Woof!

The three of us are planning to take a vacation this summer.

The hardest part is leaving the dogs. Oh I know, they’re just dogs…but we love them and I hate the thought of putting them in a kennel for a week. It breaks my heart for them. I mean, you know they don’t why they’re there, why their people ditched them or that we’re coming back. I hate that! They must be so sad!! Geez, I get all bummed just thinking about it!

Someone suggested that I try a pet sitter?

I’ve seen those ads but always dismissed them. Now I’m really considering it. After some research, I discovered;

they don’t cost any more than boarding them somewhere

they’re insured and bonded

they come 4 times a day for 30 minutes a pop

So…they would be alone a lot but at least they would be in comfortable surroundings.

I wish we knew some reliable teen or college kid that would be willing to just hang out at our house for a week. 

I guess the pet sitter thing seems better than a kennel though. but if we board them, at least people are near by the whole time, in case something happened. I'm sooo conflicted!

Flashback Friday

You really have to be a local to appreciate this week’s Flashback Friday. But you’ll like it anyway.

The Indiana State Fair always designates the year as a celebration of something. For 2014, it’s the year of The Coliseum.

It’s been undergoing a giant renovation. Partly because it needed it, it’s 75 years old. And partly because they won’t do the summer concerts outdoors during the fair anymore – due to the stage collapse before the Sugarland concert a few years ago, killing 7 people.

The Coliseum is a beautiful old limestone and brick building with thousands of old glass blocks. More than 35K of them were replaced during the renovation. They refurbished 7 old ticket windows

and even included one small section with original, refurbished seats.

The Indiana Pacers played there when they were still an ABA team. They won 3 championships there.

In 1963, the state’s worst disaster happened there. On October 31^st, during a Holiday on Ice show, a propane leak caused an explosion that killed 74 people and injured 400 more.

It’s also the only venue in the state that the Beatles ever played. Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner, and The Who have played there too! I saw my first concert there; The Guess Who. We saw Sonny and Cher and Mac Davis there as well.

In an era where everything wants to be shiny and new, I’m glad they didn’t tear it down and start over. Sometimes it’s better to stick with the classics.

silly things that make me smile

I love sunshines. I have at least a dozen of them! I have a ceramic one, metal ones, a terra cotta one and a couple hanging one. They make me smile. 

I have these;

and last month my fella found one on sale at Hobby Lobby that was really cool!

He hung it on the front of the house. It's awesome! But...now he's not sure he likes it there. Why? you ask? Because it's too hippie-ish. Pshh. You know it's going to stay up there, right?

ink joy

I love it when people think of me when they see fun pens...because they know I have ink joy :-)

weird~

Today when I was walking along the canal, look what I saw;

See it there? That's a drone. That made me uncomfortable.

yum-O

This past weekend, my husband officially reached his full retirement age. I don't think he's sure about how to feel about that. Anyway...now that we're all old(er), we just go out to eat for our birthdays. This year when I asked him where he would like to go, he said he wanted me to find a bakery where we could go in and sit down and have some coffee and eat pastries. Do they still have those somewhere? My response was, maybe, but where do you want to go to eat? He said, a bakery. I just want pastries and danish. Lots of different ones. I know what you're thinking, but he was completely serious! He just wanted to eat A LOT of pastries!! Knucklehead. But hey, it's his birthday!

He changed his mind though, when it came down to it. So we went to The Journey. He loves that place because, one, it's all you can eat and two, it has sushi. He ate 3 plates full of sushi. He was a happy, happy guy.

But, I was pretty sure that he was a little sorry he didn't actually choose pastry. So, Sunday morning, right when they opened, I went to Panera's and bought him some :-) I got him a berry scone, a white chocolate macadamia nut cookie, a bear claw, a cinnamon roll, a cherry danish, a chocolate pastry, a pecan roll and a Asiago cheese bagel. By dinner time they were all gone. All of that plus, I took him to the movie where he ate most of a large bucket of buttered popcorn. If I did that, I would have gained 30 pounds!

It was pretty funny this morning though when he woke up he said, "I'm not full!"

Flashback Friday

It's kind of an interesting day in history;

Jul 18, 1984: Twenty-one people are shot to death at McDonald's
James Oliver Huberty opens fire in a crowded McDonald's restaurant in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and wounding 19 others with several automatic weapons. Minutes earlier, Huberty had left home, telling his wife, "I'm going hunting... hunting for humans."
Bringing several guns, including a 9mm automatic pistol and semiautomatic rifle, into the McDonald's two miles from the Mexican border, Huberty demanded that the 45 patrons get on the floor. He then walked around the restaurant, calmly shooting people. He killed 20 in the first ten minutes, including four who tried to escape.

I remember when this happened. Because my boyfriend at the time was an LAPD dispatch cop, I listened with him to the recording of the calls to the 911 dispatch. It was horrible. I remember that I didn't listen to the whole thing...it was too much for me.

Jul 18, 1969: Incident on Chappaquiddick Island 
Shortly after leaving a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy of Massachusetts drives an Oldsmobile off a wooden bridge into a tide-swept pond. Kennedy escaped the submerged car, but his passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, did not. The senator did not report the fatal car accident for 10 hours. On July 25, Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the scene of an accident, received a two-month suspended sentence, and had his license suspended for a year.

That hardly seems like a severe enough punishment.

Jul 18, 64: Nero's Rome burns
The great fire of Rome breaks out and destroys much of the city on this day in the year 64. Despite the well-known stories, there is no evidence that the Roman emperor, Nero, either started the fire or played the fiddle while it burned. Still, he did use the disaster to further his political agenda.


Jul 18, 1940: FDR nominated for unprecedented third term
On this day in 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who first took office in 1933 as America's 32nd president, is nominated for an unprecedented third term. Roosevelt, a Democrat, would eventually be elected to a record four terms in office, the only U.S. president to serve more than two terms.

Man, can you imagine having the same president for FOUR terms??? I've liked a couple of the presidents in my life but not enough to want them to serve for 16 years! Whoa.

Flashback Friday

What was your first job? My brothers first job was as a paperboy. While that was a lot of work, his first 'real job' was probably someplace like Del Taco.

I did a lot of babysitting but my first 'real' job was at Laughner's Cafeteria. Do you remember those? If you have no idea what that was, it was kind of like an MCL with a country flair. I was a busgirl. Later I was promoted to the 'line'. I liked that better. As a busgirl, I was smelly at the end of the night. Ick. 

Then I got a job at Sizzler and kept that one all through high school. I had a couple other part time jobs while I was working at Sizzler too. One was at Sunoco. I opened the station up before I went to school. That job only lasted a couple months though. It was just too early for me!! 

The other one was working at Ayr-Way. 

http://www.retailergraveyard.com/categories/department-stores/ayr-way

Ayr-Way was the first Target. I worked in the toy department at Christmas. Man did THAT suck!!

I have found memories of my first jobs though. Do you?

...when you're downtown...

There are definitely some perks about working downtown. Today was a beautiful day - blue skies, sunshine, breeze, not too hot. Downright perfect! So I took a walk along the canal at lunch. There's a lot going on around the canal when it's a beautiful day!

There are gondolas

and paddle boats

and art

and landscaping

and ducks and Koi fish

I've always wondered what happens to them in the winter?

Hey!!!

My name is not even in the top 100 most popular girl names anymore. Hmmph! That's not cool :-(

http://living.msn.com/family-parenting/most-popular-names-thus-far-of-2014-1

Stupid list.

Flashback Friday

In January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.

The Declaration of Independence was largely the work of Virginian Thomas Jefferson. In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights, and from the work of other English theorists. The first section features the famous lines, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." The second part presents a long list of grievances that provided the rationale for rebellion.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1776-1785/the-final-text-of-the-declaration-of-independence-july-4-1776.php

What day is iiiiiitttt???

Hump day! Woo woo! Also, today is my Friday! Yessssssssssssssss!

So, my Mom said last night that my blog has been kind of negative lately. You know, all that 'I hate people' talk. I don't feel that way today so I think I'm over it now. Sorry Mom :-)

Anyway, for some fun, here's the link to that Muppet video I talked about a few Fridays ago. Remember, when I said that the Ed Sullivan show had this puppet thing once that cracked me up as kid? This isn't it, but it's a pretty close rendition;


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r395r7V7hjo