Headed down South February 28, 2008

That’s right, y’all.  This weekend my Mom, sister-in-law & I are takin’ the money and do indeed plan to RUN.  All the way to Louisville, KY in fact  [or as the locals call it, 'the Ville'.  Or is that just me?]

Anyway, for Mom’s mumblemumble-eth birthday, my SIL & I gave her a gift certificate for a weekend at a Bed & Breakfast of her choice in the town of her choice.   

[See?]

[That's Mom.  The one in the festive sweater.]

And one thing you should know about my Mom is that she’s accomodating [I mean, there's other things worth knowing about her, but for the intent & purpose of this post -- the fact that she's accomodating is the one we'll be discussing].  So, anyway.  While researching & trying to decide on a location, she totally took my SIL & my interests into account [thanks, Mom!]  Like, she knows we both love antiques, assumes we love shoes [on account of we're females] and has, over the years, picked up on the subtle hints that we like wine.  Because we drink a lot of wine.  She’s very good.  For these reasons, she decided on Louisville — because apparently they have it all. 

We’re staying at the Inn at Woodhaven.

This actually is our room.  I call dibs on the jet tub.  Jodi called the cleverly disguised, keg-of-wine bolster on the settee.

Ok, so here’s the plan: 

We’re picking up my SIL tomorrow @ 3:30 so should get to ‘the Ville’ around 5:30.   

After checking in & getting settled, we’re heading downtown to experience F.A.T. Friday Hop [Frankfort Avenue Trolley].  The last Friday of each month, they offer free trolley service up & down historic Frankfort Ave.  The street is lined with fun specialty shops, antique stores, galleries & cafe’s and they all stay open late!  Parking is FREE [!] and so is the trolley.  Should be fun AND cheap and the weather is supposed to be in the 40’s!  Wheeeee!  Oh, & did I mention that the businesses pass out FREE snacks!?  Do!

Saturday, after breakfast at the B&B, we’ll head back out to visit a few of the historic homes that Mom has selected.  Wherein I promise not to touch anything. 

Saturday afternoon we’re going to the Louisville Antique Mall.  And you guys, it has 5-stories!  Of stuff!  Which I’ll likely need to have some of [which is why Harold took the back seat out of the van.]  Oh, yeah.  I’m ’bout to get my shop ON.

Then. 

After that. 

As if the day could get ANY better.

We’re going to …

A freakin’ ZAPPOS SHOE OUTLET !!!!!!!    

::: Heavenly music plays :::

:::Clouds part:::

:::Sun shines:::

:::Angels weep:::

Wherein, I may need to have these:

and I mean, hello …  these are really cute!

[holy crap!  I was seriously just gone for 45 minutes at Zappos.com!  "I'm coming cute, plentiful shoes all $29.95 or less!!!!  I'm coming!!!"]  If you have a specific request, send me a picture & the size.  I can do that for you!

Finally, we’ll round out our anticipatedly fabulous weekend dining at the wonderfully tacky, world renowned, vegetarian/organic friendly, Oprah featured Lynn’s Paradise Cafe. 

 

Where a picture of Jodi & I as the fork & spoon WILL happen!  [see on the right of the pic?]  And also they have fried green tomatoes.  And martini’s.  I have to tell y’all I’m more than a little excited to get out of town this weekend.

I’m really looking forward to “Mom’s” get-away.  After the week I’ve had, I need it!  I also think it’s a good thing that they don’t have debtors prisons anymore.

“Again it might have been the American tendency in travel.  One goes, not so much to see, but to tell afterwards.”
- John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley in Search of America

I’ll definitely be sure to tell y’all all about it when I get back!  Send up travel mercies for us & have a great weekend!

Skillz. She haz them. February 26, 2008

 

This is a bag that Ashton made for me.  She got a sewing machine for Christmas and this is her first attempt at making something with actual material bought specifically to make something.  Instead of cut up t-shirts.  I think it turned out really well.  I picked out the fabric I wanted & the special little details [folded down top, ribbon, button & cool stitching] were all her idea.   BECAUSE SHE’S FANCY THAT WAY.   

Rolling phat. With a “P”. February 25, 2008

Brilliant commercial for FreeCreditReport.com.  I can’t get the song out of my head.  I love that they’re elbow to elbow, squooshed in the car [is that a GEO?]  Also, notice the guitar sticking out of the back window with the strings flopping around.  It makes me smile.  

[The lips don't sync with the words and that's annoying, but it's still awesome.]

A dog photoblog February 22, 2008

Scenario: Sitting unassumingly at the computer, trusty companion lying on the floor

by my side.  I hear a muffled scuffling noise and turn to inspect.

Glancing down, I notice the bedskirt moving ever so slightly.  A smallish

hand emerges.  Maddie is trying to sneak up on Max & Me. 

Ever so subtly I reach for my trusty camera.  She doesn’t notice.

A tiny head emerges.  Curses!  I iz caught!

My name is Max and I don’t approve of any of this.

My name is Millie.  You think me small and squooshy and good for the

cuddling but I have brought you down human person and you will soon

feel my wrath!

  

I will use violence to conquer you.   I begin with the jugular.

Do not try to stop me human mother.  I will defeat you all.  One at a time.

Although … perhaps a small snuggly.  But I haz my eye on youuuu allllllzzzzzzz.

Just let me … Oh, hey!  <sniff sniff> Is that you Buster Brown? 

Yes.  It is I.  Now prepare to meet your maker friend.

This house not big enough for the both of us!  I will now use your

signature ‘juglar’ move against you!

Yes, but say, ‘Hello’ to my poke-you-in-the-eye, chew-your-face-off move, SIR!

Did not see that coming.  On second thought, fighting no good for anyone. 

Let’s make snuggly and call it a day.  [Sigh.  I haz been defeated.]

My name is Buster Brown and I do not approve of baths.

Sometimes I read. February 12, 2008

Ok, so I haven’t actually read this book yet, but I’m excited about it & I totally plan to.  Shut up.  I do too!  It’s Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.   I’ve read excerpts & seen several articles & from what I can tell, it embraces all that makes me appear like a big ol’ weird-o with regards to my views of food & how I feed my family.  So, if for no other reason that to handle ME when I go off on a, “you’re definitely going to grow a third nipple & then die! tangent – do yourself a HUGE favor and read it.  His concepts are not entirely new (William Dufty shared many of the same concerns in regards to refined foods in his 1975 book Sugar Blues), but America has been so misled by the food industry and by nutritional scientists that it’s simply not possible to have too many people writing on the subject.

Mr. Pollan very smartly states on the cover of the book what he refers to as, “the short answer to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what we humans should eat in order to be maximally healthy.”

EAT FOOD.  NOT TOO MUCH.  MOSTLY PLANTS.

There you go.  It’s so simple, yet somehow feels like a revelation.

He goes on in the book to detail how most of what we’re eating today is not actually food and how many of the ways we consume it are not actually eating.   He tells us to try eating like our grandparents or better yet, like our great grandparents, thus avoiding refined, processed, chemically enhanced “Frankenstein foods”.  Then maybe we can die happily of hard work &  old age and not linger for years with food-induced, totally avoidable diabetes, high-blood pressure & heart disease. 

Bear with me.

It’s no easy task.   Basically you have to ignore most of the thousands of new food products introduced to the market every year, ignore the health claims of nutritional scientists and the U.S. government, navigate your way through various pitfalls such as restaurants, dinner with friends, picnics and church socials, and spend a little time cooking for yourself.

Nobody is going to get it perfect all the time.   I mean, let’s face it - who isn’t tempted by the flavored season salts at the movie theater or tricked by terms like, “All-Natural” [ok, right, see... dog turds are 'all-natural' but would you eat one?  Gaw!]  Anyway, that’s not the point.   At the end of the day it’s really about finding pleasure in real food.   Can y’all handle that?

How they found me February 10, 2008

This is a sampling of the most current list of google searches that visitors have used to land on my page.  Welcome, new readers!  Sorry I’m not porn!

SEARCHES USED TO GET RIGHT HERE, LIKE, WHERE YOU ARE:

Naked Aerobics [every single day, #1 search, I'm not even kidding!]

Drunk runner

Naked Step aerobics [People, there's a real demand for this activity!] 

How to get your butt [Que?]

Brands of beer

Jesus beer [oh, dear]

Alien tattoos

Tree octopus

Spit

Nerds

“the first penis I”

Butt naked boy

Pic hidden grandpa naked

Fat naked maids

Naked window cleaners

Well, welcome to Random Thoughts on Symmes:  A happy place where naked maids, nerds, grandpa naked and naked aerobics all come together. 

I’m so glad to have you here.

Ummmm. Urine trouble. February 8, 2008

[First of all, why do we do that?  You know, like when someone does something wrong.  We feel compelled to give them a heads-up because, 'you're definitely looking at a dirty beating for that one'.  We'll be all, "Umm-m-m-m!"  I mean, what is that?  The wind-up?  The anticipation builder - for dramatic effect?  Anyway, I just didn't realize how bizarre it was until I wrote it out.  Man, we're a bunch of weirdos.]

So first of all, thanks to everyone who has emailed with advice about how to train and housebreak the puppies.  It was all very helpful.  And basically things have been getting gradually better, though we’re a long way from the 8-weeks without incident mark that will determine when the puppies get to live among real furniture and not just appliances.  It’s a slow process. 

Last week, however?  Last week was not good.  Not at all good.  The puppies get along very well.  So well in fact that I’m fairly sure they’d tell you that they’re BFF’s.  They play together, go potty together, nap together & share plates of spaghetti and meatballs [oh, no, wait].  That is, until one discovers a chew stick, which the other has left, ignored and abandoned, lying about.  This is a chew stick, which one or the other could not be bothered to chew.  They’ve abandoned it because they’re not in the mood for it.  They could not be bothered with that chew stick.

Until, of course, the other finds it.  Then suddenly, from across the room: One will recognized THEIR chew stick [the one with the soggy, pasty end is MINE!]   And somewhere, somewhere deep inside of their pea-sized brains, synapses fire, and weighing their options, they decide: I shall attack.

In less than a split second, they’ll then, without warning, fly across the kitchen and what you have then people …  is the OCTAGON. 

[I did a picture of Buster Brown & Millie in an actual Octagon in paint, but it won't let me upload it.  I'll work on it.]

So, we’ve been putting Buster Brown in his cage every day since we got him.  Which, he doesn’t seem to mind at all.  Millie, on the other hand, she gets fee-urious with us and starts with the :::whinewhinewhinewhimperwhine:::  And that’s hard to listen to, y’all :::yelp:::  And in her defense, she was really making great strides before she took up with her rebellious new BFF, who has taught her all sorts of new tricks over the last few weeks.  Such as how to strategically poo & pee  just across the gate where the humans step into the kitchen or how to shred carpet in your cage and how to eat the ‘things of wood’ [ie. chair legs, trim, cabinets, THE GATE!].  So now, you maybe guessed, she’s no longer allowed to taunt Buster Brown roam freely throughout the kitchen during the day when we’re not home.  Until she remembers her manners. 

I feel really bad doing it to her because she was doing so well.  Plus the whole HATING IT thing.  But chewing the trim is apparently a deal breaker according to Harold.  So starting Monday she too has been in her cage during the day.  I put them both in just before I fly out the door, so I won’t have to hear her cry.  Because I’m a wimp.

Harold’s Monday a.m. phone call to my office:

H: So how’d your morning go?

Me: Fine.

H: How were the dogs?

Me: They were good.

H: Did you put Millie in her cage?

Me: Yes.  I put her favorite blanket and stuffed animal in with her.  I gave her a chew stick and a bowl of water and her tennis ball and one of those puffed rawhide things she really likes.  Oh.  And I also filled her Kong with treats and a puppy chew and gave her that too.

H: And then did you introduce her to her personal assistant?

Anyway. 

I have to run.  It’s time to go meet my family out for dinner & a little antique shopping [wheeeeee!]  Have a great weekend, y’all!