Losing It

I am visiting my sister. She is just slightly younger than I and we are both over 50 at this point.  We are not quite as old as the ladies in the photo above, but we sometimes think we are.  Lately we have been having problems with communication.  The words just don't come out right.  For instance, the other day I was complaining that my "eggs were lakey". What I meant was "My legs are achy".  Of course that made much more sense than having my eggs be lakey. After all at our ages we have no more eggs!  My sister has also suffered from similar problems with word formation and was trying to say "dislexic" the other day and managed to say "lixdicksia". After I went and changed my underwear, as I had soiled it laughing at this strange turn of a phrase, I told her we really needed to see about this problem we were having. She agreed and we decided to drive to the store to buy some Ginko. Not sure that it would help, but it could't hurt.  When we came back home I exclaimed "Someone is here" as there was a car in the driveway. She looked at me like I had grown a second head and asked what I meant. I said "There's a car in the driveway". She said "Where?"  I said "right there" and pointed to the white sedan parked by the house. She turned to me and said "That is YOUR car!"  Suddenly I realized she was right, it was my car. But to be fair, I had a rental that week so I didn't immediately recognize it.  That's my excuse any way. Not sure what HER excuse was several days later when, once again we had been out to the store, and arrived home when she said "Someone is here".  I then looked at her like SHE had grown and extra head and informed her that was MY car parked in the driveway.

We are now religiously taking our Ginko. At all not sure it helping is.  Cripes now I sound like Yoda!

Easter is coming! Annual Peeps Contest!

That's right folks!  It's time once again for the annual Peeps Contest!  With Easter fast approaching The Washington Post is sponsoring its' annual contest asking entrants to provide a diorama featuring the popular and dare I say it? delicious marshmallow Peeps.  I am always amazed by what people come up with for these contests and this year was no exception.

I particularly love the one above with the cast of the Muppet Show although it was not the winner of last year's contest. I'm sure the entries for this year's contest will be just as creative. I would love to enter, but am just to lazy to put one together, although I am tempted to create a "Scandal" themed one featuring, of course, Olivia Peep.

I can remember getting Peeps in my Easter basket and that was back when they only came in one color and shape.  Yellow and shaped like little chicks.  Ah, yes! Those wonderful peeps who managed to get stuck to all the plastic grass in the basket rendering them pretty much inedible. Still we managed to peel the grass off and shove them in our mouths.  What better breakfast than sugar covered marshmallow and chocolate bunnies?

Evidently, Peeps are made of stuff that lasts forever.  Hmmmm, makes you wonder about eating them though.

It was a dark and stormy night

                               
There was a huge storm all over the south last night. I managed to drive through it. Over and over.
The storm had come through over night Sunday into Monday, When I left yesterday I thought I had it in front of me and, that it would move out before I got to it.  Unfortunately, I managed to catch up to it last night and ended up travelling into driving rain and huge lightning strikes.

The radio kept issuing storm warnings including tornado watches, flood warnings, power outages and trees down in the road.  My car was buffeted by the wind and it was hard to keep the wheels from moving all over the road.

I was headed east along with the storm and knew that I was due to make a turn to the south within an hour of the 6:00 PM report last evening.  As I approached the intersection where I was due to start driving south, the storm had started to let up and I breathed a sigh of relief that I could leave the storm behind.  I turned south and drove for about thirty minutes when signs of the storm reared their heads again.  The rain increased along with huge streaks of lightning which lit up the entire sky.  New reports on the radio indicated that I had somehow managed to turn back into the storm.  New reports of tornado watches and flood warnings were being issued from the radio.  Crap! This storm was sticking to me like a three year old hanging on his mother's leg on the first day of pre-school.

I decided to stop and eat dinner hoping the storm would blow out by the time I was done.  A Shoney's appeared up ahead and I stopped to satisfy a craving I had been having for pancakes and bacon. Nothing like comfort food after a few hours of tense driving.

By the time dinner was done the storm had moved on and I gingerly stepped over puddles in the parking lot to get to my car.  Aha, I thought, now I can drive a few more hours to make it to the half-way point in my trip. I hopped in the car and proceeded to drive south again. About an hour into the drive, the rain started up once more along with the lightning.  Renewed radio reports now indicated that the storm had tracked south and I was going to drive right into it-again!  The wind picked up and the rain began to really come down hard.  I gave up and decided to call it a night with a plan to stop at the very next decent hotel to come along.

This morning's news reports showed the devastation caused by the storm and made me glad I had stopped. The sun is now shining and today's drive should be fine.

Wiki Wacky

It's amazing what you can find when you have unlimited amount of time and a computer.  I recently discovered that there are just a ton of sites inspired by "Wikipedia".  Of course, due to the many recent news broadcasts, we are all probably aware of "Wikileaks", but did you know that there is a whole website devoted to the multitude of Star Wars fans known as "Wookieepedia"? 

Or how about a site devoted to the nerdy fans of the now defunct television show "Lost"?  Yep, you got it there is "Lostpedia".

And speaking of lost, if you happen to get lost there is "Wikimapia" to help you find your way.  If you have trouble figuring out how to do things you can always visit "Wikihow" which in case you don't find what you are looking for there, you can visit "Wikianswers".

Maybe you might want to visit Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida where I went one summer to see the mermaid show. Ok, that might be a stretch but I am getting a Wikiheadache.

Brain Fake Cupcake

I HATE scents that smell like food. There is a very simple explanation for this: my brain cannot differentiate between actual food smells and the scent of candles, oils or other "home" scents. Personally, I think there is a conspiracy between the manufactures of scents and bakeries and coffee shops. They are in cahoots to create these enticing fragrances that make us yearn for the actual thing so we will go out and buy some.  This happened to me just yesterday at someones home where they were burning a scented oil called "Cupcake". I had to have a serious discussion with my brain to ignore the diet breaking scent of freshly baked cupcakes piled high with fluffy frosting.  It went something like this (with my brain sounding much like cookie monster):

Brain:  YUM! I smell freshly baked delicious cupcakes!  YUM!

Me:  No, brain, that is not the smell of cupcakes--it is just a pretend smell of cupcakes.

Brain: NO! It is real cupcakes and I am ordering the mouth to start producing saliva so we can eat some cupcakes.

Me:  No, no, no. We are not going to be eating cupcakes. There are no actual cupcakes here! Stop it~!

Brain:  ME WANT CUPCAKES! ME WANT CUPCAKES NOW!

Me:  Absolutely not. We are not, I repeat, not eating cupcakes!

Brain:  I don't care what you say, I WANT cupcakes.  I will make you get me cupcakes.

Me:  NO! You never listen to me! Every time I say NO to cookies, cupcakes, ice cream -- you insist that we get some. And then when I say we must ride the bike and go to the gym you whine that you don't want to. It isn't fair!!!

Brain:  I am NOT listening to you I don't care what you say. I WANT the cupcakes. Nah, nah, nah, nah--not listening to diet and such. GIVE ME CUPCAKES.

END RESULT: yep, you guessed it---ate delicious cupcakes with wonderful icing. Arrrgggh! I never win.

So, please, if I am coming to visit you, I beg you, don't use scents that make me want to break the diet. It is hard enough as is with a brain that won't listen. Oh, and you probably don't want to use those ones that smell like margaritas or wine or daquiris either because God knows what I might do with those things!

Necklace and Breadbox

This getting older thing really stinks.  Now it seems that I am losing my hearing. Or maybe my ability to multi-task.  I was sitting at the dining table working on the computer with the tv on in the background. Was only partly listening to it as the 'free on demand' movie I had been watching had ended.  You know what it is like when you are only halfway paying attention to something but then you hear something that seems to register but not exactly in the right way?  Well, that's what just happened.  An ad came on for a new movie that could be rented on the cable Pay Per View movies and this is what I heard:

"And it's available at the same time as necklace and breadbox"

I raised my head up from the computer with a confused and quizzical expression thinking "WHAT was that?"
After a second I realized that what the announcer actually had said was: .......same time as Netflix and Red Box.  OMG! Someone get the room ready for me as I am sure I need to go to the home soon!  Good Lord! I am starting to understand my aging parents.