I don’t have to weigh in on the topic of flip flop “shoes” and school; I just feel like doing so.  I don’t like the idea of kids wearing them, but then I don’t care for flip flops personally. One reason is that they “flip” and they “flop” audibly. Another reason is that some people while sitting down,  cross one leg over the other and by rhythmically moving the suspended foot, “flip” and “flop” though a sustained period of time.

I also feel as if I have naked feet when I put on flip flops – which is why I have not owned a pair.  Sitting in a classroom, I would be disconcerted by the thought of “nakee” feet around me.

My husband took up with flip flops in California and my younger son has also worn them. I don’t understand what they see in them, but then I am often left in the dark when things are afoot. (I’m sorry, Der Bingle, I could not resist the pun.)

58 300SL ROADSTER Silver Blue/Burgandy, Black soft top

And it comes with matching luggage . . .

Please let this be a mistake . . . I can’t think of any car being worth this amount of money. A nice knock-off would be okay, though.

An extra thought: Yes, yes, I see there are a lot of cars that cost a lot more. I just think it’s ridiculous and if someone gave me a billion dollars, I just wouldn’t buy it . . . Go ahead, Bill Gates, test me on that statement. Even a quarter of a billion . . .

Well, I went down to Vorderman’s to pay for the last bit of work on the little green car before they discovered the brakes would require more money than I could justify spending on what my husband called “little greenie”. They are checking to see if someone wants it for parts . . . or not. The engine is great, the body, problems. Maybe I should take the hood ornament if it goes to the scrap yard. Well, we’ll see . . .

Here are some pictures of the last of greenie and of the drive back from Fort Wayne.

Continue reading Saying so long to the little green car – 1976 MB 300D →

Is the Solo Company still making straws for sale in grocery stores? I haven’t seen then at Wal-Mart or Kroger’s lately. I have had to buy a different brand for a few months now and my family and I have decided these other straws are “sucky” – yes, they suck at sucking.

You can do it, put them in a beverage and pull it up into your mouth by suction, but the flow doesn’t seem optimal. We have noticed that the newer straws seem lighter and narrower. But what were we to do? Then a couple of days ago, we found a package of Solo straws behind something in a cabinet. And, yes, the Solo model is more rigid and wider. You can, and I will post a picture, slide one of the newer straws into a Solo straw quite easily. I suppose with the proper use of duct tape you could create a long pipeline by alternating Solo and the other (let’s call them Yucky) straws.

This morning, while using a Yucky straw, I had trouble getting a steady flow of Diet Coke to feed into the bottom of a straw nestled in ice. Other times, the liquid gives the feeling of being “stuck” in the straw – as if the little molecules are fighting to make it into the mainstream flow.

While I was in the Google pool, I found a youtube video of some little girls using Solo Straws, obviously being filmed by a mother.

What would these girls do without Solo Straws??

I went into Rural King and they were having a special on little animals, so we figured we needed a couple more. Here’s a little buffalo and a little black bear – I couldn’t justify the expense of the big ones – so we have Little Buff and Little Bear, or, for those in the know, Little Four. And, of course, they are watching over me.

How many times have you heard someone say, “I’ll see you in a fortnight.” Probably not too often, maybe not at all. I want to revive it; I want to have people use it again; I want to say it myself, often and with ease. I want it to just fall off of people’s tongues. I don’t know why, especially. I just like it.

Fortnight; fortnight; fortnight.

So I’m going to use it  . . . maybe. Well, with people I know – really well – and who know I am trying to revive its usage.

I suppose a lot of people are born not fitting into the holes the world issues very well. Some do a good job of whittling themselves to fit; others carve out the hole to fit them. I think for the most part I have just chosen holes in Jello that stretch this way and that but don’t provide a good foundation. I have always thought I wanted to be like others – with a neat house and a nicely presented dinner table. That would have been nice for my family, I know it. But I never did it. Not that I didn’t love them. It was just . . . frankly, I don’t know. It was, for lack of any other way to put it, it was just AmeliaJake.

Now is the time, in writings that express ideas like this, that it is kind of expected for the person doing the expressing to decide it hasn’t been so bad, that the oddness has perhaps been a blessing, that if their peg and hole matched better they wouldn’t be so delightfully unique.

Well, that’s one way to live with it and it’s tempting to think that way. . . but I don’t think it’s so. I wish I had been wise enough to compromise a little –  to realize that some of my quirks were luxuries that embarrassed and caused those I love discomfort.

I regret that. I hope they know that . . . because I have loved them more than life itself. And, maybe, I can come up with a new, improved AmeliaJake. I sure hope so.

Bed bugs = high CF (Creep Factor) Dog =  high WCF (Warm, Cuddly Feelings)

Aha! Read this story Garfield. Just like Lassie barking to save Timmy from the well, Radar is saving people from what first got attention as the scourge of New York Hotels a couple of years ago – Bed Bugs. Smaller than a poppy seed? No problem for Radar.

But, if he sniffs too hard, does he get bed bugs up his nose?

I want to thank the AJ contributor in Georgia for bringing this brave lad to my attention.

If you want to learn more about bb’s, go to this site and if you want to see cuddly puppies, try The Daily Puppy.

I stole a picture from the site:

A definite chill in the air this morning and we have a fire in the den and that means warm and toasty feet and the comforting smell of wood smoke – not so much inside but out by the door when you come in from taking her nibs to school.

I decided to bite the bullet and carry an armload of wood down to the basement and start a fire there, let it freshen up the air and lift spirits for vacuuming and picking up. In fact, I have talked myself into taking a shower down there and getting dressed in front of the fireplace – but first I have to talk others into bringing down more wood. Maybe I should carry a piece of firewood with me as I beseech them to go out to the woodpile.

I did not get to go all the way back to those days when I freely exercised in my experiment last night; the phone rang and it was Glenda my cousin from down around Covington. We are coordinating my mother’s and my Memorial Day trip to the cemetery. Maybe this year we will stay overnight with Glenda. We have been going down and back in one day – Mother driving down and me driving home, with her riding like a crash dummy waiting for impact.

Last year I took a picture of the back of the truck we followed on one of the  little two lane state roads that Mother insists on taking. Lots of towns to go through that way: Goshen, Warsaw, Rochester, Logansport, Frankfort. We catch the interstate long enough to go past Crawfordsville and then exit onto the 41 to head to  Kingman. I remember my father said when he was a boy sometimes his father would take him out to watch the men build that road.

But I am rambling; right now the sun is cheery and so is the fire and I need to get clean . . . and get more firewood down to the basement.

About 20 minutes until prime time and I don’t know what I want to do: hunker  down with a book, grab a puzzle, get down on the floor and do some sit-ups, surf the Internet for interesting places, stick a DVD in the machine or make myself throw away one bag of annoying knick-knacks. Did an exercise thing sneak in there? I think it did.

There was a time when I did jumping jacks a lot; at the drop of a hat I would whip off 50 or more. I just wanted to do them, had this urge to do them. Now, I know I should be active, but I am not.  Has my brain’s need for action changed because of chemical changes? Don’t know. Maybe it is age – don’t know that either.

So this is an experiment I’m going to try: Close my eyes and work back a few decades . . . feel like now is then in my mind . . . and see what I feel the urge to do.