Not my week for playing DVDs. Or CDs. I really don’t know which because two of them are stuck in two different DVD drives. Both discs are replaceable, but I hate to think the DVD player on the “home theater” is screwed up… how do I get a DVD out of the Bose? oh well… as soon as I figure out how to get the one out of my computer DVD player, I’ll work on the Bose.
Or maybe I’ll call the Geek Squad. Or maybe… not. Dear personal Geek Squad where are you? Will you come see your Mommy and help her out here?
The entire blogosphere has been on pins and needles waiting breathlessly for my safe return, I’m sure. Well, worry no more! My knees survived the 13 hour trip there and the 13 hour trip back. My son-in-law did have to prop me up for a few steps when I tried to stand after the last leg of the return trip.
Everyone should be proud of my son-in-law (and my daughter) for not getting upset with either me or my 22 month old granddaughter when it was time to get back in the car after each fill-up and potty stop. We both whined, but I wasn’t physically able to kick and scream like I really wanted to.
In fact, my granddaughter was pretty much an angel. This is in part due to the backseat video player. I’m up on a lot of kid stuff I didn’t know about before. We found Nemo twice and I know all about Elmo’s World. The best video was Leap Frog’s Letter Factory
. It’s funny, colorful, and I enjoyed it as much as my granddaughter did. We had a fantastic time watching it and saying the sounds together.
The DVD has a 5-star rating on Amazon with over 500 reviews. That’s astounding. I can see why. It was actually a nice refresher course in basic phonics for me. Consider how many years it’s probably been since I was taught phonics. Just consider it, don’t dwell on it. That number is rather depressing.
It was, as always, the best Christmas ever. I can’t wait ’til next year.
This blog is officially in vacation mode. Oldest daughter arrives this evening and we’re all leaving tomorrow for the youngest daughter’s house for Christmas.
See you next year!
My granddaughter will be here this weekend, so I’m giving thought to a bit of child-proofing. It’s only overnight as we’re all leaving for South Carolina the next day. Yet, I think I’ll move my blood pressure medicine to a higher shelf.
What I don’t really have to worry about with the granddaughter is making sure that chocolate, potatoes, bananas, and onions are out of her reach. So far tonight, Maverick, our Great Pyrenees puppy, has eaten a square of chocolate, obliterated an onion and potato and was last seen heading for the bananas. (He is not sleeping inside tonight.)
We measured him tonight and he’s 29″ tall at the front withers (at 9 months old). He was 26″ on Oct. 4. The dog is huge. Whatever is on the table within a foot of the edge is easily reached without any straining. If he stands and stretches, nothing is out of his reach.
I have no idea what he weighs now (58 lbs in August), but I’m glad he’s a gentle and loving pup. I also hope that square of chocolate is not going to hurt him, though I was miffed that it was the last square of chocolate in the house. Darned dog.
Life? Economic reality? You name it, it seems appropriate.
Yes, I finally realized I wasn’t going to kick this head cold/sinus infection/allergy/bronchitis shit with Mucinex and Zicam. I went to the doctor today. I fit nicely into the chorus of coughs and sniffing in the waiting room.
Finally, into the exam room where the blood pressure machine malfunctions and my arm is squeezed three times. Amazingly after all that, my blood pressure was fine. I had a fine nurse who was really apologetic about it all.
Then, in walks the doctor who stands directly in front of me and stares directly into my eyes and says, “I’m so sick of snot.” Then he told me that it wasn’t all bad because at least he knew what to do. We then had a truly disgusting conversation about the volume, consistency, and coloration of my particular snot. We actually discuss, with no seriousness whatsoever, the palate of snot and what sort of artwork it could be the medium for.
I was one of the more interesting snot patients he’d had that day (or so he told me) in that I had two segregated colors of snot. I really think he was just humoring me because I laughed at his snot jokes. He made up his mind what I needed — a snot shot and two snot pills, one for the obvious infection and one for the accompanying allergy.
The worst part of this visit was that every time I laughed, I broke into a spasm of coughing. This continued all the way home as I contemplated the gallery opening of the Snotty Series, A Study in Natural Media.
A picture is worth a 1,000 words and + or – $15 billion.
Big Three.
Blagojevich’s arrest was so startling that my husband woke me up to tell me about it. (Yes, I was sleeping, I am trying to get over a horrible cold and sinus infection.)
Let’s just say that while Edwards was greedy and corrupt, I don’t think he had the “fire in the belly” to really hurt people that these recordings of Blagojevich have shown.
I’m not a great political blogger and for the truly astounding depth of scumbagginess that the Governor of Illinois has fallen to, start with Althouse, here and here. Her commenters are having some fun with this.
Gateway Pundit - just keep scrolling.
Classical Values - just keep scrolling.
UPDATE: From the comments below, you’ve got to read this, it’s short and makes a valid point I’ve not seen elsewhere.
Yahoo has a filler article on how much to tip that’s headlined:
10 Workers to Tip This Season — When and How to Say Thanks.
Just let me say they’ve got it all wrong. They list 10 jobs where tips are customary and considered part of the salary, with suggestions on what to tip under ordinary circumstances. It’s merely a generic “help” article with a seasonal headline.
If you have a regular bartender, by all means add a few extra bucks on Christmas Eve. Same with a regular hairstylist or waitress.
But what about those people that perform a service for you on a regular basis that do not customarily receive tips? These are the ones I like to tip during this season. The first that comes to mind are those picking up the garbage at my house every week.
Imagine life in the city without them. Ugh. Gross. So put them on your Christmas list this year. We started thinking about this several years ago, beginning with a couple of bottles of cold water during a heatwave. Since then, we’ve shown up with hot coffee or hot chocolate during the winter, or a tin of cookies. Now, every year, on the last pickup before Christmas there’s an envelope (actually 3, since that’s how many man the truck).
From their reaction, and the gratitude they show us year ’round, I don’t think this happens to them very often. For example, we could get a fine for leaving our cans on the street after 7pm the day of pickup. We seldom have to worry about this, as they return our cans far enough up the driveway to keep us out of trouble.
They feel good, we feel good. What could be better?
Someday I’d like to visit Hawaii and the USS Arizona Memorial. In fact, I have a fairly long list of places I’d like to visit and I’m quite sure I’ll get to most of them in only a virtual way.
Today, I visited the USS Arizona through the words of Neptunus Lex.
Poor old Fred Thompson, he just didn’t have it. But according to RFK Jr., Caroline Kennedy has it.
Also, according to recent news, Barbara Bush had it. Fortunately she got medical treatment for it.
Via Althouse
I think I will just blog randomly about pet peeves or other crap that comes to mind. I have a head cold and a headache, too.
Want your website to look unprofessional and render it useless? Don’t date any of your articles! It’s so easy.
Want to sound really intelligent? Misuse “begs the question” when speaking or writing. I’m amazed at the number of supposedly educated people who use this when they mean “raises” the question.
Also, write “make due” when you need to use “make do” as it shows how well you’re making do with what you have. This is especially effective when criticizing someone else for not being as righteously frugally environmentally concerned as you are.
By all means, when someone who has a lot more money than you have decides to spend it on something you disapprove of, let the world know how much good they could have done if only they were as thoughtful as you would have been with that much money. Then, in the next paragraph write about how ”the left” and the government shouldn’t be taking people’s money away from them to spend on what “they” think it should be spent on.
to be continued… I’m sure.
This is what Chrome displayed when I tried to open my Facebook page. Where did static.ak.fbcdn.net come from? Anyway, I’m not going to Facebook right now, rather I’m going to bed leaving Symantec doing a thorough scan while I sleep.
I’m too old to be dealing with this crap, you know?
UPDATE: static.ak.fbcdn.net — apparently that’s legit. It’s used by Facebook to serve static data such as stylesheets and images. I got that info here: http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?pid=93098.
Also, check out this TechCrunch article from earlier this year: Phishing Scam Targeting Facebook Users
From Assistant Village Idiot:
Understanding Jewish Thought – There’s really nothing intellectually better than a good discussion or argument in the ‘course of reasoning’ sense of the word, not in the ‘quarrel’ sense.
and How Smart You Are – Understanding the roots and depth of meaning of words allows us to better communicate. The evolution of language is very interesting. See also We Are That Smart.
From The Fire Ant Gazette: Hitchin’ a Ride. You might not fully appreciate this if you live on the East Coast.
From Dr. Isis — Women are twice as expensive as men. Twice as valuable? Not addressed 
Via Marginal Revolution, World’s most unanswered music questions. Hmm… or hum. As you wish. Possibly (probably?) of esoteric interest.
