Lessons I Learned While Baking Cookies

Today Mom and I had a cookie baking extravaganza and I learned a few valueable lessons.

1. I'm not much of a cookie baker.

2. I suppose I should bake cookies more than once a year.

3. Read, REALLY READ, not just skim, the directions before you start assembling the ingredients for your cookies.

4. Don't eat unsweetened chocolate by itself. It will taste like chalk in your mouth.

5. A bowl gets really hot when it has been in the microwave for 4 minutes.

6. When all of your table and counter space get filled with cookies and bowls, the floor will do nicely for your other supplies.

7. Kitchen-Aid mixers are awesome!

8. Sometimes the sloppiest, ugliest cookies are the best tasting cookies.

9. A hot cookie sheet can burn through an oven glove.

10. There is nothing better than the smell of cookies baking in the oven.

11. Except getting to eat those cookies.

Christmas Funnies

I saw this in the Hallmark store the other day and had to buy it.

I have a friend who has 3 cats and one year she had a difficult time keeping one particular cat away from the Christmas tree. Not long after they had put the tree up, she and her husband were awakened by an ear-splitting crash in the middle of the night. They went downstairs and found one of their cats had climbed into the tree and knocked the whole thing down, breaking most of her ornaments. She told me that cat never bothered the tree again.

1989 was the year that we got our first dog, Annie and the first time we bought a real tree for Christmas. Annie was about 7-8 months old when we got the tree. Annie must have thought it was exciting that we brought a little bit of the outdoors into the house because she chewed off a bottom branch of the tree and ran around the house with it. Our parakeet Tinker didn't want to be left out of the fun and decided to fly into the tree when I let him out of his cage. It was so funny.

Do you have a story that involves either a pet or child incident with the Christmas tree?

GruntDoc has a link to a hilarous website called the Scared of Santa Photo Gallery where participants mailed/emailed photos of themselves as children or their own kids screaming and crying when faced with Santa Claus. My favorite picture is the third one...check it out. I don't ever remember being afraid of the mall Santa. In fact, my mom told me one Christmas season I talked Santa's ear off when I sat on his lap! There was also the Christmas when I had Santa come to MY house on Christmas eve! (It was a neighbor from across the street) I remember being so excited to be able to see Santa that night. I may have talked his ear off then too.

How many of you remember being afraid of Santa (or your kids being afraid) and either crying or screaming to get off his lap? I'd love to know...tell me your stories!

"I'm Standing in the Front Yard With Pie."

There are 3 characters in this story, myself, my mother "Windy" and other person that will be introduced later in the story. The majority of this story will be told from Windy's point of view with a paragraph or two from my vantage point. Let us begin.

Windy woke up at 4am one morning to answer nature's call and while in the bathroom she heard the sound of running water. She checked the bathroom and kitchen sinks to no avail. Still determined that there was water running somewhere in the house, Windy went downstairs and pin-pointed the source of the noise to the main water valve. Thinking that the outdoor water faucet was on, Windy turned the flood lights on and walked out the back door to investigate. She did indeed find that the outdoor faucet was mysteriously turned on but in solving one problem she had created a new one. The basement door locks when shut and Windy had forgot to bring a key. Windy was up the proverbial creek without a paddle and she didn't know what to do.

The only person with a key to the house was me, her daughter, and I lived on the other side of town. (38 miles away) Windy walked up to the front porch to sit and think about her situation. As she sat there and debated whether or not to wake a neighbor to borrow the phone, she heard a TV and noticed the basement lights were on in the house across the street. Windy went across the street and found her neighbor, a man who went by the nickname Pie, asleep in front of the blaring TV. She woke Pie up and told him her story. Together they walked to Windy's front yard where she called me, using Pie's cell phone.

Now this portion of the story is told from my perspective. The shrill ring of the phone pulls me out of a deep sleep. It's dark outside and my movements are slow and clumsy as I fumble around for the phone on the nightstand. The phone stopped ringing by the time I found the receiver, but there was message waiting on call notes. It was panicked message from my mother and her exact words were:

"Chickadee, I've locked myself out of the house. I'm standing in the front yard with pie."

I listened to the message twice, trying to figure out how she had locked herself out and why she would even leave the house when it was pitch black outside. And was she really standing in my front yard with pie? I got up to look out our bedroom window, which faced the front yard.

"Why would she say she's standing in the front yard with pie?" I asked outloud, peering through the blinds. Under the pale glow of the streetlight from the corner, I could see nothing but my car in front of the house.

"Hmph?" My husband sleepily asked.

I returned to bed and told him what my mother had said. He made a half-snort, half-laugh and turned the light on. Mom had not left a phone number but I pulled Pie's number off the caller ID and called her back. Now that I was more awake, I was a little on the peeved side and wondering if my mother had lost her marbles. I talked to her briefly and she told me that Pie was going to work on the door and that she would call me back.

It took some effort, but with the aid of a credit card, Pie was able to pop the door open.

Moral of the story? Don't answer your phone or listen to the message when it rings in the middle of the night. Oh, and hide a spare key somewhere around the house. Or, just don't leave the house in the middle of the night.

The Attack of the Killer Amazon

My friend Trillium works as a zoo keeper in the Children's Zoo and one of her responsibilities is trimming the resident birds' beaks and nails. Consequently, all of the birds, especially the parrots, hate her with a passion.

The birds in the Children's Zoo either have educational jobs or are out on display to be admired by the public. Most of the parrots are the stars of the zoo's summer programs and live together in a large room. The parrots are treated well and each has their own spacious cage filled with lots of toys. These parrots include a Blue-and-Gold Macaw, Scarlet Macaw, Conure and 2 Amazons.

One day a few weeks ago Trillium was assigned the duty of cleaning the parrots' cages. Trillium knew most, if not all, of the parrots hated her but she wasn't worried. Cleaning the cages was a fairly simple task that did not require handling the birds. The trays in most cages are separated by a grate and these grates serve 2 purposes. One is to prevent the parrot from walking around in its droppings and the second is to protect housecleaning fingers from nippy beaks. Some cages do not have the grate and obviously require the bird to be removed from their cage for a successful cleaning.

But there was one parrot in the bunch who would need to be taken out of her cage and that was Bonnie. Bonnie was an Amazon Parrot and for those of you who don't know, Amazons have strong personalities and be quite aggressive towards those they don't know or like. Large parrots can bite down with the equivalent of 700 pounds per square inch. That's quite a chomp.

With these facts in mind, Trillium asked about Bonnie and was repeatedly assured by her co-workers that Bonnie was a very sweet bird. Still skeptical, Trillium grabbed a dowel to take Bonnie out of the cage. Bonnie vehemently attacked the stick before stepping on to it and proceeded to quickly advance towards Trillium.

Seeing Bonnie's obvious desire to chew her down to a bloody stump, Trillium switched the dowel to the other hand but the bird continued to race up the stick. Trillium put the stick and bird on the ground and backed off. Bonnie began a high-pitched cackle like that of the wicked witch of the west as she advanced towards Trillium. Bonnie had cracked open a can of whoop ass and intended to finish it.

Trillium recalls that Bonnie's body language was the epitome of Amazonian aggression, eyes pinning (pupils continually constricting and dilating) feathers fluffed, tail fanned and wings slightly extended. The bird had literally backed Trillium up against a wall. Trillium called for help and when help arrived, they couldn't believe their sweet, sweet Bonnie was so mean.

I guess their Bonnie had gone bad.

"Is This What It Feels Like To Have A Baby???"

My Soul Sista wrote this one and sent it via email. This happened to her a few weeks ago.



As I was driving back from Texas to Fort Leonard Wood, MO, somewhere in the middle of nowhere OK, my son made the announcement that he had to poop. I told him that we were almost to Mc Donald’s that he’d have to wait, because there was no where else to stop. I was talking on the phone with my brother who lives in Georgia and often keeps me company on long drives via cell phone. By now… Turkey (he was born near Thanksgiving) is crying. I told him to look out the window to look for somewhere to stop to go poop. There was nothing in sight! We were about 15 miles from the next rest stop.

While I was talking to my brother, Turkey busts out with, “I feel like I’m having a baby!”

I bursted out with laughter…..

He says, “Is this what it feels like to have a baby?”

It was funny. I know it sounds cruel to laugh at a child that has to go to the bathroom so bad he’s at the point of tears, but I couldn’t help it! So needless to say, he couldn’t wait until the Mc Donald’s, so I pulled over on the side of the road, where I continued to laugh hysterically. As someone who has had to pull over on the side of the road and pee, I consider myself an accomplished on-the-side-of-the-road-squatter. As he’s doing his business, I coach him through the process. You’ve gotta make sure you’re not right over your pants, or you’ll poop on them. Blahdy Blah. You get the point. Every now and then there’s a vehicle that passes us. We are right off the interstate now…. I’m still laughing. My poor child!

He’s done, we get back in the car, and we drive on to the Mc Donald’s, because I had to go potty! Most of the rest of the drive home is me making phone calls to people who would answer their phone to tell them the poop story. Turkey’s a good sport though. He didn’t get too mad at me!

Trapped!

My Mother-in-Law, whom we shall call Toadputty (it's her favorite word that she made up) leads an interesting life. She has a knack for meeting people with unusual quirks and for finding herself in a variety of odd situations. On Monday Toadputty found herself in one of her usual misadventures.

Toadputty's daughter is getting married in October and she spent the weekend searching for a "mother of the bride" dress. Saturday she went to the LM Bridal Store, a small shop owned by an elderly Jewish couple. Other than the sticky dressing room door, Toadputty was pleased with her experience. The couple was very accomodating and even let her try on a plum-colored dress that was pre-purchased and waiting to be picked up. She liked the plum dress but wanted to shop around a little more. She searched several department stores and dress shops on Sunday in vain and decided to order the plum dress.

She returned to the LM Bridal Store on Monday and as fate would have it, the plum dress was still there. Mr. LM, the elderly co-owner of the store, insisted that Toadputty try the dress on one more time. Toadputty went into the same dressing room as she did on Saturday and found that she needed help with the zipper on the dress. She went to open the door and found that she couldn't turn the knob. Toadputty was trapped in the dressing room! Toadputty called for help and the couple rushed to her aid.

"You know, we had a lady in this same dressing room earlier this morning who had a difficult time opening the door." Mr. LM commented.

Toadputty said nothing in reply but fumed from her side of the wall and wondered why they didn't close the dressing room off when they had troubles with it earlier in the day. There was a great deal of jiggling of the knob from both sides of the dressing room but the door would not budge.

"A screwdriver!" Mr. LM exclaimed. "We'll use a screwdriver."

Mr. LM retrieved a screwdriver and began working at the door without result. Mr. LM slid the screwdriver through the slates of the door for Toadputty to use but she had no luck either.

"I'm going to break the door down." Mr. LM said with an authoritative and determined air. "Stand back."

With the visions of a cartoon character running in place before tearing off at warp speed, Toadputty stood on the opposite side of the dressing room and waited. Mr. LM hit the door with a force that shook the walls, but the door remained unaffected.

"Lock the door." Mr.LM said.

"What?" Toadputty asked dubiously.

"Lock the door. If we play with the lock, we might be able to get the door open."

Toadputty questioned the sense behind Mr.LM's reasoning, but she obligingly pushed in the little button that was just under the knob. Again, more fiddling and jiggling. After a few minutes of trying, the man spoke up.

"Okay, this isn't going to work. Go ahead and unlock the door."

At this point Toadputty had been in the dressing room for 30 minutes, she was hot and sweating in another's woman's dress.

"The button only pops open when you turn knob and I can't turn the knob." Toadputty replied curtly.

When Mrs. LM ran over to the tuxedo store for help, Toadputty wisely decided to change back into her street clothes. A few minutes passed and a new voice entered the coversation. It was Tuxedo man and he wanted to climb over the door and try to open it from the other side. A ladder was fetched and Tuxedo man nimbly climbed over and jumped down to stand next to Toadputty.

"Great." Toadputty said irritably. "Now we're both locked in here. What are you going to do?"

With a smile and gleam in his eye, Tuxedo man used brute force to push the door open. When the door swung open, there was a round of applause from the small crowd that had gathered to watch the drama.

Toadputty swears on a stack of toads that this really happened to her .

Chickadee