A Guy-seum

Where do you go when it’s just you and your husband and son and they are both into aviation?  Why, a Guy-seum of course.  What is a Guy-seum you may ask?  Well, let’s just say that most of the patrons who are rapt with interest are of the male variety.  AKA…Guys. 

And what is the closest Guy-seum? Well, in my neck of the woods, that would be the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum of course—satellite at Dulles.  And since it was my husband’s birthday I couldn’t exactly complain.

Now most of the things are guy-centric and there are pretty much a lot of, well, airplanes.  I still had fun, and I learned a lot. 

Where so you urinate in space, when there is no gravity?  I mean, really now, it would just fly around wouldn’t it?  How about a sort of space diaper?

And do you really need to apply makeup in SPACE?  I learned that if you had the inclination you could pull out your trusty makeup case. As a result there are no scary, frumpy, bed-head women astronauts in space where no one can hear you scream.

Of course it you wanted to play a game of scrabble there is always the magnetic scrabble game that is included in any good astronaut’s gear.  What no DVD player?

I found it kind of interesting that the “Enterprise.” Space shuttle never really went into space but was just kind of a test ship and only flew on top of a jet.

I saw the Concorde and wondered why they didn’t figure out a way to make them actually fiscally usable, since they are so quick and everyone is always in such a hurry.

After a while though, the plentiful airplanes hanging here and there just started to blend together viewed with my oh so my female eyes so I just sat in the museum Mickey Dee’s and read a book while the guys took it all in. 

Next time, it’s going to be a Girl-seum.  I looked it up and discovered that there is a shoe museum (Really there is, I wouldn’t kid you) in Toronto so it looks like a plan to me.

Salad in a cup

I love the Chinese culture.  I love the Chinese food.  Since my son is visiting from his base in North Dakota we decided to go into the city near Washington D.C. to take in the sights, museums and restaurants. 

His birthday was this past Monday so we went out to have Peking duck at my fave Chinese restaurant.  The meal was delicious and the duck was succulent. 

At the end of the meal the waiter served us all cucumber juice.  Now I have been going to Chinese restaurants all my life and I’ve never had complimentary cucumber juice.  In fact I have never even tasted cucumber juice.  Served in a shot glass we all took a sip. 

As it went around the table, it sounded like this…

Husband:  “It’s like drinking a salad!”

Stepson:  Nose to sniff, and not a sound just a weird face, which is quite normal for him.

Stepdaughter:  a quick tiny sip and a quick put down

(Let it be noted that other than my son and me not very many of my family are veggie eaters)

Son:  “Yum it tastes sweet.”

Me:  “interesting.”

I am sure that there must be a reason for the cucumber juice.  My husband swears that even with his little sip he suffered no heartburn or onion repetition.  Maybe better digestion is the reason.  I have to admit he has a point.  So I think that Pepcid a.c.  better look out because here come the Chinese!

Fortune Kooky #2

For those of you who follow my blog you already know that I have a love/hate relationship with Chinese fortune cookies. Sometimes you get a fortune and sometimes you get a statement.  And then…there are the times that you just get weird.  Lately, the weird is winning out.

I can tell you one thing…the next time I go to San Francisco I plan on visiting the Golden Gate Fortune cookie factory and get the details on how these bad boys are made. And if I’m lucky maybe I can get a peek at their resident wordsmith as well! 

Recent fortunes:

All I can say is ???????

Cheat sheet anyone?

A. Th-Th-Th-Th-Th-... That's all, folks.

SNOW! Finally!!

It snowed! If you can call the slightly white ground cover snow, then it snowed. Today they are calling for temps in the 50’s so it won’t be around long, but just long enough. I was beginning to think that it was going to pass us by…again. Especially when friends and relatives 10 miles down the road were getting 3 or more inches of the fluffy white stuff. (Seriously, I think I will make a sign for my door that says... "No snow zone.")

I am sure this mini snow will be gone by noon. I am no groundhog but I predict that winter is pretty much over here in the south.  March snows are rare and judging from this extremely mild winter we will be sweating soon. Before this dusting is gone, however, I will build a snowman—a Virginia snowman!

The love of a dog

This past week I finished a commissioned painting for my blogging buddy Terah.  She recently

lost "Tip" her four-legged dear friend. In honor of her dog and all of the loyal furry-friends out there that make each of our lives so much better, I offer this poem by the poet Edgar Guest.

A Dog

"Tis a pity not to have a dog, 
for at the long day's end, 
The man or boy will know the joy, 
Of welcome from a friend.

 And whether he be rich or poor, Or much of little bring, 
The dog will mark his step and bark, 
As if he were a King.

Though gossips whisper now and then, of faults they plainly see, 
And some may sneer, from year to year, 
My dog stays true to me.

He's glad to follow where I go, 
And though I win or fail, His love for me he'll let me see, by the wagging of his tail.

 
Now if I were to list the friends of mine in smiles and in tears, Though through and through are staunch and true, 
And constant down the years,

 In spite of all my many faults, 
 which critics catalog, deserving blame, I’d have to name my ever-faithful dog. 
"Tis pity not to have a dog, 
Whatever be his breed, 
for Dogs possess a faithfulness, 
 which humans sadly need.


And whether skies be blue or gray, 
Good luck or ill attend, 
Man's toil by day, a dog will stay, 
 His ever-constant friend...

...

Edgar Guest


Visit Terah's blog and read about true love...the love of a dog...This old dog

V-Day, horses and carpal tunnel vision

I know.  The title got you.  Well, let me explain.  Last night I spent another sleepless night with the numbing in my right (the painting one) hand from carpal tunnel.  I had surgery a few years back for my left hand…yes I am ambidextrous. And now the right one is getting worse.  So as a result of carpal tunnel, I got little sleep and tonight my son comes for a 2-week visit from the wilds of North Dakota.

I don’t survive well on four hours of sleep so I will be a zombie on today of all days.  You see 13 year’s ago my husband proposed sappily on V-Day. 

My to-do list is huge.  I must finish a painting of a horse today.  Fortunately horses are my forte, so my hubby says, so I may get it done.  After which I must get the laundry done, go to the post office and the bank and, well the list is much longer but I won’t bore you.

I just want to say…Happy V-Day!

If you would like to print out the Valentine from my original painting below, feel free...just click on the image.  :-)

Snow sprite

We Virginians finally had some snow on Saturday, but if you blinked you might have missed it.  This morning the road had a few sparse patches with blacktop peeking through.  When I say sparse, I mean really sparse.  If you scraped really well you might accumulate a thimbleful amount of snow.

And that gave me an idea.  Since we haven’t had enough snow this year to build even one snowman, I figured why not.  I’ll build a snow-sprite. 

So here he is-- the little Virginia Elfin Snow Sprite.  A step down from my soda can sized snow buddy from last year.  Since they are predicting temperatures in the 50’s for the coming week as the song says… he better run and have some fun now before he melts away.

Make it easy craft project featured

If you would like to make an easy magnetic Valentine Heart bookmark hop on over to my new blog Make it easy crafts and follow the easy instructions. The blog spot Totally tutorials recently featured this quick to make project. (thanks) Totally Tutorials is a really cool blog that posts new tutorials on just about everything every day.  Check it out!  Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

What’s your favorite scary movie?

What is your favorite scary movie? That is the question I pose to you.  Of course if you ask it of me I doubt I would be able to give you a real answer.  You see I have never really seen a scary movie, not straight on anyway.  The thing is, the only way I can watch a scary movie is through some sort of screen.  At home I watch them through an afghan.  At the movies I watch them through my sweater. (Yes I wear a sweater to a scary movie even in summer heat)  And when the action gets a bit too intense I close my eyes and block it all out and depend upon my ears to give me a clue as to what has happened.  It doesn’t matter that the 8 year old sitting two rows in front of me sits with rapt attention, I am watching safely under a gauze of yarn and wool.

This past weekend my husband and I went to see "The woman in black." a gothic type ghost story.  It was his choice of course since I would much rather have seen something a bit lighter. Don't ask me for a review because I would have to give you a choppy one, since most of the time I was buried under my sweater with my eyes tightly closed. Even through this protection, I jumped out of my seat when someone screamed or the music blared at a critical moment.  And my husband sat stoically next to me unaffected.

I think it all started when I was a kid.  My mother would force me to visit my grandmother who lived in an old Victorian house that seemed as if it was a block long. It had creepy hallways, turrets and spiral staircases. All the weather had to do was add a thunderstorm and my imagination would run away with me screaming down those halls. If ever there was a place that a ghost could call home, that was it!

 One such time, while visiting my grandmother I went with a friend in the neighborhood to a matinee to see, of all things…”The blob.”  The movie got to the part where the gook rolled down the stick and then it jumped… and so did I-- right out of my seat and out of the theater.  Needless to say my friend followed none too happy. 

So in order to keep my scare loving friends, I needed to figure out a way to watch, but not watch, hence the burrow viewing. 

So what is your favorite scary movie?  And do you watch it straight on or do you use my sheltered method?

Bad hair day?

Bad hair day?

I am much like my alter ego, Miss horsey.  I sometimes suffer from bad hair days, and finding and keeping a hair stylist has never been easy for me.  It started way back when…

I was 8 or 9 and my mother, who favored the mile high beehive hairdos offered to take me to her stylist for a haircut.  I was ecstatic!  A real stylist was something that I had never had the opportunity to experience.  Mom had always just sat me down in a kitchen chair and lopped off an inch here or there.  I sat in that salon waiting for that Cinderella transformation.  When I got home my brothers teased me mercilessly comparing me to none other than the father of our country, George Washington.  That’s what I get for going to my mother’s hairdresser!

I never learn, though.  A few years pass and while I was readying myself for a High School dance, my mother again suggested I go to what she called a Beauty parlor. I should have known it wasn’t going to be pretty as I sat waiting next to my mom and two or three ladies with bluish hair.  An hour or so later I emerged looking (and I’m not trying to insult any old time country music stars here) a bit like I was gearing up for a Loretta Lynn lookalike contest.  Mile high, big hair was just not my idea of a perfect hairstyle for a 16 year-old.  I went home and combed and pulled at the teased tresses.  I yanked out my hair by the bucket loads.  And when I was done, I looked well, acceptable.  Not bell of the ball pretty, but acceptable.

So I stayed away from “beauty parlors” for several years.  Then, tiring of my simple ultra straight Cher Bono hair, I walked into a hair studio and asked the girl to give me a style.  She did.  For six months I sported something similar to Elvis sideburns.  We won’t even mention the mullet look.

Years have passed and I try and forget my bad hair experiences.  You know I live by the “if at first you don’t succeed try, try again” adage. Every now and then I get a hairdresser that I like but after I get used to him or her and think I have someone I can trust…I call to make an appointment, and they are gone.  Poof!  Into thin air and the salon (of course) doesn’t know where they went. 

Right now I am in desperate need of a trim.  I can tell because Miss Horsey and I are looking very similar.  I call and find that my current favorite hairdresser is not there.  Surprise…bad hair day here I come!