Opinions.....

I am shamelessly stealing this topic from my blogger friend Lakeland Jo, but I'm changing the subjects somewhat.

The idea is that I will share with you my opinion on some rather random subjects. In your comments, please indicate your opinions on the same subjects.

College Football - Live on it. Live FOR it. Nurse Jane says I could see two ants crawling across the floor, and I would pick one to pull for. I love the emotion and the competition.

Professional Football - Not as addicted to it as I used to be. Sometimes the athletes just look like they're out there doing a job. Yes, I know that's what it is.

Purses - Sometimes necessary, but I usually abhor them. I'll cram everything I can into my pockets (if I have them) just to avoid taking a purse somewhere. I usually have ONE purse, and when it falls apart I will reluctantly buy another. My current purse has a strap that splits into two so I can wear it like a backpack when I ride the motorcycle.

NASCAR - Pretty pointless, if you ask me. I'll watch the last lap and pull for whoever Hubby has in the pool that week. But if I had to choose between a colonoscopy and attending a NASCAR race live.......

Christmas - Not the same since Sweet Girl moved away. She didn't come home last Christmas, and she probably won't this year either. Hubby and I have enough stuff, so we have stopped buying each other gifts. Last year we left on Christmas Day and went to the casino for two nights. That was our gift to each other. I hate all the hype and the materialism and the fact that a lot of people can never have enough.

Cars - Not a passion of mine. I bought my last vehicle (SUV) for the simple reason that it was large enough to put my bicycle inside and keep it out of the weather. Cars are just to get me where I need to go. They don't have to be flashy, and I don't ooooh and aaaaaah over other people's cars. If I won the lottery, however, I would probably buy a convertible BMW.

Make Up - A necessary evil, but i'd rather not have to deal with it. My friend Amanda said years ago that women don't wear make-up for men; they wear it for other women. I'm convinced she's right. Men don't really care if we wear make-up or not (in fact, most of them can't tell the difference), but women notice if other women aren't fully made up.

Sushi - Never tried it. Will not consider it a great loss if I never do.

Cruises - Best vacation money we've ever spent. Aside from my $300 pedicure, of course.

Camping - I've had some great times camping, sleeping in a tent, cooking on a fire, the whole nine yards. Now that we've bought a motorhome, however, I'm looking forward to a new definition of camping. "Roughing it" from now on may be an RV park without wireless internet service.

Soap Operas - Right up there with NASCAR.

High Heels - Must have been invented by a man.

Reality TV - The only reality television show I've watched is Dancing with the Stars, and I'm hooked on it. But as for the others, I've never seen any of them.

Your turn - what are your opinions?

Come on, don't disappoint me!

By the Numbers.....

50: Number of students who inquired about working on their online curriculum this week, in spite of the fact that we are on Fall Break.

5: Number of students who have actually worked so far.

4: Increase in number of students working over the number I expected to do so.

300: Number of dollars worth of stuff (mostly for the motorhome) we bought today.

200: Number of dollars we actually had to pay due to a 30% off coupon at our favorite department store.

600: Number of dollars I would likely have spent had Hubby not been with me.

1: Number of former NCAA champion gymnasts I saw in the department store with her new baby.

22: Number of online assignments waiting to be graded for my part-time job. Not too bad, considering the fact that I was gone all day today and my motivation is nonexistent.

12: Number of days late my September check was for the part-time online job when I received it today.

5: Number of apologies we've received that we weren't being paid.

3: Number of contract addendum packages I received and returned ON TIME for the part-time online job.

0: Explanations received for why we got contract addendums.

40: Number of rows I've crocheted on my latest baby afghan.

82: Number of rows I have yet to crochet.

73: Number of times I've regretted starting this baby afghan.

4: Days left in my Fall Break.

2: Number of chores I've accomplished on Fall Break.

494: School days left until retirement.

Eau de.........Rain?.......

You know how some scents, or sometimes situations, can take you back in time to a certain period of your life?

For example, I can still get a whiff of pine trees in the early summer, accompanied by the chirp of crickets and other night creatures, and I am instantly transported back to the YWCO camp I attended as a girl. I can see the cabins: Dew Drop, Edweda, Hilltop, Crow's Nest, Upper Lodge. I can hear the whack of tennis balls and the bell signaling that rest time was over and we could FINALLY go swimming.

Tonight when I left line dancing class, it was misting just a little bit. There was the very first chill in the air, and immediately I was back in college the semester Amanda and I took an ass-kicker of a P.E. class called Fitness for Life.

It should have been called Fitness If You Can Live Through It.

We took this killer course because it was worth 3 credit hours. We had to have a total of 5 credit hours in P.E., so this one knocked out a chunk. I already had 3 credit hours in P.E. (tennis, roller skating, and tap dance), so taking FFL meant I would have MORE than I needed. (I'm the only person I know who graduated with elective credits in both P.E. and foreign language. The two things that non-majors in those areas take only because they HAVE to.) But it would mean I didn't have to take another P.E. course, and I would be finished. Besides, I would have it with Amanda.

We had a choice between swimming, running, and racquetball. They emphasized that the course was not to TEACH any of those skills, so we chose swimming. I didn't know how to play racquetball (not then - later post), and I knew enough about running to know that I'd rather have my fingernails pulled out. So swimming it was.

I guess we had the idea we would splash around in the pool for a while and gossip about people we went to high school with, and then we would show up for tests and stuff.

They don't give 3 credit hours for that course just for nothing.

We were allowed to start off kind of slow, but we were expected to build up our stamina until we could swim a mile in 30 minutes.

That was 72 laps back and forth across Stegeman Pool. An Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The pool isn't there anymore. It was housed in Stegeman Hall, a dungeon-like building that I think was used by soldiers in World War II. This is NOT one of those times I'm exaggerating. I'm sure more than one student was poisoned by the build-up of chlorine in that musty old building. Now there is relatively new facility with a pool and work-out rooms and tons of equipment, a state-of-the art facility affectionately known as the Ramsey Center.

I want to go back to college just to use Ramsey.

Anyway, Amanda and I had our routine. We actually had to show up and swim (I think it was two nights a week), because we never knew when our instructor would drop in. The smart ones were the ones who chose running -- at least they could duck through the woods. He couldn't watch EVERY runner at the same time.

We showed up to swim, we left Stegeman with our hair wet because we had only so much time between swimming and the classroom portion of the course. It was winter, and remember this was night school, so it was dark and cold when we left the pool.

We had to hurry, because we usually went straight from the pool to Schlotsky's. They had the best sandwich in the world, and I use the singular form because that was all they had. One sandwich. Oh, I take that back ... you could get the regular size or the big one.

And after we finished eating, we smoked our cigarettes on the way back to class.

We were fit for life, all right.

Catfish Memorial Ride....

Katydid, Rozmo, and I rode today in a bicycle ride called the Lewis Grizzard & Catfish Memorial Bike Ride. It was named for late great Lewis Grizzard, a sportswriter-turned-humorist whom I loved because he was unabashedly a UGA Bulldog fan all his life. Catfish was his lovable black Labrador retriever, the topic of many of his columns.

I was slightly disturbed when I went to the Lewis Grizzard website and found there a list of upcoming appearances, since Lewis died in 1994 at the age of 47.

The bicycle ride today was in his hometown (or at least the town he grew up in), Moreland, Georgia.

It was a perfect day for riding. Skies were overcast, keeping temperatures down, no wind, and no rain, unlike our LAST bicycle ride. I didn't hesitate at the decision point for which route to take, not even blinking when we chose the 66-mile route. And I didn't regret it one time. Well, maybe the last mile, since it was one mile further than the "two miles to the finish" that was painted on the road. But I would have hated that last mile no matter WHICH route we rode.

My personal decision to ride the longer route was based on three things: perfect weather, the Atlanta Falcons had a bye week so I wasn't missing a football game (well, I was, but not the hometown team), and I don't have to work tomorrow. Poor Katydid - On the back of the tandem, she's pretty much bound to my decisions. But luckily she usually agrees with them. I don't know what we'll do if she ever DISAGREES.

Katydid and I were on the tandem, and Rozmo rode with us to the bitter end. We were the last three people in, something that used to bother us but doesn't anymore. We left late, we dawdled at rest stops, and we're just dang slow. But Rozmo, being the terrific friend she is, stayed with us all the way, even though she could have finished much earlier if she hadn't hung with us, and we were just happy there was some lunch left when we got back.

After a 66-mile bicycle ride, dinner consisted of three kosher dill pickle spears and a small bag of pretzels. I crave salty things after a bike ride.

If I hadn't forgotten my camera, it would have been a perfect day altogether.

This One Wasn't in the Plans....

I wrote a blog post a couple of weeks ago about how obsessively I plan things. I was working on an afghan for Hubby at the time, and I already had planned the next 3 afghans I would make.

I finished Hubby's and started one for me. I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to keep that one or auction it off at the Nash Bash next year. I've got time to decide.

Then Sweet Girl called and asked if I could whip up a baby afghan for a friend of hers who is having a boy. I didn't think I could make one very quickly, but it took me just a week.

I never made a round afghan before this. It was a very easy pattern. Those "bumps" you see are cluster stitches. I couldn't understand the directions for those at all, but I did something that apparently worked, so I'm not sure why I even feel the need to explain that.

Now I've decided to make another baby afghan for a former student, a very special girl, who is also having a boy. I'll get back to mine sooner or later; I don't have any deadlines.

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The long-awaited motorhome is actually sitting in our driveway. Yay! Pictures of that tomorrow or Monday.

My team lost today, and the world did NOT stop turning. What's up with that?

Editorial License......

I did something today that I had never done previously.

In our local paper, I usually skim the letters to the editor, mainly to see if anyone has written something stupid.

I skip any letters about politics or healthcare, so lately I haven't had much to skim.

Today, however, I came across a letter to the editor from an idiot.

If you don't want to go read the whole letter, I'll sum it up for you. Basically this guy is complaining that he was "rudely" ejected from the UGA football game last Saturday because he refused to sit down when the people behind him, the ushers, AND the police asked him to do so. According to him, he "deserves the right" to stand up throughout the entire game, and anyone who doesn't want to stand up can either switch seats with him or stay home.

It's people like this guy who give the rest of us UGA fans a bad name. We already have enough fans who are jerks. Why did he have to put the proof in writing?

So I fired off a response to his letter. I've never written a letter to the editor before, although many times I've thought to myself, "I'd like to give that guy/gal a piece of my mind."

Here is what I said in my letter:

To the Georgia fan who was chagrined to find himself ejected from the UGA game last Saturday:

I’m glad you are a dedicated enough fan to sit through rain and help pull the Dawgs through. Fans are a big part of UGA’s football program, and it is exciting to hear the roar of the crowd.

However, your rights end where another person’s rights begin. You do NOT deserve the “right” to stand up if you block the view of another fan. The people behind you are just as entitled to see the events of the game as you are, and they pay the same ticket prices you do (theoretically).

Jumping up to cheer during an exciting play is one thing. Standing throughout the entire game is entirely different. The assertion that people who don’t want to stand throughout the game should stay home is preposterous and immature. How about if you want to stand up, you go stand in the student section?

I hope you do come back this weekend to cheer on the Dawgs. I hope you and your friends can pull them through again. I’ll be home watching on television. And if you insist on standing and obstructing the view of those behind you, I hope you are again escorted from the stadium.

I don't know if they will print it or not. If they do, I'm putting it on my resume. Hey, published writing is published writing.

I'm just sayin'.......

Picking up Bad Habits......

One of our cats has begun to pick up bad habits from Gus, our Pomeranian.

Gus is permitted to have bad habits, because he makes up for them in oh so many ways. He's almost like a person. Except he has more personality than many people I know.

Not so the cat.


He's not very modest. He appears to be covering his face in shame, while he displays the OTHER end of his body for all the world to see.

His name is Olive, because when we took him to the vet for the first time, they told us his name COULDN'T be Olivia.

But Hubby calls him Brutus, as he has called most of the cats we have had, except for the one named Smokey that he called Smog and the one named Wheeler that he called Wheels.

More specifically, he's Big Brutus.

Because he calls Missy Little Brutus.



As you can see in this picture, there is no plate of cat food on the table as of yet. (PLEASE don't tell my mother that's where we feed the cat. It's the only way to keep Gus out of his food. I always scrub it thoroughly before we sit down to eat. And you can't prove I don't.) That would explain the completely pissed-off look on this cat's face. He wants his food immediately, if not sooner.

And he's very vocal about it.


This picture is when he was still very little and very cute. Before he ballooned to weigh more than Gus. He was probably still Olivia then too.

This one is after he had to have not one but BOTH hips replaced. He looks a little embarrassed at being caught without his britches.

Having animals that DON'T cost us a fortune is apparently not in the tea leaves.

Lately, however, Big Brutus has developed an annoying habit that surpasses all of his other annoying habits.

He has begun to beg for food while we are eating.

Isn't that what a dog is supposed to do?

He starts off with a very subtle approach. He comes to my end of the table and sits there looking up at me. Invariably I cannot ignore the stare any longer, and I make the mistake of making eye contact with him.

"MEOW!" he says. Loudly.

I ignore him, because he eats about ten times a day as it is, and he doesn't have to supplement his pork-laden diet with people food. Especially when the people is me.

When I don't give him a bite of food, he comes closer, eventually standing up on his hind legs and patting my arm gently with his front paw.

"Hello? Did you forget I was down here?" he says.

Because he is so persistent and so loud and I'm a sucker, eventually I give him a tiny bite of whatever we are having.

He sniffs it at great length, debating as to whether or not he really wants to take it.

Sometimes he eventually DOES take it, and shakes his head (why do cats do that with their food? It's already dead!), more often than not dropping the morsel of food on the floor, where Gus snaps it up before Brutus can blink.

I don't know where he got this abominable habit of begging for food, but it is annoying. When we are having a meal like cornbread and soup, he refuses to believe there is nothing suitable for him on the table. He turns up his nose at a LOT of things we have for dinner, but he continues to beg anyway.

I fully expect to come home one day and find him smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.