The 'Burbs

If you haven't seen the movie The 'Burbs, I highly recommend it. It's old (1989), but has a great cast: Tom Hanks, Carrie Fisher, Bruce Dern, Corey Feldman, Rick Ducommun, Wendy Schaal, and the fabulous Henry Gibson, plus a few others you may recognize. Short summary: some weird new neighbors (Gibson) move into the cul de sac overnight and exhibit some odd behavior. One example is Tom Hanks' son looks out his window during a rainstorm late at night and sees them out in their backyard digging. This particular scene is reason I mention this movie. Last night when I got home from the Wednesday evening fellowship meal at church, I saw my neighbor across the street digging in his front yard. At that time - around 6:00 there were just two holes and he was beginning a third. No other equipment - just a shovel. At 8:30 or so I went out front to check on the weather, wondering if I should go ahead and water or wait for the rain that was supposed to be coming. My neighbor was now inside the house, presumably, but there were a whole lot more holes and shallow trenches all over one section of the yard with no apparent order - completely random.

Take a look at this photo I took this morning at a little after 7am from my front window:

It's a little blurry because of the window and screen. Then I had to crop it in a bit so that the house number didn't show. If you looked out your window and saw that, what would you think? Yeah - that dude's nuts, right? I just thought of the movie Holes with Shia LaBeouf - that would work, too I guess, since we don't know why he's digging. My kids spent some time this morning pondering the many reasons for why he might be digging up his yard: hidden gold coins in a jar; diamonds/jewelry in an old tobacco can; he's a sleeper agent that's been reactivated and forgot where he buried his secret identity paperwork; the guy's really an alien and he eats worms and forgot to buy some; he's a hit man and has been found out so he has to dig up all of his guns and knives and be ready...that one is my personal favorite :)

 

Pink Spirea

Dunno the name of these

Well, the rain that was promised came overnight with a bang, and it's been banging around all morning and likely will continue for the next four days - we are under a flood watch and a river flood warning until Monday. It's a good thing I got the pictures of my plants I promised yesterday before it all started. Sometime during the night a big tree came down in our neighborhood and they had the road blocked until it could be cleared.

I took a picture of it through the windshield of the truck, so there are raindrops obscuring it a bit. I didn't zoom because I flat didn't have time.

I was taking it with my phone and my husband kept telling me to hurry up. No one was coming - what's the big deal? Every time I want to take a picture of something, he rolls his eyes and takes on this long-suffering expression. That's okay, I do it to him, too  :)

I took this from 2 blocks away - sorry it's not clearer

Foodie Weekend

Doesn't everyone have a favorite restaurant that they only get to go to occasionally because of cost or location? You know which one - the one where you sometimes have dreams that you and your significant other are sharing a meal at and then you wake up disappointed because you were just about to take a bite? No? So that's just me then? Hmmm...lol, anyhoo, we went to one of ours Friday night with some friends from church who had never been and we all had a wonderful time. It's a Japanese steakhouse in Joplin and has the best food! Some friends from our other church introduced us to it a few years back and it's fab! We've only ever had sushi from there, and we decided we really liked it. The cooked variations, only, though for me. My favorites are the Mama Mia Special Roll (brought to the table flaming) and New Style California Roll (battered & deep fried). I do better with those two because they are warm when you eat them and there isn't so much seaweed wrap on them. Plus, when the seaweed is cooked a bit, it loses some of that weird stretchy texture and is easier to eat. I get to craving the sushi, yes, but really it's the seafood sauce that haunts me so. It's wonderful! I've tried to make my own, and I came pretty close once...I may have to make another attempt at it. I should have taken some foodie shots of our meal, but honestly, I just couldn't wait to dig in. That and my husband thinks I'm weird when I take pictures of food. I think he's weird, period!  :)

Sooo...my plans for the long Memorial Weekend were jimmy-jacked by the non-delivery of my camera filters and also by the weather. The wind started blowing Friday afternoon and still hasn't stopped. It has grown in intensity each day, but no actual tornadoes or anything like that. Of course beginning tomorrow sometime, it is supposed to storm all the rest of the week, and so then we will have wind-driven rain and possibly even hail, to contend with...ugh. Because it's difficult to take pictures when the wind is blowing a hundred miles an hour (not really, only 30 to 60 mph) and it isn't much fun on a motorcycle either, we didn't do much. 

Early Saturday morning we went to breakfast and then out to the nursery to get some plants, went to Wal Mart, and then came home and started planting said plants. Sunday, we fixed Teriyaki Chicken on the grill with marinated grilled red, yellow, and orange bell peppers, and frozen chunks of pineapple. It was kind of tough keeping the flame going, but Bobby got it done.

Monday, Bobby had to work, so I was home with the boys and they played video games and watched movies while I worked on an assignment - yeah no holiday for me from school! One thing I did was set up my camera case - or what I am using for a camera case until I find one I like and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. It's a Beijo Bag that a friend gave to me a while back (she used to sell them) and I took the pictures this morning after I got the first half of my filter order (didn't I tell you Tuesday??).

I just put down some foam in the bottom and a layer of bubble wrap for protection. There's plenty of room for everything - probably even room for a couple more lenses. It works pretty good - the material is pretty solid, so it actually offers quite a bit of protection. That and it's pretty stylish  for a camera bag ;)

Last night we fixed Brats for supper - boiled in beer, butter, and onions first, and they were yummy! Again, though, it was a tough go keeping the grill lit, but perseverance won out! I just noticed how much I've talked about food in this post. I'm making myself hungry. Anyway, after supper, we all sat down and watched Brave. I really liked it and there were plenty of fun scenes so the boys didn't think it was too girly. All in all, it was a pretty good weekend even though my original plans fell through.

Tomorrow I'll post some pics of my new plants - gotta take some first ;)

Cannoli? What's Cannoli?

Today is the last day of school for the summer. The part of me who gets to sleep in a little later is glad about it. Also the part of me that gets a reprieve from mounds of school papers every night is glad. The part of me who no longer gets the house to herself after 9pm is not so glad. Now I have to wait until 10pm to have "me" time. Honestly, though, I'm glad to see this school year wind down. It's been a tough one for Sully due to the number of alpha types in his class. Alpha-type is nicer than slapping a label like ADHD on them. All I know is there is about 4 overly-aggressive boys in that class that like to fight, steal, and pull vicious pranks and seem to think the rules don't apply to them. I don't know what the deal is with choking, but there is one boy who consistently gets hold of other students and chokes them. It's happened to Sully twice and we promised that if it happened again, we would press charges. The principal took charge of the situation and it hasn't happened since. One problem was that the teacher was not forwarding the information or our complaints to him. That has since been taken care of. We're hoping for a better mix of students in Sully's class next year.  

Last night after work we decided to get pizza for dinner since Bobby wanted to mow and I needed to get an assignment done. I called it in and then we went to go get it. Papa Don's is a local pizza place downtown that has really good food. When we got there we told one of the girls working the counter that we were there to pick up an order. She went looking for it and discovered it was still on the pad and didn't get turned in, so we sat down to wait. Because of their mistake they offered us free cheese sticks, pop, or cannoli, although they really didn't have to - we weren't upset or anything. The interesting part was that Bobby chose a Dr Pepper and I chose a cannoli. I got the chocolate covered kind - yum! Bobby didn't know what a cannoli was and when she brought it, he started eyeballing it...looks pretty good, right? So...how's that drink? Lol, so I got dinner and a free dessert, and I got to eat dessert first  :)

I heard that OSHA was in town inspecting the numerous roofing projects, and that at least one company got fined $20,000 for no safety harnesses for the workers on the roof. I also heard that at one site, when he saw the people in suits and carrying clipboards, one worker took off running. Hmmm, wonder what that was all about? Anyway, they are here and cracking down, so on our way back from picking up the pizza, we noticed several roofs being worked on with men wearing safety harnesses and at least one group at another house that weren't. Ruh-roh!

On a strange note, I noticed on my Blogger dashboard that I have been getting a lot of traffic from a current.com. Turns out it is a news channel, Current TV, that was started by Al Gore. The weirder thing is that when I clicked on the link a pop-up stated that Current TV had been purchased by Al Jazeera America. Weird, right? Why am I so interesting?

Random Observations and Shipping Woes

I watched This Means War with Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy again last night. It's a great movie and lots of fun, but every time I see it I am always left with the thought that she chose the wrong guy and in my mind it makes the ending less satisfying for me. My opinion, I know, but if it had been me, I would have picked Tuck (Hardy) over FDR (Pine) hands down. The movie ends well and Tuck gets back with his ex-wife, and she and their son discover he isn't a travel agent, so it's not like he is left out in the cold with nothing. I just felt like FDR was the too-obvious choice. Okay, so Tom Hardy is more my cup of tea  :) so sue me! Seriously though, Tom needs to do more roles like this in addition to action and dramas. He does romantic comedy quite well. Anyhoo, I think if you took this situation and looked at it with the real-life lens, Reese's character (Lauren) would have chosen differently had she kept sex out of the equation, based on the character traits she displayed. So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Today my husband offered to bring me some lunch back when he and the other officers on shift went to eat. He asked me if I wanted a cheeseburger and fries, onion rings or suzies, so I said yes, please with fries. What I got was a hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. Basically, two pieces of white bread, mashed potatoes on top of that, two slices of turkey on top of that with gravy over all. He said he decided to get me what he got. When I said "if you were going to get me what you got, why did you even ask me what I wanted?", he replied with "I knew it!" In my mind I was thinking, "well, if you knew it, why did you do it?", however I refrained from verbalizing my thought and instead assured him it was fine and I was very happy with his choice (true statement), and that I was only making an observation (also true). So sensitive! He makes command decisions like this with me all of the time, however, and sometimes it irks! Oh, he also thought this would be a healthier choice than a burger and fries. Really? Probably not by much when you factor in the white bread (starch), mashed potatoes (starch), and gravy (fat). *sigh* whatever...I really am happy that he brought me lunch, though!

I'm anxiously awaiting some filters for my new Rebel T3 that I ordered from Amazon. Unfortunately Amazon is shipping via FedEx Smartpost now instead of UPS, at least that's what I'm gathering since the last two orders were shipped that way and so is the current one. Let me just say right now that I hate FedEx, and Smartpost is even worse. The shipping estimates between Amazon and FedEx never agree, and the tracking status is never right, in my experience. This current order Amazon is showing a Saturday (5/25) delivery estimation and FedEx is saying Tuesday (5/28). Last time I had a Saturday delivery date, FedEx tracking showed that they had tried to deliver but "the business was closed or no one was home" and that it was rescheduled for the following Tuesday. Really? I was there - where were they? Every time I place an order and see that FedEx is the carrier I cringe and pray that it will go smoothly. I really want to get my filters Saturday because I was planning on going to the park with the family - I thought it might be fun for us all to each take a camera and later maybe print off a few of them to put on a collage frame and possibly make a slide show too. I also thought maybe just Bobby and I could go for a motorcycle ride Sunday and take my camera. Best laid plans, right?

And now I leave you with a shot out my backdoor taken this morning while my dog Toby did his business...too much information??

This is Toby

Life, Weather, and Insensitive Yahoos

Have you ever heard someone say to another person after a natural disaster that they should move? Or perhaps they asked them why on earth they live where they do when they know that (insert natural disaster here) happen there? There are many answers to that question, but the fact is, disasters happen everywhere. California is notorious for earthquakes, mudslides, and forest fires, the Midwest states have tornadoes, the Gulf  states have hurricanes as do the Eastern states, and the upper northern states have blizzards, forest fires and bitter cold winter temps, and Alaska and Hawaii have volcanoes - remember Mt. St. Helens?...you get my drift. There is no perfect place to live - everywhere has a drawback, it's just life. I left behind earthquakes in California, but I gained tornadoes when I moved to Kansas - days like yesterday make me think that earthquakes are better. They are less frequent and there's something to be said for not thinking every dark cloud holds the potential for destruction.... but I digress...

For many people, the answer to the problem of living in a place that is prone to tornadoes (or other major natural disasters), like Kansas and Oklahoma, is that they simply don't have the luxury of moving somewhere else. They can't afford it; their work, family, home, etc. is all there. Okay, so what about storm shelters and basements? Well, if you can afford to put a storm shelter in, congratulations! If you can afford to sell your house and buy one with a basement, great for you! If you can be picky enough to find a rental with a basement, more power to you! See, it just isn't that easy for people who are wondering if they will have enough to make their mortgage/rent payment to be able to go out and do any of those things.

Every time there is a tornado that wipes out a town, I hear and see these comments about why we live here, and why those people didn't have a storm shelter. The one that happened yesterday in Moore, Oklahoma is no different. In the midst of the tragedy of school children being the largest portion of victims, insensitive yahoos ask stupid questions. I do agree that all school buildings should have underground shelter areas, though, but until the government steps in and provides the funding for that kind of retro-fit, it will be just like anything else - the wealthier communities will get those kinds of upgrades and poorer communities will bury their children.

What's the answer? We can't change the weather, and natural disasters unfortunately don't listen to our requests to leave us alone, so what do we do? I have a suggestion: maybe our government could should spend less money on frivolous crap and put it into getting all of our nation's communities up to standards on alert systems and building and retro-fitting schools with safer shelters. 

You know what our kids here have for a tornado shelter in each of the schools? A designated hallway that  is open at the ends where the kids go and sit on the floor with their heads down on their knees and their arms over their heads. Sounds great, right?

Taking Care of Business

My dad has been in California this last week, and I have been taking care his house and his baby, Gidgie, a little white Pomeranian. She stays at home during the day and sleeps over at our house at night. Every morning I take her home, feed her, turn on the TV, open the blinds, come back later and let her out and feed her again, and when I get off work I go get her and turn off the TV, turn on the lights, close the blinds, and bring her home for the night. I've been doing this since last Tuesday and I'm getting tired. But dad comes back home this evening, so when I leave at 5:00 I will go let her out and make sure lights are on and whatnot and then go on home.

Gidgie

The reason for all the transporting and all is that I have three dogs at home and Bobby just last week went back on days, so nobody is at home to let her out during the day. My dogs are used to our routine, but she isn't, plus she would by necessity have to be cooped up all day. At Dad's she has the run of the house, and Dad's house is halfway between work and my house, so it's closer than running back to my house to let her out. At night she sleeps in a baby playpen in my boys room because Toby sleeps in our room and, well, it just wouldn't work!. 

You might at this point be wondering why Dad didn't just take her to a boarding kennel. The answer to that is that she is his baby and a boarding kennel might make her think nobody is coming for her. Before Dad would leave her with some friends, but they said it was too nerve wracking because she would stay at the window looking for him and they had trouble getting her to eat. It's what she did after my mom died. She kept waiting for her to come home, so now to ease her mind, Dad has certain things he does so she knows he's coming back. With this little routine we have going, she knows when I'm coming and what we're doing and it gives her peace. I also tell her that daddy will be back  in a few days, and she's fine. Sure, it's been a little inconvenient and a lot of running back and forth, but my dad has done so much for me all my life that this is just a very small thing that I can do for him.

Remember how much rain we had a week or so ago? Well, yesterday it was 91 degrees and today is supposed to be around 87. We went from Spring to Summer in just a few days, and likely it will flip-flop between the two for the next 2-3 weeks and then it will just be HOT. The good news is that the roofers are all out in force trying to get roofs done all over town before we get any more rain from that unstable weather pattern. When I walk outside, I can hear the sound of pounding coming from all directions - all over town - anywhere I go. Our contractors contacted our insurance company and told them that they didn't allow enough for us to repair the damages from the hail storm, so they sent the adjuster back out and they went over everything again, and it turns out that he made mistakes in the work-up and left out a bunch of stuff, so they have written us out another check, and now it will all get fixed. Huge relief!

So, Dad is coming home tonight, and I've made sure everything looks good and that the house is cool. Taking care of plants and such. Dad has these great shrubs that bloom every spring that look gorgeous, so I took a couple of snaps with my phone. I need to try to find some of these to put in the front of my house. I just want them (roofers) to hurry up and get my house done so I can get some stuff planted. Even though the contractors assured me that they will protect any plants or flowers, etc., I would rather wait until they're done, just in case. I can't really plant anything out back because my dogs think they are chew toys. 


I want to finish up with something funny that happened today at work. Across the street from the front door of the funeral home to the south is a small parking area separated by a concrete sidewalk/median and on the other side of that is a larger parking lot. While Gary and I were in the front foyer/reception area talking a little old lady pulled into one of the parking spaces across the street, sat there for a few seconds and suddenly rocketed forward with a loud crashing sound, high-centered on the median, and then with a squeal of her tires, got herself off of the median and took off down the street and turned. Gary and I looked at each other and I said "what was that??" As we discussed the many possibilities, we spotted her car at the stop sign about down the block, and sure enough she turned north and headed back up to the corner and turned right and pulled back into the parking area only in a different space. She sat there for a good 15 minutes while Gary and I pondered whether we should go check on her or not. Then she got out of the car, walked around it a few times, and also checked out the street to see if anyone had noticed her earlier adventure. Finally she turned and walked over to the buildings to the west of the parking lot...and into the optometrist's office. Gary went out and snuck a peak at her car and he said it looked like she'd done that before because her front grill was caved in, her left front quarter panel was banged up, and she had a red swipe of transfer running along the front left half of her car. I guess it was a good thing she was going to see the eye doctor.

It's a Rainy Day in the Neighborhood

I know we need the rain, but it's supposed to rain all week! and that will push everything back even further for us to get our roof done...urrrgh! 

Looking out my back door with my Razr

My back door view with my Canon Rebel T3

It did make for a pretty sky this morning, though. I just recently got a Canon Rebel T3 and I've been wanting to get out and take some pictures, but the weather hasn't been cooperating. I love this camera, but of course I'm a newbie with it so I have a lot to learn. Don't get me wrong, though I still love taking snaps with my Razr - it's so much fun playing with the different photo editing apps! There's a lot of criticism over people taking photos with their phones - "that's not real photography", "everybody thinks they're a photographer now because of Instagram", etc. Who cares?! What's so wrong with it? It's gotten a whole lot of people interested in photography and that should be a good thing. A kid with an okay camera on his cell phone gets hooked on Instagram, decides he wants a better camera and from there  becomes a photojournalist.  People are becoming inspired to be creative and do all kinds of things like photo journals and projects. Okay, rant over...

You can see the differences in clarity, color and resolution between the two photos pretty clearly. The only difference in how I took the photos other than equipment, of course, is where I was standing. Without seeing the bottom shot, you would say it's a really good snap particularly coming from a phone, so not bad, right? My phone camera is 8MP with HDR settings and the Rebel T3 is a 12MP digital SLR. The new Galaxy S4 phone by Samsung has a 13MP camera! Cell phone cameras are catching up.
Anyway, I am happy with my new camera and can't wait for nicer weather. Rain, rain go away - come again some other day. Actually, you know what? Rain all week, just go away for the weekend, okay?

Something You Don't See Every Day

So I see lot's of interesting things on my way to work. Since it takes me less than 5 minutes to get there, it's often a jam-packed viewing experience. Last  Thursday I only saw one interesting thing, so it was a slow day. I couldn't take a picture because I was driving. I thought I might try to catch it on my way home, but it was already gone. What I saw was the front end of a Ford truck in the bed of a truck parked over at the feed store. I'm guessing the truck that the front half was in was also a Ford, but I didn't have time to notice. At first I couldn't tell what it was - I thought maybe some kind of old coke cooler or maybe a radio console. All I could see was red and some shiny chrome. Ok - I was wearing my sunglasses, not my seeing glasses so it took me a few seconds to figure out what I was seeing. Yeah, I know, but legally I can still pass a driver's test without wearing my glasses, so there!

So if that wasn't mind-blowing enough, the next day it snowed! In May!! Not something that happens around here very often. In fact, according to a search, the last time it snowed in May in Kansas was in 1907 on the 3rd and was reported in the Topeka and Kansas City area. People are saying this is the first time in recorded history for the area that it has snowed in the Southeast Kansas area in May. I am unable to verify that info myself without paying substantial bucks for a specialized historical weather report, so I'm gonna just go with it and say it's true. Regardless, crazy weather right? The day before it was in the 80's and by late afternoon the next day it was snowing. We had about 3 inches but then by sometime early morning the temps warmed up to about 40 and it started melting off a bit. It kind of put a halt to all of the roofing going on in the area, that's for sure!

So I mentioned a couple of things that you don't normally see as a regular occurrence. What about something I do see everyday? That would have to be plastic bags in the trees. My mom used to call it Bag City because there are so many bags caught in the trees, blowing along the sidewalks, caught in fences, and rolling along the highway like tumbleweeds. But hey, I'd rather live in Bag City than Gas City, or even in Gas, Kansas (both real places). What do YOU think of when you hear Gas City??

Hail Hath No Fury Part Deux

We are still dealing with the aftermath of the nasty hail storm that hit a few weeks ago. As I mentioned before, the insurance adjuster went around our property and found every little bit of damage that the storm did and told us it would all be replaced. Then last week, he came by and gave us the break-down and the check. I was about in tears because I didn't see how on God's green Earth that pitiful amount will get any of it fixed. Here we thought that they were being really generous and everything will get replaced. Now we're trying to figure out if we will have to let go of something important in order to make sure the roof is fixed and siding is on the house - the two biggies. I felt cheated.

The Contractors assured us that it will be fine - everything will be done for what the insurance company has allowed and there won't be any out-of-pocket expenses for us. If something can't be done for the amount allowed, they (the contractors) will contact the insurance company directly and get us what we need. Also, since the insurance company will only pay for two sides of the house to be sided, and it won't match because our siding is so old, they will allow more money to get the whole house sided. If we want to upgrade from vinyl siding to hardy board, then we have to decide what things we are willing to not replace to put towards that additional cost. So that's the next step - deciding what doesn't really need replaced or whether to just go back with vinyl. I felt better.

But wait - there's more! We had to send our check to our mortgage company (Bank of America) so they could endorse it since it was made out to them and us. So now we are waiting for it to come back so we can get started on our house. It's a little frustrating seeing the number of houses that are already getting their new roofs and nothing happening at our house yet. 

I really wish I could get an aerial shot of all the roof work going on in town. On just about every street there are at minimum three houses per block with people working on rooftops. Every time I drive through town I am amazed anew by the damage and how much it looks like we recently had a running gun battle take place.

There have been so many contractors come through here, and not all of them are on the up and up. There have been quite a few arrests for operating without permits or licenses, and also for outstanding warrants. It's amazing the number of cockroaches that come out for this kind of thing. It makes it tough on the legitimate contractors as well as homeowners. I Googled our contractor to see how long they have been in business and what they are rated with the BBB, but not everyone thinks to do that. There are plenty of people who will get bamboozled, which is why City Hall is encouraging folks to call them and have the contractor screened. They can run the name against the list of contractors who have permits/licenses to operate in town and let you know their status as well as give tips on how to check on their BBB rating, etc. 

I can only imagine to what scale the insurance fraud and shady contractors Greensburg, Kansas and Joplin, Missouri experienced if it's this bad here with just hail and wind storm damage given the relatively small size of the area involved. It would certainly stretch a person's capacity for mistrust and suspicion. I am suspicious by nature however, and do a pretty thorough research job when shopping for anything, so since my husband is an impulse-kinda-guy, I get lots of opportunities to keep my snooping skills sharp ;)

On a lighter note, my new fridge has water and ice, and it and the new microwave work and look awesome! Yay!