I’m Older Than Dirt !!

Courtesy Microsoft Clip Arts

Answer the quiz at the bottom to see if you are also older than dirt.  This isn’t my personal experience but it could be.

Someone asked the other day,

‘What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?’
‘We didn’t have fast food when I was growing up ?’  I informed him , ‘All the food was slow.’

‘C”mon, seriously. Where did you eat?’
‘It was a place called ‘at home!’ I explained.   ’Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table & if I didn’t like what was put on my plate, I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.’

By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn’t tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table.

Here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it :

• Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card.
• My parents never drove me to school. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds and only had one speed, (slow).
• We didn’t have a television in our house until I was 10. It was, of course, black and white, and the station went off the air at 11, after playing the national anthem and a poem about God. It came back on the air at about 6 a.m. and there was usually a locally produced news and farm show on, featuring local people.
• I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen to make sure some people you didn’t know weren’t already using the line.
• Pizzas were not delivered to our home. . . but milk was.
• All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers — my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. He had to get up at 5AM every morning.
• Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. There were no movie ratings because all movies were responsibly produced for everyone to enjoy viewing, without profanity or violence or most anything offensive.

Growing up isn’t what it used to be, is it?

MEMORIES:

How many do you remember?

• Pop bottles with bottle tops & stoppers with lots of holes in the top (for sprinkling laundry with before steam irons)
• Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.
• Ignition switches on the dashboard.
• Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.
• Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.
• Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.

Older Than Dirt Quiz :
Count all the ones you remember, NOT the ones you were told about !!   Ratings at the bottom.

1. Candy cigarettes

2. Coffee shops with tableside juke boxes

3. Home milk delivery in glass bottles

4. Party lines on the telephones

5. Newsreels before the movie

6. TV test patterns came on at night after the last show & were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels !! [if you were fortunate]

7. Peashooters

8. Howdy Doody

9. 45 RPM records

10.Hi-fi’s records

11. Metal ice trays with lever

12. Blue flashbulb

13. Cork popguns

14. Studebakers

15. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-3 = You’re still young
If you remembered 3-6 = You are getting older
If you remembered 7-10 = Don’t tell your age, &
If you remembered 11-15 =

You’re older than dirt !!! THAT’S ME !!!

I might be older than dirt but those memories are some of the best parts of my life.

May Long or Victoria Weekend

Courtesy Microsoft Clip Arts

We are now into the time of year when long weekends are more frequent. It all started with what I often think of the first long weekend of summer (even though technically it’s still spring.)  I really don’t understand why Canada celebrates Queen Victoria’s birthday when England doesn’t celebrate it, but I’m all for extra days off!  Since I’m currently unemployed it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference to me, it just means hubby will be home an extra day.  And what does hubby do when he has extra time off?  He works on some kind of project!

A few weeks ago (when the weather started to warm up here), I started using our box fan to blow lightly over me at night when I was sleeping (still get night sweats).  As it got warmer, the fan got moved between the living room during the day & the bedroom at night.  It was getting tiring moving the fan all the time, so I asked hubby to buy me a small fan to stay in the bedroom full time.  Even though we have central air conditioning in our apartment, it doesn’t seem to cool too much yet & there are only registers in front of the windows to cool whole rooms.

Hubby never buys anything, even a fan, without researching all the alternatives.  After his research, hubby decided we needed a ceiling fan in the bedroom.  So he came home one day last week with one.  He planned to install the fan on the long weekend.  Sunday while I was napping, hubby started to install the fan.  Hubby & I work very well together on home improvement projects.  By the time I awoke from my nap, hubby had the main part of the unit installed on the ceiling & we just needed to install the fan blades & the lights.  We got it all together & the lights didn’t work.  The fan would come on, but not the lights.  After much cursing on hubby’s part, I talked him into walking away from the project & leaving it for the next day.

The next day hubby returned the part of the unit that controls the lights to the store & they replaced it.  He came home & installed the new unit & the lights still didn’t work.  Much cursing followed again.  I dragged hubby out of the room & handed him the instruction manual again.  He re-read the wiring portion of the book, had a short nap & then re-tackled the wiring.  With me reading the instructions, he went through all the wiring again & found an electrical connection that had come loose when all the wires were being stuffed back into the unit.  The lights now work!  And I now have a fan with a remote so I don’t have to climb on the bed to reach the chain pulls.

Too bad hubby didn’t think about the insulation in the light he removed & let it sit on the bed all day while he installed the fan.  I got into bed the first night & boy did I itch until I figured out what was going on!

Tickle Me Tuesday – 052113

Courtesy Microsoft Clip Arts

Tenjooberrymuds

Travelling in Canada ? Maybe you need to understand Tenjooberrymuds!

I was recently in Vancouver and decided to learn the Chinese language, so I could understand the check-outs at McDonalds.  My next move is to learn Indian, so I can understand my doctors and the person who answers the phone when I have a warranty problem.  Yep, by the time you read this, you too will be able to understand the 1st line.

“TENJOOBERRYMUDS”… (first line)

In order to continue getting-by in Canada (our home land), we all need to learn the NEW English language! Practice by reading the following conversation until you are able to understand the term “TENJOOBERRYMUDS”.  With a little patience, you ‘ll be able to fit right in.

Now, here goes…

The following is a telephone exchange between maybe you as a hotel guest and room-service somewhere in good old Canada today…….

Room Service : “Morrin. Roon sirbees.”

Guest : “Sorry, I thought I dialed room-service.”

Room Service: ” Rye . Roon sirbees…morrin! Joowish to oddor sunteen???”

Guest: “Uh….. Yes, I ‘d like to order bacon and eggs.”

Room Service: “Ow July den?”

Guest: “…..What??”

Room Service: “Ow July den?!?… Pryed, boyud, poochd?”

Guest: “Oh, the eggs! How do I like them? Sorry. Scrambled, please.”

Room Service: “Ow July dee baykem? Crease?”

Guest: “Crisp will be fine.”

Room Service: “Hokay. An Sahn toes?”

Guest: “What?”

Room Service: “An toes. July Sahn toes?”

Guest: “I… Don’t think so.”

RoomService: “No? Judo wan sahn toes???”

Guest: “I feel really bad about this, but I don’t know what ‘judo wan sahn toes’ means.”

RoomService: “Toes! Toes!…Why Joo don Juan toes? Ow bow Anglish moppin we bodder?”

Guest: “Oh, English muffin!!! I ‘ve got it! You were saying ‘toast ‘… Fine…Yes, an English muffin will be fine.”

RoomService: “We bodder?”

Guest: “No, just put the bodder on the side.”

RoomService: “Wad?!?”

Guest: “I mean butter… Just put the butter on the side.”

RoomService: “Copy?”

Guest: “Excuse me?”

RoomService: “Copy… tea… meel?”

Guest: “Yes. Coffee, please… And that’s everything.”

RoomService: “One Minnie. Scramah egg, crease baykem, Anglish moppin, we bodder on sigh and copy …. Rye ??”

Guest: “Whatever you say…”

RoomService: “Tenjooberrymuds.”

Guest: “You’re welcome”

Remember I said “By the time you read through this YOU WILL UNDERSTAND ‘TENJOOBERRYMUDS’ “…….and you do, don’t you!

Please Help Find Nichole

Reblogged from Guapola:

Just in case . . . I could never live with myself if she were kidnapped & one of my bloggy friends could help.

Are You Kidding Me?

I found this story published by KLTV on the internet today & could not let this go by without comment:

“UNION GROVE, TX (KLTV) -
Armed staff is now a reality at one East Texas school district. Union Grove Independent School District in Upshur County decided to allow staff members to carry weapons on campus. School officials say the decision to arm staff was made in response to recent shooting and threats directed towards schools across the nation. The signs are up on every campus, each saying the same thing: ‘The staff at Union Grove ISD are armed.’ Intended to be exactly what administrators hoped they’d be.

“Those signs are meant to be a deterrent, to anybody who may have ideas of something none of us want,” says superintendent Brian Gray.

“I’m really pleased that Union Grove is one of the first to do this. Our kids need to be safe,” says Diane Grabbs, whose son attends Union Grove schools.

“Faculty and teachers are comfortable with this you could walk through our halls wouldn’t know no different. Its a very well-regulated program. Just a select number of staff members,” Gray says.

District officials say that the selected staff is very well trained.

“Concealed handgun license, gone through psychological evaluations, hostage negotiation training as well as defensive tactical firearm training,” Gray says.

Grabbs, like many parents , has talked to her son about the armed staff.

“I think most of the kids that I have talked to, they feel safer. We’ve talked about it at the dinner table, our whole family is for it,” she says.

“If somebody comes into our campus and wants to do harm to our kids, we want that threat to be stopped as quickly as possible. People leave their most precious thing that they have in our charge every day. Our community supports it and they want us to protect their kids,” says Gray.

Union Grove is the first East Texas school district to implement armed staff on its campuses.”

Copyright 2013 KLTV. All rights reserved.

I think this is the most depressing article I have ever read!  How can people feel safer with more guns around?  Aren’t they worried about innocent people getting caught in the crossfire?  These are children we’re talking about.

Pardon me while I step down from my soapbox.

In & Out of Hot Water!

Courtesy Microsoft Clip Arts

Monday & Tuesday were very interesting days around here. The condo board needed to make some repairs to our plumbing, so they scheduled a water shut-off for Monday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Since I rarely leave the apartment, I had forgotten about it.  I ran a load of laundry at 8:22 a.m. when the landscaping people were running their mowers back & forth over the little bit of lawn we have between the 2 buildings.  And of course, since it’s been warm, I had the windows open & they woke me up – the reason I threw a load of laundry in so early.  It seemed to me the water in the washer was a little cool but I didn’t worry about it because I prefer to wash in cool water anyway.

Later in the day I wanted to rinse out the tin cans before putting them in the recycling bin, but there was no water (which was when I remembered about the notice in the main vestibule).  By 8 p.m. we still had no water, so hubby called the condo board emergency line & they phoned back to let us know there had been a glitch – we should have water in about an hour.  Sure enough we had water about an hour & a half later, but no hot water!  We had to run the taps for a good long time to get all the air & crap out of the lines – but no hot water.  At first we thought it was just going to take the water heater a while to warm up, so we decided to check it in the morning.

Tuesday morning – no hot water.  Dishes in the sink, laundry to be done & no showers for us.  Bird bathed with wet wipes so I wouldn’t feel so grimy.  The cold water was working so I could brush my teeth at least.  Finally, a little before 4 p.m. the hot water came back on & I had to run the lines wide open to get the air & crud out again.

You don’t realize how much you miss something until it’s gone!

Happy Birthday Princess Rosebud!

Today is Princess Rosebud’s birthday.  She writes an excellent blog called Confessions of a Tugboats Captain’s Wife.  She’s kinda busy right now, her son is home for a week or so & her hubby is coming home from the sea, too.  Please go visit her & wish her a great day!