del Torro dirt

My fav director extraordinaire is apparently going to remake the 1973 tv movie, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark!




Alas, I could not find it on Netflix...anyone have any ideas where else I might be able to to look for this 70's funarama?

creeeeeeeepy . . .

So I'm helping KT with the invitations to her girls' birthday party and we are pretty excited about using a poem of some kind. I was cruising around on the internet just to see if I could espy something suitable when I found something . . . not.

For your enjoyment and collective shudders:

I am four.

I don't know why.

Perhaps I fell

Out of the sky

Four years ago.

I don't know.

Or came like jelly

Out of Mommy's belly.

Oh, my! Oh, my

WTF?

shun the nonbeliever!

Thanks for the laughs E!

social commentary...

...from Toothepaste For Dinner

if only my shower didn't have doors...

Behold, the Serial Killer Shower Curtain...with motion activated Psycho music and screaming!

home at last!

After a looooong day of travel yesterday, I arrived home at about 4pm yesterday afternoon. It took for freakin' ever to get my stuff unpacked and put away but the upside of that is they gave me most of the leftover food and I froze it so I don't have to cook for awhile. I've had some excellent fish the past two days as well. I still feel tired but last night I slept better than anyone in the history of sleeping! After nearly 2 weeks of petsitting then a week of vacation, I was really tired of strange mattresses. It was glorious. I still feel tired however and have an early night planned so I can try and be cheerful tomorrow at work. I'll just have to let you know how that works out later. I'm not feeling too cheerful right now but tomorrow may be another story.

I visited my mother today but that is it. Now I'm about to go finish a book I've been thinking about all day. A recent edition of Unshelved Book Club featured it and I'm dying to know what happens at the end. It is an ARC but will be published August 5th, Andrew Davidson's The Gargoyle, so I was hoping to finish so I could email the publisher my comments/opinions in the morning. It is weird, dirty in some parts, heartbreaking in others...compulsively readable but not for the squeamish.

fishing the seas

Boy, would I love to show you some pictures from our fishing adventure today but alas, I left my camera at the beach house.

We left the marina at around 9am and fished around some of the local islands before taking a river sightseeing trip. We were supposed to fish in the river but it rained and we took shelter on one of the many bayou-ish boat houses moored to the bank. By the time the rain passed it was time to head in but my feelings were not hurt. I got to see one of the prettiest rivers I've ever seen. There were ospreys, long-tailed kites, turtles, cranes, and alligator garr...lots of stuff to look at in other words.

Today is our last day and we'll be headed home tomorrow so the feast is being prepared. Dear brother has dubbed it our Eat 'Til You Hurt farewell dinner. We have the two speckled sea trout and the flounder that E caught, some grouper and a ton of shrimp along with every leftover in the fridge: lasagna, chicken fettucini alfredo, meat loaf, black eyed peas, turnip greens, macaroni and cheese, hotdogs, corn, salad and chocolate cake. If we aren't hurting when we leave the table, it won't be for lack of tryin'.

Work on Monday....ugh!

Zooworld

This orangutan wuvs his/her widdle fwiend. The kitteh stretched and made dough and yawned a couple of times. We were all charmed.

A giraffe's tongue is ReAlLy GrOsS!

The kitteh is perfectly content on the orangutan island.

Dinner at Toucan's On the Beach!

signs of the times

Wow! How appetizing, sounds a bit gritty though...

Let me know how that works out for you...

This is a silly example of bad grammar, poor management, and etc.

dolphin cruise

We motored around several small islands with birds actively nesting. It was at sunset and the scenery was beautiful.

Most of the trees on the islands we passed were bare, showing the legacy of many of the hurricanes and tropical storms to move through in the past few years.

This pretty much the only dolphin we saw on the cruise and it was following this small boat. According to our captain, they were shrimping and the dolphin follows them because they throw back what they don't want from the net. The best part of all this...the gnarly old man pulling in the net. He just seemed so out of place with the two young, attractive couples (the girls were piloting the craft.

Orange Beach

This is the fantabulous view from our condo, Emerald Skye. I wasn't too keen on being right by the pier, since it would be a smorgasboard for the local favorite sea creature but there were no problems during our stay.

I like the beach alot although by the end of the week I'll be really tired of all the gritty sand.

KT and her sister, Z. To be fair, one of those daq's is mine and one is KT's mom.

Here we are, tempting pier/shark fate!

O M G !

oh yeah . . .

here is the supreme aunt being with her niece and nephew!

Greetings from the beach!

first off, right now I'm on St. George's Island, Florida with my brother and accompanying family and I have absolutely NO cell phone reception anywhere on this island. So I haven't been avoiding anyone, I just haven't been able to call.

Friday I drove to Orange Beach, Alabama with my friend KT, her sister Z and mom, Lady. KT rode with me and we told stories and giggled and just had a blast in general. Our condo was ExCeLlEnT...right on the beach and the A/C was fierce. Coffee and sugary pastries in the mornings and daquaries (sp?) and fried seafood afternoons and evenings. I've not been on a Girls' Trip in a long time and it was SO MUCH FUN! Sunday we went on a sunset dolphin cruise that was a lot of fun, beautiful scenery all around. Monday we spent the morning on the beach and my companions headed home while I drove (and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and drove) to St. George's Island. I left Orange Beach at about 1:30 and got to the beach house here at 7pm. It took 4-ever!

It's pretty nice here but we've got some fairly heavy surf being thrown at us from the far off Hurricane Dolly. We played in it all day yesterday but I am definitely feeling it this morning. I got scraped on the bottom of the ocean so many times it's a wonder I have any skin left. I'll be taking some Aleve with my coffee this morning for the soreness. Last night DB and SiL went out for dinner by themselves then E (his other half brother but not mine...half-sibling family politics can be hard to explain) and I met them at the local restaurant/bar on the island as DB mentioned "live entertainment". The live entertainment turned out to be karaoke. We drank WAAAAY to much and laughed tons. It was fun too!

We are basically just hanging out today. SiL has to find a doc-in-a-box for my niece who has contracted an ear infection that is causing her some severe discomfort.

That is all for now!

I'm going to print this . . .

. . . and hang it on my office door :)

(for more, similar hilarity, visit one of my fav websites, www.engrish.com!)

aunt update

My aunt had the hysterectomy on Tuesday afternoon and the surgeon saw no other signs of cancer in the area. He expressed supreme confidence that the surgery resulted in all of the cancer being removed. I don't know if she'll have to do any chemo at this point but I've talked to her several times on the phone and she was in good spirits (the morphine pump really helps with that, ya know). My mom is staying with her at the hospital so I'm staying at the house with the dogs, doin' my thing. My mom called on Tuesday before they left for the hospital saying things like, "The shower's clean, there's a pizza in the freezer, the dogs get 1/3 of can of dog food twice a day. It doesn't matter if Chiquita eats Buggar's food since they get the same amount. Just put it on a paper plate..." I wanted to interrupt, to say "You do know mom, that I pet sit ALL THE TIME, that I consider myself somewhat of a professional?" Instead, I just nodded my head (isn't it strange how we do that when the person on the other end of the line cannot see what we're doing) and made affirming noises. That's what I always do with clingy owners, smile and nod :) The various animals and I always come to our own agreements with how things will work while I'm there and my aunt's house is no different. That's how it is with anyone's petsitter, it won't be exactly how it is when you're home but the little guys will be fed, petted and pampered while you're gone.

Anyway, Aunt C is supposed to be coming home tomorrow. I'll probably stay another night with them just to help out but then, speak of the devil, I have another petsitting job starting on Saturday so I'll have to move all my stuff over to the other house.

My grandmother is at a rehab hospital for the next 10 weeks and, according to my mother, the staff is having a very tough time with her. She is more than a little senile and is not used to people not catering to her every imagined need. For instance, we often have long conversations about her getting up to go to the bathroom. Now, my grandmother has not been out of bed for YeArS but, through a lovely little mind blip called sundowning, she is convinced that she walks all over the house every night instead of sleeping. She becomes VERY upset and cries because we "won't let her get up to go to the bathroom". This conversation takes place every day, all day long. We're used to it, the hospital staff is not. Life is grand sometimes.

fun on the fourth and other stories

I had an absolutely FaBuLoUs time hanging out with my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew over our long 4th of July holiday! I traveled to their house last Wednesday after work, learned that there is a huge difference between "street" and "avenue" in google maps (my brother and his family recently moved...who would have guessed there'd be an 1801 4th ave NE and an 1801 4th st NE...I got LosT!), and met Roscoe the pig (whose tenure with my kin unfortunately ended on Sunday when he was returned to the farm).

Thursday I took the kids to DeSoto Caverns in Childersburg, AL and we had a great time! While we were eating breakfast, dear nephew (DNP) asked what we (his mom and I) were talking about doing as we discussed the day's itinerary. I told him, in a dramatic, Brendan-Fraser voice, "We're going on a journey to THE CENTER OF THE EARTH!!" Skepticism writ large on his little face, DNP's brow furrowed and he asked, "Under this house or somewhere else?" His mom and I cracked up and he got quite angry about that :)

It had been so long since I'd visited that fine establishment...I had no idea it had grown so big! It used to be that you went there to tour the cave, period, but now you tour the cave and they have a not-little amusement park. We panned for gemstones, the kids rode the go-karts (which you have to pedal), the bathtub racers (these little electric gizmos even had little spigots and went FaSt!), a spiny-tilty thing that they had to turn themselves while an attendant tilted it, and we went through their giant maze. The maze - I had just the first blush of misgivings as the attendant unlocked the gate and the two youngest of my group (my 7 year old nephew and a friend, 10 years old) shot off into the maze instantly. As they raced away and I could hear them no more, my sense of kid preservation belatedly kicked in. Where did they go? What if they got too hot and got sick? What if they called for me and I couldn't find them? What if someone tried to grab them? Now I'm tearing through the maze, bumping into walls and picking up splinters in my haste. It was fine though, we all found each other in the end and I vowed to myself never to do that again.

I really thought they had a great idea with all these human powered rides. It was probably less expensive than automated rides and I bet the stuff they have at larger parks and fairs requires more certifications and such. The kids were tired and sweaty when we piled back into the car to head home.

Friday was a hangout sort of day. Dear brother (DB) had invited family over for the 4th so we played and talked and ate all day. My original plans were for DB and SIL to have a grown-up vacation for a few days but due to some problems with the new house, they stayed in town. I was going to take the kids to T's house for BBQ and swimming, but it just didn't work out. Our company didn't leave until after 8pm and I was too tired to make the hour long trip into town that late in the evening.

Saturday we made the excursion to the Montgomery Zoo and had another fabulous day! We drove there through the rain, had no rain for the 3-4 hours we toured some animals of the world, then left when it started clouding up again. There were several severe thunderstorm warnings on the radio as we left town so we obviously departed just in time.

Sunday was another hangout day. Their newly acquired potbellied pig was not assimilating into the family as expected so we returned him to farm from whence he came and I helped DB scrub all the pig poop out of the garage. I think the poopy water from my shoes must have gotten in the car because I still get a whiff of it every now and then but I can't tell if it is my imagination or not. The little guy was not happy so I believe he will be much better off in a more farm-like environment. I left late in the afternoon and sniffled all the way home. I REALLY wasn't ready to leave them and I hope to spend more time with them in the future. I'll be at the beach with them week after next so I'm really looking forward to that.

...more to follow...

may be out of pocket for a few days...

...I make no promises. I'll be at my big bro's house with my niece and nephew. It's supposed to be grownup vacation time for D and K while me and the kiddos goof off for four days :) I have plans to take them to DeSoto Caverns, the Montgomery Zoo, the movies, maybe some bowling, lots of swimming....and anything else I can think of....marching around the house at midnight banging metal pots with metal spoons to the beat of a Veggie Tales cd...oh wait, that was last time


maybe we'll do it again, it was fun!

Anyway, all that to say that I may not get the chance to blog for a few days but on the other hand I'll have lots of stuff to report (maybe some pics too)

Everyone have a great time on the 4th!