Two-steppin' in OK

One step forward...

Oklahoma's oldest radio station switches to Spanish

One step back..
Oklahoma Christian University is apparently reconsidering a proposed policy that would allow the school to fire staff and faculty who get a divorce.

Strange that for a supposed "red" state that proudly decries any attempt to undermine our nations "family values," Oklahoma has an extremely high divorce rate - #2 in the nation in 2002.

Perhaps OCU is trying to address the "family values" issue in their current employee review policy. The article states that OCU will not use this policy to discriminate against prospective employees who are divorced. That's a relief.

But I can hear it now.
OCU Prof. - "You have to stop this affair!"
Unfaithful spouse - "Why because you love me?"
OCU Prof. - "No, because I'm up for tenure and I can't divorce you."

I eat Spam. Why don't you?

A recent email from a ex-coworker buddy of mine in LA prompted a deep craving within for a childhood treat.

Yes, Spam is a CHILDhood treat. For you see, I've been eating Spam since I was a kid.

I blame my father. He was born and raised in Hawaii, and apparently the 50th state has the largest Spam consumption rate per capita. There is an interesting history behind why they like Spam so much over there, but that's for you to research online if you're inclined to do so.

My friend's email goes onto explain how on a recent trip to Hawaii, he was snarfing down a Spam Musubi in the hotel elevator. The tourists sharing his 14 story ride became horrified when he told them what he was eating, "on purpose."

Spam is everywhere. At a recent Hot Rod Show in OKC, we happened upon the SpamMobile, whose happy Spam Staffers were handing out free Spamwich samples and these...

Spam for the person on the go. Good deal.

And if you like it heated up, just stick the single pack under your armpit for a few minutes, and your Spam will be warm and ready to go.

There is a Spam museum which my brother-in-law visited and said was faboo it it's kitchyness. He's not a big Spam eater, but he will eat the bear, elk, deer, duck, squirrel, and fish that he's taken from the wild. Go figure.

Our small town grocery store only carries the regular Spam. I've been buying and consuming the Lite version since it's been available.

Gotta think healthy, right?

Otto speaks!

Otto is my trusty, tried and true 1995 Honda Civic EX, automatic, sunroof, A/C, with a 95-horse VTEC motor, and a FlowMaster 60-series muffler. He was purchased new in the summer of '95 down in sunny Carlsbad, California.

With the exception of the last 9 months, Otto has spent his entire life in the mild climate of sunny So Cal. I'd say I've run his A/C about 75% of my driving time, and maybe used the heater/defroster a few dozen times in the last 10+years before moving to OK.

So it was no surprise when I walked out this morning to start Otto up, and I heard him utter...


"WTF, dude!"

Up from the ashes

Back in May of last year, I blogged an entry on the demise of our small town's one and only movie theater.

Last week S and I were invited to the grand opening ribbon cuttting ceremony at our small towns new 3-screen, state-of-the-art movie complex. We're good buds with the Chamber of Commerce President (she went to high school with my in-laws). Small town, remember.

When the family who owned the old, burned-out theater decided not to rebuild, a group of business owners in town got together, formed a committee of some sort, and decided to write some checks ($250k worth) to kick start the creation of a new movie house in town. Times being what they are, the final budget was 4x the original estimate, but the group sought out Rural development funds, Ag loans and grants to fill the financial gaps.

So here we are, 21-months after the fire and brimstone theater disaster, and I'm taking the girls to their first screening at our small town's new movie house. Our choices were King Kong, Cheaper by the Dozen 2, and The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Since C has been bugging me to see Narnia, off we go, with a $20 bill in hand, the taste of popcorn on our tongues, and the whirlwind anticipation of being transported to a land of adventure and fantasy.

The seats reclined gently, the cupholders held both small and large drinks with ease, the floors weren't yet sticky, and the stadium seating afforded my 6-year old ample viewing clearance around the child's head in the seat directly in front of her.

PK fell asleep about half way through, which was fine since she didn't need to see all the nightmare -inducing-beasties in the climactic battle scene. C, on the other hand, was engrossed in the film for the entire 2 1/2 hours, all the while consuming a child sized popcorn, a snack bag of fruit chewies, a handful of Raisinettes (I shared mine), with a few swigs of Sprite to wash it all down.

While I enjoyed the movie, and enjoyed taking my girls to the movie, and enjoyed the fact that we only had to walk 4 blocks to get to the movie, and enjoyed that I had ample change left over from my $20 bill even after buying our tickets, snacks, and drinks, I felt moments of sadness everytime I looked over and caught C digging the ride.

Let me explain.

I loved the Narnia books as a young boy. My librarian Mom thankfully introduced my brother and I to all the Newberry and Caldecott award winning children's books early on in my life and to this day, both of us are better citizens of this earth because of it.

I fondly recall how these books stimulated something deep inside my youthful soul. My imagination never seemed the same after devouring the C.S. Lewis series and I will forever crave the taste of Turkish Delight.

It is those images, wrought from the depths of my young mind that haunted me as I watched my 6-year old's eyes flickering in the darkened theater. For now, when I read her these books, or she ventures to tackle them as her reading skills develop, I fear that the images spurred from the written word, will forever be influenced by the filmmakers visualization.

My only hope is that C's imagination will overwhelm the memories she has of the movie, and the details outlined on the pages, will stimulate her brain to fill in what the filmmakers had to omit due to time and budget constraints.

I hope.

Long live Aslan!

A bad place to lose a cell phone

You may recall from a previous post that my Father-in-law and I spent a cold day, blowing insulation down our walls and on the upstairs floor.



We got around to laying down the floor boards (carrying 48 - 4x8 sheets of lumber upstairs was NOT fun). It was precarious and almost none of the floor joists were on center - which meant a lot of cutting and trimming the tongue and groove boards - but after a few long days, we had all 1275 square feet of the upstairs floor down.


Of course, I didn't notice that my cell phone had fallen out of my pocket until later in the night, after we had finished laying down the floor. When the house was quiet (about 3:30 in the morning) I called my cell phone, went upstairs and listened.

Yep, you guessed it. It was buried in the insulation, underneath a board in the middle of the room.

Sigh. Only me.

Luckily, we had only tacked the floor down in several places to prevent movement. The major job of screwing in some 1800+ screws to hold the boards down permanently was yet to come.

Facing my Father-in-law the next morning to tell him that we needed to pull up some boards to retrieve my cell phone was one of those things that all guys hate to do -- it was testicle shrinking time, folks. Fortunately, my F-i-l is one of the kindest men in the world. He just smirked and nodded and went ahead with the chore of retrieving my long lost cell phone.

Because of the insulation that blanketed my phone, the ring was very faint to human ears. My 6-year old, however, still has the hearing of a coyote on the hunt, and was able to pinpoint the exact location of the phone beneath the 3/4" floor board.

That's the second valuable item that my house has swallowed and then spit back out for me. You may recall my wedding ring incident.

After I'm gone

Our small towns only dry cleaner died. Just keeled over at her desk. She was 46.

My wife thinks it has to do with all the chemicals they have to use. They sacrifice their lives so that we may have clean suits and shirts.

All these recent deaths have made me start to think about how I want to be remembered after I'm gone.

No funeral services, no graveside services. Just a party at a pizza joint here in my small town and one in So Cal - preferably at an Ameci's (my favorite in LA).

Order a small pizza and a large Diet Coke and set it aside in an empty chair for me. My favorite is sausage (sliced thin, not crumbled), anchovy, garlic, and red onion.

Order a large beer, but only have them fill it half way. It should be ice cold. See, I only like the first taste of beer. After that, it starts to get bitter tasting and warm, and subsequent swallows never match the arousing taste of the first swig.

Put an old Earth, Wind, and Fire CD into a boombox and play it low in the background.

Together, everyone should sing "Burnin' Love" by Elvis as loud and as drunk as sober people can sing (I'm just a hunka, hunka burnin' love).

Everyone should leave after 1 hour - I don't like long parties.

When everyone is leaving, they should all start up their cars at the same time and gun their engines as loud as they will go. Wherever I am (or am not), I'll hear them and will smell the exhaust and smile.

Bonus props to anyone who does a burnout as they leave. Just make sure there aren't any cops around, or they'll get a nasty exhibition of speed ticket.

Whatever is left of me after my organs are harvested for donation is to be cremated. Save half of my ashes to be buried with S, since she insists on keeping her body intact after death and wants to be buried in her family's plot. The other half of my ashes, she can keep around the house, and when she dies, the girls can sprinkle me in the ground at the house.

Preferably somewhere near the garage.

Wasn't even an issue...really, it wasn't

Yesterday, while dipping into our small town WalMart to get some GummiBear Multi-vitamins for the girls...no really, they're for the girls. I prefer Flintstone chewables.

I'm walking through the parking lot and I notice a yellow envelope (you know the kind that the Fed sends you checks in) on the ground, with a receipt sticking out of it...no really, it was an actual Federal-check-sending-envelope.

Something in the back of my mind tells me to "pick it up." And since the back of my mind is where I do most of my thinking (nothing is EVER in the forefront of my mind...no really, it isn't), I pick up the envelope and peer inside.

You guessed it. Cash. Moola. Estados Unidos dinero. Greenbacks. The good stuff. No really, the good stuff and plenty of it.

In addition to the cash, there is a receipt for $125 worth of groceries AND...there is a partial letter.

Insert SIGH here. No really, a big sigh would be appropriate.

The letter had what I believe to be the envelope owners name on it, but no address, phone number, or other identifying information I could use to track this person down.

To the local phone book my fingers went a walkin'.

No one by that name in any of the local exchanges. He wasn't local. No really, he wasn't listed.

To the internet my eyeballs went a ballin'

Google found one hit for him, as a lost alum of a Fraternity at the University of Illinois at Carbondale. Really doubtful this is my guy. Really doubful.

Last night, after showing my wife and daughters what I had found, I seized the opportunity to teach my girls a lesson on "the right thing to do." I called the father of one of C's playmates who happens to be the local Police Chief, no really, he's the top cop in our town.

I told him what was what, and he told me to drop by the station tomorrow and he can help me track down the owner.

Case closed, at least from my end.

So,now that you've read this, you want to know how much money was in the envelope, don't you? No really, you do want to know, don't you.

Well, let's just say it wasn't enough to change our lives, but when it is returned to the rightful owner, it will most certainly make his day.

New Year's Rockin' Eve...at 11 p.m.?

Tape delay is a wonderful thing. Especially at New Year's when you absolutely, positively, must start the new year off watching the waterford crystal ball drop live via satellite in New York's Time Sqare at midnight.

Except in Oklahoma.

The local affiliate station insists on carrying the "live via satellite" literally and broadcast the ball dropping in New York at 11 p.m. local time. No one hour delay to make it coincide with our midnight. No explanation that they are carrying it live, which sends you scrambling to check the correct local time. No warning that your kids will forever wonder why we have to celebrate the new year on Eastern Standard Time, instead of in our own time zone.

Which is why my wife still laughs about being so confused as a kid, wondering what the big fuss was at midnight, when it actually became the new year at 11 p.m. -- according to America's Oldest Living Teenager and his "rockin'" tv show.

So, here we sat at 11 p.m., watching the ball drop and seeing our children jump up and down in celebration of the new year.

Whoopee.

Memorable for all the wrong reasons

Christmas day saw the passing of my daughter's only remaining great-grandmother. My wife's grandmother. My mother-in-law's mother.

Grandma Smith was 91.

Some impressions of our surreal Christmas holiday...

Found another home that followed my guidelines for a box of tissue in every room...a funeral home. Hmm, may have to rethink my guidelines.

My brother-in-law didn't anticipate being a pall bearer at his grandmother's funeral when he packed for his trek home for the holiday, so he had to rent a suit. $100. Custom fit. Nicely tailored for 24-hours notice. Good to know of such things.

My 2 1/2-year old finally grokked what was going down and spent most of the funeral service explaining to people what she had recently figured out. Her exact words to people were, "Gramma Smith is dead."

The funeral home wanted to charge $300 for a "family car" to take the immediate family from the church parking lot to the cemetary. Wouldn't have been such a jaw-dropping amount had it not been for the fact that the church was 100 yards away from the cemetary. The family passed on the limo.

I was astounded by the variety and scope of food that distant family, friends, and well wishers brought by. Generally speaking, bundt cakes seem the most suitable of mourning desserts to me.

I was asked to be a pallbearer for the services, and during my long walk down the aisle, escorting the body of one of the dearest, sweetest ladies I've ever met, all I could think about was the time when S took a 2 1/2-year old C to a funeral, and she blurted out "they're bringing in the box," as the coffin was wheeled into place.

In my eldest daughter's short 6 years of life, she's now buried 3 great-grandmothers.

My wife had one-hour to write up an obituary for her beloved grandmother before the local newspaper publication deadline passed. Here's what she came up with...

Rose Louise Smith, long-time resident of Yukon, died December 25, 2005 at Deaconess Hospital in Oklahoma City after a short illness. She was 91.

Funeral services have been set for 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, at Saint John Catholic Church in Yukon. Burial will follow at the Yukon Cemetery. Arrangements are under the direction of Yanda & Son Funeral Home of Yukon.

Louise was born April 2, 1914 in Oklahoma City, to John and Mae Wedman.

She was a 1932 graduate of Yukon High School. She married Forrest “Cottie” Smith in January of 1935 and raised their three daughters on the Smith family farm north of Yukon. She had a life-long appreciation for clothing, jewelry, and cosmetics and eventually took a job away from the farm, selling women’s fashions for the Halliburton Department Store in downtown Oklahoma City.

She delighted in music and never missed an opportunity to dance or sing, whether it be square dancing, or taking part in a celebration at Saint Ann’s Nursing Home, where she lived most recently. Louise was an active participant in the Saint Ann’s Chapter of the Red Hat Society. She was an artful conversationalist, and prided herself in staying informed of current events. She also held a profound interest in the wide-ranging Oklahoma weather, and possessed an uncanny ability to predict it.

Survivors include daughter and son-in-law Jxxx and Jxxx Wxxx of Yukon; daughter Tina Harmon of Houston, Texas; sister Marie Wedman of Oklahoma City, nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

She was preceded in death by her parents, husband, Forrest, daughter and son-in-law Beverly and Thomas Long, sisters Myrtle Frances Johnson and Aleine Patton, brother Paul Wedman, and great-grandson Grant Hagg.

Peace be with you, Louise.

Dear Santa

Another gem from our local small town newspapers publishing of kids letters to Santa.



5-year old got game.

All I want for Christmas...part 2

Mailboxes are a big "to do" here in my small town.

In addition to the lawn ornament selection you choose to adorn the street side of your abode with, the mailbox you select rates high on the "who-I-am-and-what-personality-I-choose-to-present-to-the-neighborhood" meter.

Here's one I thought presented the perfect picture of form, functionality, and artistic expression.



It's a small block Chevy.

Another familiar face at the post office

No, not the ones posted on the wall under the "Wanted" sign...

This familiar face turned out to be mine. Familiar to someone else, that is.

The story goes, I was standing in line (4 deep, 1 window open, but I was the only one not grumbling about it -- hey, people, try standing in line less than a week before Christmas at the Burbank Main Post Office -- if you can even get IN the building).

The kindly woman in front of me turns around and says point blank to my face, "don't you live close by?"

Taken aback slightly, I recovered and responded, "Why yes, I do...just a few houses away."

Donning a large grin and nodding her head, she replied, "I thought so...you found my son's phone!"

Let me explain.

Several months back, I found a brand spankin' new flip-up Verizon cell phone lying in a 4-way intersection, open and on. Since I was on my way to drop C off at school, I simply grabbed it, tossed it onto the floor of my car, and zoomed off.

After the fracas of the morning school drop-off (enter from the north, exit from the south, keep the line moving, don't shut off your motor...) I returned home and preceded to try to track down the owner of the phone.

First name on the address list was "Dad." I called him.
Dad - Hello
Me - Hi, I found this cell ph--
Dad - Who's this?
Me - My name is Xxxxx and I found this cell phone---
Dad - Sorry, what -- I don't know anyone -- what -- hold on, my son wants to talk to you.
Some familiar fumbling and tussling sounds eminate from the speaker before the line goes dead. Call dropped.
I call Dad again.
Dad - Hello
Me - Hi, me again.
Dad - Oh, it's that same feller..here, you talk to him, I can't hear him that well...
His son gets on the line, we clear it all up and he's going to come by my house to pick it up. Apparently he was on his way to the airport, opened his door, the phone fell out of his jacket pocket, and they've been driving around for 20 minutes looking for it.

I gave him my address, directions from where they were (3 blocks away), a description of my house, landmarks, even a quick rundown of what I looked like (dashingly handsome, early-40's cross between an Asian-Elvis -- before he got really phat, and Bolo, the ugly bad guy from "Enter the Dragon").

I told him I'd keep HIS cell phone on me and to call HIS cell phone if he got lost. He asked for my cell phone #, just in case, which I don't understand why he wanted it, but I gave it to him anyway.

10 minutes later, no sign of them. I have HIS cell phone which hasn't rung. I go inside to find MY cell phone ringing.
Yep, it's them. Why he didn't call his own cell phone is beyond me. Maybe he was short on minutes.

I answer MY cell phone, go back to my front porch to play disaster-movie-air traffic controller and talk him in.

A quick 180 degree scan finds him sitting at the intersection diagonal to me, talking on his Dad's cell phone, scanning the street for me and my house.

I can see his face. I can see his Dad's face. I can see his panic stricken eyes darting up and down the street.

I resort to wild arm gesticulations to get his attention.

His eagle eye spots me. They're headed my way, but have to navigate the 4-lane highway to get to me.

I lower my arms in calm relief. Mistake.

The iron grip I had on the phone a split second ago has been replaced by the unguarded feeling of final release. The phone, their phone, HIS phone, plummets to the ground proximal to my slipper clad feet.

It bounces. I scramble. It doesn't shatter. No harm done.

They pull in to the driveway. Did they see?

Apparently not.

They were in a rush, but very appreciative and the Dad seemed happier than the Son to get the phone back. Handshakes were exchanged, nods and smiles were the norm, and they headed back south, never to cross my life path again.

Until today.

The mother-of-the-son-whose-cell-phone-I-found and I had a nice chat reliving the events of that morning, and she expressed her appreciation for what I did.

Guess she figured that there are so few of us Asian-Elvis / Bolo looking guys in town, that I must have been the one who found/returned her son's phone.

What would my small town do without me?

For a companion story to this one, go here

A sight of the suburbs, in my small town

Spotted this a few streets down from our house...


Take a closer look...


The sight of the random pair of sneakers hanging from a power line strangely filled me with a sense of satisfying familiarity.

Good to know that kids here are basically the same as those I grew up with in East LA, so many years ago.

A sight to behold indeed.

The blowing of the cellulose

"Cellulose settles into voids and gaps, producing a monolithic, blanket-like thermal barrier."
Our 100-year old house had very little insulation. The walls were void of fiberglass. The floors were nil on cellulose. The Oklahoma wind made it's home in our home via the pathetic use of Wal-mart caulk-in-a-tube around the windows.
Something had to be done, and so it began.
The bags of cellulose was bought.
The contraption to blast it was borrowed.
The blowing of the insulation has begun.
My father-in-law was upstairs, adeptly using his man-sized hands to man-handle the long and thick manly hose and remote control (with variable blower control..how manly).

I was outside, standing tall in the back of his 5-year old Tacoma alongside the $50-a-day rented insulation blower contraption. Basically, it's a 55- gallon plastic drum sitting atop a large fan with a hose coming out of the bottom.

Imagine a big, heavy, overweight, ugly, blue single legged octopus.

It was my duty to feed the octopus a seemingly endless supply of cellulose, lifting and slicing open the 25 lb. bags and stuffing the overpriced, minutely shredded-up and compacted newspaper into the hopper, being careful not to get my fingers stuck in the rotating blades of death that mercilessly sends the hapless cellulose onto it's one-way-trip via the blower hose.

The wind ravaged outside, between 20 and 30 mph. Temps were in the low 40's, so I couldn't don my normal attire of bermudas and a t-shirt.

Yes, I felt very wussy putting on an insulated shirt, long pants, and gloves.
Yes, I am ashamed that the many passers-by who smiled and commented, "blowing some insulation?" didn't get to see my fantastic muscular legs.
Yes, I'll turn in my "California Dude" license that states I must wear shorts whenever making a trek outdoors.

But I was warm, it was freaking cold (wind chill put the temps below 29 degrees), and I wasn't too happy anytime the north-westerly blew some precious cellulose out of the big blue hopper and into my already squinted eyes.

We ended up blowing over 40 bags into the old lathe-and-plaster walls, and onto the upstairs floor.

For you home improvement uber geeks, that's equivalent to an R value of 25 for the upstairs alone.

Booyah Oklahoma winter. Bring it!

Unplugging

Relatively nice evening. Temp at 11:21 p.m. is a warm 38 degrees. No freezing tonight.

I trek outside the front door, my feet snugly tucked into my $2.99 slippers from Wal-Mart as I step onto the front porch to unplug the christmas decor that currently adorns our 100-year old house on main street, small town, Oklahoma.

I unplug the yellow cord, which puts to sleep both the tall and short vintage plastic Santa figures that my wife is so fond of. Tall Santa is fading fast, the jolly red of his suit and cheeks now a pasty pale pink, as time and use have weathered him to a lighter shade of his former self.

Short Santa manages to stand tall in the winds that nightly whip down the main highway, his position secure in the knowledge that the socks we filled with rocks and dirt are safely tucked away inside his and all of our figures plastic poly-formed feet.

I unplug the red cord which darkens the three plastic snowmen, all of them wondering how they could all possess such distinct facial expressions.
"Happy Snowman" to my left, "Mildly Jocular Snowman" to my right, and "Sad Clown-faced Snowman" hanging out close to the doorway.

The main strings of lights hung below the eaves of the front go dark as well. I prefer the big, old, colorful bulbs to the contemporary look of the hanging icicles, or the saturated hues of the rope lights, or the overpowering brilliance of the walls of twinkling, gigawatt strings of white lights.

Red, green, blue, white, orange.
Red, green, blue, white, orange.
Red, green, blue, white, orange.

I watch the inflatable penguins, in the inflatable snow dome deflate, as I unplug the green and final plug. This was a recent addition to our holiday menagerie, and we seem to be the only one's in our small town to be proudly displaying it on our front lawn. If you've never seen one, look here.

Shut up, it was a gift from a brother-in-law who seems as fond of presenting these types of thing to his sister, as he does tormenting me with these very same things.

The final light display is inside, so I bid my fellow front porch sitters a fond winter's night, and head back inside, my feet cowardly seeking more warmth than my Wal-Mart slippers can apparently provide.

Our 9-foot fake Douglas Fir sits in the front room, it's 1800 pre-lit twinkling white lights filling the large 6"x 6" plate glass window that dominates the front view of the large room. My big toe emerges from the warmth of the discount store bought slipper to adeptly hit the switch on the power strip.

The fir descends into darkness.

Just another night's end in the life of the kitschy Christmas decor we love so dearly.

All I want for Christmas...

Spotted this in a salvage yard a few miles down Route 66 from my in-laws place...



Doesn't every good boy deserve the nose cone from a P-40 vintage WWII fighter? At least, it's painted to look like a Flying Tiger.

Small town Christmas parade

The other night, we bundled up the kiddies and made the two-block trek in 39 degree weather to lend our body count to our small town's annual Christmas Parade.

First of all, they still call it a Christmas parade here, not a Happy Holiday Parade, or Season's Greetings Parade, or Joyous Season Parade.

Political correctness has no place in my small town.

The parade consisted of the requisite pickup trucks pulling flatbed trailers, filled with freezing, candy-tossing townsfolk bundled up in either OU or OSU stadium blankets.

We waved, they tossed candy, PK and C gathered it up.

Then there were a couple tractors, a couple classic cars, a couple hot rods, a couple harley riders, the fire department, the police department, three Shriners in wheelie-poppin' dune buggies, an all-female color guard, the high school marching band, the local dance school ankle-biters adorned in holiday wrapped cardboard boxes, a few entries by the main commercial entities in town, and of course, Santa made an appearance -- as a blow up lawn ornament figure on the back of a trailer.

Everyone was tossing candy. Everyone was freezing their smiles off. Everyone was in the holiday spirit.

The girls came home with a half-grocery sack full of candy and this item, being handed out the by local Methodist Church.



I take it Mary and Joseph didn't have spell check on their computer.

Really putting my foot into it

Stumble/bumble stay-at-home-Dad + Lath and plaster walls and ceiling = constant repair work.

My Father-in-law and I were pulling new wire for the ceiling fans/lights. This was the last step in our on-going efforts to replace all the old copper in this house. The old wiring is circa 1940's, non-grounded and generally pretty nasty.

With the floor boards pulled up in the upstairs area, you have to be very careful walking around up there.

Anyone who knows me knows that careful is not in my vocabulary.

And through the floor/ceiling my foot went.



The patch I made and installed was a pretty nifty job (if I say so myself). But it will all be in vain as this will all be covered up by wallboard in the near future -- hiding that nasty 70's cottage cheese ceililng.



S calls me "one-step-forward, two-steps-back" construction guy.

Quote of the day, when my F-I-L came down and saw the hole, he simply muttered, "well, sheeee-it."

Never too young

My Father-in-law tells me that last weekend was the end of deer hunting season (with a rifle...there is also black powder deer hunting season, bow deer hunting season, and they may add wrist rocket deer hunting season in the near future).

Given that, this will probably be my last post of deer kill pics from our local paper for awhile.

Course, it is rabbit season now.
Or is it duck season.

Rabbit season.
Duck season.

Rabbit season.
Duck season.

Picture # 1 - sweet "siblings-on-their-first-hunt" story on the surface. But something tells me that big brother knew a big old buck would be following the doe he "let" his sister take down. Still, they seem pretty happy with their kills, don't they.



Here's the poster child for youth activities in rural environments.



Nightmare #42 - C - "Daddy, I'd like you to meet Dex...my new boyfriend."

Oh, I'm sure he's a good enough fella...from waaaaay over there.

Buying chickens

Yesterday, I took my mom to our one and only local small town market to get a whole chicken. Being a mom, she wanted to make some homemade chicken soup.

As they will on occasion, the meat department was running low on some items.

Flank steak
Fresh bratwurst
Whole chickens

Figures.

Our search for a whole chicken to cook and consume reminded my mom of something my dad talked about doing when he was a kid.

A little background first. My dad grew up in a small house in a small camp on the outskirts of a small town on a small island in a small state in the middle of a very large ocean. If you guessed Rhode Island, go back and study your U.S. geography.

For fun and adventure, my dad and his siblings would experiment with the digestive systems of the various animals they would find around the house or neighborhood. One day (I can only imagine what inspired him to think of it) he fed some kite string to a chicken, then excitedly waited to see how long it would take to exit said chicken.

And, when one experiment is a success, shouldn't it be followed up by another?

Taking the end of the string that had not yet fully exited one chicken, he fed it to another. I guess chickens don't have much of a gag reflex, since by the end of his experiment he had 4 chickens "strung" together on the single piece of string.

For those of you who are having a hard time grokking this in your minds eye, it must have looked something like this...


I never found out if he tried to "pull" the string out of the four-chicken-string-kabob.