Heyna

Northeast Pennsylvania has an odd dialect.

Many of us spend the rest of our lives trying to get rid of it.

It's hard to describe.... but I think some of it originates from the Irish coal mining settlers. I hear it mainly in the way locals say "tink" instead of "think", or "tree" instead of "three". But I'm just guessing.

The best one is "heyna" or "henna". Basically, it means "isn't it" or worse, a bastardization of "ain't it".

I don't know why I didn't post this before. A friend sent it to me ages ago - as a joke about where we grew up. The funny thing is, I realized I knew a few of the people from this comedy troupe.

It's quite funny - particularly so if you grew up here.

Brought To You By The Letter Q

A few months ago, I cut several inches off my hair.

Many, many inches.

It was time. I figured if I hated it, it'll grow back. This was inconceivable just a few years ago. I spent most of my life with long hair, and suffered under the delusion that if I cut it, it might never grow again. Or I might die from lack of follicle. Crazy shit like that.

Anyway.

Six inches less later....and I loved it. It felt liberating. So at the next appointment, I had a few more inches knocked off.

I shouldn't have tempted fate.

My hairstylist/hairdresser/hairartist - whatever they're called these days, is great. Really. This is the only salon I've stayed with for more than two years, and I've been completely happy the entire time.

Until now.

I decided to go with one of those neat angled bobs - short in the back, long in the front. The Anti-Mullet.

She cut, dried and straightened my hair. It looked great. Then she used the thinning shears. Who knows why - I thought it looked fine. Afterwards it just looked...wrong.

Stupidly, I figured I needed to style it myself, and it would be fine. Don't we ladies always do that? We convince ourselves it'll be fine once we “fix it” at home.

Um...no.

The full impact didn't hit til I tried to do my hair the next day. Somehow, the angle was lost, and it looked like a standard, straight bob, except for two looooong chunks on either side of my face. They swooped out from my head like tentacles.

From the side, I looked like the letter Q.

I went back in for an emergency appointment, with the excuse I was apparently too hair-challenged to style it like that everyday, and asked if she could just even it up. Which, of course, the only way to fix that is to remove more hair.

So yeah. It's short. It's also pretty. I'm mature enough to handle the new look and still feel damn good about myself.

Still, I think the experiment is over.

It'll grow back.

Got The Fever

I saw this on may way to the grocery store:

Because really, what could be better on Father's Day?

Of course, it had to be a joke. With a little googling, I found it was supposed to be a concert: The Twitty Fever Band.

Someone removed the “W”, consistently, as both sides were done.

Heh.

Aaaarrrrgh!

Blogger is really starting to annoy me. Recently, I find I can't load the site at all or login, yet any other site loads fine. A tracert shows it leaving my network, my ISP, and going out for about 15 hops then dropping into a black hole. Nuthin. Just dead ol' time outs. Then it'll come back a few hours later.

Yesterday, I couldn't even connect thru my phone. I kept getting site overload messages - but that could just be my service.

I hate computers. Heh.

Supernatural

I'm a bit late to the party on this, but I only just discovered the TV show Supernatural.

It's been running on the CW for years, then TNT picked it up in re-runs. Since they ran it every day, I blew through the first four seasons in about two months. Now I've been waiting for CW to re-run season five from the beginning.

Supernatural reminds me of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but with two brothers, Sam and Dean, traveling around the country hunting demons, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters, ghouls – you name it. Then there's a whole subplot about how Dean made a bargain with a demon to save his brothers life, and spent forty years (hell-time) in hell. Then he gets pulled out by angel Castiel, only to find out there's a “greater purpose” for the brothers (isn't it always like that though?). In this case, it's to prevent the end of the world. Of course.

The end of last season Sam was tricked into releasing Satan from hell and - you guessed it – brought about the apocalypse. So now they're working with a rogue angel to find out how to stop it, and in the meantime, try to find out where God went - because it would seem he's missing.

The first season wasn't so hot, and the stories a little flimsy, but once the show got going, the writing improved dramatically. And it's quite funny. If you've watched Buffy, it's similar to that. It's all scary stuff, with clever one liners mixed in:

Dean: Where's Cas?
Chuck the Prophet: He's dead... Or gone... The archangel smote the crap out of him, I'm sorry.
Dean: Are you sure? I mean, maybe he just vanished into the light or something.
Chuck the Prophet: Oh, no. He like exploded... Like a water balloon of chunky soup.

The summation at the beginning of every episode is quite cool. It's called “The Road So Far”, a collection of previous clips detailing what's happened in the previous episodes, scored to excellent classic rock music.

This is the opening for season five, which is so neat, to AC/DC's Thunderstruck. I tried to embed the whole video, but the party-poopers are insisting it be viewed thru YouTube. (I can alter the code so it'll play here, but I don't need any copyright grief.) Anyways, you'll get a message, but then click again and it'll take you to the folks at YouTube and it'll run there. It's worth it.

Red Admirals!

There were about fifty of these little guys on a flowering shrub in the garden. Friendly things, I had a few land on me.

They don't stay still for long, so it was difficult getting photos.

Click to enlarge:

And I Was Having Such A Nice Day...

I get to work, check my cell phone. Seven missed calls. One voice mail.

And what did the voice mail have to tell me? NOTHING. Whoever left it was tenacious enough to call SEVEN TIMES, but not considerate enough to actually leave a message.

Then I realize the number looks a bit familiar. Could be the school....after all, they're probably the only ones who'd call me during my morning commute. So I call it. Yep, it's the school.

Being a neurotic mom, all kinds of things are running through my head: bus accident, schoolyard fight, shooting, knifing.......then I wonder, if something really awful happened, wouldn't the school just leave a message, telling me to call asap? Maybe they called her father when they couldn't get me, and he hasn't gotten in touch with me yet? Maybe they didn't want to leave a message that would scare me. Okay that's just silly, NOT leaving a message scares me more.

I have to fight with the school's IVR system, which keeps telling me to dial zero for the office, except it won't accept zero - or any other number - then it disconnects me. I call back, slamming on the ZERO key, until a human being finally picks up the phone. I tell her "I have SEVEN missed calls, and NO voice mail from this number, so can you please tell me what's going on????".

Apparently the office lady noticed the freak out in my voice, and managed to say, "everything is okay...don't worry!".

Whew... no missing limbs, no knife fights or bus problems....yay. Turns out, my daughter wore a pair of khaki shorts that were too short. An inch above the knee too short, not "hiked-up-the-butt" short. So a teacher sent her to the office, and she tried calling me, repeatedly, to see if I can bring her another pair.

Now, bear a few things in mind:

1) I've been having the clothing talk with her for years now, ever since the school went with a uniform dress policy. Her clothes are too tight, too short, and yeah, I know, my parents had the same problem with me when I was a teen. So sue me. We didn't have a school uniform, and the only dress policy was: a) No shorts. Ever. Long pants only - even if it's 95 degrees in June and the school has no air conditioning. Whatever doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger. Also, b) no tube tops or tank tops for obvious boob-spillage reasons.

2) In addition to number one above, it's not like I let her leave the house wearing whatever she wants. I've sent her back upstairs to get changed plenty of times. However, she's been warned that if something gets by me and she gets caught by the school, she's got to take the conduct card, detention, etc. Yeah, I'm a big meanie.

3) I've reminded my daughter, repeatedly, about leaving me voice mail messages. If she's going to call like a stalker, at least give me the courtesy of leaving a message.

The office lady was very kind and understanding. She also sounded exactly like Grace, The Office Lady from Ferris Bueller. They gave her the choice of detention, or using the school's "spare" pair of capris. Apparently they keep extra clothing stashed around for these exact reasons. She opted for the capris, but whined they were too big.

Afterwards, I told my daughter I didn't care if they gave her a Snuggie – she should smile graciously and say “thank you”.

And yes, I'm giving thanks it was just some silly shorts, and not something worse.

Morning

It was misty, green and lush this morning. It rained all night, not heavily, but steady. Out here in the country, it leaves everything looking electric green, as if the woods took it's vitamins.

I'm long past my years of worrying about my hair and frizz, and tend to enjoy a day like this, even if the sun isn't shining.

There were four birds in the garden looking for worms. I would've loved to get photos, but I was on my way to the school bus stop, so no camera. Three fat robins and a cardinal that looked SO RED against the intense green backdrop.

I've seen this cardinal in the garden a lot recently. We don't usually have them, so I'm hoping it might build a nest. Often, we have a robin's nest in the hedge and baby bunnies in the snow-in-summer.

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home last night, to pick up milk and few other things, and made the mistake of passing the Tastykake section. We've been so good lately, eating healthy, I broke down and bought a package of the mini chocolate donuts.

I remembered we used to get these as a “treat”, once in a while when I was a kid. My sisters and I would try to be the first to get into the box, and then fight over the ones with the chocolate covered the donut hole - because that meant more chocolate!

Which reminds me, it's time for breakfast. Fiber filled oat/wheat/flaxseed crunch, or a donut?

Mmmmm.......donuts.

Poopsticks

Since I have soooooo much spare time during my commute to (and from) work..... you know, with all the stopping, starting, and stopping again......I've noticed a few strange things.

On the left side of the highway, in the median, there are sticks. Metal sticks. Covered in what appears to be poop.

Poopsticks.

Not Poohsticks.....that would be cute, and warm, and fuzzy. I-78 is not remotely cute or warm, and definitely not fuzzy.

But it's not really poop. Well, probably not. Maybe. Anyway, that would be really weird, even for Jersey.

However, I've been trying to determine the origin of these sticks, and why they are covered in a substance resembling poop.

Upon further examination, during a particularly nasty traffic jam, I realized these might be metal markers that originally had reflectors on them. A long time ago. Like, maybe in the dark ages. Or 1970.

Now they're all snapped in half, probably due to all the stupid driving going on. Add to that, all the road debris flying around, ready to impale itself on a sharp metal stick: the oil, gasoline, random car parts, body parts, plastic, garbage, blood, and quite possibly, poop.

There you have it.....poopsticks.

As you can see, I've managed to lose what's left of my mind. Four hours of NJ traffic, daily, will do that to you.

Here's a few more fun facts I've learned during my six months of hell:

- It rains rocks. For no apparent reason. Rocks. NOT kicked up from a truck, but falling from the heavens. Like manna. Or bird crap.

- Speaking of rain, it brings out the mentally deficient. Forget snow. Rain turns the PA/NJ commuter into a Tokyo Drifter.

- Under no circumstances should you listen to Motley Crue's Kickstart My Heart while driving. Before you know it, you're buzzing along at 95 mph, inviting a traffic stop and a body cavity search.

Fiber, Fiber And More Fiber

Hi all.

No new job yet. Still working on that.

I'm currently trying to survive working nights – it's amazing how much my internal clock despises this. I just can't get into the swing of it.

This is probably due to the fact that after working 11:00pm til 7:00am, I'm still expected to be back online by late morning.

I'm rocking four hours of sleep, at best. Thankfully, this won't last much longer, then some other poor idiot gets their turn. But that's a story for another day.

Aside from feeling like shit due to lack of sleep, I've felt like shit in general for the better part of two years now, which I've attributed to having gained 20 pounds.

A note to my relatives reading this – yes, I know. You don't think I need to lose weight. I was too skinny before. Appreciated, but it doesn't help the psyche, especially when I can't get my Irish-potato-picking-line-backer shoulders into that knockout dress hubby bought for me six years ago.

Sorry Mom..... you know I love you :-)

Anyway, I found another diet that sounded reasonable and promising. Eating healthier might make me feel better, after all.

I haven't gotten all the way through the diet book part yet, but I can see it involves a buttload (HA!) of fiber, in the form of oats, groats, insane amounts of veggie, and more oats. Apparently I'm expected to poop out all the excess fat.

Yes, I know, it's cleansing. I'm down with the oats. I even like oatmeal. I'm just a little nervous about spending that much time in the toilet.

The main gist of the book appears, so far, to be: cut the crap out of your diet (not literally, as you will be doing a lot of this), eat fresh things, lots of fiber, exercise, and watch meal portions. Duh.

Okay, so the recipe book does have some good info. I've made a few of the dinners, the beef stew and the chicken cassoulet, and they're not bad. Mostly, they just need some bang. Like extra garlic and spices. Blair's Death Sauce is always helpful. Besides, it's all natural – that's what we're going for, right? It's got no calories and no fat. WIN ! Just don't use more than four drops. Hubby refers to it as Wow-wow Sauce (thanks Mr. Pratchett).

I also found most of these recipes make enough for at least eight people, and I need to cut it in half, or I've got leftovers for a month.

The exercise part is difficult to work in due to my current schedule. I'm hoping once I'm off working nights, my daughter and I can go running again.

I'm thinking though.....maybe I should get Leonidas a leash and walk him. Heh. He needs a bit of exercise, he's looking a bit tubby: