This is what our home looked like this morning. Like most aging actresses, she looks better when she's not in HD, but rather seen from a bit of a distance. Not bad for forty and no botox.

Little Joe obviously has no fear of heights. I especially love the casual look of porch furniture scattered across the lawn. When Little Joe told me they'd go down to the creek to pee, I just nodded my head.

Just behind that tree on the right is Tree Man's red truck. He spent the entire day up in that tree. With the chain saw running. Loud and low.

Mid-morning my daughter and her toddler, Landon showed up for lunch and an afternoon of visiting during his naptime. DH came home for lunch to check out how the work was going. He took that opportunity to chat with tree man, arranging for him to come trim our overgrown trees out front later this week. So we have yet another day of service people with chain saws here at our house. Such fun!

Late morning the painters moved to the back of the house. The skinny one, Brad knocked on the door. "Do you have something to pick up the dog crap?" "Excuse me?" "The dog crap, I need something to pick it up. It's all over the place, right where I have to put ladders and I don't want to be steppin' in it."

I very nicely told him I'd just 'tended the yard' that morning, so there couldn't be much out there, then I went and grabbed the pooper scooper equipment for the second time that day. Four piles. Hardly 'all over the place'. He thanked me and went back to work.

The chain saw continued to buzz. Tree limbs fell. Ladders knocked against the back of the house, outside the nursery where Landon cried because of the relentless noise, as the men walked across the roof. Leslie tended to Landon, we made a pot of coffee and settled in for a visit in spite of it all.

I got called outside about twenty seven million six times to tell me something else on our house was falling apart and needed immediate attention. Questions like, "why is that gutter so oxidized?" What female on the planet earth knows the answer to a question like that? Finally I told Little Joe, who I know was just trying to be oh so helpful that we'd already shelled out a wad of money to fix up the house to sell it, and 'it was what it was' and to just P.L.E.A.S.E. P.A.I.N.T. I.T. He didn't knock on the door anymore after that. It may have been my eyes bugging out, or maybe he's married and seen that look before.

The chain saw continued to wail, loud and low. The ladders bumped against the windows, and they continued to walk all over the roof, especially right over the nursery where Landon was wailing napping.

Finally Leslie gathered her toddler and headed back home to what must have seemed sheer bliss, sans chain saws and painters. DH came home from his work day and the painters were still here. As was the chain saw, moaning loud and low.

At about 7 PM they let us know it was quitting time, they couldn't get it all done in one day after all, and would be back bright and early tomorrow to spend another half a day here finishing up. And by the way, did we know we have two bats hanging just inside a vent on the second floor? (Where the mortar has come off the brick,which was crappy thing #5 wrong with the house.) And if we would just buy some specific goo they would be happy to shimmy back up there tomorrow and caulk it up, possibly trapping the bats inside our attic to die and rot? We took approximately five seconds to agree that was a grand plan and we'd go out tonight and buy the goo and have it ready for them. Who minds the smell of rotting bat? I personally prefer it to a live bat anywhere in our house, and honestly I just don't have time right now to put a bat house up in the backyard, while my friends I've invited over for a twilight bat party stand on the driveway watching to see if they've safely exited the premises, which is what the internet suggested I do. The world is just going to have to get by with two less live bats.

This is what the house looks like tonight - a bit like a big brick package ready to ship!

There would be no cooking tonight. Rather, we'd be running out to grab goo to trap bats. I headed outside to check the gates, and let the dogs out one more time. I noticed a faucet dripping, tried to turn it off and managed to spray myself with the water shooting out the top of the hose. Out the corner of my eye I saw one of the dogs running out the gate, across the driveway, so I started screeching (over the loud and low chain saw). I saw my neighbor trying to grab the dog, who would likely run out in the street to his death and for a split second I was trying to decide if that was a good or bad thing. I yelled 'grab fur!', tore across the yard, through the open gate, to the dog and my neighbor. We chatted about the house paint, the wailing chain saw (in the background still), then I proceeded to pull the dog inside the house, shoved him in the kennel. We climbed in the car and left, the wailing chain saw still at it in the background.

About a mile up the road DH looked over at me, paused a minute and asked, "do you smell something?" I'm sure he was actually thinking, 'man alive that lunch didn't agree with her!'. I said, 'well, actually, yes. It smells like dog crap in here, doesn't it.' Some days you just know there IS indeed going to be dog crap on your shoe, because the entire day has gone that way. I turned over my one shoe, and sure enough such horrible yuck stuck to the bottom, so I pulled it off. I lifted the other one. 'She shoots! She scores!' 100% - dog crap smushed into the grids of both shoes. DH looked at me, and calmly said, 'if this was a first date I can't say that there would be a second.' I told him, 'what? I look so great and smell good to match.' We rolled down the windows as I rode with two dog crappy shoes turned bottom side up on my lap, to the hardware store.

At Home Depot I promptly looked for a puddle (there are always puddles in PA), walked over and spied a good, sturdy stick. Standing in the parking lot barefoot, looking oh so classy, I took each shoe, plopped them down in the puddle to wash them off a bit, then whacked the daylights out of them on the curb, over and over with a few episodes of scraping at them with the stick. As I was whapping my shoe on the curb, standing there barefoot, with my hair and makeup all attractive, I spied a young teenager looking at me, out the window of her mother's car. The disgust on her face was priceless. Only one thing on a shoe would cause you to stand in the parking lot of Home Depot and swish it in a mud puddle, scraping it with a stick. I just kept whacking my shoes til they were wearable, plopped them back on my feet, and walked away like a little china doll, scraping them across the parking lot to rid myself of any last traces of poo.

So it was a crappy day, literally, several times actually. The house looks semi-awful, I look awful and smell questionable, but you know, some days are just like that. I'm praying tomorrow goes a bit more smoothly, but planning to watch where I step. After all, we're trapping and killing bats, hopefully, the dogs will be given breakfast bright and early, and the tree guy isn't done either, so he'll likely be back for the entire day too. It's likely to be just another crappy day in paradise.

Labels: Silliness

A fellow blogger suggested that I read the book by Nora Ephron, 'I Feel Bad About My Neck', not because she'd seen a picture of my saggy neck (it isn't)(yet) but because she thought our writing styles were similar. I was so excited to have someone even think I had a writing style I ran right over to the library and tried to check it out. It was on a wait list, which I thought to be another encouraging sign. I added my name to the wait list and waited.

When the book became available, I ran right over and grabbed it. Being a diehard book nerd bibliophile I started by reading both of the inside jacket sleeves and the back, plus all the reviews, and the editor's dedication page. Apparently Ms. Nephron is quite accomplished, having written 'When Harry Met Sally', (and for any of you familiar with that book, that scene in the restaurant, for some reason my mind goes back there now and then and I've made a final decision - I could NOT act that part out). She also wrote 'Sleepless in Seattle', 'Silkwood', and 'Wallflower at the 'Orgy' which I can immediately relate to and may have to check that one out too. Anyway, the woman can write and doesn't write anything like Danielle Steel or Debbie Macomber or any other big-time female writer that comes to mind. One of her lines in '....Neck' is that she cannot understand why anyone would bother to write fiction when there's so much going on in the non-fiction life that is just unbelievable.

Labels: Girl Talk, Lighthearted, Silliness

Thank you Sandy (at 4 Reluctant Entertainers)! When your package arrived I was actually 'entertaining' if you will. I had a girlfriend over for a day of scrapbooking, we had fancy fare - tuna salad and crackers with past-their-prime grapes that we shared, and she brought a cake she'd thrown together - one box of angelfood cake mix with a can of crushed pineapple, stir together and bake. We threw on some cool whip and a bit more pineapple and downing it seemed to wash some of the leftover tuna residue away :-)

When I asked if she'd snap a photo of my new lovely gifts, she suggested the wine and glasses, but since it was middle of the day and this isn't the deep south, 40 years ago, this was staged. Beverage of choice was actually raspberry lemonaide, which we consumed in vast amounts. An entire day of scrapbooking, which included little scrapping but much talking about life, men, cooking, ministry, friendship - great first use of my new apron. We also took out one of the dark chocolates, split it down the middle and enjoyed it too. I expect DH will consume the rest of them at sporadic intervals. I don't believe, however, he'll be going anywhere near that pink apron but it sure does look cute, hanging on the hook next to the fridge. I'm going to wear that thing out - I promise!

Labels: Silliness

How can you know for sure if you're OCD? If you keep a running list in your head of anything you've ever lost, irregardless of whether it's at all useful or not, or even wanted, and you are constantly on the lookout for those items.....well, put a 'Y' in the little box.

I Can't Stand to lose anything. I can't even stand for others to lose anything. Tell me your keys are missing and I'll hunt high and low. You lost a contact, wait, let me get the flashlight, turn down the lights and we can hunt til we're blue in the face. Your debit card, or cell phone, or anything really important, I'll hunt ALL NIGHT LONG. After you've turned into bed you'll hear me tiptoeing around the house, flipping cushions, opening drawers. When I finally give up and go to bed, I'll toss and turn, trying to come up with places I didn't think to look. I'll been known to make people twitch because I Won't Quit.

Here's what's missing in this house right now:

12 dominoes
part of a deck of cards (we rarely play, doesn't matter)
Cindrella movie, I have the case
Case for Jumanji movie, I have the movie
Selah CD
One Cutco steak knife

Six items, all important stuff I can't live without. Doesn't everyone need their dominoes on a daily basis? I suspect when I find any of the first four, I'll find the other three. They're likely all huddled together in a little corner, or wedged in the crease of the sofa, looking out and laughing at me. If you look for something long enough it starts to take on a personality, with annoying human traits. The CD likely isn't with the others, and that thought makes my head hurt. It doesn't matter at all that I have burned a copy of that CD, I NEED the original one, in it's case, on the shelf where it belongs.

I seriously wondered if the puppy ate the cutco steak knife after I heard a similiar story in dog obedience class, but when he didn't show any signs of internal damage, and it didn't show up in any of the places it could or should have, I resigned myself to the fact it probably got scraped off a plate, right into the trash.

Growing up in a house with six kids born in less than eight years, we were constantly losing stuff. Sunday mornings were spent trying to get us all out the door to church, and invariably one of my brothers had lost a shoe. Considering we each had only one pair, how could he lose a shoe? It used to make me crazy, looking for someone else's shoe, so why on earth do I pursue others' missing items now with a vengeance usually saved for boney hound dogs chasing 'coons up trees? Or my dogs, who can be relentless at butt sniffing when anyone else's dog comes to visit. Yeah, like that, only less icky. Alas, I have 'missing in action' issues.

That empty slot on the knife block taunts me. What if the knife is NOT in some landfill, buried under dirty diapers and banana peels and coffee grounds? What if it's at the bottom of the toy bin, or in a drawer within reach of little hands, or in the piano bench I forgot to check, or shoved down in a sofa cushion too deep for my fingers to find, or out in the yard where someone went digging for worms, or maybe it somehow got stuck under one of the car seats, where we found that rotten hamburger meat several days after we'd purchased it, back in August of 2005.

I have NEVER lost my car keys, or cell phone or debit card, or driver's license, or wallet. I did lose one of my children, once, for a few hours, but we found him safe and sound. After calling the police, after driving up and down the streets of our little town, shouting his name out the window, when I walked in the church, and saw him standing there, oblivious to the fact that I was in a half-crazed state, I grabbed him, hugged his scrawny little body to my chest til he started gasping for air, while I burst into gulping sobs, well - what can I say, he had been LOST.

And if I happen to find all twelve of those dominoes shoved down in the sofa cushion, next to the missing cards, smashed up against the Cinderella movie that's inside the Jumanji case, I'm convinced I'll see that the Cutco knife has been holding them hostage, daring them to shout out. If that happens, I'll feel much better. Then I'll go searching for that Selah CD like nobody's business.

Labels: Silliness

Sometimes I'm really serious, sometimes I think deep and long and hard about things. Like this:

At our second meeting of First Place, I was sitting third from the corner. We went around the room, doing the typical 'share who you are in three sentences or less'. I was very deep. "When you're tall you can get away with eating more Butterfinger candybars than the average gal, but I know the truth. This roll of glob greets me every morning when I sit up in bed. It's been around so long I'm considering giving it a name and buying it Christmas gifts. And by the way, I'm married, three kids, four grandkids, blah, blah, blah." We continued around the room. The woman in the corner started to share, then just stopped. Unable to talk, she began to cry. We, being women, stopped too, while she took a deep breath. She told us her husband had died in a car accident last fall, her daughter was critically injured, and she was there because she needed a group of women. She only shared for a few minutes, in sentences broken by long pauses, but by the time she stopped talking the entire room was crying.

Fifteen women sitting in a circle crying.

The leader began to grab boxes of kleenex that had been tucked into the corners of the room, and started passing them around. After we'd all gotten our wits about us again, I noticed the kleenex, because it would have just been tacky to do so before, but Look At Them! Black and white toile instead of a nice lavender with big ole flowers in varying shades of pink, or teddy bears and ducks, or manly stripes of dark blue and burgundy.

I oohed and aahed over them til the leader told me she found them at Walmart, in a set of three, and of course I asked what the other two looked like. She said they were tolerable, but not quite as cute. The next day, when I went grocery shopping, I checked out Kmart. One box of three, the one toile and the other two passable for the guest rooms. Then to our grocery store, and they also had the packages of three. One had two of the black toile, which was like hitting the lottery jackpot of kleenex, so I threw them in my cart. Then I spied, in the back corner of the shelf, two individual boxes of these black toile kleenex, and oh my, to not have to buy the others, which were only tolerable, but just these, of course they went in, adding to the mountain of kleenex growing in the cart.

The checkout clerk didn't say a word about the fact that I was buying something like 99 boxes of kleenex and most of them matched. If they stop making them, I obviously need a lifetime supply, and I think the clerk understood that, in spite of being a male. Yeah, I'm sure he totally got it.

It would be an understatement to say I'm ready for some serious allergies, or the monsoon of colds with post-nasal drip. Or circles of women sitting around talking about their kids heading off to pre-school or college, or their husband who doesn't quite understand them, or when their child, Tunchie, who was four, fell over the balcony, landed on his head and laid there for awhile and she thought she'd lost him, or why they just can't get rid of this ten pound albatross that has been living around their waist for, oh say, twenty-five years. Yep, I'm set.

I'm not completely heartless. I realize there are bigger things in life than what my kleenex boxes look like. I sent a note of encouragement to the woman who is struggling with her profound loss, telling her I would commit to pray for her this week. And the balcony thing - absolutely happened during a Bible study a few years ago. When I heard that Tunchie made it, and it had happened forty-five years ago, well let me just say I felt such immense relief because the woman sharing was well over sixty and I had been sitting there wondering why on earth she had a child so late in life.

Women - deep, tender-hearted, with a God-given need to share, the light and hard and silly and profound things of our lives. I'm set to have them gather in a circle around my living room, with lovely black and white toile boxes of kleenex tucked into the corners. Women who will cry, forty-five years later about when Tunchie fell and landed on his head. So fling the front door open wide, plump the pillows and put on some coffee - I'm all about that kind of gathering. With the right kleenex tucked into the corners of the room, and maybe even a little less of this waistline hanging around like a rude albatross.

Labels: Girl Talk, Silliness

This gorgeous clematis plant greets me every morning when I retrieve the paper. It's obviously getting just the right amount of sun & shade, because it's gone from a very small twiggy thing, to this, in about four years. My husband gave it to me as a Mother's Day gift.

I am completely clueless what it believes, where it stands on the hot topic items of our society today, and who it would vote for in the upcoming election, if it could. After this past week, I'm content with that, just to enjoy it's beauty, waiting right outside my front door.

Labels: Silliness

I seem to grow fish well. The aquarium kind, not ponds or lakes. Someday when all these dogs and cats go to be Jesus' pets, I plan to keep growing fish because they're truly the perfect pet, if you don't expect much in return, and I don't. I feed them now and then, change their water out sometimes, we never chat, no pats on the head, and when we travel I tell the neighbor kid who has to come over three times a day to deal with the dogs, "just ignore the fish. They'll be fine."

Two of my angelfish grew to be absolutely beautiful, they were the size of a child's dish with long, flowing fins and they'd move gracefully around the tank, surveying it all. Then I had these two fish that reminded me more of me - zipping to and fro, chasing everything in sight with no discrimination. I really didn't care for them much, but once you get the fish home it's hard to get rid of them.

About two months ago I realized one of my beautiful black angelfish had literally been eaten away at. His gorgeous fins had been nibbled down to pitiful, ragged things that were so inept at moving him anymore, he was swimming sort of sideways, and more often hiding behind the plants. I decided the other black angelfish must have become territorial and started to dislike him. Eventually 'sad fish' became so pitiful flushing him was the humane thing to do. He could no longer even feed himself and spent his day in refuge. After his demise at my hands, I went away for awhile, got crazy busy, and when I finally got back home, I took a look at the tank. Beautiful fish #2 had lost much of his long fins too! I realized the two nasty fish were the culprits, zipping to and fro and taking nips out of him because he couldn't move fast enough to elude them. Much like some grand, elderly lady, his fins were for beauty, not speed. I began to wonder if fins grow back, like some creatures that can replace body parts, or are they more like our fingers and toes, irreplacable? The beauty of our relationship has always been that I'm not overly attached to them, when I find one belly-up I give it the flush ceremony. But seeing that he was being picked on, literally to death, brought back that protective side of me, and my dislike of the two zippy fish grew daily.

Yesterday, it being a holiday, I finally took the time to scoop up the two hateful fish and haul them to the fish store, to ask if they knew - would these zippy fish nip at the beautiful angels unceasingly? If so, I was going to give them back to the fishstore owners, and bring home some new angelfish, let them loose in a now non-hostile environment.

The fish store was closed.

I sat there, in the parking lot, the two hateful fish and me. I know they're just doing their thing, functioning the way they were created, it's a dog-eat-dog world out there, but I didn't want it taking place in my family room. I'm not really into violence. CSI makes me cringe, I can't handle Law and Order, or Cold Case or any of those other shows where the first scene is grisly and you spend the next 55 minutes getting more details than you want. My fish tank is there to have a spot of peaceful serenity, not playground bullying or streetfights.

Next door to the fish store is the cemetery. There's a pond with a beautiful fountain in the middle. I pulled in and drove through the cemetery, trying to find a parking spot next to the pond. One woman in particular stood out to me, sitting next to a very fresh grave. Flags waved in plenty and I tried not to look around too much, out of respect for those who were paying respects to people they'd loved.

I pulled over very near the pond, grabbed the little fish bowl and climbed out of the car. I walked as close as I could get to it, stood there and considered whether to walk down the rocky bank in my flip flops, and finally decided it might end in someone having to come pull me out. So I stood there and just flung the contents of the fishbowl out over the pond, giving it a couple extra shakes so there wouldn't be a floppy fish left in there. Once it was empty I took a couple of looks out over the pond, hoping the nasty fish would be happier there, thinking they were likely looking for rocks to hide behind and wondering why they had a migraine all of the sudden.

It was only as I was driving away I realized those putting flowers and flags on graves might have thought I was flinging Uncle Arthur's ashes across the pond.

Labels: Silliness

So Dubbie had his one year checkup today, mostly to get his rabies shot that's required when I take him for his shearings at the local Petco. For some reason the silly boy won't jump up into our SUV, but just puts his front paws on the bumper and waits to be lifted in. I pick up his rear, then shove him in and off we go.

Labels: Silliness

We're making some permanent changes in the hair situation around here - regarding mine and the dogs'. I got mine highlighted a couple of weeks ago, trying to look like I've been in the sun the past several months when the truth is it's been snowy or icy or rainy here since about last November. Right now my hair looks sun-kissed, and it should for $90! I didn't mind paying for the highlights, but honestly when she charged me $30 to dry and style my hair? If I'd known that I swear I would have left with it wet and drippy. I came home with beautifully styled hair to clean the bathrooms and cook supper. But I just realized those highlights go very well with the 25% (or more) of grey hairs coming out of my scalp, and so if I just keep highlighting, more and more over the next few years I should eventually come out with a head of 'natural highlights', right? Is there a single soul out there who used to color her hair light golden brown and went to what was actually natural - grey - without having that horrible band of grey roots growing down your head like a Burger King Crown Gone Bad, seen at Walmarts all over the nation daily? I'd love to know, because if you did, then I'm more than happy to pay the $90 a few hundred more times to grow this color out til I just look like a radiant Grammy? For now I'll stick with highlights, the question is just how many - do I need to look like Dolly Parton, sans anatomy, to get this grown out? Help please!

I also figured out I love everything single thing about Golden Retrivers except their hair (and the fact that they drool buckets of water when they walk away from their bowls, and their big hairy paws track mud and worse into the kitchen when they come inside, and poop scooping that feels like mucking out the stables, and wrenching my shoulder out of joint hauling the dog food inside the house), so tomorrow we're making the switch to yellow labs. Both Goldens are getting shaved til they resemble labs, and I plan to keep them that way F.O.R.E.V.E.R. or til they go to be Jesus' dog or live with their real parents. I like yellow labs, and I know they'll still shed, but 1/4" long hair is a lot easier to deal with than 4" long hair that looks like some hussy blonde has been having a heyday on my kitchen floor and family room carpet! Their shaving costs less than my highlights, $59 a pop. Unfortunately that's for one!

So the hair budget has been put on steroids, and I'm figuring if we schedule me one month, then skip a month, two dogs the next month, skip a month, then my turn again, that'll work, right? Or maybe I need to leave wet every time? That should make me feel like a classy girl, standing to pay with wet dripping onto my checkbook. And if that doesn't pan out then I wonder what my hairdresser would charge to just shave me? $90 or $59 - that's a $31 savings, which is about half a dog shaving, multiplied by two, every other month.....yeah, I've got this all figured out.

Wonder what would happen if I get really confused and take them to my hairdresser and I show up at the groomer? I can just picture it now, each of them sitting in the hairdresser chair with a chai tea in hand, towels over their shoulders, their paws in little plastic bags to wax away the dry skin, chatting away, and I'm standing on the groomer's table, that strap around my neck, tail tucked between my legs, listening to the groomer girls chat about Brad and Angelina, or what's amuk in their marriage and why their kids have all gone bad...

Labels: Silliness

Who knew - you have to spring clean your garage!

Seriously? Apparently so.

This weekend we hit the little button on the garage door, the door went up, and then it went back down, back and forth, over and over. DH did the male thing and jiggled it a bit here and there, but it didn't fix it. Then it got better. A couple days later it started doing it again. So we made the call to Mr. Garage Door Opener Repairman, and he showed up lickety-split. So lickety-split I was still in pjs, and that's just a fun way to meet a strange male at your door, don't you agree?

So we ramble around to the garage, me trying not to act awkward that I'm still in sleeping attire, and I explain to him, in female language, what I think happened. "We pushed the button, it came down, went up, back down, back up, and the light started flashing and making a clicking sound. So we called you."

He said, 'are you sure the lights flashed?' 'Ummmm, yeah, I think so.' He walks through the garage opening and pushes the button and sure enough lights flash and it flys back up. He explains to me it's obvious it's something with the 'eye', and not the mechanics of the opener itself. Oh yeah, that was completely obvious to us...

I tell him / show him, see, the snow shovels are pushed away, and so are the trash cans. There's clearly nothing in the way of the 'eye'. So while I'm standing there barefoot, in pajamas, no makeup and stickey-up hair, i.e. looking like a completely classy lady who has it together all the time, he goes over to the 'eye' and dusts off the cobwebs that every garage in America has. He explains to me you have to clean the cobwebs off now and then, like every ten years or so, or it can obstruct the beam, that is invisible to the naked human eye, but can clearly see dust.

He walked to his truck, got out his metal clipboard, wrote me up a bill, and said, "sorry, they're going to charge you $62 for this.' They're? They're as in it's the company's fault, not his. There was a $34 service charge, that charge for driving to our home and with the current price of gas, I might not have paused at that one. Since the last fill-up was $63 and I get well under 20 miles to the gallon, that seemed about right.



Do you see it? See where that bill says, 'clean and adjust light beams'. It could have just said, 'spring cleaning necessary every decade'. I smiled, thanked him, wrote a check and assured him I would add it to next year's spring cleaning list. $35 for 10 minutes, I do believe that comes out to $210 an hour. I think I could have had a chat with a brain surgeon for about the same rate. I could hire Merry Maids for 14 hours at that hourly rate, and could have had someone here for two hours at the $35. I'm pretty sure, in those two hours, she could have taken a swipe at the drasted 'eyes' in the garage, and swished a potty or two to boot.

If there's anyone out there who actually cleans the eyes on their garage door opener, please don't tell me. I'm much happier just thinking everyone pays an outrageous sum every ten years to have someone come and do it for them. It's making me a little afraid, to even think about opening the windows in this place. Twenty-two windows, haven't been washed inside and out in a coon's age, yeah - best to just leave the windows closed, tilt the blinds and count on cloudy days here in the 'Burgh.

Labels: Silliness

We're trying to find a used ellyptical. Not just any ellyptical, but a specific brand that costs about as much, new, as a good used car. So we'd like to find it used, deeply discounted. Our weekly flyer, the Pennysaver, usually goes straight into File 13, but this week I sat down with a cup of coffee and read every single ad. Yes, it was fascinating. And no, they didn't have a single ellyptical for sale. Apparently, everyone is still hanging onto those New Year's Resolutions. I guess I need to wait a bit more for everyone to fall off the bandwagon, admit defeat and offer up for sale all that exercise equipment they bought in January. Hopefully at half the price they paid for it, just to get it out of their house and quit feeling guilty for only using it twice.

I did, however, find some great buys! How about these?

"Poo-Poo Pros, pet waste removal service. Let us do the doody work! Reasonable rates, Dependable." They don't say if it's by the day, week or pile. Two dogs, two times a day each, seven days a week, I do believe that's twenty-eight Poo-Poos... What a great job! And I'm glad they're dependable, since I can sure depend on the pets to do their business. I do hope this person didn't pay for a college degree to have this job. At $1300 a credit hour and up, that would be way too depressing.

"Rival Crockpot, brand new, BEAUTIFUL, Electric. $14." Don't you love that they think their crockpot is BEAUTIFUL! And that it's actually got a cord to plug into the wall, as opposed to I don't know what, that should help it sell quickly.

"Mausoleum crypts, Forest Lawn Gardens, Garden of Peace, Prime (side by side, 2nd level), Value $9800, asking $5800. I don't know who changed their mind about dying, nor do I quite get what makes for a 'prime' location to be stored in either. And $10,000? Are you kidding? Wow!

"Maternity clothes, Large. Great condition. $35.00." Aren't all maternity clothes large? What pregnant woman out there is really small?

"Handyman for rent. All your home repair/remodeling needs big or small. I do it all. Call Joe anytime." This one really made me smile. You don't need to hire Joe, you can just rent him, like an apartment, or a car, or a hotel, and anytime apparently. For anything. What a guy! Most repairmen I 'hire', I have to leave a message, they eventually phone back, and it takes two to three weeks to get them to come over for an estimate of the job, if they're willing to do it at all! That Joe....

How about a car? "Ford, 1996 Taurus, good condition (no major problems), high mileage, $1,000 or best offer." Shoot I could run that ad and sell me!

And maybe the best, "$ Bikini Towing $. Cash paid for unwanted vehicles! Call for pricing. 24 hours! We'll make you smile in the end!" So does that mean they tow vehicles clad in bikinis, all hours of the night and day and you'll be smiling the whole time, just from the uniforms they wear?

So, no ellyptical, but heck it was fun just looking for one. At this rate, I may keep looking for it long after we have it in our basement, dusty with outgrown clothes hung over it, just like everyone else's.

Labels: Silliness