Squeaky Clean Fun

Tonight was a very entertaining TKD night. About a year ago, a bunch of us were joking around about how funny it would be to slip some squeakers into our sparring pads. Then R went and found some and he's been sitting on them ever since, waiting for the right moment. Tonight he dropped one in my lap while I was putting my gear on and everyone else was busy, so I snuck it into the top of my left foot pad, figuring I do more round kicks with that foot, and I'd get more bang for the buck (or squeak for the kick) that way. I was already laughing before we started, but I guess my partner, G, didn't catch on. I'd popped him a few times before he suddenly grabbed his hogu (chest protector) and said, "Was that me?!?!"

Well, of course I confirmed that it was, and he thought that was pretty weird. So I kicked him again, and sure, enough, "SQUEAK!"

Of course I'm dying now, because I didn't realise he was going to think that HE was making the noise. That's just bonus. ^_^ And G just thinks I'm laughing because he's so squeaky. Then R says, "let me see" and kicks him with HIS squeaker foot, and sure enough, "SQUEAK!" LOL! Now, G is freaking out. "Why's it doing that? I don't get it! What's going on?!?" And the rest of us are dying because MuNKi has figured out what's going on, and of course R and I know. But I guess G didn't expect R and me to be in cahoots. ^_^

After a while we change partners, and then we change once again, and all the time R and I are squeaking when we hit someone with the squeaker foot but G doesn't seem to notice unless he's the one getting squeaked on. And he still thinks it's him. By this time the Master is cracking up, too. (thank goodness! ^_^)

G never did figure it out. I discreetly returned my squeaker to R and we'll have to pull them out again another night. ^_^

While we're speaking of laughter, you might enjoy this. I did. ^_^

Shameless Spam

Wa hay! It's shameless self-promotion Wednesday! That's the book my story is in. Xcite press has asked me to solicit Amazon reviews for it, so if you like that sort of reading, check it out. ^_^ (click the pic to go to Amazon)

Oy Vey!

We have a graduation party to attend. We were all invited yesterday. (He's a TKD classmate.) I should buy him a membership to some sort of Procrastinator's Society. Maybe later. ^_^ Right now I really need to scrap him a card. I want to get him something from Think Geek, but he's gonna have to wait for that.

Happy Towel Day!

Towel Day has arrived, and already our first batch of towels has been put to good use. When we dropped Mollusc off at her writing class this morning, we saw that everyone was outside. Turns out the person with the key is out of town. Fortunately, we all had our towels with us, so we donated them to the group to use for sitting on outside/holding over their heads as umbrellas (rain on the way)/shielding themselves from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, etc.

What are you using your towel for today?

Look for updates on towel usage throughout the day.

Update - OK, I didn't actually take my towel into Target, because I have this thing about taking stuff into stores. Even though most of my towels are ratty and could never be mistaken for store merchandise. If I had, though, I could have used it to wipe away the tears of frustration that went coursing down my face when I found exactly nothing that was on my list.

I will be taking it to TKD, of course.

Bothering Snape

Have y'all seen the Potter Puppet Pals? If not, I suggest at least watching Bothering Snape, first:



so that you can better enjoy this one:



Most of the PPP vids have been animated, but I see that the new ones have puppets remarkably like the drawn ones. ^_^


In other news, today is Towel Day Eve, which means that on Towel Day, tomorrow, any frood worth his pangalactic gargle blaster will be carrying his towel tomorrow. (or hers)

Fields of Chives

I think I planted 2 of this kind. One of them was planted across the sidewalk from the spot shown below. ^_^ I do love self-propogating plants. If you get a chance to eat chive flowers, by all means, do! They have a complex flavour that comes in 3 or 4 waves. Very tasty!



I think this is supposed to be a weed, but I've decided to call it a flower. Do you think if I nurture it, it will die?



My current "artistic" project is making an herbal of sorts - a book to keep track of all my herbs and other garden plants, lists of what needs to be done to them and when, and all of their various uses and properties. I'm having fun making the cover pages for the herbs.





But it doesn't have to be a completely serious undertaking. ^_^







If you have any fun herb quotes that I can include, please let me know.

In other news, I've sparred twice since spraining my ankle. It seems to set me back just a little, but not badly. I'm trying not to hit with any spinning back kicks.

Sluggie has a job being a Mommy's Helper for a second family, which I may or may not have mentioned. Today she got paid to swim in their pool. (yes, Mom was present!) Lucky girl! :)

Mollusc has changed her research paper topic from ravens to bats. Today I took her to the birdseed/feeder store to interview the Audubon lady there who fosters orphaned/hurt bats. The woman said she asked some great questions. :) She had a darling baby bat to show us. She had just fed him and he wanted to hang out with her instead of going back into his little tent. Very, VERY cute. :)

I'm currently reading Lety's Gift for review, and it's great! I have another of her books -- Passup Point -- coming for review, too. And I'm still chowing through Outlander #5. Whew!

Last night on a spur-of-the-day thing, we had a bunch of TKDers over after sparring for a pancake supper. What a blast! :)

We have the new Avatar DVD, so now it's time for an Avatar fest.

Awake and Alive

I'm still here. Blogger hates me. Post to follow. . .

Awake and Alive

I'm still here. I have a post brewing but I need to take a few pics. And first I have to help Sluggie make "fastest fudge cake" with chocolate ganache. Can you blame me for putting it off just a bit longer? ^_^

A Conversation

FISHY: We should go to the park again!

ME: Yes, when it's nicer outside.

FISHY: We need to play POOP STICK!!!!

ME: Unh???

FISHY: You know, where you stand on the bridge and drop the sticks in the water!

^_^

Another tidbit (see where she's from, TG?)

Well

The boy's father showed up and stayed for class today. That was a first.

Did he watch and take notes so he could help his kid study? No. He sat there reading a book.

Oh well, at least he showed, which is more involvement than he's ever shown before.

And now, because laughing is good medicine, I give you: Extremely Cute Baby and his Goofy Sounding Dad: (note - this is not my vid, nor is it one of my children, though I think I'd take him in a heartbeat. ^_^)

I Miss You

I'm sorry I'm not getting 'round much on the blog circuit.

Wanna hear something crazy? A couple of kids failed their TKD test on Saturday. One parent in particular is irate. She felt her son should have been passed whether he knew the material or not. She's pissed because a younger boy passed his test (for a lower belt) even though he didn't know some of his vocabulary words (though easily got the required 80%) while her own son failed because he didn't know more than 4 of his 20 4-sided hand techniques. She's told the owners that if her son doesn't pass his retest, "there will be consequences." Sadly, she does not mean for her son. What the hell?!?

She's a schoolteacher. Wouldn't you think that she would be able to put herself in the instructors' shoes and realise that you can't pass a kid who doesn't know his stuff? Especially for Bo Dan. I mean, that's a huge deal! Sadly, no. I guess she's more of the "no child left behind" sort. Like, ever. Like, even if they can't read - "aw pass 'em." Is it any wonder why the schools are in such a state?

So now she's getting really dung-headed and it sounds like she's going to have him study the old (much easier) curriculum just to make a point. In spite of the fact that he was handed the new curriculum back in August. What a "see you next Tuesday." (oh, I can't believe I said that) How does that help her kid succeed? How does that help him learn the right thing to do? How does it reinforce any of the six tenets of Tae Kwon Do? (Perseverance, Integrity, Courtesy, Self-Control, Indomitable Spirit, Humility)

So she's going to sacrifice her own kid on the altar of her pride.

Nice.

Sometimes people make me crazy.

Any Wagers

as to how long I can go on without posting?

Oh.

D'oh! ~_~

OK, well, now that I'm here I may as well say something. Sorta.

We put in a paver patio by our front walk and it was backbreaking work. Without the help of good friends, we'd never have gotten done in time to get the rental compacter and brick cutter back before we had to pay for another day.

They look GREAT! Pictures to follow once I do something about planters at the edges. ^_^

Life has been seemingly hectic for the last week. I'm hoping things will settle down soon. I'm not sure that they will though. Holy Wednesday has been defiled by the necessity that I teach after school class at 3:00. However, it should only be for a few weeks. Then it will be defiled for the whole summer by kids' sparring. O_O On the plus side, the Bigs will be attending 3 hours fewer per week. And the Littles can take class together, so instead of having to try to get to 4 different age group classes, there will just be three. I hope. Unless I'm still needed to teach the 3-5 year old class.

OK. Enough rambling.

MuNKi has been making fabulous food and bread. We've had sleep-overs the last 2 weekends. The sun is shining, the peas are growing, and I think the tomatoes bought the farm due to frost.

I guess I need to face the fact that my blog is pretty much only rambling.

*shrug*

The kids are watching Spirited Away, which I definitely recommend, as long as you're OK with bizarro surreal weirdness.

Oh, and I finally caved and bought a Swiffer, something like 7 years after everyone I knew was going nutso over them. I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger because of the expense for all the pads. I think people found that a bit laughable. I'm still not big on the idea of buying cleaning pads to use once and throw away, though, so I bought microfibre cleaning cloths at the dollar store. They ROCK! Yay! :) Those things used to be somewhere between $8 and $24 when they came out. Now they're 2 for $1. Who's laughing now?

Same Bat Time, Same Bat Channel

My sis is on the news AGAIN! :) If you click on this and scroll down to the bottom right where it says "Featured Videos" and then click on the Madison Area Music Awards link, you can see my sis and 2 of the other Getaway Drivers (Bob Manor on the left, Steve Pingry on the right) performing "Won't Ask Why."

Cool!!

We actually SKIPPED our class and sparring tonight in order to go see a bat presentation. Why, why, WHY did I not think to bring my camera? Wah! There were some cool bats there, and the last Batguest was a 1 day old "big brown bat." She was teensy. And very, very cute. I am SO putting up a bat house. (Yes, this is HIGHLY encouraged by bat conservators.)

Some Batfacts:

Bats are responsible for pollinating agave plants (Tequila!) and saguaro cacti. In fact, they are the ONLY pollinators of the saguaro. Additionally, bats are replenishing the rainforests (not so much here in MI, though) and they eat 600 to 1,200 mosquitos and other bugs per hour!! A few cities around here have passed resolutions asking homeowners to put up bat houses in order to help stop the spread of West Nile disease.

If you want to learn more about bat conservation and bathouses, or if you'd like to help out by sponsoring a bat, check out the OBC. Or go here for lots of fun Batfacts.

I kinda think the OBC should team up with these guys. Don't you?

M'aidez!

I can't seem to stop buying plants, or taking pictures.








"RRRRrrrrawwwwwr!!" (as The Prawn says)















Pink Yarrow. Say it with a Chinese accent. ^_^









I



You. :)

Watch the Birdie

Mini Post

~I can do 400 situps now. Turns out if you do them in batches of 50 with 10-20 second breaks, you can just keep on going. :) I only have to do 150 for blackbelt testing, so no sweat there as long as I keep this up.

~I can do 150 pushups but it's not pretty. I need to work on those.

~I took some bird pics today that I think are going to look pretty decent. Maybe I can get them up tonight.

~I sheared Fishy's head for the summer. After the first 3 passes with the buzzer, I sent him in to show MuNKi, who was properly disconcerted. ^_^ Now I have to go out and paint blue arrows on his head. Later, dudes!

Disappointed

And here I thought he was just a good actor all this time. But no. He really does fight like a girl. OK, that is an insult to all girls. He fights like a - well, British Blokes, I think you need to step up and defend yourselves here. I know you don't all fight like this. Do you?

Nazi Mama

Song Without Words Part II

Song Without Words Part I