Sunday, July 30, 2006

Fun At Work; Or, How I Freaked Out the Amish Ladies

It was a typically busy weekend morning at my current place of employment, a retail store/restaurant that serves old-fashioned country-style meals.

I wandered the retail store (I am really beginning to hate that word, "retail") looking for potential customers. However, nearly every person in the store at the moment was in line waiting to enter the adjoining dining room. Apparently they were all hungry.

After nodding hello to some new visitors as they entered the building, I suddenly froze as I saw an all-too-familiar figure striding out from the restroom area. Oh, not that I knew that particular person as an individual, but rather it was the woven straw hat, beard, and suspenders (or braces, as we re-enactors call them) that caught my eye.

Yes indeed, I thought to myself, the Amish have arrived.

The Amish, you see, look suspiciously similar to the people at a local Baptist church I once attended. It's not that I didn't like the people there, but only that I didn't fit in with them very well. I could never be Amish.

However, I like Amish people very much and I think they have the right idea...get Back to Basics (a favourite book of mine from the 1970s) and live close to the land. Work hard and live on what you make. Don't depend on technology or people. Sounds good to me! :D

But anyway. I circled round the small group of Amish people waiting to get into the dining room, acting rather like a shark eyeing its victims before going in for the kill.

Finally, choosing the right moment, I swooped down upon two little old ladies.

"Good morning, ladies!"

They nodded and smiled warily -- at least I think they did, from what I could tell. Their heads were mostly covered by their black bonnets.

"Do you," I asked out of nowhere, "happen to use bonnet board?"

They exchanged dumbfounded and rather frightened looks. "What?" one of them asked finally.

"Do you use bonnet board?" I repeated patiently, gesturing toward their bonnets.

"Why...yes. We do," the other replied, giving me a tentative smile.

How on earth, they must have been thinking, does this crazy Englischer know about bonnet board?

I answered their unspoken question by explaining, "I do Civil War re-enacting and sometimes we use bonnet board to make our bonnets."

"Ah," they said, nodding and smiling benignly. I excused myself and walked away grinning.

It was only later that I realised that telling a group of people who are probably pacifists that I re-enact the Civil War was most likely not a statement designed to win me brownie points.

But then, I just got done saying that I could never be Amish, so why do I care? LOL!

It's fun to freak out the customers. In a good way, of course.

O:D

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Today's Amazing Adventure

Today when I was at work I accidentally left my car windows rolled up all the way.

Normally I have them down just a little, but this time I was in a hurry thanks to my sputtering vehicle which lately prefers to go just a little over 20 miles an hour for the first 10 minutes of driving.

After a long day (well, it wasn't that long, but it started at 7 a.m., so it seemed much longer than it actually was), I came back out to my car to find it positively sweltering.

I drove home, then remembered I had left part of a dark-chocolate Dove bar in the bottom of my purse, which due to job restrictions I must leave in my car.

Jumping to my feet (I was of course sitting at the computer), I sallied over to my purse and fished out the bar.

After swiping up the drizzle of chocolate that had escaped the open wrapper and landed on the bottom of the purse, I cut open the plastic wrapper with a pair of scissors and...

...licked all the chocolate off it. I got chocolate all over my face and hands. It was fun. Heheheheh. :D

Thursday, July 20, 2006

As usual...more randomness.

It is what you have come to expect from me, so I shall stand and deliver. Or, rather, sit and deliver. Hum. Deliver. De-liver. De-live-r.

Weird word.

Oh well. Anyway.

My mother just dumped a bunch of shredded potatoes into a pan for supper and it reminded me of my recent foray into cooking with Potato Pancakes, apparently termed Doodlebugs in some regions of the country. They were...different. Kind of hard to cook all the way through. They reminded me of the time I tried to make gnocchi.

*hack, cough, gag, sputter*

Blech!!!

That is the last time I try to make a food item simply because the entirely fictional father of an entirely fictional TV character stated that it was his favourite food. So much for impressing people.

In case you were wondering, not that you were, the fictional character and his fictional father were Gary and Bernie Hobson of Early Edition. I loved that show! Kyle Chandler is so cute! *squee* His new fall show is Friday Night Lights, which I may have to check out even though I hate all sports except figure skating and equine events.

OK, I'll stop now.

In other news...hmm, I should give you the Mumford Report. It is the very same thing as last year except that I didn't spend as much time on my feet and there was no weird kid at the ball to force me into a schottische. Are you ready? Here goes.

IT WAS HOT!!!!!!!!!!

There you have it. The heat index last year was at least in the 140s Fahrenheit, and this year at times it felt as if it should have been even more than that. Now I know what my brother-in-law went through during his tour in Kuwait and Iraq when temps over there were in the 160s Fahrenheit.

It was 90 today and quite humid, and at my workplace we had a picnic outside. Everyone else was wilting in the heat and complaining about how sticky they were. Usually I would be the first to join them -- nay, the first to START the complaining! -- but this time I have to say that without a corset, lace-up boots, and 6 layers of clothing, I really didn't feel that hot. I brought my trusty palmetto fan and peppermint extract, and soon had all the other females in the immediate vicinity dabbing peppermint on their necks, ears, and various other body parts. Heheheheheh. I love introducing people to new things.

Bit of randomness approaching: Today I saw a bloke with a tat that said "Honour above all" in German. I don't remember how to spell it, since he was moving about a lot and wouldn't hold still long enough for me to read it. Then how did I find out what it said? Guess what! No, you'll never guess. I asked him!

Speaking of tats, now I am reminded of Abby Sciuto from NCIS. I saw an episode the other day in which every member of the team except Gibbs bought her black roses for her birthday. She had an entire cooler full of black roses! I was thinking...what would one get Abby for a birthday present? Not black roses, that's for sure. And without being Goth myself (though I love black clothes and eyeliner and mitts and spiky heels and black hair and...) I really don't know much about purchasing studded dog collars -- especially since she already has such an extensive collection of them.

That question was idly lurking in the back of my mind when I went eBay-surfing the other day. Then, as I was searching for antique glass Native American beads, I found it -- the Perfect Present For Abby. What do you think? For the Goth who has everything:
















It's a necklace of hand-carved bone beads depicting skulls. Isn't that neat? Heh! xD

...There is a ladybug crawling on the desk in front of me! How cool! OK, now I've taken it outside and set it free. It had a cat hair stuck to its hard outer wings -- which are called something scientific but for which I cannot remember the name -- and that was why it couldn't fly off the tip of my finger every time I gave it a chance to do so. I removed the cat hair and it flew off happily! Yay!

That also reminds me of Abby. There's this one part in the episode called Bloodbath in which Abby is being stalked and has to stay the night at McGee's place. She can't find her toothbrush at one point.

"Oh, I can't find my toothbrush! It must have fallen out in your car."

"That's OK. I still have your old one."

"You still have my old toothbrush? That's kinda creepy, McGee." (She goes to get it, then comes out of the bathroom holding it up.)

"What?"

"This is not my toothbrush."

"OK, well, I must have bought another one and forgotten about it."

"It's a ladybug toothbrush, McGee! This is for cute girls named Gina Marie who bake cookies and wear J.Lo Glow! Not for a quasi-manly federal agent who...carries a gun!"

"Are you gonna use it or not?"

"An anonymous toothbrush? I would rather remove my own tonsils with Typhoid Mary's straight razor!"

Ha, ha. Pretty funny scene. All right, I'll stop now. Except for one last thing: it always annoys me that nobody can ever spell Abby's last name correctly when they're writing fanfiction. It's spelt S-c-i-u-t-o, people! Not Scuito! Gah!!

Speaking of spelling, I read this email forward the other day...

"If you can read this, your brain is 50% faster than those who can't. fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid, too. Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe tuo fo 100 anc. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!"

Apparently the people who wrote this were so concerned with spelling that they forgot all about capitalisation, grammar, syntax, and sentence structure.

The fourth sentence reads, "The phenomenal power of the human mind, according to a research at Cambridge University, it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be in the right place."

There are several different ways to correct this sentence...here is one:

"According to research carried out at Cambridge University, the phenomenal power of the human mind is such that it doesn't matter in what order the letters in a word occur; the only important thing is that the first and last letters be in the correct place."

*sighs with relief*

There, now I feel much better. And I promise that I will stop being annoying. Honestly, sometimes I even annoy myself!

Before I annoy myself or anyone else further in this post, I should sign off now. House search updates coming soon!! I promise!

Oh yes...and congratulations to Russell and Dani on the birth of their second son, Tennyson Spencer Crowe! And congrats to Charlie because he is now a big brother!!! :D