Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in Blog Land. I’m taking a few minutes off from cooking, baking and roasting to remind everyone what could happen if you eat too much on this festive day of gluttony.

In the past couple of weeks there has been three or four stories about people, all men, who have found themselves in tight squeezes.

First up, there is the man- the story did not indicate how old this man was, but I assumed he was on the short side of forty. It seems he made a bet with his buddies and ended up at the park stuck in a kiddie swing all night. He was cut out the next morning by city workers. His buddies, of course, were nowhere to be seen. I wonder if they are still friends.

The next story I found concerned a man old enough to know better. He was dressed in outdoor wear; all you could see was from the waist up. From the waist down he was wedged inside a hollow tree trunk. He was freed after passers-by heard him yelling for help. There was no mention of why he had lowered himself into the hollow in the first place.

The third and final story for today concerns a teenage boy. Being a teen, he can be released of total blame, after all studies show your brain isn’t fully developed to assess the consequences of behavior until you reach your mid-twenties. He was found lodged in a chimney after spending a long, cold night wedged between the bricks. No, he was not trying out for the role of Santa by using the method acting approach. He did admit to using the chimney as his entry on his way to rob the house.

These three examples of being too big for the space occupied may double after today’s meal. After all, most of us will over-eat, distorting our reality of what space we can fit in to.

Until next time, eat all the Pumpkin and Apple pie you want……..it’s only fruit you know.

What is Reality?

Remember Rupert Boneham from Survivor? He debuted on Survivor: Pearl Islands. He endeared himself to us when on the first day he stole everyone’s shoes off the beach. After all, he remarked they were supposed to be pirates and what do pirates do? They steal. He went on to compete in Survivor All Stars and won the Fan favorite Award.
I ran across an article last week announcing that Rupert is joining other celebs such as Clint Eastwood and Sonny Bono in the political arena. He is running for governor of Indiana.

What kind of governor will Rupert make? Will he continue to act like he is on Survivor, voting people off who displease him? Will opponents be sent to Redemption Island for soul searching? Will he keep his beard and wild man’s hair, scaring women and children on the campaign trail? Only time will tell. First he has to win. The election and voting will not happen around a tribal fire, voters will not have the opportunity to show their fellow citizens of Indiana their ballot and explain their vote. The loser will not have to put out his/her torch and walk down a dark path, they simply get to fade into the background.
Reality TV has come a long way since the early days of television. Back then we had three stations with choices such as Candid Camera, To Tell the Truth and Mike Douglas. Today with the hundreds of stations and the low cost of producing a reality show as opposed to Star Trek there is something for everyone.

If you are a non-housekeeper like me, there is clean sweep. A crew comes in, empties out one room and does a make-over. If you really have a problem parting with stuff, there is Hoarders. My husband is thank-full I haven’t reached that point.

Do your children act like little heathens? Call Super Nanny or Nanny 911. Children too old for a nanny? Intervention, Runaway or Teen Mom may be for you. Maybe your kids want to be in charge, build a social structure the way they think it should be. Send them to Kid Nation where kids are king with no parents to interfere.

Do you or your tiny tot have talent? For you there is American Idol and for the tots, Toddlers and Tiaras.

Not married and need a date or a mate? The Bachelor, The Bachelorette or Who Wants to Marry My Dad may be able to help.

Already married? You can go from The Dating Game to The Newly Wed Game. Marriage not working like you dreamed? Take your marital woes to Dr. Phil or Divorce Court.

For those of us Who Wants to win a millionaire, we can join the casts of Survivor, The Amazing Race or Wheel of Fortune.

If you are into wanting to see how the other half lives, try out for wife-swap or Undercover Boss. I could go on and on but you get the drift. It seems like anyone can have their own reality show. Mine would be Stumbling Through Life without a Single Sip or The Laundry Basket is Always Full. Until next time share what your Reality show would be named and share it under comments.

Drunk Again!

Imagine you are a fireman in Sweden, now imagine a phone call asking you to come and rescue a moose stuck in a tree. Not just any moose in any tree. A drunken moose in an apple tree. Seems the moose stopped to eat some apples unaware the fruit had fermented. He started with apples on the ground and moved on to apples still clinging to the branches. Being drunk by this time he lost control of his massive antlers, as he reached higher and higher for more of the forbidden fruit his antlers became entangled in the apple tree's branches. The more he struggled to free himself, the further off the ground his body became. When the home owners found him, he was too drunk to get himself down. They called their local fire department, they do after all rescue cute little kittens stuck in trees. To the fireman's relief, the moose had sobered a little and somehow detangled himself from the tree. The moose was gone the next morning when the homeowners woke up.

Moose aren't the only critters known for getting drunk or climbing trees. Birds eat fermented berries all the time; you can see them wobbling on telephone wires now and again. Then of course there are the monkeys on an island in the Caribbean who have become fond of the mixed drinks served beach side to the tourist. They have become very good at swiping drinks and making off with them. Some get so drunk they can't sit up, others find climbing trees impossible. Recently I researched goats. I found an article call, Goats in Trees. Curiosity took me to the site. There on my computer screen was a picture of a tree full of goats. Seems these goats in Morocco like the berries this tree produces. They like them so much they taught themselves how to climb up onto the limbs to reach more berries. The picture looked like a tree decorated with goats. It was quite amazing.

Until next time, keep the critters sober; eat the fermented fruit before they can.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

As a budding writer I receive and read a lot of emails about writing.  Last week I received an article on blogging.  It highly recommended that your blog have a definite theme that followers can count on.  I thought, I've done that, haven't I?  I write about life and its' many quirks.  Then I thought again.  Perhaps that is too broad a subject area.  I re-thought my blog and what I could write about that my readers could count on and still be quirky.  A thought came hurling towards me, then it hit.  Odd news and how it relates to our everyday lives.  There are many sites devoted to the odd, off- the-wall or just plain bizarre news from around the world.  What none of them offer is how these odd stories relate to the average person.  I decided to give it a go.  So here's my first blog entry with my new theme, odd news and how it relates to the real world of the average Joe or Jane.


Last week there was a story about a man with the nick-name 24.  Twenty-four is the number of hours in a day, the amount of donuts in a box of two dozen, unless you get two baker's dozens then you have 26.  It was the name of a popular TV show because Jack Bauer saved the world every week in 24 hours.  This man got his nick-name because he had 24 fingers and toes.  No, not 24 on each extremity, 24 total digits, six on each hand and foot.  Unlike most nick-names, he didn't mind being called 24.  He said it made him unique.  In school when he had trouble adding 5+5, his teacher suggested he use his fingers to help, he came up with 12, the teacher had forgotten he had two extra.
24 also likes having extra fingers and toes because they help in his job, he climbs palm trees picking coconuts.  Mother Nature gave him lemons so he made lemonade.

Most of us have had a nick-name at one time or another. Being a redhead I have had more than my share. Red-headed woodpecker, Red-headed bombshell, Carrot-top or just plain Red to name a few.  While switching classes in high school one day, the brother of a good friend called from behind me, "Hey, Elana, your hair's on fire!"  I shot back, "Quick, roast some marshmallows and make samores."  I had the last laugh. 

Until next time, always use nick-names with care, not everyone knows how to make descent glass of lemonade.

Laundry, writing and grapes. What they have in common.

 As I may have mentioned earlier, my grape crop came in early this year.  So far I have three batches of wine going, one at 17% alcohol and another at 15%.  The third is still waiting for the yeast, so its not cooking yet.  Florida grapes don't ripen in big clusters, they ripen one at a time, so picking is time consuming  While I pick, I contemplate the great questions of life.  On this day I thought about the act of grape picking compared to the task of doing laundry and writing.  This is what I came up with:

I don't know how it is at your house, but at mine laundry is a never ending task.  I can wash, fold and put away five loads of laundry, turn around and find something in the dirty clothes basket.  I think little gremlins with attitudes wait until I'm all finished, then dump more dirty clothes in the hamper when I'm not looking.  Picking grapes is like that.  No matter how long I pick in the morning, I can turn around and find one more grape that is ready to be picked.  I could pick 24/7 and still find one more ripe grape.  The only reason picking comes to an end is the grapes that I don't pick eventually get eaten by critters or rot.  Sometimes I wish my laundry would get eaten or rot so I wouldn't have to deal with it.

Writing is like picking grapes too.  Imagine that a grape vine is the manuscript, the out stretched suckers the sentences and the grapes the words.  One grape vine can extend quite a ways.  When I write, I am always walking down the vine, cutting words, sentences or whole sections.  To produce the best grapes, the vines need to be pruned once a year.   Manuscripts are the same, they need pruning to make them stronger and more productive.  Tweaking a manuscript never ends.  No matter how many times I read through it, I find a word I think could be left out or changed for a better word.  It never ends.  

So now you know how grape picking, laundry and writing are connected.  Until next time, keep your words crisp, laundry moving and grapes fermenting.

Video of Gabriel and I swimming

I forgot to add the video of Gabe and I swimming to my last post, so I am putting it here.  Enjoy.


http://www.youtube.com/user/FrancisRitchie

Anything Goes

I suppose I owe my readers a picture of me jumping in the pool with my clothes on.  After-all, I did say I would if I failed to post once a week.  I am astonished my last post was way back in June.  I will post the picture as soon as I find someone to take it for me.

It has been a hot summer here in Florida, fortunately, not as hot as other places.  Did you see on ABC news the steak they cooked on the dash of a car?  And we used to think it was hot when you could fry an egg on the sidewalk.  I just read on Facebook, that a friend of mine had her toenail polish melt on the sand at the beach!  Now that's hot!!

My grape crop is ripening early this year.  I already have two batches of wine started.  I'm excited this year, my white grape vine(it has a proper name, but there is no way I would spell it correctly and I'm sure it's not in spell check) is producing enough grapes to make wine with.  I sampled it this morning and it tasted goooooood.  I go out early every other morning and pick for a couple of hours, then jump in the pool to cool off.  Gabriel, our Flat-Coated retriever swims with me.  He's so cute, when he first started he only used his front paws, so when his fur got heavy with water, he sank.  He can now do two lengths of the pool like a champ.  I'll post a video of us swimming together at the end of this post.

My daughter is getting ready to return to her studies in North Carolina.  We will be joining her in September for her twenty-first birthday.  I now have to come up with $500 to give her.  There's a tradition in my family, my grandmother did it for my mom and uncle, Mom did it for my brother's and I and now I must do it for my child.  The deal is, if you can make it to 21 without smoking, you will get $500 on our birthday.  The reasoning, if you can go twenty-one years with smoking, chances are you will never start.  So far it has worked.  No one from that side of my family tree smokes.  Well, I'm going to sign-off now.  Think of me while I'm out picking grapes, sweat rushing down every crevice of my body, then in a year, think of me sipping on a cold glass of home brew.