moar funny pictures
The dog show has reached fever pitch, so I will post when I can… lots of fun stuff happening, including a renewed obsession with Scrabble. Who knew the spinning board could make all the difference?!?
6 comments January 2nd, 2008
…my true love gave to me… one liar lying.
Yes, yes, so I failed.
I thought about picking up with “three French hens”, but when I tried to look up the symbolism, my sources said, “This probably refers to a variety of hens from France.” FAIL.
Let me instead pepper you with excuses. The dog show is in full dog-show swing, and just yesterday I sent off the next revision of TGLL to the Delightful Editor, who apologized, saying she will not have a chance to read it until the day after Christmas because she has something else due on Christmas Eve. I am shocked! I can’t believe these poor editors are working in sweatshop conditions. I always thought that scene in “Elf” where the guy (a publisher) has to work on Christmas Eve was a sick joke. But no.
Poor, poor Delightful Editor. I think it’s for the best. Supernatural thrillers don’t generally add to one’s sense of celebration, although maybe she will read it and enjoy the gift of Not Having to Do Any More Notes.
Let us all add this requests to our letters for Santa, please.
In spite of my failure as a blogger, as a human, I am having a pretty good week. I hope the same for all of you.
k.
10 comments December 20th, 2007
(First of all, you have to check out these free gift tags at angry chicken.)
Today: two turtledoves.
“Turtledoves” is one of those images that confuse the heck out of you when you’re a child. Like thinking that “getting fired” means they set you on fire, and believing that the sewers are full of people’s discarded pets (although growing up in South florida, I remember vividly one day when there really was a gigantic alligator in a drainage pipe near my house. It’s nothing less than a miracle that no children slipped and fell through the one-foot opening.)
Turtledoves (or “turtle doves”) are birds, not turtles (for the record, I know everyone already knows that). Some see their significance in the song as being representative of the New and Old Testaments of the Bible, which would be fitting in keeping with the religious theme of Christmas, don’t you think? The turtle dove is seen as a symbol of constant love.
Speaking of love, I am really behind on gifts for people I love. Some are handmade, some are not, but in general I’m underperforming on this front. I’m no good with presents. Some commenters here can vouch for that, such as when I wait until a month after the fifth niece/nephew birthday of the year to send all the gifts for that year. But I do have some fun projects planned that I’m determined not to let slip by the wayside, even if, in some cases, the gifts end up being Boxing Day gifts or even New Year gifts.
One thing I’m a litle bummed about is Christmas cards… last year we had these really fun custom cards printed, but this year, with everything being so hectic, by the time I got around the choosing a photo and Photoshopping my crows’-feet out of it, it was too late to place the custom order. So that makes me a little sad. I’ll have to figure out what to do about holiday cards. I really like sending them out, and frankly, I don’t need 80 holiday-theme stamps just taking up space if I decide not to send out cards. Maybe Kinko’s can help me…?
I’ll wrap up this random ramblefest with a link to a recipe for a super-easy version of those turtle candies people go insane over: Rolo Pretzel Turtles.
Have a wonderful day!
Previous “12 Days of Christmas” posts:
A Partridge in a Pear Tree
December 15th, 2007
(I began this post yesterday and I’m finishing it this morning. I have regained feeling in my hand, you’ll be happy to know.)
Okay, so starting today (yesterday!), I’m going to post in one or both of my blogs every day until Christmas. True, it doesn’t make any sense. I’m really busy and I just get crankier all the time and right now I can’t even feel my right hand because I was applying Ben-Gay to the husb’s poor aching back (Guitar Hero really does a number on those of us with largely sedentary lifestyles).
But I love this season so I’ll give it a try.
And what’s more, I’ll use that song to add a challenging theme to my posts.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… (one numb hand) …a partridge in a pear tree.
Okay, a little Googling has revealed that everyone wants to claim the song’s meaning for their own purposes. The prevailing theory is that the partridge is Jesus and the pear tree is the cross. But there are bird watchers who claim the first line is actually “a partridge in a [bastardization of the French word for partridge]“. So now we have songs about bird pregnancy to warm our hearts this holiday season.
Well, speaking of bird pregnancy, let’s reflect on one of the most precious and heart-rending experiences of my 2007: the house finches on the balcony.
In March, we hung up some hanging plants and soon realized that a pair of house finches had chosen one as their home (we realized this when the husb tried to move the plant and a bird flew out at his face, ha ha ha). They laid some eggs. The eggs hatched to babies.
All the while, things were getting kind of dire because we couldn’t water the plant and it was starting to get leafbare (new word alert!). That was also during the time of massive windstorms sweeping through Southern California, and as we are on a hillside, we watched the hanging plant swing and twirl in the wind with a great deal of fear in our hearts.
Finally, we completely rearranged the balcony furniture so we could hang the plant from the tile-top table, from which we removed several tiles to make this work. Then we sat and watched for the agonizing few minutes when the parents sat on the railing, looking up at the spot where the plant had hung. They searched the entire ceiling of the balcony. It was the cutest and most suspenseful thing I’ve ever seen. Finally, the mother was like, “Oh, DUH!” and flew right down to the plant in its new lower spot.
In the new location, I was able to wait until Mum and Dad were away and snap some very good photos (one of which was on another Animal Planet show my company produced, although they had to say it was taken by “Winston Schmidt”, since they’d already used another photo I took, although apparently Jeff Corwin made fun of the first photo when he had to introduce it… it was a picture of a lizard).
But I digress. (That should actually be the name of this blog.)
Anyway, the ending is sad. Too sad for Christmas. Let’s just say that thanks to a nasty scrub jay who’d been terrorizing the backyard (including the hawks who’d nested in the Eucalyptus across the street), I came home one day to find no partridges in my pear tree.
I learned a lesson about hanging plants: don’t have them.
In fact, that’s our moral today: hanging plants will always break your heart.
Happy holidays!
PS – Delaying this post a day brings us down to 11 days of Christmas, so maybe I’ll run over into Boxing Day.
3 comments December 14th, 2007
At the thrift store adjacent to my office (which got a monster donation of sewing patterns and magazines the other day, properly culled through immediately by yours truly), I found a 1983 book called “I Haven’t a Thing to Wear!” by Judith Keith (her quotation marks, not mine).
I got it because there were illustrations (and because paperbacks are 35 cents), but it’s actually a very good, timeless book of advice. Apparently Ms. Keith, beginning in the 1950s, traveled all over giving presentations to women about how to dress and how to build a classic wardrobe. There’s a section discussing body types and what silhouettes work and don’t work, a little bit of color theory, and just a lot of all-around advice.
You could probably find a used copy if you looked.
And yesterday, of course, was Halloween! With the work schedule, I’ve hardly had time for sewing, but I did manage to put together coordinating Halloween outfits for myself (Sew U skirt, Built By Wendy) and Winston (McCalls 4686).
Sorry I haven’t been blogging much… who knew work was so much WORK?
November 1st, 2007
If I opened a gift at Christmas from my family and saw one of these, I would totally and completely fall for it.
Comments from original post:
Chelsea said…
I TOTALLY Need that!! I lurve me some toast!!
9:44 AM
Father V. said…
Very nice, very nice!
10:39 AM
Lisa said…
OMG, that’s hysterical. I should use that for my dad’s Christmas gift next year. It would be even funnier because his computer far, far, FAR predates USB. Genius.
12:04 AM
December 29th, 2006
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