I'm Cutting Up Green Beans for Dinner *copy* *paste*

Because I love me some fresh green beans! Love 'em! Mostly I like them with basil & garlic - but I am open to any style of fresh green beans. I will happily eat them every night until the last stall at the farmer's market reports them all gone.

I'm Number Three!!!

I'm number three!!!

I think I mentioned that my middle daughter and her boyfriend have rented an apartment close to the airport (where she works) and Mall of America (where he works.) They started moving their stuff last Thursday, leaving a bit of a mess behind. Mostly in her bedroom but also the middle of my living room because for some reason DD always stages everything from the middle of the living room.

This is their priority for setting things in order:

First they will clean up after themselves at BF's mom's house, because she is a freak-out queen or something and is having panic attacks over the whole move in general and the mess left in their lower level where BF had been living.

Second they need to get their own place in order because they have furniture (ie - the waterbed) to assemble and everything they own is in boxes. They wish to set their lovely new apartment in order.

Third, they will come back here and right the mess they left in my house. This? Is my reward for being generally even-tempered and reasonable. I am the last priority. I can wait. Pff.

I need to work on my bitchiness, don't I?
*practises snarl & squint-eye in the mirror*

How London Can Top Beijing's Olympic Ceremonies

Step 1: hoist The Queen up a flagpole naked.
Step 2: shoot fireworks out of her arse.

Simple, budget-conscious and billions will watch.

In non-Olympic news: Mr Swami is off today so we are going to do lunch then go see The Dark Knight. I'm thinking we'll eat Vietnamese. I love fresh spring rolls!

My Birdies

From left to right they are Misty May, Lolo, Jingjing and Phelps. I have them hanging on a wall in my family room, right underneath DD's trophy wall which will soon be repurposed to display my collection of Breyer Horses. Since DD has her own place now I will move the trophy collection to my new guest room (her old bedroom.)


Part of the trophy wall.

In unrelated news - after 25 years of trying I have finally trained Mr. Swami to do a new trick! He now brings home take-out for dinner every Friday night. I am so thrilled! And if he always wants to bring home Mongolian BBQ - that's fine with me. I love that stuff. Spicy!

Unrelated Stuff

1. I got my parakeets today - 1 blue, 1 green, 1 yellow and 1 torquise & white 'pinto'. Tom will be so surprised. He has no idea I was getting birds.

2. Bare-chested high achool boys are too young. I had to drive by the entire Stillwater HS boy athletes as they jogged down the side of the road today - maybe 50 kids. All those buff young bodies and they just made me feel all maternal. I guess I am not a dirty old woman after all.

3. You know that commercial they are running during the Olympics where they sing "I got soul but I'm not a soldier" while they show quick clips of all kinds of past & present Olympic moments? At the very end they show some short stocky guy in ginormous shin guards running like hell down a track, in the dark. What the heck is that? It's driving me crazy!

A Thursday List

1. Because what better way is there to show Boo I love her & miss her while she's in Beantown?

2. Weltek too. Note to self: eat cheese for lunch.

3. Why is there never a box of kleenex by the computer? I put a box of kleenex by the 'puter at least once a week! Okay - this shouldn't be a point but I had to interrupt my list making to go get a box.

4. Yesterday I gassed up my minivan and drove into the big bad city to visit my son's sheltered work space. He has such good people there, and that makes me happy!

5. After our little meeting I was thanking the various people who attended for doing a good job, having a good idea, etc., when one of them said to me "I love coming to Max meetings. They're not all like this, you know." Turns out, some people get angry. That made me sad. It is my experience that the overwhelming number of individuals who work with handicapped people genuinely care about them - so I don't get it. I guess there are many parents who get angry at the educational and/or work support staff for not doing "enough" to make their kid fit in better.

6. Before the 1 pm meeting I popped into Taco Bell for lunch. This is a big treat for me because I so rarely do fast food and I am the only one in my family likely to pick Taco Bell on the rare occasions that we do stop for fast food. So I had a strawberry mango frieze and a spicy chicken burrito. Frieze was delicious! Way better than I was expecting! The burrito tasted okay, but after the meeting lead to an unfortunate convenience store restroom visit I don't want to talk about.

7. I also drove by the apartment building where DD and her BF will be moving next week - it's about a mile and a half from son's workplace. It looked like a very nice place, in a neighborhood with nice grounds and trees and stuff. Most importantly? It looked like a safe area! So she made a good choice.

8. I will miss her a lot when she moves out - but at the same time I can't wait for her to be gone! I guess that makes me a happy schitzo.

9. I am going to get some pet birds. I am checking Craigslist every day and also Stillwater is having a Bird Fair on Sept 13th so I figure by the end of Sept I should have my birds.

10. My oldest daughter & grandson are coming for a week-long visit again! DD will help me do some fall landscaping (and get a bunch of divided and/or no-longer-wanted perennials for her reward) and whatever else I want her to do.

11. She will sleep in my new Guest Room! I hope middle DD isn't hurt by how fast I turn her bedroom into a guest room, lol. But I need a guest room. I will make it partly a shrine to her (all her basketball trophies) so that should help.

12. Are we allowed to end on 11?

Pee.

Why do some men think they piss rosewater? It drives me freaking crazy when a guy pees and then doesn't flush. Hello!?! What are you thinking? Am I supposed to admire the bubbles in your manly pee? Enjoy the musky scent? Just. flush. the. damn. toilet! Do you think you are saving water? Guess what - there is no way in Bloody Hell that I am going to sit down and commingle my pee with yours. No way. I will just feel grossed out and immediately flush your stinky, pissy mess. Or is grossing me out the goal here?

Won't You Be My Neighbour?

*zips up cardigan*

Yeah - so I live on the low rent end of a little country lane that has some very ritzy properties on it, inhabited by people who own and/or head up companies and a few big spending surgeons and trial lawyers.

One house has been a bit checkered lately. The business guy retired, sold his company and took his Jaguar collection to Florida. Sold his house to Tire Company Guy who everybody hated because he was a Bad Neighbour. Tire Guy got mad at the neighbourhood and left in a miff, leaving his house rented to a couple who pretended they bought it and were Trust Fund Babies or something. Turns out they weren't. They never even paid their Road Association dues.

Recently, I found out that the bank had foreclosed on the property because Tire Guy stopped making payments a while ago. Bank evicted the pretended Big Money Heirs and took possession. Today? There's a little sign at the end of my road. Coming Soon - Bank Auction! It's kind of sad and kind of funny too because no one deserves foreclosing on more than Tire Guy, I guess.

Anyway. I am not looking forward to auction day. I guess a bunch of strangers will get to drive past my house to the auction and try to stare in my windows and stuff. I may give them a one-finger wave. Unless they are you. Won't you be my neighbour? It's a pretty nice house!

Waffles For Supper

This? is the kind of thing that happens when Mr Swami has an evening meeting and doesn't get home until after 10 p.m. Swami has breakfast for supper. So I had 2 waffles with powdered sugar for supper. Then later, I had another waffle for dessert! It felt good.

Citius! Altius!! Fortius!!!

Faster!
Higher!!
Stronger!!!

I can't wait for the Summer Olympics to start! Do you watch? Are you an Olympics freak? My local newspaper (Minneapolis Star-Tribune) reports that the majority of Olympics viewers in the U.S. are women. Which I guess really concerns sponsors & broadcasters like NBC, because they want men to watch. Paper also says this is why more "manly" sports, like motocross, have been added to the Olympic events list - to get more guys watching. Even though the same paper has said that women control more discretionary spending dollars that men do - advertisers always want men to watch stuff because their salaries are higher on average. Or something.

Anyway - here are a few things I like or dislike about the Olympics coverage.

Likes:

1. I love watching intense competitions in the lesser broadcast sports. An American need not be involved. Like, I will happily watch an intense 3-way rivalry in diving between 2 Chinese and someone from, say, Belarus. I will follow it from the qualifying to the final rounds. I love to watch those bicycle duels in the velodrome.

2. I like the international flavor, and seeing sport through the eyes of someone who isn't like me - whatever that means, lol.

3. I like the stories of individual athletes, although I hate when they go all schmaltzy and messagey. Just tell the story straight up.

4. I like to see the consciously friendly nationalism of it all.

5. I love the Opening & Closing ceremonies, with their artistic & creative homage to Sport. Greece had a wonderful Opening ceremony! So did France a few years back - they were maybe the best ever.

6. I love all the track & field competitions. Every single one of them. And swimming & diving. I watch for the competitions!


Dislikes:

1. I dislike the (sometimes) relentless parochialism of the U.S. Broadcast. We'll see what NBC does this year - everytime the broadcasters seem to get less heavy-handed with the Nationalism! Now! stuff, so this complaint is lesser than it used to be.

2. I dislike seeing the millionaire Marquis Sport athletes like Kobe get disproportionate airtime. Yes, yes - he's a great basketball player but I don't want to see every single minute of every single game he plays. The NBA already has too many games to watch them all. Show me something that I would otherwise not have the opportunity to see!

3. I dislike that the women in Beach Volleyball are required to wear those itty bitty bikinis. They are not necessary to the game - let them wear loose, more comfortable trunks & teeshirts like the men do. And if the purpose of the bikinis is to be a skin-show to attract male viewers, then can we please put the male Beach Volleyball players into Speedos so we females can oogle their bodies? Because I will.

See? Likes win over Dislikes by 2:1. What do you like/dislike?

Today everything is all better.

I can get into my blog, and the other 3 too. That was so weird. Most blogs I read were fine & accessible - but Internet Explorer would not open the other 3 - or my own. It just went into end program mode with an error message.

Now I kinda like communicating by Title. You have to stay brief, and it feels even louder than shouting. Maybe psychopathic shouting? Something like that...

Oh.

I can't open Boo, Nutz or Fro either. Everyone else seems openable. I hope this heals itself soon. I mean, how much text will they let you put in t

I can't get into my own blog - some kind of error message. What's up with that?

No it will not make a difference.

Will a new post make a difference?

Friday Randomness

1. North is up. South is down. Mr Swami has spent years hearing me complain about businesses and people who give you a map to somewhere and have North at the bottom of the map, or on one side or kind of off in a corner. He agrees with me on the proper "up"ness of North. So yesterday he drew me a little map of where to find his car which was parked in one of several big lots behind a car dealership - and North was at the bottom!!! *rolls eyes*

2. Books. I buy my favorite authors in hard cover, as soon as their next book comes out. Less favored authors I usually pick up in hardcover also - but at those Bargain or Last Chance tables. So yesterday at Barnes & Noble I picked up :
The Zero Game & The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer
Dead Watch by John Sandford (I buy his Prey series hot off the press)
Killer Dreams by Iris Johansen, and
Crisis by Robin Cook. Cook is kinda cheesey but I still like his books.

Just shipped from Amazon: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Reckoning: A Thriller, Bangkok Haunts (Vintage), The Broken Window: A Lincoln Rhymes Mystery.

3. Lately, I have grown interested in Lady Gouldian Finches. When I find the right ones I think I will get me some finches!

4. I hate The Hot, The Dog Days of Summer. We are supposed to be way up in the high 80s and low nineties all week. I? will be in air-conditioned indoor settings, reading & stuff.

5. My Swami bought a new car on Wednesday - a Honda Accord. I got my first ride in it last night. It's a nice, roomy little sedan in my favorite car color - Mystic Green. It's our first car with a higher-end satellite radio and it sure is fun to see the artist & title of the song you are listening to displayed on the radio.

6. I got my hair cut yesterday. In a rare, spontaneous mood I stopped at a Great Clips, accepted my random stylist and told her to cut it all off (about 6 inches worth.) So I spent only $14 (well, $17 with the tip) instead of $70 or whatever it is I usually pay for the fancy-ass Aveda haircutting experience. And I like the cut just as well. Then I actually bought an all-natural hair dye kit at the grocery store! I haven't used that yet though; maybe I will and maybe I won't!

These are fairly long-ass randoms, so I'll only do six of them.

Edited to add: P.S. If there is one or more people on your friends list who make your world a better place just because they exist, and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the Internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.