Time to "Cry" a Little

I'm getting so frustrated with this computer of mine! Some day's it will allow me to go to all my favorite blogs, and then the next day, well ok 90% of the time, it will freeze up when I go to look at a few of them. Namely those are Sanity on Edge, Penny for your Thoughts and This Brazen Teacher. I'm sorry Etta, Penny and Brazen, I wish it would allow me to read all your posts!

So now, I'm writing a post to ask anyone else who goes to any of these blogs could pass on a message for me. Could someone please tell these women that I haven't forgotten them, but that I'm having computer problems? I'd really appreciate it! Granted, they've probably all long forgotten about my visiting them, but even just writing this out makes me feel better about not going to their blogs more frequently.

A huge thank you to whomever decides to pass on my message, and if you don't, well don't worry, it's not really an issue :)

Spring Has Finally Sprung!

Quite a while back I had said to a few people that I would put in a post about my flower beds. Finally I have some pics of new flowers that I can indeed post! These flowers are just a few of what will be in bloom in the next few months, but are all that are or have bloomed so far this spring in my flower bed close to my house. I have a couple other beds that are showing signs of growth, but no blooms yet, I'm eagerly anticipating the arrival of flowers over my whole yard!

Without any further delay's, I give you the few flowers that I have!

First are the Tulips, they're all done now, but being the first harbingers of spring flowers, they're always a welcome sight!

Once the Tulips are all said and done, the smaller of the Irises start. This batch is planted in my basement window box right beside the Tulips and are always the first of the Irises to bloom, soon will come some burgandy colored ones and then later in summer I'll have some white and perhaps yellow Irises to show you!

Then there are the Bleeding Hearts. I love the way these look! Theoretically they should have blooms well into summer, I'm not sure if they will or not, I just planted this bush last year. Here's hoping for a lot of lovely heart shaped flowers!

Last but certainly not least, the Colombine. No they haven't bloomed yet, and I'm not sure how long it will take for them to open, but they have some nice buds on them! These too I only acquired last year, so I'm not even sure what color they are, doesn't really matter, I'm sure they'll be quite pretty :)

I've never claimed to be any good at photography, and well, you can tell by these pictures, can't ya!?! In my defense, it was such a nice sunny day when I took these pics that I couldn't see the display on the camera, so I had no idea what it was that I was taking pictures of. All I knew for sure was that the flowers I wanted is where I had the camera pointed...lol

Ok ok ok, I cheated, I posted this already in my blog Shades of Grey, but I just barely did, and some of the people who read me there don't come here and vice versa, so it's totally justified as people from both sides have been waiting for this post, so pfft ;)

Catholics Have All The Fun!

I was chatting with my friend Cogi this morning in MSN chat and she had a really funny story to relate to me. She had gone to a funeral last week, but she didn’t tell me the details, such as who’s funeral it was. So saying, I have no idea as to why she felt the need to go. As it is though, this funeral was Catholic based, for reasons unbeknownst to me, she chose to sit in the back row, aisle seat. You know the spot, quick getaway if and when needed. There was this woman sitting next to her who is apparently a real ditz, this information will come in handy for you later.

Anyway, I digress. As the service started with the choir singing robustly, Cogi noticed something pressing up against her backside. Reaching around, she felt a cold metal object protruding out from under her. “Hmm” she thinks to herself, “I’m wearing slacks, I’ll just spread my legs and pull it out from under me, no one should notice!”, and so she does. Well you can imagine her surprise when she realized that it’s the aspergillum (holy water sprinkler thingy for us non-Catholics)! Can’t you just see it, a woman sitting there in church pulling a silver phallus out from between her thighs? As she’s telling me this, all I can think is “NOT good!”

So there she was, just sitting there with the phallus slowly coming out from between her thighs, when the ditz beside her says “Cogi, what are you DOING? What is that thing?” Well, what’s a girl to do but tell her? “It’s the holy water sprinkle thingy”, Cogi replies. “Well why did you have it between your legs?” asks the ditz. “Because the Priest asked me to keep it safe of course!” The look on the woman’s face must have been priceless! Here I am, trying not to wake my kid, and pissing myself with laughter at the same time. I literally had to go and grab a pillow to muffle the noise I was making. How do you not laugh when someone is telling you about pulling a metal object from between her legs in a church? You can’t, it’s impossible!

There I go getting off topic again, sorry about that! Now, where was I? Oh yes, Cogi was pulling a shiny metal object out from between her thighs in Church. Good thing the choir was singing so loudly! She was laughing so hard about the whole thing that she still can’t quit laughing over it. Anyway, here’s Cogi with the holy water sprinkle thingy coming out from between her thighs with a woman staring at her all bug eyed and mouth gaping open when what should Cogi notice? None other than the ushers staring at her with mouths agape as well! By this time, she’s got the thing out from under her and she’s holding it in her hands, right!?! Well, ditz goes “Cogi, you’ve got to get rid of that thing!” “What to do, what to do”, she thinks to herself. Luckily the seat in front of her was vacant so she decided to gently and quietly put it down there. Turning to look at ditz, she calmly asked with a wink and a smile, “Do you think the ushers will send it to the Pope later to have it blessed and re-sanctified? After all, it is an article for religious worship and it was cosied up between a my thigh’s!"

Sorry for the rant, but I needed to get this off my chest!

I've got a real job now as a cook/prep cook at the local hotel. It's a good job, I'm supposed to be a part-time employee, but some pay periods I get 9 shifts. So saying, I have this one co-worker who constantly gripes, bitches and complains about anything and everything. Well today she was grumpier than usual, she's the full-time morning prep cook and I do her job on her day's off, Friday's I'm always the 3'd person on and am there to help the cook and the prep cook get their work done before noon, which is when my Friday shift ends. I walked in this morning, say g'mornin' to everyone, and she looked at me and said "Yeah, whatever" in her grumpiest voice to date. So I'm thinkin' tomorrow when I'm playing the part of the cook, and she comes in an hour after I start I'll have this sign written up on the chalkboard.

What do you think? Good idea, bad idea, silly, what? Somehow though, I doubt that she'll get the joke. After all, there is not a thing I could do the other day to convince her that to unthaw food you have to put it into the freezer. We had a nice 1/2 hour arguement about it to be honest with you. Yep, you read that correctly, for a full 30 minutes I tried to explain how putting the prefix "un" in front of a word makes it mean the opposite of the word alone. I know you all know what I mean, but I'll try to put in most of the conversation anyway. Even if it doesn't help explain anything, it may give you as much of a headache as it did me, or it just may make you chuckle.

"Hey, S"

"Yeah, Skye?"

"Can you get some quiche out of the freezer to thaw for me please?"

"No, but I can unthaw it for you."

"It's already unthawed S, I need it thawed out as there is an order to go for 12 o'clock and they want quiche!"

"Skye, it's not unthawed until it's been out of the freezer and has had a chance to warm up to room temp. How many did you say you need out?"

"S, when you put on your runners, do you tie them up or untie them?"

"I tie them up of course Skye, why, what's this got to do with the quiche?"

"Ok, so you tie them up, good. When you go to take them off, do you untie your laces?"

"Of course I do. Where are you going with this?"

"Just play along with me here, S, just a few more questions. Do tie and untie mean the same thing?"

"Don't be dumb Skye, they are opposite of each other!"

"Good, I'm glad you said that! Now when food goes into the freezer, you freeze it, right?"

"Yes" said with a real quizzical look on her face.

"And you could say that to take it out of the freezer you're unfreezing it, right!?!"

"Ok, that sounds dumb, but yes, unfreeze would be the opposite of freeze, so it works."

"What does thaw mean?"

"I don't understand the question. To get back on topic, you want me to unthaw some quiche so it's ready for you for that lunch order, right?"

And so it went, on and on ad nauseum! If I hadn't been so startled by the stupidity of the whole thing, I would have been able to look at it as if it were the "Who's on first" skit of Abbot and Costello, it made about as much sense.

Anyway, back to today's episode! 

Today she was complaining she was tired and could do with some time off. Without taking time to stop and breathe, she goes on to say that she's broke and needs more hours so she can afford to pay her bills. We just got paid yesterday, how can she be broke already? Hmmm, how does one help with that? Play along with me here, you're the Chef and in charge of making up the schedule. In one hand you have the "I want time off", in the other hand you have the "I want more hours" that one employee is saying to you. What do you do? Do you give said employee more days off, or more hours meaning more shifts? Can't make her happy either way, can you? I tried to help her with this problem of hers, but to no avail, oh well, I tried :D 

Part of the job of being prep cook is making sure that the sauces we make from scratch are available for the cooks as needed. We also need to make sure there are enough sandwich meats cut along with all the lettuce and other vegetables for salads and so forth. I worked prep on Wednesday as she had the day off, the sauces were all good, there was lots of each, so I didn't make any. Yesterday she did prep, didn't need to make up anymore of the sauces. Today she notices that she needs to make a few sauces. Big deal, it takes only a few minutes for each one, none of them are cooked. What does she do though? She complains, "I have to make Honey Dill sauce, Tartar Sauce and Coleslaw dressing! All I ever do is cut meat and make sauces! This is rediculous!" It's all part of being in charge of morning prep. It's Friday, so I'm there just to help her and the cook with extra stuff and put away the stock that gets delivered on Friday's. It's standard operating proceedure, she knows this, I know this. Ok, so I've helped the cook, she has none of the side things left to do besides cook up orders as they come in. Good, that's all out of the way with. So, I go to help S get through her prep list. I ask her "S, is there anything I can do to help you out? Any jobs you really don't want to do?"

"No, Skye, nothing I can think of, as it is I'm going to be out of here by 1:30 there's so little prep to do today, I need to ask Chef for more hours!", and in her next breath "Dammit Skye, why do you get 2 weekends off in a row? I need time off!"

"I get 2 weekends off because we're closed Sunday and Monday due to renovations, you have those day's off as well!"

"It's still not fair Skye, you just had a 3 day weekend and now you get another one, J get's 3 days off this weekend. I better make sure that Chef knows that it's my turn next weekend."

"I'm part-time S, you and J are full-time, I get Tuesday off after the days we're closed so that you and J get your full-time hours. Chef is doing the best he can to keep it fair for the 2 of you to get your hours and still maintain a few hours for me. I only have 3 days of work both this week and next because you asked for more hours!"

And back we go into who's on first, so what do I do? Why I call on Apu from the Quicky Mart in Springfield of course!

"Oh what a cunundrum! I am owner of the Quickie Mart, I'm craving chocolate, but I have no money. I could just take a bar off the shelf and eat it but that would be stealing, and that's against my religion. But, the Quikie Mart belongs to me, therefore everything in here belongs to me, but if I take the chocolate, I can't sell it and then I don't have money to buy chocolate later, oh this is a horrible conundrum, what to do, what to do?"

  Then suddenly he's gone and the Swedish Chef starts to sing "Hm chebork de hmm chebork de boo, trow de shicken in de pot!", followed closely by Eeyore "Oh bother, I dropped my knife!"

While I was finishing up my clean-up and was getting ready to leave, who should come by? Well none other than Ernie of course, singing "Rubber Ducky, you're the one, you make my bathtime, lot's of fun..."

 By this time S is laughing so hard she's got tears in her eyes. Ah, I think to myself, my work here is finally done!

Sometimes having such famous friends can be a bonus :D

If My Body Were A Car

If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model. I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull .... 

But that's not the worst of it. My headlights are out of focus and it's especially hard to see things up close. 

My traction is not as graceful as it once was. I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather. 

My whitewalls are stained with varicose veins. It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed. My fuel rate burns inefficiently. 

But here's the worst of it -- 
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Almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter..... either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!

I got this from an e-mail some time ago, and unfortunately I deleted it without saving the pics :( Now I can't seem to find them to include them here. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did :D

Someone's trying to tell me something!

Ok, so I had that fall on Thursday, but really, does that give blogger the right to give me this as my confirm word at not one, not two, but THREE different blogs I've commented in since then? (Yes, the third time around I decided to save the pic and do a post just about it!)

Alright, alright, I'll be honest! After slicing my thumb at work this morning, perhaps it is somewhat appropo, but still! I'm not a Dunce, clutz perhaps, but Dunce!?! Isn't that what teachers used to have written on a hat and make kids stand in a corner of the classroom wearing when they were dirupting the class? Or perhaps they'd wear it when they made really stupid mistakes in their homework? I think being called a Dunce these last 2 days is just a tad overdone, don't you? 

I'm still laughing, I think it's absolutely hilarious that I'd catch that particular word for varification 3 times in 24 hours.  Perhaps I should do more commenting at others blogs, I may just catch it a few more times today...lol.

Me so DUMB!!!!!

I don't know if any of you know about a kids game called "Grounders", so I'll sort of explain it. One person is "it", and the rest all try not to get caught, so far, basically tag, right!?! Here's the catch, it's played on a jungle gym or other play structure and the person who is "it" has to keep their eyes closed while on the structure, only being allowed to open them when he/she goes to the ground in order to catch someone. Unlike with tag, there is no "safe" place to stand and catch your breath, you're moving constantly, but want to be as quiet as you can so whoever's "it" doesn't have a clue as to where you are. There, I think I've got the basics of it!
Yesterday I seem to have forgotten just how old I am, Munchkin was done her homework and was bored, and she CONVINCED me that it would be a GOOD IDEA to play "Grounders". Oh boy was she ever wrong, it was not a good idea at all, it was a very very very BAD IDEA! Because I had never played the game before, she explained the rules to me, but made changes on my behalf. She decided that I didn't have to have my eyes closed when I'm "it", and that we'd play it with walking only, no running. My goodness she was being nice and considerate of my age! She also decided that she'd be "it" first, fine by me as I knew once I was caught I wouldn't be able to catch her in return, so I just had to keep from getting caught.
Here we are, climbing all over the play structure, I was hiding in the slide tube and on boards under the structure. I'd sneak off the structure onto the sidewalk, anything to keep her from knowing where I was and catching me. The game was going great, I was thinking to myself that we should play this more often! I was getting cocky! Here we had been playing for 15 minutes, and she hadn't even been close to catching me yet, heheheee, I was good!
Suddenly, here I was at a dead end part of the structure, where the only place I could go without her catching me was down the chain ladder. I start to climb down and then it happened. My foot got caught in the chain, and my hands slipped. Down I fell straight onto my tailbone first, then hit my head on our nice pebble ground. I was winded, I was hurt, I was seeing stars. I thought to myself, "Damn I'm dumb, who do you think you are that you could keep an 11 year old vetran of Grounders at bay?"
The good thing is that for 15 minutes we were having fun playing together, not necessarily something we do all that often. Bad news is that my pride was bruised, I got cocky and paid the price. Yeah I still hurt a bit, but that's the price of having fun sometimes. Like Silv said, "It's all fun till someone looses an eye, or in this case, breaks their back!" to which I replied "Yes Daddy!" :D