I was driving along one of the back roads of NW Ohio yesterday minding my own business. Of course I was looking for the deer that will run out of the fields as soon as the harvest starts, but I didn’t see any of those. Now in the normal course of driving one usually expects to have their own side of the road. For some strange reason the driver of a grain filled semi decided he needed to drive down the center line. There was plenty of room for him on his normal side, seeing that I only had to get my passenger side tires in the grass when he flew by. As Maxwell Smart says, “He missed me by ‘this’ much”. The ‘this’ happened to be about 2 feet at most. Not an enjoyable experience at all.

So after sitting on the side of the road for about 1/2 an hour or so, I continued my drive to see my daughter. I really was hoping that I could relax enough to enjoy the evening and them maybe drive home. As noted in my last post, I was able to relax.

In my years of driving, I’ve only had a few close calls. Each one affected me in the same manner. My nerves were a tangled mess for at least an hour or two. Only one of the close calls was my fault, and my reaction to it kept me from repeating my mistake. Now I am talking about life/death close calls, I’ve had my share of little fender benders, but the big ones scare me. And there I was taking the back roads hoping to avoid the traffic on the more populated routes.

Well, today there are three drivers that avoided a major accident, because of the alert action of two drivers (me and the guy following me). I wonder if the truck driver even saw us. I doubt it, since he kept right on truckin’.

So, I guess I’m just saying, “It is great to be blogging today, heck it is great to be doing anything today.”

Drive safe.

I don’t think State Farm could have helped in this case that fittingly enough happened in the state up north.  Until recently, a Michigan woman has been helping three of her neighbors by making sure that their children were safely put on the school bus for the 6 mile trip.  Shortly after the beginning of the school year, Lisa Snyder received a letter from the Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that her charity was in violation of a law aimed at unlicensed day care centers and she would be fined if she continued.  This for watching THREE children (not including her own daughter) who each had their parent’s permission.  They each spent about an hour at the woman’s home preparing for school.  One has to wonder how and why the authorities learned of this generosity.  I can understand a houseful of children but 4 children do not a houseful make (of course others might disagree).

At least after learning of this travesty, the state powers that be are in the process of changing the regulations allowing good samaritans like Mrs. Snyder to continue making sure that a few of her neighbor’s children make it safely to school.  I realize that not everyone can be trusted but this individual was just doing a good deed and known well enough and trusted to do it.

Yes, I’ve heard that reaction to sushi on occasion. I think it came from my children. For the most part when they were growing up, and for some even now, they never wanted to try new food. From the limited diet of their childhood (not that limited, I did experiment in the kitchen), I have a couple that will try new foods, and one that even enjoys some different tastes. As far as I know none of them are as varied in their food trying as their dad. (I’ve eaten bugs on purpose and some were tasty ….)

So anyway I took my eldest daughter and her husband out to dinner this evening. The reason is this was her first week back at work after some time off. I just thought it would help not to have to cook dinner for one evening. Yes, we did go to a Sushi Bar/Japanese Restaurant. We went to the Koto Buki restaurant in Toledo.

If you like sushi, you should go. If you don’t, but you like some oriental foods, you should go. In addition to the sushi and sashimi, they have other oriental dishes. It is rather pricey when you start ordering a lot of Sushi. If you want less expensive, I guess you could order from the sides and appetizers. 😉

Anyway we all ended up eating all we wanted (and more) and had a good relaxing evening. As they say in the commercials, it was priceless.

The Chicago Bears did it again!  Another 4th quarter comeback!

Next week we face the Detroit Lions which, with one win in the past two seasons, should be a cakewalk.  However, if I know anything about the NFL (do I?) I know that on any given Sunday either team can win the game.  So, I will not get too confident!

Jay Cutler, the Bears shiny new QB, looked sharp again helping to fade my memory of that terrible start in Green Bay.  At first, I was not very happy…  The Bears started down 13-0 and it wasn’t looking very positive.  I even had to turn down a friend’s invite for dinner (sorry Cathy!) because I was not feeling very social.

But just before the half the Bears scored a touchdown and provided some tension relief.  The rest of the game remained an exciting affiar and it ended the best possible way — with a Bears win.

So, there you have it.

CNN.com links to a blog called Mental Floss.  Usually involving tidbits about pop culture in a top-10 format,  these articles can be quite entertaining.  For example, I came across a few the other day about fast food:  Who Approved That?  7 Food Promotions Gone Horrible Wrong and 10 Secret Menu Items at Fast Food Restaurants and enjoyed both of those.  Note the NY Yankees reference in the failed Pepsi promotion in the first article (sorry Jamiahsh!).

Mental Floss has featured other lists in their articles that have interested me; of note is 10 Homeschooled Celebrities (Agatha Christie, Mozart, Alexander Graham Bell, to name a few), 10 Things That Have Deflated the Macy’s Parade, and 5 Weather Events Worth Chatting About.  It’s a well-written, entertaining blog (like this one, haha) – Just thought I’d share it!

We had a bit of wind today and into the evening. A few of us at work braved the elements and tried to go for a bit of a walk at lunch. Didn’t happen. It started to rain a bit, and it was driven hard into our faces. Not much rain, but it hurt. We went in and were lucky to find that there we were allowed to hit the buffet that was provided for a meeting. So today I got a free lunch. Can’t say that every day.

Anyway the wind and rainy conditions made me think of book and a video “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day”. As a family we would watch the video, and I remember reading the Pooh books to my daughters many times. Now, the Disney movie “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” was taken from the book “The House at Pooh Corners”. Other Disney Pooh movies were made from other chapters in this book and the first Pooh book “Winnie-the-Pooh”. My daughters, wife and I read the original books and some of the Disney versions based on their movies. Always fun to read and watch. And I think I can still get my voice into Eeyore every now and then. I tried to add voices to all the characters in the book, but the girls had the video voices to compare mine to. I think they liked my ‘Eeyore’. Maybe one daughter will comment?

So on this cool and blustery evening, I just have to say “Oh bother’.

I am in a quandary.  Next week, opening week of You Have the Right to Remain Dead, is audtion dates for WCCT’s production of Miracle on 34th Street, a show I dearly love.  However, I do not see much in the way of a possibility to try out when there is rehearsal each of the three nights.

However, the next production of the Village Players is another holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life.  I’m not entirely sure when auditions for this show will be; since Travis (director for IAWL) and Mare and are both in Little Shop of Horrors at the same time as my show, I do not see them being held until after that.  Maybe when our time-strapped tangenteer has time to read this post, she might be able to provide a bit of insight or I may be able to ask at our next gathering.

But I think either show would be fun to be a part of.

I think I could use a Tivo.  That way, I could Tivo Dr. Phil and watch it when I fold laundry – that would certainly be better on my ears and more entertaining than the screaming parrot.  Well, actually, I don’t know how Tivo works – I could probably only watch what I tape record (I grew up in the 80’s – we “taped” our movies and our music) on the tv that has the Tivo, right?  But anyway, I could pause it when someone needed a diaper change or help with something or a snack or a drink to be able to watch more tv instead of just never getting to commit to watching shows (except really good ones like The Office) because of my lack of time and my lack of Tivo.  I wonder how much they cost; I have no idea.  It occurred to me that I don’t watch much tv anymore; a hobby I really liked as a kid.  It’s not a bad thing, really, I’m busy doing other more worthwhile things.  But I do miss getting to watch Dr. Phil – my tv has been hijacked by the likes of Dora, Diego, and Max and Ruby in the morning when it’s on, and I don’t like not being able to watch the Office until it’s available online.  We try to watch The Office when it airs on Thursday night and without fail, all hell always breaks loose with the kids even though it’s on at 9 and they should be in bed.

I got the movie Mr. Mom from the library for the kids to  watch.  I figured since my husband and I liked the movie as kids, we should show it to our kids – after all, they loved Annie (the 1982 version, the update is awful).  But apparently Mr. Mom came out before the MPAA came up with the PG-13 rating – there were a few scenes (funny how neither one of us remembered they were in the movie) I would rather not be in the type of movies my children enjoy.  At least we were able to skip over the strip club scene without them even noticing, yikes.  I surely don’t remember that from watching that movie as a kid.  Maybe there was an edited-for-television version…  Anyway, all this got me to thinking that they should have a function for dvd players where you can edit the movie to play while skipping certain parts of your choosing.  Maybe this already exists, but I don’t know a lot about the latest gadgets and such.

Well, anyway…  sorry for the randomness, just had a little time to blog for a change, so I just wrote what was on my mind at the moment!  Maybe I’ll check into that Tivo…

Yes, according to our calendar’s autumn officially arrived last week.  Today is the first real sign that it has indeed come.  The blustery wind, the grey skies, the falling, blowing leaves… AH… love it… evn if I had to put a jacket on to walk up town this morning.  I had to stop at the post office and as I was making my way home, I decided to go back up (after getting my wallet) and get a can of tomato soup for lunch.  Grilled cheese and tomato soup on a wonderful fall day!

The landscape also brings back wonderful memories of Autumn’s past of high school football games, baseball playoffs on the tube, bonfires, hay rides, a sudden chill, and a sense of creepiness that makes its presence known as we close out September and enter the month of October.  Last year was the first season for years that I have been REAL Haunted Attraction scavenging with friends.  Let’s hope that this continues although my next 2 weekends are once again pretty full.  It’s much more fun as the season progresses and more people come out to be given a fright and those that do the frightening are more seasoned as we found out on our multiple trips to ScreamAcres (my favorite of the bunch) last year.  We were there so many times that the ghouls knew we were coming as we approached and one very memorable escapade that I hesitate mentioning at the fear of becoming a real member of the walking dead.

So… whether you are 8 or 108 there is plenty to do during the fall in Northwest Ohio.

All of this talk of hideouts and outlaws (see my previous post about Robber’s Cave) makes me think about a really fun card game we’ve recently discovered – it’s easy to become a Bandits junkie!

Bandits is a card game by Buffalo Games, and it’s fun for the entire family.  It accommodates 2-6 players and is recommended for ages 10+, but we’ve found that our 9-year-old daughter and her friends can learn it and play quite easily.

Basically, a player begins with a hand of six cards, and he has 3 options on his turn: start a gunfight, draw a card, or stash loot in his Hideaway.  Many shoot-outs and much thievery ensues until the deck runs out of cards, and players count their stash in their Hideaways to determine the winner.  Those are the basics – there are many other fun cards that offer various twists on the game play (double-crossing lawmen and outlaws, booby traps, backfires, to name a few), and I’m just skimming the surface of the game; you really should play to appreciate it.  I don’t know that I’ve ever played such a fun card game (I like Pit a lot, but it’s another type pf game altogether), and each game of Bandits is unique dependent upon the number of players – a 2-player game plays out much more differently than does a 4-player game.  I’d like to try it with 6 players, but we can never haul it out at game night since we always have more than 6 players.  However many players there are, Bandits is definitely worth playing and highly recommended by this game collector!