Cow Chip Shortage

As my regular readers know, my office mate Light Bright plays in a country music band.  They are playing tonight at a cow chip throwing festival which has a very strange problem: because of the drought, there are not enough cow chips, so they had to dip into reserves. If this raised some questions for you too, I will attempt to answer them. According to this article, the cow chips are bad quality because the cows have been hanging out in the shade near the barns, not out in the fields. Therefore their “chips” don’t dry right. The article also addresses the question of where the reserves come from: they are chips that didn’t break when thrown. The organizers are already planning to go out next year and replenish their reserves, which will be low after this year’s festival. However, it sounds like they will have enough cow chips for you to toss one, if you so desire. Light Bright says she is not planning to toss one, but if the crowd demands it, she will. She said she always does what the audience asks, and then hastened to add, “Within reason.”

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Blender Blunder

My office mate Light Bright is not enjoying the cleanse she is on, but today she was very excited because she could add vegetables to her diet, besides the shakes she has been drinking. She kept talking about how tonight she is going to have sautéed vegetables for dinner. She was telling me that the shakes she makes taste better than the ones her husband makes, and it turns out there is a very good reason for that: she has been making them wrong. She was putting half as much of the protein powder in as she was supposed to into the blender, because she thought it was two scoops per blender but it is actually two scoops per serving and two servings per blender. I asked her if the shake she had today was made correctly, and she said, “Heck, no! I like them better this way!” Her husband was supposed to send me information about this cleanse, so I could join Light Bright in her misery, but so far he hasn’t.

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Clever Sign

Toque McToque sent me this picture of a sign her stepfather-in-law has posted on his front lawn. I thought it was timely, considering Hurricane Isaac and the Republican National Convention.

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Cute Colorado Animals

A woman from my choir who was staying right near where Tiffy and I did in Colorado shared a couple of really cute photos with me. The first one is a pica, a creature related to a rabbit that lives up in the tundra.

The second one is a baby bighorn. She had never seen bighorn out there before, but this time she got lucky and saw several, including this young one.

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"Gotta Do SOMETHING with My Mouth!"

My office mate Light Bright is doing some sort of “cleanse” for the next three weeks, and she is not happy about it. (It was her husband’s idea.) (I have no idea why, she's already very thin, but he somehow thinks she will GAIN weight by doing this.) For the next three days, she can eat nothing but these special protein powder shakes, and then after that all she can eat is vegetables besides the shakes. She can’t even put salt on them. She was telling me about this and said, “You know the worst part? At the end of my shower, I have to turn the water to really cold.” She was chewing gum as she said this, and I said, “So you’re still allowed to chew gum?” She said, “Yes, thank goodness! I have to be able to do something with my mouth!” Once we stopped laughing about that, she said, “Is that going to be the title of your blog post?” But I shortened it.

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Romantic Post

I wasn’t going to talk about my love life on this blog, which was easy enough when I didn’t have one. Now it occurs to me that many of my regular readers know I went on a date last night, and the rest of you might be interested to know how it went as well. I met Da Guy on a Catholic dating site and we exchanged a few emails before moving to phone calls. Actually, we do still email each other – it’s a very convenient mode of communication. So last night we met at a fake Irish pub which, according to Da Guy, is pretty authentic, since he has been in many a real Irish pub. We drank beer and talked, but it was loud in there, so he suggested we move to a tapas restaurant, where we sat outside and talked even more while eating tapas. It is very easy to talk to someone who travels and reads so much – you have plenty of material to discuss. We talked for almost five hours! To answer your questions, yes he did ask me out on another date and I said yes.  I can’t tell you much more than that because it’s too soon to know.

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Garden Adventure

Today I joined a bunch of other people in escorting elderly people around a local garden. It was a beautiful morning, and I enjoyed being outside, but the person I escorted was a very taciturn gentleman. I was hoping for one of those chatty ladies who talks about her grandkids, but this guy was impossible to make conversation with. He didn’t ask the names of any flowers, he didn’t have much to say about his grandkids, and after half an hour he was done. Since we were scheduled for an hour, I had no idea what to do. I told him the bus wouldn’t be back for half an hour, but he was fine with waiting for it. When the bus came, the driver told me, “Oh, he’s always like that.” I was a bit jealous of the people whose elderly friends were effusive in their goodbyes. Ah well, hopefully my buddy enjoyed his trip.

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Irish Fest Necklace

At Irish Fest I bought this necklace because it has marble from four areas of Ireland. The green is the famous Connemara marble from the west, the black is Kilkenny marble from the east, the white is Ulster marble from the north, and the red is Cork marble from the south, where my father’s family originated. Yes, we are Southerners. Maybe this is why I hate winter. The little beads in between are made of snow quartz from Achill Island, off County Mayo. Tiffy liked the idea of all these types of stone so much that she bought a similar necklace, only with oval beads instead of shamrocks. It does mean this necklace can go with a number of outfits.

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Fest Comparison: German vs. Irish

This weekend I went to Irish Fest with Tiffy and Jilly Moose, and I was really fascinated with the differences between it and German Fest. For one thing, German Fest is a better value for your money. The parking is a LOT (no pun intended) less, the entry fee is less, and beer is less than at Irish Fest. Also, at Irish Fest you had to buy tickets to get beer, you couldn’t just go up to a vendor and purchase it directly. What this system was supposed to accomplish was beyond any of us. Also, at Irish Fest you could hear people bragging about how Irish their last names were and/or what part of Ireland their ancestors had come from, and nobody was doing that at German Fest. Everything at Irish Fest was an exaggeration, even the greeting: cead mile failte. It means “one hundred thousand welcomes.” Since I have a tendency to exaggerate, that is one more thing I can blame on my Celtic heritage. One guy said something about how this was the 187^th Irish Fest his dance troupe had been at, which is quite an accomplishment when Irish Fest has only been going on since 1981. The shirts were cleverer at Irish Fest; they would say things like, “Good looks, intelligence, and IRISH too? How does it get any better?” whereas at German Fest I saw a shirt that said, “If you aren’t German, you aren’t sh*t.” Which surprised me a little bit, since you would think Germans would be cautious about asserting their racial superiority, considering their history of doing so and where it led them. I did think one T-shirt for women was pretty funny, though – it said, “Check out these Bavarian peaks!” Tiffy, Jilly Moose, and I looked in vain for commemorative Irish Fest hats like our German Fest ones, or free beads and temporary tattoos, but at Irish Fest even the temporary tattoos cost a quarter. Is this because people of Irish descent have more money than those of German descent, or are they just willing to pay more? I have no answers, just observations. I will say, however, that the music at Irish Fest is much better.

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Beat Up by a Sunflower

Yesterday after work my office mate Light Bright and I went to hear some live music on a rooftop overlooking the lake. The musical act was one guy with a keyboard, and he said he took requests, so I asked for “Gin and Juice” by Snoop Dogg (now Snoop Lion). He said he didn’t know it, but he would do Ludacris for us – and he did a great job! I also requested “Loving You” by Minnie Riperton, which he said he couldn’t do, but then he sang part of it anyway. He also began singing In Sync until someone requested something, so Light Bright rushed over and requested Johnny Cash. She and I sat on a bench in the sunlight, but it was a very windy day, and the sunflower behind us kept blowing into me. Luckily I was wearing my Famous Hat, because those sunflower buds are substantial when they knock into your head. The hat was the only thing keeping me from a concussion. Finally I got tired of being knocked around by a sunflower, and it was getting cold up on the rooftop, and the singer took a break, so Light Bright and I left. But we had a good time while we were there.

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Strange Mail

The other day I got some strange things in the mail, including a request for money from an organization directly opposed to my beliefs, and a small plastic statue of Obama that says “Hoax” on his shirt with the O from his “Hope” campaign. Why I should receive either of these things are beyond me, but the request for money came with a postage-paid envelope, so I sent them the statue. Let them pay the postage for such a heavy piece of mail. Maybe this will get me off their mailing list.

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Dream Job

My office mate Light Bright has a new career path she would like to follow: fictional character. She is reading a well-known erotic novel that shall remain nameless, and today she told me that she envies the main character. “She’s marrying a billionaire and he’s buying her a house on the coast, that b---h,” she said. “How do I trade places with her?” I pointed out that those things are much more likely to happen in a fictional story than in real life, and she said, “There’s the job I’d like to apply for – fictional character. How do you get that job?” So if my readers have any idea how Light Bright can become a fictional character who marries a billionaire, be sure to let us know. Also, would she have to divorce her real-life husband if she got a richer fictional one? And would her taxes be fictional? I can see where she thinks this would be an ideal gig, but as someone who always feels like her life is scripted by a sadistic writer, I can tell you that you are not guaranteed a good outcome as a fictional character.

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Tripping Over Air

As my regular readers know, my office mate Light Bright is younger, thinner, and prettier than I am, she makes more money, and her band gets more gigs. However, when she walks, she frequently trips over nothing, and I can’t help it, I laugh. Today she demanded to know why I find it so funny when she trips over nothing, and I said, “I have to be better than you at something. I’m just better at walking.” Then she reminded me that an actual professional has told me that I walk wrong, when no equally qualified person has ever told her such a thing. So I was shot down once again, but I remain a better speller than she is. Also, today she tried to push open a door that has to be pulled to open, just like this famous Far Side cartoon:

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State Fair

I hope my readers had a good weekend. I had an excellent one, starting with a free salsa concert on Friday night. Then on Saturday Richard Bonomo and I went to the State Fair, which is expensive from start to finish but definitely worth experiencing at least once. We enjoyed looking at all the crazy chicken and rabbit breeds, the beautiful horses and exotic llamas, and the sleeping pigs. Seriously, I hardly feel guilty eating pork now, those things seem to do nothing but sleep anyway. We also saw some cool plants, including one called a bonfire begonia that I am now coveting. (Like I need another plant, right?) We ate cream puffs and deep-fried bacon but were too full for chocolate-covered bacon or red velvet funnel cakes or any of the other deep fried/chocolate-covered/on a stick food available there. I rode a camel and talked Rich into going on the double Ferris wheel, which he didn’t enjoy. The view was fantastic, though. Then we went to his old roommate’s house for dinner and excellent conversation. Yesterday he and Kathbert fixed my car window so it will roll all the way up now. It was stuck about halfway open for a couple of days. We watched a video online about fixing Honda windows, and he said, “That doesn’t look too hard. I could do that.” And he did!

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Delicious Recipe for a Long Life

Many years ago I did a bad thing with Tiffy and went to a palm reader. She told me I would live to be 105, and so ever since then I have been planning to live a very long life. Recently I was reading about Jeanne Calment, the woman who lived to be 122, in order to get some tips. Apparently she smoked two cigarettes a day; I am not planning to take up smoking as a hobby, but I do enjoy a hookah maybe once a year. She also ate lots of chocolate and olive oil and drank port every day. I already enjoy dark chocolate and olive oil, so it made sense to add the third ingredient and buy a bottle of port at the store this week. (No word on whether Ms. Calment drank coffee, but if she did, then I’m looking really good.) Whether this will make me live a long life, I can’t say, but I can see where it would make a person WANT to live a long life. How wonderful it is to eat chocolate and drink port after a dinner that includes olive oil! Last night I did just that, and then I took the bus downtown to pray the rosary at the Capitol for religious freedom, and man was I happy! It was like the best rosary ever. So I advocate this diet for all my readers; the only thing is, you have to ramp up your exercise and/or eat less of something else to make up for all the calories in chocolate, port, and olive oil. Maybe take a page from the book of Jeanne Calment and bike, swim, play tennis, and take up fencing at the age of 85.

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Honey Bee Hive Heist

Toque McToque sent me an article from MSN Canada that is so cleverly written that I have to quote it verbatim here:

ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - Police in Abbotsford, B.C., are searching for a thief with sticky fingers, but it's not money or jewels that has gone missing. About 500,000 bees, as much as 3,600 kilograms of honey and 100 hive frames vanished from a remote Fraser Valley property, east of Vancouver, sometime between July 7 and 26. Total value of the brazen bee burglary is estimated at $100,000. Police say the targeted hives were set far back the road, on property along the Canada/U.S. border south of the Abbotsford airport, and the keeper had last checked his bees in the first week of July. Officers combing for comb say equipment and trucks would have been needed to make the gooey getaway, and they hope someone saw something that could make charges stick. They also believe they are searching for someone with bee keeping expertise because they say relocating that number of potentially belligerent bees can be dangerous without specialized knowledge. 

And because I didn't have time to blog yesterday, here is a bonus photo, also from Toque. I don't know who to credit for it, but it is hilarious.

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Crazy Banjo Players

According to sometime reader Hardingfele, banjo players can be very dangerous, especially when denied a drink. She found an article about an underage banjo player who attacked the bouncer asking for his ID with a banjo and a hatchet, and Banjo Player says she thinks her Vega banjo could do more damage than a hatchet. She says she could break someone’s knees with it. The tragic part of this story is that the crazy banjo guy’s dog was taken to the Humane Society. Hopefully some loving family can give it a good home! My office mate Light Bright is also a banjo player, and while she denies ever attacking anyone with a banjo, she does enjoy firing shotguns, so I wouldn’t mess with her.

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Pub Crawl by Bicycle

My readers may be wondering about my silence on Friday. I was out in the sunshine and fresh air, biking from bar to bar for the annual birthday pub crawl for the Daughter of Denni. It was a great deal of fun, but I only made it to maybe four stops before Hardingfele and I headed home. There is only so much biking and drinking I can do in one day, at least these days; back in the day, I could bike 75 miles a day two days in a row, believe it or not. One of my fellow riders couldn’t believe it, so I can understand if you can’t either. This was a decade ago – I was fitter then. After the ride I relaxed in my pool and then went to bed at 7:30.

The next day I was very rested and refreshed when Rich and I drove four hours north to a wedding reception for his old roommate. It was very beautiful up North, and I was happy because we got to go canoeing after lunch. It’s a great wedding reception when you get to canoe! This guy is one of nineteen children, about half of them adopted and many of them with special needs. Two of the kids are a day apart in age so they were raised as “the twins,” which is funny because they are two different races. Another fascinating fact about this family: not one sibling has gone to the same college so far. That’s a lot of alma maters!

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Crazy Elevator

I have to deal with elevators a lot at work, and today I had a very strange experience on one. I was taking a cart from the top floor to the ground floor, and at the next floor down about twenty people got in the elevator. I wasn’t sure the elevator could handle so many people, but the doors shut and it continued down until a couple floors before the bottom, when three people got off. Then the doors wouldn’t shut, and it just sat there. If twenty people weren’t too many, why were seventeen suddenly too many for it to run? Finally all the other people got off the elevator, grumbling that they would have to take the stairs. Since I had the cart, I couldn’t take the stairs. As I debated about going to find another elevator, the doors shut and the elevator took me the rest of the way down.  When I told my office mate Light Bright the story, she said, “That’s blogworthy,” so I’m blogging about it.

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Rubber Band Around My Wrist

My office mate Light Bright is always getting on my case for my negative thoughts. She said I should wear a rubber band around my wrist and snap it every time I have a bad thought about myself, so I did try that today, and I ended up snapping it a few times. She said, “If it gives you a welt, just think that you’re doing that much damage to your psyche.” Now the problem is: how do I decide what is a negative thought and what is just factual? For example, if I think, “I’m fat,” is that a negative thought? As an objective measure, my Body Mass Index indicates that I am overweight. So if I change my thought from “I’m fat” to “I’m overweight,” do I not have to snap myself? You can see my dilemma.

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