Where There's Smoke...

Scandal in a small town is like a grass fire out of control; the smoke is everywhere and those that like a good fire are sorry when it gets put out. Our small Kansas town has had it's share of scandals lately, but the one that has all the gossip-mongers in ecstasy has to do with a young woman (over18) working at the high school and a male student (under18)...enough said. This young woman's situation is, to say the least, very sad. She is looking at real jail time, her family, her husband's family (yes, she was newly married in September) and the boy's family have been humiliated, and it's not over yet. It's really just getting started. 

The truly interesting thing, though, is that in this age of the internet and instantly available information, our little community has embraced the technological age and all of the current gossip is now online. The local radio station has a 'local news' page (I use the term news here, loosely) and everybody is posting their little hearts out. The station posts a news blurb, usually from the local newspaper's site, and then the 'community' posts comments. But, members can also start their own threads. That should terrify everyone, in my opinion, and not just because it shows that illiteracy is a problem here. While the biggest problem is the lack of facts, it is rather painful to read some of those posts. Kind of like listening to someone play the violin who doesn't know how. Back to the point; the potential for spiteful revenge should have us all concerned. There is a disclaimer down at the bottom in very small font and included in that is an admonishment to be polite, and it also states that comments may be deleted by the moderator, but I don't see a moderator anywhere. Yikes! I saw several comments that should have been deleted...

Monday was ca-razy! Both my boys had ball games; T-Ball at 7 pm & Baseball at 7:45. Every Monday is going to be like that for the next 5 weeks. The T-ball game was a lot of fun. The other team was a hoot to watch because every time one of our kids hit the ball, every kid on the field would run after the ball. It was swarm intelligence, lol. All of these little guys in orange shirts running after the ball would have looked like a swarm of insects if seen from above at a considerable distance. Or maybe an orange school of sardines, hee hee. Tucker's baseball team won their game, and this year he is in the Cal Ripkin League, so they are sponsored by local businesses. That means that when they win, they get to go to the local restaurant they are being sponsored by and get free ice cream. Which makes me wonder what the kids who are being sponsored by the other funeral home in town get when they win??  Think about that!  Ha!

Heroes and Legends

It's that time of year already...just 10 days left of school, baseball games start this week, and the tornado sirens are being tested. The school year has gone by so fast - Sully will be in 1st grade and Tucker will be in 5th. One more year until Middle School for him - there's a scary thought! 

This year will be different as the school board has decided to change the elementary schools into 'Attendance Centers'. K through 2nd in our current school, and 3rd through 5th in the other school. It means that Tucker and Sully will be separated and Tucker will go over to the East side of town for school. Nobody wanted this and they told the public in the beginning that it was to save the school district money. That was a huge lie because it's not saving any money and it's actually going to cost more money. They initially said it would reduce staff, but that's not true either as the only people leaving are those that were already scheduled to retire, which I'm glad that nobody will be losing their job. We know it will cost at least $20k more to run the buses now - possibly more. It's not that it's a terrible idea; it will help towards eliminating the whole East side-West side thing, true, but I think the bigger bite in the butt is that our leadership never listens to us, and they lie to us to forward their agenda. Yeah, I like that the 5th graders won't be able to pick on the little ones, and the bullying may be a little easier to get under control, but a bully is a bully and it will still happen. There's something to be said for having an older brother or sister around to help a little one out when they need it. I feel for the responsible adults of multiple children that will be spread all over town in different schools! Getting their kids to school will be less than fun. Not everybody likes to utilize the bus system - a lot of bullying goes on while riding the bus, and the kids learn a lot of new words. Yay! Isn't that what we all want??

We had our first tornado watch of the season last night. This morning there were a lot of trees down due to straight line winds - dodged a few of them on my way to work - down trees, that is. Yesterday was the funeral for a cousin of mine - my dad's niece. I have some awesome memories of her and my mom. They were close and always had a lot of fun together. Sandi, even though she stood a little over 5 feet, was larger than life, and as her brother said at the service, she walked around with rainbows in her pockets. (an old Elvis song) No matter what happened in her life, she kept fighting, and nothing got her down for long. Her son, Todd and I used to be really close, and then as happens a lot, we drifted our own ways and got out of touch. It was really good to see him again. Painful, yes - still pretty fresh for me, so seeing him like I was not too awful long ago, one of the walking wounded, was tough. It was like looking at myself just a little over a year ago. But still, we got to visit a little and reconnect, and it was great to have my friend again. We've added each other on Facebook, got emails, compared phones-he has an iPhone (awesome!) - so keeping in touch will not be difficult. 

There's a line from the movie Sandlot that I like that makes me think of Sandi.(it could actually be a quote of Babe Ruth, but I don't know for certain) "Heroes get remembered. Legends never die." She was a hero to some of us, but most definitely a legend.

Spring Cleaning

Last weekend was the city-wide yard sale. Yes, this is a real event here in which a large number of people have yard sales on the same day, and, the newspaper devotes a whole page to it. A friend of mine calls yard sales junk swapping only she doesn't use the word junk...but it is an apt observation. It would be interesting to conduct an experiment and track a few items to see how many different households they end up in over a period of time. It happens twice a year; in Spring and again in Fall.Unless I'm desperate for something and unwilling to spend an arm and a leg for it, or I've completely lost my sanity, I don't go out on City-Wide Yard Sale days. It isn't safe. Some of those people will run your butt over and not even blink over it. Seriously. There is always a spike in the number of traffic accidents, and a handful of property damage reports during these things. I like to compare it to the Running of the Bulls  :)

It is a good way to recover your property though. We have found several of our chairs from the funeral home over the years. They have the funeral home's name right there plain as anything. What's the thinking there??

Something even better than the City-wide Yard Sale began on Monday and it is City-wide Clean Up! This is even better than the yard sale because you can get this stuff for free! People just put it out on their curb to be thrown out! Imagine! Perfectly good non-working weed cutters and computer monitors just out there for the taking! Yes, I'm being a bit sarcastic, but it really does happen. It's an opportunity to get rid of anything you want without paying a fee to take it to the dump; the city hauls it off for you. Most of the time, though, the stuff doesn't make it through the night. Or, in our case, it didn't make it 2 hours!

We put an old rusted out charcoal BBQ'er, a couple of old non-working weedeaters, and several other miscellaneous things by our driveway Sunday afternoon around 2:30-ish and everything was gone but the cart by 4 pm. We didn't even see them do it, and it was broad daylight. Usually it's gone during the night or early morning hours, but I guess they didn't want all the good junk to get picked over. 

Honestly, driving by some of these places around this time every year, I'm amazed that certain of these houses with huge piles of accumulated crap outside on the curb had room inside for all of it - twice a year, no less! I can only assume they must be out salvaging others junk piles to replace their junk. Some of these houses are tiny, though, so where are they putting it all? It's a mystery...

Speaking of mysteries, I had an odd thing happen the other day at work. I've heard and seen some bizarre things working here at the funeral home, but this was a first. Someone from out of town and just passing by came in and asked to see some urns. I should point out at this point that this never happens. We aren't a shop in the mall and people don't just randomly walk in to see what all we have. Choosing a funeral home is a personal thing, and families typically stick to the same one. 

This woman tells me her mother had died about two years back and she had never gotten one. While we are looking at them, she tells me that she would really like a glass one so she can see out. The wheels were turning in my mind as I tried to figure out what she meant, and it must have showed on my face because then she went to say that her youngest child is really missing his grandma and wants to be able to take her to see him play soccer. At that point I knew what she was talking about, but was unable to come up with any response other than "Oh..." Then she asked me if it would be okay for her to buy something at Hobby Lobby to put her mom in...Yes, by all means, please do ... I was thinking it, but of course I didn't say it. Thankfully, I didn't say any of what I was thinking out loud...this time.

Feelin' Foolish

Yesterday was April Fool's day - the first day of April - April 1, 2010. I knew what day it was, and I still caught it - 3 times no less! Before I ever got out of the house this morning I got hit twice. 

Before I got in the shower, my darling husband tells me that when he let the dogs out, Stella got away from him and took off. "I'm getting ready to go run, so hopefully I'll find her while I'm out"  I should have been clued in by all the apologies...

When he gets back from his run, I have just gotten out of the shower and have a towel on my head and trying to get dressed when he pops open the door. He tells me that Frank wants to talk to me real quick and it's really important. Frank is the trash guy & super annoying and no conversation with him is quick. Bobby & I have this totally absurd exchange where I keep saying no - I'm not dressed - tell him I'm in the shower, blah blah blah, and he keeps saying Sorry, but he's out there waiting and he says it's important, blah blah blah. Finally I get fed up with the stupid conversation and tell him that I am NOT going out there and Frank can just come by work or something later and that's FINAL! "Gotcha!" Ugh!

Work has been crazy the last couple of days trying to get ready for a ginormous funeral, and the family is what I call 'Special Needs'. That means that they require extra attention, they focus on the minutest of details, and they change their minds frequently, which most generally leads to a last minute song or poem or something that we don't find out about until 5 minutes before the funeral.  In the midst of a minor technical dilemma, Gary asks me about the DVD case for the slideshow. I tell him I think it's in the folder, but he says he just looked and it wasn't, so naturally I open up the folder to show him where it is and voila! There it is with a large brown  - totally fake - cockroach on top. Looks very real though...*sigh*

My baby turned 6 on the 30th and we had his birthday party last night-nothing big, just family & pizza, and cake & ice cream. Sully is totally into 'army men' so I had a military theme cake done and we put Lego Toy Story Army Men on top. 

Totally cute, yeah??  

Even cuter :)

Grandma and Hand Baskets

My husband and my kids have this game they play in the mornings before school. He takes them to school in bad weather, so he swings by the house at around 7 a.m. and grabs some coffee and the boys. Whoever gets in the car last is 'Grandma',  hee hee.  Usually it is my youngest who always gets to be 'Grandma'.One morning, before Spring Break, Sully was moving at a speed I didn't think he was capable of - typically, my boys have two speeds; slow and slower. This day he was dressed, teeth brushed, shoes on, coat on, backpack loaded, and waiting by the front door, while Tucker was moving through the house looking for his coat and muttering about not wanting to be 'Grandma'. Finally, it's time to go, and Sully races out to the car. Tucker is still looking for his coat, finally finds it, and goes tearing out to the car, but of course, he's too late and he is 'Grandma' this day. What I didn't find out until later is that while they were waiting for Tucker, Sully was sitting in the back all smiles and humming to himself, and since he is just like his dad, my husband immediately asked him what he had done. He got no answer except a big smile and a giggle. About that time Tucker got in and told his dad that he finally found his coat -  in Sully's bed, under the comforter with a bunch of toys on top of that. Gotta admire the poise and skill with which he pulled that off, hee hee! He was tired of being 'Grandma' and so he devised a plan, implemented it, and achieved his goal. He's a pistol,that's for sure!

I told you all of that, so you would have a bit of background for what I'm going to tell you next. The first day back to school after Spring Break saw about 8 inches of snow still on the ground from the weekend. The boys thought maybe they would get another day off, but no chance. The roads were pretty good, so there was school.Bobby had spent a good portion of the morning pulling people out of the snow out in the county, so he was a little later getting back by the house than usual, so consequently, the boys were ready & waiting for him. They decided that Dad was going to be 'Grandma', so they moved his travel coffee mug to buy them a few seconds and when they heard, "ok boys - time to go" they made a mad dash for the car, which was funny because of all the snow still out there. That also bought them another 30 seconds, because the older you get, the less you like falling down. By the time he got to the car the boys were seatbelted in and yelling "c'mon Grandma!" Wonder what our neighbors think?? Never mind - I have a pretty good idea, lol.

The day before that, a friend of mine had an interesting Facebook status. It said, "Where are we going?...and why am I in this hand basket?" I thought about it and didn't get it right away, then promptly forgot about it. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know...  Anyway, the next morning while driving to work and looking at the snow, it suddenly popped into my head and I got it! Actually, to be honest, I was thinking about the new Health care Reform plan at the time...Yeah,this is not really related to 'Grandma' but it happened the same day  :)

Happy Spring??

The first day of Spring in Kansas was, well, less than Spring-y. See photo below:

This was taken early in the day. By the next morning there was about 8 more inches out there and it wasn't sticking to the trees by then because the wind had blown it all off. Ugh...

Crazy weather...2 days ago it was 68 degrees! Now today it's gray, drizzly, & dreary and 44 degrees. 

Of course it's not just Kansas, but the typical response is 'Welcome to Kansas Weather'

Since I am posting pictures, now is as good a time as any to post some of our Bearded Dragon, Skittles:

Here she is when we first got her at just 6 weeks. Such a little thing and so cute! She is in my 9 year old's hands, and perfectly happy.

Here she is now!

She is now 6 months old and her body is a good 8 inches long with the tail just about as long. To put this photo into perspective, the truck she is on is roughly the size of an adult-sized shoebox. 

Here is a close-up, LOL 

She is so much fun! She sees everything from her chunk of wood perch. When I so much as walk by the boys room, she spots me and gives me the head tilt as she watches. She loves to climb up to high places, so anytime she gets a notion to run she always winds up on top of the couch. Other times, she will sit on the couch and snuggle down into it like it's sand and watch TV, or watch the boys play with Legos.  Sometimes she will climb up onto my shoulder and peek through my hair like it is blades of grass and she is stalking something, lol.  Crickets, I imagine...

The Little Things

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  Are you wearing green??  I'm not, but I do have some green with me everywhere I go 24/7. I have green eyes :)  I don't usually 'celebrate' the day, I don't really like beer, let alone green beer - ugh!  I'm sure it tastes the same, but for me what food & drink looks like has a huge impact on the puke-ability scale. I'm sure "bondaegi", boiled silkworm larvae on a stick, is yummy, but I'll pass because it looks like what it is - a bug on a stick. I don't eat bugs, at least not willingly or conciously. So, even if I drank beer, I probably wouldn't drink green beer...or eat green eggs & ham. Call me quirky...

A couple of weeks ago one of my wonderful bosses was shopping for some new equipment for the funeral home and one of the things he surprised me with was a new computer for my desk! I have to say, I LOVE Windows7! I liked Vista, even with it's issues, because it had many cool features and looked so slick, but 7 is smoother and faster and simpler. Anyway the same day, my desktop at home died. I think it's the graphics card - I can hear the Vista welcome chime, but my screen is black. It's not the monitor, I already checked it. Two days later, my laptop just shuts off! I think it's getting too hot, so I'll have to try buying one of those cooling fan thingies.

I'm just a little depressed. I can't afford to do anything about it right now - my little man is turning 6 at the end of this month. I don't have all my graphic stuff loaded on my laptop so trying to create on it is awkward. I do have a lot of my stuff on an external hard drive, but that just adds to the awkwardness. God help me if I have to get up in a hurry with wires and cables all over me - yikes!

I'm loving my brand new shiny work computer, though.*sigh* it's the little things in life that bring such joy, am I right?

Oh Canada!

I admit it - I am an Olympic junkie. Opening ceremonies were awesome!! I've recorded whatever I couldn't watch at home, I've been checking the web for updates on the various competitions, and reading all the little background stories. Of course the games have been operating under the dark cloud of the young Georgian luger's death during a training run - such a sad, sad thing.

But I'm so excited for Canada! Of course I want to see USA do well, but I also want to see Canada win too. When Bilodeau  won the first Gold for Canada this Olympics we were cheering here at home too. And what a beautiful personal story.

I'm really loving Canada!  Such diversity - much like our own country, but somehow they seem... more unified. Wonder why that is? Such a beautiful country! I am so enjoying all the clips showing more of the country.

Favorites so far have been the Speed Skating, Short Track, Snowboard X, Nordic Combined, Mogul, Downhill, Luge, and we're looking forward to the rest of the Snowboard events and the Bobsled, as well as more speed skating & short track.

Ok, figure skating...what are they thinking with some of these costumes?? Many of the men's costumes are decidedly feminine and I am convinced they are designed to strip the guys of any hint of masculinity so that they appear androgynous. Just my thoughts, lol...

Heartbreak for Lindsey Jacobellis today, bless her heart. Sooo close, and she had such good runs & then the final run for the medal - disaster. Still, she did fantastic and her country is proud of her :)

SO - What will we do when it's over??  I went through withdrawals after the Summer Olympics, too, lol, so I guess at least it will be familiar...Better go check my DVR settings...again....

The Great Cricket Round-Up

Been awhile, I know...all kinds of stupidity happening over the last few weeks, and to be honest, I cringed at the thought of reliving it. I have the feeling January will always be a crummy month for me, now. Mom died in January last year, so I think everything will be colored by that.  Two of my three dogs ran off last week, but only one of them returned. Lucy, the one I fully expected to come home, did not, but Stella, the one that had never done it before did. She was gone 3 days and then found her way home. Since Lucy hasn't been reported as needing to be picked up (either alive or dead) I can only assume she is with someone. She's an awesome Lab, so I can understand why anyone would want her...

The snow hasn't quite finished with us - we got another 8 inches dumped on us last Friday, and now we have giant icebergs on the street corners again.  The city used to haul the scraped up snow in the business district off to parts unseen, but they haven't done it at all this year. I'm thinking they didn't do it last year either. I am noticing big holes in the streets where the plows have torn up the bricks. I may have mentioned this once before, but our downtown area has brick streets. I'm not sure how many miles, but most of the paved roads have bricks underneath. Visitors thing they are so wonderful - try driving over them in a truck 8 1/2 months pregnant and we'll see if they still think they are wonderful. Having said that, they do possess a certain charm. When properly maintained, of course...

Last night on the way home from work, I went by the pet store and bought 4 dozen crickets. We were down to about 4, so it couldn't wait. Skittles eats twice a day, and there wouldn't be any for the morning. Normally they aren't a problem, but occasionally you get a noisy one. There was one in this batch that was chirping pretty loud. I had put the boys to bed early because I'm having trouble getting them up in the morning - well, not Tucker - he's Mr. Rise and Shine At The Crack Of Dawn - so, I thought ok, get the crickets out of there so he has no excuse to stay awake. I'm carrying the plastic container by the handles and I get all the way into the living room, almost to the exact spot I'm going to put them, and the bottom falls off.  Four dozen crickets in my living room...they're going everywhere, in all directions, and I'm hollering for the boys to come help me (Bobby is at the church doing whatever deacons do, lol).  I couldn't get either one of them to touch any of the crickets, so I had to round them up by myself. I tried picking them up by hand, but it seemed like they were getting squished - if you don't grab them kinda tight, they squirm out of your hand - so I grabbed a container and a lid to shoo them into. With the boys as spotters, I got most of them rounded up and then Bobby came home and helped me get the last three - that we knew of, lol. I didn't count them.  So much for going to bed early.

At the time I wondered how many of them would die from shock over the trauma they had just endured.  This morning I discovered only about 3 actual dead, some severely wounded, but several that appeared to be dazed. Possibly due to freedom being within their grasp only to be cruelly yanked away?? Who knows, but they looked like a train wreck. You had the walking wounded; missing a leg, but otherwise moving about as if they didn't know it was missing, those that didn't appear to be injured in anyway, but totally nonfunctional, and then the others. They were the obviously and grotesquely damaged of the lot. Back legs now in the front going the wrong way, feelers bent, wings missing - carnage!  Needless to say, Miss Skittles had several more crickets for breakfast than she normally would have gotten.  Saved them from a long drawn out death. Now the question was: How many survivors would I find when I got home?  Who knows? They aren't the smartest insects, I've discovered. They will happily drown themselves if they have access to water deeper than their own body, for example, so it's conceivable that they might get trapped under or around something and die. They've done that before on a good day with their orange slices...

I was happy to discover there had been no more deaths, and they all must have recovered from their shock, because they seemed pretty chipper. In fact, I think I heard chirping...

Is It Cold Enough For Ya? Well, Is It??

Is it just me, or does anyone else hate that question?  You get the same one in Summer, only substituting the word cold with hot.  I've always found it irritating in the extreme, but one day I found myself saying it *gasp*! That did not just come out of my mouth!  But it did!  One of those instances where you wish you could reel it back in like a fishing line.  Ugh!  I had become one them - I had crossed over...but maybe hope is still alive if I make a mental promise to never utter the foul phrase again!!  LOL

The temps here, and elsewhere from the Midwest eastward and southward, have been horribly, record-breakingly cold (I know that's not a word - I just made it up. I can do that. It's my blog).  Right now, as I type, the actual temperature is 9 degrees. The windchill is fluctuating with the breeze: -1, -12, -6...ugh!  A lot of people are saying that this is winter like it was back in the day...back when they were kids.  Others are saying the amount of snow is like it was back then, but not the temps. And they're not liking it, lol.  Of course this is the crowd that needs to worry about breaking a hip if they slip on ice, so no, they wouldn't like it.  I'm not liking it much either, though and I'm not part of that generation.  However, things can still get broken at my age so, caution is advisable.  We have had snow on the ground since Christmas Eve without a break.  I'm thinking this must be what it's like to live in Alaska, only not as beautiful.  So there is the trade off:  white, snow-covered everything 8 months or whatever out of the year, but it's a gorgeous view. Here - enormous piles of icky black & white scraped snow on every street corner...not as pretty to look at, I'm thinking.  Of course, the snow covers up the various piles of junk lying around in certain yards and manages to make them look rather fetching - until it melts. "Ahhh...there's your treasure" (quote from the first Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser, lol)

My mother-in-law had a New Years/Christmas get-together at her house New Year's Day.  Bobby's sisters were in town, and all the grandkids and great grandkids were there and it was a chance for everyone who couldn't get  together on Christmas or Thanksgiving to visit and exchange gifts. Of course this happened after the big announcement at Thanksgiving that there would be no more dinners at her house...did I dream that? Hmmm...Anyhoo, since they live just down the street from us, Bobby & I sent the kids on ahead and we walked down together.  Now, our street is a solid sheet of ice since the snow plows never even looked at our street, so we were walking carefully.  I was doing pretty good, until I got involved in something I was telling Bobby, and I wasn't paying attention.  It was like a ballet in slow mo, only not nearly as graceful.  It took me a minute to go down as I made a valiant effort to stay on my feet, but alas! It was not to be...down I went, and with my husband laughing his head off, no less.  Then we both started laughing wondering if the neighbors saw me go down and him not even trying to help.  I'll be paying more attention next time, lol.