Tale Of Tartar

I did not go to Walmart yesterday, but I still have enough of a complaint to sit and write a blog post about the place!  In case you’ve missed my other (many) Walmart rants, I’ll save you the search and link to a few of the various episodes depicting the times they wronged me.  Like this time.  And this time.  And this time, to name a few…

So anyway, back to last night – I needed tartar sauce for dinner and didn’t realize it until after the kids got home from school, so I ran out (for what I thought was going to be) really quick to get some.  I went to Walgreens first, but they don’t carry tartar sauce, so I went across town to Dollar General, and they don’t carry tartar sauce either.  Is this a side effect of living in a small town – it’s hard to find the things I need last minute if needed?  If so, I will gladly take it in exchange for the traffic, air pollution, and the general stress that exudes from larger cities (see hubby’s blog post about a recent news article about the most stressed cities – ew).  But most likely the apparent lack of tartar sauce in rural NW Ohio is due to scenario #2 – ever since we got a Super Walmart a few years ago, the competitors have phased out certain grocery non-necessities like tartar sauce.  Why should they carry old crusty tartar sauce when no one buys it there because everyone shops at Walmart?  I begrudgingly include myself in that category – you can read those previous posts of mine if you really want to know more about my Walmart paradox and why I shop there.  (At least my kids were never slapped by strangers, and I haven’t shown up here – yet.)

If you’re still with me – I’ve linked all over the internet in this post, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ve lost some people –  I’m going to blame Walmart for my lack-of-tartar-sauce problem.  And in case you’re wondering how it all turned out, it really wasn’t a problem after all.  We just convinced the kids to try ranch dressing instead of the tartar sauce, and they actually liked it – well, until the ranch dressing came out too fast and spilled and incited a tantrum that caused a chain reaction that ruined dinner, but that’s another post!  And before my comment board lights up with healthy eating advice, I’m already aware that the kids really shouldn’t grow up so sauce-dependent.  But in these parts where the kids outnumber the adults, you must adapt to survive, and “pick your battles” is essential parenting advice!




Quite Possibly My Worst Nightmare

Did you hear about this?  Seems a man settling back for a quiet afternoon in his tiki bar (that’s a whole ‘nother story, I guess.  Us Midwestern folks can’t really identify…) when he opened his can of Diet Pepsi, took a big gulp and began to gag.  His wife came over, and to make a long story short, found a blob in his pop can that was tested and discovered to be a gutted frog or toad.  For more of the gory details, click the link above, and you can find out how (and this is a direct quote from the frog-drinker’s wife), “what started out as a normal afternoon in our tiki bar has blown up into this crazy thing.”

I titled this post appropriately because while I love all animals, I’m scared of frogs and toads.  It’s a weird thing and I won’t go into it (more scared of the “ugly” harmless ones than the pretty poisonous ones, go figure), but the only thing I can think of worse than finding a gutted amphibian in my pop is to find a live one or even a dead one that still resembles its living form.  That being said, in all seriousness, my true greatest fear is something bad happening to my family, but I thought this made for interesting reading anyway.  I smell  a lawsuit.




Just after midnight

and I was asleep, but I woke to an intense headache. Two aspirin and a glass of milk later, the headache is receding and I’m wide awake. Hmmmm…

Anyway, this reminded me of what I do when sleep eludes me. I like to read and now post in a blog. So why not combine the two.

Just last Sunday, there was a discussion of movies with the main plot being people hunting people. This has occurred in many places, but it always reminds me of a short story I read in my youth. I needed to find that story so I did a quick search of one place I go to find reading material. And I found the story. I’m fairly certain it predates most movies with that theme, if not a lot of other stories. It is on Feedbooks.com so you can read it on your computer or other electronic device. For your pleasure The Most Dangerous Game. Written in 1924, I read this story some time in the late 60’s or early 70’s. I don’t remember what anthology had it, but I do remember reading it more than once. It was a good story then and it holds up well today. I’m going to do more searching to see if this story type had earlier roots.

Speaking of good places to find free books, I found the following sites:
www.feedbooks.com
Project Gutenberg
Google Books

Late night, insomnia hitting? Nothing better than a good story. And now no excuses about cost or making a trip to the library.
Now all I need is a Kindle or some other small electronic reader and I can take them wherever I go. Not as good as a hard copy, but I might be able to get used to it.

I need sleep, but I just saw a story that might be interesting… 😉




A Case of MPD?

Monday night at rehearsal, we had about half the cast present without either of the directors.  This greatly limited the amount of work we could accomplish.  It was decided that we would once again run lines.  Quite often in these situations, actors are asked to read multiple roles.  I ended up being three of the four male parts.  At times this was quite humorous but most of the time it gave me even more insight into my own character;  who is Harnell Chesterton and what makes him tick (or in terms most theatre performers can relate: What is his motivation?  UGH!)  I believe I have a firm grasp on Mr. Chesterton’s persona.  However, for reasons that will hopefully be quite clear to those in the audience, I am having a bit of trouble with his lines, but they are getting there.  I have such a grasp that the assistant director told me that I was perfectly cast.  Two weeks in and my reputation has already preceded me!  C’est impossible!  No worries… by week’s end, I should be good.  I just need to visit my area Goodwill’s for a white dinner jacket.




What was that word again?

It has been too long since this morning, but I heard something on the radio this morning that made me do a double take. The thing is, what I heard was not what was said. I totally mis-heard what was said. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the word, or what I thought I heard. All I remember is that it sounded like something I would blog about.

How many times do we mishear something? I’ve written before about misheard song lyrics, so I know this is something that happens to a lot of people.

What I’m wondering today is this: How many times did a misheard word cause trouble? This isn’t something I can easily answer, but the concept is something that caught my attention. I was especially close to this while married. My wife did have a hearing loss and she would often mishear what was said. This did cause a problem or two. Most of the time it was handled well when everyone understood about the hearing loss. I’ve also experienced the problem and I don’t have a hearing loss.

Then again, I wonder how many times mishearing actually helped the situation. I don’t have any experience with this, that I can remember. Anyone?

Just some random thinking for this evening.




Redbox Junkies

Now that the kids are back in school (2 out of 4 anyway), I have some (stress on the some, not a lot of) extra time to sit and blog again –  something that wasn’t made a priority over our busy summer.  Among our summertime fun and adventures were many trips to the Redbox.  Surely you know what I’m referring to, for if we have such futuristic technology here in the NW Ohio boonies, then it must exist in most places.  The Redbox is a machine (about the size of a gas station ATM on steroids) that distributes $1 one-night dvd movie rentals.  You can choose a movie for $1 from any Redbox location (our small town has 3, just an example of how they are everywhere), and then you return your movie to any Redbox location by 9:00pm the next night.  We first got hooked on the concept when we were on the way back home from Florida and the kids got sick of the movies we had brought for the car dvd player (poor things!  Who’s with me from the days when we were lucky enough to bring our Walkman on the trip with a couple of tapes!) .  So  anyway – we stopped at a Redbox at a McDonald’s in Tennessee, the kids watched the movie a few times, and we returned it at a Walmart in Ohio – for just $1!  Ok, this is quickly and unintentionally turning into a plug…

So anyway, my husband and I got kind of hooked on the Redbox this summer, watching a movie almost every night – seriously!  We went through a horror phase and watched many of a series called After Dark Horror Fest: 8 Films To Die For, and even though many of the movies (there were 8 movies in the series, but the series ran multiple years) in the series were low-budget, many were actually worthy of the recognition and worth watching.  Among our favorites of the horror genre was Hack! starring none other than Danica McKellar, Winnie from the late ’80’s / early 90’s tv show The Wonder Years; as well as The Hamiltons, a surprisingly great-for-what-it-is little horror flick.

Somewhere within the mix was a forgotten (though I liked it slightly more than my husband did) Michael Moore parody (making fun of Michael Moore movies, not done by Michael Moore) and the best Redbox movie ever called Sunshine Cleaning.

I highly recommend Sunshine Cleaning.  Don’t let its similarities with another movie called Little Miss Sunshine get you confused.  The two movies share the word Sunshine in their titles, an actor (the late Alan Arkin, wonderful in both roles), and some producers – but neither their plot lines nor their characters intersect.  You can check  out Little Miss Sunshine for yourself if you haven’t already – I recommend that one as well.  But Sunshine Cleaning is less mainstream and my husband and I enjoyed it immensely.  It stars the talented Amy Adams as a single mom who, along with her flighty sister (Emily Blunt, also a really good actress), start a cleaning business, though it’s not your normal, everyday cleaning business –  they are hired to clean up extreme biological hazards, ie, crime scenes.  What follows is a heartwarming tale which takes many entertaining and at times, comedic turns.  The characters are well developed as is the plot, and the movie just makes for a well-spent evening – especially for just $1.  Again, I’m at risk here for sounding like a plug, but oh well!  Go get Sunshine Cleaning from your local Redbox – you can even reserve online for pickup before you go!




And People Wonder Why We Left…

America’s Most Stressful Cities

Few enjoy their commute. Just ask Stephen Dinwiddie, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Chicago.

“I think anybody who, like I do, commutes on the Kennedy on a daily basis knows exactly what stress is,” he says, of his daily home-to-work commute on Chicago’s expressway that extends from the Chicago Loop to O’Hare International Airport. “It takes anywhere from 30 minutes to several centuries–at least subjectively.”
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But more pressing factors make Chicago for the second year in a row the country’s most stressful city. Crowding, poor air quality, a high 11% unemployment rate and free-falling home values have created a cocktail of constant worry affecting many in the Windy City.

Read More…




Speaking of unusual…

Here’s probably a very unique and unusual way of preventing people from committing suicide by jumping off of bridges.  Apparently this is somewhat common in China, so some workers decided to do something about it.  The source is the same as the last article, WPTV.com:

Slippery when buttered

Last Update: 10:12 am

Chinese workers have covered a giant steel bridge with butter because officials are fed up with traffic jams caused by people who slow down to watch suicide victims leaping to their death.

In a single month eight people jumped to their death with many more threatening to end their lives on the bridge.

The butter was spread over all of the climbable surfaces and it appears to be working. Officials report they are able to get to the bridge and catch the suicide attempters.

Copyright WENN.com. Metro.co.uk contributed to this report.

Here’s hoping that missionaries over there can spread the Gospel there more quickly to these urgent cases.




This hobby sucks…

Okay, not that kind of sucks.  It is very unusual though, that’s for sure.  While other 10-year-olds collect the latest trading cards, one Illinois boy collects vacuum cleaners.  Yes, you read that right.  I know some don’t want to collect old-fashioned things like coins and stamps, but vacuum cleaners?? Here’s the WPTV article:

Unique hobby for a 10 year old boy

Last Update: 8/31 10:05 am

(WAND)

TUSCOLA, IL–Most little boys collect things like baseball cards or hot wheels.

But not the 10-year old Gregory Evans.

He has a thing for vacuum cleaners.

He ‘s been collecting them since he was three years old.

While other kids dream of Disney World, Gregory’s favorite vacation destination is the Hoover Museum.

“I take them apart and see if there’s anything wrong with them,” said Evans.

And the 10 year old is such an expert on vacuums that he can tell which model is running by its sound.

Gregory hopes to work in a vacuum shop when he grows up, if not sooner.

Reported by: Scot England/WAND TV




What next…

Under the concerns of my eye doctor, my fifty+ year old eyes are now under constant supervision for the possibility of glaucoma. Now it seems that it there are new tests that help determine if a person has glaucoma. Under tests done just 5 years ago, any eye doctor would never have noticed a problem with my eyes. Now, new tests can measure parts of the eye that were only accessible in surgery or an autopsy. Is it my luck that I am now taking these new tests, or because nothing else indicates glaucoma, are these test just a wast of my time and money? I really like to think that I’m a little lucky. If all goes well, I will never have to worry about my eyesight and glaucoma.

Of course I went through the same thing a few years ago when the scale for high and low chlorolesteral was modified. I’ve had the same levels for years, but now it is high, 20 years ago it was good, 15 years ago it was moderate. So I take medication that I would not have taken 15 years ago. Hmmm. The older I get, the more I fall apart….