Someone is making $$$ off this!!!

There's this app the kids put on my phone. It's free (I hope!) but it has ads that, I'm pretty sure, pay the app writer/inventor/whatever.

So The Not Nice Kid tries it and gets, "Soothing." HAHAHAHAHAHA!! The kid came OUT pissed off and has been on a roll ever since. Wrong!

The Nice Kid tries it. This child is 170 pounds of solid muscle, can work like a man in Phil Campbell (tornado relief) and is the backbone of this family. Her reading said, "Delicate." Beginning to have doubts.

They put MY thumb on there? "Somber, dull and not affected by alcohol."

I couldn't make this up ;)

Grand Theft Tomato....

Y'all, I really did this. And as soon as I get it all told to all involved???? I'm gonna fall OFF the planet laughing and just bust a GUT ;)

Normally, this corner of the universe is awash in fresh tomatoes long about now. Given the rising temperatures of the last decade? The people who normally plant tomatoes...didn't, this year. I'm one of them and...I am in WITHDRAWAL. It is TIME for some 'maters and someone/somewhere needs to be supplying The Institution. No one seems too worried about it!

I was in fresh-tomato-withdrawal vocally on Facebook, and Friend RH volunteered her dad's bounty. God bless. She called and we arranged for The Nice Kid to pick up the tomatoes at FRH's house, on her front porch, early in the morning.

TNK called me, on her way into town, asking where she was going. I knew, but how do you tell someone how to get to a place you just...know where it is? So I said, being all know-it-all, "It's up past the tennis courts. Just GPS it...HusbandFriend RH. No biggie."

She did. Got the address. Found the house. Turns out? "Up past the tennis courts" can mean the road that runs RIGHT past the tennis courts, or it can be the road that runs past the tennis courts and north. TNK's interpretation and my interpretation...weren't the same ;(

When she got there, she couldn't figure out where she was supposed to go and there were no tomatoes in a bag on the porch so...she started trying doors. None of them were open and no one came when she rang. She finally found a side door, unlocked, stuck her head in and called "HusbandFriend?" When no one answered, she stepped inside.

Just then? A strange man busts into the room shouting, "What are you doing????" and TNK started stammering. "FriendHusband?" and he nodded so she goes on: "I'm Country Girl's daughter?" Blank stare. "I'm here for the tomatoes?" Confused look as SM looks around and spies tomatoes on the counter. Neither one of them have a CLUE what they're supposed to be doing, so SM hands her the tomatoes. She leaves.

Y'all!!!!!!!!! WRONG HOUSE!!!!! For real...my child walked into a strange house and took the man's tomatoes.

Grand Theft Tomato. Oh Lord...what kind of time does THAT particular crime carry?????

Turns out, God looks out for fools and them too damn dumb to look out for themselves and...this is FriendHusband's DAD's house. So when TNK mentioned FH, there was a suggestion that this wasn't a random break-in and since TNK doesn't LOOK like she has criminal tendencies, FH's Dad didn't shoot her.

Y'all.

We stole the man's tomatoes.

Unintentionally but....entering without breaking. Taking items under false pretenses but...it was FH's DAD'S false prentense.

TNK wants to bake a cake and go back and apologize. Far as I'm concerned, just fry the bacon and get out the lettuce. Hope he never sees you in public.

Plant your own damn garden next year ;(

It did WHAT???

If you store your cast iron in the oven? Because you live in the South and uae a convection toaster oven because IT'S HOT and you don't want to heat up the house?

Then, if you put a cantaloupe in the big oven so that the fruit flies don't find it, and then you forget about said cantaloupe, your cast iron will RUST. Rust. All of it ;( This part I didn't get; I mean, there's the moisture thing and all that but I'm a little offended that the cast iron got all pissy in...what? A week? Ten days? CHILL, boys, just chill a little. IT"S HOT.

And the cantaloupe will get all Stephen King on you.

Eating crow again...

Seems like someone could do something about that "youth wasted on the young..." thing. There are a bunch of things I sincerely regret, but one of them is something I swore would never matter. History. Who the hell needs to know about a bunch of musty old things and people that are gone?

I was wrong.

My high school history teacher was a gift from above, and I didn't have sense enough to know it. At the time, I was sure that there was no point in my life I would ever need to know any of the things he so avidly shared with us. Then later on, that "doomed to repeat itself," thing kicked in and y'all....will someone talk some sense into THESE kids?

The midi-dresses may just be an opinion, but I don't think so. Those things are just UGLY...they were ugly in the 60's when they first showed up, and they're ugly now. At least then, they were coupled with a LOT of ugly...everyone, male and female alike, had long stringy hair parted in the middle. Shoes were ugly...clogs. Mocassins. Platform things that made you look like you were walking around with bricks tied to your feet. I saw a woman in public somewhere last week, wearing a midi-dress...and had to ask The Nice Kid if that's what it was. I couldn't tell if the woman was in her nightgown or not. Walking around in 2011, with well-coifed hair and nicely maniciured nails and...wearing a shower curtain? Jars the senses.

(It probably also helped that in the 60's? Everyone was stoned. Lots of things that later turned out not to be such a good idea looked good through a haze of smoke...Corvairs and DDT immediately come to mind ;)

The black socks on athletes? Not an opinion...that shit is U-G-L-Y-ugly, too. First time I saw a kid on the tennis courts wearing black socks, I burst out laughing because OBVIOUSLY, he had forgotten his bag and had had to borrow a pair from someone.

Wrong. He was making a fashion statement and apparently, I'm the only one who thinks that if he's going to wear those socks, he needs a pair of Bermuda shorts, sandals and a camera hanging around his neck. Black socks+shorts=old men from up North. Can't fix it.

But THIS one??? I put my foot down on this one...no way, no how and I don't care WHO does it? I will ground your ass for eternity. I promise.

Bobby pins. Bobby pins, in your hair, deliberately used to be seen.

NOT fancy bobby pins. Not colored bobby pins, or jewelled bobby pins, or feathered or beribboned bobby pins. Brown metal bobby pins with plastic ends. Y'all, that's just WRONG. Tacky, cheap, ugly WRONG. And not just wrong but...why???? Why in the world, with all the cool things just BUSTING out all over at The Tar-Jhey, would anyone ever think that bobby pins were a good idea? They go in BUNS, for pete's sake, buried down in your hair so they can't be seen. THAT'S WHY THEY'RE BROWN. Common, uneventful, nondescript brown.

Ugly brown.

Then again, I'm the one who loves my baggy shorts with elastic across the back waist. Which is, as either City- or Comet-Girl pointed out...sort of like half a mullet.

Can't fix ugly ;)

I need a routine....

It's sort of feast or famine around here, isn't it?

• There are Things Going On. If I knew about bullets, I'd do something cute with bullets. (See, I just said that and...there are bullets up there. Let's see...)




• HA!! Bullets.




• City Girl works. All the time. While it bodes well for her retirement, investments and budget and such, it sucks for lunch-with-friends and being-spontaneously-funny-on-your-blog.




• It took me a long time to warm up to texting, but now it is my primary form of not-face-to-face communication. Which means that The Big Boy, (who has refused to voluntarily learn anything new in 40 years and therefore has a $15 phone from Dollar General, with which he conducts a million dollars+ worth of sales a month) and I speak even less than usual. No, I'm not answering my phone in a public place. No, he's not getting a keyboard. Hate it. Which leads us to...




• I think I'm going to join the Book of the Month Club. I belonged a long time ago and just took the monthly selection, on the premise that reading stuff I wouldn't normally read was in my best interests. It worked; I could cull the trashy romance stuff and I read some good things...The Greatest Generation immediately comes to mind. But the real reason is that I'm resisting...




• Non-book books. Y'all, I don't think we need to lose leather-bound and paper. I don't want to lose...ink. Illicitly turned-down page corners. Hell, turning the page! I may come around, like with the texting. I hope not.




• The Nice Kid turned 16 July 5. Originally, she was going to get her own car but a few choice incidences of poor judgement (driving too fast on an ungraded gravel road and knocking a $500 hole in the radiator? $1000 brake job because I SAID...SLOW DOWN???? Backing into the housekeeper's parked truck?) sort of changed things. So she got my trusty, well-abused Volvo, a steel cage on wheels and I? Am carless. Because...




• I started sending emails to TBB three months ago, reminding him we had to have another car the first week in July. He has never, in 50+ years, bought a car when we needed it. I have decided, however, that after four Volvos in 20 years, I'm changing vehicles. Partially for convenience, but partially because....




• My sister-in-law was at Book Club last week and one of the girls pulled her aside. Turns out, the girl had offended me in traffic (I'm pretty sure I remember this...large white/ivory SUV. Tried to kill me ;) and I had snatched up my phone and made a point of letting her see me take a picture of her tag. She explained to SIL that she didn't see me/mean to/go around killing people, and she was mortified that her name/picture/crime was going to show up in print somewhere. Ooops. Sorry. Y'all...I'm just loud. To begin with, I couldn't take a picture driving down the road if I had to (next bullet.) Also, if you knew you messed up? It's okay...it's the people who do it on purpose/without remorse I'm stalking ;) I didn't mean to be mean...




• Next bullet? TNK, The Not Nice Kid and I have shared 700 phone minutes for years. We have never hit 400 minutes...they text, 99% of our peoples are Verizon, too; and we just don't talk on the phone that much. Last phone demise, TNK got a Droid Thunderbolt, which is 4G. NO ONE TOLD ME that you can't have parental controls on 4G. Get an alarmist text from Verizon one day warning me something is going on, log in and check and...son of a bitch. On her own, single-handedly, without assistance, TNK had used 1100 minutes in 21 days. Called, fixed it, and handed her my old 3G. Me and 4G? Pearls before swine. This phone is a bitch ;(

Trying to lose the bullets...looks good from here. Sitting here with TNNK and a friend and considering just...calling and buying a car. TBB has been on the computer for a week. Comparing things and looking up things and checking things. When it comes down to it? I'll probably just buy the red one ;)