Happy Birthday

Happy birthday to Grandma Ruth today (lady in the picture at the top of the page. I'm the little one there. The dog behind her legs is Meatball, and the town in the background is Irwin, PA). Grandma Ruth was born on Friday the Thirteenth. Whenever a Friday the Thirteenth rolls around, she wakes up in the morning and says, "My lucky day!" Or, at least, she once said it was her lucky day on one Friday the Thirteenth, and I will forevermore picture her saying this.

She also believes that "cellar door" is the most beautiful word (phrase?) in the English language. Thus my blog's original title, "grandma's cellar door".

Not the Plague, after all

It turns out that I have Strep Throat. I felt kind of weird going to the Urgent Care this morning for a sore throat, but it was a really really sore throat, and now that I know I have Strep, I feel vindicated, as the final symptom of Strep (if not treated) is death. When Brian was reading me the symptoms, however, I was more concerned with "food odor". At least that wasn't me! It was the strep!

Not to worry, though. I've got my antibiotics. Foot odor will soon disappear (this is a most pressing issue for those of you who have never met me in person, I'm sure).

We had planned on recording our annual Christmas album this week-end, but I don't think that is going to happen this year. I can't muster any creativity or (obviously) sing right now, although Brian is getting very good at "We Three Kings" on the banjo. Too bad. Maybe we will do something on a much smaller scale, like record one song. And save it. For the second coming.

Plague Revisited

Somehow caught the plague again. Poopy. I love my husband (husband stayed home and took care of sick me and sick baby yesterday). I had a fever of 101.6.

Thought a lot of random thoughts while sick. For example, at one of my weight watchers meetings once (I don't attend anymore), a lady lost 100 pounds and was telling us about it. She was telling us about her "weight loss journey" (which is what you do once you "meet goal" in weight watchers) and about how she wanted to live to be 100 years old, and had suddenly realized that her joints wouldn't last that long if she were 100 pounds overweight, so she had lost all of this weight. Interesting. But the really interesting thing about this woman was that, after explaining her reasoning to us, she suddenly broke into song,

"OH! IIIIII! Lost one hundred pounds!
I lost one hundred pounds!
I want to live to be one hundred and eight,
so I lost one hundred and two! Yes,
it could happen to you! To lose one hundred and two"...

Or something like that.

Everyone just stared at her, as she stood there and rocked and clapped her hands and sang to us. Sitting with mouths agape, we looked on. And then we clapped, of course, because you do that, you know. Everyone filed out in silence. No chit chat about that one.

She was pretty cool.

Feelings

I don't know about you, but I so relate to Animal in this one.

A Story of Questionable Origin

Jen wrote about her love of the film "Night of the Living Dead," and it reminded me of something.

When I was about twelve years old, my Uncle Rick drove me out to see the town where "Night of the Living Dead" was filmed. For all I know, he completely made it up, as he was generally full of shit*, but he also took me to a place nearby which was a reservoir that had been built over a town. The town had a river running through it, and the powers that be decided to damn the river and flood the town, so that everyone else in the area could have water or something. I don't know. Everyone had to give up their homes, move to a new town, and let them flood the old town until it was completely under water. Anyway, FDR's presidential train was riding the rails over the damn, and the president saw dead bodies floating by! Apparently, they were supposed to move the cemetery, but they must have left a few bodies, and when the soil became completely satiated, the dead bodies floated up to the surface. It was a great scandal of the time, supposedly. "Night of the Living Dead" was filmed in the new town, where all the people moved to when they flooded out their houses. I really and truly don't know if he made all this stuff up, but it scared the crap out of me when I was 12, and I've loved that movie ever since. He ended our freaky road trip day (I'm pretty sure we were driving around in circles) with a six pack for himself and KFC for the both of us. It's strange the details that stick in your head.

*He isn't full of shit, now. I think he just liked messing with me because I was twelve.


An inside joke for family: Rick and I were looking at all of this creepy stuff, talking about dead bodies floating around and stuff, nonchalant, like, when we saw a sign that said we were on the road to Saltsburg. We both screamed! "Turn the car around! Turn it around, Rick! Quick! Quick!!!!" Rick made a u-turn Dukes of Hazard style and we didn't breathe a big sigh of relief until we were ten miles up the road.

I be makin' puppets!

Freaky freaky zebra penguin ghost puppet.

Hellraiser or alternately sweet brown sea mammal puppet.

Zebra head with big lips puppet. Yes, that is a Miller Light next to him. I keep telling him to cut back on his drinking.

I'm a fan of Homosexuals and Butter...

... or at least that's what my facebook home page says! Nothing else, just homosexuals and butter. In that spirit, check out this video:

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

I'm always a sucker for personal appearances by Jesus.

MADVET

Forgive me, I'm not sure if this is really worthy of a post, but there is a truck around here that I see driving around a lot, with the personalized license, "MAD VET." This being Madison, I assumed at first that the person driving the truck was a Madison veteran. But then, of course, there are many possibilities, aren't there?

1. Madison Veteran
2. Angry Veteran
3. Insane Veteran
4. Madison Veterinarian
5. Angry Veterinarian
6. Insane Veterinarian
7. Other Possibilities?

Are there any people in your area with noteworthy plates? Do personalized plates even exist in, say, London? Just wondering.

Getting to Know You

A Game for Us

Here are the rules:
* Grab the book nearest you. Right now. Don't hunt on a book shelf for something to impress us, but it has to be a real book!
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.
* Post that sentence and reference the book in the comments.

I stole this from Meg. Remember, Meg, that plagiarism is the greatest of compliments!