.

… five days before embarking on a flight with the very same airline featured in the video.

If you can’t view the video above, try this link.

It has been raining here. A lot.

I’d much rather it be cool and wet than hot and dry. But that’s just me.

Speaking of me… although I still haven’t had time to really go through all of the pictures I took this past weekend, I do have a funny story to share.

My friend, Carol, who I have known for 30+ years, spent the weekend with me at the WV place. While we were away, Hubby moved a bunch of the crap we need to get rid of from the basement to the garage.

The “crap” I am speaking of is stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. Old pictures, knick-knacks, pots and pans, etc. The kind of stuff you hate to throw away even though you know you don’t really want it anymore.

Well, Carol loves to rummage. She’s very good at giving old stuff a new life. So I asked her if she wanted to take a look to see if there was anything she wanted. Together, we started digging through the stuff.

That’s when we came across this one particular box.

“What’s in there?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. So I pulled it out of the pile, opened the lid, and peered in.

“Oh, it’s just some tacky thing someone gave me for Christmas,” I reported.

“Uh, really?” she snickered.

“Yeah,” I said, handing her the box. “It’s tacky.”

She looked into the box and laughed.

“What?” I asked. I mean, I knew it was ugly, but I didn’t think it was all that funny.

“Um, I gave you this,” she said, laughing harder.

By then, we were both cracking up.

I have a feeling we’ll be laughing about that one for years…

I have nothing specific to Blog about today. However, having visited my Blog to add the new header for May (isn’t it cool?), I had to post something.

I found this Japanese video on YouTube. But don’t worry, there are no subtitles or anything. In fact, there’s not even any talking, ’cause it’s all about a cat and a box.

Mildly entertaining, but better than nothing!

Apparently, there are a series of videos on YouTube about Maru (the cat). But I refuse to get sucked in today.

It’s a big day. My first “summer Friday.” That’s where my company allows employees to choose an alternate work schedule, which results in every other Friday off. Nice, eh?

I’m off to WV. With my girlfriend, Carol. Hubby’s staying home. The girls, Meg and Belle, are coming, too, of course. I’d feel way too guilty going to WV without them because they love it there so much.

Maybe Monday, I’ll have all sorts of cool stuff to Blog about. I doubt it, but one can only hope.

We’ve had a couple long days of rain. And cold.

Today, it is sunny.

Today, I am humming this little ditty…

What a weird song to have stuck in the head! I told you I have a gazillion brain cells eaten up by musical memories.

Saying I read a lot is a bit of an understatement. I always have something to read. To me, there’s nothing more relaxing than losing yourself in a good book.

I come from a long line of readers. My Grandmother was an avid reader all of her life. Her children are readers. My brother and I are readers, too. That’s one of the things I should thank my mother for, I guess. Thanks, Mom. (She reads my Blog, of course.)

Hubby loves to read. So does his Mom (my mother-in-law). Our kids love to read, too. Shannon reads more than any of the other kids. Amy is too busy being a Mom to squeeze many books in at the moment, but she’s been known to devour books when she has time. Eric is too busy being a computer-game-addicted teenager at the moment. But he’s read his share as well.

I can’t imagine life without books. Lately, I’ve been focusing more on short stories. But after finishing all of the short story collections I got for Christmas, I picked up a novel I’d bought at the library for fifty cents a while back, The Patron Saint of Liars by Ann Patchett.

Because I read so much, it’s rare that a books really delights me. That one did. It was a really good story. My mother-in-law agreed. She read it pretty quickly, too.

Usually, those stand-out books are far and few between for me.

But I just finished another really good story. Written by Michael C. White, who I’d never heard of before, A Dream of Wolves is one of those books that had me wishing it never ended. Not because the ending wasn’t good, but because I felt like I knew the characters so well. The author made the characters and their town so real, I wanted to know what else happened to them, where their lives went after the story ended.

Two great books in a row. What’s the likelihood that a third will similarly captivate me? Slim. But every now and then I get lucky.

Every now and then, I find myself on a roll. Like now.

I finished A Dream of Wolves on Saturday afternoon. What I failed to mention is that I’d bought that one at Ollie’s, a close-out/surplus/overstock store where Hubby and I buy lots of books really cheap. It set me back $3.99, which is less than half what a paperback costs nowadays.

Fearing mediocrity, but at a loss for anything else new to read, that’s when I started another hardback I’d gotten at Ollie’s for $2.99, The Last Days of Dogtown by Anita Diamant. It is 261 pages long. I only have 50 pages left. Does that tell you anything?

So now the question is, will my mother-in-law get these gems to read next? My Mom? Or one of the kids. With my Mom in Virginia visiting my brother and this month’s Thirsty Third Thursday pushed back to next week, I’m guessing my mother-in-law. Time will tell, I guess.