I Have A Serious Question

How am I going to know when my mail gets delivered, both at work and at home, when the USPS switches from the Grumman Long Life Vehicles they use now to whatever non-gas vehicle they’re going to use? I mean everyone that I know knows when their US mail has arrived because all US mail trucks have that distinctive throaty noise to them.  You don’t need to look out any window.  You *know* your mail has arrived.

I asked this question to a couple co-workers today and they laughed their butts off. I didn’t know what was so funny. I’m being serious.

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One For the Ladies

My boss and some other people from work went to Darien Lake to see Tim M. on June 6th.

Beforehand they were making a big deal about his butt. So I told them not to come back without butt shots.

Well, sorry, I’m not really impressed, but they are, and that’s all that matters! So since they are, I figured I’d share with you.

Care For Some Water?

Okay, while my friends down south are wishing for some rain, here in my part of the country we are getting so much rain I’m beginning to feel like I’m living in the rain forest. So yesterday it rained 3.2″ in an hour right before rush hour, and this is one of the three lakes I encountered on the way home.

Okay, this is where it gets really scary. I mean I was *scared*

While the guy ahead of me went through it like no tomorrow, I crawled through it, and I have an Explorer. But I didn’t want it to die on me.  I mean, it was deep.

It took me an hour to get home. It usually takes a half hour. And I won’t discuss what I encountered when I got to my street. Okay, I will, but I didn’t take any photos. 75mph winds had come through my area, knocking down trees and knocking out power, until 1:17am this morning. I had to listen to chain saws cutting up the trees up to that time so the local power company could do its work.  So I am running on very little sleep.

Anyway, I wish I could ship our excess rain to my southern friends!

Pet Show

Last week we also had a pet show at work. The lady at the place where Coraggio was purchased brought some of her animals to the center. I don’t have an affinity for little dogs, but I just have to show you this little dog that weighs all of three pounds. I didn’t take these photos:

Can you barely stand the little tutu it is wearing?

And I wish I had a photo to show you of it near this big dog, because the three dogs are friends:

The little dog in this photo sleeps on the back of the big dog.

The teeny dog has a special carrier:

This one I fell in love with – while he’s not as cute as Coraggio, he’s still very cute:

Don’t you love that little white belly?

Coraggio was going nuts over the pets, and he was checking out this next pet:

What the heck are you supposed to be?

Whoa, cool! I didn’t see this bird! I had already gone back to my office by then:

There were some cute little kitties, and some cute little kiddies holding them, too!

The Reptile Guy

As you probably already guessed, the reptile guy showed up at work the other day. Since I think reptiles are cool, and since the boss asked me to take photos with her camera, I showed up. I’ll say right now, I really don’t like the camera she has. But the reptiles are cool, so here we go.

I think this is some kind of gecko. I hate the date printed on photos.

A little snake. Yes, I touched all of these creatures with no screaming or squealing like some of the teachers were doing.

Not a reptile, but one of my little girl friends, enjoying the reptile show. Here she is telling me *something* – you know how hard it is to understand a two year old unless they’re your own.

A lizard. Those spiky things are just for show. They’re actually very soft.

The same lizard, with a 16 mo. old touching him, and a teacher’s death grip on the child’s arm. Man, these teachers need to relax a bit.

A cool snake, who liked his tummy tickled.

A little alligator who was a little anxious.

Last, but not least, the big boa that got wrapped around my neck.

Out of this World

Last night we went to CMAC to see the RPO’s Out of this World: Star Wars and The Planets, with conductor Christopher Seaman. During The Planets portion of the performance, images from NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope were showing on the movie screen,

while the RPO performed Gustav Holst’s amazing planetary orchestral suite. Talk about being in heaven, literally! It was awe-inspiring, to say the least. I hope they recorded it on DVD so we can see it again.

Overheard Today. . .

. . . in the Pre-K1 room, while I was hanging information for parents on their children’s cubbies, I noticed three four year old girls and one four year old boy sitting at a table. The boy is very cute and has the longest, black eyelashes (don’t guys always get the longest eyelashes)?

Leah: “Andrew, I have a very important question to ask you.”

Here I’m thinking “no, it can’t be, she really isn’t going to ask *that* question, is she?”

Andrew: “Okay.”

Leah: “Will you (giggle) be my (giggle) boyfriend? ” (Yup, she asked *that* question).

Andrew: “No.”

Leah: “Okay! We’ll still be best friends, though, okay?”

Andrew: “Okay.”

Wow. I give Leah a lot of credit for being so cheery about being turned down! You go girl!

Happy 4th of July!

This week at work we’ve been collecting boxes and boxes full of goodies to send to a few of the American troops in Iraq. We do this through the National Guard so we don’t have to actually send the stuff ourselves. They come to the center and send it for us. It’s been tough getting ahold of the National Guard this week, because, well, they’ve been too busy dealing with too many people being killed this week in Iraq. Lovely. I can’t even imagine. It made me go out and buy more stuff for those guys and gals. And look through some of the magazines my Mom gives me that she still gets under my Dad’s name, and some of the DVDs that my Dad gave to me when he was still alive. And I brought it all in for them.

And they respond back with some wonderful photos and letters.  This is what they sent from last year.

If you don’t already know, you can find a soldier or two or more to send goodies to at anysoldier.

Even though I’m going to celebrate this 4th, I’m still thinking of all of the US soldiers in Iraq, and our USA history. Happy 4th everyone!

States I’ve visited

This is really cool!

Pam’s Map

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com

I obviously need to get out to the Pacific Northwest sometime in my life!  How about you, what states have you visited/lived in?

One *Sweet* Machine

Yesterday my Mom’s friend John lent us his *new* John Deere riding lawn mower Series 100 (I didn’t catch the model but I think it’s the one pictured here). Let me tell you, this is one very *sweet* machine. I’ve been using my Dad’s older Sears Craftsman riding lawn mower, and by the time I was done with my Mom’s lawn (which is huge) my whole body ached such that I couldn’t even go to the gym the next day. Using the John Deere mower yesterday was like riding on a cloud and I could turn it with one finger if I wanted to. It’s much more powerful, uses less gas (important nowadays, huh!), has a wider mowing bed and turns better (not on a dime, but not wide either). We also used the mulch feature, so there weren’t piles of mown grass all over.

How about you, what is your preferred mower? I’m totally sold on John Deere now. Thanks to my Mom’s friend, who was very generous in lending me his new machine – how many people would do that nowadays?