Two Nights Out This Week At The Pub - How Do The English And Irish Do It?

Last night, Andrew, our favorite Quizmaster for the Southern California Geeks Who Drink Pub Quiz retired.  We couldn't miss this, even though it was on a Wednesday, not our usual night.  So for two nights in a row, we Pub Quizzed.  Fun!  And we came in first both times, without a clue how we did it.  Some weeks, the answers are things we are really familiar with - Ruben Sandwich ingredients - Corned Beef, Swiss Cheese, Sauerkraut, Russian or 1000 Island Dressing, on Rye Bread.  Could not believe how many other constants answered Pastrami.  Too bad for them.  But this week, most stuff was unknown to any of us.  Sports questions, which are only answered with confidence when my Sweetie is there, can  only be guessed at, which is what we did,  But I guess we were more right than the other teams.

But my point, and I do have one, is that we were in a strange place this week, and I had to share one of the most unusal things I have ever seen.  For $2 you could use one of those Crane Games that usually retrieve stuffed animals and occasionally get infiltrated by unattended children skinny enough to climb up in them, and catch a live lobster which they would cook for you in their kitchen.  A $2 lobster dinner if you had the skill.  I did not have enough to drink to properly enjoy this.  But that made driving home possible.   

A Hurricane, For Me? You Shouldn't Have!

First it was going to be Hurricane Beryl, then I became a Tropical Storm, came ashore and weakened, and now I'm just a Tropical Depression.  I feel like I'm back in Seattle again, except for that "Tropical" part.Stay safe! 

I'm Retired - Every Weekend Is A Three Day Weekend!

Does anyone still remember when most holidays were on a specific day of the year, instead of being celebrated on a convient Monday to make a three day weekend?  It's going to be four years until Memorial Day is on it's old date, May 30, 2016.

Old Time Fun?

When I was little, my mother's parents had a real live slot machine.  Other relatives had juke boxes and pool tables.  There was even a dining house in my grandparent's back yard.  Emphasis on having fun.  Bridge and dominos.  Cribbage and other card games.I'm pretty sure we Americans are all working a little too hard to have enough time for that much fun.  The little time off my friends have is spent resting up for another round of corporate game playing.  And for the self employed, there's even less leisure.  Croquet, anyone?

Disneyland or Blog Maintenance? That is the Question

Does anyone remember that old instructional film, Reefer Madness?  My twenty something kids played it for me tonight in the Mystery Science Fiction Theatre format, where it is more snarky comment and less instruction.  Hysterical, but it makes me wonder how old they think I really am.  (By tomorrow, I should have good Internet, but if someone invites me to go to Disneyland, I know what choice I will make.) 

Everything's Bigger In Texas - Check Out The World's Biggest Cross

Driving to Southern California for Amanda's wedding is exhausting for me - having to sit in my very comfortable passenger's seat and snooze while my Sweetie drives.  Separate heat and cooling controls and a fully charged Nook loaded with books, magazines, and games.  Just a few interruptions, when John woke me up for Dairy Queen and Starbuck's stops, and to alert me to this photo opportunity (that's what he calls them).  Can you believe the devotion this took?  

Would You Buy Shares In Facebook?

Why on earth would anybody buy shares in Facebook?  NASDAQ (which is a fully automated trading system) is being blamed for the poor performance of these infant stock shares.  They want us to believe it's a computer glitch.  Couldn't it just be that everyone who thinks Facebook should have their money is too young to have that much money? 

Chicago!

I have been in a land of disgraceful Internet - expensive and very bad - the Sheraton in Chicago - where they are preparing for Obama and Hillary next week.  If I had just paid the $14 plus tax per day I might have had better Internet, but I stubbornly tried to get the free stuff to work.  And I do think that it was a security issue, since the whole town was worried about that NATO Conference. (That would be the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for those of us who keep forgetting that it's not just about North America, which if you were watching the Chicago Edition of Fox Morning News on Thursday, you would have found out that I am one.  But I looked real cute on TV, as did 2 of the other women I was with, the 4th of our group  having been totally edited out, for some odd reason.  Too bad, since she has such a sweet, Jackie Kennedy East Coast sounding voice.)  I went on an architectural tour on a river boat, a dinner cruise on Lake Michigan, a 4 hour bus tour of the city, and all that time, ate wonderful Chicago food.  I had such a great time!

Where have I been?  Somewhere that charges $14 for Internet!  Can you guess?

Where Is This?

You might think you are in a forrest, but you're not!

These mushroom shaped fungus just showed up in my planter one morning.  You would think they are 4 inches tall, when in truth they are about 1/10th that tall.  This whole universe is just one very small planter box - 6" x 24".

Is There A Self-Help Guide For Proper Mother-In-Lawing For Poor Mortals Who Can't Turn Anyone Into A Toad?

In a month, I'm going to be a mother-in-law!  (That's right, my daughter is getting married and I can still make it all about me.)  But all I can think about it the old TV show, Bewitched, and the worst of all MIL's, Endora.  If Derwood treated her daughter badly, she would turn him into something odd.  Until he learned his lesson.  Pretty cool, especially considering what a disrespectful dufuss Darin Stevens was.  "No wife of mine is going to use witchcraft!"  How lame.  Well, I have no worries about my daughter's future husband, Mike.  He has such respect for her and this respect encourages her to be the best at whatever she wants to do.  I think Amanda is going to have fun!

This day started out well - that darling instructor Cynthia put out this bowl of Kisses for us after water aerobic class.  Right by the door to the shower room.  Sometimes the llittlest things set the tone for the whole day,

And speaking of the littlest things, this is Licia (I promised her that I would misspell her name so no one could Google and find her easily) (as if my blog would even come up Googling).  She is a mixture of a few types of American Indian and some German - the total effect being such serene beauty.  Her eyes radiate such intelligence. 

The afternoon was spent playing Mah Jongg, where I met someone new, with a name that is new to me - Zelma.  And next to her in the blue is my friend Carol, who had the idea for a neighborhood Mah Jongg group in the first place.  And for a perfect finish to the day, John got back in town and I picked him up at 5.  So nice to have dinner with him.  Like I said, it's the little things.  They all added up to one of those terrific days that I would have thought of as such a bore when I was a teenager.  Does anyone ever think about what our juvenile self expected our lifes to be like? 

How Medicated Would I Need To Be?

Imagine a safe measuring 4'x4'x8'.  On the outside.  Ok, got it?  Now imagine a tornado coming your way and locking yourself inside this safe - maybe not just by yourself.  Is there enough Valium in the world??  My local TV station is giving away one of these every day. This is a contest I'm not entering.

Good Advice From My Grandfather

My mother told me that her father's advice to her as a young girl was never underestimate anyone - the guy next to you on the train might be able to buy and sell you, financially, intellectually, artistic talent wise, or etc.  It turns out that on that particular train, she had been sitting on the lap of Mr Kellogg.  (Or some other food mogul whose name is equally well known.)

But I was still surprised at how fabulous that life guard sang when we did Happy Birthday for Norma (in the pool) who turned 83 today.  (Norma is the one who turned 83, our life guard is less than 25.)  I told him I would love to hear him in the Mikado, playing the Modern Major General.  He had no idea what I was talking about.  Did I say he was less than 25?

Hot Cows On Route 66

When driving back from the Koloche Festival Saturday, Hgy 44 was stopped for an accident.  (I am done driving on 44, since I've only driven it twice - once by a GPS error - and there have been accidents both times.)    When we diverted onto Rte 66 (getting our kicks!), we had to stopped and get pictures of these hot cows.

Sundays Are Special In Oklahoma!

One of the biggest cultural differences between the West Coast and Oklahoma, (and one of the first things that made me feel as if I was in a 1950's time warp), is that Sundays are special here.  Yesterday, I had to choose what to do from a pretty long list - El Reno had a Grilled Onion Festival, with the grilling of a record sized onion burger; Claremore has a Lilac Festival; Downtown Tulsa has a 400 pound Piñata followed by Masked Mexican Wrestling; and (the winner) Prague had a Koloche Festival with Dairy Princess Parade and Miss Oklahoma performing Irish Step Dancing.  All those choices were only available yesterday, Saturday.  Today is Sunday and there is no carryover.  I could finish up the envelopes for Amanda's wedding invitations, since I remembered to stop at Hobby Lobby to buy envelopes Saturday night on the way back into town from the Prague Kolache Festival.  For, you see, Hobby Lobby is closed on Sunday.  As is the Saks store in Utica Square.  So in Oklahoma it's lots easier to have a day of rest, and isn't that the best thing a Sunday can be?

Prague Rhymes With Vague, When It's The Prague Oklahoma Kolache Festival

 That's a picture of me with Miss Oklahoma.  She had just finished Irish Step Dancing.  A tiny body of solid granite and a million dollar smile.  She was at the Kolache Festival in Prague, Oklahoma. 
The first Kolache stand had Kolaches made by angels - the most fabulous ones you can imagine - still warm and almost fluffy, not too sweet and nicely fruity, just the slightest bit yeasty.  Made by church ladies, actually.  Not all Kolaches are created equal, and the other stands weren't up to these standards - those were merely wonderful.  Yum!

John with the Queen of the Festival and another unauthentically dressed woman.  The costumes are a bit of one regions traditions mixed with those of others.  But very cute!

                                                                     Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Pretty Guy

When I saw this guy outside the front door, it was glistening in the sun and I thougth it was a sequin pin of a moth.  Nope, real live guy!

How To Manually Flush An Automatic Toilet - The Things You Find When You Just Look For Them

A while ago I wanted to leave an answer to a comment on my blog, when my own blog asked me to copy a couple of incomprehensible groups of letters before it would let me.  Now, I understand doing this when I leave a comment on other peoples blogs, since they are full of quality information and a little extra step keeps their comment section from being Spammed to death.  But my blog has very little thought or work put into it, and I consider myself lucky when anyone leaves a comment, so I need for it to be as little work as possible for those commentors.  I knew there must be a way to get rid of this pesky little step, so I started looking for it.  I didn't ask anyone, not even by Googling it, and eventually I found the answer I sought.  I just knew that there was a way.  And what does this have to do with toilets, you ask.  Well last weekend I was in Kansas City and we went out to dinner with a group that included a couple we had never met.  When the ladies went en masse to the ladies room (it's the law, right?), two of us got quite concerned about how long it was taking for the woman who I had never met before to emerge from her stall.  I would never have mentioned it, but the other woman in the room had been a close friend of the tardy emerger since 1st grade, so she asked if there was a problem.  It turns out that this woman (very intelligent and capable) had been standing up and sitting down over and over trying to get the auto flush to work.  She didn't want to leave the stall until she got this to work.  My point, and I do have one, is  - no wait, maybe there is no point to this.  I'll try to remember where I was heading with this point thing in the morning.
**OK, thanks to Terri and Jill, (for some reason I thing Jill of all Trades is actually a Carla), I'm back on point: Most of the time, all it takes is a belief that the solution exists and start looking for it.  There is usually a button of some kind on these toilets.  She just never considered that one even existed.  And I refuse to admit to the huge amount of time I have wasted looking for solutions that I think should exist, but don't.  OK, I will admit that when I got my first ATM card, decades ago, they decided that it was too much trouble to keep issuing me new cards, since I kept trying to get their machines to do things they weren't designed to do.  And pushed a lot of random buttons trying to find the right combination to get them to do what I wanted.  And the machines would get mad (or as mad as a machine could) and shred my card.  Now an ATM card is all I use, and those machine (the ones that count your money for you) are so much smarter. 

Most days the edge of my sink looks like this.  My husband has the sink nice and clean the night before so he can fill it with assorted vegetables and one apple to juice every morning.  He has been doing this for years.  This is that little annoying sticker that they put on the apple.  Now no clerk has to learn the difference between the various types of apples.  Eventually we may have no clerks at all and have to depend on a robot to ring up our apples.   Or maybe the point it that we now have so many different types of apples that even an computer couldn't recognize each individual type, so little stickers are needed.  If you are old enough you remember when there were just red or yellow apples - DDelicious, and some kind of pie apple - sour.  Then they added those Granny Smith ones.  Then Fuji.  Eventually more and more types cropped up.  And those few years when the friendly clerk would ask you what type of apples you put in your bag,  (I never lied to them.)  But now we are stuck with the sticker.