Rott in a Brat

A few weeks ago while driving from Palinville to Bubbaville(Palmer) we stopped off at the local grocery store and found this guy. Yup, he was all decked out in his Sunday's best Doggles. It was sunny out and I applaud the owner for protecting his Rotti from the rays and flying rocks. His chariot being an ancient Subaru Brat. The owner wants to take good care of the dog that protects his sweet ride and in thanks, the dog barked like crazy when John took the picture.
This caused Jack and Brodie to go into hysterical laughing at the barking dog with glasses.
I love this State.

Words from a Marine

Well America, you haven't forgotten, though some of your children may have lost sight for the moment, but that's ok. Those who make sacrifices don't do it for the praise, they do it for you America, without thought or hesitation. The greatest praise these men and women can receive is the nod of a fellow warrior who had 'been there and done that and paid that price' when they get back home. America, never forget, but above all never lose sight of those who fight for you and yours. Semper Fi America, stay strong.
Dylan Lundquist

Honor

As we drive around tomorrow and see the flags at half staff, we will know why. We Alaskans, know what happened to the C-17 crew. We know that four people, Americans, those that served their country, died.
We may not know them personally. We do not know their story. We only know, that they are gone.

Tomorrow, I will not casually drive past the lowered flag and wonder "what now". I will know what happened and count my blessings for all that I have and honor those that have given so much.

Go Ahead, Hit Me.......

To the driver of the car that tailed me down the hi-way today. I am not going to speed up in a construction zone. I am not going to get a double fine traffic ticket because of you. I will continue to drive 55mph. No more, no less.
Please feel free to rear end my car with your wimpy, pathetic, Ford Explorer. The last person to rear end me wiped out a fourth of her car. I didn't even FEEL it!
I hope you spilled your cheap cup of gas station coffee in your lap, when you swerved to get in the fast lane. Maybe next time you should quit yapping on your crappy cell phone and put out your stinking Marlboro.
Trust me, chick. You are not, you will never be, even in your wildest dreams a Nascar driver. So go ahead and take off that cheezy number 3 sticker from your back window. I know you did your best Dale Earnhardt imitation today. But remember, he is DEAD.

But he was hungry?

"Brodie, why did you put a Swedish fish and Craisins in the fish bowl"? Brodie, "Cuz I thought he maybe wanted a liddle nibble".
Gross, Swedish fish get really slimy after a few minutes in warm fish water. The goldfish, Fishy is his name, seemed pretty happy. After a life of dull dehydrated fish flakes, he finally got some real fish food. And I get to clean the bowl today.

Good Morning....Huh?

Wake up, trudge my way into the kitchen. Latte, must make, my Monday morning latte.
What the hell is that? Upon further and closer inspection, I discover that a miniature Playmobile sword has been jammed into the espresso elixir dispenser unit of the fancy, schmancy, espresso maker.
Apparently, the little one in the house that goes by the name "Not Me" tried to conquer Sir Saeco with a sword. No one wins these kind of games.
Fortunately, for Not Me, I am well versed in sword extraction and all is well with or Monday world.

Beware of the Zoomies========

Driving South on the Glenn yesterday, toodling along around 70mph. Out of NOWHERE came a black Corvette and a black 335i, damn near airborne. Blew my doors off probably going 120 minimum. Completely out of site within seconds. I am exhilarated, jealous and not looking forward to the collision that may be around the bend. Like my Father in Law says, "bad things happen fast at a hundred miles an hour".
But no, these drivers were sooo lucky. I see one trooper drive North, then a second one, then an APD officer. And I am thinking do these cars have a cloaking device.
Nope, there they are, side by side at a very under the speed limit 55.
I don't know what kind of detectors they had, but I want what they have.
It is Zoomie Season in Anchorage, soon the two wheeled weavers will be hitting the pavement.
Best to buckle up, wear a hard hat and check your mirrors, cause they are out there.

What an Oxymoron.

What is wrong with this picture? Could it be Sarah Palin hocking Christian Dior glasses in a Las Vegas shop? Yes that is right folks, step to the FAR right and check it out.
Sorry Sarah my dear. Normal Josephines, don't sell designer glasses. They don't work for Dior. And honestly, most people from Waaaasillllla, don't know Dior from Buster Brown.
No wonder it's a head shot. Dior reps couldn't get her out of those classy, naugahyde, Naughty Monkey peep toes.
I am really close to banning all Christian Dior products in my home. Close, not quite yet, but close.

A big thank you to Gloria Dementoff for Facebooking this great shot.

Rolling Bears, Dancing Halibut? Only in Homer.

Homer VFW Color Guard

For those not in the Homer know. Homer is a small, quaint fishing, artys town at the end of a very long road. You have to work at keeping yourself busy in the winter and Homerites, know how to do it up!
We took the boys down this last weekend for the Homer Winter Carnival. We did not know the carnival was going on before we left. But we fully embraced the activities upon our arrival to The Spit.
The parade was an absolute hi-light of our weekend. Starting off with the traditional color guard(my favorite) and moving on too some less traditional, but very amusing attractions.

No fishing town would be complete without it's very own rolling creepy bear, even creepier Mardi Gras person in silver lame down pants and the strange, yet original, Homer News papergirl. I think she is half yeti, half lhaso apso.
Rounding out the quirky fun, is the truck with goats.

A great big thank you to all the wonderful volunteers in Homer that helped put together this awesome display of small town Americana.

Palin the Warmonger

She said it on Fox News this morning. If Obama wanted to get re-elected in three years he would "have to go to war with Iran and support Israel". Are you KIDDING me? She wants the United States to be at war with three countries in the Middle East? And really piss off all the other countries, by supporting Israel militarily. Israel has a fine military, they don't need our help.

Has she lost her damn mind or did she never have one? Is she blind or stupid? How can she not see what the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have done to this country. Recession, Debt, Depression, Death. A war in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan are wars this country could never win. EVER. Of course she never had an idea as to how we could support or win such wars, going on at the same time. Three wars, three countries, triple the debt, triple the deaths.

This person has no touch with reality. Her supporters are blind followers of so called "simple talk" and "folksy words". There is nothing simple or folksy about saying our country needs to start another war. A war with Iraq is a war with China and Russia. Sarah Palin can you say NUCLEAR POWERS?

Bye bye Mr.Henckle

So, I order a smell good giant wax bar and a warmer for my son's pre-school fundraiser. I usually don't partake in smelly good stuff, it makes me sneeze. But, this seemed fairly non-offensive and I admit, now that it is the middle of winter, my house could use some make it smell good freshening.
So the company Scentsy sends the stuff in two small boxes via UPS. I could have waited for snail mail and they could have passed the savings onto the pre-school, but it is what it is. Besides, the boys love the big brown truck pulling up in the driveway.
The giant lavender scented wax bar does not come with directions. The only way I can see to get the square out for melting is to cut it out or dump the whole bar and start cutting that way. I go with option number one.
Grabbing my oh so handy Henckle serrated knife, I go at it. When I have cut the bar, I give a little pull upwards to release the waxy square and SNAP!
I have had this Henckle knife for the better part of 15 years. It has cut everything from bread to tin cans with nary a problem. Mr. Henckle is now in three pieces.
I now feel like the delicately scented bars of wax from hell have beaten me down. I no longer want to sniff it's delicate aroma as it wafts through the house. I want to watch it burn in a fiery bonfire, outside, away from all things delicate and smell goody.
So long Mr.Henckle, you will be missed.

Something new to try....

So I have been using Picassa (Google's free photo handling software) for a long time. Today I discovered you can make a video of selected photos with it. I thought I should give this a try and share some photos from Jan 2010 with all the readers.

So with out further reading of my commentary, here is the video.

Jacks Big Jump

Jack and Brodie have been taking swimming lessons for quite a while. It has been a long struggle to find the right mix of pool and instructor for the boys. Bartlett pool was too cold and had big classes and Swim Like a Fish was a long drive and the pool was too small (among other problems). Then we stumbled onto the Alaska Club lessons. The first month or so looked like more of the usual problems but then we got bumped to two day a week classes that where empty. This left just our two boys in a class with a very good instructor. She worked for one month with the two monkeys and this is the result...



While its not a miracle, it sure is nice to see Jack doing something that he has never done before.

Here are a few more







And finally a custom message to two particular readers



Not to leave Brodie out, he did put his head underwater this lesson and that is a big step. For the last three months all we have heard is "its scary under water".

Good Job Boys.

Man Stickers?

I am not a fan of bumper stickers. I really don't care if a driver is pro-choice or their kid is on some middle school's honor roll. Fine you like the Grateful Dead, so do I. But I don't need a skull sticker slapped on the rear of my car to verify the fact.
Do I care to see Calvin peeing on your ex-wife, ex-boyfriend or whatever the name of the person that upset you so much you actually paid to buy a sticker and foul your back window? NO, I do not care.
So, it is with great surprise that I have bumper stickers. I did not put them there. My husband did. First it was a pretty cool G.Loomis red, white and blue, skeleton fish on my back window. That was good, I liked it. Until the wiper erased all traces of color and I was left with a bony white fish, looking like it sat at the high tide line over the summer. It was ghoulish.
Then I came back from a short vacation down South and my husband had "hot rodded" the Fuelinator. Apparently, when a man adds something to a vehicle the box the part came in has stickers. I don't need these stickers. I don't need people to know what's under my hood. Not that the Fuelinator is a sleeper. But hey, a girl's gotta have a few secrets.



Then my husband came home after picking our son up from bootcamp.
Wham bam, thank you Maam. He removed, spooky bony fish and added this doozie. But I am going to keep it. I am very proud of our son, so it will stay.

But how can I be surprised. These are man stickers and he is a man. Who likes big diesel vehicles, laden down with stickers.
Below, John's truck.

Bad Rockford Files Moment....

Flashback, January 2005 8:00AM
So I am driving into downtown Anchorage off the Glenn Highway taking the then 14 year old Dylan to school. I am eight months pregnant and Jack is sleeping soundly in his little car seat in the back of the Fuelinator.
I have to get over. My turn signal is on. Can they not see me? Three lanes of commuters and not one of them is nice.I need to get over in the other lane. I gently, ever so gently step on the throttle. I call it the throttle because it is a diesel and to say step on the gas is wrong, oh so wrong in my house. Never ever confuse diesel with gas.
Ice fog, no one said anything about ice fog. Okay, so I haven't driven in two weeks and John just left for the slope. The Rockford Files driving moment is about to begin.
One 360, all three lanes of traffic has now stopped behind me. 360 number two, this in not good. Wow, this 7500 pound car can really twirl.
A red truck made the mistake of being parked on the street. If it hadn't been there my 180 parallel on the curb facing the three lanes of stopped, freaked out commuters would have been grand, just grand.
But no, the red truck met face to face with the Fuelinator. Nobody won.
It gets better. Dylan are you okay, "yeah, I am fine". Get out check the baby, hes still sleeping peacefully. Get back in. Lock the doors, even at 8AM, this isn't the best place to be. Now slammed up against the curb, attached to a red truck and facing East when I should be West.
Call 911, no way I am going to find the owner of this truck. Tap, Tap on the window. Roll it down a few inches. Yes I say. Maam can I help you? 911 Dispatcher on the phone, is the man an APD officer "? Are you APD" I ask. He shows me his little tiny badge. Your not APD I say. Hes not APD I tell the dispatcher. No maam he says, FBI.
Well, shoot, an FBI officer isn't going to do me any good right now. But he was very nice and walked into the Polar Bar with me. By golly, that place was open and the bartender owned the mashed red truck.
Giant pregnant chick and an FBI officer walk into a bar at 8am on a Monday morning......
Life is Stranger than Fiction

And off he goes Again.

No picture in this post. Just a blank space, which is how I feel.
Dylan just left for the airport, returning to Camp Pendleton for combat training. Then he will be off to Pensacola, Florida for aviation training. After all that, we don't know.
It occurred to me last night that I don't know when I will see him again. After bootcamp we knew he was coming home and how much leave he would have. The leave after bootcamp takes up all the new recruits earned leave and left him with a negative three days. This does not bode well for a Mother wanting her son to come, if only for a few days.
I know I should be thankful that he was home for the holidays, and I am. It's just so hard to see him go away again. Even the dog knew he was leaving and got between him and the front door.
I should probably be a good Marine Mom, buck up and all that stuff. But tonight I think I'll have a glass of wine and a good cry.

Dali?

No, not a Dali. It's a Brodie! The three foot tall owl drawn in permanent silver pen is a Brodie original. He was given a stern talking too and sent to his room. But, I am now contemplating putting a frame around it and leaving it there for all to enjoy. Would that be odd?