IceCapades

Our city just put in an open air skating rink this winter. It is downtown in the heart of the city tucked between the old casinos. The cub scouts decided to take a whack at skating last Sunday and I was down there to snap a few shots of their bravery. As you can see this was definitely a team effort as they clung to each other trying to get around the rink. I assure you all the falls on the ice were also a team effort and quite amusing as they tumbled like dominos. They were all good sports and had a fantastic time. There were no injuries and a good time was had by all. Some actually really got the hang of it before they were through and were skating quite well around the oval. For the most part the clinging seemed to be more fun than necessity. It is always impressive how easy going children are about learning things and falling or making mistakes doesn't phase them like it does adults. Adults should take more queues from children than they do. It would relieve a lot of their stress.

Monsters in My Yard

They were hiding behind the tombstones and scaring the trick or treaters as they headed for the front door. There was a ghoul sitting on the porch; a gruesome looking creature; it its lap was a bowl full of treats. There was even one on the roof that enjoyed tossing body parts off at unsuspecting pedestrians below. Parents stood on the sidewalk laughing and applauding. No one was too frightened, there were plenty of screams but no tears. For the price of some fake blood, scars and makeup everyone had a great time. All the rest was improvised by what they could find around the house or pieces they picked up here and there at Walmart, etc. They encouraged a number of friends to join in and everyone had an outstanding time. The creativity and imagination that went into it is what enhanced their fun. I was priveleged to go out and take photos for a while. The rest of the time I was inside with my windows open and I could hear them having fun. It was a good Halloween.

Stolen Quesadillas

The other day my daughter was upstairs talking to me and the two dogs came up and jumped on my bed. They were settled in and getting comfortable when my daughter went downstairs to get her snack she had made for herself. Suddenly I hear her yelling for Rockie, whose ears perk up but he is decidedly not going to respond. I knew he was in trouble. He knew he was in trouble. Only I didn't know what for.

Apparently my daughter had made herself a quesadilla in the microwave and left it to cool on the counter. Rockie was able to reach where it was and helped himself to her snack. What's even more amusing was the little bit of tortilla he had on this face to ensure he was blamed.

Yesterday we had a repeat occurrance. I couldn't do anything but laugh this time. If my daughter didn't learn her lesson then how was Rockie to resist? This time he didn't leave any evidence either. He's a big dog and it couldn't have been anyone else. The other dog, Penni, couldn't reach the counter. Penni, however, jumped on my bed the other day and sent beads flying everywhere. (I was working on a necklace and had the bead containers open and on the bed.) I'm still finding them in places.

A New Wardrobe

So I came across this great way to get a new wardrobe. First of all, I bought a new wastebasket and a new hamper. I put the new wastebasket in my bathroom area and the new hamper in my bedroom. The problem is that the wastebasket is only a few feet from where my hamper used to be. So I keep inadvertently throwing dirty clothes into the wastebasket.

Sure enough, the bag is going to get wrapped up and some of my clothes are going to get thrown away. Looking on the positive side, this will be a great excuse for buying new clothes. The only real catch is that I don't have a boyfriend or sugar daddy to buy the clothes for me; so I have to do it myself. Then I just wind up kicking myself for being stupid and throwing them away in the first place.

However, this concept might work for someone in a different situation than I. I hope someone gets to benefit from this silly mistake / strategy. In the meantime, I'm just doing the wastebasket dive to retrieve what I've accidentally dumped.

The Keeping of Stuff

We have been very busy cleaning stuff out and making room for additional family to move into our home. So we've been going through a lot of collections of "stuff". Some of it belonging to individuals and some of it belonging to all of us and some of it we aren't even quite sure who it ever belonged to or maybe why we ever kept it.

It's rather curious the aversion to disposing of "stuff" we can develop. I've met people that could not part with a daily newspaper or magazine or even junk mail. I've seen their house with stacks of "stuff" taking over living space. Even I am somewhat guilty of keeping too much stuff around. I allow too much of a collection of papers, notes and mail to accumulate before I go through it and rid myself of it. I'm not sure why.

Why does a person hang onto junk mail? Some sort of "I might do something with this" thought before you are ready to part with it.

I have a collection of return address labels that I would never use up in my lifetime. Yet I can't throw away the next envelope that arrives with more of them in it. What about those refrigerator magnets? We have to keep those! Oh and calendars. I always have way more of them than anyone needs.

So I am in the midst of a bit of an experiment on how much "stuff" I can rid all of us of without any regrets. Of course things like photos and important records we won't dispose of but what do we really need to keep? What will we ever really do with it but move it from one garage or closet to another the rest of our lives?

Ice Cream Man

We have the strangest ice cream man that drives around our neighborhood every evening. Yes, just like when I was a kid; he drives around in a panel truck very slowly and plays music very loudly trying to lure kids to buy ice cream from him.

He doesn't sell much ice cream. While there are kids outdoors playing at that time; there just aren't many interested in buying ice cream. I've only seen maybe a handful every stop him in our entire subdivision.

First of all, he looks like Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong fame. He's got the long hair and the sort of spaced out look. Then he plays some of the strangest music or muzack; is that what they call elevator music when the lyrics are taken out. I'm fairly well versed in music and would normally at least recognize a genre; but all of his music leaves me stumped. Seems like he would want to play something the children might respond to that they are familiar with.

He goes up and down the neighborhood streets repeatedly, very slowly, with this strange music playing. I think he goes up and down our street three or four times. By the fourth pass you just want to tell him to give it up.

I wonder if he makes money in any of the neighborhoods. I wonder how many he hits every day. I wonder where that music came from. I'm thinking way too much about this ice cream man, aren't I ??

Adrift

I went up to the lake this weekend to spend some quiet time reading and writing. I drove my own car while my friend drove the RV up ahead of time. I drove into the RV park and drove around the different rows trying to find the right RV. I even found one that was just like it; but it wasn't it. I couldn't find it anywhere. So I drove over to the more distant side of the RV park. I went around several areas and saw the RV nowhere.

I suppose I haven't mentioned that my cell phone was off. The deadline for the phone and my hold date for my bank deposit didn't fall together right. I also have failed to mention there are still little drifts of snow in the shady spots between the trees in the campground. I didn't think much of it. I crunched over a couple of them without any issue.

Of course, you see it coming. I crunched halfway into one and that was all the farther I went. Even with 4wd my little Escape would go no further.

I know about trying to rock back and forth; but it didn't move. I got out and looked in my car for something that might help me dig it out. The best I found was a flip flop that helped me shovel away the snow from the back wheels. I was hoping that would give me enough traction to pull the car out backwards. It didn't. I scraped up 50 cents and went and called my friend; the pay phone wanted 75 cents. The campground office was closed. I went back to the car, tried again to shovel away more snow, rock back and forth out of the spot; scrounged up 75 cents and walked back to the pay phone. Sure enough, it wanted a dollar.

I went back to the car, empty a soda cup and used it to shovel away snow from the front wheels thinking maybe the back wheels being completely clear and the front wheels partially clear would be enough to get the darn thing out of the snow drift. It wasn't. So I gathered up about $1.30 in change and went back to the pay phone and finally got a hold of my friend and got about four words out of my mouth when we got disconnected. By then I had figured out we were at different camp grounds which obviously wasn't a good thing.

Even a call to the operator got me no sympathy. So back to the car for more attempts on freeing my car from this ridiculous last of the season snow drift. By this time I have dug away behind both rear tires and the better part of behind of both front tires. The best I could surmise is that it was the snow up in the wheel wells of the front tires that was keeping the car from moving. Otherwise, I really wasn't sure what the problem was. I was cold and wet and had pretty much exhausted my physical ability. I did attempt turning the wheels while trying to go forward and reverse in hopes that would loosen up the front wheels, but still they got no traction.

I finally went to the payphone one more time and made a collect call to my friend. Which for those of you that have not done so lately, cost $9. Yes, that was no typo, that was nine dollars!

So it turned out he was on his way to the campground I was at anyway because the other one he'd gone to was still under 2 ft. of snow. So when he got there and got in my car he immediately got a little bit of traction. I'm not being rude, but I think the extra weight must have made the difference. He worked it and worked it and it didn't come easily; but he finally got it out.

We went and found ourselves a camp site on the drier side of the campground. The rest of the weekend was uneventful other than the last night when the water froze up. But that was a minor issue.

So who else but me can find the last car capturing snow drift of the season.