A dorky guilty pleasure

I've come across two new time-waster websites this week, both involving my forbidden desire: cats. Oh, how I want a pet cat again. It just kills me that I am now allergic to the same cat I brought home from the humane society, who lived with ME, who I took care of. Ack. Darn allergies.

Anyway, I'm not one who likes cat t-shirts, cat items, paraphrenalia, etc., but I do enjoy the occasional peek at kitties. Here are three sites-- one old, two new, I've been peeking at this week.

1.) Cuteoverload.com Pics of cute things with baby-talk captions. Cutesy-wootsie cats, rabbits, hedgehogs, puppies, etc. Very tame and family-friendly except for the "cats in racks" category in which kitties are nestled, er, somewhere. But it's not too graphic.

2.) Cats In Sinks Just that. Click the button for another pic of a cat in a sink. That's pretty much it. But it somehow holds my attention.

3.) I Can Has Cheezburger Weird name, even weirder inside jokes, and super weird captions. Most need to be said out loud to understand. But most are cute and some are downright hilarious. Mostly just cats saying silly things. This one is most addictive to me.

Anyone else have time wasters? I feel like I hover in the same corner of the internet all the time-- gmail, school email, msnbc, news-press.com (local news), and askmetafilter.com. Google reader catches all my blog updates for me. If gmail-msnbc-askmetafilter were an actual location, say, like the corner of 5th and Main, I'd have real friends there as I'm a regular. Isn't that weird? There are other people, probably, with the same interests, same "hangouts" on the internet, but I'll never know them.

What are your hangout sites?

Five stitches

(Photo via Court's blog)


The gang did make it home in nearly one piece. As I said before, the wind was a bit rough on Tuesday as were the waves. Court was driving the boat and decided to jump a few waves created by another boat's wake. I guess the boat smacked down pretty hard as the boys in the front of the boat went airborne a bit and then smacked down onto their seats. Except Ethan was laying on his belly, so when he smacked back down he landed on his chin.

"Four people hold me down, five stitches," he proudly proclaimed when I met up with them at home. Yes, four people had to hold him down while he got five stitches in his poor little chin.

So close to making it home in one piece...

And yesterday they went to Sanibel by way of Firestone-- a brake line in their van broke and they spent a good part of the day hanging out near the repair place. They finally did get to the beach and then later had dinner at Cheeburger Cheeburger, where Jonathan ate an entire half-pound hamburger and got his picture taken for their Big Eaters wall. Court's blog is here, again.

I think they're headed to Sanibel again today and we're going to try to meet up with them for dinner (any excuse to go to Sanibel is fine with me!).

I'm quite disappointed in myself

It's about 65 degrees here and I'm freezing. I know, I know, Northern
Readers, that 65 degrees would be a dream. You would immediately cut
your sleeves and leggings off and expose your lily white arms and legs
to the sun's warming rays. However, you have blood as thick as mashed
potatoes, and mine runs like water. The slightest hint of a breeze
passes by, the temperature varies from 74, and I'm reduced to a
shivering, blue-lipped penguin. My hardy Chicago roots are withering
and I am so sad.

In other news, my fearless husband and friends are out in a boat, in
the cold water, with cold breezes. By choice. Oh, yeah, and there's
a wind advisory for watercraft today. I look forward to a phone call
at 4:30 which will hopefully tell me they've made it back to land.

Grand Central

On Saturday evening a whirlwind of energy landed in Lehigh Acres, Florida. That whirlwind is made up of two parents, one 8th grade boy, two 6th grade boys, and one kindergarten-aged boy. Have I mentioned I come from a family with two girls? No boys? This is a new experience for me, actually for both of us, considering we have no children and live a very quiet life.

Truly it has been more fun each minute to have the Bowmans here with us-- should we call them Bowmen? Plus Cheri? Anyhow, tonight was an absolute ball-- it was like a marathon of board games. Heaven for me. We started out with a round of Rummikub, followed by a few games of Carrom, capped off with a few rounds of Scattergories. The things the kids came up with in Scattergories were hilarious... Things you keep hidden? Laundgeray. Terms of endearment? Wife. (both submitted by Leland.) Cheri and I were laughing hysterically multiple times tonight. Too much fun. All the while little Ethan was following a pretend treasure map around the living room in circles, looking for treasure which he declared he found in the directions for the Carrom board.

Tomorrow Brad's taking the day off of work and I think they're going to all go rent a boat for part of the day. I'm not sure any of them have a boating license or experience, but being the men they are, they'll figure it out MacGyver style.

You can see Court's play by play at his blog.

Picture pages, picture pages

Mom left on Sunday night after a really, really fun visit. Here are a few snapshots. I'll fill in with more later.

Coming up the ramp at the airport...


First taste of coconut shrimp. It has become a tradition to head straight from the airport to the nearest seafood restaurant.


This was R. J. Gators. Hence the gator.


That night we had a family night. The kiddies played on the hammock...


...and tried on their Easter bonnets from Mimi.


This pic just cracks me up. Seen on the automatic sliding door at Marshall's. One would think that Marshall's has high expectations as to the speed of handicapped persons.


Another night we went to this seafood place...


...the freshest in town, they say.


And on Sunday just before Mom left, we went out to Sanibel to Gramma Dot's, for more seafood.












One would think that all we did was go find shrimp to eat. But we did other things, too. Those pictures are on my other camera and will have to wait.

Two jokes

Brad gets jokes sent to his inbox daily. I don't know the source--
I'll find out. In the meantime, here are two little laughs for you.
Credit to the joke-of-the-day website Brad knows about. These are
posted with you in mind, Grandfather.

An earless boss is holding interviews for an open position at his
company. The first candidate comes in to interview. The boss says,
"What is the first thing you notice about me?"
"You have no ears!" says the candidate.
The boss yells in a rage, "Get out of my office!"
The second candidate comes in and is asked, "What is the first thing
you notice about me?"
"You have no ears!" he says.
Again the boss yells in a rage, "Get out of my office!"
The third candidate is called in for his interview. The second
candidate tells him, "Whatever you do, don't mention his ears."
The boss asks the third candidate, "What is the first thing you notice
about me?"
The candidate thinks long and hard, looks the boss up and down, and
says, "You wear contact lenses."
"Amazing!" says the boss. "How did you know?"
The candidate replies, "You haven't any damn ears for the glasses to hang on!"

A farmer and his wife go into town. They come upon the local airport,
what with its fancy planes and everything, and see a pilot doing
loop-de-loops in the air. When the pilot lands the farmer asks, "How
much for a ride?"
The pilot replies, "Ten dollars for three minutes."
"Oh, that's too expensive," says the farmer.
"I'll make you a deal," says the pilot. "I'll take you up there and if
you don't make a noise, you don't pay. But if I hear a sound, it's
ten dollars."
"Deal!" says the farmer. So they go up for a ride, the farmer, his
wife, and the pilot. The pilot takes them through the loop-de-loops
and all the acrobatics, and then lands the plane.
"No sound at all! That was amazing!" he says to the farmer.
"It wasn't so bad," says the farmer, "except I really wanted to scream
when my wife fell out."

Seen in my statistics class...

...and wildly popular with me as this summer marks TEN YEARS since my mother's second diagnosis. November will be TEN YEARS since she has been healthy, the second time. Save the Ta-Tas indeed. By the way, the student photographed mentioned that there is a whole website with ta-ta gear, in case anyone is interested in having their own ta-ta shirt.

In other news, I received a rejection letter on Saturday from the grad school here at the university where I teach. It seems that they require a passing score on the basic educator's exam, which I have not taken. BECAUSE I ALREADY HAVE THE PROFESSIONAL CERTIFICATE. Dur. I'm about ten steps beyond that, so I just went in to meet with the professor in charge of admitting me and got everything squared away. I'm in!!!

Next time I'll tell you about plan A. Attending here is plan B. :)

They got the bad guys!!!

I got a call last night from the county sheriff. The guys who stole my purse have been caught! Three males were caught in a traffic stop near Fort Lauderdale and the officer found over fifty people's identification and credit cards in a hidden compartment in the car. Mine was among them! The guys aren't talking, of course, so we can't assume they'll be charged yet. The detectives on the case are sifting through all of the identification and trying to match prints to cars and the bad guys. Who knows if they'll ever be convicted or anything, but it makes me happy to know they've been caught!

A few things

1.) We are sickies. The 10 to 14 day flu has moved in. We spent the weekend in a rather lethargic, hacking state and are still sneezing and coughing with regularity. It started Thursday night, so hopefully we're rounding the corner soon.

2.) We took apart the freezer a few weeks ago. After many puddles in the fridge and a few instances of sheets of ice in the freezer, we got all Maytag-repairperson on the freezer and took it apart. Out with the icemaker, out with the back wall thingy, in with the hairdryer. Which warps plastic freezer-floors, you should know. But it's all defrosted and working beautifully. The little drain in the back was frozen shut, so we squirted hot water into it and voila! We are so proud of our money-saving selves.

3.) I'm applying to a grad school in New York. It's a big "IF" and zillions of details would have to align in order for it to work, but I'm going to try anyway.

4.) Brad did not get that job opportunity we were hoping for. But there were over 50 applicants and more than half of those had directly applicable experience, so we're ok with it. There is still one other option at hand, so who knows.

5.) Mom arrives on Saturday. Little did she know her vacation would entail making lots of chicken soup for the sickies. Take your Airborne, Mom.

6.) I finished The Bag. I have been designing the perfect school bag and it's finally done, thanks to sick days and small bursts of energy. I'll post pictures soon.

7.) I also got half of a mannequin. I needed a torso on which to model my aprons, which will soon appear on my etsy shop. I went over to a warehouse place that sells secondhand store fixtures and got me a wicker torso. She's wearing a t-shirt and apron right now and hanging out in the green room. Oh, and I need to post pics of that room! It has been organized and is a dream to work in.

That's it for now.