My Town Shoot Out - Outdoor Food

This week's theme courtesy of Girlichef is Outdoor Food. I had another fur butt encounter that caused me to use these shots for the theme. I encourage you to go and see everyone's contributions here!
This is our cat. She is a good mouser. She brought this one into the house and after I chased them both outside, I was convinced the mouse would scurry to a safer place. I think he either had a death wish, or wanted to play.

She's got this thing in her mouth, and I've locked them both outside. The last think I need is another smelly bloated carcass turning up.She played with this pour or perhaps misguided mouse for a good 2 hours, and I never did find it dead later, so maybe they are now playmates...She doesn't really like her cat food, and so has been supplementing with rodents. I think the Jays like her food though!

ABC Wednesday - B is for Butterflies

For the rest of the Alphabet soup, folow the link above!

Sunday Evening Weekend Wrap Up

This was a tiring weekend. Friday at work was tiring. People in general are making me tired. Living with a bipolar person is tiring. the heat tonight is tiring. Well enough about the tiring things, and on to why I am really tired.
Friday was the usual neighborhood kids hanging out in the afternoon and evening. Friday night I went to bed early, on purpose, but The Dog had other ideas. He's 15, and usually a very mellow being, lazing about the house all day and night. Not Friday night, ohhh noooooo, he paced the hallway and our bedroom for 2 hours in the middle of the night, sending The Dude out in case he needed a restroom break, and bringing his water in for him. He FINALLY settled down, and about an hour later I had to get up and use the restroom, and an hour after that, so did The Dude. By Saturday morning I was fried.
Saturday was another swim meet, at the pool I grew up going to, in the neighborhood where my parents still live. The boys had fun, and I was second shift timer partnered with a guy who was a bit of a tool. I replaced the person he was initially partnered with because he complained about her. He also yelled at a bunch of the kids, and at one of our coaches. Really he was kind of a heart attack waiting to happen. I mean really, this is summer league swimming, not the Olympics... It took a great deal of energy just to deal with all of the negative vibes going on. Following the meet I just wanted to come home and relax, but the neighborhood kids hung out for a couple more hours, while The Dude napped. I unpacked the car from the meet and repacked it for the Swim team sleep over. You read that right. Think tent and sleeping bags, swimming, a slide show and movies, BBQ, potluck, dessert, snacks, not much actual sleeping, early morning, bagel and coffee, tear down and repack the car. The Boys had a complete blast with their cousins and friends, and didn't ever want to get out of the pool. In fact the first thing I heard from them this morning was if they could go in the pool. This was at 7:30, after having gone to bed at 11:00.
Got everything torn down and leaned up, and The Boys got to swim for about another 90 minutes before it was getting unbearably hot for me, and I wanted to come home, take a shower and nap. Instead, we got home, I unloaded the car, did dishes and laundry, and The Dude went to work, and napped when he got home. The neighbor kids were back, but only for a short while until The Youngest threw a meltdown fit. The Boys were just as tired as I was, and didn't even want to nap. The Oldest is now on a Queen kick asking me to add We Are The Champions and Bohemian Rhapsody to his ipod. I added a few others I thought he'd like, and we lost him to the ear buds pretty much the rest of the day after that. Pizza for dinner, and I needed another shower to cool off. I just hope everyone sleeps through the night tonight so that I am moderately rested for work tomorrow.

Sunday Stills - Toys

Today I took my inspiration from the two places I will site a t the bottom. If you want to see the rest of the participants, which I suggest you do - go! do it now! GO HERE

"Woody, we seem to have landed in a mysterious place, far from home!"

"Buzz, this is just our backyard."

"It most certainly is not our backyard, Woody. See this oddly shaped gourd? What evil genius is growing this?"

"Buzz, it is not odd, nor is the grower evil. It's a pumpkin. For Halloween? and the grower is J9, hardly evil at all.""I still don't trust her, she has a past. I'm going to look for a way back home.""Buzz, just stop messing around in the tomatoes, and get up here! See, look in the window - that's the kitchen."

"Right, and I suppose those upside down tomatoes are just a good idea?"

"Well, I'd say they are a little creepy, but evil? No Buzz. Now let's go through the dog door and get back to the toys before they think I tried to kill you again."So that's my borrowing of Toys for this week!
I was going to do Lego Indiana Jones, until I saw this.
And the following made me laugh so hard - the language is NSFW, but really REALLY funny.

Reflections on Life

Today's Friday Shoot out can be seen below, but I've been doing a bit of reflecting on life lately.

I have sung his praises before, but Nick James is an amazing philosopher for one of such young age. His post of 7/16 struck me, especially this excerpt:
"Life doesn't always happen the way it should. The "way it should" is actually only the way you think it should. Once we clear our minds of of we think things should happen and just open our minds to see how things pan out naturally, we will end up feeling more triumph than failure."

This is nothing new or Earth shattering for a revelation, and it seems perfectly natural a thought to occur to a 20 something. What struck me is that at over double his age, I sometimes forget this. I need to be reminded of these things as I get caught up in the morass of day to day living.

Today, while combing the Friday shoot-out participants I found a couple of helpful things. First from Kimberly at Life is Now a quote from Thomas Merton:
“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”
Then this gem from Sherri of Painting is just another way of keeping a diary... :

Which got me thinking of this song, and made me smile:

My Town Shoot Out - Reflections

This week's theme courtesy of Audrey is Reflections. I did spend a portion of the week trying to chase down a photo I'd taken decades ago, with no luck, so I had to kind of improvise. I encourage you to go and see everyone's contributions here!

This first shot was taken in my home, looking down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

This shot was taken in my kitchen, looking up into my garden window, the reflection of some dirt, bricks, garden hose and soccer ball bungee laying in the back yard.This is my favorite of the reflections shots this week. Taken in my backyard, the side fence on the left, and the reflection of same in my garden window on the left along with the other half of the fence.Because these seemed rather anemic, I dug through my archives for additional images. The below image was taken this past Spring at Shannon Center:Taken this past winter on a walk through my neighborhood:Taken in 2007, in our local Hooters:Taken about a year ago in Yellowstone:

Wicked Wednesdays #1

Well, well, well... It seems like you all want a Wicked Wednesday, and so I intend to please. This all began last week with this post. So I guess I'll regale you with a night of drinking that went horribly, horribly wrong. If you are under the age of consent for wherever you live in the universe, take these as cautionary tales. If you are like me and have had your share of poor judgement moments, then we can laugh together.
Yes that is a picture of me with a lampshade on my head, doing the shimmy. I will not be posting the names of my cohorts in these wanton ways, but for clarification, will identify them by an initial of their names.

It was one of my college years at UC Santa Cruz, where I was probably majoring in nothing at the time, or perhaps I was still trying to decide between Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Archeology, Physics, Linguistics, or Math. Or maybe I had already broken my parents' hearts and declared Theater Arts as my major... At any rate, I decided to visit my friend "D" at Humbolt State. After a REALLY Looooooong drive, by myself, where I almost ran out of gas and nearly hit a buck crossing the desolate highway, I managed to arrive alive and in one piece. Oh, and needing a drink.

I must take a moment to mention that UCSC and Humbolt are known for a certain weed that is rolled and smoked. However I was never into it, so I was happy sitting and watching people take a bong hit, then run the stairs while holding their breath. And I did love to screw around with people who were high, asking such greatly amusing questions as, "Don't your teeth itch?" and "What do your eyeballs say?" I know, what a horrible bitch I was...

We were drinking Root Beer Schnapps on ice and is was going down far too quickly on an empty stomach, so we headed to one of D's friends and the store (likely a 7-11). For some ungodly reason I thought Fritos would settle my stomach and soak up some of the alcohol. I ate an entire bag. Then "D", and her friend / boyfriend "M", or maybe it was "P" thought a cinnamon milkshake would be the ticket. Let me assure you that it was not. Placing ice cream, milk, and cinnamon on top of alcohol, fritos and stomach acid was a very bad idea. Very bad indeed. I ended up passing out in D's room, and she and her roommate "S" placed me on my stomach with a garbage can nearby. I vomited into that can for what seemed like days, but was really several hours. I'm not quite sure if or how "D" or "S" slept. I seem to recall "S" being particularly nice about cleaning up, while "D" was clearly in the "You made the mess, you clean it up" mood. Hungover and feeling like death on a stick, I made my way back to Santa Cruz. I actually think I didn't have another drink with "D" until we were both well out of college. She probably still either holds that evening against me, or laughs her ass off when she thinks of it!