I Needed A Good Laugh Tonight

After the news about Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize, I really needed a good laugh tonight. Oh my!

Little Boys

I love little boys.

Mel told me that he bet that when Stirling started school this fall, he would end up in the pricipal's office before he'd been in school a full 3 days. Hmmmm.

Well, Stirling started school last week. Kindergarten. First time he's ever been to school, other than Sunday School or Vacation Bible School classes for a week or two in the summer. Now Stirling has made if very clear that he likes to go to "the white church" instead of to "the brown church" because in the brown church they make him sit still during class. In fact, after church one day while we were home in May, after we had gone to the brown church, he calmly announced that the teacher had made him "sit over by the kitchen". I think that is a play kitchen in the classroom. I asked him, very quietly, purposely without any emphasis on whether I was upset or concerned, "Did you have to sit there because you were behaving badly?" "Yes." He was not a happy camper - he did not want to stop playing and join in with the rest of the kids, but instead totally ignored the teacher and the helper. Thus, time spent "sitting by the kitchen."

He still likes the white church better than the brown church. The brown church in my home church. {grin}

So, Kara took something in to the school office, Stirling coming along with her. I don't know all the details, only got part of the story from my mother. Stirling proceeded to tell her he'd been in the office before.

What? Oh yes, the day we came to register you for school.

No - last week when I had to sit here for half an hour.

Kara went and found his teacher. Was Stirling sent to the principal's office?

Uh, no, I don't think so, oh - wait.....

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Oh my gosh - his grandpa nailed it! Maybe it was the 4th day, but it might have been the 2nd or 3rd day of school last week. The principal of the school came into the kindergarten room to meet the kids and let them see who he is. Stirling refused to quit doing what he was doing (I think he was rolling around on the floor, is what my mother said, which really makes me laugh). So, when the principal left, he took Stirling with him to the office and made him sit on a chair in there for half an hour.

I hate to say it, but that is really not a good way to discipline Stirling. "Time outs" and sitting in the corner and other "you have to sit still for x number of minutes" have never seemed to make an impression on him at all. And taking him to a new place - well, he's very curious about everything, so I'm sure he was just very excited to be going some place new and different. Got to check everything out, you know!

Mom said they are treating his trip to the principal's office the first week of school like 'no big deal' so he doesn't get the idea that he's done something really cool and naughty.

But I have to laugh. And I have to pray. He has one of the strongest wills I have ever seen in a child. I was praying tonight, as I was trying and failing to go to sleep, "please Lord, mould him, but don't break him." I just can't help but believe that strong will is going to be a gift from God some time in the future, that he will need it to do what God has called him to do. So often a child is broken, not moulded, especially when they do have a very strong will and character.

So, my darling, wonderful, beautiful grandson didn't even make it through the first week of school in kindergarten without a trip to the Principal's office.

I wonder what the next 12 years are going to be like?

Yikes!!

~*~*~*~*~
Mel was down on the 'walking street' today. He related this story to me tonight.

"I watched a little boy (six or seven?) fresh from school (suit and tie) partially eat an ice cream cone and then flip the remainder out of the cone onto the top of his head. He tossed it like a pancake. All wrist action. Thought, "What a way to short-cut the ice cream headache." Then I had to turn so he wouldn't see me laughing."

He told me the soft-serve ice cream just kind of snaked out of the cone, unwinding into a longish 'string' and landed on the kids head. As he turned aside, it was slowly beginning to slide down off the top and along the side of the boy's face.

I haven't laughed that hard in a long time! I wish I had seen that! And I wonder what his mother thought when she finally paid attention to him and saw him. Oh my!

Laughing

Ok, I posted my last post, Such A Lot of Time, and then pulled up the page and read it all finished and published.

Where in the world did that last sentece come from?? hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I do know how it happened, I just didn't realize it had actually happened. I'm leaving it becuase it is so "me" and the way I write.

ROFL!!

Seen On Our Walk Yesterday

Mel and I were waiting for a trolleybus at a bus stop yesterday. He glanced over at a box full of trash sitting beside a tree, about 3 feet away from me. This is what he saw. He told me to take a photo of it - so I did. :) Just in case you can't read what the cardboard box says:What in the world is that?? Disposable Saliva Ejectors ...
Or do I even want to know?

"Nancy Today"

My friend in South Dakota, SDSue (hi Sue!), recently posted a link on her blog to a new-to-me YouTube 'series', Nancy Today. From what Sue wrote, I decided to check it out right away.

I have not laughed that hard in a very long time.

First I watched her series on making bread, then I watched most of her series on making Christmas Stollen. I didn't get to finish that because it was well past time for bed. If you are a perfectionist, she will probably drive you crazy.

Take a look and see what you think. I'm looking forward to watching more, not just cooking, but all sorts of things out of her life. note - Nancy is Mormon and occasionally mentions that, or things that pertain to Mormonism, but so far it has not been trying to proselytize, just talking about it as a normal part of her life.

And I Think It's Cold In Our Flat...

From Two Medicine webcam on the Glacier National Park webpage:


(If you can't read the numbers, trying clicking on the photo to make it bigger.)

Glacier National Park, Two Medicine webcam

This is obviously not correct, which may be why the 'current' photo is 3 days old. It doesn't get that cold in Alaska - maybe once in a century? Of course, who knows? Maybe it really was that cold! heh heh heh

Driving with Heidie

I was looking for a webcam in Fairbanks this evening and found a very interesting (to me anyway) place: The Great Alaskan Red Squirrel Cam . I looked around a bit at different things there, including the owners blog. And I found this photo: My Yard. If you look it up you will see it is his front yard, covered in tire tracks from some unknown vandal in the night. I was talking to my sister in Fairbanks at the time on Instant Messaging, so I sent her the url and she also looked it up. Then she asked me: “Do you remember “The Motel?” Do I remember “The Motel?” !!! Yes! I started laughing so hard my sides started to ache.

During the summer of 1990, Heidie decided to move from Fairbanks back home to Colorado Springs and, if I remember correctly, finish nursing school there. She had lived in Alaska for several years and wanted to bring several of her household items, plus her cat, down in her car. I volunteered to fly up and help her drive down the Alaska Highway. She packed her car, leaving room for me in the passenger seat and a tiny space for Prisca, the cat, in the back. We left and headed for the Canadian border.

Crossing into Canada, she needed proof that Prisca had had her shots, etc. so we had all of that readily available when we drove up to the Mounties border crossing station in Beaver Creek, Yukon Territory. However, Prisca had other ideas – she disappeared somewhere in the car, not even a whisker to be seen or a purr to be heard. We did not declare the cat because we had no idea where she was at!

That night we camped in a beautiful little campground several miles into Yukon Territory. (I wrote about a different time in that campground in another post, Young Eagles and Geometry.) We pitched our tent, snuggled into our sleeping bags and slept the night away. The next morning, Heidie let Prisca out to ‘do her business’ and she disappeared. There were only a couple of other people there in the campground and no one had seen her. We called and called, looked here and there – no cat. Heidie finally said, well, I guess we leave her here! But I responded, let’s look one more time down this other trail. We walked for 5 or 6 minutes and were just getting ready to head back to the car when I spotted a white splash off the trail in the underbrush. I went over and there she was, squatted down in a small hole, eyes wide open and black, in what appeared to be a frozen state of terror. I picked her up and took her back to meet Heidie, we hopped in the car and took on off down the road. No more cat adventures for Prisca! She stayed right with us the rest of the way.

I don’t remember all of the trip – it was several days on the Highway altogether. Beautiful days of travel in the late summer, early fall of the Canadian north. Western Canada is beautiful (I’ve never been in the eastern part so cannot comment on it). I would love to do it again. We crossed over into the States at the Glacier National Park border crossing, drove the Highway to the Sun backwards (from the top down, instead of the bottom up), down through Kalispell, and on farther into the heart of Montana.

I love Montana – it is a beautiful state. It is especially beautiful during the day. We did not see Montana during the day, unfortunately. Sometime after dark we went through Missoula and connected to Interstate 90. This part of our trip has become lovingly known as “the highway from hell” experience.

It was getting late, but we did not stop – we thought we would drive to the next exit and find a motel or campground for the night. We drove. And drove. And drove. The highway rolled on before us, mile after mile, after mile after mile…you get the point. It never ended. Literally hour after hour we drove on and on, in the dark, missing Montana as we twisted round this corner and down that hill on the never-ending exit-less highway.

Finally, we came to an exit ramp and turned off. In the middle of nowhere. Somewhere in the wilds of Montana (we have no idea where). In the wee hours of the morning. One little motel, surrounded by a couple of acres of land, set on the side of the interstate, beckoned us with warm cozy thoughts of a real bed, a real shower, a real room to sleep in. Neither Heidie nor I remember seeing any other buildings in the area, except maybe a couple of dark houses farther down the road.

We turned into the entrance of The Motel and drove a couple hundred yards up the driveway to the Office. Everything was dark, no lights on anywhere. We drove over to the row of rooms, parked right in front of one that had an empty space (most of them had empty spaces) and turned off the motor. We looked at each other in silent exhaustion. Our eyes were bloodshot, our rear ends were numb from sitting for hours and hours, day after day. When we closed our eyes, all we could see in our minds’ eye was more black highway with white stripes flashing by. We looked again at all the dark windows and quietly decided to travel on and see if we could find another place that was actually open farther down the road.

Heidie started the car, put it in reverse and backed up. She turned the car around, put it into forward gear and started to drive back to the road we had come in on. However – we could not find the road. We couldn’t even find the driveway. “How do you get out of here?” we wondered aloud. So in total confusion and ‘lostness’ we just drove around until suddenly, with a loud thump and bump, we drove off the edge of a cement curb back onto the road – and that is when we realized that we had just spent about 3 minutes driving around on their lawn, trying to find the driveway. I thought it all looked too nicely manicured… She jerked the wheel to the right and stepped on the gas, kicking up gravel as we spun around. By this time we were both laughing so hard we could hardly see. All I could think of was what those poor motel owners were going to think the next morning when they looked out their window and found tire tracks wandering around their lawn and dropping off the curb in the middle of their front yard. I hope we did no permanent damage (she did swerve a couple of times so as not to run through a flower bed or two…)

Needless to say, we were now wide awake and found our way back to the Interstate. Not too far down the highway we came to another quiet, dark exit, but we looked at each other and said – “No! Let’s find another, bigger place – we are already awake!” On and on, down the road, for several more miles we drove. Finally a billboard for KOA! We pulled off at the marked exit and drove over to the KOA Kampground. No one was awake there, either, so we pulled into an empty tent spot, quickly set up the tent, threw in our sleeping bags, and went to sleep. First thing in the morning, after trips to the restroom, Heidie went in search of the manager so we could pay for our spot. He was very surprised. He had no idea we had come in during the night. In fact, if we had just packed up and left, he would have been none the wiser.

That day we drove down through Yellowstone National Park – the first time I had seen it since the devastating fires a couple years before. What a shock, even though we knew there had been severe destruction. That night we actually made it all the way into Utah and Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. Again, it was quite late when we drove in, found a campsite and set up our tent. This time it was so warm that we left the rain shield off the top of the tent – we were in the desert after all! Bad mistake. Well, not so bad, actually. We were just rudely awakened the next morning by rain falling on our faces, turned to a fine spray as it fell through the thin layer of synthetic material stretched between us and the wild blue yonder. Very quickly we got up, rolled our sleeping bags and stashed them away in the car. And the rain stopped. We cooked some breakfast and headed out – driving through Aspen later in the day and over Independence Pass, making it home to Woodland Park late that night.

I’ve thought about “the highway from hell” and The Motel many times since then. And every time I do think of it, I laugh so hard it hurts.

Maybe you had to be there….

Oh I love my life!

I Love It!!!

JEFF FOXWORTHY'S TAKE ON COLORADANS


1. You switch from "Heat" to "A/C" in one day.

2. You know what the "Peoples Republic of Boulder" means.

3. Your sense of direction is: towards the mountains and away from the mountains.

4. You're a meat-eating vegetarian.

5. The bike on your car is worth more than your car and you have your own special bike lane.

6. You take your out-of-town guests to Casa Bonita even though you would never go there otherwise.

7. You think your major food groups are granola bars, tofu and Fat Tire Beer.

8. You've been tear gassed in a riot to celebrate a CU/CSU's victory.

9. You can never figure out why your out-of-town guests faint from altitude sickness on a picnic to the mountains.

10. You can drive over a 12,000-foot pass in 4 feet of snow, but can't get to work if there are 4 inches of snow.

11. You know the 'correct' pronunciation of Buena Vista.

12. When you visit friends at sea level, you can drink a case of beer and not get a buzz.

13. Your car insurance costs more than your car.

14. You have surge protectors on every outlet.

15. April showers bring May blizzards.

16. 'Timberline' is someplace you have actually been.

17. You know what a 'Chinook' is

18. You know what a 'Rocky Mountain Oyster' is.

19. You know what a "fourteener" is.

20. But you don't know what a "blinker" is.

21. Your golf bag has a 9-iron, a 3-wood and a lightning rod.

22. You know who Alfred Packer was and what he did.

23. You know who Baby Doe Tabor was.

24. SPF 90 is not out of the question.

25. People from out of state breathe 5 times as often as you do.

26. Having a Senator named Nighthorse doesn't seem strange.

27. Thunder has set off your car alarm.

28. A full moon has never kept you awake at night.

29. You have an $800 stereo in your $300 truck.

30. A sudden loss of cabin pressure is not a big deal.

31. You think a red light means 3 more cars can go.

32. Where we're going, we don't need roads!!

33. You know where Doc Holliday's grave is.

34. You know where Buffalo Bill's grave is.

35. You know where the real "South Park" is.

36. You can recognize the license plates of all 50 states on sight.

37. Driving directions usually include 'Go over _________ Pass.'

38. You've checked for ticks.

39. You've dressed in shorts, sandals, and a parka w/ a hood.

40. You've gone snow skiing in July and...

41. You've gone sunbathing in January and...

42. They were in the same year!

43. You've urinated on the Continental Divide just so it could run into both oceans. (Only a guy would think of this :o)

44. And the most important: You get a certain feeling of satisfaction from knowing that California and Texas are both downstream.

45. You actually understand these jokes and send them to your Colorado friends.