Dear Global Warming,

Dear Global Warming,

Please come to Minnesota soon. We will welcome you with love & kisses. I will even leave the light on.

Sincerely,
Swami

More Update-y Stuff

Because this is as close to coherent thought as I can manage this morning.

1. I miss milk. Once or twice a week I like to drink a small glass of milk but lately Mr. Swami has switched over to soy milk and it is just not the same. It has a slimey and faintly sweet taste to me.

2. Later today I may become the proud owner of two Russian Tortoises. We'll see. I like turtles & tortoises & frogs & toads & such. I really want some Poison Dart Frogs but I can't figure out how to protect them from the cats.

3. Speaking of frogs, I would like a moment of silence for my late, great frog hose guard which Mr. Swami ran over with the lawn tractor yesterday and smashed to smithereens. Froggie was dark green, very regal and did a good job of keeping the garden hose out of my Omphaloidies all last summer.

4. I am totally craving guacamole again. Guacamole is good. And it's better when I can make it while the DD is not here because then I can put some red onions into it. DD likes her guac way bland.

5. I am still battling the version of Outlook that is loaded onto my new computer. It is really fussy and sometimes refuses to hook up with other computers! What good is an email program that is so picky about who it will talk to? Hopefully I can email those soup recipes today.

Boo ended a list on 5 yesterday, so I can too. Because Boo is the queen of lists.

Memorial Day Weekend Update-y

1. I had no workity-work over Memorial Day weekend. Yay!

2. Saturday I did a little laundry and put some of my houseplants outside. Really, it's still too cold at night to put them out but I am into tough love these days - so out they went. Even the crotons. Live or die you guys, I don't care.

3. I made my world famous chicken & avocado soup which no one ever makes from the recipe because it looks dumb, but when they eat the soup they love it! (With a couple of leftover avocado I made some nice guacamole so I will have blue corn chips and guacamole for lunch today.)

4. Sunday DS and I saw Prince Caspian. The movie was not the exceptional Narnia story that The Lion The Witch & The Wardrobe was, but it was okay. They had some gorgeous horses; I wanted to see more of the un-cgi treated horses.

5. Sunday late afternoon Mr. Swami and I had the house to ourselves for a while so we ran around being silly and doing things you shouldn't ought to on the kitchen table, lol.

6. While I was in the shower later on Sunday our house was attacked by aliens with baseball bats! At leaat that's what it seemed like. BAM! BAM!! BAM!!! What a racket! Huge banging all over the ceiling and walls while I was wet, naked & vulnerable in the shower. Turns out we aere having tennis ball sized hail. The biggest hail I have ever seen! HUGE!!! TG our vehicles were safely garaged at the time!

7. Mr. Swami and I decided to go see Indiana Jones on Monday but instead we wound up driving around the Cities and had lunch in a little restaurant on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis where we used to go pretty often 25 years ago - Pracna on Main. I had their Sidewalk Salad - field greens with radacchio & carrot slivers, roast chicken, mandarin oranges,dried cranberries and walnuts served with a warm cranberry vinaigrette. Very delicious.

8. We walked out onto a newly opened park/walkway area over nearby St Anthony Falls. Mr. Swami likes to make me walk for knee therapy.

9. My latest Reality TV show craze is a show called Groomer Has It on Animal Planet. It's the usual format & drill: 12 groomers, a weekly challenge and once a week a potential Groomer of the Year is kicked out of the Dog House. It's just unexpected fun.

10. Mr Swami forgot his briefcase this morning so before I had even a sip of coffee I was loading the poor, forgotten thing into my car and driving into St Paul. Fortunately it was just after the morning rush. For my reward I got a Sausage Biscuit from McD's. That's my second time for a McDonald's breakfast this year!

Six Things

Tagged by MM

The rules:
a. Link to the person who tagged you.
b. Post the rules on your blog.
c. Write six random things about yourself.
d. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
e. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment at their blog.
f. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

This seems like a good post to leave up over Memorial Day weekend, jic I don't get back until Tuesday. I probably will be back before then, but you never know.

1. I don't like to follow rules. (Notice how many of the above 6 rules I am following, lol.)

2. The only musical instrument I have ever had lessons on is... the accordian. I don't even like accordian music, but my Evil Sister's first fiance taught accordian part time and Evil Sis convinced my parents to support his financial needs by having me take lessons! Stupid Evil Sister!

3. I buy at least one new kind of hosta every year. This year I want to get a T. Rex.

4. I need a hair cut.

5. My mom put me up on figure skates when I was 2 years old (almost 3) and I had 10 years of formal lessons. I am not a good skater - no musicality and this white girl can't jump.

6. I have a whole drawer full of nice jewelery I rarely wear. What I do almost always wear is a pewter medallion on a thin leather strap that I found laying on the sidewalk back when Tom and I were first dating. This medallion feels "lucky" to me - so I wear it. It is a 3D cut-out of two Celtic-style fish and some seaweed, set in a circle.

I nominate whoever says "Me! Me!" in the comment section. (I don't like to linky people without asking and I feel too disorganized to go through a whole formal asking thing just now.)

Have a great Memorial Day weekend! Tom and I are going on a long, pointless drive to nowhere just for the fun of burning fossil fuel. How will those nice oil companies and commodity traders continue to rake in the Big Bucks without people like us going for long, meaningless drives?

Three Brilliant Blog Entries

That's how many good ideas I have thought of and then forgotten since yesterday. Instead I will report my most recent typo.

When you are summarizing expenses on a form that a bunch of firemen will read (this is a work-related thing I do once a month) and you want to list a "swingout inline 2 inch valve"? Do not under any circumstances enter "swingout inline 2 inch vulva". Sometimes using the correct vowels is very important.

And? Firemen can be so immature!

Splish Splash

Mr. Swami decided to disassemble his Norelco shaver because he thought it needed a bit more than the usual blow, rinse and go cleaning. And of course he promptly dropped the shaving head assembly into the toilet. Bwahaha:(

Now the head is totally dissembled and drying on a washcloth. Boy there are a lot of parts when you completely take apart those three floating heads!

So I'm wondering, what's been in YOUR toilet?

My Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Grocery List

Eat your heart out, Boo.

Yeah. I know. It's sideways and too small to read; you'll have to zoom in and crane your neck. You have no idea how long it took me to figure out posting the darn thing! Plus I thought I had saved it rotated correctly, but somewhere on the long and winding path to my blog it re-rotated itself back to sideways. Crap! Anyway...



Ta Da!!! My master grocery list. I print it, highlight the stuff I need each trip with a BIC highlighter, and then away I go.

Preakness Picks

Big Brown (along with everyone else)
Kentucky Bear
Gayego

Free At Last!!!

Today we are having short-sleeve weather! So exciting!!! All across town, pasty white bodies will venture into the sunlight blinking in confusion. Some will tan. Some will burn. Some will slather on sunscreen and feel invinsible.

Yeah, I know, most of you have worn short sleeves on & off for months. For all I know you are already harvesting tomatoes. But here in NorthCentral we are having our first short-sleeve day of the season. Be happy for us!


Also today I am buying more Hummingbird Happy annuals: salvia coccinea "Lady in Red", salvia guaranitica "Black & Blue", cuphea x purpurea "Verity", agastache, asclepias curassavica "Mexican Milkweed" (good for Monarch butterflies too!) and nicotiana mutabilis "Flowering Tobacco". And more of the ever-popular impatiens wallerana. Aren't I nice to my birdies?

Hummingbirds Are Mad at Me.

Most years by this time I have a few blooming plants out on my patio, which are visited daily by hummingbirds. Because we have been so freaking cold this spring my patio is still bare. So for the past 3 days my hummingbirds have just flown up to the glass door, hovered and looked in at me accusingly. I am so entertained that a 2 oz. bird is trying to intimidate me! Or maybe 1 oz. Anyway - they are teeny, tiny little bullies. So today I have to go buy a fuschia for them. They like fuschia.

I wonder how many hummingbirds it would take to bring down a grown woman?

It's The Top of the Week!

So I need a new post on the top of the page!

Friday: We sold our old pontoon boat. Mr. Swami & I spent 20 fun summers boating on the St Croix - with multiple picnics and swimming adventures with our kids. Amazingly, we sold the boat for just a little less than we paid for it back then. Of course we added a new 4-stroke Suzuki engine in 2000, that helped the price a lot. I sold it on Craig's list!



Saturday: I bought some basil seedlings, but it is still too cold to put them into the ground. WE started cleaning our old semi-recumbent tandem bicycle for sale - now that I know how Craig's list works. DS with the bike (I can't find a better pic just now:



Sunday: DS took me to see Iron Man (Ironman?) and then out to a late lunch at Applebee's, which is his favorite place to eat on account of their 3 for $10.99 special.

Saturday and Sunday were both total non-cook days for me! Saturday DD made my favorite strawberry salad which we ate with a deli chicken. And for our Survivor supper Tom made another strawberry salad and we polished the chicken off. I love non-cook weekends!

Gardening Opener

Sunday is the Gardening Opener for Minnesota. Our average last day of frost here is May 15 - which gives us four whole months of pretty much guaranteed frost-free weather to grow stuff. Yay! Flowers! Veggies! Beginning today the Big Box stores and all local nurseries large & small will be overrun by giddy people with dirty finger nails, battling over begonia and trash-talking tomato varieties.

I? Will be joining the fray. It's positively exhilarating.

How long is your growing season?

Some of You Bloggers

Like some pretty strange songs.
Not naming any names here, lol.

And? These songs are kind of growing on me.

Notes to Self:

1. Don't hit enter instead of tab so you post a blog with a title but no content.
2. Remember to mail the Mother's Day card to MIL.
3. Remind Mr. Swami to call MIL and while he's talking to ask her for my wheelbarrow back. I have the best wheelbarrow in the world, but we gave it to MIL on long-term loan two years ago. I want it back. Before she gives it away or something. Okay - I'm greedy - but it's a d@mn nice wheelbarrow and they don't make ones like that anymore!!!
4. Tell Bravie how Mr. Swami mispronounces her name.
5. Eat more yogurt.

I can only get halfway to 10 this morning. And I want to drink wine with my lunch today. Why should Bob have all the fun?

Stamps & Stuff

I accidently bought my year's supply of stamps twice in the past month. All to save a penny each, for Pete's sake. I am now the proud owner of 22 cards of peel-off Liberty Bell stamps.

I was at the Post Office to get a money order for one of my eBay purchases. I haven't bought a money order in years. They only take cash for money orders - who knew? Luckily I had enough rolling around in my wallet. I hardly ever use cash anymore - only at the movies.

I have no idea what to post about. Maybe I should go on summer hiatus and spend all my time getting in and out of cars with no underpants on. That might be fun!

The Silence of the Porn.

When we installed our new computer system last month we never did get a handle on the fancy new sound system. Mostly it stays quiet. When it works it sounds fabulous - better than our stereo! But mostly it is mum. So I can't enjoy video clips, and I miss all the little sound effects in programs like QuickBooks and Quicken (I particularly like the "ka-ching" cash register sound every time you pay a bill, lol.)

So last night Mr. Swami was trying to fix the sound again and I commented on how it was frustrating to get no sound, whereupon he exclaimed "I know! I can't hear my porn!"

Poor Mr. Swami. Doomed to watch silent porn. I'd feel sorry for him but I'm too busy laughing.

Mr. Swami Wants Bob.

Bob Black Jack, that is - along with Colonel John and Big Brown. I am rooting for Pyro, Eight Belles and Big Brown. Drinkies anyone? *adjusts elaborate hat*

I Have Been A Bad, Bad Swami

But I can't talk about it here because Mr. Swami, sometimes he reads my blog. :(

Truckers Butts

I saw this large, black decal on the rear window of the car I was following yesterday, and it made me laugh:

Truckers butts
Drive me nuts

Inside the car was what looked like a 15 year old boy getting driver's lessons from his mom, who was talking and pointing excessively. I wonder which one of them is the fan of truckers' butts?