What’s wrong with the men’s dress shirt in this picture?

John and I bought this dress shirt for him recently and while I love the color and the soft, cotton damask fabric, we both neglected to notice one very important problem.  No, it’s not the size.  It looks great on him and fits perfectly.  I didn’t button it all the way, but it’s not the buttons or the placket.  The shirt will never do.   He will never wear it to work.  He says he’ll wear it on days where he has all day meetings.  I know better.  I am betting he will never put in on except to maybe go out to eat, occasionally when it’s very cold.

Click on it to make it bigger if you want to.

Can you figure out what’s so wrong with this men’s dress shirt that would make him not want to wear it, yet it never occurred to us to look for the, (quite obvious), particular problem it has?

Here’s the booty prize, er, no! not “booty”, just prize!  Eh… yeah! That’s what I meant…

This is Burt’s Bee’s Foot Care Kit.

Foot Care Kit

Completely pamper your feet.

How it Works

Treat your feet to a pedicure in the comfort of your own home. All the natural foot care tools you need are right here. A pumice stone will help smooth rough skin. Then moisturize with Coconut Foot Creme and our comfy Bee socks.

I will mail this to you promptly, after you’ve been chosen as the winner of this contest that ends on, oh…let’s say Friday September 12.  Multiple right answers will be numbered and tossed, then served to one of my rather undiscerning teenage daughters to select a winner.  Believe me when I say that the number selector’s general lack of concern for which right answer wins could not be more left to fate if I was to use a random number generator.  There will even be a guaranteed gratuitous eye roll accompanying the selection.

The more I look at the pictures of the little owl fellow that flew around in our garage, the more I think it’s a baby.  And not just because it’s small, either.  No, I have found pictures of breeds that are much smaller.  See below.

Pygmy Owl

No, I think it’s a baby just because it’s so ruffled looking.  It doesn’t have the smoothness the adult owls have in the pictures I am finding online.  But then again, it was in MY garage.  I get ruffled every time I go out there too and that obnoxious little dog barking like that…  I bet he was thinking, “If ONLY I were bigger and I could just eat that damned thing to shut it up!”  I don’t know for sure, but since I am having trouble finding a picture that looks like it, I think that it’s a youngster.

Now here’s my story about the last time I had to deal with an owl.  I mean before this.

I was 18 years old and my brother, Cam was 10.  Our dad was in hospital having some heart bypasses, so we were staying at home by ourselves while our mother was at the hospital with him.  We lived in a big ol’ two story house and he and I had never stayed by ourselves before.  (I mean, OF COURSE, right?)  I had been hearing a strange little scratching noise in the wall of my bedroom at night and had decided we must have mice and made a mental note to tell Mither about it as soon as everything calmed down and got back to a more normal routine.  The chimney to the living room fireplace shared my bedroom wall and it never occurred to me that there could be anything in there.  This went on for three nights.  Then, one evening, I was sitting on the couch in the living room reading and all of the sudden there was this gigantic WHOOSH of ashes that flew up in the fireplace.  I couldn’t see anything and then this huge white face with two enormous eyes turned around and looked at me and blinked.  It was a gigantic barn owl.  IT WAS HUGE, PEOPLE.  It just stood there in the fireplace and looked around and at me.  I just sat on the couch without moving like a scared little kitten.  I wasn’t really scared even, I just had no idea what to do.  My brother was asleep and besides that… he was 10.  I called Mom and told her and by this time I watched the owl hop up on top of the damper and sit there.  I stuck my head in the fireplace and could see two great big talons wrapped around the metal edge of it.  I counted myself lucky that I hadn’t received any owl shit in the face, wondered briefly if it really was slick, (My pop was always saying one thing or another was “slicker than owl shit”.), and pulled my head back out.  Mom had said she didn’t know what to do either and she’d be home the next day.  So we agreed that it needed water and food, as it had been there for at least three days, (that’s what I’d been hearing in the wall, actually the chimney).  So I got a little bowl of water and some lunch meat and put it in the fireplace.  I then closed the heavy metal chain link screen…and went to bed.

I have to say that except for the initial whooshing landing in the fireplace I was never really scared of it.  I felt very sorry for it and was worried it was going to die of dehydration, but I just never got the feeling it was threatening.

It never touched the food or water at all, that I could tell.  Perhaps it wanted mayo and wheat bread with pickles.  Perhaps it was a mustard kind of owl.  I don’t know why it turned up it’s…beak to my dinner selection, I only know it did.

So, that next night my dear, brave mither came home and we set about getting the owl out of the house.  It had jumped back down in the fireplace.  Mither was terrified out of her mind awed by it.   I opened the screen and we waited for it to decide to come out.  It was probably a little shy and wondered why we kept peeking around the corner at it.   Finally, it did and we ran in to try to shoo it…somewhere, and it flew straight into the sliding glass door.  No, we had not thought to open it first.  It was freakin cold outside and that’s my excuse.  Whatever.  Anyway, it smacked it’s beak pretty hard and was dazed and confused.  It was like it was competing with us… still think we won the dazed and confused contest…

The poor thing flew around the living room for a short bit and landed on things you wouldn’t think it would choose to land on and then flew through the breakfast area, kitchen, utility room and into the game room, completely avoiding the sliding glass door that stood open.  We followed.  Finally we had it somewhere we thought we could get it out easily.  There was a pair of French doors that one of us opened all the way.  I kept trying to shoo it toward the doors and it seemed oblivious.  It flew all over and finally when I was wondering if we were keeping it and could it please live in my brother’s room, it looked straight at the doors and I almost heard it say, “Ah ha!”  I saw the little light bulb go on over it’s head and it took off.  With both full size doors open it had to tilt diagonally to fit through the opening.  The doors were six feet across.  I don’t even know what the diagonal measurement was.  A lot.  Freakin’ huge-ass owl.

I have to point out that my dear mither was a squealing mess, cowering against whatever wall she could back up against and standing in doorways ready to flee, whilst making small squeaking noises.  Pretty much useless for herding owls.  Luckily, she has proven invaluable for a large multitude of other things… and we all love her dearly.

If you head on over to Psychicgeek, Witchypoo has written a very moving post about Ivy, a two year old little girl that is desperatly ill and is having a life saving treatment withheld from her.  It’s all a bunch of bureaucracy and her mother is trying to do everything possible to help her.  This is an online company that does petitions and I want you to go there and sign up.  Ivy needs all the help she can get.

Greetings all!  You may, (or, may not), have noticed that I have a new site in the old blog roll.  A Piece of My Mind is a site inhabited by Maria, an uber cool environmental conservationist  I “met” on Plurk a while back.  It really is inspiring to read about her own exploits in the area of trying new things and new ideas about all areas of conservation.

Have any of you ladies ever heard of a Diva Cup?  Maria discusses the use of one and the benefits of it.  Well, that little gizmo may just be the best thing since sliced bread.  Here is her first post on the “non-absorbent menstrual cup”.  The Diva Cup is also environmentally friendly because it is reusable and not disposable.  Read about it and tell me what you think.  If I had any need for it whatsoever I would have one ordered right now.  I had a thermal ablation several years ago and am done with periods.  (Yet, I still have ovaries, uterus, tubes, all my bits and pieces, and there was NO cutting.  Quite possibly the best thing ever for people who don’t want any more children and have a healthy reproductive package. It was an outpatient procedure with minimal recovery time.)   I am going to show the info on the Diva Cup to Kes and Keelan and see if either one will consider it.  They are both on Depo Provera shots due to their intense dislike of periods, but neither one wants to continue since the injection of hormones into their little bodies causes weight gain and huger than normal boobs.  I am thinking this new cup method may be the way to go.

Now, watch out for whiplash while I attempt to segue into another conservation area.  Just a very slight change in subject…

My hot water heater is at one end of my house and my dishwasher at the other.  (Still with me?)  I use it only when it is full and don’t use the “pot scrubber” cycle, just the “regular” one or the “light”.  The dishwasher repair guy said to cut down on the electric bill make sure the hot water is flowing in the kitchen sink before turning on the dishwasher so it doesn’t have to use so much electricity to heat the water to the proper temp before filling.  HOWEVER, I have to run water through my tap for a good couple of minutes to get the hot water to that end of the house.  My environmental question is this: In this case is it better to save electricity or water?

I gotta go over to Maria’s site and alert her to my concerns and see what she thinks…

Hello everyone!  This is Cam, Krissa’s much, much younger brother.  I am INVADING Halfasstic.com to announce that I have finally gotten around to updating it to the current version of WordPress AND finally installed Akismet (a comment spam blocker).  So now Krissa should be able to manage her comments much easier than before.

Before I go, however, I’d like to leave you with a few gems I came across when I was recently back at our mom and dad’s.  Call it revenge for the pictures Krissa posted of me back in July for my birthday.

Enjoy, and please comment!

(to view in their full-sized glory, click on them!)

Hi all!

The other day, Monday in fact, John and I spent the better part of the day on a not so fun project.  For a while now every time I opened the flatware drawer there seemed to be a fine coating of flour or powdered sugar or Bisquick, something of that nature, on the utensils.  I just thought one of the girls spilled some in there and not much more of it.  After several times, though, I became suspicious.  I reached inside the drawer and wiped my fingers along the underside of the counter top.  Upon the removal of my hand I promptly threw up.   No, not really, but I wanted to.  White, powdery mold.  I grabbed a flashlight and looked in at the backs of the cabinets.  Nothing.  No water stains or mold or even cobwebs.  Very clean.  HOWEVER, when I shined my light up at the underside of the Formica it was all covered in the white mold.  So when John got home and after a little inter net research we went out and got some bleach a spray bottle and some sponges.  We removed the drawers and all of the contents of the cabinets before I spent about 5 minutes on my hands and knees with my head stuck in the cabinets spraying that bleach all over the underneath of the counter top.  Man!  That stuff burns the eyes!  We waited a while and repeated the process.  Or, I should say I repeated the process!  John has “bad knees” that bother him every time there is the need to crawl around on the tile floor.  Whatever.

The neat thing is that the mold had disappeared immediately after I sprayed the first time.  I mean not a trace of it anywhere.  Poof!  Disappeared in a cloud of… well, not mold.  Has anything like this happened to anyone else.  There was no moisture under there and never had been, and it was only on that side of the sink, not the other side.  Weird.

Well, here it is, Saturday and John’s vacation is almost over.  It has flown by and I’d like to say we got a lot done.  No.  We really didn’t, but we relaxed and did the things that HAD to be done.  The rest of the time we just chilled out and all was good.

Today we went to see Batman and really enjoyed it.  It actually had a good story line and people were dying  that you didn’t think were going to.  Not just this lame, totally predictable movie that you would expect from a comic book hero.  Heath Ledger absolutely needs to be nominated for some big award.  His Joker was the best!  Very quirky and believable.   yeah, yeah, Christian Bale is kinda cute.  Maggie Gyllenhaal seemed to look a bit like a puppy dog throughout the movie.  Her face and eyes seemed drawn.  Poorly done makeup?  I dunno.

After the movie we proceeded to run some errands and made our way to CVS pharmacy to return some diapers that John had picked up the other day that were the wrong kind.  We came in and lo and behold!  There to our left on the floor right in front of the other door was a condom.  Apparently someone had worn it around in the parking lot stuck to their shoe as it was used and quite dirty to boot.  Being the ever resourceful soul that I am, I whipped out my new Chocolate phone and fooled with the buttons and vastly confusing dials for 30 minutes before figuring out how to take a snapshot.  John was off to find a manager and tell the guy to wear a rubber glove and eventually I overcame my possessed phone and managed to take a picture worthy of a professional.  OK, maybe not.

I can only imagine what Google searches are going to lead here now…

Henrietta has been completely consumed with the death of legendary doctor, Michael DeBakey.  She has launched into gushing praise of him, in apparently mid thought, a number of times and caught me completely off guard.

While putting her to bed last night…

H: He was 99 years old!  And he did SO MUCH for Houston!

Me: …Who?

H: 99!

Me: WHO?- (I was unaware this was going to be an ongoing thing at this point.)

H: Yes!  He was!

Me: HENRIETTA, WHO ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

H: Oooh, Dr. DeBakey!

This happened over and over with her out of the blue announcing things like, “Did you know he’s a Catholic?!”.

Just a few minutes ago I looked in the living room and she was sitting there watching the news, bawling.  I just left it and later she started going on about how “sad it is that he died…” I finally told her that was crazy and he was a 99 year old man living in a broken down little old 99 year old body and he had done enough for the world to warrant an excuse to leave and go on to better things.  Her response?

“Ooooh, (sob), Yeeeeees!”

To be such a devout Catholic, she has consistently missed the entire message about death and heaven and rewards in the afterlife, all that.  This has happened over and over with other people who have died and her attitude is always that it must be the worst thing ever.  I really don’t think she believes in heaven.  And like I said, she is a super-duper Catholic, not just your run-or-the-mill kind.  Weird.

Last night I was lying in bed watching Craig Ferguson and Holly Hunter was his guest.  I have always liked her a good deal, but I really love her voice.  Very southern sounding, but aside from her accent even, her voice is really neat.  I digress.  I do that a lot.

I wasn’t paying full attention, I was reading a book also, but somehow she started talking about a duffel bag she found along with her boyfriend on a street with a bunch of car window glass all over it and inside were a bunch of things that belonged to some guy that was taking flying lessons and had his flight logs and books and technical stuff that was probably very valuable to him.  His name was all over the things.  He wouldn’t be very hard to find.  She and her beau started walking up and down the street looking at the car windows until they found the car that had been broken in to, and by doing so they were able to locate the man who owned it inside the resturant and give him his stuff back.  At least what was left of it.

This reminded me of a time just after John and I got married and were living in an apartment in a near by town.  We were walking through the grass going home and either he or I, (I can’t remember who), looked down and found a gold mens wedding ring.  It was very old and had an inscription on the inside.  I can’t remember what it said other than a date that was a looooong time ago and three initials with the last one being a “Z”.  So Immediately I begin trying to figure out how we are going to find this little old man to give him his ring back, or worse, little old widow who refused to remarry and wore it on a chain around her neck for the past 20 years as a token of her undying love and devotion.  Yep, we had to find the owner.

Did I ever mention that John was a UPS driver for close to 15 years?  He was and he delivered to that area where I was living.  As a matter of fact that’s how we met, but that’s another story.

Needless to say he knew who the guy was when he stopped and thought about it, as he had delivered a package to him once.  (He also has a brain like a damn computer and never forgets anything.)  So he told me which apartment and I trotted over there and knocked on the door.  This older than dirt guy opened the door and I said “Mr. Z______?”  And he said “Yeah?”  I said, “I think I found your wedding ring!”  And I swear, this is true, he held out his hand and took the ring and closed the door.  Dirty bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to smile or look the least bit happy that his reminder of being married 50+ years was returned to him.  I was fairly devestated that my good deed was so….not that wonderful for the receipent.

Can’t help but wonder if the little Mrs. was a real bitch and he threw that ring down on the way to the car.

The electricity went out for a bit tonight and we all found ourselves outside with the neighbors.  Everyone came over and re-introduced themselves to H.  The general attitude is that she is so incredibly old she MUST not remember who anyone is.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  They are all just being very nice, and I know it.  Anyway, she kept saying how hot it is and seemed amazed that you could “feel the heat rising up…”.  Keep in mind that she is extremely agoraphobic.  It is very hard to get her to go outside the door, either front or back.  I bet it has been three months since she has left the house.  But with no light or TV she really had very little choice.

Keelan was showing me a message she got from someone on her Myspace page and telling me what she was saying back to him.  She is kinda excited about this kid and hasn’t seen him since school was out.  So she is telling me what she is typing and she said, “…and a smiley face.  You know about that don’t you?  Smiley faces?  You know, semi-colon for a wink and then close parentheses?”  I thought I was being uber cool and said, “Smiley faces? Yeah…been around since the dawn of the typewriter.  Only you forgot the dash for a nose.”  She had the audacity to just bust out laughing hysterically and tell me that I am soooo old and ‘out of it’, “NOBODY puts a nose, Mom!”

WHATEVER!

How do they take the tiniest things and try to make you feel so stupid with them?  Lucky for me, I have rino-hide and it is impossible at this point.

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Henrietta did a poo in the bedpan earlier and I took it over to the cedar chest to set it down by the door to be taken out in a minute to dump in the potty, while I put the diaper on her.  However, this time when I set the bedpan down there was so much crap in the way on the cedar chest it didn’t get completely on there and fell off,  The poo is quite soft and a bit runny and it…splattered out and hit my thong clad foot.  Besides being extremely grossed out I was immediately furious with all of her relatives who keep bringing her STUFFED ANIMALS.  They are all over the place now and there is little room for anything else.  Her room has gone from being a lovely haven to looking like a nursery.  WHY do people think children’s toys are good to give to old people?  I mean when they clearly don’t have the minds of children.  They don’t play with dolls, don’t throw balls, don’t play make believe in any form, shape or manner.  She won’t let go of any of it, either, because it was given to her.  Spoken just like someone raised in the depression era.

Anyway, I did some rearranging and made enough room on the cedar chest to sit the bedpan while I finish up with the diaper and dressing and whatnot.  But, the next time the people in her family that show up, (about twice a year, they come to visit),  and bring something ridiculous to her I am seriously considering saying something like, “Oh!  A child’s bear?”  OH!, for Henrietta!  Well, I don’t know how much she’ll play with it, but it’s really cute….”  Would I be a horrible person?

Yes.  I would.

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I just saw a Twitter from Ree over at Hotfessional that reminded me of a conference call that I sat in on with John, Tuesday on his day off.  On of his buddies he used to work for called him and told him he might want to get in on it just because it was a pretty big deal.  The grocery store chain he works for was recalling ALL the ground meat that wasn’t sold in prepackaged tubes.  THREE DAYS BEFORE JULY 4th.

So I sat there and listened to all these different speakers talk about exactly what was being recalled and what wasn’t and how to handle it and sanitize the meat cases, coolers, floors, walls, ceilings, armpits, what have you.  These people aren’t fooling around.  Then there was endless questions from people that had to be the STUPIDEST people I can imagine knowing how to form a question.  “Err, yeah, this is Bob Schmob over at store 998.  When we sanitize the coolers and the knives, and the grinder and the blades and the prep tables and sink do we also clean the counter tops where the meat is cut up?”  Yes, you dumbass.  You clean everything the meat has ever touched in the history of the store.

I don’t know how many times this particular kind of question was asked and how many times the, either incredibly patient, or unbelievably stupid upper management people would once again tell them that, yes, they needed to clean and sanitize everything.

After the conference call had gone on for 65 minutes it ended and would you believe NO ONE EVER SAID WHAT THE PROBLEM WITH THE MEAT WAS.  I mean, you can guess it is probably e coli, but, for gawd’s sake, it seems like the managment yo-yo’s would have used the word ONCE.  Or someone would have asked.  No.  Of course it was on the recall site on the internet and it IS e coli, but I think it is PRETTY funny that the corporate big wigs can talk on and on for over an hour and not ever come out and say what the problem actually IS!  Typical. At least for this company.

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Earlier tonight I came in here and Keelan was on the computer doing, Gawd knows what.  I sat and waited for a bit and watched her and my eyes have gotten so bad that I could have sworn she typed “racial farts” into the googlie search thing.  No.  It was Rascal Flatts.  Do I need to get my eyes checked out?

Well, today was the day I returned to the house of horrors for my two fillings.  This all went down without a hitch and I also got a cleaning again although, it wasn’t as involved or heavy duty because I had just had one a little over a month ago.  Anyway he shot up my mouth with Novocain and drilled and filled and sent me outa there.  I got home and ran around with John a bit and eventually looked in the mirror when everything was starting to wear off and I have a half dollar sized bruise on my cheek!  This has never happened to me before and I don’t know of it happening to anyone else.  My doc is a very gentle dentist and wasn’t in a rush or anything.  I was completely aware of everything that happened, but on the side he was working on I have this large blue bruise.  My kids keep making fun of me and telling us that “Dad finally got tired of the lip you’ve been giving him and belted you one.  (hysterical laughter)”  I assured them that if that was the case I would have been dead years ago.  Yet they persist. (They, clearly, don’t know on what side their bread is buttered.)

This reminds me of a similar incident that happened years ago that should have made John very uncomfortable to be seen with me in public.  I know I felt more than uncomfortable.  I, for no apparent reason, out of the clear, blue sky, got an incredible allergic reaction to….something.  We never did figure out what and believe me, if it had continued to happen I would have had ALL kinds of tests done.  It happened during March one year and wasn’t that severe and then in April the next year it came back and I thought I may as well be dead.  It was a full blown HORRIBLE allergic reaction that made Michael Jackson look pretty damn cute in comparison.  My whole face blew up and except for actual discoloration from bruising, I looked like someone had beaten the holly hell out of me.  I looked ridiculous.  I applied HUGE amounts of makeup and did up the eyelashes…  No.  Nothing was going to detract from this.

John swore he wasn’t embarrassed to be seen with me and I assured him that EVERYBODY thought he had beaten me.  No.  He didn’t care.  But I did!  It was so strange to see all these people looking at me with so much pity.  The same way I might have looked at someone that looked like me…

It only lasted a couple of weeks and slowly went away.  I cried it was so awful.  I remember thinking I might always look like that.  It was a truly BAD time of my life.

OK.  Here I am in aaaall my glory.  You’ll have to excuse the hair and nightshirt, but other than that, it’s almost as bad as it got.  And I was trying HARD to open that left eye for this picture.  And I was SMILING.  Can you tell?  No need for collagen injections here!  My lips were HUGE!  While one eye was swollen shut the other had this huge, unusual bag under it.  I had…something collecting in spots all over my face.  I remember calling the allergist and CRYING to the receptionist over the phone that they HAD TO GET ME IN THERE.  They did and I got a shot.  The first thing that happened is my face started getting narrower, then it all started fading and I finally looked human again.

Shudder.