February 27, Varmit Huntin’

She’s my huntin’ dawg.

She’s good at huntin’ rabbits.

And them squirrels will see their maker soon.

Weird things have been happening to my speech lately. She was down there a while, I was getting a little worried. I was starting to imagine all the horror movies I had seen in my life…eeeeek.

Posted on SOOC Saturday.

I Am…

February 26, Sun & Snow & Miles To Go

My mother was originally planning on coming down this weekend for a special celebration. But she told me today she was snowed in with two feet of snow. What a winter this has been.

I dream of…”Blue skies…shining on me. Nothing but blue skies do I see.”

Sing it Irving! Soon there will be blue skies. Stay warm mom!

The World’s Greatest Chicken Wing-Off

First there was the crab cake cook-off.

Then we had a great chili cook-off.

Now, ta da…the chicken wing cook-off.

These are my chicken wings.

These are the husband’s chicken wings…

And this is the mess the husband made when making his wings.

I couldn’t even tell you what he put in them. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. Guys are strangely competitive, even about cooking chicken wings. I was very laid-back about the whole thing. I waited until two hours before the competition to start cooking mine.

It wasn’t because I didn’t care. I just didn’t want to get caught up in all the macho machination of it all. There was an awful lot of testosterone in the kitchen that afternoon. Humf.

And I was told that my food was too spicy for the ordinary palate. But I like it spicy…

and as pretty and golden as the trophy is, I wasn’t going to compromise my principles for a horse’s butt trophy. I just wasn’t.

So I made my wings like I always make them. Salty, garlicky, spicy, and crispy. That’s how I like ‘em.

And…I tied for second place. And though I already said I didn’t care about winning, I was really happy.

But the winner was…

Neighbor Kenny! Who really isn’t my neighbor. I actually don’t know where he lives.

He’s just always showing up when there is food.

He won for his Asian style wings. They were delicious. He was very proud of his horse’s butt trophy. Men.

There were twelve different kinds of wings and I was so full after eating it all. And they really were all GREAT! You should have been there.

We had to get the formalities out of the way so that we could celebrate someone’s birthday.

Then it…

…time to…

…party.

Until next time when we do…salsa! I have the perfect recipe.

Oh here’s what I did for my wings. There will be no quantities because I didn’t measure. I just threw it in.

Lemon pepper
Salt
Fresh crushed garlic
Golden Mountain sauce
Soy sauce
Red Hot Chilis (the hotter the better)
Accent

Mix with wings well. Place in refridgerator for about a half an hour. Mix well again. Put in the oven in very hot heat. Take it out when it gets crispy.

Voila. Good enough for second place!

Grease Is Not The Word

Ever since the boy started wrestling he has become less and less interested in the performing arts.

I LOVE the performing arts and I’m one of those moms who really like to see her kid on the stage. Especially one who is really, really good at it. He’s a natural, really. He likes music and he likes singing but recently he’s become a lot less enthused about being on stage.

After his duet last fall, he decided he didn’t like singing and dancing at the same time. I’m not sure why. He really couldn’t articulate it to me. But he did so well!

I hope his musical theater teacher never reads this.

He wouldn’t let me post photos of his last musical number. He did relent after I showed him this photo and said, “Pleeeeeese.” He squinted at it and since you can’t possibly tell that it’s him in the center of the photo:) he said, “Okay. But that’s the only one.” Pssst, he’s directly under the E and the N.

I have some other really good photos of the musical that will forever live in my hard drive never to see the light off day.

The spring musical this year is Grease. Grease! I LOVE Grease! After I saw the movie as a girl I played the soundtrack over and over. I begged him to try-out.

“Come on, you’ll like it!”

“No.”

“Just at least tryout. There’s no harm.”

“No.”

I thought perhaps he thought his friends on the team would make fun of him.

“You can wait until after wrestling if you want.”

“No.”

Part two of this story is this.

My precious boy was having problems keeping his grades up this quarter. I believe that it was because he was spending so much time with wrestling and not enough time on his school work. He is however, gifted intellectually, which in his case works against him because he doesn’t have to try that hard to do well. You know what I mean? Even so, he’s managed to make the honor roll each quarter. We have given him the “Imagine what you can do if you really tried” speech. I think it’s gone in one proverbial ear and out the other.

Our school district came out with this great new grading system this year. It lets parents keep a closer eye on the kids’ progress, and not get “surprised” at the end of the quarter.

It’s all the better to let us micro-manage you my dears.

So I was starting to worry. We know he’s taking a big work load, AP course, honors this and that…We have imparted on him the importance of grades, that tenth grade was an important year, that cumulative averages are important, that this counts! You’re tuning out too aren’t you?

As I continued to get emails showing a downward slide in grades, I was beginning to think that no come-back was in sight. So I told him that if he didn’t make the honor roll, he was going to have to try out for the musical.

And that was that.

And you probably know the ending to this story…we got his report card and he made the honor roll. He pulled it out. Somehow he pulled it out. And I believe it took a little bit of effort.

See what you can do if you really tried? But now I won’t see him in Grease. Ugh, it’s hard being a parent.

Hosted by Cecily and Amy

February 25, Maritime Winter Days Before & After

The after.

I love the barn, the boats, the pier, the water but it’s not quite warm enough.

Let me show you what happens when you lose your lens cap.

The before.

Look at the in the sky. I saw this image and I liked it but boy, fixing the dirt spots with your clone tool can take a while.

However…I now have something that will help me keep track of that elusive lens cap. And I can’t wait to show you but I have to take some photos of it first. Woo hoo!

February 24, I See Skies Of Blue

and some snow too…

But doesn’t that water look inviting?

Posted on Outdoor Wednesday. Please share you image of the ordinary with Diane Schuller at Vision and Verb today.

Half-Breed

Ding Dong!

Who is it?

Landshark.

You’re not a Landshark! You’re Gigi! Come on in!

Those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about are either too young or too intellectual to have watched such banality.

But the rest of us thought it was funny.

Anyway, this post is about the Saturday Night skit. It’s about Gigi, the half-breed who lives down the street. She really not a half-breed per se…she’s a thoroughbred Labra-Doodle. And so lies the weirdness of nature as God designed it.

Maybe we shouldn’t have let her inside.

For you see, dogs can be bred for specific characteristic and behavorial traits. If you want a breed to specifically snif out bombs at an airport, you can breed one in less than four generations. If you want a dog with an acute sense of hearing, you can breed on the same way. All dogs are descendants of the wolf but generations of breeding domesticity into them have completely removed the independent wolf instinct.

Labra-Doodles are a cross between Labradors and Poodles. They are bred to have the easy going, loyal, and disposition of Labradors but have the intelligence and the non-sheddability of Poodles. It means they supposedly don’t shed. I know it’s not a word.

How do I know? I saw it on the National Geographic Channel while on vacation to New Orleans a couple of years ago.

Really.

So my weird mind asks this question. What about other breeds? Cats? Rabbits?….People? Gulp.

Told you my mind works in weird ways.

She’s so cute.

As it turns out, this phenomenon of breeding is confined to just dogs, as far as we know. They’ve tried it with cats to no avail. No one has actually tried on humans, as far as we know.

Sorry to get all Dr. Frankenstein on you…but I know that you’ve thought about it too.

Maybe not.

One thing for sure. Gigi the Labra-Doodle who lives down the street can beat my own sweet dog in a beauty contest any day. Somebody neglected to breed our dog for the “pretty” gene. But she IS ours and we love her shed-like-crazy-bald-headed-stout-big-boned self.

Thank goodness it’s not all about beauty.

Time to go home Gigi. We have enough animals running around here.

Posted on Wordful Wednesday.

February 23, Lucky Hands

The girl has this weird ability to find four leaf clovers where ever we are. And when I say where ever, I mean WHERE EVER.

At the park.

At the grocery store sidewalk.

At the neighbor’s yard during a picnic.

Anywhere Sam I am.

I can’t wait until we see some green so that she can start finding them again.

This is my entry for this week’s iHeartfaces photo contest.

Maybe I’ll get lucky?

A Blogging Sweetie For Monday Memories

The lovely Gayle from Planet M Files asked me for my address a couple of weeks ago and I obliged. As time passed, I forgot about it. I think the snow really slowed down the mail.

Last week, this cute little hand made bookmark showed up in a card. I was so touched. It was so cute and…did I say hand made? Well it’s hand made.

I put it in a book that I received from Neighbor Susan called Short Girls by Bich Minh Nguyen. It was about a Vietnamese family who immigrated to America and it followed the lives of two sisters as they struggled to assimilate into American society as first generation immigrants.

As I read it, I was struck by how much the characters mimicked my own life…or rather how much own life mimicked the characters.

My sister and I had a relationship similar to the girls in the book, our families both struggled with the language, there’s the conflict between Asian culture and American culture and always…the trying-to-fit-in as much as we can so we don’t seem “different.”

And weirdly so…my sister’s husband’s name is Gary, like in the book…(cue Twilight Zone music.)

And both of us are short.

Except that Gary is her husband, not her lover…and he wasn’t married when they met. He was already twice divorced.

Except that we have a brother.

Excpet that I’m still married, unlike the character in the book.

And I’m Thai, not Vietnamese. Don’t say it, we’re NOT all the same. Neighbor Susan is first generation Chinese by the way. So there.

But other than that…

I thoroughly enjoyed the book, though I’m glad I wasn’t the main character, geez.

Gayle, thank you so much for the lovely lovely bookmark. It made reading the book so much more enjoyable. And the gesture was so sweet. I don’t “know” you but I sense that you have a heart of gold. And I love hearing about your family and your dog Timmy.

Posted on YOUR site, Planet M Files.

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