Happy Birthday to My Mama

Mama is the youngest of four girls. Many of you heard some good stories about my Aunt Bonnie - "You know what I mean?"

Aunt Bonnie is older than Mama by a couple of years. Five minutes before midnight of the day that Bonnie turned 40 years old, Mama called her and told her that in five minutes her hair would turn grey, her skin would wrinkle, every part would sag . . . you get the picture. Mama laid it on pretty thick. You would NEVER guess that she's capable of that, would you?

So, Mama's three older sisters all swore that they would get Mama when it was her turn to turn 40.

Mama figures that it's two years away and they would all forget. Who would remember a grudge that long?

But the three sisters kept dropping hints that they had not forgotten. After a while, Mama got a bit nervous. As her own 40th birthday approached, it was apparent that her sisters had remembered what she had done to Bonnie.

So she decided to take action. Take the matter into her own hands. She's like that, ya know?

So she had three custom-made T-shirts made and sent to her sisters:

Her sisters never did do anything back. I wonder why?

Happy Birthday Mama! And many more!

No Paper For You

Doesn't anyone else in this house
know how to put on
a new roll of toilet paper!?!

Call Center Trivia

Not much going on here - the kids are still home from Thanksgiving Break (deer season starts today), Nod is putting up greenery on the outside of the house, and I'm supposed to be reading a chapter in my textbook.

We were pretty darn busy at the Call Center. Today is officially the start of Peak Season for us. And we're down to one kind of quilted xmas stocking. lol. Every year I tell people if they really want one of these, then they'd better mark on their calendars to buy them by Halloween next year. And I know that some of them do indeed do that.

Today's weird street name is
MUD LICK ROAD,
which is in Virginia.

Old Photo Sunday II - and a belated anniversary note

One year ago yesterday I started my blog. (Doug's flaming post made me forget.)

It's all AP3's fault.

Well, she started her blog first. At some point our mom TLP emailed Actonbell and me to tell us that we should check this thing out.

So maybe it's mom's fault.

(Oh, and remember when Actonbell used to call herself Lucinda Sans?)

So, here I am, 250 posts later, still blogging on. It's been a great experience, and I feel like I've made a lot of new friends. I talk about you all at work (etc.) as if you were people I've known for a long time and see on a regular basis. (Well, in a sense I do.) Other people give me strange looks when they find out what I'm really talking about. "Blog? What's THAT?"

So thanks for letting me be part of the blogsphere. I hope that we're all around for a very long time.

The photo is of me - there's not a date but I'm guessing that I must be around 1 or so.

The Tale of the Flaming Creamer

In response to Doug's post today, I have this to offer:

	When I was at CalArts, a couple of the guys in the class ahead of mine discovered that powered non-dairy creamer was flamable. I don't know what prompted them to set fire to the contents of those little cups they took from a local restaurant. Here you can see the creamer pouring down towards the flame
	At first, it was a couple of cups. Then it was four or five.
	And then it was a much LARGER number of little cups of creamer!
	This is Chris, who later went to work at Disney. He is the creator of Stitch from the film Lilo and Stitch. I believe he did Stitch's voice, too.
	James examines the burn mark on the floor. BTW, this studio was the senior animation students' room at CalArts, in the basement near the film equipment. If you have ever seen The Brave Little Toaster, the apartment number in the film is the room number of this studio. (There are a good many inside jokes in some of the Disney films.)

Now, my own "hot" stories:

When we lived in South Pasadena, the family went for a walk without me. Don't remember why. I was probably 8 or 9 years old. Anyway, I had a hardened ball of clay that I wanted to play with. This was an old house with floor heating grates. So, I put the ball of clay on the grate to soften.

Unfortunately, the warmth did too good a job on softening the clay. It fell clear thru the grate and downward - the whole top half of the downstairs rooms now had a layer of smoke. I opened all the doors and windows in hope that it would clear out, but alas, the family returned to soon for me!

And when we lived in West Covina I thought that I could make myself some hot chocolate by taking chocolate milk, pouring it into a cup and putting the cup in a saucepan on the stove. Might have worked if the cup wasn't plastic.

Melted to the pan.

ooops

Slammed

Boy, oh boy, were we ever busy this morning at the Call Center!! Usually Black Friday morning isn't busy, because everyone is out for those crack-of-dawn store specials. I'm not sure if it was the frigid weather we're having here in the northeast - two callers from Ohio said it was too cold to go out - or if the stores just didn't have enough sales or low enough prices to get people out. But this is the first Black Friday (and this is my sixth) at the Call Center where they had to allocate some of our calls to one of the other Call Centers for us.

[When the number of customers in queue and the "wait time" gets to be too much, calls are rolled over to the other Call Centers. Our company has three - PA, OK, and NV.]

Out of the six quilted stockings we started to sell six weeks ago, we are down to two. Many of the Xmas decorations are gone already. Since the catalog and the retail stores are treated as separate companies and have their own inventory, we have to call the stores to see if we can find any of the sold-out items there. LOL ~ and today our store associates SURE don't want to have us calling them!! They're busy enough.

Oh, well. That's the retail Xmas biz.

Now I'm going to eat Thanksgiving leftovers ... yum.

Turkey Trot

A Turkey for Sar ...

I had way too much to eat. The BIL outdid himself - the turkey meat was so tender it fell off the bone, the cornbread stuffing (from TLP's recipe) was excellent, the sweet potato mallo that Nod made was delicious and the pumpkin pie was wonderful. There was lots more to eat than that, but those were the highlights. And, as usual, Miracle on 34th Street was on the television.

I hope everyone had a great day with friends and family.

Thanksgiving

We all slept in today - well, as much as one can with two cats who use a clock run by their stomachs! Today's newspaper is as large as the usual Sunday edition, chock full of advertisements. In fact, the news sections are minimal in comparison! Nod handed the ads over to Goa'uld and told her to start making her Xmas list. We haven't seen any signs of Bookworm yet.



The television is on and I'm waiting for the start of the Macys Thanksgiving Parade. I actually don't watch it all - I just like to leave the TV on and watch now and then. At 2:00 we'll be at my In-Laws for the turkey meal. My BIL went to the Culinary Institute of America in New Hyde Park, so usually the meal is not a simple one. But I have to tell you that I miss my mama's meals - There's no place like home, eh? Years ago he forgot to put in the sugar for the pumpkin pie ~ it was AWFUL! and we've not let him forget it since!

LOL - Nod keeps coming in to tell me about the deals he's reading about in the newspaper ads. Here he comes again ...

Happy Thanksgiving to All ... and to all, no indigestion!

Turkeys

Well, it was a busy day at the Catalog Call Center. I only work four hours in the morning and today I kept track of my calls. I got 33 calls, and of those, 18 were actually orders. The others were calls that I had to transfer to Customer Service to handle, looking for product information or store information, or orders that didn't come to fruition because we've run out of the item.

[Most Call Centers keep all kinds of stats on the employees - Revenue Per Call, Close Ratio (how many calls resulted in a sale), Occupancy (has to do with the time you were on the phone vs your scheduled time to be on the phone) and more. So those calls for one stocking for only $25 or to ask a question affect our stats which ultimately affect our yearly pay increases. Isn't fair, since we can't determine who we get on the phone. That's why I focus on doing my best to help in whatever way the customer needs help with, not to try and sell them something anyway. I don't pay that much attention to my sheet of numbers that comes out weekly.]

We started to sell Christmas stockings and similar items early in October. Last year we sold out of some styles of stockings by Halloween, all by Thanksgiving. It was incredibly awful ~ many people don't start their shopping until Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving), and here we were out of all of our Xmas stockings and many other items three weeks before the Day Itself!

So we asked and hoped that our buyers would order larger quantities of this year's stockings to be made ~ and they did. Still, out of the six styles of stockings, three are completely sold out now. Also sold out are our Personalized Santa Bag - we sell out of this every year, too. And some of the other gift items are gone, too. And we've HOW MANY days until Xmas?!

The other day I took an order for personalized stockings for two little boys. One was "Deuce" - turns out that he is a "Junior" but the family calls him Deuce instead. His brother is Beau - but that's not the name on his birth certificate - can't remember what his real name is.

Which reminded me of a guy who was at CalArts when I was there in the early 1980s. He was a film student by the name of Beau L'Amour. NO KIDDING - really. BEAU L'AMOUR. Turned out that he's the son of Western-genre author Louis L'Amour. I'm not going to say any more than that.

BTW, we're forcasted for some snow later today or tomorrow. We did have some flurries early this morning and it was 29 degrees. By noon it was 36 degrees.

When's the next flight to Los Angeles? It's too cold here for me.

Oh, and in answer to Doug and anyone who was wondering about how Cubis works: basically it's getting three of the same color together to make them disappear. It's three dimensional and some of the playing pieces are slanted and be used to build up, others are glowing and can be used to change the color of a block. You can play to simply get rid of a certain number of blocks or to get rid of all the ones with stars on them. There is also a game where there are "ghosts" that appear and shift around - they can really mess you up!

Wasting Time

When I have too much to do and not enough time to do it, I don't.

I play Cubis.

Actually, this is Cubis 2. A free version is on Yahoo Games. I played and finished it so often that I finally broke down and bought the full version. Naturally, I've finished it, too. But I still play it when I shouldn't be.

(I play Minesweeper sometimes, too.)

Old Photo Sunday I

For no particular reason, here's a photo dated December 12, 1912. To the left is my dad's dad. I think the other guy is cousin George, but I've forgotten now.

Niks' dad was a Rev. Dr. who ended up as a college president down in North Carolina. In fact, Niks was born at the college and is pictured in one of the yearbooks as the unofficial class mascot for that year. Unfortunately, Granddad died at age 39 ~ my dad was about two years old, so he never knew his own dad. He grew up hearing ALL about him - I think Grandma used the Specter of Father liberally as she raised four sons by herself.



This photo isn't from a direct ancestor. It reads

Ann Catharine
consort of
Rev. Jacob Geiger (...etc.)

(Jacob is the sibling of a direct ancestor.) Anyway - this stone is in a church cemetery in Maryland, just over the Pennsylvania line. I'm drawing a blank as to the town name (darn migraine), but it's a Reformed church. All my ancestors on dad's side are German.

I find it really, really amusing that a Reverend has a Consort buried next to him next to a church. But I gather that Rev. Geiger was rather progressive:

"Notwithstanding the fact that Dr. McManus rightfully laid claim to pioneership in the practice of homœopathy in Maryland, his honor in that respect must be shared with Rev. Jacob Geiger, a Maryland pastor of German extraction and Pennsylvania parentage and birth, who had frequently been brought under the beneficent teachings of Allentown Academy and thus acquired a fair understanding of the principles of Hahnemann's school of medicine. In 1836, contemporary with Dr. McManus, Rev. Geiger took up the practice of medicine in connection with the pastoral charge of his flock, and continued both until the time of his death in 1848. This allusion to Pastor Geiger's medical endeavors is important when it is mentioned that nine of his descendants were graduates of homœopathic colleges and practitioners of medicine.

....Rev. Jacob Geiger introduced homœopathy in Carroll county in 1836,... "

Just to be clear - the cemetery is full of stones that read "wife of" and "husband of". This is the only stone that I saw that had "consort of" engraved in stone.

Not much

Not much is going on.

Wait, actually, TOO much is going on. I'm trying to work on a take-home exam with a migraine. Supposed to be working on the list my hubby left before he went to spend the weekend with his mom (his bro is spending the weekend in NYC). I was supposed to deposit a check ... oops, it's too late, now! Supposed to tie up the newspapers so that they can be recycled. Well, I can still do that. Need to vacuum two rooms and the couchs (now, don't say that, he just about cleaned the entire house all by hisself yesterday) still. Bookworm has another performance tonight - need to bring her dinner in about half an hour (it takes forever for hair and make-up to be done). Then Goa'uld and I need be there about an hour after that for the performance. The kids were at church last night - they made a ton of soup to sell on Sunday to raise money to donate to the Red Cross or sumpthin. The High School kids spent the night @ church - there was a Coffeehouse, then they had movies, PlayStation games, etc. Picked them up this morning. Then I had to drive back to the church 'cause Bookworm forgot something there. Goa'uld has brought down her Scholastic writing story down for me to read and proof. Still trying to work on my test. The Penn State game is on the tv, but I'm not really listening. Every now and then I take a break and play a bit of Cubis. I did remember to send out an email to my Girl Scout troop - that wasn't on Nod's list, tho'. I didn't make my bed, either, but since Nod won't be here tonight, that's okay. If I lived alone, the bed would probably NEVER get made. I have tried to check y'all's blogs now and then, but my migraine and numbness of mind isn't letting me be very witty or wise, so I'm pretty much passing on comments today. Loved Doug's story ... took a look at those yummy-looking marshmallows at Schwartz ... OH, NO - just now learned that Mrs. Hoss passed away ...

*sigh*

A Cat's Fetish

Our younger cat, Salem, has a thing for the sashes off of robes. When he can get one, he'll grab it in his mouth and carry it around, caterwauling. He's very possessive of it. Don't try to take it away. He'll eventually get it into a pile and ... well ... Affectionate with it.

And yes, he was neutered ten years ago.

This is a bit of his caterwauling. He went on like that for quite a while.

Confession

I have to confess that for some time now, I have been driving without a working speedometer.

Yup. No idea how fast I was going. Scary, eh? Especially for someone who normally has a lead foot.

I don't know how or why (and I'm sure someone will tell me), when I tried to start my van, there was a loud, odd noise. And the van wouldn't start. Had to jump it. That's when I discovered that the needle on the speedometer had flipped all the way over to the wrong side of the pin. It couldn't go up and show me how fast I was going.

Hmmm. How much would it be to fix? Well, my hubby's car needed brake work, and other things had to be paid for first.

I was just going to have to be careful. I tried hard to remember to not to be the fastest vehicle on the road. That was hard when there wasn't anyone else to compare myself to. When we went up to Scranton last weekend, I had a "pace car" for most of the trip, and I did moan out loud when she finally pulled off the highway. (Scranton is more than two hours away.)

My dear ol' hubby is very good at finding technical solutions for our computers - he either already knows the answer or he knows someone who does. He is also good at finding answers on the internet. I frequently don't have the patience to look thru so many dumb sites to find what the solution might be.

Yesterday Nod calls from work to have me try something - to simply push the tripometer stem in and hold it in. I did. All the display lights came on after one minute - all the digital displays started to flash all kinds of things. AND THE NEEDLE ON THE SPEEDOMETER CREPT BACK OVER!!

Can you bet that? Didn't have to spend $$ to have someone take apart the console and flip it over. Or maybe the dealership would've known that push-the-stem-thing.

My Nod. What a guy.

Handy to have around. I guess I'll keep him.

More ACC Photos

Okay, this time I can tell you fer shure that these are my girls.
These are from my hubby's camera.

TOB ACC Photos

The trumpet section comes together for a cheer before the performance last night.

The trombone player is definitely Goa'uld, since she's the only Tbone player.
I think that the trumpet player on the 40 yard line is Bookworm, but the girls disagree. I remember Bookworm being on the 40, but of course they should know where they are, right?

These photos are by Patriot News Photographer Amiran White

ACC Results

(I may post more later today.)

The Tournament of Bands Atlantic Coast Championships. The bands came from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and New York. The list was pared down from 400 through regional competitions over the past two and a half months. The top 25 from each size Group perform, the bands ranked 26 thru 30 compete in the "Invitational".

This is the first year that our band made it to the "real" ACCs - usually we're in the Invitational and do very well there. The bands are grouped by band size, not school size. This is the first time we were ever in Group Three, and we made that size by two kids. Next year we'll be back down to the Group Two size.

Anyway, out of the 25 bands, we placed 20th. They got home at 3 am this morning. The local paper has a big article about it, and out of the five photos they have of the event, two are of our band, and Goa'uld and Bookworm are in one shot - which is funny, since they're near each other only once during the show.

Another band member came home with us last night, and the three of them watched the DVD that we bought - it's funny how they pointed out the mistakes and moaned and groaned. But I think that they did great. It's a great experience and these freshmen will do better next year. They're already talking about how they'll whip the newbies into shape next fall!!

Happy Birthday Doug!

Happy

BIRTH, n.
The first and direst of all disasters.

DAY, n.
A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.

DOUG, n.
The person around whom the blogsphere revolves.

let's!

PARTY, n.
Exercise for intellectual debility.



Happy Birthday to our dear Doug!

And be sure to stop at the Blog Birthday Card that his family created!

Tibbar Tibbar

This morning I had to run out to get some milk before the girls got up for breakfast, so I got in the van to go to the little 24-hour place that's about four or five blocks away. (It was still black outside and 40 degrees.)

I was a block away when suddenly a rabbit jumped out from between the parked cars. I immediately took my foot off the brake.

Instead of either running clear across the road or doubling back the way it came, the rabbit bounded straight down the middle of the street, away from me. So there I was, rolling slowly forward, with the white cottonball tail of a rabbit bouncing in my headlights for half a block. It was almost hypnotizing, that bouncing white ball.


Finally, it did jump off the road, back in the direction it had originally come. Dumb bunny!

(this photo ain't representational, but I thought it was cute.)

Happy Birthday to My BIL

Every year we give my brother-in-law Ekim argyle socks for his birthday. He just loves argyle! And grey/silver and maroon/burgundy are his favorite colors. Last year I was able to find some really fun-colored socks (think the ol' bright green golf pants that we used to see around).

Then I found an iris farm in Texas by the name of Argyle Acres. I emailed them and got a GREY sweatshirt with their logo on it. Just too perfect!!

So, I find myself at this time of year, with a birthday and xmas coming, on the look-out for anything argyle. Socks aren't always as available as one would think, but I do like to find something other than more socks.

BTW, actonbell - what size sweater does he wear? I was at Penney's the other day ....

Message Sent

No Pennsylvanian Supreme Court Justice has ever lost a retention election. Until now.

(Democrat) Justice Russell Nigro was voted out. Justice Sandra Schultz Newman was narrowly retained, mostly because of a Republican effort to get their party members out to vote. Former PA Governor and former Head of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, helped with a television campaign to retain Justice Newman. She will reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2007.

I hope that every single politician in Harrisburg takes notice.

In a related issue: I have a friend who I describe as a militant athetist who has been working hard with the PA Cleansweep organization. Carl attended the Monday night legistlative session that we all hoped would result in a repeal of the payraise (it didn't). He sat up in the visitor's gallery (up high, similar to the Federal Capitol's). The session began with a prayer and the Pledge, with Speaker Perzel having everyone stand up first. Carl sat quietly up in the gallery - didn't stand up, didn't speak.

Perzel noticed and sent one of his flunkies up to demand that Carl get to his feet. Carl politely said no. The Flunkie told him he had to stand or to get out. I can imagine Carl's eyebrows going straight up as he informed the Flunkie to read the Constitution. The Flunkie flew back down to the floor and informed Perzel. Perzel pointedly looked up at the gallery, gesturing and obviously angry. Carl was amused, and afterwards told our representative about the incident. Our Rep shook his head and said that he would both speak to the Speaker and send a letter about it.

There's a wonderful photo of Perzel that appeared in our local paper - he's in an elementary schoolroom, and the bulletin board behind him is full of pink pigs. What a photo op! And the kids were something - read about it here. You see, the anti-payraise groups have been using this huge inflated pink pig at the rallies. Just too perfect an image. Can't believe that he didn't realize what was behind him when the photographers started to snap.

ADDENDUM: I forgot to post about this - many of you have probably heard about the Intelligent Design vs Evolution battle in Dover School District, here in the federal court in Harrisburg, PA.

Well, the entire school board was voted out in yesterday's election.

YAY!

What's in a Name?

A couple of weeks ago I took an order that was sent to Battle Moore. I repeated the name and spelling and the caller confirmed that I had it right. Carefully, I remarked that I had never heard that name before. She said it was an old family name!

~~~~~~~~~

Last week I took an order for a quilted Christmas stocking from a mother named Jennifer. The stocking was personalized for her daughter, Emma. No big deal, we're selling thousands of personalized quilted Christmas stockings. (Last year we were sold out well before Thanksgiving, thank goodness our buyers got smart!)

The very next call was also from a Jennifer, but, hey, that's not an unusual name, so I didn't say anything. Then she ordered a knit Christmas stocking. To be personalized for her daughter.

Emma.

Here's where I burst out, "ohimgosh, I JUST took an order from a Jennifer for her daughter Emma!!"

She started to laugh and said "Get out. You're kidding me!!"

And I assured her I was not. It was so weird!

We're In!

Our Marching Band has made the Atlantic Coast Championships!

The Band takes the field at 7:05 pm. The awards ceremony is at 11:15 pm. We'll get home a couple of hours later (ugh).

ADDENDUM (already!): I forgot to say that this is next Saturday, November 12.

It'll be in Scranton, PA, in the Lackawanna County Stadium. Experienced band parents have told us that this event is usually extremely cold, so we'll have to make sure that we're prepared.

This 'n' That, too

The wind here has come up rather suddenly and there is some pretty spectacular lighting. I can hear a siren from one of the two fire stations that we're between. The TV screen shows a Thunderstorm warning in the corner of the screen. So I'll be quick in case the power goes off.

The Chapter IV Championship was a disappointment for my two musicians (Bookworm and Goa'uld). We parents keep telling the kids that it's the score and not the placement, but once again our band came in last in their group size. However, the Band Director wanted them to get a score of 87 or higher, and they got a 87.95. They need to be in the top 25 for Group III in order to go to the Atlantic Coast Championships next weekend. We'll find out tomorrow if they made it.

And another update on Chatham. He more for breakfast than he has for several months. Right now he's at my feet asking for an early dinner.

C'est Chic has a nice post about my sister Actonbell!

Okay, now it sounds like things are hitting the screens on our windows. I'm off!

ADDENDUM: the storm just brushed by us, the worst is to our east. Just finished watching The West Wing. I tried to log onto www.nbc.com to vote for a winner of the "live debate" that they had tonight, but, of course, their website won't come up. I'm sure they're getting slammed right now.

BTW, Bookworm came down to say that she's posted.

This 'n' That

This was a leaf that I found on the school's parking lot when I dropped off the girls for last night's football game. To my surprise, our team won last night, 21 to 14 (I left mid-4th quarter and Bookworm reports that the game went into overtime, and Goa'uld sez it was "barely overtime".)

A friend of Still Life has posted for her, letting us know that Still Life is still in the hospital, but doing better. I can hardly wait for her return.

We finished ten days of giving fluids to our cat Chatham. It has obviously helped him and he's acting more like his old self. Has helped give me many flashbacks of jabbing him with the needle. Ugh. We'll take him in next week for blood and urine tests and get numbers to, hopefully, confirm this. From now on we'll most likely be giving him fluids a couple of times a week.

Today's newspaper reports that earlier in the week, police and firefighters lined the road from Altoona to Ebensburg (about 25 miles) with fire trucks, ambulances and police cruisers to honor Altoona fire captain Robert Gallardy, who died in a training exercise at the PA State Fire Academy. That must've been quite a sight.

From now until Veteran's Day, the local Zembo Shrine has placed a "Massing of the Colors" on their property in Harrisburg. Over 2000 small flags, each with the name of every single serviceperson who has died since the USA started the operation in Iraq, is on a flag. It will be patrolled/guarded 24 hours a day until November 11. Shriners are really big in our area (and maybe elsewhere?). My high school typing teacher (and father of a classmate) is part of the Mounted Patrol. The Shriners make up about a third of our town's Memorial Day parade every year.

Our lawmakers may think that if they act as if they're going to repeal their payraise that we'll vote for them on Tuesday. They're wrong. Talkradio personality Bob Durgin hasn't let up on it, and neither has the local newspaper, The Patriot News. There are many other groups like PA Cleansweep and Young Conservatives of PA are keeping up the pressure, too. The next election isn't a general state-wide one, but we have the opportunity to say "no" to retain two PA Supreme Court justices - Newman and Nigro:

Justice Russell Nigro, despite a Supreme Court policy discouraging charges for booze, billed you $85.00 for a bottle of wine and $123.00 for three other bottles. Earlier this year he charged you $1,254.12 for four dinners and one lunch.

I have decided that I will not vote for a single incumbent (unless, of course, the newbie is a complete and utter so-and-so). Even our nice Senator Pat Vance. Sure, she didn't vote for the payraise, didn't take the payraise, but STILL didn't speak out loud and publicly and clearly against it when it happened. Oh, sure, she would tell any of us on the street (as she told me) that she didn't agree with it, but I sure didn't see her out with the rest of us when we were protesting at the capitol building in September. I view this as a case of "if you're not with us, you're against us" (never thought that I would EVER say them thar words!)


Penn State plays Wisconsin today - hope we do well!

We will be at Chapter band competitions tonight. The weather looks good for it. The band has a three hour practice this afternoon - I feel bad for the Seniors, who are taking SATs this morning and will be wiped out (and will miss part of the practice, to boot). That crazy Mr. Z! He's all tense because of Chapters. He's got what the kids call the "duck face".

Well, I've got a report for my education class to finish and too many pages still to read. An informal survey shows that no one in the class is reading as much as we should be!! Each chapter has at least 30 pages and we're supposed to read two chapters a week. I was keeping up for awhile, but fell behind. Aaargh.

Last Dance

Tonight is our football team's last game. Last week's game ended early because of the "mercy rule" - and our team sure did need mercy! Good thing I'm there for the band.



Tomorrow the band will be performing at the Chapter VI Championships (band competition). If they place in the top 20 bands, then they'll go on the Atlantic Coast Championships the following weekend. They'll practice for three hours in the afternoon, then will get back together after dinner to go to a local school stadium - we're lucky that it's the next town over, so it won't be a long trip for us.

Last night some of us band parents decorated the bandroom hallway - the band booster president was amusingly controlling on how it was done. Took us an hour and a half! Even our Band Director didn't want to do anything until she got there. But it looks great.

BTW, if anyone wants Band Fudge, we're selling it ... LOL.

Rabbit Rabbit Again!

I'm on a Rabbit Roll ...



Another animated rabbit is Ricochet Rabbit. Marshall Rabbit was part of the Hanna Barbara era that brought us Touché Turtle and Magilla Gorilla.


Here's a quicktime movie with Ricochet's signature phrase: http://www.wingnuttoons.com/ricoBing.mov.

What's Up Doc? Or ~ what's with the "Rabbit Rabbit" stuff in Pezland?

My sister AP3 has been saying "Rabbit Rabbit" on the first day of the month for awhile now and it has spread to the other Pez Family members. Many of you have asked what it's all about.

It's about luck. Apparently a long time ago you were suppose to start off the day by saying "Rabbit Rabbit" on the first day of a new month. You can find various websites that discuss it, here are three for you to try:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/superstitions.htm
http://www.globalpsychics.com/lp/superstition/rabbit.htm
http://www.livejournal.com/community/culturalanthro/19872.html




Does anyone remember Crusader Rabbit?

Rabbit Rabbit!

Happy November 1st!