Monday, April 27, 2009

More random thoughts that no one cares about...

This will be a completely random post because I feel like writing, I just don't know what I want to write about.

The weather is teasing us. Can we just have some warm weather without rain, for cripe pete? I have the itch for gardening, and I've been out a few times, but it just seems all too short. I'm looking forward to the 7 days a week gardening stretch. Saturday mornings at 6:00 am, out in my jammies and bare feet, pulling weeds, pruning, fertilizing, watering, praising.... Such a treat for my soul! I love coming home from a long day of work, and heading out to the back yard to see how all the plants fared during the day - Monday through Friday. Some will need TLC, and others are just left to enjoy. This year will have the added bonus of my little boy, who now has his own gardening tools. He already loves to get his hands dirty, and is the only time he doesn't whine about it. (Any other kind of "dirty" is so not okay for him!) It's fun to assess the garden's progress at the end of the week.

I loathe blackberry bushes, but I love blackberries. I just don't want them in MY yard. Elsewhere is great. They just have a knack for taking over everything. Plants that have the ability to send out an arm and plant itself into the ground, making new roots, is evil and should be stopped.

I washed the Accord on Thursday evening... It rained on me as I was washing, which kind of made me laugh a little. The worst was when I was done, went inside to change clothes and then back outside to greet my husband who was just arriving home from work. There were 4 humongous turd splatters on my freshly washed car. And I began to wonder from whence the flock of pterodactyls came.

Scott and I were watching The Food Network (just another way to encourage couch-potatoe-ness) when on came a special on deep fried foods. And he got the awesome idea to deep fry a pickle. Let me just say this: Yum. Especially the Tabasco style pickle. It sounds disgusting, but, just like a deep fried Twinkie, it is delicious. Shut up and try it.

Three more weeks until we get to find out the sex of Wigglebean. Anyone wanna take a bet?

I ran (ok, I drove) to Love Love for a quick take-out lunch. They serve Pepsi products. **Boo** I hate Pepsi. I'm a Coke fan. Truly. Any true fan of either knows the difference. So, reluctantly, I went to the fountain to fill my cup. I thought, How can I possibly make this taste good? Then I saw the lemonade. The only way I've ever been able to stomach diet Pepsi is to add a boat load of lemon. So... I filled my cup most of the way, and added a splash or two of lemonade. I was so impressed with my ingenuity. It's really good. Reminds me of my childhood when my BFF Heather ("Head" for short - long story) and I would get dropped off at Freddies in Corvallis, with 7-11 right across the street. We would go make what we lovingly referred to as "Graveyards" which is pretty much a little bit of everything all mixed together. It had a terrible color (I can't even describe it, what with the addition of Mountain Dew), but it sure tasted good. I would imagine that now as an adult it probably doesn't taste half as good as I remember, but... it's a good memory nonetheless.

I also remember getting dropped off at the Chuck Wagon (only buffet in town) in Corvallis (right by the movie theater on 9th Street) where Head and I paid for our respective lunches in change. Yes, we were THOSE people. HA! Take that, you mean cashiers! We loved the Chuck Wagon. Mainly because we could eat as many mashed potatoes as we wanted, and we could go back for endless bowls of soft-serve ice cream with that nasty caramel sauce on top. Why is that appealing? I don't know. But it is.

Head's oldest brother (Jay) taught us how to drive. I think I was about 13 at the time. (Head was 15 or 16.) He drove this Subaru wagon... We lived in the country, and there were a lot of gravel roads, so the chance of getting caught was pretty slim to none. I remember getting behind the wheel, Jay in the passenger seat, and Head in the back seat right behind me. Off I went, only I didn't realize I had put the car in reverse instead of drive. We were headed straight for an embankment backwards. Heather grabbed my hair, screaming, "STOP!!!!!!!" I still laugh about that.

Do you ever wonder why you did the things you did when you were a kid? I do all the time. We did some pretty crazy stuff. Most of which I would never admit in public or in writing, but so much of it is just too funny not to share. For instance, Heather's family always had two Golden Retrievers. Always. I can't remember a time when there weren't two... One would die... and they'd get another one to replace him or her... Great dogs. At any rate, they had one named Flash (named after Flash Gordon, I think). He was the BIGGEST Golden I've ever seen. He had to have weighed 150+ pounds and could fit 4 (yes, FOUR) tennis balls in his mouth at one time. He was very, very large. As people approached their house, Flash would run out and grab their arm with his mouth and lead them to the door. Sounds very welcoming. The problem with this is that he had a massive issue of slobber. Once said arm was removed from Flash's mouth, there would be long strings of snotty slobber... Truly disgusting. (This is also the dog the violated me when I was about 7 years old. I was crawling on the floor for something, and he decided to hop on... Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get a 150 pound dog off of you when you weigh less than 100 pounds and are flat on your tummy on the floor?)

I digress... All this to say that having large dogs meant large "accidents" (or purposes, depending on their location). Once, Head and I were in their den when we came across a pile of Flash's droppings. (And I'm not kidding when I say "pile".) We were so sick of cleaning up after these dogs... So... for whatever reason, we decided to put it in the drawer of this end table. God only knows why we did this.

Later that afternoon, our neighbor-friend Amiee came over to join us in whatever fun we were having at the time. We told her we had a surprise for her. "Close your eyes..." We led her to the end table. "Now, take a big whiff!"

So wrong. On so many levels.

We forgot about it for some time. Then, one day, we recalled. After some laughter, we decided to check it out and see if it was still there. It indeed was. Only it had grown a substantial amount of hair (aka, mold).

A few weeks later, we went back for another update. It was gone. Now I'm no expert on the disintegration time of canine poo, but there are only two possibilities: 1) the poo disintegrated; or 2) it was removed. If #2, I can only imagine the look on the face of the person who discovered it and would pay good money to know what they were thinking.

I could go on and on about Heather memories. We're still friends to this day. (Hey, Head!) We've been friends for 34 years. She's like a sister. And we're both married to Scotts. And our kids are less than 1 month apart. Our lives are always in sync. So cool.


One of my biggest pet peeves is chipped nail polish. I don't care if it's on fingernails or toenails. But, seriously... If your polish is chipping, please just remove it. Don't keep chipping away at it, and showing off the parts that are really stuck on there. I think it's worse on toenails. I hate looking down at someone's feet (and I'm a total foot person, for some unknown reason) and seeing chipped, ghetto toenails. Gross. It's especially disappointing when that particular someone is always so clean and tidy, stylish and fashionable. I expect to look down and see freshly polished toes, and cute little shoes that rock with the outfit. But, instead, I see cute little shoes with nasty, chipped ghetto toenails sticking out. Wrong. It's called nail polish remover (or good ol' acetone), ladies. Get some. And for the sake of everyone, please use it.

I'm ready to go garage saling. I'm specifically looking for a twin bed (frame, not mattress) that I can refinish, if necessary, for my big boy! Anyone know of someone looking to sell one? Or, wanna come with? I live for good deals. I'm all about "the find" on a tiny budget and being so proud of all the money I saved, and how handy I can be with sandpaper and paint or stain.

And so this edition of "random thoughts" comes to an end.

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