Posts

Posted on

It’s Christmas, Hon

Image courtesy of Rob (NOT from Baltimore, by the way)

There’s a tradition in Baltimore I’ve never experienced in person. That will change this year. I absolutely must see this for myself. Maybe I’ll even drag some grandkids along.

There’s a small set of Flickr images I found, thanks to Shannon, which will give you a brief glimpse.

You can also see the Miracle on 34th Street Flickr pool.

Or you could experience it via this little slideshow I found:
Excess on 34th Street

Either way you look at it, Baltimore’s 34th Street is the ultimate in tackiness. But it is intentional and all in good fun.

If I do get to visit, as I hope, I’ll take some pics of my own to share here.

Until then, remember… only 24 DAYS ‘TIL CHRISTMAS!

Posted on

Piebald Whitetail Deer

This weekend was relatively uneventful. We went to the WV place, as we often do. Hubby did lots of little chores. I did lots of nothing.

The only real excitement happened today as we were leaving. That’s when we saw this…


It’s a whitetail deer with piebald coloring. According to this article, whitetail deer actually come in five different colors. Brown is the most common. Then there are piebald (think a pinto pony), albino, white, and melanistic (really dark).

A neighbor told me a long time ago that they’d seen a white deer. It was just a matter of time before we saw it, too, I guess.


The pictures aren’t great ’cause we were in the truck and I was zoomed in pretty far. But they’re clear enough to give you an idea how weird it looked.

Gun season runs through December 6 in West Virginia. Let’s hope this one survives.

Posted on

Someone Else’s Brittany and Cats

I posted my Meg’s Adjustment video on YouTube last night. This morning, I had to check and make sure it was working. YouTube is great at showing you links to related videos. I always get sucked in to watching more.

That’s how I discovered Merlin the British Brittany and his family.

Merlin’s cute and his Mom has a good sense of humor. I had so much fun watching his videos, I just had to share some here.

There’s this one, too, which I actually saw first. But I thought it was so funny (and so reminiscent of my own slideshow, Meg’s Dilemma), I e-mailed it to a bunch of folks, including most of my Blog fans. But it MUST have its own place here.

Here’s the last one of Merlin I’ll post today. Listen closely to what the lady is saying. It’s a fine example of that dry, British sarcasm that I find entertaining.

Too bad Merlin lives across the pond. He and my crazy Meg could be good pals, I think.

Posted on

Do Dogs Mourn?

We’re all slowly adjusting to life without C. We’re not forgetting about her (not possible), just trying to work around the hole her passing has left in our lives.

I put together a sad-but-cute video — only two minutes long — showing one aspect of how Meg has to learn to adjust. I’m not sure this is mourning behaviour per se, but it’s certainly one example of the many little, everyday things we didn’t anticipate would remind us that C is gone.

There’s a lot of text at the beginning, but reading it is necessary for you to “get” what’s going on in the video. There’s music, too, so adjust your volume before clicking the play arrow.

The first video is the high-resolution version for people with fast Internet connections…

I also posted a lower-resolution for folks with slower connections…

They are both the same video, just with different playback quality.

Posted on

Gift Cards Getting More Risky

In today’s failing economy, buying gift cards this holiday season could be a BAD idea. My Mom mentioned this during a recent telephone conversation. I also got an e-mail about it today. So I decided to check SNOPES. Read for yourself. It’s WAY too long for me to summarize with any accuracy.

Though not a new scheme, you have to keep this in mind, too.

Posted on

Help Celebrate Tacky Christmas 2008

A week or so ago, I got the idea to Blog about the tackiness of Christmas this holiday season.

Just for the record, the picture at left is my tree from some years ago. It isn’t tacky (at least I don’t think so), I just hate pictureless posts.

Want to help? Here’s how.

Just tell me about tacky or fun Christmas stuff you stumble across. “Tacky” would be stuff like my Mom found. Another great example of tacky Christmas stuff can be seen in this picture. Actually the entire post from a 2007 Blog is worth seeing. Or you can peruse the whole blog.

“Fun” (to me) is stuff like this. Okay, it’s only sort of fun.

NOTE: this really is not meant to be mean. I realize it takes all kinds to make the world go round. So let’s not identify folks, unless they clearly want to be identified.

This effort will really kick off after Thanksgiving. But feel free to start e-mailing your links and/or images to me at toadmama@gmail.com. Feel free to mention this post to all your friends, too. Let’s see just how much crazy stuff we can come up with.