Melissa has a new song, Heartbeat, and in it – she whistles.
The bird likes Melissa, whether she whistles or not. But when Melissa whistles… the bird goes a little nuts and you can’t shut her up. She just kept singing all the way through the song, whistling back at Melissa during the whistle parts and then singing nonstop through this video of Melissa Ferrick & Sara Sample working on a song together.
Now that I mostly understand Illinois weather, (though I do wonder how it was decided that the sirens would be tested every Tuesday at 10am, since that has been happening since Suzanne was a kid. Why Tuesday? Why 10am?), I have some learning to do in regards to Illinois raccoons and trees.
I think it was like the first morning that we lived here, after we got our stuff unloaded – that would make it a Tuesday. I was sitting at my desk at the unGodly hour of 5am when something in the window caught my eye. I tweeted about a parade of raccoons and I wasn’t kidding. Four of them, running across the wooden fence, the last one bringing up the rear, getting left behind, like a Disney cartoon or something.
I saw them again and then again once more. And then I saw them on the back fence at like 6pm. Why are raccoons out in public at 6pm? What’s with that? Don’t raccoons generally stay tucked away in their trees until dark? Florida raccoons seemed to do that. Do they have a longer commute up here in the north so they have to leave earlier?
Then, there are the maple trees. I’ve apparently never spent much time with maples. Or if I have, I haven’t spent enough time thinking about them or watching them.
We were laying in bed the other night and TW started cursing about “the helicopters”. Umm we live under the flight pattern for O’Hare but I haven’t actually heard any helicopters, so I questioned her on this. “The helicopters, you know – the seed pods that are all over the house? They’re always stuck to my feet.” Umm no. I had no idea what she was talking about. She got up, with a huff (which means everybody knows this stuff but you, why am I cursed with having to teach you stuff that everybody knows), and came back in with a couple of green things.
Apparently they are maple seeds? Or something. And when they fall from the maple trees, they spin. Or something. She tossed one up and nothing happened except that it fell onto MY bed, MY quilt, MY nice expensive white sheets. She tossed another one and oh yea, it spins. Whatever. I’ve never seen that before.
And now that she’s mentioned it, I’m noticing them all over the floor of the house and when I go outside the maple trees are shooting the freaking things at me. Yesterday during a phone meeting I was covered with the things. I get the point, the tree no longer needs to display this helicopter stuff to me. I’m totally done with maple seed helicopters, kthxbai.
Nature in Illinois is also weird Read More »
I’ve finally read The Nasty Bits, remember when a million bloggers got free copies? Hah. It only took two years (?) for me to read it, no thanks to TW who said I’d probably hate it. Except that it was crude…or maybe she said crass… so maybe I’d like it after all. Whatever.
I did like it. I like books written by foodies or about foodies. Reading the prologue, I wasn’t sure. All of that seal blubber stuff was a little much even for me (the woman who likes crude and crass stuff.) Thankfully Bourdain settled down and for the most part left the really disgusting raw meat descriptions in the trash bin.
Interesting book and I’m sorry I don’t really like food well enough to “get it”, also sorry that I’ve never read Kitchen Confidential, also sorry I’ve never seen him on TV and sorry I haven’t been to Vietnam yet.
We grabbed subs and ice cream at Tony’s Subs in Deerpark and then drove over to Wheeling to visit the Dam #1 Woods.
If you have children of a certain age, then you know this led to many many uses of the word “dam” and much giggling. We brought home a dam beetle and it pooped, dam it and there was a lot of dam trash and we could go on and on (and we did) but now I’m done with dam. Unfortunately, others around here are still going strong, dam it.
We entered Dam #1 Woods west and I think maybe we should have entered at at the east. We’ll try that the next time we need some dam fun.
The Word of the Day: Dam Read More »
We bought Dancing with Elvis ages ago, maybe years ago, at the Gainesville FOLS. (sniff, I miss the Gainesville FOLS. It’s coming again. Soon. In October. sniff. ) TW read it ages ago, maybe years ago, and I never did.
Turns out, it’s a YA book and if I had known that, I might have read it earlier. I thought it was just some fluffy southern chick lit and I am pretty anti-Elvis. (don’t hate me, oh go ahead, hate me – I don’t care.)
It’s a great YA book, only a wee bit of Elvis and an awful lot of good stuff about race and family relationships and, well, just go read it.
Dancing with Elvis Read More »
If you do, you’ll make TW’s mom happy. We haven’t seen her in years … seriously. 🙁
Vote Denver for BlogHer 09 Read More »
Queer is a book that’s on my From the Stacks Challenge list and I really wish I’d just left it on the stacks, unread.
I thought about putting it down, but I kept thinking it would get better or at least slightly less weird. Why I would have thought that, since I have read The Naked Lunch (which I liked) I dunno. But this is the kind of thing that usually prevents me from quitting a book, especially a short book.
Maybe I should have read Junky first? Oh well, too late now.
A little more than a year ago, I blogged about public service announcements and in that post I wondered whether towns and cities in the US actually used civil defense sirens. There are some good comments in that post and I heard from several people via email who weren’t sure if sirens were actually used anymore. Most people seemed to think announcements and alerts were given primarily on TV, radio and internet now because we are so plugged in.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, we were sitting here in the office and there was some weird noise outside. Neither of us really paid it any attention, we’re still getting used to the neighborhood noise and we’re in the flight path for O’Hare arrivals – so there’s a lot of noise. After a few minutes TW looked up and said “I wonder if that’ siren is a tornado alert” – she looked at the weather and sure enough… tornado warning.
Huh. Who knew?
Last night, after we had both logged off and were laying in bed with books, the siren went off again. TW said “I wonder if that means there’s a tornado watch or warning?” I grabbed the iPhone and looked at the weather report. Warning. Huh. What exactly does that mean?
TW attempted to explain tornado safety to me but I don’t really get it. I’m not at all interested in spending time in our basement and as I reminded TW our weather radio is in Florida, with Michelle, in case of hurricanes.
I kept surfing the weather report, watching for updates, and I had absolutely no idea if the tornado warning was really a warning for us. I mean I guess it was, since the siren was blaring for awhile, but it went off so shouldn’t that mean the warning was over? And then there’s the problem that I have absolutely no idea where we are in relation to any of the cities or areas listed in the tornado warning report. Where the heck is Schererville?
TW grabbed a Chicago travel guide off of the shelf to look up some of the cities listed. None of them were. Which means what? They aren’t worth visiting if you’re a tourist? Or they aren’t all that close to Chicago?
I tweeted that I didn’t understand tornado warnings or tornadoes and rocks in my dryer volunteered to explain it all to me. chilihead shared the fact that she’s lived in Oklahoma for 35 years and only taken cover three times. And when I told them both that I was just going to resign myself to die in a tornado, in bed, with a book, they both seemed to think that was an ok plan.
So, I think I’ll stick with that. But maybe spend a little time learning some Illinois geography so at least I’ll know if my time is coming – I want to be reading a really good book.
Weather in Illinois is weird Read More »
A long, long time ago I blogged about my parents and the weird cosmic tie they seem to have, even though they’ve been divorced for a lifetime. Since then, I haven’t had much more to report on the cosmic weirdness level. They have continued to call me almost always on the same day but otherwise, no new weirdness. Until today.
First, my mother sent me videos via email. I don’t believe she has ever sent me video before. In fact I am sure she hasn’t. Then, about an hour later, I walked out the mailbox and guess what was waiting… yep, video from my dad. He has also never sent me video, well wait. He did send me DVDs of old videos from my childhood but that’s different.
Weird. Very weird.
My parents, they did it again Read More »