Waffling on mowing, more on the past weekend

I am trying to decide if I want to mow today or not. I need to raise the cutting height on the mower, and most likely won't need the bag and just straight mulch. I also need to fill the gas can, and I forgot to grab the can this morning taking Stinky to school. That plate was on the lawn until Tuesday. Goof had me take it in and he used it for target practice in the back.

I've been itching to set off the fireworks we got. I love that stuff. The store we were in was huge! Goof's observation was that it was bigger than the one he went to on the Birmingham drive. I found the novelty ones I couldn't stop laughing over. The laying hens! They are such a hoot. The first time we tried one was back in 2001 on our vacation in SC. We had made 3 trips to various fireworks stores and on the last trip we were driving back from Savannah to Charleston and saw a huge store that was open until 2am. Now why does that mess with my head? For months after that I kept teasing my friend in SC, 'Last call at the bar is 1am! Get that drink on and head out to the fireworks store and blow your hands off!' A few years later she told me about some idiot that managed to decapitate himself because he packed some metal pot full of fireworks. Seriously, no matter how much I love fireworks, safety and respect should be given to the stuff. Somewhere in my ancestry there must have been some nutty relative that had fun making the stuff up. A great foreign film is Pao Da Shuang (1994) english translation: Red Fire Cracker, Green Fire Cracker. So back to the fireworks. I had seen the laying hens at the store, but they looked kinda lame. No idea what they did, and I thought it would be a waste of money. Our last purchase we got some free fireworks. One of the hens were included. So we had used up our supply of tanks, planes, helicopters, and bottle rockets, not much left really, and so I lit the hen up. OMG it was hilarious! It's a cheap cardboard figurine of a hen laying in a nest. You light it's fuse, and sparks fly out of the chicken's ass! After that's done, the chicken's head blows off! The sense of humor and irony! One tired chicken. So I got a full box of those, and a box of roosters too. I'm not sure what the roosters do as I haven't opened the packaging yet. I did get suckered by a box of mandarin ducks. I thought more sparks flying out of a fowl's ass, but nope these are spinners. It's gonna be a fun summer. Goof has already made arrangements for one of his peers to stop and pick up more bricks of firecrackers when she next makes a trip down from Birmingham. Honestly I doubt either will remember. Last time he was there, he missed the exit and just wanted to come home. It looks like he will have to travel to SC for work too. I may have to visit my friend if he goes to Charleston, blow up some fireworks at her house. Oh by the way the bricks of fireworks? We use singles or small packets of them to train that darn red dog not to bark along our side of the property. So far he's learning not to run to our side and bark because the screen door opens. Goof says Babymama doesn't like fireworks, so I wonder if she's finally keeping him inside the house instead so we don't set them off. I can't say for certain, but I know the dog is avoiding running over to bug me.

Oh I didn't mention much about the weekend trip. We went to the Montgomery dog show. It was a small show for the breed, and the usual politics were played. Stinky and Goof were bored out of their gourds, and we spent most of Sat in the pool. He did not want to get out.


He was in there until 9pm! Stinky was very popular in the pool. We had stopped at a Toys R Us and picked up some water toys. Water cannons are awesome. There was a martial arts group staying at the hotel and the kids were a lot of fun. Mississippi kids. Goof couldn't stop smiling these girls had some serious Scarlett O'Hara accents. The southern drawl that has left Atlanta. One little girl decided Goof could play her daddy while she was there. Literally the girl was attached to him. She needed a protector in the pool? Goof and Stinky are pretty good mimics and they have been practicing their accents. Me, meh. I don't have much of an ear for that. Though one of my friends says I'm beginning to pick one up. Oh yea, I can see Stinky grown up and he's gonna goof around with his friends and talk like that character on Pushing Daisies. Wilfred Woodruff, the Chinese redneck. The first time I heard an Asian person speak with a southern drawl, I was so amazed. A Korean woman had come into the pharmacy to fill a script. She must have come over very young or born here. A really deep thick drawl. Wow my ears couldn't wrap around it. I told my CA coworkers about it, and they laughed. Even though I was born here, I can understand a thick Asian accent call it environmental training growing up in the Bay Area, but if someone coming into the Oakland pharmacy with that accent to fill their scripts? That would be so outside the norm. Everyone would be talking about it. Here it's just another facet of living in the south. Think of it this way the San Francisco / East Bay is approximately 25% Asian. I think the metro Atlanta area is at the most 6% and mostly concentrated on the East side in Gwinnet county. There really isn't a distinct accent for the west coast. Oh sure sayings, but not any particular accent that denotes where you came from. The coworkers use to laugh at me. I would ask the patients to repeat themselves. I thought it was just too noisy for me to understand, not that the accent was so thick. They told me the deeper south I go, the more chances I would not understand them. I had no problems with the accent in Charleston and Savannah as far as I remember. Goof still thinks his peers talk to slow. He tries to slow his speech down, but he sees the confusion in their faces as he's still too fast for them. I only wonder what they think of the VP.

We survived the flight back

I'm back from the city by the Bay. Well from the East Bay anyways. For some reason I'm warmer here than back at Mom's house. The wind was so cold! Also it rained in Atlanta while we were gone, so the bitter cold front was missing. Mom told me that Dad hurt his thumb somehow and wasn't able to turn on the wall heater. Not that she uses it much. We used space heaters to warm up our toes. Mom worries about her orchids. Gee, they are her new children. There is a cold front coming in next week, so back to the cold toes. I really want electric socks.

No luggage was lost, and it wasn't a bad flight back. We watched Blades of Glory on the laptop, so we had some fun. It was a much calmer flight back. I did leave CA with more luggage than I meant to. Now I have a complete set of Mom's luggage. I'm sure that will come in handy next time.

Still thinking about all that happened with the family. One thing that was pretty funny and I'll have to post pictures later, is the public housing. A comment that one of my younger cousins made about store bought gingerbread house kits. So since the holidays are over, the joke was still funny, and I teased her about it. I'm going to make a house and she will have to make hers. I plan to share photos of this with the family and all 3 of you out there. If I manage to make more than one, will it become a ghetto? The Acorn projects of Oakland? Make gingerbread gun runners? If I knew the name of some infamous Atlanta project I would name it that. Perhaps if I can make multi-story buildings I can call it New Jack City. Wesley Snipes toting a machine gun in a Jeep outside the complex. How hard would it be to make a crack pipe with royal icing? Heck would you even be able to tell what it is, depending on the size?

Ah well, we are unpacked, but still sorting things out. I've got to sit on Stinky to organize his closet. It looks like the closet puked clothes all over the place. I think I need to grab some more hangers for him. Also a new belt or two for his pants. Dang kid has an itty bitty waist. What any woman would kill for. Wasted on men.