Dryer Lint

Those who know me well will know I'm not a fan of Halloween.  My reasons go back to the ancient history of it and how it doesn't mesh with my Biblical beliefs, but when I was a kid, I didn't know about any of that, and I did some silly things.

But have you ever heard of something THIS silly?

Without mentioning any names, I will tell you the story of some girls.

They were two sisters in their early teens.  One was cleaning out the lint screen in the dryer on October 31, when she got the twisted idea to give it to the soon-to-arrive trick-or-treaters.

Her equally twisted older sister laughed maniacally, grabbed some brown paper lunch bags, and started shoving wads of greyish blue dryer lint into them, closing the tops with a few staples.

I heard that the older sister even drew the middle finger on one of the bags.

Apparently, one of the girls filled another bag with an old holey pair of orange socks.

Who DOES this kind of thing?

They saved the "special" bags for certain people, such as the boy from across the road, who was a few years younger than the girls but had always been mean to them.

The girls, with such kind faces, bestowed a bag of dryer lint upon the unsuspecting visitor.

"Heyyyyyy, thanks!" enthused the boy from across the road as he beamed.

"You're welcome," I can hear the girls say as they stuffed their giggles beneath innocent faces.

I wonder what happened to the boy who opened that bag of lint.  Did he even remember who had given it to him?  Did the lemony smell of laundry soap get masked in his senses and confuse him into thinking it was some ghoulish sort of cotton candy?  Did he taste of it and suddenly develop a craving for other types of dryer lint and become a dryer lint addict?

Maybe that boy went on to roam the streets, reaching into dryer exhaust pipes in residential areas, looking for his next fix.  Maybe he wound up in a treatment centre and is still digging through his past to figure out the roots of his addiction.

Maybe, in one of his recovery groups, he ran into another person with a strange addiction - to holey orange socks!

Maybe I've just got a silly imagination.

I like to put a photo or a video in my blog entries, but couldn't think of anything for this one.  So, I asked one of my teenaged daughters, in a serious voice, "Hey, do you know any songs that might be appropriate to put in a blog entry about dryer lint?"

She burst out laughing and said, "Yyyyeah, I'll Youtube that right now, Mom!"

But she DID find something, and here it is:

So, tell me... have your eyes glazed over from reading this, or did you laugh, even a little?  :)

Like my writing?  More can be found in the archives to the right, and now - NEW! - the most popular recent entries are showing up over there for your clicking/reading pleasure.

The M-Dawg Facebook Repartee

Here we have another Facebook repartee.

My first one is at this link, and, who knows, there may be more still.

As always, I've renamed the characters, including myself.

Argyle McArgyle (I hope he doesn't smack me for having dubbed him that) lived a few houses down the road from me when we were nine until some time after grad.  Although we went to different elementary schools, we did suffer through the same prisons without bars for our "high school" years.

The other main character shall be called Santori Mafioso, who moved to our town from the States and was in my fifth grade class for awhile (also from whom I hope I do not receive a smack for his pseudonym), until he got suspended and moved to another class for allegedly bringing a forbidden substance to school.

One of my friends back then, a New Zealander who I will call Cutty Sark, coaxed me to tell Santori,  "Go home, Yankee".

So, being a bit of a brat, I said it.  (Sorry, San!)

And Santori tried to beat me up.  (See?  The Mafioso name fits.)

Cutty called him a bully, and Santori backed off, albeit seemingly grudgingly.

Anyway, that's the bit of back story.

And to be fair, I have renamed myself as Cowbell Lutefisk.

Consistent with my lifetime of brattery (shut up, Spell-Check, that IS a word in MY books), I started calling Argyle something random - the truth here, I called him "A-Dawg".

Well, I frequently post songs on my Facebook wall, and when I posted something from Led Zeppelin's "Physical Graffiti", Argyle commented to the effect of that being their best album.

One day shortly after that, I ... Well, here's the conversation to explain it: 

Cowbell Lutefisk shared a link (on Argyle McArgyle's wall).

"Yo A-Dawg, I was listening to this in my car today and I thunk-a-you. Yeah, maybe you're right - it may be their best album. So hard to choose, really."

 (Full version of In My Time Of Dying by Led Zeppelin here)

Cowbell Lutefisk Warning:  I was just listening to it on my headset while setting up my work stuff and discovered that whoever uploaded it didn't upload the whole thing. DANG it cuts off improperly. 

Argyle McArgyle It's probably a bit dependent on your mood... 

Cowbell Lutefisk  Good thing I'm not bipolar. 

Cowbell Lutefisk ‎(No offence to those who are). 

Argyle McArgyle  its just a bit more complex. my favourite anyway.  

Santori Mafioso The only reason why this is my favorite is because there is MORE! They are all great in their own way and it is absolutely dependant on your mood. And you don't have to be bi-polar to appreciate this! LOL 

Argyle McArgyle tru dat, M-dawg 

Santori Mafioso Please do not ever call me that again! 

Cowbell Lutefisk snort!!!!!!!!!!! 

Argyle McArgyle sorry m-dawg 

Cowbell Lutefisk yeah, M-Dawg. sorry you gotta be called M-Dawg. 

Santori Mafioso Uh no not really 

Argyle McArgyle  i won't call him m-dawg again. now he is the-one-who-does-not-wish-to-be-called-m-dawg 

Cowbell Lutefisk  Or The Artist Formerly Known As M-Dawg.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

And that's as far as it went.

I hope I don't wake up in the morning to find a horse's head in my bed for having published this.

With a bratty grin,

Comments?  Leave me one in the box below labeled, ironically enough, "Post a Comment".

Read more of my shtuff in the archives ordered chronologically in the right hand column of this blog, or here are a few quick random picks:

• Mozart And Me 
• Hamburger Helper Banter (This is the other Facebook repartee I mentioned earlier)
• Neil Of Fortune (Very random) 
• Calligraphy, And My Frist Full-Time Job

Hamburger Helper Facebook Banter

From Saturday, April 21, 2012

The following is the banter that resulted from a Facebook status line of a friend, who has chosen his name to be Sir Basil.  As in all my blogging, all other names are changed, too.

"Hamburger Helper only works if the hamburger is ready to accept that it needs help."

Lady 1:  oy!

Man 1:  brilliant

Steeny:  LAUGHING LOUDLY HERE!!!!!!!!!!

Man 2:  What if Hamburger helper comes in the form of an intervention?

Steeny:  then it would be called Hamburger Intervention.

Man 3:  Hamburvention 

Lady 2:  Lol

Lady 2:  Good one!

Fish Burger:  Ah well. I guess it's time I admitted I have a hamburger problem 

Sir Basil:  ‎"I'm a meatitarian... I eat meat. It's a personal choice."

Steeny:  "Hi, my name is Steeny." (Hiiiiii Steeny). "And I've got a hamburger problem." (Welcome to Hamburger Anomymous, Steeny). 
   
Angus Patty:  There may be another way to look at this... What is the hamburger doing that it actually needs help? I mean really - It could be doing something that benefits society, or world peace (Unless you are a cow) or... maybe it is trying to take over the world in an insidious attempt give everyone Mad Cow disease... (The angry bovine thing, not the swapped t instead of a g in the gene sequence that creates a goofy prion... Just sayin... I mean really - what would hamburger need help with? Then again... it doesn't really have any arms... 

Steeny:  That was some good questioning, Angus Patty.

Angus Patty:  I do what I can... (Still smiling about your "Hi, my name is Steeny" bit - that was funny) 

Cecily:  Angus, you're getting too technical. Look at it from a different point of view...the hamburger meat is messed up, literally it is all mashed up. There's the proof that it needs help. If it was fine, it would be steak. 

Steeny:  I was just talking on the phone to my 19-year-old, formerly drug addicted, vegetarian daughter, Nirvana (she told me to tag her here) and had to read her your status line and some of these comments, Sir Basil, as I figured she'd appreciate them.

She said (and I typed as she spoke) that the hamburger probably has self-esteem issues and self-worth issues because it was brutally murdered and it blames itself because it doesn't know any better. It was raised to be killed. How can it know anything other than that?

Sir Basil:   Your daughter is warped - I like it :)

Steeny:  oh she is indeed - my kids are my favorite weirdos! :)

Angus Patty @ Cecily:  The mind does not always reflect the body... (How is that for .. Umm... ambient?)

@Steeny LOL - I think your daughter may have something there - somehow though, I do not think Dr. Phil would touch this one... As for Dr. Laura, she may, as it is not Pork. Then again, she would do the whole "tough Love your Burger" thing... Pop doctors aside, (No, I do not mean a side of doctors with pop) Trying to help these mutilated bovine is very.... MOOOOOOOoooooooving...

Steeny:  ‎"tough love your burger" - LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!!!

Steeny:  and Moooooooooooooooooooving, hahahaha! this thread has been hysterical!

Angus Patty:  The interesting thing is, that Dr. Laura would probably also tell the ground beef to "get a life", failing of course, to understand the irony of that statement. "And now a word from our sponsors"... (tag in music) "At Burger King, you can have it any way you like"... No wonder hamburger needs help. It is also clearly suffering form Stockholm Syndrome.

Steeny:  Poor, poor codependent burger.

Angus Patty:  HAHAHAHA... Yeah... LOL

Steeny:  Sir Basil, would you mind if I copied all of this (removing all names, of course) to use as an entry in my blog? (This one: http://holy-sheepdip.blogspot.ca/ )

Sir Basil:  Go for it! I'll just sit here and wait for the royalty checks to roll in...

Steeny:  Excellent. I will be sure to share the wealth. I'll hold off on posting it for a bit, in case further words of wisdom on the subject of dead cows makes itself known in here.

Steeny:  Upon thinking further, I should change names, rather than remove them, lest some parts lose their sense. Does anyone have any preferred pseudonyms? If not, I will just make some up.

Steeny:  (I'll wait till tomorrow at the least, to give people a chance to see this if they're not on FB anytime soon, to think about an answer.)

Sir Basil:  Thing One and Thing Two?

Sir Basil:  Okay, you can call me "Sir Basil", ____ can be "Sir Jeffery", and ____ is "Cecily". I dunno about the rest of them :) 

Steeny:  ok! heeheheeee this is gonna be fun! (i'll wait to see if there are any objections or corrections to those suggestions, first, though). 

Fish Burger:  Call me fish Burger. :-)

Angus Patty:  Being as we are dealing with Cattle, it is tempting to try for a rugged western name... I dunno... say... John Wayne or some such... I am not thinking Sir Jeffery (The whole shtick would with what is implied would be a bit uncomfortable I think) Angus Patty? 

Steeny:  Angus Patty!!! ROFL! or vice versa for a girl. 

Angus Patty:  NICE



So, there we have it - a banter session from Facebook, unedited except for the name changes.

What did you think?  Am I the only one laughing at this?  Should I do more of them? 

Affectionately,

If you like my writing, click "Follow" at the top left of this page, or leave me a comment.



If you'd like to read more, there is a growing pile of it on the right hand column, arranged chronologically.


Here are a few samples:

• A Tea/Coffee Situation (a little silliness from my childhood)
• Wearing Masks In Walmart (a little silliness from my adulthood)
• My Attempted Weekend Getaway (an attempt to find sanity in my crazy adulthood)
• How Bloggers Make Money (some serious info)
• Pretending Everything's Fine When It's Not (some serious thoughts)

A Tea/Coffee Situation

Once upon a time, my sister and I were members of a tennis club.

I don't know how my parents afforded it, but they offered it to us and we gladly accepted, as we loved playing tennis.

My dad, who is a carpenter, built us a house in a beautiful British Columbian suburb, somehow managing to make the payments on the mortgage even though there were times when the carpenter's union had no work for him and we dug for leftover potatoes in a farmer's field in order to eat.

A picture I took of my dad in 1984 when I was standing on the deck of the house he'd built.

I didn't realize back then how poor we were.

I thought it was fun going out to the farms for potatoes, getting to spend time with my dad, digging in the dirt interspersed with playing in the nearby ditch and forest.

I like to think my dad really did love me back then.

I'd not know it if he does now.

He never - and I mean never - answers the phone when I call, and never returns my calls.

Funny how we'll still love those who don't seem to love us.

I don't chase after my dad anymore.

He's got his own life and has made his own decisions for reasons I may never know.

I still love him, though I hate how he ignores me.

I appreciate the sacrifices my dad made in order to raise me for 18 years.

Sure, he made mistakes.  Don't we all? 

When I was 25, showing him my first baby, the sight of whom moved him to tears, my dad looked at me and said, "I'm so sorry for the way I raised you.  I wish I could've done better."

I told him, "It's okay, Dad.  You did the best you could with what you had."

I think he really meant it.  I just don't understand why he has chosen to distance himself from me now.

Oh!  I know!  Maybe I could call him from my cell phone...

Wait, no... that's a tea/coffee situation.

Let me explain what that means:

You see, when I was 10-12, me 'n' my sister*, who's 18 months younger than me, were members of the local tennis club.

This ain't no tennis club, but this was me and my tennis (and badminton and assorted trouble) buddies back then.

Sis and I would go play our guts out on the tennis court, sometimes seriously, other times winging the ball over the fence as hard as we could into the forest on purpose, only to spend hours cooling down in the shade of the trees later hunting for our lost ball, coming out with at least half a dozen others -- and sometimes some empty pop bottles, too.

When we'd go into the club house, we'd brew up a mess of our favorite treat - coffee!

Yeah, I know, we were kind of young for it, but we loved coffee, with lots of milk and sugar cubes.

The sugar cubes were an absolute must.  Without them, we might as well have drank water mixed with dirt, that's how gross un-sugared hot beverages were to us.

One time when we had a hankering for coffee, we found that the sugar cube box was empty.

Our freshly-brewed coffee was sitting there smelling all delicious and tempting as we frantically dug through cupboards and drawers, hunting for sugar, but none could be found.

I said to my sis, "Oh well, that's okay... we'll just have tea."

 (I know I've put this song in another blog entry, but it fits here, too. 

 "No sugar tonight in my coffee, no sugar tonight in my tea.")

Late evening sun rays shone through the windows onto my sister's slightly annoyed face as her deadpan words came out,  "Steen.  We still don't have any sugar."

I knew that, but I'd just had to be facetious.

We burst out laughing at my mock-asinine comment, and for the rest of our lives, any time something came up where either way it wasn't going to work, we'd say, "Well, that's a tea/coffee situation."

Do you see what I mean now about my dad?  If I were to call him from a different phone, he's still not going to answer.

I have to humour myself or I'll let it get to me.

How about you?  Do you have silly things like that with your siblings and/or close friends?  Can you relate?

Love you guys.  Thanks for reading.

*For the grammar police out there, I want to mention that I do know it is improper to say "me 'n' my sister", but today I felt like ignoring the rules.  Thank you for your patience.

And if you still like my writing after all, go up to the top left of this page and click "Follow" to keep up to date with future blog entries.  Lots of old ones in the right-hand sidebar for your reading pleasure, and here are a few related and semi-related posts:

• Don't Let Me Get Me 
• No Shugga Tonight - Hot Beverages 
• Wow, I Love Being Ignored - Don't You? 
• When I Was A Teenager 

Nekkid Pictures Of Me

What time is it?







Time to think about nekkid pictures?









Time to think about what day it is?










Time to realize it is no longer March?












Time to realize it is the first day of April ?












As in April 1, 2012 - you know, April Foooooooools Day?









Time to realize you've been fooled?









APRIL FOOLS, preeeeevert!!!







Seriously, though, I do want to say one thing about nekkid (I love that spelling!) pictures of me, which I find disturbing:  back in August of 2004, a few days before my fifth baby was born, Sweet Man took some pictures of my pregnant belly, along with the rest of me, tastefully unclothed.

That's not the disturbing part.  He was enamored by my pregnant body, silly man!  Imagine!  My own husband loving the way I look!  Sinful?  I think not!

No, the disturbing part is that when we moved out of that house and into our new one in the summer of 2006, we couldn't find the pictures, and to this day we still haven't located them.

I've looked everywhere I could think to look, but still can't find them.

I hope they didn't fall into the wrong hands!

Maybe they accidentally got put into a bag or box of garbage and got thrown out.

It's bad enough to lose a batch of photos, but nekkid ones make it all the more disturbing.

So, yeah, that's all I want to say about that for now.

Can you relate?  Have you ever lost photos?  Nekkid ones?  Don't try to fool me, I bet you've got nekkid pictures kickin' around somewhere.

Have you ever found those lost photos?

Go ahead, laugh.  But if you ever have nekkid photos, remember my blog entry and hide them under lock and key lest they get lost.

(Oh, boy, I bet I'm gonna get some private messages on this one - "Steeny, what were you THINKING?  How can you write such things?" LOL!  Well, you read this far, so hey...)

(Joe Cocker's famous "Leave Your Hat On" video here).

Related and semi-related blog entries:

• Posting Pictures Can Be Perilous
• According To Him, I'm Beautiful
• Just Breathe (A Few Of My Unfavorite Things) 
• Long Hair Going Crazy Video - Blondie 

If you like-a my writing, subscribe and don't miss a beat - just click on "Follow" at the top left of the page.

Wearing Masks in Wal-Mart

Do you have certain friends or family members with whom, whenever you get together, you go from an average, reasonably sane person, to, well, a weirdo?

(Video above - "Creep" by Radiohead)

I know some people like that.

Or maybe it's my fault.

I don't know - they ARE related to me.

Particularly when I'm out with any combination of my kids, especially my oldest three (daughters aged 19, 18, and 15 at this point in time), we feed off of each other's silliness and reactivity.

That was an honest typo!  I meant "creativity", but reactivity works, too.  

Freudian slip or what. 

Anyway, about the masks.

Last October (2011), a couple of my daughters and I were in Save On Foods in Williams Lake, BC, and we were eyeballing some eye masks.  They were presumably for Halloween, but because I don't celebrate that (I'm bad enough in my own way and have no interest in celebrating something with blatant darkness behind it, but that's fodder for another blog entry), I decided not to buy them.

I regretted it later.

Then in February, we were in that store again, and I asked the lady at the cosmetic counter if by any chance they might possibly have any of those eye masks still kicking around since October.

I expected raised eyebrows and a comment to the effect of, "Um, it's long past October..."

But no! There were some left! We tried on several until we found just the right ones.

After we bought them, we went to the water place, where we go to fill up our 5-gallon jugs with purified H2O to take home to our dispenser for our drinking pleasure.

We walked into the water place wearing our masks, and the lady who owns the business laughed and laughed and laughed.  She told us to go into the back room and say hi to the lady working there, telling us to address her by name, with which she furnished us - I'll call her Sally. We greeted Sally and got a strange look in return as she apparently wondered if she knew us. The shop owner then joined us, with peals of laughter. We explained to Sally that we really weren't people she knew, so not to worry. I think she was relieved.

Off we drove to get gas for the vehicle.  I got a few strange looks from passersby as I pumped gas. Then in the grocery store, we got questioning looks. A security guy lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth and looked right at us from several yards away. When we were at the check-stand paying for our items, the cashier had such a questioning look, I volunteered the story without her asking.

Finally, we headed to our ultimate destination - Walmart! - and someday, maybe we will achieve the appropriate level of weirdness to wind up in a "People Of Walmart" video.

As we walked through the door wearing our masks, the Walmart greeter lady greeted us with a huge grin and a hearty, "WELL!  WELCOME to WALMART!" (translation - "Yo, look at these chicks!  We get ALL KINDS in here!")

We headed to the stationery section, where we knew they sold wooden letters, and set up for our mini photo shoot, the product of which you can see below:

 

Several people in the store asked us variants of "what's up with the masks?"

I retold basically what you've already read in this blog entry, and by the fourth telling of it, I said aloud, "We should print out leaflets to explain what we're doing, to rest the mind of curious onlookers."

We thought we were being so incognito. Imagine my surprise as I heard someone call my name while we walked through the parking lot.

I turned to see several members of a family we know, and I again retold the story.

And now you know... (said in a Paul Harvey voice) ... the REST of the story. 

I'll end with a quote from one of my favorite movies, "The Mask", starring Jim Carrey:

"We all wear masks - metaphorically speaking."

Think about THAT!

HOW ABOUT YOU?

Have you ever done anything "weird" in public, just for laughs?  

Or are you hiding behind a mask and aren't going to talk about it?

Leave me a comment in the box below!

Here are some other things I wrote:

• Highly Sensitive People
• Neil Of Fortune
• Serbian Accents
• Nekkid Pictures Of Me 

Neil Of Fortune

Neil Of Fortune: Canada's Favorite Gameshow (or something like that)  

Copyright Jan. 1997, 2009 Steeny Lou

with inspiration from "Shakira B. O'Neil"

"Uh, I'd like to buy a bowel."

"O.K. Which one?"

"A moving one, please."

"Excuse me?"

"Uh, nevermind. How about an O?"

Ka-ping. Ka-ping. Vanna Black turns the blocks over.

"Yes, there are two O's," enthused Jack Stayback.

Applause. 

Silence.

"Would you like to spin?"

"Hmmm.... Yes, I would," says the contestant.

Nervous laughter from the audience.

Jack asks, slightly annoyed, "What are you doing?"

"Spinning," the contestant says from the floor where he's lying on his back, rotating by propelling himself around with his hands and feet.

"A funny guy, huh?"

Spinning stops.

The contestant brushes himself off as he stands up and returns to his seat. He spins the wheel and it lands on "Half-eaten Tootsie Pop."

The audience ooh's and ahh's.

"Is there a . . . t?"

Eeeeenk.

"Sorry."

Disappointment flows over the audience. "Awwwww."

Commercial break.

Return to the show. Theme song for "Neil Of Fortune" plays on harmonica and acoustic guitar, with lyrics sung in whiny male vocals, to the effect of Bruce Barry and an Econoline with bullet holes in the mirrors, down by a river where a cinnamon girl was shot under a harvest moon.

Announcer's voice. "The winner of tonight's game will receive a right rear window for a 1974 Vega, a Donny Osmond T-shirt from the Value Village discount rack, and a half-eaten Tootsie-Pop with just a hiiiiint of paper stuck to one side of it . . . "

The audience goes wild with applause.

" . . . and an all-expense paid trip to Port . . . uh . . . Coquitlam!"

Self Explanatory picture here

More applause, accompanied by cheering and deep "ooh-ooh-ooh-ing" as the audience punches the air in delight.

"Yes, folks, tonight's winner will be thrilled by the industrial sights of Port Coquitlam, B.C. For two glorious fun-filled nights you'll stay at the finest hotel Poco has to offer, with views of the breath-taking Lougheed  Highway, and within walking distance of some railroad tracks!!!"  

(Audience goes wild again.)

" . . . But that's not all! You'll also receive 5% off meals at McDonald's restaurant!"

The audience starts flicking lighters and chanting, "Po-Co! Po-Co!" Somebody climbs on the stage and does a body dive into the crowd. Vanna Black saunters out dressed in army fatigues, carrying a fire extinguisher, and begins to laugh maniacally while she proceeds to douse the audience in an effort to calm them down.

Vanna then whirls around on her stiletto'd heel and starts spraying the television crew, yelling obscenities while carrying on a tirade of complaints. "I'm tired of being just a letter-turner!" And "No more will I be a mannequin giving cheap publicity to tacky clothing designers! I quit!!!"

With that, Vanna aims her fire-extinguisher at the camera. 

Indistinct shouting is heard, hands flail in front of the now tipped over camera, then the screen goes blank.

We never did get to find out what was being spelled.

 

(If you're reading this via email, click on blog title to get in to see the video)

Serbian Accent

Originally I thought of this while staring off into space at the library and noticing there was a magazine called "O", for Oprah Winfrey.

I thought, "I should start a magazine called 'S' - for Steenybopper."  (Not my real name. Duh.)

I could model my Srpska shirt.

I told my 17-year-old daughter about it, whose name starts with the same letter as mine, and she wanted in.

We came up with what I thought were some pretty good random ideas, such as centerfold photos of a sombrero, for example, and the conclusion was that we could hire all kinds of staff and produce a lovely magazine that nobody would buy, and we'd die in debt.

Not all breros make it to the top - only "som".

Then I told my 19-year-old daughter about the idea, and she suggested we make it about my dad instead and call it "G".

My dad is from Serbia (which was still Yugoslavia in his day) and lived there until the early 1950s, when he emigrated to Canada, long before I was born.

He has the accent to prove it.

My kids and I imitate his accent even in the name we call him, which is "G'dampa".

All of the articles would be written with a Serbian accent, which, if you are not familiar with it, is similar to a Russian accent, but different.

I'm sadly aware that there are not a lot of videos on Youtube that exemplify the Serbian accent in an English-speaking person.

And I have never seen anything in print that is written in a Serbian accent, other than from myself.

So, to preserve the beauty of the Serbian accent when spoken in English, we need the help of a magazine.

I did a quick Google search to see if there already exists a publication called "G".

Apparently, there is one, on another continent, but it is nothing to do with Serbian accents.

It is of subject matter that I will not mention, lest people trying to find that kind of thing on a search engine end up here.

So, back to the drawing board.  I supposed we could call it "G'd", and leave people to wonder how it is pronounced.  It might pique enough curiosity for at least one or two people to purchase a copy.

If it started to take off here in Canada, why, I could see us making dozens of dollars!

We could have pictures of Serbo-Canadians in their natural settings, which, for example, would involve a huge green bottle of homemade wine nearby... no, wait, "vino"... a cigarette smouldering in an ashtray with smoke billowing all around their head while cleaning a gun, wearing a purple Mack jacket,  on their back porch, muttering incoherent cuss words in Serbian in hopes that their children don't understand what they are saying even though those children can imitate those strings of swearing syllable for syllable regardless of comprehension of meaning.

Come on, don't all Serbo-Canadians fit that stereotype?

Eventually I hope to have a video to share, complete with the accent about which I speak.   Subscribe to my blog by clicking "follow" at the top left of this page so you don't miss a beat.

For now, here is one made by a couple of my kids in 2009, mixing a few different stories I've shared with them over the years concerning my dad.  (Long stories, which I might try to explain another time.)

With love,

PS:  This was a very silly blog entry.  If you would like to read something more serious, like, say, the story of how my oldest daughter went from drug addiction to clean living, check out this post.

Or for something a little more romantic, read about the love between me 'n' my man:  here.

And, of course, you can click through the archives at the top right column of this blog for more.

Fet Bottom Gerrells - Russian Eccent

Oy!  You goink to tek me hom tonight.

Oy!  Down beside det rr'ded fire light.

Oy!  Ve goink to let it all heng out,

Fet bottom gerrells yoo mek rr'dockink verld go rr'dound.

It was February 2004.  I was something like three weeks into the month I spent at a women's shelter after having escaped from the abusive ex.  All that freedom was getting to me and I was giddy.

I started singing that song out loud in front of some of the women I had befriended in the shelter.  Pretty soon some of them joined in.

I became addicted to talking with a Russian accent for several days in a row.

I'm not kidding.  You think I'm joking?

Spend a little time in my presence and you will see how serious I am.  Or, rather, you'll see how un-serious I can be.

With the amount of stress I have in my life, I have to get silly to balance things out.

Now, listen to the song and imagine it with a Russian accent:

That's all I'm gonna say about THAT. 

For now.

Songs on Facebook and Half An Hour Of My Day

Sometimes I post a lot of songs on Facebook.

Lest anyone get the mistaken notion that I sit on the computer all day listening to music, here's a portion of  an hour on an average Saturday morning in my home.  (A weekday, however, when I work for pay, from home, is a whole different and more frightful story, about which I might blog another day.)

Right now, I am making lasagna.  ("No, yer not, yer writing on E-Blogger, I can SEE you...")

Shu'p, OK?  I am making lasagna.

There is a computer in the kitchen, which is primarily for the kids to use, but today I am hogging it, blasting music by which to make lasagna.

Here and there I randomly "share" a song to Facebook, often accompanied by a note as to what's going on in my home or in my mind, but sometimes with no note so people can wonder as they please.

So, now I go stir the pot a bit.  (Shu'p again, ya hear?)

And then I come back and put on another song I've got in mind, or look at the options on Youtube's sidebar for ideas.  Right now, Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean" is goin' "La, la, lalala, la, laaa, lalala lala lala laaaaaaaaaa..."

Then I go chop some garlic to saute, like I'm about to do right now...

And now I'm listening to Zep's "Good Times, Bad Times", which is short, so I'll be back pretty quick for another one.

Yes, I do know how to set up an automatic song list on Youtube, but it's time consuming.   Sometimes I like the spur-of-the-momentness of doing it this way, which works well with the blog entry I'm writing.

As I am partially through peeling a pile of garlic, my almost-three-year-old princess runs past me, saying in a happy, song-y voice, "Gimme, gimme, gimme", which leads me to put on ABBA's, "Gimme Gimme Gimme."

Little Princess stops running, sidles up to me with her smile and says, "This called Mamma-Mia!"

She remembers this song from one of my favorite movies, Mamma Mia! which she saw last summer.  Kids amaze me.

Where is my husband in all this?  He's upstairs vacuuming with our seven-year-old son.  (Heehee, don't hate me coz I have a husband who vacuums!)

See that blank space above this paragraph?  That represents about ten minutes of me doing about five different things to do with cooking, cleaning, and kids.

"Chiquitita" by ABBA is now cranking out of the computer speakers.  My husband is still upstairs vacuuming.  Perhaps there is a correlation there.

OK, if I play Stevie Ray Vaughan, let's see if he stops vacuuming.  If he doesn't, I bet he'll want to.

Five minutes later... sautee'd garlic now added to the sauce... smellin' goooooood...

Man came downstairs, but he's not happy.  He's discovered bits of paper have been shoved into a heat register, no doubt by the kids.

Dang.  Pour me another song.

But again I am whisked away, to answer the call of "I'm hungry, Mama!"

Scoop some leftover rice pasta into a bowl, zap in microwave, melt in a little virgin coconut oil, sprinkle with sea salt and parmesan, add child and spoon to high chair, et voila.

Run downstairs to take a load of laundry out of  the dryer...

See a clean load of laundry strewn on the floor and realize, "So, THAT'S where my 4-year-old son found the empty laundry basket he was dragging around, and in which he got me to swing him in circles a few minutes ago..."

...take another load out of the washer to put in the dryer, run back upstairs...

Where was I?  Sigh.  It's getting to the point where it's not fun anymore... time for another song.

 The above took about half an hour.  Imagine what I can do in a day.

Hot Beverages - No Shugga Tonight!

As I poured myself a cup from the pot of coffee my 17-year-old daughter brewed, I thought of how nice it is that she makes coffee.

Then I thought of how my 19-year-old daughter used to set out two mugs before bed - one for me and one for herself - each with a green-tea bag leaning up against it, ready for the morning, back before she grew up and moved out on her own.

And then I remembered how my 14-year-old daughter used to be "the Krakus maker" when she was little.  I'd be working on something homeschooly in the living room with her older two sisters, and she'd call from the kitchen, "Who wants Krakus?" And she'd make a tea-pot full of it for us all.

Hot beverages.  They warm more than your mouth.  They warm your heart.

That sounds corny!

Reminds me of the adage about firewood warming you twice.  I do know that to be true, having split many a log round in my day.  A splitting maul and sledge-hammer were a couple of my buddies back in the wilderness of Alaska.

Hmm... Maybe I'll blog about my Alaska days sometime.


Thinking further back, I remember when my mom left my dad, when I was in my late teens.  The biggest hole in my life with her being gone was that I missed drinking coffee with her in the mornings before I went to work.

Further back still, I recall how my dad used to make me hot tea with whiskey or wine in it whenever I got sick.  Not a huge amount, mind you.  About a cap-full (which, being whiskey, could taste pretty darn strong) in a cup of Red Rose tea, mixed with honey.

He did that as far back as I can remember.  I always assumed it was a Serbian thing he carried over from "de old country".

More than the temporary sleepiness or physical healing brought by the medicinal beverages, though, I still carry the indelible love benefits of the memory, feeling my dad's long-ago concern for me.

And best of all, for me, was when my dad came home from work, he'd often say, "Who wants the speck?"

"The speck" was the last few drops of lukewarm coffee with sugar and milk in my dad's construction-site-worn thermos.

The tradition of "the speck" continues as all my kids have gotten specks from me.

But really, it's the little things... ya know?

Men

Men, men, men, men, manly men, men, men...

Oooh, I hate that show "Two And A Half Men", although I admit the theme song is funny and head-sticking.

But I do like men!

Before you jump to the conclusion that I'm some kind of hussy (LOL! What a word - "hussy"), hear me out.

I feel I need to explain myself on the fact that I like men as opposed to being a "man-hater", as one man has accused me of being.

To accuse me of being a "man-hater" is, to me, outrageous.

There are men with a lot of good in them, and there are men with a lot of bad in them, but I couldn't fairly say that I believe all men are bad and therefore should be hated. To me, that is immature thinking at best, and delusional or even psychotic thinking at worst.

One evening last month, I went into my basement and my nostrils were assaulted by the scent of men's cologne.

I loudly said, "It smells like men down here."

Two of my teenaged daughters were sitting on my 17-year-old daughter's bed, having just sprayed some Axe into the air.

My 14-year-old daughter started singing, "Men, men, men, men, manly men, men, men..."

My 17-year-old daughter said, "Attractive men?"

I said, "Well, yes, preferably."

But I was being silly.

Really, if there were ANY men in our basement, I would not be concerned about whether or not they were attractive.

Any person in my basement would give rise to the question, "Who are you and what are you doing in my basement?" regardless of gender, asked verbally, or by silently watching to find out the answer.

I may be a strange kind of woman, but to be honest (and there is no better way to be), I don't notice men very often. I recently told this to one of my best friends, who is a man, and he found it hard to believe, but I swear it is true.

Most of my closest friends are men. And something I have noticed about them is that all but one of them live with their mother.

That's gotta be good, huh? Men who love their mothers so much that even though they are grown men, they choose to live with her. The only one who doesn't is my husband, but before he met me, he was considering moving in with his mom, as his life was falling apart all around him. But that's another story for another blog entry.

One of my man friends lives in Ontario with both his parents. Another resides in Terrace, BC, also with both his parents. One occupies a piece of Mississippi real estate with his "ma". And one lives in jolly olde England with his "mum".

I used to have a friend who lived with an elderly woman who was not his mother for whom he was a caregiver. Interestingly, he was very hateful towards his mother. Interestingly he is no longer my friend. And, interestingly, he was the one who accused me of being a man-hater.

If a man does not love his mother, I think it's a pretty good indicator of his attitude towards women in general.

My dad never spoke to me about his mother. He left her and his brothers behind in Serbia when he emigrated to Canada in the 1950s. I don't even know her name and don't expect my dad will tell me as he won't return my calls.

And my dad was not nice to my mom. And no wonder my mom left him. And my dad now has nothing to do with either of his own children, those being my sister and me, by his choice.

Given that kind of relationship with my father, I might be a candidate for hating men. But I am not so blind as to say "All men suck" just because my dad is a _______ (insert negative description of your choice to refer to men who cut off relationship with their own children).

And hey, my dad raised me for 18 years, for better or for worse. I am grateful for that much from him.

At the age of 13, a man who was 21 entered my life and did some bad things to me. If you knew the story, you might think I'd go on to hate men. But, no, I did not.

From age 18 till 36, I was involved with a man who treated me like a subhuman. I could have hated men because of that, but instead I chose to stay with him for 18 years, hoping for positive change. Eventually, sanity started to grow in my heart and I found a way out.

I was fully prepared to live without any man, not because I hated men, but because I didn't need one.

I don't need one.

But it's nice that I do have one with whom I get along most of the time.

No human being is perfect. Heck, look at me - my man has got to live with ME and I'm far from perfect.

Furthermore, I continue to befriend the odd man from time to time, when they happen to be friend-worthy, just as I would with friend-worthy women.

And anyone who says "a woman can't be 'just friends' with a man" reeks of the ex and is someone with whom I don't want to chill.

I love the Biblical account in John chapter 8, when Jesus says of the woman accused of adultery, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," and everyone leaves.

No man - no person - is without sin.

And no man is an island. No woman is, either. We need EACH OTHER, but that's not to be confused with needing each other in order to be happy. I can't do everything by myself - can you? Heck, how do you think I had seven kids?

I leave you with a song by the Rossington-Collins Band, "One Good Man".

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." ~Isaiah 53:6

Pickup Idea For Single Men

Today while I was minding my own bidness in the grocery store (yes, I said bidness), I was approached by a gentleman probably a few years older than me.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

"Huh?" I look up, shocked that someone who didn't know my name was talking to me.

He directed me back an aisle with his hand pointing at the cake mixes. As I followed, he said, "Do you know anything about cake mixes?"

"Well, a little..." What, because I'm female, I'm supposed to know about cake mixes?

"I'm trying to find a chocolate cake mix," he explains, "but they're all devil's food cake."

I'm starting to smile and holding back a laugh at the thought that comes to mind, complete with Louisiana bayou accent of Mama in the movie Waterboy, but instead I dryly say, "Well, actually, I think chocolate cake IS the devil's food," and I emphasize it with silence at the end.

He thinks about it for a few seconds and then laughs, saying, "Yes, I guess you are right."

I add, to be polite, "If you look at the generic brands, you might find some that just call it 'chocolate cake', but the ones that say 'devil's food cake' really are the same as chocolate cake."

He thanked me and I went on my way.

That whole episode would be a good pickup line for a guy. It would also serve the dual purpose of finding out a little about a woman's kitchen prowess, giving a little foreshadowing of how much cooking he'd end up having to do if he roped in this particular girl. Isn't that what the whole dating game is about? Finding someone to do yer cookin' and yer laundry fer ya?

If I was single and interested, I'd have said something like, "Well, therein lies your problem. You need a good woman who knows how to bake a proper cake. Here's my number. Call if you need any help. Farewell."

Then the ball is in his court, no questions asked, nothing lost on anyone's part.

There's your woman-hunting suggestion. Try it and let me know how it goes.