10 ...

On 10

Facebook can go friend itself

So ... I am cutting and pasting the following list of questions to ask your kids from a meme I pilfered from Facebook and adding my own little notes:


Mom through Annabel's eyes
Annabel at five years old:

1. What is something mom always says to you? - 'Stand right there!'
(I want to take your photograph.)

2. What makes mom happy? – If you clean up your room.
(But only because I had been asking her to do so all day.)

3. What makes mom sad? – If I got a boo-boo or I fell off a cliff.
(Evidently, she thought better of saying 'When I don't clean my room'.)

4. How does your mom make you laugh? – When the popcorn goes spilling all over the place.
(She was laughing ... I was chasing hot kernels escaping from a tiny hole in the paper bag.)

5. What was your mom like as a child? - You were good.
(Obviously I have snowed this child.)

6. How old is your mom? – That can we just skip? Because I don't want to tell you.
(She wouldn't even attempt a guess ... she sense my sensitivity.)

7. How tall is your mom? – One and a six and a zero.
(She was reading the answer another child gave ... I decided to erase the answers after that.)

8. What is her favorite thing to do? – Going places with her kids. ... like bowling. She also loves taking pictures.
(Wishful thinking ... and buttering up.)

9. What does your mom do when you're not around? – Works in the city. She makes newspapers.
(She especially likes that when she comes with me she can get glimpses of the RCA dog and ships atop buildings.)

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? – A circus.
(Apparently she'd like me to join one.)

11. What is your mom really good at? - Photography. She has a lot of pictures. Like 287.
(Just about.)

12. What is your mom not very good at? – Not very good at cooking.
(I tried to remind her 'I Bake' ... she nodded in appeasement.)

13. What does your mom do for her job? – That would be the newspaper thing again.
(She's been there ... done that.)

14. What is your mom's favorite food? - Coffee.
(She's not wrong.)

15. What makes you proud of your mom? – When she takes me places and is with me.
(We do ALL the cool things.)

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? - A circus lady who swallowed a sword.
(She has me confused with this guy. ... Or, she's trying to tell me something.)

17. What do you and your mom do together? - Color.
(We make a good team.)

18. How are you and your mom the same? – We both have each other's heart.
(Awwww ... she's so cute. But really her's is more sweet ... mine is more, well, grapefruit.)

19. How are you and your mom different? – Mom has black hair and I have brown hair.
(Again ... she's being kind ... she could have said gray.)

20. How do you know your mom loves you? - Because she borned me and she loves me.
(She's in TOTAL awe that I have a scar that looks like this ... and that she came out of it.)

21. What does your mom like most about your dad? - That he's strong and handsome and funny and tries to tickle her.
(I do NOT like the tickling ... but she should know THIS has something to do with it, too.)

22. Where is your mom's favorite place to go? - Bowling alleys.
(What can I say? The kid doesn't lie.)


*It's a meme: Copy, paste, lather, rinse, repeat

Driving Miss Crazy

Ok. So there are those among you who live in areas of the world where winter driving means more than dealing with a few extra days of rain. Like me, you live in an area where ice and sleet and snow pile up overnight and seemingly out of nowhere.

Because you are SO well trained in tranversing the universe in the midst of inclement weather you, no doubt, have advice for the rest of us.

The radio announcers among you DELIGHT in telling folks to take it slow, whereas the rest of the driving public (you know who you are) are souped up and ready to mow down any people who actually take it slow.

Can you guess which group I'm driving with?

You betya. I'm at the head of the pack of slowpokes holding up the procession.

You HATE me.

You blame me for causing accidents.

I know, you do. Don't try to deny it; I'm married to one of you souped-up winter drivers, who believes, in his heart of hearts, that the overly cautious should just stay home.

Now ... granted, there are some folks whose caution -- let's say, STOPPING where they should yeild -- does tend to lead to unsafe conditions under normal circumstances. But I'm not talking about normal circumstances. I'm talking about the roadway ahead is just one, big sheet of ice and the car you are navigating is sliding ALL OVER IT.

ME: "If I know my car would be out of control why would I speed up?"

HIM: "Because your car IS NOT out of control and the chance remains that you could cause someone behind you to lose control if they can't stop. ..."

ME: "Because they're driving too fast?"

HIM: "Well ... That's one way to look at it. Another way is that you are driving too slow."

ME: "Yes, but if you were driving slower on this really crapy, winter day you wouldn't come up too fast on a slow-moving car and lose control, now would you?"

Sixth sense

Whirlwind tagged me for a photo meme ... I'm not ashamed to admit that the two things I can't pass up are photo challenges and any prompt that's all about me me me me.

The MEME instructions are as follows:

Go to your Sixth Picture Folder then pick your Sixth Picture.
Pray that you remember the details.
Tag 5 others.

I'm not really good at following directions.

At all. Not only did I kinda fudge the count, but I'm not going to tag anyone (feel free to tag yourself and link back, though).

As you may imagine, I have a bazillion folders filled with photos on my desktop at any one time. The majority of the photos in process (before archiving) are in two parallel lines along one side of the screen. Client folders (don't laugh, I have some) are intermingled with family stuff. I archive folders either at the end of each month or when the client account has been fulfilled. When I counted straight down from the left the sixth folder was a wedding; the sixth photo in it was rather banal. I had included it because I thought it offered the best chance that any peopled who had avoided my lens would at least appear in one overall shot. I'm a hack. I'm not proud.

So I then decided to zig zag across the desktop. My curser landed on a folder containing some images from a fun project I embarked upon this summer that I didn't want to archive just yet.

This was the sixths picture in the folder:



Under the trampoline.

you probably can't pronounce my REAL name, anyway.

There are SO many things I should be doing right now. There's gunk that needs to be scrubbed off of the stove top (thanks to Jed). Laundry in the washer needs to be transferred to the dryer (the towels smell moldy no matter what I do). I've got Christmas cards to fix finish (don't even go there).

So what am I doing?

A meme.

Cause it's all about me me me me me me me, right?

Thanks, Binky. I needed the distraction from this horrible movie Jed's watching, anyway.

Without further ado, I'm playing the name game:

1. ROCK STAR NAME (first pet, current car): Sheba Civic

2. GANGSTA NAME (fave ice cream flavor, favorite type of shoe): Pistachio Clog

3. NATIVE AMERICAN NAME (favorite color, favorite animal): Green Dog

4 SUPERHERO NAME (2nd favorite color, favorite drink): Blue Margarita

5. NASCAR NAME (the first names of your grandfathers): David Emmett

6. STRIPPER NAME (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy): Dryer Sheets Licorice

7. TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME (your fifth grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter): Jordan Juno

8. SPY NAME (your favorite season/holiday, flower): Autumn Dahlia

9. CARTOON NAME (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now): Grapes Smartsocks

10. HIPPIE NAME (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree): Coffee Crabapple


You know you want to do it ... I'm not naming names.