Author: The Jody

I think I spelled that right. The spell checker will tell me if I didn’t. Thank God for spellchecking. I need to get the person who invented it a Christmas present this year. Or at least send a card.

So on the way to work, as my mind is wondering because WXLO is playing the same songs for the 400th time, I realize that I’m not taking in as much calcium as I should be, especially given my age. That I will not mention. So when I went to get my coffee in the cafeteria this morning, I got one of their yoghurt parfait thingies. It’s a giant strawberry yoghurt mixed with granola and raisins. It’s actually quite yummy but my goodness, who can eat this much yoghurt in one sitting?

I know granola isn’t exactly good for you, but darned if it isn’t tasty!

I’m in a better mood today. I’m sure you were all very concerned that the oil in the trash thing caused that vein in my forehead to burst. It didn’t. Whew! Another bullet dodged.

It’s a rainy day, I believe the dregs of Frances, but don’t hold me to that. We haven’t had a good soaking rain in a while, so I’m not complaining. Especially because by Friday the rain will have moved on, and we will not have received 20 inches of it. Junior had his first soccer practice last night, and he is very excited about the whole thing. Makes me wish we had started him when he was 4, like some of the other kids, but really, how skilled do a bunch of 4 year olds get playing once a week for an hour or so? When Junior was 4 he could tell his left from his right, but sometime between then and now he lost that skill. I’m pretty sure soccer would have been the same. (And yes, we’re working on the left and right thing. He’s right about 65% of the time now.)

It’s dad’s birthday tomorrow. (Dad, if you’re reading this, avert your eyes) So we’re going to need to go shopping for a present tonight. I wonder if my sister is planning to bake a cake? We need a cake. Any excuse for a cake, I say.

Oh man, am I angry this morning. I’ll jump right to the meat of it – some mouth-breathing, dog poop-eating dingleberry apparently figured my rubbish barrel was as good a place as any to use as a place to throw out his/her used motor oil. At least I think that’s what it was.

You piece of slime, here are a few quick thoughts, if you are capable of understanding more than grunts:

• My rubbish barrel is not open to the general public. We put it down at the end of the driveway for pickup, not for dropoff.
• It’s illegal to throw motor oil in the trash. You probably knew that when you put it in, but I’d like to know why it’s okay for my family to deal with illegal disposal of motor oil but yours isn’t? If the rubbish guys had seen this stuff, they could report me. I’m FURIOUS with you for putting me at risk. The words that fill my head are not suitable to be written here.
• Thanks to your careful disposal, I ended up with oil all over my hands when I went to pick up the barrel after the trash guys emptied it. This is how I knew it was in there. You are beyond lucky that it didn’t get on my clothing, or on my shoes which would have been ruined. Two hands COVERED with oil was fun enough. Oh, and now I get to try to clean up any that dripped plus the inside of my rubbish barrel. I’m so freaking thrilled I’m beside myself. Turd.

And no, it wasn’t us, because a) we go to the quick lube place to get our oil changed, thank you, and b) our lawn mower doesn’t use oil and c) WE DON’T THROW USED OIL IN THE TRASH, YOU SLIMESUCKING, KNUCKLEDRAGGER!

God, I’d have given anything to see you do that and get your license plate. I’d have been happy to turn your info over to my brother-in-law the State Cop.

Okay, the rest of you can carry on and look at the nice pictures.

I don’t know that my family ever did the same thing every year on labor day. I know a lot of people use it to get in one last beach day, or attend a fall fair. Today we were pretty low key – ran an errand this morning, then had lunch at Barber’s Crossing (single boiled lobster, 10.95, twins only 15.95. And they are GOOOOOOD) followed up with a round of mini-golf. Junior loves his mini golf. I wanted to go to the one at the Whalom driving range, which is unbelievably well-kept, and the price isn’t outrageous. Junior wanted to go to the one at Mason’s Bowling alley. Now I grew up at that course, mostly because it was within walking distance of my house. So I know it pretty well. I also know they don’t put much if any money into upkeep. I took a photo that kind of captures the feel of the place.

I think they owners are between a rock and a hard place (sort of like Whalom Park was right before it went out of business)…they need to put a lot of money into fixing it up, to bring in lots of new business. Because they aren’t getting any business, they don’t have any money to put into fixing it up. It’s one of those deals that the only way it’s going to be improved is if a new owner flush with cash takes over. I can’t see the current owners doing on overhaul, not when some of the holes are EXACTLY the same as they were 20 years ago when I was a regular.

So follow that up with some ice cream, and I think we’re just going to have hot dogs for dinner because that’s a Labor Day food. And with that, we can effectively kiss summer 2004 goodbye.

I just realized that most of the pictures I took weren’t of the people at King Richard’s Faire, which is probably good because it’s not like I was walking around with a stack of photo releases so I could put them on my site. Let’s just say that if you’ve never been to a Ren faire or the like, the people who attend are sometimes dressed more appropriately than the people working the fair. Several times my sister and I asked ourselves if someone was just a guest or not (including the way cool couple who dressed like wizards of some sort).

The two shots I’ll share are of the knight we were supposed to cheer for, based on where we were sitting in the jousting arena, and one of Junior trying his hand at archery, and the last him riding a wooden horse on wires where he’s trying to catch a ring on a wooden sword. We didn’t let them do the knife or ax throw, for those wondering.