Pizza Party

Ichabod's Mom makes really good pizza. She's also always been one to involve children in the cooking/baking process. And kids love it.

The other day Ichabod's nephews, whom I'll call Bobby and Tiago, and his niece, whom I'll call Becca, were staying overnight. And pizza was on the menu. The boys are five and four and have to have chairs to reach the counter. It's really cute.

Here's Uncle Ichabod helping the boys.


Here Bobby thought it was important that I get a picture of the cheese. He made sure he said cheese as I took the photo.


Spreading the sauce properly is very important.


Becca helps Tiago with his pizza.


With the pizzas in the oven it's time for Grandpa to read a book to the boys.


This was Becca's first time to meet Annie. She wanted to cuddle the puppy, but it's hard for a puppy to sit still when there're little boys to run with.


All of this is very hard work for a puppy. Here she is in her spot on the stairs between the kitchen and the office/bedroom upstairs.


Enough rest. Time to play a bit.


Hmm, now what to do?


Better go check things out. Man, these steps are steep.


Daddy, what did you step in? Sure smells good.


Back to bed to guard the toys.


Wait, what's this over here?


A slimy rawhide chew stick. Score!

More sunrise shots

Okay, we're getting more clear days than normal and I'm trying to take advantage of it. This was a pretty sunrise. I'm so bummed because sunset was spectacular and I was on the highway and couldn't stop to get a picture. But here's the sunrise anyway.

Flowers again!

I am very out of practice taking pictures of flowers. Summer's coming and I must get back into practice. One of the groups at work brought an amaryllis in. I've been watching it for a few days and saw that two of the flowers had opened. Time to get some practice in. So they're not perfect pictures, but the flowers are still lovely.

The Wonder Twins

You've seen current pictures of Bucky and me. You can tell we're related but we definitely don't look exactly alike. But, there was a time when we must have more closely resembled each other.

Bucky's always been tall and my height is average. I also had a tendency to look a bit young for my age. So we'd go out together and people would ask if we were twins. We'd laugh at them and say no. Then we'd ask which one of us they thought was older. Since Bucky was taller they'd guess her. Well, being a teenager, she thought that was pretty cool.

Since it's asking a lot to have you just believe me, here's the photographic evidence of that era. This is with our older brother JD. You can see Timmy's senior picture to the right. The only way Tardist is represented is a painting of his on the wall to the left.

Meet Annie

I have a new love in my life. Now before you start feeling sorry for Ichabod, the new sweetie is his parents' puppy. They had a beautiful Afghan for six years before they had to put her to sleep last October. Ichabod's mother has been longing for a new dog ever since.

She'd thought about getting a labradoodle or maybe another afghan. I don't know what changed her mind but last Sunday they drove up north and came home with Annie. And, yes, she is as soft as she looks.

Annie was snoozing away when I first got there. No rest for puppies when there's a camera around.



She has a load of toys. For some reason, she only wants one of them out of her bed at a time though. If you throw them around she'll gather them up and put them back.



Anybody who's read Dooce will know what I'm talking about when I call her the baby Chupacabra here.



As you can see here, going outside to pee is all business.



I love catching her here in midscratch.



She really is a good, smart girl and wouldn't have an accident like this. So I had to get Bucky to help me fix up a picture to show how life would be if she weren't so good.



Any of these pictures can be seen in a larger version if you click on it and choose All Sizes.

Showdown at the GR Corral

I was coming home from visiting my mother tonight, about 7:45, when my cell phone rang. It was Ichabod. He asked me how far I was away from home. I told him I was just a few miles away. He told me to tell him when I got closer as the pellet gun sniper was at it again. The police had been called but they weren't there yet.

This time the guy had shot up the landlord's Jeep. Ichabod had felt some whizzing past him as he was standing on the deck. He ducked, very quickly, back into the apartment. Thank goodness he didn't get hurt.

The police took it seriously this time. Ichabod had told me not to park in the lot so I parked about a half block away on the street. The landlord came over to walk me to the apartment because the police were talking to Ich as he had an idea where the shots might've come from.

After a while we could see a flashlight, police-type, shining out of one of the apartments. We can't see the front of that building from our apartment, but a couple of the landlord's friends came by and they said there were cop cars and fire trucks out in front.

We waited for about an hour and I wanted to know what was up. I finally called the police department and she said that a man had been put in jail. Yay!!! I can park safely in my own parking lot again!

Ichabod says, "Pardner, there ain't enough room in this here parking lot for both of us. I want you out of here by sundown."

How I can annoy you in five ways or less (fewer)

Jim has tagged a number of us with the meme of listing 5 of our bad habits. I wish I were so perfect that I didn't have bad habits. The truth is that I have to choose five. At least, I need to pick five that I don't mind sharing. Susie, Electic, Bucky and Momentarily Distracted were also tagged. I've already read theirs so I hope I don't plagiarize too badly.

1. Everything seems to remind me of a song. If I'm in a place where I'm able I'll usually burst out with a snippet of the song. Ichabod is the one who's usually subjected to these outbursts. Luckily for me he says he likes my singing.

2. I buy books. I haven't even read all the books that I buy. I buy so many books that my main Christmas present from Ichabod was a seven foot tall bookcase.

3. I am very picky about the care of my books. My brother Tardist hates to borrow a paperback from me because I don't like to crease the back or the cover.

4. I could probably leave the Weather Channel on the television 24/7. That's one that drives Ichabod crazy. I try to limit my Weather Channel watching, especially when he's home.

5. I crack my knuckles and joints. The noise has got to be irritating to others but the joints get painful if I don't relieve that pressure. People used to think I was clicking my fingernails when I cracked my knuckles.

Well, that's the short list and I guess it'll have to do.

Blue skies, nothin' but blue skies

First, I want to thank every one of you for your kind words of support in my hour of car shooting. I should have it back on Friday and never will park in that particular spot again.

I felt it was time for something lighter. A lot lighter, in fact. We actually had a sunny day all day here in Michigan in January. I felt the need to document this fact throughout the day.

This was shortly after sunrise.



I am not posting every picture I took. If you'd like to see the other four that won't be posted just click on one and go through them on Flickr. Of course, I like to check out the Large version in All Sizes.

This is what midday looked like.



I was hoping we'd get a nice sunset. There really weren't enough clouds to make a spectacular showing, but it's better than we've had in a while.




And it stayed clear after dark, and the moon is almost full. So, of course, I had to take this shot.



Well, here am being a little ray of sunshine. Hope everyone enjoyed at least half as much as I did. :-)

Bang, bang, the neighbor shot it down

Update: The neighbor, whose car kinda looks like Ichabod's, was shot at by a pellet gun as he was driving past our apartment to get to a parking place! He was still in the car, doggone it!

I knew all weekend that it was time for a new post. It was hard to get my act together as I have a cold and just was feeling generally lousy and blah.

Then, about 1:30 this morning, Ichabod and I both woke up. We heard noises outside. He thought it was firecrackers at first. I thought it sounded like a gun, but not quite loud enough. I could swear I heard something lightly hitting our windows.

There was nothing that I could see, though, when I got up to look. While I was looking there was no sound, either. After I went back to bed I began to hear the noises again. This is a noisy neighborhood so I figured as long as we weren't in mortal peril that I might as well go back to sleep.

I had no plans on working today as I still was feeling lousy. But I had a dentist appointment and those take a while to schedule so I figured I'd still go.

Then when I got down to my car this is what I saw:





There are about 30 holes in the windshield alone. I don't know how more there are between the hood, roof, and the driver's side door. There might even be more. When the policeman was here he was nice, but I could tell that there wasn't much he was going to do. We figure it was probably a high-powered semi-automatic pellet gun. From the angle of the shots it has to be from the crappy apartment building next door with the neighbors that like to play loud music in the middle of the night.

I don't know if my car was just the easiest to get or if somebody was mad at me and was purposely trying for my car. I take it in today at 12:30 to be repaired. In the meantime I'll be using a loaner.

I must quote from Jim here, Dammit, we can't have nice things!

There are no pictures for this post

Warning, disgusting drinking story ahead!

Bucky's recent story of drinking to the point of losing her stomach contents was pretty enjoyable. As everyone recounted their tales of drinking and puking I honestly couldn't remember a single incident.

Well, she and I were on the phone today. She asked if I appreciated her not posting about my Seagram's Seven story. It all came back to me in a flash. I had blocked that damned memory and wouldn't my sweet little sister bring it back for me?

I, at 24 years old, was not an experienced drinker. It had never really appealed to me. But, somehow, I'd found out about Seagram's Seven and Seven-Up. Wow, those were really tasty. I'd also hurt myself at work and was taking parafon forte for the messed up muscles in my neck.

Now, I had eaten dinner that night so I can't blame an empty stomach here. Why, I'd had sauerkraut. There was a point where I don't remember anything else that night. I was told that I'd gotten tired and lain on the black throw rug. That's throw rug folks, not supposed to be throw-up rug. I hear that I made a funny noise and all that whiskey and sauerkraut came back up.

Did you know that partially digested sauerkraut mixed with whiskey comes back up black? I found out the next day when I realized that my roommates had nicely made sure I got to bed but had dragged the rug out into the yard.

I was miserable. Hangover is not even a word that comes close to describing how I felt that morning. Thank goodness it was Saturday and I didn't have to go to work. I did go to work at cleaning the rug. Then, since I only lived a block from the beach, I went over and baked in the hot sun all day.

By the end of the day I was slightly sunburned, but I think it burned all the alcohol out of my system. I felt much better. After that I realized the power that alcohol has on the human body. I never, ever took parafon forte, ate sauerkraut and drank whiskey (all together) again.

Back by popular demand

Well, regular readers of this blog know how I've been complaining about snow. We got a lot snow and cold weather really early this season. Not being a lover of snow, this has not made me exactly happy.

Then, right before Christmas, the thaw came. You could actually see green patches in yards at Christmas-time. It seemed amazing with all the snow we've had so far this year. Then it not only continued to be warm, we had thunderstorms yesterday.

Folks, this is the third of January in Michigan! The picture I'm posting here actually looks more like April. I'm liking this, but it's soooo confusing. :-)