Wormcicles

Drat!! and Damn!! and any other kind of profanity I can think of, okay?

We've had a huge flock of robins in our back yard that have been digging in the ground finding their lunch and eating what bugs have come alive in the warm temperatures lately. Occasionally you would see them manage to pull a worm out of the ground and then squabble over who was going to get to eat it. It started snowing yesterday afternoon, and it didn't take long before all the green grass was about covered. The robins remained, puffing themselves up to try to stay warm and continuing their hunt, but now for wormcicles pulled out through the snow instead of the green grass.

As of this morning I don't know what the poor birds will eat because we got 9 inches of snow overnight and it's still snowing. They were all sitting in the flowering crab tree this morning. Maybe they'll have to exist on the fermented crab apples that are still attached to the tree. I just hope they don't fall out of the branches down into the snow in a drunken stupor because they could get frostbite.

We met Bob & Carol down at the Watering Hole last night for supper. We had thought of going into the City just for a change, but by that time it was too nasty to go any farther than the Watering Hole. We were there for a total of about 90 minutes and when Carol went out to have a cigarette the visibility had become so bad it was time to go home. Fortunately it was still light out at that time, or we wouldn't have been able to see the driveway to turn and would have gone in the ditch. It was truly ugly out.

As of this afternoon all the interstates and major highways going all directions out of town are officially closed. The highway patrol isn't allowing any traffic out of town.

When will it end???

Getting Dressed for the Wedding

Hey, Guys - thanks for all the input from yesterday's entry, but I decided I didn't like the gold dress after all. It was a mail order item and looked good on the internet, but when I tried it on the color was great as was the basic style, but what didn't show in the catalog was that it had puffy caps on the sleeves!! I felt like a little football player wearing big shoulder pads with those sleeves sticking up above my shoulders like they used to do back in the 80's. Ugh. So back that dress goes. I love the general style and that part looked good on me, I've found several others similarly styled and they don't look like they have puffy sleeve caps so I'll order them and see what's what. One of them comes in a deep teal, which should coordinate quite well. Lovely Daughter and I have two more bridal shops in town that we haven't visited and plan on doing that on Saturday morning.

I told Ole he's going to have to rent a tux. You can imagine the reaction I got from that. His response was, "You mean I can't go in my jeans and flannel shirt?" Remember, since he retired his standard attire is blue jeans and a flannel shirt with a t-shirt underneath. I don't think he's had a suit on since he retired although I kept three of them and they're still hanging in the closet. It's funny what happens to those suits and dress shirts. You hang them in a dark closet and they shrink!! Easter Sunday I thought he could at least wear a dress shirt and tie to church. When he came out of the bedroom he had the dress shirt on but no tie. When I asked why not he said the shirt had shrunk enough that he couldn't get the collar buttoned!! Hmmmm. Something's wrong here, don't cha' think?

Speaking of flannel shirts, you know it's summer when Ole finally quits putting a flannel shirt on in the morning. And that isn't usually until the 4th of July around here. We were working outside the other day and it was really nice. Warm sunshine and temps up in the 60's. He was helping me dig some bushes up and started complaining that he was too warm. But did he take his flannel shirt off? Not on your life - it's not the 4th of July yet, you know.

Also, can somebody let me know again what the planned dates for the Great Javalina Hunt are in October? I've forgotten the exact dates and need to start laying some groundwork for that trip. Like taking 50% of our income each month and putting it away to buy diesel fuel so we don't go bankrupt!!! It's about 1600 miles from here to Tombstone, and when your rig only gets 8 mpg, you need a few bucks tucked away. And at THAT price, we better darn well catch a javalina with one of those flaming marshmallows!! I could have Ole ride the Harley out into the desert and scare them up for us, you know. Not even a javalina would mess with a biker dude.

Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe

I need some help here, People!! You guys have never let me down and I know I can count on you this time.

Lovely Daughter is getting married in September, so it's time for me to shop for a Mother of the Bride dress. She and I went out one Saturday a few weeks ago and I did find something that I kind of liked that day. But I didn't buy it, I wanted to think about it a bit. It's not exactly the one shown below, but very close stylewise. This is shown in a pretty blue, but the one I looked at and tried on was in a color called truffle. That's kind of a dark burgundy with a brown cast to it.


Now here's the problem. Lovely Daughter really likes the truffle mother of the bride dress in the style shown above. On a scale of 1 to 10 it probably rates about an 8 in my book. It's got a couple of things against it as far as I'm concerned. First of all I've never liked a square neckline on me. Second, I'm really not into wearing any kind of brown, which truffle kind of is. And third, I'm not sure I want to be the same color as one of the bridesmaids. One of her bridesmaids will be in truffle and the other in cognac, which blend together beautifully.

Since then I've found another dress that I really like. This one rates between a 9 and a 10 in my book. I love the color and it's a color that I can wear, plus the fact that the style just looks more "me" if you know what I mean. She really likes the other dress and it is her wedding, but I don't know if I would be comfortable in the truffle dress.



Lovely Daughter is using all fall colors for her wedding. The flower arrangements in the front of the church will be in large baskets shaped and colored like a pumpkin full of fall flowers in gold, burgundy, orange, green, etc. The tableclothes at the reception will be in a burgundy probably with gold napkins folded like fans in the wine glasses and smaller versions of the pumpkins full of fall flowers on the tables. The table skirts will be white (I think) and hopefully we can find strands of gold lights to hang behind the skirts to give them a glow. Most of the big things are taken care of, we've just got the details to finish up now - like what color is the MOB going to wear.

Advice here, People - I'll be waiting!!

Humping to the Music

Sniff, sniff, tears roll down cheeks, more sniffing, blows nose in Kleenex, more tears, wipes eyes, wash, rinse, repeat.

We’re not going on our trip to the Smokey Mountain National Park. We’re not going to Georgia to visit our long time friends that we haven’t seen in 20 years. We’re just not going. I’m so disappointed. I’ve looked forward to a trip to this location for over a year and now we’re not going.

We’re supposed to be retired!! Doesn’t that mean you plan your own destiny and do what you want when you want? I got news for all of you – that doesn’t happen. There have been too many things happen this spring that have gotten in the way of taking this trip. I won’t even go into all of them, but they have been important enough that we had to stay home and take care of them. The latest, and the one that made us throw up our hands and just give up, is a surprise birthday party. Very long time Buddy Don, who worked with Ole for 28 years, is turning 60 this year and his wife is planning a surprise birthday party for him. Don and Ole are just like brothers, so we just couldn’t miss this party. After all, you only turn 60 once, and Ole needs to plan a good roast. So that’s scheduled for the middle of May, and yes, we could go after that for several weeks, but we’ve already got commitments scheduled for the beginning of June. We just can’t win. Maybe it’s like I always tell my daughter – everything happens for a reason, and there’s a reason that we aren’t supposed to go on this trip.

We had decided the price of diesel fuel wasn’t going to be the deciding factor as to whether we travel or not, but honestly, every time I thought about filling that tank with $4.09 diesel, I almost wanted to throw up.

Okay, now that I’m done feeling sorry for myself and expecting all of you to also – on to another subject.

This sounds really gossipy, but just wait till you hear this!!

Last Friday night was karaoke down at the Watering Hole, and of course Jane was holding court with all her paparazzi, as usual. Ole and Carol and I sat at a different table not being included nor wanting to be included in her group. Then Pat & George and Lou & Burl showed up and joined us. The evening went on and everyone was having fun when a local man by the name of Kerry showed up. He’s a single man in his late 40s or early 50s, a very handsome outdoorsy man. And it’s quite apparent that he has the “hots” for Lee, one of Jane’s friends. It was also quite obvious that Jane had the “hots” for Kerry. She hung on his every word all evening and followed him around like a puppy making google eyes.

The time came for Pat & Lou to go out back to have a cigarette, and as they were about to open the back door they got a real eyeful. Pat came rushing back inside to get me telling me that if I really wanted to see something I better come now. I rushed to the back door, peaked through the screen and there lay Jane on her back on the picnic table with Kerry on top of her with a crowd standing around cheering. They were fully clothed, but (for lack of a better word) humping in rhythm to the music. They put on quite a show for the three minutes that the song ran. And Dick was back inside, visiting with someone else without a clue as to what his wife was doing out back. Icky, icky, icky.

Am I too old school? Too old fashioned? Too out of touch? What happened to self-respect? Is there no such thing anymore?