It's morning somewhere

It's just a couple hours away...and thank goodness for that!

Wow! I wasn't cool in school, but now... Well, I'm not going to show my results because everyone would be jealous they aren't as cool as I.

Why not find out how cool you are by taking the Coolness Test - This test is based on how cool you were in High School--what crowd you ran with, etc., but it's still pretty accurate.

SEE IF YOU ARE STILL A COOL PERSON

...and have a safe and happy New Year.

Wow! Chicago Dyke was on a tear! I'm glad I didn't turn on the television for the past few days. Radio was enough for me.

A co-worker mentioned that she would like to actually see Saddam hang. I asked her why. Her answer was strange. She said she didn't think it would happen. I think it's one of those titillating things. People like to see punishment meted out so they can gawk and talk. It's just human nature, I guess.

Last night, I was listening to Coast to Coast. There were several call-ins that expressed the idea that the person hung as Saddam Hussein was not really Saddam Hussein. One guy said that Saddam had been relocated to Syria and the person hung, was one of his look-alikes. How would we know this isn't the truth? We were told that the DNA matched Saddam's. How would we know this is the truth?

Thinking back, though, I always thought it was odd that he was captured in a hidey-hole, all by his lonesome, when he probably could have escaped. If this guy wasn't Saddam, why didn't he say so? If the suicide-bombers are promised a bunch of virgins when they attain heaven, surely, a look-alike might be agreeable to having his family taken care of for the rest of their lives, and perhaps getting those virgins, too.

Okay. I'm not making any guesses on whether it was or it wasn't. I think the hanging, so immediate, was to keep him from being tried for the Kurdish deaths. There were too many hands involved from different countries. This would not be good to have shouted about, in the media. However, I think hanging Saddam, now, wasn't the most intelligent thing to do. There are a lot of soldiers who might be killed in retaliation...as well as the Iraqi people. The last many months, we've heard of suicide-bombers killing multitudes of bystanders. It's very possible, these instances may occur even more frequently.

From Baghdad Burning: 3000 Americans dead over nearly four years? Really? That's the number of dead Iraqis in less than a month. The Americans had families? Too bad. So do we. So do the corpses in the streets and the ones waiting for identification in the morgue.

There is a tower of bins next to the door. Grey Feather likes to get up to the top, and as I, unsuspectingly, walk past, she grabs my hair with her claws. What can I say? I love her, so I pull her into my arms, hug and kiss her, and tell her what a sweet thing she is.

As always, check out the wonderful animal pictures linked for Friday Ark at The Modulator.

Boy, those cats are easy to fool. I told Mango I got him a kayak for Christmas. I left it sit there and tied a bow around it. He's trying it out. Silly cat, doesn't he know it's cold outside? And besides that, he should be WEARING his lifejacket!

Lady Fortuna, Rocky Girl, Sgt. Mango Goldstein, Cotton, Grey Feather, and I want to wish you a Merry Christmas.
We went to bed after watching The Simpsons. The show was over at 5:30PM. I slept until this morning. I guess the cats kept Santa from showing up. So, there really are such things as "Watch Cats."
We hope everyone has a safe and happy Christmas.

Wanda's dishwasher quit working so she called a repairman. Since she had to go to work the next day, she told the repairman, "I'll leave the key under the mat. Fix the dishwasher, leave the bill on the counter, and I'll zip over and drop off a check at your business."

"Oh, by the way don't worry about my bulldog Spike. He won't bother you. But, whatever you do, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, talk to my parrot!"

"I REPEAT, DO NOT TALK TO MY PARROT!!!"

When the repairman arrived at Wanda's apartment the following day, he discovered the biggest, meanest looking bulldog he had ever seen. However, just as she had said, the dog just lay there on the carpet, watching him go about his work.

The parrot, however, drove him nuts the whole time with his incessant yelling, cursing and name calling. Finally the repairman couldn't contain himself any longer and yelled, "Shut up! You stupid, ugly bird! SHUT UP!"

To which the parrot replied, "GET HIM, SPIKE!"

The day crew decided the tree needed to conform to popular ornamental placement.

According to the dictionary online, the word for the day is "urbane":
urbane \ur-BAYN\, adjective:
Polished and smooth in manner; polite, refined, and elegant.

It's been a rough week. It's nice to come home to sweet kitties, such as Sgt Mango.

As always, check out the wonderful animal pictures linked for Friday Ark at The Modulator.

The other day, I posted a picture of the office tree. After all our hard work, we didn't hear much about it. Well, we decided it must not be to their liking, so X and I changed it. We were pretty happy with how it turned out. The difference might not even be noticed!

I decided to make my cards, this year. I put it off too long, so I didn't go for any extreme design. I figured this was kind of nice. By using acrylic paint on watercolor sheets, it dried quickly. Grey Feather is inspecting them for quality. She had ideas about painting, too. I think Rocky Girl painted her foot. I know she tasted some paint. She didn't much care for the texture, though. After taking this picture, I added some gold glitter in the snow, then sprayed them with clear acrylic sealer. I also glittered the "J" key on my keyboard and lost the lid to the sealer.

When the tree was first trimmed, I moved a lot of the ornaments to the back. Some of the day co-workers thought it must have fallen down. We'd hear complaints about the tree looking really yucky, and the lights didn't light (I had nothing to do with those). So, I'd move more and more ornaments to the back of the tree. Someone complained, yesterday, saying it wasn't worth having a tree if it didn't look pretty. Last night, X and I moved the ornaments from the back of the tree. X added the message.

A different thought - We complain about the crowds during Christmas shopping because we're not used to so many people out and about.

I stopped at Walmart to pick up something, taking about 20 minutes. In the line ahead of me was a couple who had quite a bit for the 20 or less line. They might have had 19 items. As they left, I noticed one had a backpack. They took their purchases and walked through the parking lot to the bus stop.

As a former bus rider, I know they probably had to wait for the bus to get there. Once on, they'd ride to the main dropoff point, where they'd catch a transfer to get home. I don't know many people who have to use the bus. Next non-bus rider complaining to me about how much time it takes to shop and get home from Walmart is not going to hear much sympathy.

The youngest and the fattest... Speaking of fattest... Someone was telling me about their dog that needed to lose weight. They put it on something called a "Science Diet", and the dog's lost 21 pounds, so far. I think I'll try this "Science Diet" as a New Year's resolution to losing weight. Does anyone know what the diet book is called? Is it just "Science Diet"?

As always, check out the wonderful animal pictures linked for Friday Ark at The Modulator.

We were walking, tonight, when we noticed the cookies on the ground. My friend said, "Looks like someone tossed their cookies."

From Eli at Multi Medium : It's all about Meme.

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence.
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog.
4. Name of the book and the author.
5. Tag three people.

Five books sitting next to me. I grabbed the top one. Here goes.

"I suppose it's almost time we were leaving. I must start washing this paint off. What a bore! I'll get the lipstick off your face afterwards."

It's from 1984, by George Orwell. I've read it several times. I think I took it from the bookcase, several days ago, to look up a phrase, or something.

If I hadn't left the book, I'm currently re-reading, sitting on the arm of my chair, we would have had these fun sentences:

"I took him round and showed him to some of the other victims of the protection racket," Thompkins went on, "and told them that if they'd get dogs, too, we'd chase off the taxi drivers. Some of them didn't realize the taxis were mixed up in it. They were too scared to open their eyes."

It's from Dead Cert, by Dick Francis. I love his writing!

I'm tagging
TFLS at The Fat Lady Sings,
SBGypsy at The Gypsy's Caravan, and
Robin Andrea at Dharma Bums. I know some don't like to engage in memes, but I figure this one is easy... we've all probably posted it in the past, at least once:)

I finally found time to catch up on a bunch of movie viewing. Besides the one mentioned, earlier in the week, there was Bringing Down the House, Joe Dirt, Wedding Crashers, and now, Absolon. I haven't been keeping up with the news, so I figured I'd post another photo. This picture was taken a couple days ago.
How is the world? Is there anything I should know?

Rocky Girl is thinking of how delicious a nice pot of chili would taste. She also thinks fried chicken and mashed potatoes would be yummy. As dessert, she thought a nice apple or peach pie, topped off with ice cream, would really hit the spot. She wonders what other foods would taste as good, right now.


As always, check out the wonderful animal pictures linked for Friday Ark at The Modulator.

I watched a movie called, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle. It was quite the hilarious movie. Harold and Kumar get high and find they're hungry. A news blurb comes on about a cheetah on the loose. Then an ad for White Castle comes on. They drive to where they thought it was, and find it's been replaced by a different fast-food place. The order guy tells them that there's a White Castle 45 minutes away.

On the way, Kumar has to stop to pee. He leaves the car door open as he heads for the bushes. A raccoon gets in the car. As they drive along, the raccoon attacks Harold. He's afraid he has rabies so they go to the hospital. Somewhere in there, Kumar pulls three bullets out of a patient. On their way, again, they get a flat tire and are towed to the scary tow truck driver's house. He fixes the flat.

From there, they see a hitch-hiker and give him a lift. It happens to be Doogie Howser. While stopped at the Quikee Mart, Doogie steals the car and Harold ends up in jail. Kumar gets him out and they get lost in the woods... but find the cheetah that had escaped from the zoo. That's just the first five minutes. I kid about that, because SO MUCH goes on in this movie. It's fast paced and fun (however, much is based on pot humor). There are some slow moments, but mostly not. What a funny, action-packed, movie. I highly recommend it!

Well, the snow is melting. Hopefully, we won't get any more. I don't care if people want a white Christmas. I would prefer not.

I stopped my daily paper because I didn't have time to read it. I miss reading the call-in comments. Usually, whenever there's a snow storm, there are a couple cranks complaining about cinders being used on the roads. They say the cinders get tracked into the house and create a nasty mess. I say, what do you want? A nasty road that you can't drive on? If they use salt and/or sand (which they might also do) it eats away at the car's paint. Still, I prefer to have the cinders/salt/sand on the road, instead of trying to drive on the snow and ice.

Oh yeah. The other day, someone told me that peace is political.

As you can see, my cats enjoy kayaking in all seasons. Sure, I probably should get it out of my living room, but the kitties find such joy in playing on, and around, it.

I'm sorry, but when it snows, there isn't much else to do, but take cat pictures.
When I'm tired of shoveling snow, I like to come inside and read a good book. Looks like Grey Feather beat me to it. Perhaps, she wouldn't be so bored if she tried to read it rightside up.

Sgt. Mango has forgiven Rocky Girl for her out-of-doors adventure. It was sad when he kept hissing at her. She would get a dejected look on her cute little face. I don't think she knew why he was being such a butt to her.

Yesterday, I spent a lot of quality time with my snow shovel. Unfortunately, the shovel heard a lot of cussing. It's sulking in the corner, but at least it's inside, out of the cold.

I haven't had a lot to talk about, recently, except my own personal problems (cat, waterheater). Not mentioning names, I noticed a couple "star" couples getting divorced. Not having any money, a thought runs through my mind; it must be rough, having to decide who gets what in such divorces. The lawyers probably earn their pay.

archives

• January 2006


• February 2006


• March 2006


• April 2006


• May 2006


• June 2006


• July 2006


• August 2006


• September 2006


• October 2006


• November 2006


• December 2006

...and I'm the puppeteer! Actually, Rocky Girl was also chasing the string. I found a second string to dangle around. At that point, Cotton and Sgt. Mango joined the chase. It was so cute. However, because I needed a hand to push the button on the camera, the photos (of all the cats playing) didn't turn out so well.

As always, check out the wonderful animal pictures linked for Friday Ark at The Modulator.