Our Newest Addition

Coming home from work Thursday, I saw a tiny,bedraggled, and drenched kitten trying to cross an intersection in the rain. I couldn't stop right then, but went home and got Tony, and then as we were driving back up the road April's bus came, and she joined us.

We found the kitten Had made it across the road, and was shivering at the roadside, so we picked her up and brought her home. It occurred to me that Brownie would probably be able to Inhale her,LOL, as she was so small. But, as you can see from this video, Brownie seems to have taken to her :)

 

And so it seems we have another kitten......and Brownie has a new squeaky toy,lol :)

We named her "Piper", here's a pic of Brownie and her new buddy

 

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Moment of Zen

Driving with April to school this evening, to pay her school fees......guess what song came on the radio?

Pink Floyd "Another Brick in the Wall"

We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey teacher leave them kids alone

 

Too funny :)

 

Our Very Strange pets,LOL

I know some people are nervous that Brownie has some pit bull in her....but, really, how vicious could a dog be that walks around with a squeaky toy in her mouth all the time,lol?

She reminds me of Linus and his blanket :) What's really hilarious, is when she keeps biting down and the toy is squeaking, while she's looking at you and cocking her head to the side....impossible to take seriously, a puppy who's going 'squeak,squeak' every few seconds.

And Ginger loves the faucet in our kitchen sink(and we Do have several water bowls around!)

 

 

She just prefers sitting at the faucet, I guess, to catch the drips after you use it. Very strange.

And, although I didn't get a picture of it, Tiger is not without Her quirks, either....she came down the stairs this morning with something in her mouth....Tony asked "What is that?"  I said "It's a quarter....apparently, she's putting money away somewhere? perhaps saving for something?"

LOL...never dull here!

 

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What Nixon's resignation meant to me

I posted this last year, and when I saw Aug. 8 had rolled around, decided to repost it.

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When I realized today was the anniversary of Nixon's resignation,I was awash in a flood of memories of the first (and best) time I saw the Perseid meteor shower.

The year was 1974, and I was a 14 year old on a 'primitive camping' trip with the Girl Scouts, through Camp Merrie Woode out of Plainwell,MI.

Normally I went camping At   Camp Merrie Woode  (and by the way, I found pics of how the camp currently looks   here ,which I thought was way cool :) but for 'primitive camping' we campers and two counselors went out to someone's farm, on their 'back 40',so to speak, and set up a camp from scratch.....yes, dug our own latrine, set up our tents, fire pit, and I remember lashing together a table of sticks to use for our meals. I also remember using some kind of tablets to treat our water that we got from a stream on the farm, which tasted 'ew',lol.

The folks who owned the farm drove out on Aug.8,1974 to tell us that the President was resigning and they wanted to bring us in to watch it on TV, as they thought it was an historical moment that we should not miss. The counselors agreed, so we all piled into the back of their truck and went in to their big old farmhouse to sit on the floor in their living room and watch Richard Nixon's resignation speech.

Indicative of a 14 year old mind,lol, I recall nothing of the speech and I'm not sure I understood at the time what a huge deal this was. All I have is a snapshot memory in my head of the President talking on the screen of a wood floor model TV (this Was '74,guys:)

It was what We said while we were there that led to us seeing the meteor shower. Someone mentioned the mosquitoes that were at our camp, and the folks who owned the farm in the next few days after that came out and sprayed around where we were camping to try and get rid of them. (what did they spray? no idea.)

Unfortunately, their good intentions went awry, and it seemed that they only managed to drive even More mosquitoes into our camp.So much so that, after getting bitten unmercifully all day, we decided to abandon our camp for the last night we were there, and take our sleeping bags out into the middle of a huge field that was nearby. (we were camping in the woods.)

Only we hardly slept. We just so happened to have chosen a night that the Perseid meteor shower was occurring (didn't know that was what it was Then, found out later.) We had set up our sleeping bags and were lying in them idly chatting, when we saw the first meteor shooting across the sky...and then another, and another.

34 years later (good heavens,I'm old:) all it took was me seeing the reminder of what this date was, to transport me back to a Michigan summer night when I unexpectedly saw the most beautiful celestial show I've ever seen, lying in a field and gazing up at a clear sky filled with heavenly fireworks.

I've never seen the meteor shower as clearly again, and maybe the magic of that memory was that it wasn't planned, it was just a happy accident that we decided to sleep in that field on that night.

But it still remains one of my most treasured memories,so I thought I'd share it,again :)

The Bro Creates a new term...too cool :)

Reason number 1007 I think my brother is cool.......he created a new term not long ago while being interviewed on CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=800926653&play=1

 

 

My family knows I Love words,lol.

 Mom says I overuse the word ' snarky ',(but how can you Not use such a great word? to paraphrase Barbara Mandrell "I used Snarky...when Snarky wasn't cool")

 

 and she was skeptical  that ' w00t ' was a word when I first used it in an email to her.(nice of Merriam-Webster to pick it as the 'word of the year' the very next day:)

 

And now my brother is listed on CNBC's website as coining a new term...."Fally".....that's a rally based on fallacy which, according to Kirby Daley, Strategist, Newedge Group, is pure folly.

 

Way to go,Kirby!

 

 

It Was a Tornado!

As per our newspaper this morning  HERE

 

After the Storm

The first 6 pictures are of the tree that would have hit Tony's truck, the next 4 are of the tree that hit another man's truck, and the last one is of the tree that fell behind the house they were working on.

 

A Close Call

Well, Tony had a close call on Saturday.

He was working in Elkton, and a major storm....possibly a tornado...hit

You can see the Daily News Record article about it  Here

Tony was working on a house out that way, and when the wind started up, he decided to leave and try and beat the storm home. It's a blessing that he Did move....because 3 minutes after he left, a Huge tree fell right where his truck had been parked....if he had stayed there and tried to sit the storm out in his truck, he probably would have been killed.

We went out to look at the damage later that evening, and both got cold chills when we realized how close it Could have been.

He actually only made it to the end of the long drive where they were working, and then the rain and hail were coming down so hard that he just had to sit, because he couldn't even see the major road to turn onto in front of him, only a few feet away. He said the wind wasn't just rocking the truck, it felt like it was picking the truck up and dropping it...he thought that the wind was going to flip him over in the truck for a few minutes.

Downtown Elkton looked a mess, which the picture in the paper gives no idea of how bad main street there looked, with multiple trees down all over the place.

Whether it was a tornado, or just straight line winds or whatever they decide.....we're very grateful that what Could have happened.....Didn't!

He's taking the camera today, to take some pictures of the area where they were, before they start the clean-up work.