Birthday Girl

February 24, 1967, driving down Central Expressway to Baylor Hospital in Dallas, the Mr and I decided we really should pick a girl's name... just in case...even though we were convinced this baby was a boy. (Back in the day, there were no sonagrams, ultra sounds, etc to detect what sort of plumbing the baby had... consequently... ya just paid yer money & took yer chances). So, hours and hours later... our baby girl whirled into the world and never looked back! Last Sunday we were able to celebrate the event at a new Claim Jumper restaurant in Palmdale; good food, good company.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY GIRL!!!

Questions without answers

Question: Why is this snowman eating Steven's hands? We'll never know the answer, but I am happy to report that (as of 2/22/09) the snowman is reduced to a small pile of dirty snow while Steven is perfectly fine (and still has all his fingers).

Question: Who or what is pulling out all the feathers on Dixie Bell's butt? Especially now in the dead of winter? Does that barearseness cause DB to have goose bumps... or would she necessarily have to have chicken bumps? Can someone out there knit her a pair of chicken bloomers?

Question: If the expiration date is (long) past on your carton of buttermilk... and the milk has "turned"... how would you know?

Question: What is a 'cob web'? I know what they look like (I have plenty)... but where do they come from? I have observed a spider spinning its web... a fascinating sight by the way, but I'm pretty sure cobs don't create webs. Having grown up on a farm, I have seen many a cob. Incidentally, it is a myth that corn cobs were used in the outhouses of yesteryear (that's what the Sears catalog was for). Ah yes, the outhouse... a distant memory. It was a simple structure with a 'bench seat' which had two holes cut in it... one small/medium for little or half grown people and one big hole for the grownups. When I was about 8 years old, I saw my first indoor toilet... and thought how clever that when the seat was down, that was for small/medium folks and when the seat was up, that was for the fatasses to sit on. But, I digress... and I still don't know who makes cob webs.

Itsno joke!

Yesterday (Friday the 13th, to be exact) it snowed like a fury in the morning hours... then, like magic, the sky cleared, sun popped out and it was just beautiful. Of course... yers truly just couldn't resist laying out and soaking up some rays. Unfortunately, I dozed off... and the snow came back... and, well... you can see what happened. Lucky for the Mr. he likes his women a little on the chilly side!

Washing the washing machine

Am I the only one whose washing machine gets dirty... on the inside?? Isn't the thing always full of hot soapy water? And doesn't the agitator always have lots of towels and shirts and undies rubbing up against it? I understand that the grime comes from the towels and shirts and undies, but shouldn't it all just rinse away and not stick to the blades of the bloomin' agitator??
And the fabric softener dispenser... don't even get me started! It holds back a smidgeon of that yellow (or blue or green) stuff in every load and pretty soon... (well, four years later)... there is a coating on the inside of that little cup that has to be scraped out with a bulldozer!
I just don't get it... how can that stuff stay in there against the torrents of rinse water that pour through the system? I don't know but I suspect it is the same law of physics that allows (encourages, even) tiny specs of dust to cling like velco onto a fan blade that is twirling around fast enough to cool off a roomful of middle-aged women in the midst of a hot flash.
Life is full of mystery.

Flashback!

There is a small cafe here in our town which actually started out as a sort of coffee and tea house and a place for aspiring poets to go and hear themselves recite. We had never been there, but on a recent day, saw that they are now serving breakfast and lunch. So, not being ones who ever pass up an opportunity for a new adventure... we dropped in for lunch.
Shades of the sixties!! It was hippyville all over again from the very colorful walls to the somewhat beat-up overstuffed love seat & coffee table taking up a large area in the small 'cafe'. The tables and chairs were an eclectic* (translation: nothing matched) combination, and there was not much room to move about the room. The paraphenalia of the 60's (people with their bongs) had been replaced by people with their laptops. We weren't ever hippies, altho we did dress up as hippies once for a costume party; however, we do remember that era.
So, we stepped up to the counter and ordered... a salad and a sandwich, both of which involved chicken salad... than sat at a teeny table to await our repast. There was one nice-sized table there but it was covered with jigsaw puzzle pieces and hovered over by a very serious puzzle lady who did not welcome any company. After about 20 minutes, we were told that they didn't have any more chicken salad & would I care for turkey... and would Ramon care for salmon salad on his salad. He would. So finally, I got my organic whole wheat bread* (translation: very dense and very dry) sandwich and the Mr. got his salad with a blob of salmon salad (he swears it was tuna) and we finished up & left the sixties... hopefully for the last time.

What's with these Huecker feet??

It started with me last August. I tore a tendon in my foot while doing nothing more interesting than taking a step. So I hobbled around for six weeks in very stylish casts (purple, pink and blue). In December, grandson Anthony was a passenger in a Rhino, an ATV which is all caged in (perfectly safe). Somehow, it turned over and all would have been okay except that, instinctively, Anthony stuck out his foot... and broke a couple of bones. He was sporting a cast for 3 weeks but is castless now and doing fine.
Then, just last weekend, d-i-l Emilie managed to kick the raised brick platform around their wood burning stove and O-U-C-H... broke her middle piggy. Since it is almost impossible to put a cast on a piggy, she is taped up and wearing a special shoe. And... walking very carefully.
Listen up Hueckers! Be careful out there...

A New Love

Yes, ever since Christmas Eve 2008, there is a new love in my life. He is round and flat and I call him Sparky. He is a little robotic vacuum cleaner and, listen up girls, every woman's dream! I just set up a couple of electronic barriers to keep him from straying too far, push his button and he zips around back and forth, in circles, in loop-de-loops cleaning his heart out. He will eventually run out of energy but if he is in the same room as his charger, will mosey over to it and hoist his little butt up onto the magic buttons all by himself. In a couple of hours he is ready to do it all over again. Who could ask for anything more?