The latest meme

I've been tagged by Ladybug and Effie with this meme.

The Rules:
1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog

So here's mine.

I don't know any of the music from Die Fledermaus, either.

I'm supposed to tag 5 others. I guess I'll try Bucky, Jess, Susie, August, and Nanina. If they want to. I was going to tag Sierrabella, but when I went to her site to grab her URL she'd already posted her own. :-)

The story Biscuit never wanted you to know

Any regular readers of this blog know Susie. You probably also know her dog, VBD (very bad dog) Biscuit.

The sad part of this story is that Susie doesn't know just how bad Biscuit is. Until now he's been keeping his little parties quiet. You know, the parties he has when Susie, Jif, and LG are all gone for the weekend. Biscuit's been smart enough to invite a discriminating crowd.

But the last party took a turn for the worse. A newcomer, one of the really BAD element crashed the party. Out came the Twister game and it was total debauchery. Biscuit barely got everyone out and the place cleaned before his family came home.

Then Biscuit received this photo in the mail. This grainy, poor quality photo was meant to blackmail him. Instead he, wisely, sent it to me to publish and tell the story of his innocence. The bad element crashed his party, really Mom, it did. It just came in, took over and started playing Twister.

Here's the evidence. Susie, go easy on him. Any kid can have a party go bad on him.

Dinner and a walk

Ichabod and I went to dinner downtown tonight at a restaurant called Bentham's. We had a nice view of the Grand River and the beginning of the sunset from our table. As we left the restaurant I took these pictures of our view.




Then we took a nice, long walk down to the John Ball Park Zoo. We decided to sit at a picnic table and rest a bit before walking back. Well, I needed the rest. Ichabod goes on much longer, faster walks by himself.

There were quite a few ducks and geese in and by the water.




Then Ichabod whipered to me to be quiet. He saw the heron before I did. Unfortunately it was really starting to get dark so I'm not sure how these pictures will show.





Then we decided it was time to head home. I couldn't keep my camera in my purse when I saw the sunset.

The workings of the mind of a four-year-old

When I was four years old my parents moved us to a new house. My mother worked for the church in that neighborhood and the parochial school would be close enough for us to be able to walk.

That summer I was playing by myself a few houses down from where I lived. I noticed another little girl on her tricycle. I headed over to her and she started to get off of her trike. We were both thinking, "new friend." Her mother and grandmother were sitting up on the porch watching us.

As the other girl was just getting off of her trike she fell down and went home crying. I don't know what the heck I was thinking but I figured her mom and grandmother would think I'd done something to hurt her. Well, I turned and ran and promptly fell down and skinned both knees.

Little kids think such weird stuff. Anyway, Jenny and I did end up being friends. We shared Barbies and Beatles and the Chipmunks. Her parents moved away when were about eight or so and I only saw her once after that. I do believe it was the fact that we both hurt ourselves the day we met that it stays so vividly in my mind.

Time for another Lame-O post

I need to put something new out here but my creativity is taking a vacation. I did take some good pictures this weekend. These all look good when they are seen in the larger view. If you have the time, go ahead and click on them and choose All Sizes.

This one has lots of detail in the center.


This is a better flower than the last teddy bear plant I posted.


I love this color sunflower.


I wish I could send the wonderful scent of this rose through the computer to you.


I love the pretty center on this one.


This one not only enlarges well, I like the bug holes in the leaves.

Harvest Moon

Well, the moon will be completely full tomorrow. The full moon at this time of the year is called the Harvest Moon. I was out, without my camera, earlier when I could have gotten a picture of it before dark. As it is, I kinda like it with the black night around it. I makes me think of Jessica Rabbit's story.

Soon

I promise a new post soon. I've been so busy lately I've had to stay up late just to read my favorite blogs. I'm also trying to get Ichabod to write one for me. A good story from his youth, best told in his own words.

Arrrrr, Mateys

I just wanted to make sure that everyone had time to prepare for September 19th which happens to be national Talk Like a Pirate day. This is something that I know is very near and dear to all of us.

Please make sure you visit the site so you know what to do next Monday. This is your public service announcement for the day.

Arrrrr!

This weekend Grand Rapids is having the Celebration on the Grand. Kitty wrote about the fireworks at her site. I tried to take some pictures of it. I followed the instructions in the camera manual, but the pictures turned out all blurry. Of course, sometimes blurry is cool. Here's what I got.

Living dangerously at Granny's Kitchen

Ichabod and I used to go to St Louis every Spring around Memorial Day. They have a fantastic botanical garden there. We haven't been there in quite some time. We do need to go again.

On one of those long weekends we decided to spend a day someplace besides right in St Louis. Hannibal, MO was our destination of choice. I love to go on guided tours through caves. The cave there is a dry cave, no running water anymore. It was a nice place to have town meetings in the middle of the summer back before air conditioning.

It is also the cave that Mark Twain wrote about in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The guides are good there. They can tell you what part of the story happened at the different places in the cave. I recommend it to anyone.

After our cave tour we decided to get something to eat. We were in an old industrial part of town and I believe it was a Sunday. Not much was open. Then we found a restaurant, Granny's Kitchen.

I don't know why we didn't turn tail and run to the nearest Burger King but, hey, I guess we like adventure. The place was dilapidated. The tables and chairs were all mismatched and appeared to be from the 1950's. The plastic placemats were either glued to the tables or else the tables were so dirty that the placemats were stuck forever. We still didn't run.

The owner must have been Granny. She was sitting watching a rerun of The Streets of San Francisco. It must have pained her to have to leave her show, but we were paying customers.

She brought us menus and we decided on burgers and fries. I figured if she'd have to cook everything, maybe it wouldn't be too contaminated. I also take bathroom breaks whenever I get a chance. This one was narrow and slanted downhill. It wasn't until I was done going that I realized there was no sink in it. That just about did it for me, but still we stayed.

When she brought our cans of soft drink she had styrofoam cups we could use rather than drink straight from the can. Again a clue, the cups all advertised a bail bonds place, as did the big calendar on the wall.

If any health official had ever been close to there it was only to pick up his bribe money. I hope the bribe wasn't in food. Anyway, we both, intrepidly, ate our meals. Then we paid and got out of there.

I still can't believe neither one of us contracted food poisoning. They say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. If it doesn't make you stronger it can, at least, make good blog fodder.

Brownies

Ichabod is no stranger to the kitchen. Whenever there's a potluck he usually makes his seven layer salad for us. I volunteer to help and he says, "What, you gonna supervise?" and shoos me out of the kitchen.

Tomorrow he has a potluck at work with his workteam. He volunteered to make a dessert. I told him I'd make brownies for him. The recipe is actually his sister's. Here are the brownies and the recipe.

Brownies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

1 cup butter melting in pan
1 cup cocoa
1 tbsp peanut butter
Melt these together in a pan on low heat and then transfer to bowl

Add
2 cups sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
And mix

Then add
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix together

Put mixture in a 9" x 13" pan for 25 - 30 minutes

This is the result:

More Pretty Pictures

There is still too much hurt and ugliness happening. I am going to post some flower pictures so you have an alternative in your viewing. Some of these flowers are not the most perfect in structure. But isn't that part of the wonder and beauty of all nature, to understand that imperfections are an integral part of it?








This begonia looks much better when you click on it to enlarge it.

Sunrise, wake up every morning

I just love sunrises, sunsets, and any interesting cloud formations. When I got to work one morning I saw this sunrise and had to pull out my camera before I could go in to work. So I'm subjecting you to these photos.









I'm not trying to get hits on my Flickr account, but they really look better if you click on them and see them in the larger size.