Have you noticed, our polls are just like our comments.  So very few people access the polls, and very few comment on the posts.  I know I have some lurkers (they told me), and others that just visit.

Now I would like to get more readers, but our little corner of the internet does get a lot of action.  I realize our esteemed admin would like to get more bloggers,  so we have more internet traffic, but that seemed to get more spam like blogs.  What to do? What to do?   Me, I beg 😉   So this is another one of those posts begging for more response from the lurkers, but in this case all you need to do is fill out a poll.  How easy is that?  Or you can post comments on anything here that interests you.

I am lucky that I just post here for my own enjoyment.

[poll id = 5]

Once again, we have a bit of a food chain residing as pets in our home.  When my cat passed away a year ago now, it left a hole in our household food chain.  Although it’s not quite as balanced as it was when the cat was here, today we find ourselves with a small zoo nonetheless.  Here is the roll call of pets in our house:

Charity – almost 11-year-old female Jack (Jerk) Russell Terrier / Australian Shepard mix with one blue eye and one brown eye.  An extremely feisty but lovable loudmouth who doesn’t hesitate to let you know what she wants, when she wants it.  Will even growl for petting!  World’s worst puppy = World’s best family dog.

Beesly – nearly 7-year-old cocker spaniel mix with extremely thick fur.  We once shaved her and to our astonishment, she became a much smaller dog because her fur is so thick!  She really likes it outdoors, and we call her nordic (of or pertaining to the north, where it’s cold) because she doesn’t seem to mind the cold at all – probably can’t feel it through that blanket of fur!  We adopted her from the humane society in March 2008, and we’re SO glad!  GREAT with kids and an extreme snuggler.  The only problem we have with her is her nasty dog breath!  Oh, and her uncanny ability to escape.  She can open doors and can somehow (repeatedly, not just a fluke!) unhook her way off of 2 dog chains at the same time!  Luckily for us, she always comes back.

Squawky – an 8-year-old Scarlet Macaw parrot.  After living with him for 7 years, I do not recommend parrots as pets!  He screams (and I mean ear-splitting) constantly – a repairman once asked us if we had a pterodactyl behind the door after hearing him scream.  But he is beautiful and drops gorgeous feathers all the time.  And having him has been an awesome learning experience for us and the kids.  He can talk and is very curious about everything.  His vocabulary includes: hi, here kitty kitty, hi bird, and sometimes he just mumbles nonsense that sounds like human words.  In his spare time, Squawky likes to watch The Price is Right and Animal Planet.

Oreo – one of our new rat additions.  He is gray and white and smaller than Bobby Jack.  He seems a little more curious and less picky about food than Bobby Jack.  Had a close call with Charity this morning.

Bobby Jack – off-white colored rat who doesn’t like his rat food.  He enjoys many of the treats we’ve given him, especially junk food.  Just after we got them, he was the snugglier of the two, but I think he was just tired from his journey home from the pet store because now he’s as hyper and curious as his brother Oreo.  They are 5 weeks old, and so far, we would agree that rats make great pets!  They don’t bite like gerbils and hamsters, and they don’t scurry like mice.  They are fairly clean animals who groom a lot, are very intelligent and easily trainable.  I think one of the reasons they’re not popular pets to have is because of their super-short lifespans, about 1.5-3 years only.  🙁

Francis – the ladybug I found that became my new pet before I had the rats.  I put him in a bug catcher, and then he went MIA.  Good news – today I found him.  Turns out, there was a little pocket in the bug catcher where he was hiding.  I would check the bug catcher every now and then, and today I saw that he had re-emerged from hiding!

No Name – another ladybug I found in the house.  I won’t kill any bugs I find unless they’re mosquitos – and how I enjoy killing those things!  But any other bug I try to set free, and I just can’t send ladybugs out into the Ohio wilderness to freeze to death.  No Name is in a little container in the kitchen…  I wonder what would happen if I put him in with Francis?

Mally – Ok, she’s no longer part of our family physically, but we will always remember her.  Since I mentioned her earlier, I thought I’d put her on the list.  She was a 10-year-old inbred farm cat.  My husband and I were in college, and we drove all the way out to a farm to get a kitten after reading an ad in the newspaper.  By the time we got there, we wanted a cat so badly that we got one even though the owners said the mother cat had mated with a boy from a previous litter, which is how Mally came to be.  Because of this, she was never ‘quite right’, and was always the size of a kitten.  We named her Malice as a joke, but we always called her Mally.  I was her world, and she hid from everyone else, prompting family and friends alike to joke about our “invisible cat”.  But she existed, I swear, and she was very sweet, at least with me.  She liked to lie on my pregnant belly and would ‘groom’ my hair.  I miss her a lot and wish I could get another cat, but I’m allergic.  I was allergic to Mally, but there was no way I was going to get rid of her.  I got her before any of my kids were born, and so I doted upon her and spoiled her while my husband was working in the wee beginning of our days together.  For those of you who never saw her, here is my little cat:

Of Rock and Roll?  Today would have been Elvis Presley’s 74th birthday (althogh some still claim he still is among us… whatever).  My sister was born on January 8, 1977 so the family is sure to make mention of both events.  To be quite honest, I’m not sure that it was really good to be in his Blue Suede Shoes, particularly after becoming involved with his scheming manager Col. Tom Parker.  from what I understand, Elvis was pretty much held back in his potential by playing it safe. Most of the thirty-three movies he made (sometimes as many as three a year) were lackluster at best and seemed to be the same film over and over.  Although audiences flocked to the cinemas to see them, Presley was reported as being unfulfilled and unhappy with them.  Many offers were given to branch out of the sappy, one-dimensional musical extravaganzas into more dramatic roles, but Parker was always there driving him away from them.  One has to wonder why Elvis kept with him through most of his career (giving his manager 50% of all his earnings).  It also seemed that following his stint in the Army, the king’s music was same old same old and safe.  But I guess if audiences still bought the records… why mess with a good thing?  However, Elvis’ impact is still felt today nearly 32 years after his death.  He has been named the highest grossing deceased celebrity at least 5 times by Forbes magazine.  His music has become the basis of the musical All Shook Up. Plus, millions worldwide still flock to his Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee year after year.  I guess it is true that one is not truly gone as long as he is remembered.  One bit of trivia I still find intriguing, Elvis had a twin brother named Jesse Garon who was stillborn. [poll id=”9″]

While listening to the news this morning, I happened upon the bit about the gentleman on the ski lift who got more than he bargained for on his journey.  While the outcome was good, it could have been catastrophic.  The man was not identified and I can say with certainty that I would not want to be identified, either.  I am sure that if onlookers had the means, photos would have been snapped and videos must have been captured for youtube fodder.   Laugh if you must (hard not to) the situation must have been perilous… dangling from a ski lift while exposed for seven minutes.  Must haven been a chilling experience.

Man left dangling upside down, pantsless after Vail lift mishap

JANUARY 6–In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado’s ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Thursday morning. The January 1 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier, 48, and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail’s Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift’s fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair’s botched boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair. The images on page four and five were taken by a local photographer who happened upon the rescue scene. In a statement released this afternoon, Vail Resorts, which operates the ski area, reported that the skier was not injured after being “suspended for approximately seven minutes.” The press release did not explain how the mishap occurred, only that “the man was caught on the chair.”

Any other proud moment anyone would care to divulge?  I was the victim of a depantsing in junior high.  A group of us were on our way to the science teacher’s desk and for some reason a fellow classmate had grabbed onto my back pocket and as I was walking, I suddenly felt a draft.  It was a good thing I had phys ed that day so I had a change of pants.  I did not stand around long enogh to see if the architect of the depantsing got the typical punishment of writing spelling words 15 times.

My son (after having only daughters for the past nine years, it seems weird to say the word son) must be teething.  He will be 6 months old on Sunday already, and for the last 5 days, he’s been crying constantly.  Yesterday was the exception, but 4 of the 5 last days, he’s been crying nonstop – it’s quite taxing for both of us.  Mostly, the exhaustion comes because I just feel badly for the little guy – he used to be the happiest baby and smiled constantly.  But after trying everything to cheer him up, sometimes I selfishly think about how hard it is on me as well.  I can’t imagine the pain he’s going through, but in the mean time, I can’t get anything done around the house – and leisure time?  Forget it.  It’s hard to get anything done while holding him, and holding him offers one of the only ways to keep him from crying – sometimes even holding him doesn’t work.  Sometimes there is no choice but to put him down somewhere, like when I’m cooking for instance, and he’s not happy anywhere right now…  not in his playpen, his bouncer, his bouncy seat, his crib, the floor, nowhere, which means he is screaming, and it’s a draining form of torture to hear a baby cry all day.  The only reason I’m actually able to sit down and write this blog (YES!  Leisure time after all!) right now is because he is passed out (after a crying spell) sitting on the couch next to me.  He sometimes likes it there too, but that means I’m glued to the couch – can’t leave a baby unattended on a couch of course.  So I can sit here and type this blog, but I can’t do things like tackle my accumulating clutter or begin the task of cutting Mt. Washmore down to size.  Mt. Washmore is the never-ending, magically replenishing pile of laundry often found lurking in households with 2 or more kids – I have 4 kids, so our Mt. Washmore is taking on a life of its own.  If we have any more kids, I’m afraid people who come to visit us will just arrive at the foot of a gi-normous pile of clothes where there once was a house and a family who lived inside.

I try to tell myself that things like backed-up laundry and clutter don’t really matter in the long run.  Heck, I’ll probably even be bored and WISH I had lots more laundry to do once my kids are all grown and in school during the day.  But just as I convince my brain that this is true, my feet stumble over something that’s in the way and shouldn’t be there – clutter or a basket of laundry to put away.  Speak of the devil, the laundry buzzer just went off…  if only my son will sleep through the transfer from the couch to his playpen so I can go fold it and put it away, thereby avoiding feeding Mt. Washmore.

HE DID!  He’s asleep in his playpen!  But now the dogs are barking at the neighbor’s cat again and WAAAAA, WAAAAAA!!!  Those dogs have woken the baby again!  Sigh…

I guess today will see yet another expansion of Mt. Washmore after all.

Tonight, moments after I had locked up for the night,  a young man knocked on the door.  It was 9:05 and everything was locked up, money in the safe, ready to go home after a long day.  “I was wondering if I could get a pack of cigarettes.”  Either the person had a very babyish face or he was trying to pull a fast one.  In the first place, we were closed and someone asking for cigarettes is the LAST thing I would EVER let anyone talk me into selling them 5 minutes after the store was closed..  We are a dry store… no alcohol, or that would also be nixed.  After I politely told the rather young looking gentleman that I could not help him, the manager told me that she had waited on him before.  She refused the sale just as I would have.  In order to prove his age he asked if a birth certificate would be acceptable.  Who is this guy trying to kid?

This reminds me of a tale I have heard related about cast members from a production of Scapin (the best show no one saw… myself included as I had yet to become involved in the community theatre as heavily as I am now) going to a convenience store trying to buy some alcohol.  My 21 year-old + friend was still in heavy costume makeup giving him the appearance of an extremely old man..  If memory serves, the clerk was not going to allow the sale until identification was given.  I do not believe he had his license with him at the time.  Hilarious. [poll id=”8″]

Recently I’ve been trying to respond to one person’s blog, and I’ve gotten errors.  Then I try on another browser and can make 1 reply.  Then on to a third to make another reply.  Then I have to log completely off my computer to make another reply.  Just weird.  Of course while testing all this out it looks like I’m making very weird comments.   Of course, sometimes I do make weird comments, so nobody really notices the difference. 😉

But, I wonder is anyone having trouble commenting on my blog.  Am I loosing the opinions, views, and comments of others?  I can’t be sure, unless they contact me in some other manner.  

The other thing I notice this past week, I’m getting more spam type replies.  Since I do some moderation  of all the replies, most don’t get through, but I see them.   I don’t like them, they add no value to my blog.  That is important to me.   I would like this blog to be a place for me to share, inform, rant and maybe entertain.  Both my initial post and the responses to them help with this.  Spam replies do none of this.

Then I noticed that some blog themes like certain browsers better than others.  This is to be expected, since some browsers handle the coding differently.   It is my hope that my current blog works well with all browsers.  It certainly works with the ones I use, on the screen setting I use.  Input on what you see would help out.

Finally I started using a few polls.  There is one poll on this site that I’m guessing our wonderful Admin put on when he was testing the poll plugin install.  Here it is for your pleasure, and my education.

[poll id = 1]

In my previous post I was looking for the title of a song and the artist who sings it, and I promised a prize to anyone who could provide me with the info.  Two readers and fellow bloggers, justj and derek, successfully completed the challenge.  So what’s their prize?  A blog post of recognition, of course!

Alright, that’s dumb.  It’s going to make sure that people never take any challenges I offer again.  Isn’t just knowing that you helped a friend enough?  Of course it is, but you were promised a prize.  Maybe I can treat your ears to a round of Senorita Mas Fina (that’s the name of the song I was looking for in case you’re wondering, and it’s sung by Kevin Fowler).

Just kidding!  I won’t make you listen to the song.  It really seems like something only a country music lover would like – cheesy lyrics, hokey theme, obscene amount of twang – the kind of song I can really use to tease my friends who hate country music!

Well, thanks again derek and justj for playing and for coming up with the info I was looking for.  And it’s ironic, I did do searches myself, and I did come up with the name Kevin Fowler, but before I was able to listen to the song, I had to do something else (the baby has been crying for 3 days straight – teething), and I guess I forgot I was close to a result when my computer crashed.  So thanks for helping me, and you will get more than the blog post recognition I had planned – I will have a real prize the next time I see each of you – something small, but maybe a little better than blog recognition and being made to listen to an extreme lesson in the country music technique of twang.  Thanks for playing!

But a prince ain’t bad either.  First rehearsal after the read through.  It is interesesting how everyone is getting into their characters.  We have a good cast, and we already developing some very intresting personallities.  Should be a lot of fun.   

I have some verly good lines and good interaction with the other actors.  As with all my acting experiences, I hope to learn something in this stage experience.  With the actors on stage and the directors out in front, I’m sure it will happen again.

Now just a bit of trivia, while the line “It’s good to be the king” is not said exactly in this play, the sentiment is there.  This line was said often in a couple of Mel Brooks’ movies and one of his stage plays.  Extra point for any who can name all three and another movie that used the line.

From dictionary.com:

gringo [gring-goh] –noun, plural -gos. Usually Disparaging.
(in Latin America or Spain) a foreigner, esp. one of U.S. or British descent.

Sorry – didn’t mean to be disparaging, but I am of U.S. descent and I need help.

This post is an appeal to country music fans to please help me figure out the details of a country song I want.  I don’t know the name of it or who sings it.  It’s an older song – maybe from the 1980’s or ’90’s…  I wouldn’t even rule out the ’70’s.  Just about the only lyrics I can remember are “…be your little gringo…”  or something like that.  The song is uptempo and sung by a male.  If you can get me the name and artist of the song I’m looking for, you’ll win a prize.  Something tells me Carol might know this…  or my dad…  WHAT IS THIS SONG?