Entry for May 30, 2007 - A Street Cart Named Desire...

Hoping to make "the Big Time", Wukky and Gloggy take to the streets to pedal their wares....(t-shirts that is)...to make enough money to pursue their recent ambitions...

Calling themselves the ...Knickerboxer twins,..... the twosome set their hopes of being on Blogway. Not exactly the Tom Jones types, they dream of adoring and crazed fans throwing knickers at them while on the stage.

Many have come before them, with their own dreams crushed and their lives a shattered mess. Undaunted they continue their quest to be the next singing sensations....

A sensation they are.... of what, is anyone's guess.....

Entry for May 25, 2007 - Misfortune...

Having almost lived down the snake in my knickers episode, it wasn't till logging on to 360 this morning, I was to learn that my snake may have moved on, but my knickers seem to have come into a life of their own,...compliments of Wukky, Gloggy, and other assorted "characters" the world over. As I snickered and giggled and mumbled under my breath that more than one person may be going down today, I pondered what kind of paybacks to give to my down-under friend and his band of merry blog-men....

So I took myself off to town, and found myself at a local fair and in front of a roaming gypsy- fortune teller, in a travel trailer. Looking vaguely familiar and being somewhat skeptical at first, I asked if she would read my palm and see into the future. For a mere 5 bucks she would tell me all I needed to know, so I stepped inside her dark trailer and she grabbed the money and then grabbed my palm. She "hmmmmm'd" a lot,.... peering closer at my hand before telling me that I would come across a tall, dark, handsome stranger. I got excited and whispered tell me more. She squinted hard, and exclaimed no....no he wasn't quite as tall or as dark or as handsome as she first thought but he was definitely strange. I sighed,... that sounded like most of the men that I came across.

The gypsy fortune teller than gazed into her crystal ball. I leaned in and whispered, "now what do you see?" ..."It's very hazey," she exclaimed as she held out her hand for another 5 bucks... which I forked over. "Ah yes, I can see clearer now, I see.....I see in a far off land... a man, ...no wait...two men..... giggling and snorting and cavorting over big knickers"......

"Yes!...Yes!...that's him, that's Wukky and Gloggy....What else?" I whispered....

She shrugged her shoulders, held out her hand again for another 5 dollars, and mumbled about the high price of gas for travel trailers. I grudgingly handed over the money. She rubbed her hands over the crystal ball and looked at the crystal ball....then at me...then back at the crystal ball...then back at me, and she grinned. ..."I see a dark red fog", she exclaimed...

I frowned...

She then threw up her hands and yelled, ..."wait....wait"... "I see you going into battle, and you must be prepared".....

Nervously I gulped, "how?"....

She held out her hand again, and I gave her my last five bucks. She then went around the travel trailer closing all the curtains, mumbling some gibberish and waving a rubber chicken wildly in the air... and then quietly slid an object across the table to me. She winked and nodded at me, and as I picked up the object......I nodded back... it would do...it was perfect...



">.


Poor Wukky... I almost start to feel a bit sorry for him,... but then I just smile and drive the point in a little deeper...

Perhaps tomorrow I will go back to find the gypsy fortune teller and ask her about hexes. Just a small one to place on a few other cohorts....a hex on elasticated stockings, and waistbands, and anything else that should have some stretch......but doesn't....

Entry for May 18, 2007 - Scheming...

Entry for May 10, 2007 - Snake Update...

Elvis has left the building...


I am happy to report that my unwanted houseguest that I blogged about yesterday has vacated the premises. The snake, (who I have dubbed Elvis Downey Jr.) ended up spending the night in the laundry room with the door shut tight, and as many towels as I could stuff under it without breaking the door. If he was intent on staying the night, I was intent on him staying in the laundry room. I have to admit I left some lights on. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind I thought I had heard that they didn't like light,... but mostly I left the lights on for me. The softest rustle or noise and I was up checking and rechecking the door. Fort Knox would have been easier to break out of or into...

Today I awoke and peeked inside the room and didn't see him. I knew he was there though, ...somewhere. I decided that I would run the washer and the dryer in hopes he would emerge from wherever it was he was stashed. It was awhile after the washing machine had ended it's cycle before I went to recheck for "Elvis". I cautiously opened the door, my eyes scanning the floor for the form of a snake slithering across it. My eyes were automatically drawn to the top of the dryer next to the washing machine. There,... as if to mock me, was the snake,...his tail wrapped around a clear plastic pitcher I had hunted up to use to scoop him up into,... whenever I found him.

I mentally kicked myself.

His head waved.

I tried to coax him with a dustpan into a tiny trashcan. He had other ideas and dived across the machine and into linty oblivion behind the dryer.

I was getting a bit desperate by this time. I googled on-line and read about snakes. I wanted him gone. I didn't even know what kind he was. He had no stripes. It wasn't one of those friendly garter snakes. He was greyish with big brown splotches on his body. After reading on the snakes of Nebraska, I had narrowed it down to two possibilites, either a Bull snake, or the venomous Prairie rattlesnake. Nevermind that the prairie rattler is only found in the western two thirds of Nebraska and I live in the southeast, or that I didn't hear or see any rattle... If there is one thing I know, it is that anything is possible around here.

There was then a knock at my door, no it wasn't the snake, but one of my neighbors. After some hemming and hawing I finally blurted out,... I need help,... I have got a snake. After many assurances that I was not kidding, my neighbor graciously offered to help rid me of my snake squatter. He crawled on the floor looking for it. I stood by with a death grip on a broom. We ran the washer and dryer again, while he ran a yardstick under the appliances,and under the cabinets. I continued vigil with the broom. We were both ready to give up when there was no response, and no snake.

It was after a few more pokes and prods around the room that we found it. He was curled up in the laundry basket... with my unmentionables. There is nothing quite like the embarassment of having your neighbor save you from a tiny snake AND carry your laundry outside to rifle thru your knickers for him.

....(okay it is at this point I want to warn all of you on any comments you leave on this blog to keep it clean! ... and yes the irony has not escaped me....)

I do give my neighbor guy kudos though, he kept a straight face thru most of the snake ordeal. He wasn't sure what kind of snake it was either, but he assured me it probably was harmless and that he hated to kill snakes as they are very beneficial. He asked if he could let it loose in my garden and I mumbled "okay", while the girly part of me wanted to yell, "kill it, kill it, off with it's head". Before my neighbor left, he winked at me and said, "now the snake had to be at least 3 feet long, right?" I stuck my tongue out and retorted it was at least that big and tomorrow it might be even bigger.

I am sure it will be all over town,... if it isn't already....


Snakes in my unmentionables....


It's going to take awhile to live this one down.

Entry for May 09, 2007 - Damsel in Distress...

Help...

I have an intruder.

Stealthly he snuck in when my back was turned, and I wasn't looking.

But I saw him...

Saw him quietly looking around, so calm, so cool, so sinister....

There is a snake in my laundry room.....

I am almost certain if I were to step back in the laundry room, he would slither over, his body wrapping around one of my legs while I was adding the fabric softner during the rinse cycle. He would then wrestle me to the ground while coiling further and further up my body till he squeezed the very life breath from me before striking with his killer venomous bite. The neighbors wouldn't find me till days later, just a mummified corpse with that april fresh smell.

Okay maybe he isn't a king cobra, or a python, but he is bigger than a worm. A really, really big worm. As I sit here typing my blog with a spatula near by for protection and a towel stuffed under the door I am gulping nervously....

Will he spring at me when I turn the handle and crack the door open? Will he strike and bite me as I reach for the clothes basket? Will he go ahead and put in my second load of clothes for me?

(sigh)...

I can't handle drama so early in the day...

Entry for May 08, 2007 - Rain

When it rains, it pours....and pours and pours and pours.

This past week-end I was inundated with rain. thunder, lightning, wind, small hail, tornado watches and warnings and all of that other weather related stuff.

Usually I don't mind the rain. A soft drizzle on a cloudy day makes for a good excuse to curl up with a book or watch an old black and white movie on tv,but this past week-end it was a driving rain. It seemed to never stop.

Friday night it rained hard, it had thundered and flashed lightning all evening....when I heard it.. That unmistakable crack and boom that makes you sit straight up and just know something was hit by lightning. I even thought a tree fell on the house it was so loud. The next day I couldn't see any damage though, but I know somewhere it struck, I just couldn't see it. My eyes automatically were drawn to a tree in my front yard. It's a beautiful tree, a walnut tree, so straight and branched perfectly. It's still what I consider a rather young tree even though it's circumference must be close to 20 inches. It's not the biggest tree, nor the tallest, but it was the most perfect in form. Or it use to be. A couple of years ago it was struck by lightning. They say lightning never strikes twice, but I am not so sure. My tree has a huge running gash down the East side of it where the bark has pulled away from being struck. On the West side of the tree is another long running gash in the bark from either the same lightning bolt or from being struck twice. I half way expected to find another long gash of peeled away bark evidence of another strike...but I didn't. Lightning struck somewhere but this time it took pity on my tree. The tree still leafs out, casts shade, produces walnuts, and even with it's scars it's a beautiful tree.

Saturday evening brought more wind, lots of wind along with the rain. Tornado warnings trickled across the tv screen all night. I watched the skies, and I listened for the sound of a train. Tornados do sound like a train, well except without the blowing whistle. Last year at about this time I was watching the skies out my back door for any sign of a tornado. The wind was whipping about, first from one direction and then the other. You couldn't tell which way the rain was coming from it seemed to come from everywhere...and then it was calm. The whole time I had stood in the doorway, looking out in the backyard and just watching and feeling the power of the wind. It wasn't till the next day I had found out there was a tornado less than a mile from me. If I had been watching out my front door instead of the back, I would have most likely seen it. The irony wasn't lost on me that I should have been looking forward instead of backwards. You miss everything not looking ahead...

Sunday brought more rain, in some areas over seven inches of rain. It was flooding. Some roads were closed. Huge puddles were forming everywhere. My box of tomato plants almost seemed to sigh as they pressed against the patio door waiting to be planted yet. I sighed too. It would storm and then start to clear and then cloud up and storm again. Any hopes I had of logging on-line would be nixed with more thunder and lightning. After numerous false hopes and some nail biting when my server was down for a bit,... I logged on. The first thing I did was fire off an e-mail to my chat friend Randy to check to see if he was okay in Kansas.

My week-end of storms seemed so small after hearing and seeing so much of the desolation from a tornado that hit that tiny Kansas town of Greensburg. My week-end of inconvenience didn't seem quite so inconvenient any more.

I'm still here. My house is still here....and my lightning scarred tree is still here....and we are both doing just fine.

Entry for May 01, 2007 -May Day Baskets...

I was looking at my last blog entry and realized it had been ages since I posted a new blog entry. Lack of time, lack of imagination, and lack of ambition all seemed to be a driving force lately. Today being the 1st of May, I thought what better thing to do, then to blog on May Day baskets. I think everyone as a kid made a homemade basket to leave on someone's doorstep. Most baskets were fashioned from dixie cups or old plastic butter tubs with pipe cleaner handles. Sometimes they were just made from a piece of construction paper rolled into a cone shape with colored images and a stapled yarn handle. Usually they would be filled with flowers, some candy or homemade cookies and left at the door of a friend or one of the senior citizens in the neighborhood.

I then started counting back the number years ago that had been since I last made a May basket, and got to wondering does anyone even make May baskets any more? Do the kid's of today stare at you blankly when you try to explain to them about the baskets? My blog on May baskets was fading fast... even in my own mind, it suddenly sounded old-fashioned, not very hip....even somewhat boring.

Another day without a blog...

I was bound and determined to blog about something...anything...

So I cruised 360, read more blogs, hoping to get an idea for something. Blogs on fishing, gardening, politics, ...Vero's unplanted onions...so much out there but I was still without a clue. I read thru more blogs and stumbled upon it being "Chicken Tuesday" over at Spotty's blog. He and several of his friends have deemed Tuesday as a day for chickens, or chicken recipes, or related chicken things. I thought about posting a recipe on chicken. Everyone has a recipe for a chicken casserole of some sort,...

But...nope ....chicken wasn't going to do it for me today. Chicken just didn't seem to have that wow factor for me.... The chicken was being shelved for another Tuesday.

I wandered over to Yahoo news.....big mistake. How depressing... Not only could I blog on one of the numerous stories I read thru but I could bore AND depress you at the same time. I have to admit, I also didn't want to think to hard. I didn't want to blog on anything controversial. I didn't want drama. I wanted something.......something.....new.....and exciting....something to make bloggers rush to tell their friends to check out Vic's blog, it was so kewl today.

My mind still drew a blank.

At this point the chicken was looking a bit better. Maybe I could spice it up...my chicken blog. I could talk suggestively on succulant thighs and legs... stuffed breasts... hot and spicey chicken wings...

Nah.... no chicken. My heart wasn't into it.

I almost gave up on thinking of a blog to write today, but I wouldn't let myself give up so easily. So I googled for some images.... I had planned on posting a pic of Homer Simpson smacking his head and saying "Doh"...

...and then I found it. Just what my blog was looking for...something new...exciting...unique! Something I knew all of you would be enthralled with, something totally off the wall. Okay maybe something not that exciting and mind boggling.....but it was something different from my usual ho-hum blogs.

I stumbled across.....Play-doh Fragrance ! Yes, you can now smell like play-doh. At first I thought it was a joke...a farce. For a limited time, in honor of Play-doh's fiftieth anniversary, you could douse yourself in the unmistakable fragrance of play-doh. I searched further, also offered in their fragrance line at The Perpetual Kid website you could buy birthday cake, glue, marshmallow, or dirt scents. I rolled my eyes...good grief, who would want to smell like dirt? I searched more of their site, and came across a frog tape dispenser, bacon flavored mints, a holy toast bread stamp, and a farting monkey....

I have to admit the goofball part of me had a silent chuckle or two and I did bookmark the website. I am not sure why I would ever need any of those things offered but just knowing there was play-doh perfume made me do it.

I don't know if any of you are interested in play-doh. Maybe I should have stuck with the chicken or the May baskets.

Hopefully somewhere out there today, there was a kid or two that colored and glued and stuffed flowers in their little baskets to leave on someone's doorstep. If you heard the doorbell ring and opened the door to find a basket containing bright yellow dandelions, chicken nuggets, and smelling faintly of play-doh,.. that was me...

Happy May Day!