Adapt and Overcome

Today, while toodling around the office while my boss took a well-deserved vacation, I was prancing too and fro deciding when I’d go to lunch, when I happened upon some of our IT folks.

I lurves me my IT folks. The head guy is awesome. He skydives, dives with sharks, and does other stupid things I’m sure I don’t know about, but the point is, he’s smart and snarky and keeps it all moving. (Except I have issues with Sharepoint but that will remain for another day.)

The head IT guy always uses a scenario when interviewing his potential employees that involves “What would you do with a Type A personality beyotch who wants your balls?”

He doesn’t use the word “balls”, but he’s referring to me. Jokingly. He always brings them around after hiring and says, “This is the one I was talking about. She really isn’t that way but I just wanted you to worry.” He knows I’m not like that. And, I’m not. So, I laugh and ask them to continue to consider me as queen.

So, anyway, we’re hovering around the water cooler and I say, “Hey! I haven’t met Mister MIster here. Heard a lot about him, but, well, hey.”

And we shake hands and I ask him how it’s going and he says groovy. I know he’s recently left the military, having had a particularly intense job overseeing certain systems and things, which makes him more than qualified for overseeing the systems involving our public safety sorts and such.

The IT head guy notes that everything has been going wrong lately, obviously, because things haven’t worked, or are wonky, or are just tempermental. Like that. So, I say, “Eh. Like the government, right?” Thinking that, since we’re sort of a pseudo government, it would resonate.

And he laughed and said, “Hey. Adapt and overcome. Right?”

That is probably a military phrase. But, I love it. It covers everything. Adapt and overcome. Get on with it. Deal with it.

It made me happy to hear that. So, I relayed that conversation to Mr. Froth earlier and he almost got teary-eyed.

It’s so perfect. Adapt and overcome.

Fearless

This is an/a eulogy for Fearless, the Black Lab, who we’ve known forever, who was almost 14 and who just died.

Fearless was the Beebs’ neighbor friend. They were pretty much the same age and have suffered through the same children and assorted other pets that we’ve all brought into our households.

Fearless used to stay with us for weekends while we babysat her and her companions, placing her sweet paws on our knees exhorting us to give her sugars. She was a kind and generous doggie who didn’t harrass the cats, enjoyed whatever canines were in residence and particularly thrived on bones bought for the Beebs (that he’d discarded and had given short shrift to) that were pushed under tables or couches. She’d discover those rawhide monster bones infused with broth or elk brains or whatever the most recent dog-attractant was and work it like crazy. She’d bend it WAY better than Beckham.

Fearless died this week. She was almost 14 and pretty much stopped eating and effectively moving after having help for diabetes and such.

She was a total PIP. A pip of a dog. She was Beeb’s friend. She was a beautiful female Black Lab with a wonderful personality. She has a couple of little bitty dogs carrying on her legacy next door, who aren’t quite sure what’s happened.

Toasts to the Fearless.

Those Idioms!

Slacker Joan, tsk tsk tsk. She is such a rabble rouser. Dragging the black hole controversy on and on and on. And contributing to it as well! She called me a Pringle’s Cracker Stix, Styx, Stick. You know. Well, she might have called me one if I had been around when she posted her post, but I’m going to take it personally regardless! Irregardless, also too.

As I mentioned on her site I prefer to be referred to as a suburban saltine. I can’t help my flourish origins. Whoa. I really should  be called a suburban lefse, since as how I have Norwegian blood in my veins, as bulging as they are.

But not as bulging as they used to be now that I don’t play the piano anymore.

And we’re not even talking about idioms here! This post is totally non sequiturish, something I pride myself on having perfected throughout my sojourn on this here clayball I call homebase.

Dumb as a sack of doorknobs–that might be a melding of a couple of idioms.

Ignorant as that asshole who blew through the four-way stop sign–that’s a local, yet universal, slight and not even funny.

Pretty as a digital photograph airbrushed and with torso and limbs supplied by another younger babe–perhaps a newer idiom.

I’m on a Kaiser, here, folks.

Bathdog

Here’s BB King getting a bath yesterday. With baby shampoo. Since he’s a geezer he’s developed some severe dandruff, so I thought maybe gentle baby shampoo might help.

Nah. Pretty worthless, but it smells much better than flea shampoo and he doesn’t have fleas, so it’s all good. He likes to partake of his bathwater during the process.

He’s a great bath taker and always has been. Now he even sits still for the towel rubdown, which is really the roughest part of everything. Or used to be. He’d jump and frolic and think it was just a SMASHING GAME to not GET DRY! NO! No drysies for me!

Now, it’s just too much effort to gambol and frolic like he used to, so he poses.

Tales from the Woods

As I mentioned earlier Mr. Froth decided to go hiking by himself at 6 AM. I was kind of asleep. Really I was. Trust me. I woke up at 7 and he was gone and I thought, “I certainly hope he be’s careful.”

He arrived home two hours later, noting that he’d seen two deer and had a close encounter of, I guess, the second kind-I can’t remember what the criteria for those things are-with a group of feral hogs. He was skipping down an old road portion of the pathway, notably lacking in any sort of tree with reachable, climbable branches…when he heard what sounded like elephants rumbling back into the bushes. Good. Go back there far away. I don’t think the Eddie Bauer carbon-tipped hiking cane would deter some ugly-ass feral pigs.

He also revisited the pig trap that we discovered last week and took a couple of pics. You’ll see the deercorn they use to bait the trap.

Now, you’ve probably heard of “orbs.” They’re the supposed spectral remnants that show up on photographs that you don’t see when you’re taking the picture. Usually they’re refractions of moisture in the air or flaws in the paper. yada

Mr. Froth took a picture of the pig trap not realizing what he’d taken a picture of BEHIND the pig trap. I pointed it out to him earlier. It’s easier to see on a larger version of the picture, but if you look really close you’ll find two eyeballs staring at you.

Looks like a bobcat to me. Or maybe it’s just a big ol’ tufty-earred Schnauzer. With a bob tail and cat’s head. Eating something. Interrupted.

Tongue Twirlers

Twisters. Whatever. Speaking of language. Which I wasn’t until I woke up this morning to realize that Mr. Froth had trekked off by himself into the wilds so I got up to try to finish the crossword puzzle, read about Sharepoint (Oh help me, Lord. If anyone has any tips on that feel free to comment.), and then got to thinking about tongue twisters.

• Rubber baby buggybumpers. Rubber baby buggybumpers. Rubber baby buggybumpers.
• She sells seashells by the seashore. She sells seashells by the seashore.

And, my all time fave, the 100% perfect execution of I’m immensely proud of myself for:

• I slit a sheet, a sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

Ta da!

Let’s make more.

• Curiously concupiscent concubines curtseyed courteously. (I know, it’s not appropriate for Sunday. But, it’s a warning!)
• Billowing bales of bubblewrap batted by Bob burst bombastically.
• Decidely downtrodden Dirk dug determinedly at drudgery.

Ooh! And Mr. Froth saw two deer and was right next to a herd of feral pigs. It made him uncomfortable, since it sounded like a herd of cattle as they rustled off into the bushes. He didn’t see them but did notice there were no climbable trees in the vicinity. When he gets uncomfortable, I get uncomfortable. He shouldn’t be out there by himself, but I woulda freaked.

Vote for Mustard!

Dr. Fooms has a link to the Markham Vineyards who are holding a contest that awards money to a deserving concern. Go to his site and click on the link in his freezer post and vote for the MUSTARD MUSEUM! Do it! Or click on the link above and do it! Do it! Do it!

We received some marvelous mustards and things from the Foomses for Christmas, including the book written by the owner (who happens to be an attorney and is funny), and we just saw the museum on the Food Channel a couple of days ago.

Vote for Mustard!

Movies enaht

Agent Bedhead has written a review about Journey to the Center of the Earth. Go read it–she writes great reviews about all sortsa movies. While we never actually GO to movies we occasionally rent one or two and search out goodies on all the available cable channels. How, however, could you not like this one? Even without seeing it I know it’s got to be good. Heck, the first one made when I was a kid was good even though it was egregiously bad.

Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, if they aren’t two authors meant to have movies made of their stuff I don’t know who is.

I think somebody should do a remake of Mysterious Island. I saw it back in 1961 when it came out, during the summer or something, when the PTA offered the package of twelve movies  for 35 cents apiece. Included were a bunch of Poe stories with Vincent Price, along with Mysterious Island and others that have slipped my feeble mind.

I had a technicolor dream after viewing that movie, that involved monstrous flowers and no creepy creatures; but just the vivid largeness and heightened colors made it one of my more spectacular dreams. I always dream in color, except for one half of a dream I had as a kid, that, as  I remember , was in a shadowy gray (it involved whispery things behind doors and things). Otherwise, full on paintbox.

So there’s my review of a movie review kind of.

When does the DVD come out?

Obama and Lingua Franca

I’m just so pleased when I can legitimately discuss some sort of politically charged statements with some sort of credentials.

Namely, our nation’s so-called failing in the ability to communicate in a foreign language. It’s a mask of a juvenile mentality to trot out the stale trope of all one can say is “merci beaucoup” or one should be able to speak Spanish when one travels abroad or lives among illegal immigrants or…

See. I love languages. I’m a language person. It’s the most basic tool we have. I should have studied Fortran and Cobol and gone into microcoding, because all that stuff is language.

Instead, I studied French and Spanish and Russian and Serbo Croatian. I was one of a few junior high students in the ’60’s bused to the University of Wisconsin to hit some French studies back in the day because my little small town didn’t have classes. I then took four years of Spanish, four years of French, majored in French in college, took accelerated Russian my freshman year and should have continued it (Dr. Fooms has a double major/minor or whatever in it) and Serbo Croatian.

Languages are wrenches and hammers and gas and pencils and paper. They are tools for survival. The key is, you have to use them on a regular basis to remember them.

French used to be the language of diplomacy and commerce. Sort of what ENGLISH is NOW. And HAS BEEN FOR QUITE SOME TIME. How amazing how that works. English is rather a global language now, because, whether you like it or not, is what most business people, government people, insurgent people, drug running people, jihadist people and especially AMERICAN people speak on a regular basis. To accomplish their tasks.

To be honest, if I were to learn another foreign language right now, or teach my wee wee child right now, I’d be hammering into my and their brains Chinese, Japanese, Farsi or Russian (yeah, still).

Merci beaucoup? Obama, do you even know how to say How are ya? in French? Do you not realize the benchmark by which we rate our worthiness is not defined by our ability to speak French or Spanish? Those two languages aren’t the holy grails, dude. Regardless how many illegal immigrants live here.

Any half-brained person, deciding to live in a country foreign to their birth country, would immerse themself in the local language in order to make a living. The main reason that half-brained person moved to the country. I certainly, if I were to move to Provence, and, as much as the French are assholes, they have a lovely country and boy, howdy, I’d love to live in Provence, would brush up for a couple of months (and that’s about how long it would take me to start dreaming in French because I studied that language for a long time and it’s amazing how practice makes perfect) and I’d be discussing Voltaire and Carla Bruni’s jerkiness in the idiom as fast as you could say “merde.”

Obama, if you have no reason to use a language on a daily basis, you’re not going to be fluent. Especially if you’ve never studied it at all. And, if you’re looking at geography and how it affects the span of linguistic knowledge of the immediate inhabitants, Rachel Lucas has a brilliant take on the whole thing.

It irritates me to no end when people who have no relationship with language or any subject at all feel the need to arrogantly, once again, thank you for having a Clintonesque sort of skew on the subject, assert their perceived right to tell us to do as I say not as I do.

Weak minds. Weak minds.

Our friends

At least I think they’re our friends. They haven’t shown any unneighborly tendencies. Yet.

They haven’t shown themselves at all, actually, but they’re noisy buggers. It’s that time of year when the cicadas sing for their breakfasts/lunches/snacks/suppers/desserts and do so with gusto.

Our backyard was filled with an orchestra of kazoos at lunch. Well, maybe not kazoos, maybe combs with fingers running along them. Maybe not that. Maybe the sound the vein in my temple is making as I listen to the focus group individual speak LOUDLY on her cellphone in the hallway outside my office. Go back to your focus group you idiot.