The Waddle

Alas, I believe the day has come that I've turned into my momma!  Not that it is a bad thing. She was thoughtful, kind, considerate, organized and loving.  She ran the household which included my father and three older brothers. She planted a garden, flowers, canned, cleaned, mowed, cooked, sewed, served at church, etc. etc., etc. - I would be honored to have those skills.  But I'm thinking more about how I get out of bed in the morning or stand up from sitting too long.  It seems like my knees aren't what they use to be and I can see myself going through some of the same motions, expressions, and sounds that she did to get her body moving.  Even as I "waddle" through the house after a full night of tennis, I can't help but be reminded of her doing the same after gardening or working in the yard all day.  Plus the fact that we had a basement where she did all of the laundry and canning. Only in the later years did she spring for a regular washer.  She spent most of her life washing in an old conventional, ringing out the clothes into a wash tub for the "rinse" and then ringing them back through to be hung on the line to dry.  And the canning operation encompassed lugs of peaches, pears, apricots, homegrown tomatoes, corn, beets, pickles and whatever other produce could be gathered during the summer months.  Yes, my mother worked "like a trooper", she would say-something to inspire me to keep moving, no matter how big my "waddle" is!

A couple weeks ago I read an article online about a 600 year old bra was found in an Austrian castle.  Then I noticed that I had a George Strait T-Shirt from 1992 that I am still wearing. That is 20 years and it's still going strong.  And that isn't the oldest T-Shirt  in my collection. I found a Valley Alumni Reunion shirt from 1988! It's amazing that I still have them and they still fit even if I only wear them around the house!  I don't think I'll beat the record of the 600 year old bra but it's pretty surprising what's hiding at the bottom of my T-Shirt drawer.

Wrestling a Corgi

Last week, it was time for our boy Corgi's annual check up and vaccination routine. It seems like medical care for our pets rivals medical care for us! So much that pet insurance is looking more and more attractive. Besides the advances in medical care, there are new vaccinations each year that you can choose for your pet. The latest one is a pet flu vaccine. I usually get the flu shot but I'm not so concerned, or have even heard of dogs getting the flu. Although they are reporting more cases of the flu in dogs, I'm still not on the bandwagon for this one! Anyway, back to Sunny, our boy Corgi. During his wellness exam, the vet uses a probe to look into the dog's ears. I'll have to admit that Sunny is the worst of all our dogs in behaving at the vet. And once he saw the ear probe, he was not a happy boy. After a bit of twisting and turning, the vet was able to scope his ears and it was determined that he had an ear infection (although I hadn't noticed him acting any differently but the inside of his ears were red). The prescription was an ear flush, an ointment and a dose of antibiotics. We could have opted for a treatment by the vet for $75.00 or we could do it ourselves at home for $40.00. Since I always wanted to be a vet and our funds are limited, I opted for the at home experience! After all, how hard could it be? So home I went with the bottle of ear rinse and tube of ointment. We previously had to administer eye drops to our girl corgi, Carrie and that turned out okay so I was up for the challenge. I thought maybe I could lull him into a sleep and sneak up with the ear rinse but he seemed to know what I was up to. This was definitely going to be a two person job! Finally, the moment had arrived. Don was home so we got our supplies and were ready to tackle the job. Unfortunately, Sunny was not wanting any part of our "doggie" hospital playtime! I thought I'd do best trying to hold him while Don administered the products. After a few go arounds, much barking and fur flying, the task was finally complete! Today we went for treatment number two and I decided it would work better upstairs on the bed where I can perhaps get a better hold on him and his sister, Carrie wouldn't see him and get all excited. For the most part it worked much better than the kitchen table and I felt like a calf-roper trying to hold him still.

Only two more treatments left! Oh, and to top it all off, our other dog, Sasha went in on Saturday for her check up and had the same thing! However, she's a much better patient-even though she weighs 40 lbs more!

How Not to Get Married

Every six month or so, ABC introduces us to a "desirable" man or women, looking to find someone "amazing" who will eventually become their "soul-mate" and live happily ever after as man and wife. The premise of this show is that this "Bachelor" or "Bachelorette" meets 20 plus members of the opposite sex and it becomes a contest to see who can scheme their way into this person's heart. And somehow, I usually get sucked into to watching a few episodes, just to see how "amazingly" offtrack these people are. The last episode of the current "Bachelor", Ben, ended on Monday. I had only seen parts of the first episode where the girls were introduced to Ben. One girl happened to be from my home state of Nebraska. I'm not sure how far she got but I think her days were numbered when she mentioned something about a shotgun and eating parts of cattle that most people wouldn't eat or even knew existed! So now we're down to the last two girls who come home to meet Ben's family. Both confess that they are in love with him and they would accept his proposal of marriage at the final ceremony. In fact, most of the women on the show are trying to fulfill their childhood fantasy of marriage, to someone who resembles their "Prince Charming". I'll have to admit that I never had that fantasy (as noted when I tried to cram 200 people into my wedding reception and ran out of food and drink!) My fantasy growing up was either to A) Play professional football-this was long before the days of Title IX! B) Sing professional, preferable with Kenny Rogers-never mind me not being able to sing! or C) Become a veterinarian and raise dogs. I remember declaring to my mother that I couldn't see myself living with no less than 10 dogs (I'm sure she was thrilled!). In reality, I was quite good at basketball, I am married, my husband is a singer and has done some professional work, and we have 3 dogs. I've concluded that three is our limit for our dog pack, since I've discovered that female dogs don't always get along, not unlike the girls on the "Bachelor". With everyone yearning for the attention of the male, in our case-Sunny-things can go from sweet face to ripped ears in a matter of seconds. And in the T.V. show, there's no one with a squirt bottle or clanging pans to cool them off! So, as love would have it, Ben and the two finalist end up in Switzerland for the final rose ceremony (and this one also comes with a ring). Seems like Ben got jilted before on his last proposal (to the previous "Bachelorette") so this time was going to be different. He was not going to get down on his knees to propose unless he knew it would be forever. Well, forever lasted a couple weeks. Once the glow of the Swiss Alps faded into the sunset, Ben and his newly engaged fiance, Courtney drifted apart. Seems like dinner at Long John Silvers just doesn't compare to Puerto Rico, Panama, or Belize-the destinations of many of the getting to know you dates. Welcome to reality Ben, Courtney, Lindzey (with a "z")and all the other ladies. True love isn't about a feeling. It's about an action and it begins with loving the true God who made us and His Son who set us free. May we all live to glorify and honor Him.

Is it live or is it Memorex?

Perhaps many of my readers won’t recall the above phrase since Memorex cassettes tapes have gone the way of the covered wagon but I can still remember this commercial. The point was that a recording of an opera singer when recorded on a Memorex tape would shatter a glass just like in a live situation.

Today, however, my blog is more about how artificial two things are compared to the real or live product. Today we are dissecting the McDonalds’ McRib Sandwich and the Whisker Lickin’s Tender Moments Moist Salmon Flavored Cat Treats.

Yesterday, one of the online news sites posted the ingredients of the McRib Sandwich at McDonalds. Now I know that most things that McDonalds serves are highly processed and probably don’t contain much in the way of nutrition but I will admit to craving a Big Mac now and then! I never liked the McRib when it was a regular menu item, which is probably why it only makes “guest” appearances every now and then. The only person that I knew that enjoyed it was my Mom and since we didn’t live in a town that had a McDonalds, she’d have to wait until we went into the big city to satisfy her craving. SO the story yesterday was that the McRib Sandwich was made out of 70 ingredients, 34 of which are found in the bun alone, including azodicarbonamide. Besides being a great scrabble word, this ingredient is also found in yoga mats or tennis shoes and that’s just part of the bun! Although it does contain pork, it is really the less expensive innards and castoffs from the pig that are molded into a rib-shaped patty and smothered with BBQ sauce. Since I’ve seen the video of how they mold their chicken McNuggets, I’m not sure I want to go into details of getting the pork by-products and other ingredients to form a patty. Add pickles, onions, 980 mg of sodium, 10 g of fat and you’ve got your McRib Sandwich-And we haven’t even made it yet to the fries and Diet Coke!

Now, on the other side of things, I usually buy some treats for the farm cats that roam my “office”. (I work out of my boss’s home). Anyway, I never had a cat as a pet, except when I was 7 and I took one for a ride on a rocking horse-not a pretty ending, so I’m not well-versed in what cats like as treats. In addition, these cats are free roaming and are use to catching their own meals. Their owners do feed them regularly but I have seen them with a few unlucky critters between their teeth! The last treat I bought was called “Purina Whisker Lickin’s Tender Moments Moist Salmon Flavored Cat Treats”. I guess I should have been tipped off by the wording “salmon-flavored”. Anyway, my favorite cat, Duffy, who comes in my office specifically for treats totally turned her nose up at the salmon figure I, was trying to feed her. Although it looked and felt a bit like an eraser to me, I thought for sure the cat would go for it. I did feel relieved when her owner said that she doesn’t like salmon flavored anything! Great, there are 6 more cats that I can make friends with. However, I tried coaxing O’Malley, the big tom cat, into taking a bite and he again turned up his nose. The morsels really do remind me of an eraser! So, after the McRib fiasco, I decided to check the ingredients of these cat treats and low and behold, the first ingredient is LIVER! Then wheat flour, corn gluten meal, chicken by-product meal, water, beef tallow preserved with BHA, glycerin, SALMON, and then about 30 more chemicals-none of which look too appetizing! So, needless to say, the cats are just not into all the molded, processed, fake tasting salmon treats! They’ll just stick to crunchy things both real and from a bag! As for me, I don’t even want to read the ingredients on the hot dog package!

Remembering, Relating, and Celebrating!

A few days ago, I decided to try out one of my IPOD applications to find out what happened on that particular day in history.

What I discovered that in 1799, Rosetta Stone was discovered. It happened during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign. A French soldier discovered the black basalt slab which was inscribed with ancient writings near the town of Rosetta. As it turns out, this artifact, with it’s three different scripts-Greek,Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic-was the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphic, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2000 years!
Fast forward to today and in the world of smart phones, word processors, IPADs, and tablets, could someone 2000 years from now pick up an IPAD and decipher what the world would have been like in our time. If it’s anything like my cellphone, the battery life is 15 minutes – 10 if I’m accessing the web. My phone is not “smart” but that’s a whole other column for the day in history that we’re discussing the phone toss across the Potomac!

I am sure that there would be some teeny tiny component that would enable our future inhabitants to unlock life’s secrets in the 21st century. I was totally amazed when I download my photos from my old phone onto a itty bitty card (no bigger than my fingernail)! It just may take some time and ingenuity to find the correct power source and charger. As in my experiences of getting new cell phones, nothing is ever compatible to what you have.

At one time, I had kept up with all the latest trends, 8tracks, vinyl, cassette players, walkmans, and stereos. I even re-wired my stereo system in my bedroom and mounted the speakers on the wall. Plus, I wired my stereo speakers in the back window of my 1963 Mercury Comet (with a white furry rug to match) And, I was so excited when you could record something on cassette tape by plugging a cord from the radio to the cassette player. No more maneuvering my two speakers around the recorder and hoping the dog doesn’t bark or sneeze in the background!
But over the years, technology zoomed pass me. I finally got an IPOD a couple years ago and am now thinking of an IPAD (at least it would be larger print for my aging eyes). I’m slowly but surely catching up!

So, as it turns out, when the British defeated Napoleon in 1801, they took possession of the Rosetta Stone which is almost four feet long and two-and-a-half feet wide. It is currently housed in the British Museum in London and has been there since 1802, excluding a brief period during World War I where it was moved to a separate underground location to avoid possible damage from falling bombs.
Thank you Rosetta Stone for you place in history! You are not just another language software program. Bonjour!

Senior Vs. Senior

I play in a tennis league during the week. It is really fun! This year, I will be turning 50 so I'm eligible to play in a Senior League. One night during our regular season matches I was playing against a teenager who was a Senior at one of the local High Schools. Part of our league involves playing a singles match. I have most always played doubles & I have never been a great singles player but I feel like this may be my "senior" calling. As it turned out, I was slated to play against the teenager for the first half of the singles match. Well, the tennis balls were all lined up in my favor as I won my portion of the match 3-0! No matter what else happened that evening, I was more than satisfied with my singles match versus the High School Senior! Serena, look out, I've found my groove!