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| Uh.. okay then... |
| 04.28.05 (5:09 pm) [edit] |
You're the key to handcuffs. You set people free,
or maybe lock them up. You can be sought,
fought over, and valued. Be careful who you let
use you; you can be an instrument of justice or
injustice depending on your choice.
What sort of key are you and what do you unlock?
brought to you by Quizilla
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| Blasphemy.... |
| 04.25.05 (9:51 pm) [edit] |
Transparent Duct Tape
I think my husband is hyperventilated... or possibly convulsed with laughter?
Kim at Bacon and Eh's brings us this wonderful post and a glorious array of links about it all.
I simply had to share this. Red Green is my dream man... c'mon... at least he's handy*.
* in joke for watchers of the show...and the rest of you... get your darn minds outta the gutter... I mean... REALLY!
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| National Donor Week |
| 04.18.05 (9:55 pm) [edit] |
Become a Donor today.
Sign up
With gratitude to Kim at Bacon and Ehs for the reminder.
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| Bah... |
| 04.18.05 (12:31 pm) [edit] |
...goes back to bed.
See you when it's really spring.
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| Pillow Talk |
| 04.16.05 (8:46 am) [edit] |
Now before you start to blushing and looking elsewhere with embarrassed looks on your face, this isn't Honeymoon Pillow Talk I'm talking about. It's not even first five years pillow talk... it's FIFTEEN Year Pillow Talk.
Topic of discussion... DUCT TAPE. And Vaseline.
*snort* behave...
After a few half hearted attempts at jokes about how you can use the vaseline on the doorknob to keep the kids out, and the duct tape for other things but only if you put the vaseline on first; the discussion turned to the Red Green Show . Now if you've never seen this show, you might not understand the whole duct tape connotation. I've written here before about Red and his fascination for duct tape. Rent Duct Tape Forever if your local stations don't carry it. But you'd be surprised how many do. It's not social commentary that any woman should be without. I've mentioned the show here before. The man does *scary* things with duct tape, and his poor long suffering van of his is usually the basis for his... ahem... inventions.
Hubby and I giggled for over an hour doing riffs on whether Red Green (aka Steve Smith in reality) actually had duct tape in his house, whether his wife was at all interested in duct tape and how did they actually get those stunned projects of his to work, week after week on the show. I mean seriously that poor van. They've cut it, welded it, wrapped it repeatedly in duct tape and strangely enough it still seems to drive. (Oh relax I know about the magic of movie making and how filament disappears in the camera lens, I'm making a point here.)
Some of these *inventions* (nightmare creations) are surprisingly enterprising in design if not necessarily functionality.
So this is the pillow talk of our life. We share our day, roll over a few idiots we've encountered and regulate them to nothingness. Share some laughter and enjoy each other's company. No hearts and flowers, no chocolate (unless I can convince him to sneak to the kitchen in his scivvies to get some out of our secret stash). And since a snack in bed in our house is accompanied by Shady, the feeding frenzy kitty, weaving from my chest to his and back again, trying to look as cute as possible so we might share; we try to keep them to a minimum. I swear that cat can hear a bag of chips open at 100 meters.
Gee, I guess that means we wouldn't kick each other out of bed for eating chips. Wonder how crackers rate?
Enjoy your day.
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| eating dictionaries |
| 04.04.05 (10:19 pm) [edit] |
While I was being the brownnoser in school I grew to love dictionaries. My parents had this really old one that was about 3" thick with all but see through pages, you couldn't hold up one page to read it, without something behind it or the type from the other side would show through and confuse you. A teacher who actually liked kids had a game we played every friday. We had to find 5 new words, write out the definitions and present them to the class. The other kids would then try to guess the word from what it meant. sort of Balderdash without the imagination *GRIN*. From that I still like to find out what new words mean so get A Word A Day. :P Here's one that I liked...
esprit d'escalier (e-SPREE des-kal-i-YE) noun, also esprit de l'escalier
Thinking of a witty remark too late; hindsight wit or afterwit.
Also such a remark.
[From French esprit de l'escalier, from esprit (wit) + escalier (stairs).]
We're all witty. It's just that many of us think of our clever remarks a bit
too late. The French call it the staircase wit, indicating that one thought
of that perfect retort on his or her way out.
"I can think of hard, tough, one-line put-downs, but only after the person
concerned has left the room. (NB: this affliction, esprit de l'escalier,
is one of the principal reasons why people become writers.)"
Simon Barnes; Glitzy Game Gets Line Not Length All Wrong; The Times
(London, UK); Jun 13, 2003.
"'You don't have a television?' The question is invariably accompanied by
a baffled expression. ... Even as I'm writing this, my esprit d'escalier
kicks in, and I start composing witty comebacks for future use: 'Oh, but
those things run on electricity, don't they? We don't use electricity.'"
Eya Donald Greenland; There's Luxury in Life Without TV; Toronto Star
(Canada); Mar 17, 2003.
Excerpted from email I receive via Word a Day.
Staircase wit. Yep that's me. I'm constantly having conversations in my brain about what I should have, could have, would have said. Heck, sometimes I even rehearse possible conversations prior to having them. I wonder if that's frontdoor wit? Hmm...
Anyway.
There are a few comments that make me wonder what the heck, a lot. People say these things all the time and I have to wonder why? (myself included I'm sure :))
One that has been *bothering me* for the past while is "more fun than a barrel of greased monkeys..." A few questions immediately come to the fore. Why are they greased? Who did it? And why are they kept in a barrel? Doesn't the grease affect their health? Unless they use cooking lard/grease but, well that's just YUCK. AND the kicker, if they're so much fun and someone went to all the trouble of greasing them and putting them in a barrel, then why aren't THEY playing with them? HUH? HUH?
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| Bittersweet |
| 04.02.05 (12:58 am) [edit] |
On Easter Sunday our family took a day off from the incessant sorting of 15 years of acreage life and took a day at the Calgary ZOO. It's been some time since I have had a day at the Zoo, about 6 years, and it was with bittersweet anticipation that I looked forward to it. I enjoy the zoo, and will leave the wranglings on the right and wrong of zoos and animals in enclosures/cages for another day.
The Calgary Zoo is built primarily upon an island in the Bow River. Given that it's an island it's becoming more... crowded for lack of a better word, with the various buildings used to house the exhibits being well designed in my not so knowledgeable opinion, but still, add more buildings and less open space is a result. The biggest change, that I immediately noticed, was the removal of the polar bear enclosure and replacement of it, with the African enclosure. Quite a change, from north america to africa :). A nice change was the removal of the last of a barred cage that I recalled. Most of the enclosures as quite *natural* as much they can be, given that they are small areas and intended to provide a safe environment for the participants on both sides of the fences. (so okay I had to make a few comments re cages ;))
While it was a nice day, and the zoo was what I would consider to be moderately busy, we weren't too crowded by others as there is a lot to see and if you do end up at an exhibit with another group involving people (often adults) who really seem to think the lion/tiger/bear/gorilla (who might just flip you the bird if you're lucky) gives a flying **** that they want a picture and will respond to their calling you can move along and come back after they've left. I steadfastedly stayed my post at the tigers, waiting for just such a picture (too bad I'd misloaded the film hmm? *eyeroll*) and overheard a number of conversations while waiting.
One exchange between a gorgeous little boy and his grandfather left me smiling for quite some time. As they approached where I was standing patiently waiting for the young tiger to deign to turn his head for a picture, the little guy said to his grandfather in those sweet dulcet tones of a young lad totally in awe of of Grampy, "I'd really like to see the tiger look at us, could you tell him please grampa?" I chuckled and made eye contact with the man, who's look said it all. Here he is, faced with the Hobson's choice, does he invoke his grandfatherly powers and implore the stubborn tiger to turn his head, only to chance having the animal ignore him and let his grandson see the reality of his lack of unearthly Grandpa Power? Or does he say something silly (due to the fact that another adult is standing nearby) and let his grandson still continue to see him through those rose coloured glasses? I smiled and turned back to watching the tiger, who of course had taken my moment of inattention to change positions, yawn and stare directly at me only to look away as soon as I raised the camera. (Good thing I'd misloaded the film cause if I'd really missed that shot I'd be pissed) The grandfather did the manly thing and spoke softly to his grandson, "I think we'll let him rest for now (a word in another language which I assumed to be either the boy's name or an endearment)," and he hugged the boy close. I grinned and winked at the grandfather and murmured something about the belief of children only to find him winking back at me.
That left me smiling right through the next set of passersby, a young man and his companion. The young man was later seen at the red panda exhibit, taking an inordinate amount of interest and vocal delight in watching said panda take a dump... cue EYEROLL. Suffice it to say while their conversation had my lips curling it wasn't exactly in the same gentle smile as the grandfatherly exchange had. I'm pretty sure the tiger'd had enough of it too, as he took that opportunity to stretch and slither out of his hammock to wander inside.
We topped the day off with a wander through the North American section of the Zoo. This takes you along a nice pavement trail through the woodlands, grasslands, aspen something or other and rockies with well designed (again my not so informed opinion but when it looks natural enough to me to feel like i'm walking through the pasture back home, I figure it's well designed okay? okay). Some of the exhibits seem a bit redundant, as you can find most of these animals just outside of Calgary, and sometimes in the case of hte moose who beat up a cop car a few years back well inside the city limits. (I swear who in their right mind blows a horn at a moose... the commentary on the film at 11 was priceless. It went something along the lines of (paraphrase) And one officer tried to herd the moose with his car, using the blast of the horn to hurry the animal along, cut to a lot of crunching sounds and camera angles that just arent' taught in film school and the announcer finished with, "and the cruiser sustained approximately X thousand dollars damage *SNICKER SNORT*).
Anyway to the point of my post... it was while walking through the aforementioned N. America section that I felt a great overwhelming sadness. As we were late in the day, some of the predators were being fed as we wandered by. There's something positively heartwrenching for me to have watched 3 glorious Timber Wolves pacing like eager dogs at the gate as they awaited their supper. :( Heavy sigh :( I enjoy the zoo, and I believe in what zoos are about. The preservation of certain animals who simply would not survive without intervention and the information that they are able to impart to young minds and old. I feel it's necessary and if only 1 person in 100 feels the need to become more informed about a particular animal that they see at the zoo, then the zoo has served its purpose. But do they make me sad? Yes, yes they do. Especially with wolves pacing for their supper, with tails wagging...
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