2016 March "FMP"

2016 March FROM MY PERSPECTIVE

Don’t you just hate it when you know you’re tired and sleepy and keep falling asleep in your chair, then as soon as you go to bed your body and mind say, “HA!!!  ‘Just kidding.”?  It’s, also, a real honk-off when you awaken after sleeping just 2.25 hours and your mind says, “Hey, I want to relive, through your memory, those wild college/high school/single days you had, and it is to be right now!”

IKEA, the Swedish furniture/home supply store which is so popular, is celebrating its 75^th birthday.  I made it a cake and sent it to the closest store.  In the box I placed:  2 eggs, an 8 oz. carton of milk, 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, a stick of butter, 1 teaspoon of salt, a bowl, a whisk, a pan, and a container of icing.  My message read:  Happy Birthday, IKEA!  Here’s your cake!”  I forgot the instructions, just like they do.

I saw in a West Virginia newspaper an article about a woman sentenced for selling heroin near a playground of a school.  My thought was, “Maybe some of the parents of the children at that school needed to take her up a holler for some ‘physical education’.”

Some girl told me how very difficult it was for her to gain weight.  I told her it was very difficult for me to NOT gain weight.  We had a good laugh, and then I kicked her very hard in her skinny butt.

One Sunday morning a new pastor at a little country church asked an older man to say a prayer.  The man started, “Dear Lord, I don’t like buttermilk.  I ain’t real fond o’ flour.  Salt’s difficult to taste when it’s alone.  Lard leaves a slick, nasty taste in my mouth, and sugar’s a bit gritty on m’ tongue.”  The pastor opened one eye and wondered, “Where in the world is he going with this?”, but remained silent.  The old man continued.  “But, Lord, after You mix ‘em all together and bake ‘em in a hot oven, I just love them biscuits.  Dear Lord, help us to realize when life gets hard, when things come up that we don’t like, whenever we don’t understand what You’re a-doin’, that we need to wait and see what You are a-makin’.  After You get through a-mixin’ and a-bakin’, it’ll probably be somethin’ even better than them biscuits.  Amen and amen, Oh Lord.”  (This just goes right along with Romans 8:28, doesn’t it?)

“Angry people want you to see how powerful they are.  Loving people want you to see how powerful you are.”  Chief Red Eagle

Some things cross my mind every now and then.  For example:  I’m rather certain that the person who put that first “R” in February, also, decided how to spell Wednesday.  Perhaps they put that first  “R” in February to blend with the “B” as a weather report to others about what it’s like in the North during the second month of the year…..BRRRRRR.  This same person probably thought putting a “B” at the end of “plumb” wouldn’t confuse a lot of people about how to pronounce it.  Then there is/are:  there,their, they’re and to/too/two.  FACEBOOK let’s us know how NOT to use the choices of those words.  FACEBOOK:  a chosen nightmare of butchered grammar and sentence construction for an English teacher.

The mark of the educated man is not in his boast that he has built his mountain of facts and stood on the top of it, but in his admission that there may be other peaks in the same range with men on the top of them, and that, though their views of the landscape may be different from his, they are nonetheless legitimate. -E.J. Pratt, poet (4 Feb 1882-1964) In other words, it is when you realize you don’t know it all, and that others have something to contribute to your knowledge, that you are smarter than the average bear.

I went over to Brenduhh’s house to help her; she’d called for some assistance.  I walked into her kitchen and there she stood with a 2 large pizza cutters.  “What did you need me to help you do, Brenduhh?” I asked.  “I have the big pizza to cut.  I went to the doctor today and he told me I need to cut carbs.  Would you help me, please?”  For some reason, only known to her, she believed she was following the doctor’s orders.

Fresh snow absorbs sound, lowering ambient noise over a landscape because the trapped air between snowflakes reduces vibration.  That’s why it gets so quiet when it snows except for the roar of children because there is no school.

You know those lyric sites which provide the words to songs of now and the past?  Well, when I was a kid, we’d have to sing the songs all wrong for years until the truth destroyed us.  Gods, what a shock when I found out that the Fifth Dimension’s AQUARIUS lyrics were, “This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius” instead of “This is the dawning of the age of asparagus, the age of asparagus.”  Then there was Def Leppard’s POUR SOME SUGAR ON ME lyric, which I always thought strange hearing “sweet potatoes, sack of beans” as I sung it, but it actually was “sweet to taste, saccharine.”

While talking with a friend of mine, we got on the subject of “Empty Nest Syndrome”.  We both have 4 children.  She told me she wasn’t looking forward to August when the last one would be going away to college and it would just be her and her hubby.  “I’m not looking forward to the “Empty Nest Syndrome” I’ve heard about, Trudy,” she lamented.  I looked at her and grinned, “Sweetie, you won’t experience it.  Your hubby still lives in the house with you.”

A sign seen in a parking garage:  “PLEASE PAY YOUR PARKING FEE BEFORE EXISTING.”

What do you get when you eat peanut butter with your baked beans?-----a fart which sticks to the roof of your butt.

Budget cuts have hit a certain police department.  There will now be a Chihuahua K9 attack unit.  No ankle will be safe!

Pizza rolls:  a masochistic delight to burn your mouth 15 different times in one sitting.

Churros:  Mexico’s sadistic way of saying, “I bet you can’t eat just one” and getting back at stressed Americans through dessert.

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (8 Feb 1819-1900) Hmmm, I wonder if he’s ever been in a tornado, hurricane, typhoon, or ice storm.  I find none of those refreshing, exhilarating, or supporting (“braces us up”).

The wise Polish saying of, “It’s not your circus; it’s not your monkeys” can not always apply to people with children.  Sometimes it is YOUR circus and they are YOUR monkeys.  I know, I’ve had a ring-side seat often.

Blessings and snickers, Trudy :)