Deal with the dentist

Thursday night, we had just gotten back from vacation, and Dearra and I were rushing to get to her high school orientation. The light we were at turned green, but nobody was moving. Some idiot was jaywalking against the light. So I said a few choice words, and then started driving as he was finally out of the way. As I get closer to him, I see that something looks familiar about him. I take a closer look and tell Dearra, "it's our dentist". We laughed so hard that the "jerk" was somebody we knew.

This morning I have a dentist appointment. When he gives me the usual lecture about flossing, I'm going to make a deal with him. I'll start flossing more if he gives up jaywalking.

whaddya think?

Does your worry have a purpose?

Of course you passed the test... so Dearra just texted me. That Spanish final that she had to re-take? She passed it. Well duh, of course she did. It would have been incomprehensible to me if she hadn't. But still there's always that small little worry, especially since the test they gave her on Monday was not the exact same final that she took in middle school last semester. She got slightly better than 90%.

And then today in class they all took the same test so her teacher could see what everybody remembers. So she had to take the silly thing twice. How dumb is that?

Anyway, there's always the silly little irrational worry. What if she gets nervous and messes up? What if the material's different? What if the pencil was too faint? What if the school counselor eats the last pages?

OK, a lot of those are silly worries. But when your mind gets racing, strange things can pop up. Worry has a purpose, after all. If you're driving, and you see a narrow curve coming up, you worry that if you don't slow down for it, you will be in trouble. So you slow down. Or you worry that you will fail a test, so you study. Or you worry that you will fall off a cliff, so you don't get near the edge. But sometimes you worry about things that couldn't possibly happen.

Have you ever worried about something that even though you knew it was silly? Or worried about something that other people thought was silly, and then it came true?

Does your worry have a purpose?

Bad habits

You and your stinking bad habits!!!!! OK, we all have our bad habits. And we all have bad habits of other people that annoy us. But how many of you are annoyed by something even though you do the exact same thing? Here's an example of one that I find myself doing. I ask the kids a question, husband butts in and responds for them, and I get annoyed and say "I wasn't asking YOU". But I do the same thing sometimes.

OK, your turn. Go!

The girl kept staring at her!!!!

We were at Home Town Buffet on Saturday and there was this other family sitting near us. Dearra told us later that a girl in the family kept staring at her. She was trying to ignore her, but I guess it really creeped her out. Later she went online (her favorite site, Wizard 101, has a forum) and posted about it. People said things like, "maybe she thought you were pretty" and "maybe you should have stared back at her".

I guess it would bother me too if I was out eating and caught somebody staring at me every time I glanced in their direction. What would you do?

Christmas surprise gift wrap

There was the friend who gave me a Christmas gift in advance, and told me I should keep it in the freezer until it was time to open it. Turned out, it was socks. hahaha

The same friend gave me a gift that was wrapped in something like 100 layers of wrapping paper. It wasn't only a gift, it was an hour's worth of entertainment.

Then there's the sister-in-law who used to put lots and lots of confetti into gifts and cards, so that when you opened things it would fly at you. This continued until her grandmother sent a whole envelope full of confetti back to her.

I myself used to wrap teeny, tiny little gifts in huge gift boxes, so that the person had to really hunt for them.

I think the funniest one that we got was from Richard's sister. It was a shirt and a really heavy wooden rhino with a broken horn. He liked the shirt, but we thought the rhino was kind of odd. Then one day his sister came over, saw the rhino, and wondered where we had gotten it. "Oh haha, I used it to weight the shirt down. It wasn't really part of the gift." So we gave her the rhino back, so that she could cause more mayhem with it.

I used to work in a Hallmark store, and pick up the prettiest wrap on discount. I especially liked the reverse-a-wrap. You could do cool things with it. Now, I pretty much can't be bothered. No time.

OK, so do I win for the funniest gift wrap stories? Or can you beat them?

Cotton Picking this or that

Hi! Just a cotton picking minute, I asked if my cotton picking cotton picker was trying to think of a topic that had not been used, I just now remembered the years I lived in Tempe Arizona where this term "cotton Picking this or that" was used so much. Seems there was quite a bit of cotton grown in Arizona at that time, this was long time ago. But I was wondering if that slang was ever used in other states? I know I have never heard it used here in Southern California. But one time when my hubby and I and our daughter, my son was at Grandma’s, were waiting in the lobby of a service station for our car to be repaired, I heard a man using that term cotton picking. He was yelling, "Damn did you get my cotton picking cotton picker repaired yet? I need it like yesterday."

What did this person mean?

Some women are black, not beautiful." What did this person mean? I wonder sometimes if we posters really are careful enough in wording our discussions. I read this sentence in and out of context and still do not know what the poster meant; now this person is posting this in a discussion of why do women want to make up and make themselves look beautiful, etc. Nothing wrong with the topic but in making a statement about some women are black and putting not beautiful in the mix of the sentence, does this not come close to putting down black women on a global forum where there must be lots of black women. Do we have any right to discriminate here in a forum open to all people from all over the world? I really do not know if this person meant what it appears to mean or if it was just carelessly worded. My question to all is would all of us not need to be more careful not to word any discussion to sound like we are discriminating against any race, religion or what have you? I do realize when you have English as a second language you may have problems translating but given the touchiness of racism is it not best to have someone who can help you translate and avoid sounding racist?

Alliteration

I was out walking by the lake today. It's a glorious day. Second day in a row where it was crystal clear and I could see the Sierra Nevada in all its snowcapped glory. And I was happy. And I just thought, life may be crap - medical problems, relationship problems, money problems, kid problems - but it's good. And I want to live it. Not the way I've been living it, but some way that makes me happy more than it has been. Dawn dances around and sings a corny old tune:


Big changes coming, scary changes, good changes. :-)

We are having a heat wave

"We are having a heat wave, a tropical un not tropical heat wave?" Melting and dripping sweat, I am typing in an air conditioned room with a fan going full tilt. Day before yesterday I was saying how wonderful here in Garden Grove ca it was just a nice balmy 75. Yesterday it was in the nineties and I think its going for the hundred marks today. I went shopping this morning and the heat really hit me. Just wondering how all my friends are faring today temperature wise? I knew it was going to hit hard when it came and it sure did come. But my poor roomies is still cold and now she is in the throes of Alzheimer from what I can see. She had forgotten so much but she still knows me. Are you all nice and cool or sweating it too?

Breakfast

Goldfish eyeballs for breakfast? Or perhaps a midnight snack?

Double the crayfish is now a murderer. A couple of mornings ago, we came downstairs to find that she had eaten the goldfish's eyes, and some other parts too. R had taken the tank partition out, because the crafty crayfish had been using it to climb out and escape, and we were tired of finding her in Naomi's shoes, under Naomi's bed, etc.

Sadly, the goldfish did not live to tell the tale. At least I assume it didn't die first of natural causes and get eaten later. No more goldfish as long as the crayfish is with us.

And on another subject, I hear that our neighborhood beavers, beaver lodge and beaver dam have been removed because of the fact that their dam causes the area to flood. Sigh, I didn't think they were causing any harm, and I kind of liked having them around here. I hope they were just relocated and have found themselves a nice, new home.

And that's the animal bulletin for August 14, 2010. Does anybody else have any crayfish stories, opinions about beaver removal or other animal tidbits that they'd like to share with me?