Author: Kathleen Fisher

dieter f uchtdorf

Spring has made an appearance and with that, our annual cleaning of the garage.  Annual is exaggerating.  We clean it when you can’t set foot in there.  I’m a clean freak.  Big Daddy….not so much.  He thinks this is a big waste of time but he’s close to the season when he’s gonna want to bike every stinkin’ weekend and pretend he’s a jock with his middle-aging friends.  That makes it necessary for him to put deposits in the chore account so he can wave sayonara without a speck of quilt.  And I do mean Without A Speck.

BD said first thing we had to do was empty the garage.  This took awhile.  With the weather being nice, every neighbor was out which meant they had to stop by and say, “Cleaning the garage, huh?  Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.”  This was true but you don’t see us standing in their driveway saying, “Hey, how come you still have your Christmas lights up and dead plants in the window box?”  O.k. skip that last part since we may have a dead plant or two or dozen in various pots around the plantation.  When that parade of smart asses throwing turds at our pile of shit in the driveway moved on, the drive-bys in search of a garage sale started.  C’mon,, people, move along……nothing to see here, no dead bodies, just dead crap.

Next we started sweeping up dirt, leaves and a significant amount of rodent droppings.  BD said no worries, honey, they’re long gone but I took precautions anyhow (like YELLING into dark corners to let Micky and Minnie know that I was in da howse).   We loaded a few bags of garbage and more bags of donations.  How many sleds does a family need when one kid has moved out, one is away at school and one is too busy to even think about it?  Not five.  We found a stuffed bear (what???), clay pots up the wazzoo, a screen to some window of which we don’t know and a necklace I’ve been looking for (what??? x 2).

We patted ourselves on the back for getting it done and had a couple of beers to celebrate not being slobs anymore.  We’re reformed garage hoarders and there wasn’t so much as a chicken, rabbit or dead cat residing in there.  Pat ourselves, indeed, but it’s best you not look in our basement just yet.  All in due time.   (Tick tock, BD, tick tock.)

You may remember an earlier post regarding my issue with squirrels.  The story below was recently in the news.   Let’s not be deterred by PETA wingnuts or local gun laws banning automatic assault rifles.  This is war.  Read on:

The small gray squirrel in Bennington, Vt., has broken the peace that existed between humans and the small woodland creatures. In separate incidents, the pugnacious rodent has bitten and scratched neighbors without provocation, local station Fox 23 reported.

McDonald was shoveling snow outside his home when the sneak attack began. “He was holding on. He wouldn’t let go. I was finally able to get him off, and as soon as I got him off, he just jumped right at me again.”   The feisty critter inflicted several scratches on McDonald last week.

A small woodland creature?  Ummm…that’s Thumper and his little friends in Bambi.  These are thugs dangling from bird feeders like they own ’em and then fornicating in the front yard.  That’s what we in the Heartland call a Yard Terrorist.

Happy spring Fur Face (FYI…..this is not for the lady working in the drive-up at the Burger King who needs to be introduced to Sally Hansen Wax Strips), your days are seriously numbered.  Yeah, I’m talking to you.

I’m not sure and never really have been from the get-go, where I intended to go with this blog.  Ideally, a syndicated column or a book deal (with a really big advance like Danielle Steele gets so we can get a new paint job on the McMansion) but that’s pie in the sky kind of thinking.  I’m just gonna keep plugging away and we shall see where the wind decides to blow.  But…….TODAY I TOPPED A THOUSAND HITS!!!  Why am I shouting?  Cuz that’s about 999 more times that somebody read what I wrote in the last two months than before.  A biggety deal to me.  Thank you, thank you, thank you (with a mucho gracias and merci beaucoup to my followers in South America and France….I kid, I kid) for taking time to stop by and read my ramblings.  I’m doing the happy dance and dreaming about all things pie.

Last nite, my friend and I were talking about the disaster in Japan.  She said, “Did you notice that there’s no looting?”  I had and that people are standing in line for hours on end to find the basic supplies to live and nobody seems to be losing their temper.  Quite a difference from what we’ve seen in other places, especially our own country.

When I came home, my husband was watching the news with American journalists reporting on the crisis at the nuclear plant and what would happen if that occurred here.  Could our nuclear power plants stand up to an earthquake?  What are our safety precautions?  Would high winds near the plant in Japan cause an increase in radiation levels in this country?  California stores are selling out of iodine tablets for that very reason. 

I’ve watched footage of the tsunami over and over.  In one video, there’s a little white car speeding along a distant road and as you’re watching this wall of water move, you know that the people inside won’t make it.  Each time, my heart races for that car and its occupants.

I live in a place known for tornadoes.  If you’re on the coasts it could be hurricanes.  Out west it’s wildfires.  None of us are immune from the wrath of Mother Nature but the people of Japan have been hit so hard with such devastating impact that it is impossible to imagine.  

Maybe our news stories should stay focused on the country in crisis and not our own.  Maybe we should sacrifice our iodine tablets for people we will never meet.  Maybe we’ve seen with our own eyes that Japan is a country full of little white cars in trouble, stoically trying to get to higher ground.

A couple of years ago, our air conditioner went out and we replaced it with a heat pump. Cha. Ching. When it was installed, we also got a new digital thermostat. It was the Mercedes of thermostats and I guess I should have been impressed but I could care less about that kind of stuff.

Two and a half years later on a dang cold, Friday night, our Mercedes didn’t seem to be working right. The temp went up to 70 at night and dropped to 64 during the day. I got out the trusty manual, read all 27 pages and checked the breaker. Big Daddy got involved which meant banging on it, giving it the finger and then walking away and saying, “Don’t worry about it.” I wasn’t worried so much as I was freezing my ass off.

On Sunday, I called Honeywell Customer Service and they walked me through some steps with no results. Finally, the rep said, “Your thermostat has likely become touch sensitive. You need a new one.”  Huh?  She told me that if you touch it too much it reverts to and locks into a program even though you didn’t schedule it. I’ve worked customer service type jobs for most of my life so I know that being a smart ass is not helpful in resolving a problem but……..it’s a frickin’ thermostat.  Its sole purpose is to be adjusted up and down to maintain comfort. 

On Monday I called our repairman, they installed a new one and Can I Hear An Amen, it was still under warranty. Now we’ve got a new Mercedes and I touch it far less and very, very lightly so as to not disturb the delicate, nervous, high-strung, prozaced, sensitive nature of it. If it has to be replaced again, it’ll be on us.

I think I was Amish in another life.  A dial to turn right or left would suit me just fine.

Our youngest, Mallie Bee, is the youtube queen and newest, unpaid consultant for A Speckled Trout.  She knows every funny, outrageous video on the web and can often be heard in the computer room giggling away.  This one cracks her up every single time.  I like her to play it just so I can hear her laugh.  Raise your hand if you like clowns.  That’s what I thought.  Enjoy…

This was the weekend we got to spring forward and set our clocks an hour ahead to gain an extra hour of sunlight.  I’m what you’d call a low achiever.  Falling behind is what I’ve done my whole life.

According to the new time I went to sleep and woke eight hours later.  Why then did it feel like I was hit with a baseball bat all day long?  I drank cup after cup of coffee.  Then I ate the rest of the day but was confused about whether to eat breakfast food (yes if you’re going by old time) or lunch (no if you’re going by new time) so I stuck with  chips and salsa.  I ran an errand that seemed to take awhile but not according to the clock in the car.  Five miles later when I returned home, an hour had passed.  We ate dinner at 8:00 (7:00 if you’re going by old time) and finished in time to get ready for bed at 9:00 (8:00 if you’re going by old time).  It felt too early to go to sleep so I laid in bed for a couple of hours and finally got up at midnight (still Sunday and 11:00 if you’re going by old time).

This was the weekend we got to spring forward to gain an extra hour of sunlight.  The forecast is for 3″ of snow allowing us to frolic in the wintry mix past dinner.  It’s been a long winter and I’m not in the mood to look at more snow in the extra light of day.  Maybe in a couple of weeks, if I work really hard at it, I’ll get the hang of this new time/old time thing.

Sadly, my status as a low achiever remains intact.

“It is probably something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I can’t say that about my Econ 202 class.”

-student who witnessed a mechanical device demonstrated in a human sexuality class

By now you’ve probably heard of the Human Sexuality professor at Northwestern University who had an after-class, live demonstration of a sex toy that drew quite a crowd.  In his defense, he told his students that the demonstration would be very graphic and not for everyone.  Well, no shit, Sherlock.

I’ve been thinking about going back to school but this has me reconsidering that idea.  What if the participants were chosen at random?  What if the old people who were returning to campus life to finish some credit hours were the ones picked to show how sex toys work?  Would anybody show up?  Would I care?

Ummm….yeah I would.  Nobody likes to give a party and have it be a dud even if all you have to show your guests is saggy ta-tas and a hail damaged ass.  Thru the years, I’ve learned that being a good hostess requires plenty of food and beverages.  Including a sexual device is something I hadn’t thought of before but why not add it to the kegs and foot long subs.

The fact that Grandma’s in the house and needs to earn some extra credit will barely be noticeable.  Right?