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A Little Bit of Joan.
Please feel free to e-mail me with your comments:
[Joan]
where she will entertain you with her comments on House, Hugh Laurie and life in general.
What is this country coming to when you can't find a good ball of twine? I mean, how hard should this be? I can find 4, 5 and 6 pound twine, but nothing good and solid like a 10 or 20 pound. I want to tie up bundles of sticks with nasty sharp pointy twigs and no little wimpy 6 pound twine is going to do. On the other hand I can get a nice 70 pound nylon twine, but with a much heftier price tag. STICKS, people! I am going to tie up a bunch of sticks for the woody refuse man to take. (And, yes, I know what sort of comment House would make if I said the phrase "woody refuse man" in his hearing.) I am going to buy this twine for the express purpose of throwing it out. (wait, that doesn't sound right. Let me check my logic. No, that's right. I use the twine almost exclusively to tie up bundles of papers and mags and sticks for recycling. Well, the sticks aren't exactly recycled in that they don't use them to make more sticks, unless they use the chips to mulch a tree and then I guess they go into making more twigs……what was I talking about? The great part of a blog is that I can go back and see what I was talking about, as opposed to real life where the other person and I just look at each other blankly until oh, look a squirrel!)
So, back to twine. So I don't want any gold plated twine if I am just going to dispose of it. I used to be able to find a nice sturdy twine. What happened? Why is there such a huge gap in America's twine coverage (or at least in the twine coverage of the two stores I lugged my butt to looking for twine, but that doesn't seem worthy of the rant I feel like ranting so let's assume that we can conclude from this meager sampling that the problem is widespread.) Who decided that Americans would never want to tie up any bundles between 7 and say 50 pounds? What sort of conspiracy is this? And I do believe there is some sort of twine hanky panky going on, because yesterday I bought a sled for my son and I had to buy the string to pull it with separately. That's right, it came with holes for string, but STRING NOT INCLUDED. String sold separately, for crying out loud. First batteries and now string. When I was a kid, you paid for a sled and it came with a string. FOR FREE. INCLUDED IN THE PRICE. And the string is an integral part of the sled, because how else are you going to haul it back up the hill? How else are you going to mush your toddler to the Qwiki-Mart for bread and milk? Think back to your high-school literature class. Do you think Tom Sawyer would have traded a turn whitewashing the fence for a dead rat if it hadn't come with the string with which to swing it? I think not.
We were petting our cat, Phenyl. He is very laid back. Hubby was petting him and saying "Fenny's a good puddy." "Yes," I said,"He even lets me pet the superfluous fur surface." (Which is how we refer to the cat fatness in general (look at that cat, he's got beaucoup superfluous fur surface) and more specifically that dewlap of skin and fur (and fat) that hangs underneath the cat's abdomen.) So, I'm saying that Fenny tolerates my petting the superfluous fur surface --
and by the way, superfluous fur surface makes a kicking tongue twister. Just try saying it five times fast. Uh-huh. And, to borrow a shtick from columnist Dave Barry, Superfluous Fur Surface would be a great name for a band. Hmmm…Meaghan and the Superfluous Fur Surface…no, that just sounds pornographic. But simply Superfluous Fur Surface, that would work. You know, for the kind of band that plays gigs at places where they put the band in a cage and you're not sure if it is to protect the crowd or protect the band. Like the band at the beginning of Games.
Ok, how weird is this? I am writing my House Fan Fic and I want to make a reference to FMPs, except I don't know how many people know what FMPs are. I heard it in the late nineties and I didn't hear it a lot, so maybe it never went mainstream. A web search for FMP brings up a long list of things that are not what I am looking for. So, just curious if I'll get any hits at all, I type in the actual words. And what do I get? Lyrics for an Amy Winehouse song. You know, the chick that did the "Rehab" song that Fox.com paired with their season 4 teaser. Small world, huh? It's like the Oracle of Bacon where they claim that practically everyone in films can be related to Kevin Bacon in 6 films or less. It's pretty impressive. Hugh has a Bacon number of 2, and so do I. Well, not really, but almost. I lived the first twenty years of my life in my parents' house, which we once left for a week so it could be used in a film called Made in USA. This film starred Chris Penn, who was also in Footloose with Kevin Bacon. Therefore, as far as I am concerned, I have a Bacon number of 2. I've never actually seen the movie, but I saw a music video on YouTube that had about a half second's worth of a scene shot inside my house. I recognized my parent's bedroom door and my bedroom curtain. Tell Kathy Griffin to move over, here I come. D-List, look out.
Happy Farm Show Week! My family really enjoys this. We watched various and sundry, but my favorite is the draft horses in general and the wagon obstacle courses and the pulling contest in particular. These horses are big. Your average riding horse might go about 1200 pounds (say 550 kg if my math isn't faulty). The heavyweight pulling teams can go about 2500 pounds (1130 kg) and easily be 6 feet (just under 2m) at the shoulder. Some of these gentle giants are over 3 feet (1m) across at the chest. They are massive. They hook them to a sled - not a wagon with wheels that can roll, but a sled. On sandy dirt - no snow, even. And they have to pull this cinderblock loaded sled 27.5 feet (just under 9m) for some unknown or long forgotten reason in order to move on to the next round. The winning team did so with a full pull of 12100 pounds (5500 kg). That just blows my mind.
One night we tuned in to see tractor square dancing. Yep. Read it again, I'll wait. Yep. You read it right the first time. Tractor square dancing. Just like regular square dancing, except you are driving a tractor. For a highlight, they even did a revolving chorus line. I kid you not. Guess what color our necks are. I'm pretty certain tractor square dancing is one of Jeff Foxworthy's signs. If it ain't, it should be.
One of the artistic highlights of the farm show is the unveiling of the butter sculpture. Yep, we've hickified sculpture. But it is very well done. http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2008/01/christine_baker_of_the_patriot.html
So yesterday we made our pilgrimage to Mecca. We picked the boy up at lunch time and headed up. We watched some calf penning and then to the food court. Farm Show food court is Nirvana to folks who like good eats. (One of the PCN segments was following our governor, Big Ed around the food court and watching him sample all the wonderful foods. Now that's riveting TV!! The good part was that after being reminded what all there is, I didn't have to make a reconnaissance circuit when we got there.) We got fried cheese (not like you get at the pizza joint) and mushrooms three ways - fried with hot cheese, 'shroom salad and grilled. My son, the philistine, had a hot dog. Yes. An ordinary, run-of-the-mill hot dog. I nearly disowned him. But he's five. What are you gonna do? Next we went to the boy's favorite spot, the big equipment vendors. What five year old doesn't like to climb up on a big backhoe and play Bob the Builder? He loves it! I am bored nearly to tears and standing on concrete. At this point, my husband's headache intensified into a full-blown migraine, so he retreated to the car to sleep. As soon as he was gone, I said, "Son, Mama is bored with the tractors. Let's do something we both like." He suggested we go see the animals, so off we went. Of course we had to cross the food court to get to the animals, so we stopped and had waffles with honey ice cream. Two fresh hot waffles with two very generous scoops of ice cream made with PA dairy and honey. Yum. And at just $3.75, clearly the bargain of the show. That's only a dollar more than a bottle of water cost me. Yes, I paid $2.75 for a bottle of water and it was only ~22 oz. That's more expensive than gas! On to the animals. We saw cows, poultry, goats, and rabbits. There were swine, sheep and horses too, but we didn't go there. The chickens cracked us up. Some of those birds are so funny looking. A call to my husband found him feeling better, but still miserable enough that he said he'd be grateful when I asked if he'd like to go home. So I said we'd work our way back to the other end and leave shortly. We made another visit to the food court, this time for things to go. Admission is free, but man, you can sure burn through a lot of cash at one of these events. I got a quart of lamb stew for supper and a shoofly pie for dessert. Then we restocked our maple syrup supply with two quarts of liquid gold. I can't get the kind I like in the grocery. None of that frou-frou light or medium amber grade A sugar water for me. I like grade B. I like to taste the tree. I also got some red deer products - jerky, summer sausage and sweet baloney. Just for the food to take home, $52. Walking around the farm show all afternoon holding my son's hand and giggling about chickens - priceless.
By this point, my bag weighs close to 50 pounds and I am not exaggerating. Plus I am carrying a pie and a quart of stew. So we head out to the shuttle bus and wait for the next one so we can be first on and I don't have to hoss my freight all the way to the back of the bus. While we are sitting on the bus, waiting for it to fill, doesn't my husband call me to tell me he's feeling better. "That's great, honey, but we're on the bus. I've got perishables and a 50 pound purse. It's going to take an act of God to get me off the bus." And he was ok with that, because he still wasn't feeling great, just better. And so ended our Farm Show visit. We are having some weird weather here. Mother Nature usually treats us to a big ol' snow and/or ice storm and other fun stuff - to the point where the TV weathermen refer to it as Farm Show weather. But not this year. We have freaky weather, but freaky in the other direction. We've had several very mild days, some with highs in the upper sixties. Pennsylvania! In January! Not that I'm complaining about today. It was nice to take down the Christmas lights with out my hands freezing fast to the decorations. Yes, folks, I took down the infamous Christmas display. Took all of 15 minutes.
Well, Christmas is over and another new year is upon us. Not to mention the cat, which is also upon me. And she is not happy. She does not understand the concept of laptop as anything other than a place for her. The idea that there might be something I'd rather have there than her is a completely foreign concept to her. She is still trying to fit in the little space between the laptop and me and giving me a face full of fur in the bargain. Great. Now she is licking my fingers as I type. Yeah, this will work. Darn cat. She simply doesn't understand why I am not fulfilling my primary function. I am just a huge human-shaped heating pad as far as the cat is concerned. "Look," she says, tapping my chest with her paw, "You had better straighten up. The man does the majority of the feeding and scooping. Your major function is to be my auxiliary heat source. If you aren't going to do that, I'm afraid I'm gonna hafta let you go." "But what about the time I spend playing with you?" "Oh, yeah. Where am I going to find another human who can drag bits of string back and forth?" "Look, Furface, you are living here on my dime. It's my name on the deed, not yours and…" and I'm talking to the cat. Maybe I've had enough Christmas 'cheer' and hot buttered rum.
And as long as I’ve got up a good head of steam here, can I talk about Christmas lights? Is this just an American thing or do the Canadians (and others) also indulge in the masochistic pastime of “putting up the lights”? And we do it year after year! This year I was determined to just do a quick and easy decoration outside. No fighting with those lighting nets that look so easy to use, but quickly turn to inflexible polymer in the winter cold. And that bush that you tended and cared for all summer is out to poke you in the eye or at least snag your pocket and throw you off balance when you take that lunging step back out of the landscaping (as we like to call the collection of weeds growing around our house)…Where was I? Tell Cyndi to keep her damn dancing squirrels outta my rant, I’m getting distracted. Ok, bush snagging, balance off…and when you go to take that lunging step outta the landscaping only to be thrown off balance as your coat pocket is snagged by that ungrateful bush and the next thing you know, your butt is wedged in the basement window well and you’re going to have to holler for the neighbor to come rescue you. Umm….geez, I’ve got more tangents than a trigonometry class….ok, yeah,. ..I was doing a quick and easy deco job, or so I thought. Just a big plastic candle on each side of the door and a string of lights around the door. But hubby has forbidden putting holes in the vinyl-clad aluminum (pronounce it however you like) so I have to be creative. This is a challenge I solved years ago, so it should be easy. Except I haven’t used this particular decorating scheme in at least 5 years and I don’t remember all the little tricks. I’m not even sure at first where the two tension rods and two plastic strips I need are hiding. These are found and eventually I get the lights around the door, only to realize that I forgot the tinsel. Oy! Down to the basement to get the tinsel, but I can’t find the piece that I used to use, however in my pack rat lair I find another piece. I want this to be even, so I find the middle of the tinsel and attach that to the middle of the top tension rod. Then I work each side to the corner and down the door, being careful to hide the light wires behind the tinsel. It is tricky, but I’m on top of it now…except that I am done and I have something in the area of three and a half miles of tinsel left. On each side. So I drape tinsel over damn near everything on the front porch. Now, I know I haven’t give you much in the way of evidence to support this statement, but I did think about this decorating in advance. I had planned the layout so that one candle would plug into the light string and then the other candle would plug into the other end of the string and the whole thing into the extension cord and that into the timer. Simple, right? Who knew you needed a polarized plug on the little 7 watt bulb that illuminates the big plastic candle. Now, I ain’t no electrical engineer, but this seems like overkill to me. And of course, the candle isn’t going to plug into the light string, no way, no how. So onto the next plan. This involves an additional timer and extension cord and is thwarted by the fact that the extension cord has three prongs and the timer I need to plug it into only has holes for two. Plan three; thwarted by the fact that the outside outlets have these little doors over them and they don’t swing wide enough to plug in the second timer. Ok, plan four. This one is going to work. Everything fits and all I have to do is plug in the last candle. Just plug it in. Just…where the hell is the plug? That’s right, no plug/light thingy in the second candle. So, ever inventive, I take the cap/flame off, stick in the last light on the string around the door and wedge the cap back on. Now I’m ready. I just have to turn it on and why isn’t the light string lit? ARRRGH. Now, I finally caught a break, because I only had to wiggle 3 out of 35 lights to find the loose one. The whole thing should have taken less than 30 minutes, instead of over 90. Why do we do it? I guess it is like childbirth – after a while you forget just how excruciating it is and go and do it again.
The finished product. Well worth the effort!
January 28th
January 11th.
http://www.agriculture.state.pa.us/farmshow/cwp/view.asp?a=435&q=143314
We take it so seriously that we televise it. You can even watch online, too. http://www.pcntv.com/
Now for those of you who are shaking your finger at us for rendering 900 lbs (I'm tired of doing the math) of prime Pennsylvania dairy product inedible, just cool your jets. We're going to turn it into biodiesel and use it in the tractor. I fertilize you not, friends. http://www.gantdaily.com/news/43/ARTICLE/10169/2008-01-09.html
December 15th
In the abscence of Miss Mo, entertaining her older son and family, well, she says not really, She's entertaining her four year old grandaughter, her son and his wife are just there to coo and ahhh! I am writing a bit in Miss Mo's blog, she asked me to. So here goes, from Joan, she who is even now authoring a continuation of the FF Always and Forever.