Farmer Brown, Dorothy, and Terra Cotta Pots

Farmer Brown: 

I was all set to blog about how I met some friendly strangers today.  And I will definitely get to that topic later, but just as I sat down to blog I decided to turn on the telly and I happened upon the BBC World News Program where there was a short bit about Farmer Brown.

Farmer Brown lives in the US, in Virginia to be specific.  He has been a tobacco farmer.  But for a lot of good reasons, he sees that might not be the greatest future use of his land.  So he has turned to farming...(drumroll please!)  ...Chick Peas!!  He has been travelling around Virgina trying to get other farmers interested in growing them and giving out samples of hummus.  One farmer seen to stick his finger in the container, swirl it around, then taste it said, "Not really my kind of thing.  But I'll grow anything!"

So how 'bout them apples garbanzoes?

Dorothy:

I went shopping for bras today.  Some of my blogging buddies will remember our trip to Vicki's Secrets years ago...yeah, I'm still wearing some of those.  It's been too long since I got some new underwire.  So today I stopped off at Kohl's after work.  I found a couple bras I liked and headed to the check out line with Dorothy behind the register.  Dorothy has been working at Kohl's since about the turn of the century.  Yeah, THAT century.  She is a happy person who could probably have retired about the time I graduated high school.  But she seems to like working at Kohls.  She asked me, of course, if I would be paying with my Kohls Card.

No, I will be paying with my debit card, thank you.  I answered.

You can all imagine the next part of the conversation.  Do you have a Kohl's Card?  Do you want a Kohl's Card?  Do  you know you can save a lot of money  with a Kohl's Card? 

My answers got sillier and sillier and her questions got sillier and sillier. 

At one point I said, "Dorothy, I think we need to take this show on the road."

We decided that we would head to Las Vegas and perform our comedy routine.  The audience, those that stay for the entire show, will have the "opportunity" to sign up for a Kohl's card at the end of the show!

Terra Cotta Pots

If you want to meet some friendly people and you don't live near Dorothy, you should go to your local thrift store and look for terra cotta pots.

If you buy them, you will be accosted by other friendly shoppers who wish they had seen them first.  "Where did you find those?"  "What are you going to do with them?"  "Are there any more?"

Warning:  Long conversations about mosaics and birdbaths and plants may ensue!

Farmer Brown Redux

The news item AFTER Farmer Brown was about the new Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge...that's how important them chick peas are.  O yea!

Summertime and the Lasering is Easy

My new "Native American" name is Takes Many Naps.  I worked hard to earn that name this week, on vacation in Holland, Michigan.  Napping on the beach, napping on the sunporch, anywhere except behind the wheel of the car, of course.

But my Laser Tag name yesterday at Lost City Laser Tag Arena was "Renegade."  At first I thought it was "Renegade Idiot" but J-dude pointed out that it was Renegade with ID and some numbers below the name.  So I felt better.

And it was the first time I ever played Laser Tag and I won, beating both my kids!  Who (unbeknownst to me until later) had formed an alliance and thought they were beating me by a lot of points.  Which they were, except for the fact that when we were in the briefing room (where we were briefed on the rules of laser tag by a young woman wearing camoflauge pants) I actually listened.  And I learned you could get a heckuva lotta points if you could destroy one of the two bases.  Or twice a heckuva lot if you got both of them.  So while the kids were hitting my jacket front back and shoulders over and over I destroyed the red base.  And got the kids a couple times, too. 

When the game was over the young woman wearing camoflauge pants told us the winner was Renegade.  Me, that's me!  I said.  The kids were, for the first time ever, stunned into silence.  Ha!

I did break one of the rules of laser tag, however.  Rule number 6 was "no bad language" and I distinctly remember hearing myself mutter Damn! once.  But Madamoiselle Camoflauge did not kick me out of the arena. 

The kids Laser names were Vortex and Quazar.

In college one of the men's dorm floors chose "Quasars" as their floor nickname.  They chose that because a million years ago before flat screen TVs, Motorola had a TV with an ad campaign that said "Quasars.  Our works are in our drawers."

Next time I hope my Laser Tag name will be Raquel Welch!

Pure Michigan 2013-style

This year we have rented a bigger house in Holland, walking distance to Lake Michigan.  The beach here is very nice, shallow for a long distance out.  We've swum, kayaked, played badminton, and gone for a bike ride.  We have watched movies at the house and also took advantage of one rainy afternoon to see Despicable Me 2.

We have read and read and read.  J-dude has watched lots of cable sports channels that I don't get at home. 

Something for everyone.

Today's highlight was a trip to pick blueberries.  We went to the Gold Barn Blueberry Farm, about a 5 minute drive away.  In about 20 minutes the kids and I had picked about 20 pints.  We froze some, ate some, saved a few to snack on today, and a pie is in the oven as I type this blog!!!  I have to say it was easier than shooting fish in a barrel.  Not that I would do that.  But I will definitely be going back to Gold Barn this week!!!

Tomorrow we will hit the Farmer's Market.  The rest depends on Mother Nature...

Chargers of the Light Brigade

My life has been overtaken.  It seems that I have more devices that need to be charged than my aging brain has memory slots for remembering the location of these items.

I have a charger for my cell phone.
I have a charger for my home laptop computer.
And for my work laptop computer of course.
Now I have a new item called a jetpack which I can fire up anywhere and get internet access for my work computer.  And it has a charger, too.

My Kindle has a charger.

My continuous glucose monitor has a charger.

Some of the chargers probably have chargers too but I can't recall.

On to the valley of confusion rode the six hundred.  Wikipedia tells us that the Charge of the Light Brigade refers to a battle called The Battle of the Balaclava....I like baklava!!!

I especially like baklava because it does not need a charger!

Cheers!

Tennis Balls, Anyone?

Samarra likes to chase her tennis ball across the yard.  This is a well-known fact to anyone who spends more then 3 minutes with Samarra outside.  She can catch it on the fly, on a bounce, or stalk it like prey if it's rolling on the ground.

She has recently chewed through her tennis ball and now we know what the inside of a tennis ball looks like.  Since getting Samarra we have learned what a demolished soccer ball, a chewed up baseball, a Frisbee with tooth marks, and other altered items look like.

There are many things you can do with a tennis ball, besides playing tennis or fetch.  If you google tennis ball images you will see that you can make a little house for a little mouse with one.  You can create a chair out of tennis balls.  One website listed several uses for tennis balls including using half of one to remove light bulbs from a lamp while the bulb is still hot. 

There are directions to "safely" cut a tennis ball in half using an exacto knife.  Really?  The only safe way I could do that would be to have someone else do it for me.

It's raining now so Fetch is off the list of Samarra's options for the moment.  Rain also prevented J-dude from playing baseball today, thought is was not raining at game time.  The field had turned to something like quicksand from earlier downpours today.

No tennis, no baseball, no fetch.   What did I do today?  I made brownies and cookies for a potluck tomorrow after church.  I helped J-dude put his room back together after it got painted a beautiful bright yellow-with-blue-trim this week.  I napped on the couch.  I procured groceries. 

And I blogged!  Just call me Frau Blogger. 

 

Baseball and a Movie

It was a fine weekend of activity with the little people who are not so little anymore.  Both of them are over the 5 foot height mark.  I can wear my son's hand-me-down green high tops.  Sisi and I have friendly arguments over who gets to wear the tie dye t-shirts that were once mine.  I know the days of wanting to go to a game or the movies with "mom" are coming to a close so I especially enjoyed this weekend.

Saturday night J-dude and I went to a Peoria Chiefs game in Peoria.  The A level team now affiliated with the St Louis Cardinals won the game in the bottom of the ninth inning 1 to 0, scoring the winning run on a wild pitch.  That's right, not a lot of hits in the game.  But a win, and with fireworks afterward.  And an appearance by Bob Gibson who was my favorite pitcher for the Cardinals in the 60's when I was a kid learning to appreciate the game.  I learned by listening to games broadcast by Harry Carey on the radio.  My favorite players besides the amazing Bob G were Lou Brock and Orlando Cepeda.   Those were some fine baseball days, and the Cardinals won the World Series a few times.  We used to get to watch the Series games on the new color TV in the grade school cafeteria.   Hard to believe.

Sunday both kids and I went to see the Star Trek movie "Into Darkness."  Star Trek movies have also changed, with more of the big weapon prolonged fight scenes that seem to be everywhere, as best I can tell from watching movie previews.   Still, it was a Star Trek movie and had Star Trek kinds of humor and bonding among ship-mates, and Sisi cried when Spock thought that Kirk was dead and...wait...spoiler alert...and Spock actually shed tears.

Of course he is only half Vulcan.

But I digress.

We got the largest tub of popcorn and sat in the back row together, and we all enjoyed seeing the Enterprise on the big screen.

What's Growing Here

The lilacs are gone until next year.  That makes me sad.  But here are some things that are blooming on and around the deck now:

verbena

hibiscus

 

 

 

spiderwort

 

 

and a bunch of other stuff like mint, thyme, lettuce, cilantro, basil, onions, and petunias:

 

 

Here's what's blooming up in the mosaic studio, a lotus flower soon to be a bird bath:

 

 

 

Just needs some grout, a base, some water, and of course some birds!