Day to Day

A few small things, since I am unable to work…

5 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

1) I am developing a very odd fondness for @comcastcares – it’s scaring me, really, just how fond I am.

2) I am not developing a fondness for @RichardatDell – which says something, doesn’t it? About comcast and dell…

3) Having some “health insurance” issues and am trying very hard not to rant until I know exactly what I should be ranting about – or who I should be ranting about. That who part is important.

4) My daughter is now considering marriage again. But only if she can find a man with the last name “Doo” or “Due” or “Dew” or “Du”. At which point she will have a child and name it Whoop! Dee

5) House hunting in two cities sucks more than house hunting in one city.

And that’s it, because it looks like I can work again.

A few small things, since I am unable to work… Read More »

Tales from the dark side, errr, the garage

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Foodie, Memories /

Seared Steele Cut Oatmeal w/balsamic reduction sauceWe got serious about this de-clutter thing and got busy in the Florida Room and the garage, yesterday. But first, we hit The 43rd St Deli (on 13th) for breakfast where I had – gasp – oatmeal. Steele cut oatmeal, pan-seared w/a balsamic vinegar reduction sauce topped with bananas and dried berries (and walnuts too but I picked around those, yuk.) And that pan seared oatmeal – really good. (Do not tell anyone from my “old life” that I ate oatmeal!) (Also, the photo is from the iPhone so not great and I don’t have time to do any editing and photoshopping, sorry.)

Anyway, the clean up. Crazy.
Really crazy since much of what we were de-cluttering had BEEN de-cluttered a few years ago and we broke the biggest de-clutter rule of all… when something is set aside to leave your house, it needs to LEAVE YOUR HOUSE! Bags of old kid clothes, old toys, stuffed animals and just plain JUNK that should have been gone were still there. ugh.

Grandma's old radioEvery car driving through the neighborhood stopped to take stuff from the curb. Many people got out, walked up the driveway and sifted through the piles of stuff. Many, many more people wandered into the garage and attempted to remove items before we’d sorted through them. Many, many people wanted things we were not planning on parting with. I surprised TW by saying I was ready to let the “grandma headboard” and the “grandma radio” go. (The headboard is at the curb, come get it! It’s orange! The radio was sold and the nice man is coming to get it tomorrow.)

We found some other stuff, well a lot of other stuff. But this is the stuff that I was most amused by and can actually share here…

from the garage

Yes, that’s a record of Nazi marches and speeches. Yes, that’s a flash cube. Yes, that’s an Atari tape cartridge. Yes, those are dressmaker’s matches.









Oh, the skink… it was dead and I did not kill it.

A skink?









Tales from the dark side, errr, the garage Read More »

Can You OD on Mucinex?

3 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

My life feels weird right now and I’m not sure why and my sleep schedule is really, really screwed up and I really, really don’t know why that’s happening. I’d like to blame it all on losing an hour but I can’t because I’ve lost an hour every year and not felt this weird and not slept this weird.

Yes, I’m working a lot but I always work a lot.

Yes, I have a lot of stress in my life but I always have a lot of stress in my life.

I have to do something before I really do OD on Mucinex.

See last night, I was exhausted. I turned off the light at about 9:30 last night. TW was already asleep and I was pretty exhausted so I thought for sure I’d bet plenty of sleep. But I tossed and I turned and the dog was howling in her sleep and I kept getting up to make sure she wasn’t trapped in a blanket or being attacked by a killer cat or something. Then my legs were really restless and I felt a little headache coming on. So I reached over for the bottle of tylenol and shook out a few. I didn’t have a drink next to my side of the bed so I walked over to TW’s side and downed the pills which felt funny in my hand but whatever, I took them and got back in bed. I looked at the clock, 12:30. Ugh.

At 3:30 TW woke up ’cause she heard the dog howling in her sleep. I woke up and my ears felt all gummy and my throat hurt and my nose hurt and my eyes hurt and I thought “WTF, I didn’t go to bed sick, what is going on…” and I went right back to sleep ’til the alarm went off at 5am.

It was then that I realized I had taken three Mucinex and not three Tylenol. Yea. No wonder my ears and nose and throat and eyes hurt. It was doing a job on all of the liquid in my body. Geez.

I guess I’m just lucky TW’s drugs weren’t on my night stand, I could have OD’d on immuno-suppressants or something.

Can You OD on Mucinex? Read More »

A list a day keeps the dead blog away?

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

All month long I’ve been noticing a lot more lists being posted on blogs. I wasn’t sure what was up with that but now I know, thanks to MommaMary. It’s a NaBloPoMo idea for March. Post a list a day. On your blog.

Uh. No.

I post a list more days than not, but I do it on my own private message boards where I can bore my oldest and dearest (well in some cases) online friends. I post it there, where they are used to me and my eccentric and sometimes frightening lists. I post it there, where they probably get worried if I go more than a day or two without posting a list.

Hmmm wait. Maybe I should stop posting my lists over there, and post them here. Then, when they say “where are your lists?” I could say “you don’t read my blog, do you?” hahaha. It might be worth it, because I do love to say that to them.

A list a day keeps the dead blog away? Read More »

Overheard from the Roof

2 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Pet Peeves /

The house behind ours got a nice shiny new roof last week. Well, no it isn’t shiny, it’s that orangey yellowy goldeny color roof. But it is nice and new and the roofers were interesting, errr, entertaining, errr, something else.

They don’t seem to have much appreciation for Senator Obama. There were “fried chicken and watermelon” jokes. And then there was some discussion about Obama “not being American”.

Yea, I know. I wanted to yell “Dudes, you can’t run if you aren’t American, duh.” I also wondered at how one minute they could be talking about Obama’s “obvious love of fried chicken and watermelon” and in the next calling him un-American. If fried chicken and watermelon don’t scream “American”, I don’t know what does.

These roofers know a lot about Nascar. And professional wrestling. And some sort of kung fu things. Also, they seem to have a fondness for Calgon because out of the blue, two or three yelled “Calgon take me away!” — that sort of scared me, even more than the Obama thing.

Also, there was much questioning of manhood up there on the roof. The preferred method was related to calling each other homosexuals, in a variety of ways, and talking about which had most recently “been on his knees”.

Those roofers… they were something else.

Overheard from the Roof Read More »

Our Yearly Shakespeare

Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Homeschool, Kid Talk /

Were you here, four years ago, when Michelle came home for school? If you were, then you might have been reading one of our homeschool blogs and realize that Michelle likes Shakespeare. You might also realize that once a year TW, Michelle and I go to see a performance of one of Shakespeare’s plays.

1.Midsummer Night’s Dream

2. Hamlet

3. Romeo & Juliet

4. Julius Caesar

That’s right, we attended our yearly Shakespeare event on Tuesday by attending the Aquila Theatre performance at the Phillips Center (one of the ten good things about living in this town.)

I like Julius Caesar. It’s one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. I don’t think either Michelle or TW would consider this one of their top five plays – but since the yearly Shakespeare is a tradition, they went along.

I will admit that I had considerable difficulty with the WW1 costuming. I liked Cassius as a woman. Marc Antony was excellent. I just plain like Julius Caesar.

I wonder what sort of Shakespeare production we will see next year. The yearly Shakespeare is a tradition that should be maintained long after Michelle has left high school and homeschool behind.

Our Yearly Shakespeare Read More »

Quick Question for the Masses

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Family Funk, Friends & Family, Holidays, Movies & Television /

I thought I was going to post a real blog post but Surfette didn’t text me and tell me to write so I just kept on working and I’m still working and will probably still be working two hours from now.

I do however want to take a minute to ask a very important question…

Which one of you sent TW a Slingbox?

A package arrived yesterday (or maybe it was late last week?) and I thought it was that last thing for Prince J that didn’t arrive in time for Christmas so I didn’t bother opening it. As I was talking on the phone some time this afternoon, I glanced at the box and saw “Sling” and thought “Huh. Why would that box say “Sling”?” So I hung up and opened the box.

Slingbox. Which was on TW’s wishlist but since she doesn’t watch TV, Santa did not bring it. So which one of you sent it? Who do I kill thank?

Now, back to work I go.

Quick Question for the Masses Read More »

Time and Intent

Daily Dose, Day to Day, Pet Peeves /

I spent a lot of time over the holidays going through old blog posts from Fast Times and here on Flamingo House and it was fun. Also, odd. Really odd.

Moving Fast Times from its home on ClubMom to its new archived home on hosted WordPress meant going through each post that had images and re-uploading images. That was interesting. Watching Michelle change. Skimming over the stuff I wrote about or wanted to write about but link dumped because I didn’t have time to write was troubling. I needed more time. It was also interesting to see holes in time where I know there were things I should have blogged about Michelle and education and growing up, but I didn’t blog them because people were reading who wouldn’t have appreciated those stories. I should have blogged them, saved them as draft or pushed them out with a password. Not for you, friends and family, to read or for strangers to read – but for Michelle to read, later. I loved that blog but looking back, I have lots of regrets.

Going back through this one, Flamingo House formerly known as Daily Dose, to clean up links and funky text caused by the move from Blogger to Typepad to WordPress. What a mess. Besides the mess, there are also regrets. Dozens of posts started but not finished, because I didn’t have time. So many family stories not shared, huge holes where our lives should have been documented.

I almost broke my own rule about resolutions and came here to say I was resolving to blog more often and blog more openly or if not openly then to blog privately. But no, a resolution isn’t the answer to these problems. I don’t have the answer. I don’t have a solution. I do have ideas. Now let’s see if I can put those ideas to practice.

I don’t want to look back again in a couple of years and see so many untold stories and unwritten posts.

Time and Intent Read More »