LOL #2

Honestly, I can't stop watching, it just never stops being funny. If we didn't have the internet, how would we live??????

"...five, six, pick-up sticks, seven, eight, lay them straight..."

Spring is my favorite time of year, especially late spring. Yesterday was such a perfect day and the whole family went to Valley Forge park to have a picnic. I am not usually a picnic person, I don't see the fascination in eating outside where your hot food gets cold and your cold food gets hot, and there are bugs everywhere and things get dirty and bathrooms are far away or non-existent. I know I know, there's something wrong with me. But yesterday was very nice, we had pillows spread on the blanket so we could lounge around like the Romans at a state dinner. Also, I do have to admit that champagne tastes just as good outside as it does inside.

We used to go to Valley Forge all the time when I was little and we lived in an apartment. It's different to go there now since I found out that I have an ancestor who spent the winter there during the revolutionary war. His name was Thomas Mix, and he is my great-great-great-great-great grandfather. He was in Varnum's brigade, we drove past his headquarters a couple times yesterday. It's weird to think that guy (Thomas), who lived in Connecticut, tromped all over these same areas that I've lived in most of my life.

My nephew spent nearly the entire time we were there collecting sticks. He learned to do that from my mom, who uses him as cheap child labor at her house cleaning up the yard. One day it will occur to him that he's doing work and it will all be over for her! :-)

Here's a few pics from yesterday:

"Have you ever seen so many gulls? What do you suppose it is?"

So it was Me vs. The Squirrel.

The Squirrel won.

Two days after getting the bird feeder, I look out one morning and see this grey squirrel draped over the top of it using both hands to shovel food into his mouth. Honestly, I wouldn't mind feeding the squirrels as well, but they eat EVERYTHING!

I was forced to go purchase one of the squirrel-proof birdfeeders. And while I was at the store, I was then forced to buy a bird bath for the birds. With all that food, they are going to get thirsty, and the last thing I want out on my deck are small, thirsty birds. I've seen too many Alfred Hitchcock movies.

I picked a glass bowl that literally weighs like 20 pounds. I had visions of a gust of wind coming under the deck and lifting it up like a UFO, so got the heaviest one I could find. Don't laugh, at my parents house, a gust of wind came one day, went under the deck, and lifted our glass-topped metal table up and over the side of the deck to crash into the ground. If my memory serves me correctly, we were all outside gathering stuff up cause a thunderstorm was coming and it nearly hit my sister. But keep in mind, my memory is probably not serving me correctly and it's some other variation of that. Who knows? Not me!

Anyhoo....here's the new feeder and the birdbath:

"George, I wish you'd look at the nursery."

I bought a little bird feeder to put out on my deck. I thought it would be nice for my cats to have birds to stare at, and I might like to stare at them too. Little birds are cute. Big birds are scary. I saw a stuffed Dodo at the museum of natural history in pittsburgh last week and it was HUGE. No really, it was way bigger than you are imagining. And when birds get that big, and you look at their huge claw-y feet, you realize they probably are dinosaurs on the inside.

This picture is a couple of the first birds to use my feeder! It's a little dark and distant because I was lurking inside my living room like a big game hunter in the African veldt.

"Danny's not here, Mrs. Torrance."

Using the turnpike to drive to Pittsburgh takes me through 4 tunnels under mountains, one under water. That's 10 tunnels to drive through within a 72-hour period. When I was little I liked tunnels. It was weird how your radio would go away and you were underground where it never rained and the sun never shone and the dirt was covered with shiny clean white tiles.

Thanks to Stephen King that all went away! After reading The Stand, I never felt the same about tunnels again. I drive through them, hands at 10 and 2, looking to see which side has the little walkway, just in case I happen to need it in the future. That scene in the tunnel out of manhatten was truly one of the creepiest, most unsettling things I ever read.

The one other scariest thing I ever read was from The Shining. It's not in the jack nicholson movie version, but is in the mini-series with that guy from Wings. It's the scene where Jack Torrance is outside with the hedge animals. The first time I read it, I was actually, literally afraid to turn the page!! I've never felt like that since, I probably never will (too jaded!).

And that concludes my list of scary scenes I've read.

"I would rather be living in Philadelphia."

This friday is the last time I have to drive to Pittsburgh for school. It's not really the most attractive of drives, it's about 4 1/2 hours on the PA turnpike. There are lots of mountains, tunnels, angry truck drivers and people who drive slow only while in front of me.

Sometimes it's pretty high up, and I have these visions of accidently zooming off the end of a cliff like in Thelma and Louise. But I only think about that when it's raining. Which, for the past two years, has happened at some point during EVERY trip to Pittsburgh (three times a year). So far, the weather forecast for this weekend shows: Rain all day friday.

Sigh.

Bye bye Pittsburgh! Bye Holiday Inn-Oakland! Bye noodle place I always go to! Bye used book store I really like!