The antics of my #1 son, the one-boy wrecking ball, continue. Last night, HH grilled steaks. I provided baked potatoes, lovingly buttered for both my boys, and sour-creamed as well for #1. He moved his New York Strip to the edge of his plate so as to facilitate the lake of steak sauce that he poured. He picked up his knife and fork, stabbed that steak, and dumped the whole plate into his lap. I grabbed the New York Strip and put it back on the plate. Half of the baked potato was in no-man's land already, i.e. my kitchen floor. #1 cleaned up the mess. I think he was silently crying over spilt potato.
Tonight, we are grilling hamburgers and hot dogs, corn on the cob, and having a salad of Romaine hearts, broccoli, tomato, fresh Farmer H chicken eggs (boiled), shredded cheddar, and Hidden Valley Ranch Lite. We'll see if #1 can keep in on the table.
I must leave soon to pick up the wrecking ball. He is supposed to get his free athletic physical at school today. Tonight we are packing for his basketball camp. I need to warn him not to be disappointed if he does not get to play much. The handout from the coach said all games will be referreed and coached like a regulation game. There is no guarantee on playing time. Which to me sounds like my boy is paying for the privilege of riding the bench, which I think could be made clearer than those few words on a handout. On the other hand, #1 really wants to go, and all I can tell him is, "If you want to play more, practice and get better." Nobody is going to hand him playing time for moping around wishing he could get in the game. Not that he does. He never complained once all last year. Oh, and the coach told the kids on Saturday that nobody can foul out. Which doesn't sound like a regulation game to me, but anyhoo, he said that one of our players got 19 fouls called on him in a game at camp last year. Which to me would appear that the kid is making a mockery of the game and just hacking at the opponent for fun or because he's lazy. But then again, I'm not a coach.
I'm not such an interesting writer, either. But I wanted to post something now so I'll have time to watch "I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!" tonight. Janice Dickinson and Patty Blagojevich in the Costa Rican jungle. You can't beat that with a stick!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sunday Smorgasbord
No. There's no food here. If that's what you came for, you will be sorely disappointed and very hungry. This is just a Random Thought Thursday on Sunday.
Farmer H moved his chicken coop away from the Mansion. The original 100 feet was not far enough. In doing so, he found a cache of five eggs behind a metal shelf thingy. One of those leghorns was holding out on us. We have been getting 5-6 eggs a day for the last three weeks. What am I going to do with so many eggs? Today, I made some egg salad. The Pony would be perfectly happy having scrambled eggs for every meal. Something tells me this is not healthy for a young Pony.
Have you shopped at The Devil's Playground lately? It's hot a HELL in there! Guess the weather is milder down in Bentonville.
Ice Road Truckers returns tonight. There's also a new show called Expedition Africa that looks decent. Of course, I'm only whiling away the days until Big Brother 11 rears its ugly head.
Is it a bad sign to be seeing black woolly worms crossing the road already? (I haven't been close enough to see if they have black and rust bands of color, but the one I saw by the back door at school during the last week did). I don't remember seeing them this early. I remember seeing them in the fall, because the school kids would always talk about how they predict the severity of winter. Them, and the knife, fork, or spoon shape inside a cut-open persimmon after the first frost, which predicted cold & windy winter, mild winter, and lots of wet snow, respectively. According to an old entry in the Murfreesboro Post: Folklore says that if the woolly worms are abundant, slow-moving, have thicker coats and black bands are wider than the central rust colored band, the winter will be bad. I hope we're not headed for a nuclear winter. Kim Jong Il, that means YOU! Supposedly, other signs of a bad winter are lots of nuts and berries, and many spiders invading the house. I have seen two spiders in my house today, and one earlier in the week. We usually don't have spiders. What do you think we live in, a big ol' outhouse? I haven't checked on the nuts and berries. It all probably means that I have my Mansion thermostat set too cold.
Farmer H moved his chicken coop away from the Mansion. The original 100 feet was not far enough. In doing so, he found a cache of five eggs behind a metal shelf thingy. One of those leghorns was holding out on us. We have been getting 5-6 eggs a day for the last three weeks. What am I going to do with so many eggs? Today, I made some egg salad. The Pony would be perfectly happy having scrambled eggs for every meal. Something tells me this is not healthy for a young Pony.
Have you shopped at The Devil's Playground lately? It's hot a HELL in there! Guess the weather is milder down in Bentonville.
Ice Road Truckers returns tonight. There's also a new show called Expedition Africa that looks decent. Of course, I'm only whiling away the days until Big Brother 11 rears its ugly head.
Is it a bad sign to be seeing black woolly worms crossing the road already? (I haven't been close enough to see if they have black and rust bands of color, but the one I saw by the back door at school during the last week did). I don't remember seeing them this early. I remember seeing them in the fall, because the school kids would always talk about how they predict the severity of winter. Them, and the knife, fork, or spoon shape inside a cut-open persimmon after the first frost, which predicted cold & windy winter, mild winter, and lots of wet snow, respectively. According to an old entry in the Murfreesboro Post: Folklore says that if the woolly worms are abundant, slow-moving, have thicker coats and black bands are wider than the central rust colored band, the winter will be bad. I hope we're not headed for a nuclear winter. Kim Jong Il, that means YOU! Supposedly, other signs of a bad winter are lots of nuts and berries, and many spiders invading the house. I have seen two spiders in my house today, and one earlier in the week. We usually don't have spiders. What do you think we live in, a big ol' outhouse? I haven't checked on the nuts and berries. It all probably means that I have my Mansion thermostat set too cold.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
At Open Gym, Nobody Can Hear You Bleed
I watched my son's basketball open gym today, because I can see him play a lot more there than I ever will during the games. We acknowledge that he is the worst player of those who show up for open gym. There may be somebody more pitiful who will try out for the team later, but right now #1 holds that honor. That does not mean he is really, really bad. He can hold his own. He's just a bit tentative on offense.
There is a glimmer of hope in that he has not been picked last for the teams yet. The first day, that went to the sixth man from #1's 8th grade team. Yesterday and today, the last one was a starter on the 8th grade team. The one who was always saying things about the starters, and whose mom did things for the starters, and who, according to #1, had already made plans for the trip to basketball camp for the starters to ride in his car. It's Karma, baby! Not that I take joy in seeing a little boy picked last. It's just that he should have been a bit more modest. You'd never catch my boy at Academic Team saying, "It's not for you dummies. It's for us geniuses." No. He tried to include everybody, and did not demand the "Captain's Chair" at the end of the table. If another kid ran and sat there, he just took an empty seat. But I imagine this getting picked last at the horse auction of basketball team picking rattled this little boy's psyche. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Of course, my boy was picked next-to-last every day. But he's OK with that. When the coach mixed up the fresh fish with the varsity today, my boy was not assigned the other team's worst player to guard. He got a varsity player to guard, and did not allow him to score at all during two full-court games to 16. AND the best player on the varsity told him "nice pass" one time. I hope he doesn't start demanding that there be a special car for all the nice passers to ride in.
Before the full-court games, the JV team was playing half-court while the coach worked with varsity. When teams were picked for that game, Starter, a captain, chose another starter, Hog, who bossily took over Starter's choosing chore. "I would pick Jumper, but he's afraid to guard Star, so we'll take #1 who will be guarding Star." That's an offer you can't refuse. Anyway, #1 and Star have been best buddies all through school. So what if Star is 6'3"? He is only human.
It was quite a battle in the trenches. No concussion, no foul. There are no refs at open gym. At open gym, nobody can hear you bleed. Star elbowed the bejeepers out of #1, who took it for about 15 minutes, then started dishing it back. He later said, "When Star started elbowing me harder, I did the same thing to him." That's when Star got mad. Then, and when #1 scored on him and Hog needled, "You just got schooled by #1!" Oh, and when #1 whacked him in the face trying to block a shot. Some of these kids take themselves too seriously. Jump a mile in my kid's shoes and maybe you'll have an attitude adjustment. You didn't see #1 puffing up like a blowfish when he was being sandwiched by an elbow-stabber from behind, and being held by a sophomore with a wad of #1's shirt in the front. He just took that abuse sandwich. And got even later, pleasantly. At least he didn't come home with bloody fingernail gouge marks on his arm today.
What goes around comes around, I've heard.
There is a glimmer of hope in that he has not been picked last for the teams yet. The first day, that went to the sixth man from #1's 8th grade team. Yesterday and today, the last one was a starter on the 8th grade team. The one who was always saying things about the starters, and whose mom did things for the starters, and who, according to #1, had already made plans for the trip to basketball camp for the starters to ride in his car. It's Karma, baby! Not that I take joy in seeing a little boy picked last. It's just that he should have been a bit more modest. You'd never catch my boy at Academic Team saying, "It's not for you dummies. It's for us geniuses." No. He tried to include everybody, and did not demand the "Captain's Chair" at the end of the table. If another kid ran and sat there, he just took an empty seat. But I imagine this getting picked last at the horse auction of basketball team picking rattled this little boy's psyche. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Of course, my boy was picked next-to-last every day. But he's OK with that. When the coach mixed up the fresh fish with the varsity today, my boy was not assigned the other team's worst player to guard. He got a varsity player to guard, and did not allow him to score at all during two full-court games to 16. AND the best player on the varsity told him "nice pass" one time. I hope he doesn't start demanding that there be a special car for all the nice passers to ride in.
Before the full-court games, the JV team was playing half-court while the coach worked with varsity. When teams were picked for that game, Starter, a captain, chose another starter, Hog, who bossily took over Starter's choosing chore. "I would pick Jumper, but he's afraid to guard Star, so we'll take #1 who will be guarding Star." That's an offer you can't refuse. Anyway, #1 and Star have been best buddies all through school. So what if Star is 6'3"? He is only human.
It was quite a battle in the trenches. No concussion, no foul. There are no refs at open gym. At open gym, nobody can hear you bleed. Star elbowed the bejeepers out of #1, who took it for about 15 minutes, then started dishing it back. He later said, "When Star started elbowing me harder, I did the same thing to him." That's when Star got mad. Then, and when #1 scored on him and Hog needled, "You just got schooled by #1!" Oh, and when #1 whacked him in the face trying to block a shot. Some of these kids take themselves too seriously. Jump a mile in my kid's shoes and maybe you'll have an attitude adjustment. You didn't see #1 puffing up like a blowfish when he was being sandwiched by an elbow-stabber from behind, and being held by a sophomore with a wad of #1's shirt in the front. He just took that abuse sandwich. And got even later, pleasantly. At least he didn't come home with bloody fingernail gouge marks on his arm today.
What goes around comes around, I've heard.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
I See A Black Roof And I Want To Paint It White
No, it's not Hillbilly Mom's garage band, Mommy's Got A Headache, mangling Paint It Black. It's the dream of the U.S. Energy Secretary, Steven Chu. Not so much HIS dream as the dream of the Obama administration. Whoever that is. Wouldn't Steven Chu himself be one of the Obama administration? But let's move on, there's no time for splitting hairs.
I am confused. Painting the roofs and roadways white would reflect light waves (and thus heat energy) back into the atmosphere instead of absorbing it at the Earth's surface. But there's one little problem. Once reflected, the wavelength of the light energy is longer than the wavelength of the light energy when it arrived here as sunlight. That means that the longer wavelengths can't pass back through the atmosphere easily, like the short-wavelengthed sunlight slipped through. It's trapped. Ever hear of a little thingy called the Greenhouse Effect? Yep. We can reflect that heat energy until the cows come home to their white-roofed barns, plodding down their white-paved roads, and we are not actually making the Earth any cooler. Unless you think white roofs and white roads look cool. We would not be reflecting that heat energy out into space, but only up to the atmosphere, where in a manner of speaking it bounces back to the surface of Earth to be reflected again, much like throwing a superball as hard as you can against the wall of a small room. It bounces back and forth until the energy dissipates. Meanwhile, more sunlight is streaming through the atmosphere every second, and being reflected over and over.
How is this going to make the Earth cooler, people? How? The roads would still reflect that heat into the cars. Houses? They should have attic insulation already, shouldn't they? This wouldn't be much of an effect on their air conditioning usage, and it would probably be offset by the homes in colder climates that would use a bit more energy for heating in the winter.
And what about that energy needed to manufacture all that paint and ship it and painters driving to each house and road to paint them? What about all of those emissions that will enter the atmosphere during the implementations of this plan? Won't they just make more of the greenhouse gases that are holding in the heat?
I'm not getting it.
I am confused. Painting the roofs and roadways white would reflect light waves (and thus heat energy) back into the atmosphere instead of absorbing it at the Earth's surface. But there's one little problem. Once reflected, the wavelength of the light energy is longer than the wavelength of the light energy when it arrived here as sunlight. That means that the longer wavelengths can't pass back through the atmosphere easily, like the short-wavelengthed sunlight slipped through. It's trapped. Ever hear of a little thingy called the Greenhouse Effect? Yep. We can reflect that heat energy until the cows come home to their white-roofed barns, plodding down their white-paved roads, and we are not actually making the Earth any cooler. Unless you think white roofs and white roads look cool. We would not be reflecting that heat energy out into space, but only up to the atmosphere, where in a manner of speaking it bounces back to the surface of Earth to be reflected again, much like throwing a superball as hard as you can against the wall of a small room. It bounces back and forth until the energy dissipates. Meanwhile, more sunlight is streaming through the atmosphere every second, and being reflected over and over.
How is this going to make the Earth cooler, people? How? The roads would still reflect that heat into the cars. Houses? They should have attic insulation already, shouldn't they? This wouldn't be much of an effect on their air conditioning usage, and it would probably be offset by the homes in colder climates that would use a bit more energy for heating in the winter.
And what about that energy needed to manufacture all that paint and ship it and painters driving to each house and road to paint them? What about all of those emissions that will enter the atmosphere during the implementations of this plan? Won't they just make more of the greenhouse gases that are holding in the heat?
I'm not getting it.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Tuesday's Child, He Ain't
The #1 son is off to Tennessee next week to his basketball camp. I am apprehensive. How will he survive on his own? Just today, at summer school, he came to me begging for snack machine money. "C'mon, Mom. Lunch is nasty." What were they serving? Hot ham and cheese sandwiches. That's one of our longest lines during regular school. But no. #1 would rather lunch on a Snickers bar and some Bugles and a Pepsi. I asked what he was going to eat at camp. "Everything. Whatever they serve. I'm sure THEY will have GOOD food." That boy needs a night class in pessimism.
Seriously, I'm worried about him. He is not...how you say...the most coordinated child on the team. I would drape him in bubble wrap if it was socially acceptable. No velvet for me, George Costanza! This morning, I popped into the gym to see what he was up to. He was rooted to the volleyball court. The one time he hit the ball, it came careening down the length of the gym and bounced two inches from the head of a varsity basketball player who was taking a break, flat on her back, unaware that the errant volleyball of death was approaching at warp speed. It bounced, she sat up, and her friend hollered, "What are you trying to do, kill her?" #1 looked accusingly at the kid next to him. "Why'd you do that?" he blamed.
Last night, #1 was eager to get some potato skins out of the oven. As he opened the oven door and bent over, I said, "Be careful, the heating element is..." At that moment, #1 screamed like a schoolgirl, jumped back, and declared, "I burnt myself!" Duh. I was trying to tell him that the heating element was at the top, right where his forearm was headed. Now he has a two-inch troughish hole on the top of his right forearm. Good thing he's left-handed. That thing has a deep valley. It looks like a cut that split open. I suppose he had a blister, but the top skin was incinerated. Thank the Gummi Mary there was no charring. Second-degree burns are good enough for the Hillbilly family. Today, it looked kind of yellowish at the bottom of the trough, though it was not oozy, but had a light scab. I patched him up with some of the Devil's triple-antibiotic ointment and a wide band-aid. He's good to go. Don't want anybody hassling him about spreading staph.
But that's not the end of the calamitous life of the #1 son. I was sorting laundry when he got out of the shower and tracked me down. "Is my eye bleeding?" He meant the skin between his eyebrow and his eyelid. Yes. Yes it was bleeding. Then he said, "Do you want to know how I did that?" Yes. Please enlighten me, you walking, talking, one-boy demolition zone. "I got out of the shower, and as I bent over to dry my feet, I whacked my head on the sink." In a more primitive time, I fear that my genes would not be passed on.
Just for the record, the #1 son was born on a Monday. I guess that little scar won't be too obvious. No more than that scar under his lip from where his teeth went through it in a tragic kitchen-counter swinging incident.
We won't even start on The Pony, who made me swear not to tell anyone that he was born on a Sunday.
Seriously, I'm worried about him. He is not...how you say...the most coordinated child on the team. I would drape him in bubble wrap if it was socially acceptable. No velvet for me, George Costanza! This morning, I popped into the gym to see what he was up to. He was rooted to the volleyball court. The one time he hit the ball, it came careening down the length of the gym and bounced two inches from the head of a varsity basketball player who was taking a break, flat on her back, unaware that the errant volleyball of death was approaching at warp speed. It bounced, she sat up, and her friend hollered, "What are you trying to do, kill her?" #1 looked accusingly at the kid next to him. "Why'd you do that?" he blamed.
Last night, #1 was eager to get some potato skins out of the oven. As he opened the oven door and bent over, I said, "Be careful, the heating element is..." At that moment, #1 screamed like a schoolgirl, jumped back, and declared, "I burnt myself!" Duh. I was trying to tell him that the heating element was at the top, right where his forearm was headed. Now he has a two-inch troughish hole on the top of his right forearm. Good thing he's left-handed. That thing has a deep valley. It looks like a cut that split open. I suppose he had a blister, but the top skin was incinerated. Thank the Gummi Mary there was no charring. Second-degree burns are good enough for the Hillbilly family. Today, it looked kind of yellowish at the bottom of the trough, though it was not oozy, but had a light scab. I patched him up with some of the Devil's triple-antibiotic ointment and a wide band-aid. He's good to go. Don't want anybody hassling him about spreading staph.
But that's not the end of the calamitous life of the #1 son. I was sorting laundry when he got out of the shower and tracked me down. "Is my eye bleeding?" He meant the skin between his eyebrow and his eyelid. Yes. Yes it was bleeding. Then he said, "Do you want to know how I did that?" Yes. Please enlighten me, you walking, talking, one-boy demolition zone. "I got out of the shower, and as I bent over to dry my feet, I whacked my head on the sink." In a more primitive time, I fear that my genes would not be passed on.
- Monday's child is fair of face,
- Tuesday's child is full of grace,
- Wednesday's child is full of woe,
- Thursday's child has far to go,
- Friday's child is loving and giving,
- Saturday's child works hard for a living,
- But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day
- Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.
Just for the record, the #1 son was born on a Monday. I guess that little scar won't be too obvious. No more than that scar under his lip from where his teeth went through it in a tragic kitchen-counter swinging incident.
We won't even start on The Pony, who made me swear not to tell anyone that he was born on a Sunday.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Summer Prison
Excuse me. I am OH SO BUSY tonight, trying to reorder checks online. It is quite an undertaking with dial-up. One of these days, I'm going to move out of my Flintstones world and into the Jetsons age. One of these days.
The #1 son went to his first day of summer school today. He hasn't been to summer school since that summer he was in 3rd grade, and the middle school let him attend as an enrichment kind of thingy. The first day, the counselor left her group of Academic Team people unattended, and they tied my boy to a chair. I KNOW! Kids can be so cruel! What hurt him the most was that a custodian walked in and did nothing. He was not the regular custodian for that building, but one from Elementia. That makes it even worse. Anyhoo, my boy chose not to go back, and I had a few words with the counselor, who laughed like it was all a joke. But it wasn't, not to a 3rd grader tied to a chair by 7th and 8th graders. Those people are lucky that I'm not one to make waves.
Today my boy played volleyball (badly) and basketball, which I wasn't there to see. He reported that the lunch of chicken nuggets included limp, see-through crinkle fries, tasteless pudding in a tiny plastic condiment cup, and no sauce, only ketchup for the nuggets. He would be better off at the baloney sandwich/pink underwear tent prison as far as the food is concerned.
I'm not sure what they're having tomorrow. I heard the Principal announce this morning: "You are each allowed one pop tart and one carton of milk for breakfast." He also wanted an exact lunch count, because "There will be no extras." Times are tough all over. You don't get as much for your free summer school lunch as you used to.
Oh, and in case I didn't mention it...my boy is taking P.E. this summer to get that credit out of the way.
The #1 son went to his first day of summer school today. He hasn't been to summer school since that summer he was in 3rd grade, and the middle school let him attend as an enrichment kind of thingy. The first day, the counselor left her group of Academic Team people unattended, and they tied my boy to a chair. I KNOW! Kids can be so cruel! What hurt him the most was that a custodian walked in and did nothing. He was not the regular custodian for that building, but one from Elementia. That makes it even worse. Anyhoo, my boy chose not to go back, and I had a few words with the counselor, who laughed like it was all a joke. But it wasn't, not to a 3rd grader tied to a chair by 7th and 8th graders. Those people are lucky that I'm not one to make waves.
Today my boy played volleyball (badly) and basketball, which I wasn't there to see. He reported that the lunch of chicken nuggets included limp, see-through crinkle fries, tasteless pudding in a tiny plastic condiment cup, and no sauce, only ketchup for the nuggets. He would be better off at the baloney sandwich/pink underwear tent prison as far as the food is concerned.
I'm not sure what they're having tomorrow. I heard the Principal announce this morning: "You are each allowed one pop tart and one carton of milk for breakfast." He also wanted an exact lunch count, because "There will be no extras." Times are tough all over. You don't get as much for your free summer school lunch as you used to.
Oh, and in case I didn't mention it...my boy is taking P.E. this summer to get that credit out of the way.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Unwanted Gift
HH found a lovely gifton the corner of his
Mini-Mansion today.
No, it's not a sausage-
casing. It's a freakin'
snakeskin! From one
honkin' big reptile!
HH says he doesn't
know what kind of
snake left this skin.
He ventured that it
might have been a
copperhead. Who
knows. Certainly
not me.
HH measured theskin, and found it
to be exactly 60 "
long. That's FIVE
FEET, people! A
five-foot-long snake
was hanging on HH's
cabin!
I hope Farmer H
watches where he
steps. And that it
wasn't a copperhead
skin. I hear they
mate for life. We
don't need another
skin. Really.
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