My poor blog. It sits here so patiently, waiting for me to write something. Anything. Although it seems quiet here on the blogfront, my life is busting out all over.
In a good way.
Mostly.
And it’s summer, so when I’m not crazy busy, I’m outside getting the stink blown off me.
Did your mom use that phrase on you when you were younger?
“Go outside and get the stink blown off of you.”
I was raised by my grandmother, who uses *quite* the turns of phrase. (turn of phrases? turns of phrases? )
Growing up I heard them all. Over and over. And over. I understood what the phrases were meant to convey, but I never really THOUGHT about how funny they were until I was older:
- Two shakes of a dead banty’s tail
I was probably 25 years old before I realized that a banty was a Bantam Rooster. All my life I had some vague image of a banty being some kind of small mangy mammal. The image of a dead bantam rooster isn’t really much of an improvement. And I STILL don’t know exactly how long it takes a dead banty to shake it’s tail twice. I’m guessing it’s fast, though, since my grandmother meant business when she used this phrase.
- A Fart Caught Crossways
A minor medical/health problem, about as serious as a hangnail. As in “That crazy Mrs. Rhodes runs to the emergency room every time she gets a fart caught crossways.” My grandmother still says this and it makes me laugh out loud every time.
- A Fart in a Hailstorm
Something not very useful at all. “This new TV Guide is about as helpful as a fart in a hailstorm.”
- Fiddlesticks
Younger Me: I think I should stay home from Sunday School, I’m not feeling good. I have a fever. It might be a contageous, tropical disease.
Gmom: Oh, fiddlesticks! I want to see you dressed and ready to go in two shakes of a dead banty’s tail.
I have no idea what fiddlesticks means, or where it came from. I mean, I KNOW it means “bullshit”, but fiddlesticks? I just like saying the word though. Fiddlesticks. Fiddlesticks. Especially in an exasperated tone. Oh….FIDDLESTICKS!
Filed under: Happiness is...
Sunday night I was writing a post in my head. It was all about croquet. And horseshoes. And genteel lawn games on steamy weekend evenings.
Then the mental post morphed into a story about my first attempts at hitting a golf ball (other than mini golf) later that evening. As it turns out, I’m as bad at hitting a golf ball as I am at doing all those OTHER things that require aiming – archery, pool, bowling. I did, however, hit a one in a million shot. The VIM and I sat our beer bottles at the edge of his large yard while we shot toward the hole from different places in the yard. I hit a ball from about 50 yards. It overshot the hole by about 10 yards (and waaaaaay to the left) and hit my beer bottle on the fly. Yes, of COURSE I acted like I did that on purpose.
I decided that THAT post wasn’t as good as the mental one I started writing even later Sunday night. That one was all about stars. You see, I realized Sunday night that I am 37 years old, and I have never seen the stars come out. I mean, I’ve been outside when it gets dark, but I’ve never paid attention to the sky when the stars actually become visible. Never ever. And I decided it was high time to rectify that situation. Can you believe that I had no idea how it would even happen? Would they just sort of appear? All at once? Would the whole transition from clear sky to starry sky take 5 minutes? Half an hour? In the course of having those questions answered, I saw a shooting star, watched a bat loop and soar, saw numerous june bugs, studied cloud formations, and generally paid more attention to my surroundings than I have in a long time. I highly recommend grabbing yourself a drink, getting comfy in a chair, and looking skyward for a few minutes (or hour) at dusk.
Even though the mental star post was a good one, it was taken over by a morning after post. After a lovely evening outdoors, I woke up the next morning to reality: mosquito bites. The good news is that the bites aren’t all over my body. Just all over my feet. The 3 or4 bites on the bony part of the top of my feet, makes wearing shoes a bit of a problem (and don’t even ASK what I was thinking when I put the nylons on yesterday), but the one that’s driving my crazy is THE ONE BETWEEN MY TOES. Just thinking about it makes me weep.
I didn’t have time to write that post down before work, and by the time I got home last night, all thoughts of the weekend had been slapped around and beaten down by a really big Monday. Summer Mondays are so much harder to accept than Winter, Spring, or Fall Mondays. This particular Monday ended with my first board meeting for the local group I joined. This is the first board meeting I’ve ever attended, and it was a doozy. They assured me that the meetings don’t usually last THREE HOURS, and that at most meetings there isn’t OVER THE TOP HIGH DRAMA. I felt like I’d walked onto the set of a soap opera. A very very long soap opera with no commercials. “The board and organization is in transition, everyone is a little tense.” they told me. “No Shit.” I said. Ok, I didn’t say that. My brain was fried to the point that I could only smile blankly and nod my head and will myself to blink my eyelids over my glassy eyes every once in a while.
There was gray.
There was green.
There was orange.
There was a smokey, damp little campfire the first night, and a great big happy campfire the second night.
There were no showers (oops! I misread the map) in our area, so, sweaty and mud-streaked after our canoe trip, we infiltrated the, uh, less rustic part of the park and snuck into their showers.
There were hotdogs and hamburgers and corn on the cob on the grill.
There were chipmunks, salamanders, and tadpoles. Oh yeah, and there was the unidentified skull.
There were few close calls with rocks on the river. Most of these occured when I was steering.
There were early-morning wakeup calls, and an afternoon nap.
I want to go back.
“Good Eeeeee-veh-ning. Welcome to your campsite. A campsite in the woooods. Woods where wild animals live, play and eat. Wild animals *like* to eat. Mwahahah ahahah ahahaha.”
Filed under: Lists
I am home from camping/canoeing, all in one piece.
I am not sunburnt, mosquito-bitten, waterlogged, or cranky.
I have a lot of mud and gunk in the soles of my shoes.
I don’t have the desire to return to work today.
I want to buy a house. Just a little one. Just something that is cute as a button and all mine.
I don’t want my life to change *too* much. I’m happy and content right now.
I need a swift kick in the ass at times.
I don’t need to eat lunch out as often as I do.
I like summer food: strawberries, corn on the cob.
I don’t like summer insects: spiders, centipedes.
I will eventually get caught up on laundry.
I won’t ever be tall or tan easily.
I can curl my tongue into a cloverleaf. Neato!
I can’t get the song “Would you Like to Buy and O” out of my head.
Filed under: General
Ok. I know which way my mood went. I’m just not pissy by nature, I guess. I’m getting my to-do list out, and firing up the ol’ “Dance Around the House Like a Nut” mix. How can I be pissy while bouncing around to “Elvis is Everywhere” and “Antmusic”?
The answer is, “I can’t.”
Filed under: General
I should be packing.
I should be cleaning.
I should, at the very least, be thinking about getting in the shower so I can start the day.
But it’s raining, and I am stricken. I’m frozen between a good, quiet, creative mood and a bad, nasty, pissy mood.
It’s raining. I’m not at work. It’s one of my dream days. A day that I don’t have to feel guilty about being outside mowing or weeding. A day where it would only take an hour or so to get the cleaning and stuff around the house done. A day where I could sit and play with online, or read a book, or play the piano for a few hours.
It’s raining. I’m not at work. I’m not at work because I’m leaving for the camping/canoeing trip this afternoon. It’s raining and I’m going camping. And canoeing. In the rain. I’m not necessarily pissy because the rain will ruin the trip. It won’t. It will just add a different dimension. Smoky fires, damp seats, pervasive wet chilliness. I’m pissy, I guess, because it’s not turning out exactly the way I had envisioned. Normally I just go with the flow and whatever happens, happens. I didn’t realize how much I was pinning my hopes on sunshine this weekend.
*sigh*
Filed under: General
It’s a simple game, the ABC rhyming game.
A is for word that starts with A, blah blah blah blah word.
B is for word that starts with B, blah blah blah blah word that rhymes with word.
Easy. I’m an adult. I’ve taken english class. I even have a college degree. I’ve never USED my college degree, but that’s a whole other post.
So I decide to play the ABC game. I’ve gotten over the commenting-phobia I used to have…I used to avoid commenting because I didn’t want to sound stupid.
Yeah, whatever.
So I decide to play the ABC game. My letters are E and F. E goes just fine. Then for some unknown reason I write:
F is for Manah Manah, the song I am humming.
What the hell? F is for Manah Manah??? Does that make ANY SENSE WHATSOEVER? No.
Sometimes I scare myself.
