Sunday Smattering

I'm off to play the grocery game in a few minutes. 3 of my kids have actually asked to come with me. At least one has wanted to come the last few times, which pretty much stuns me, because I loathed grocery shopping as a kid. Well, except at the ironically named "Dairy Lane" in Hong Kong (which, as far as I know carried no dairy products other than Klim and some ice cream) where my sis and I would go upstairs and read books like The Joy of Sex, or Sphinx (a trashy novel about a woman with 6 breasts), tucked into a LIFE magazine.

Speaking of shopping that I loathe, my favourite jeans have blown up. I have 2 pairs and they both blew out at the knee last week. :-( The ones I'm wearing right now also have a rip at the corner of one of the bum pockets. I can tell, because MuNKi keeps sticking his finger in it. All of this means that eventually I'm going to have to suck it up and buy new jeans. Which is basically pure torture for me. I SO envy guys, who can fall in love with a pair of jeans and still be able to buy the same exact ones 30 years later. AND they can buy them to length. SO not fair. Sigh.

If only I could go upstairs and read smutty books while someone else bought my jeans for me. . .

*****
UPDATE : I won again at the Grocery Game. Today's stats:

$280.64 worth of groceries for $97.51. Huzzah! I saved $183.13, which is close to twice as much as I spent! :-)

It's No Accident

I can still vividly remember arguing with my older sister (when I was 7) that people had "accidents" not "accents." Ironically enough, this was outside of the hospital where we went to school at the time.

As it turns out, I do NOT have an accent. I know because my dental hygenist told me so.

So there.

Oh, and my dentist (who, as it turns out is Kevin Costner (at least from upside-down) - who knew? I suppose he fell in love with the area when filming here and I guess one of his movie roles must have prepared him for dentistry as a career) told me that I am "basically cavity-free by today's standards." Interesting. So I've got that going for me. Which is nice. ^_^

Potter Pics

It's really bright out here!


Carpe Noctem. If it ever comes.


Caught by the prize patrol!


This is fun!


Jelly slug?


Bertie Botts vomit flavour!


Eeeeew!


Is it a permanent tattoo?


It's cold!


But cool!
(I was going to get this as a tramp stamp to surprise MuNKi, but they were only doing arms and faces. ^_^ )


Dragon for Prawn


Friend's dragon. Sweet!

***Don't read the caption below the next picture if you don't want a slightly veiled
spoiler.***


Photographic evidence (if a bit blurry) that we were right all along.


Sluggie ♥ Snape


OMG! Actual BOOOOOOOKS!!!!!


Almost made it!



Day 2


Someone cough up a copy for ME already!


Unimpressed.
(and Sky Chair™)

My last statement (below) contains a reference to the book. It's not a spoiler, but you might want to skip it anyway.

And FTR I ♥ MOLLY WEASLEY!!!!

I think she got the best line in the book. ^_^

Once in Blue Moon

Blue Moon is an ice cream flavour I have always just taken for granted. Imagine my surprise, then, to get an article from my mom stating that the flavour is purely a Midwestern America thing. I first remember getting it as a treat after vaccinations when I was 4. We had to have QUITE a few vaccinations to go overseas, and our parents promised my sis and I ice cream cones after each round to lessen the sting. I remember my mom and dad praising me for not crying each time, but I also remember finally breaking down for the last round. I can still hear my mom saying "I think she's finally just HAD it with these shots," and I had. But I still got my ice cream cone -- it wasn't a bribe against crying, just something calculated to make us feel better. Or maybe, now that I look at it from my parents' point of view, something to make my parents feel better. I think I chose Blue Moon every single time. :) I guess that would have been in Berrien Springs, Michigan, at Mission Institute. We lived in Cicero, Indiana at the time, but I don't remember if they had Blue Moon in Indiana.

I know I've seen and had the stuff lots in Wisconsin -- it's a regular flavour at Babcock Hall on the UW-Madison campus -- and here in the greater Detroit Metro area you can get it. But come to think of it, I'm not sure I ever saw it in California. Neil Gaiman apparently eats it. Wikipedia has an article on it. Amazon sells it. (as gourmet food?!?!)

Have you tried it? Have you heard of it? Enquiring Minds want to know.

Triva Fact: our next Blue Moon here in the Americas will be on May 31. Guess what I'll be eating. :)

If Wishes Were Horses

****************

A completely drunken sot was stumbling down the street with one foot on the curb and one foot in the gutter. A cop pulled up and said, "I've got to take you in, mate. You're obviously drunk."

Our wasted friend asked, "Officer, are ya absolutely sure I'm drunk?"

"Yeah, buddy, I'm sure," said the copper. "Let's go."

Breathing a sigh of relief, the drunk said, "Thank goodness, I thought I was crippled."

****************
A few facts:

-Wish I were only drunk. Of course, I could get wasted, but then I'd just be a drunken cripple. ^_^

-I don't advise ever doing something that causes you to require crutches, because they make your armpits sore.

-Stairs have never struck me as a particularly formidable obstacle before now. Amazing how such a small distance can become such a huge barrier.

-My sister and I bought 2 pairs of wooden crutches from Goodwill when we were about 12 and 15. We invented all kind of games to play on crutches. Most involved rollerskates and a tennis ball. I have to say that crutches are a lot more fun when they're optional. ^_^

-Several people have nearly incapacitated themselves playing with my crutches.

-Retail therapy really does make me feel better. The first day, I bought a Korean DVD. Today it was homeschooling stuff. Oooh, and Matin Latin, and other fun things from The Book Peddler.

My ankle definitely does NOT feel worse, and I think it feels slightly better. Of course MuNKi is not letting me do anything fun. It's like living with the Gestapo. ;) I have to say, though, that it's pretty lovely to just saunter (read hobble/hop/crutch) off after a meal and leave the clean-up to others whilst feeling pretty guilt-free about the whole thing.

And yes, I do actually appreciate (very much) what MuNKi is doing for me. But it's still fun to carp about it.

One of my ankle bones has mysteriously vanished, and that's kinda weird. I'm pretty intimate with a bag of Trader Joe's frozen peas at this point.

I have all the hope in the world of making a rapid (or at least semi-rapid) recovery from this, but in case my foot falls off, I'm pretty sure what my next occupation is going to be. Just call me Captain Pegleg. ^_^