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Cranky Observation

What is up with that thing little kids do where they slide head-first half way off of a bed or sofa and then start yelling for help? Grandrimpyette One is doing it right now. She's not the first child in this two-generation household to do it, but she certainly seems to be its most ardent practicioner.

She's not actually in any danger of falling. Assuming she can't actually pull herself back up, all she has to do is let the rest of her body slide gently down. I know she's capable of this. I don't recall doing this as a child. If I did, then my parents were probably justified in any irritation they may have experienced.

Veterans' Day Random Memories

Happy Veterans' Day, all you veterans out there. My hat is off to you for your service and sacrifice to our country.

I wish I could count myself amongst your numbers. Alas, although I was in the military, I am not a veteran, which requires 180 consecutive days of non-training, active duty. I won't go into the details of my brief stint in the army. It's not a great story, but my experience did leave me with some great memories, like the explosive snakes I told you about. This Veterans' Day prompts me to share a couple of related Basic Training memories:

#1: One of the things you learn to use in Basic Training is the LAW (Light Anti-Tank Weapon), basically a one-shot, disposable bazooka. We each got to actually fire a LAW a total of one time during Basic. The rest of the time, we practiced with a solid rubber full-size replica of a LAW. It didn't have any moving parts, but it was sufficient for running through the drill of how to use one.

One night, a private was going through the LAW drill while the rest of us looked on. When someone pointed out that he had gotten a step wrong, the private (who was a rather petulant fellow) let the LAW fall from his shoulder to the floor. A small piece, probably the fake scope, broke off. We all stared for a second, then one very large black private pointed and said in a mock-shocked, basso-profundo voice, "You broke...the LAW!". We all laughed very much.

#2: Of course, the LAW was just a small part of all the drilling and practicing we did to learn to be basic soldiers. It all culminated in a big test prior to graduation called the Super Bowl. You had to walk around in pairs to various stations in the woods and demonstrate to the attending sergeant that you had mastered whatever the task was. The sergeant would then sign off on that task on cards we carried with us.

When my buddy and I got to the LAW station, we had gotten to the point where we were were pretending to take aim at offending enemy tanks. To help us with our imaginations, the nice camp counselors had thoughtfully nailed a couple of little plywood silhouettes of nasty tanks to some trees. We had the LAWs on our shoulders when the phone rang inside the sergeant's little shed. He told us to hang on a minute and went in to answer the phone. He was gone for a few minutes. My buddy and I just stood there with the LAWs on our shoulders, waiting.

When the sergeant came back out, he had apparently forgotten what stage of the drill we were at, because he said, "Alright, you pass" and signed our cards. My buddy and I just looked at each other for a second, handed the sergeant the dummy LAWs, took our cards and beat feet to the next station. I don't think either of us were in any danger of failing that particular test, but why argue with good fortune (or sergeants)?

Halloween: A Late Report

I wanted to get this out much closer to the holiday, but I've been waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for Dudekazoo to send me his pictures from his camera of the costumed members of the household.Well, he finally sent them, so here we go: Halloween costumes 2009.

First we have Grandrimpy in his costume:

Jason from Friday the 13th. I don't know if he's ever actually seen any of these movies. I hope not, but his dad used to let him watch some pretty questionable stuff. He's been this same character for the past several Halloweens. I wonder if I should be worried.

Next we have Dudekazoo and Nike in their costumes:

Yep, they're Gilligan and The Skipper. I guess there were more dimensions to that relationship than we realized. No wonder Gilligan used to get so nervous when Ginger would try to kiss him.

Next we have Grandrimpyette Two as Pooh, and her cousin Justin as Elmo, with Uncle Craig:

Grandrimpyette One went as a fairy. Again. She's six. She's always either a fairy or a princess.

Bunny went as this cover of  The Great Gatsby...

...which Nike rendered on a large poster board with Bunny's own face inserted:

And here's my effort:

Yes, Hunter S. Thompson, swinging at invisible bats and manta-rays, a la Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I don't have on my prescription sunglasses, but you get the idea.

Suffice it to say that it involved shaving. Here's what I looked like on the afternoon of Halloween:

Pretty geezery, eh? Now here's what I looked like about half-an-hour later:

Quite a difference. I just don't know if it's for better or worse. Everyone says I look at least ten years younger without the beard, and I guess I agree, although the beard hides the neck fat (very attractive). If only the beard weren't so very gray, then it would be just fine.

You know, my wife has always said that I look like Jeff Goldblum. I don't see it myself. I've always thought I looked kind of like Matthew Broderick, but I could never get anyone to agree with me. That is, until Nike saw me without the beard. She spontaneously said, "You look like Matthew Broderick!". Neither Jeff Goldblum or Matthew Broderick are wonderfully handsome (or terribly funny looking), but personally, I would rather be compared to the latter than the former. Look at the comparison photos below and tell me what you think:

And that brings up a bit of a sore point. My wife's first husband (who is a very nice guy) has been likened by various females in this house to Tom Selleck, Antonio Banderas and Mel Gibson. I get Jeff Goldblum (and on a good day, Matthew Broderick). WTF?

Dorks and Boobs

The other day, there were two scummy-looking broads at the supermarket. One of them was wearing a black t-shirt that said "WARNING: SEVERE CHOKING HAZARD" with an arrow pointing down (similar to the one pictured above). I'm sure this shirt was designed for a man. I don't know if she was just not thinking about what she was wearing, or maybe she was commenting on the quality of her...nevermind.

Then, the next day I found this picture while trolling the blogosphere:

This is the exact male counterpart to the woman and her gender-confused shirt. I found the picture at a blog called "The Biggest Boobs Society Has to Offer". I can't imagine what made me want to click on a blog with a name like that. Suffice it to say, it wasn't quite what I expected, but it was good nonetheless. So good, in fact, that I added it to my Blog Roll. You can check out the original post here.

Pomegranate Squeezin's 2009

Sunday I sat down at my make-shift pomegranate processing station in the carport and spent the next few hours juicing all those lovely fruits I showed you the other day.

And below is the end result: 2.5 gallons of yummy, oxidant-bashing pommy juice waiting to go into the freezer until they can be made into jelly, delicious jelly. Or maybe grenadine! :) Mr. Pringle seems to approve.

I wonder how much that much juice is worth on the open-market. Maybe I'm in the wrong line of work. I probably could have gotten more juice out them if I'd had a bigger juicer, but I think I did alright. My fingers are still blackish today.

Halloween 2009: Jack Attack

So Halloween has come and gone for another year.  I was worried we weren't going to have much of one this year. With my job that just ended, my pay days were the 15th and the last day of the month, which I always thought was a kind of funky. Why not the first and 15th, or 15th and 30th? There's only one month that is short of thirty days. Oh well. I used to have my paychecks directly deposited to a pre-paid debit card. The money used to go in around 8 AM on payday. Then there was an incident in which, through some foul-up on the part of my company and/or its bank, myself and many other people got paid a day late, which really messed things up for a lot of people. I think my company ended up paying a lot of my co-workers for bounced-check charges they incurred. After that, the company starting paying one day ahead of actual payday.

Then I opened a real bank account and had my direct deposit switched to that. Turns out my bank, and maybe all banks, do things a little differently. Even though the company was depositing the funds directly one day before payday, my bank wouldn't make the funds available until the actual pay day. I didn't know that was going to happen, so my first direct deposit was a bit of a bummer because I had to wait a day longer than I anticipated. When you live from paycheck to paycheck with no cushion, one day makes a hell of a difference.

For my final paycheck, the company decided to mail me a paper check instead of doing direct deposit, so I ended up getting it on the actual last day of the month, which was fine, except this particular last day of the month happened to be Halloween (and a Saturday). We had to wait around till about 2 PM when the mail finally arrived. We were worried that if it didn't arrive that day, we would have to wait until Monday, and Halloween would have been pretty drab.

I cashed my check and went shopping for pumpkins. I hadn't really thought about it before, but my little town has a real paucity of decent grocery stores. For a while now all we've had were a Raley's and a FoodMaxx, which really represent the extremes of the economic spectrum. We used to have others like Alberston's, Lucky's and Safeway, but they all closed up. We used to do all our shopping at Raley's, but over the last few years it has evolved (if such a word applies) into a hoity-toity, high-falutin' supermarket for the Merlot crowd. Basically, we can't afford to shop there any more, so we shop at FoodMaxx, which is really very reasonable. It's one of those huge, no-frills kind of places where you bag your own groceries.

So when I set out to search for pumpkins, I was struck by the fact that I really only had those two choices. Raley's only had a couple left, and they were 59 cents a pound, which may not sound like much, but I weighed one to see what I was in for. The little six pounder, which wasn't big enough for proper carving, would have been about $3.60.

So I headed down to FoodMaxx. I didn't have high hopes, because DudeKazoo and Nike had been there the night before in search of pumpkins, and they found none. But there is a brand new Grocery Outlet in the same shopping center as FoodMaxx (which seems like a poor choice of location to me), so I decided to check them out first. I'm glad I did. As I walked up, two employees were setting out a new batch of big beautiful pumpkins in one of those cardboard bins just outside the entrance. They were so "just off the truck" that they were still cold. I've never bought pumpkins that fresh, except at a "pick your own" pumpkin patch. They were $3.99 a piece, which seemed a little dear, but I wasn't in much of a position to argue. The place was so packed with shoppers, I was afraid if I went over to FoodMaxx in search of a better deal, and didn't find one, that all those lovely gourds would be gone by the time I got back. I threw six in my cart, paid my money and headed home. Oh, they were so fresh they were a pleasure to scoop and carve.

Well, that ended up being a lot more verbiage than I intended (funny how that often seems to happen). Without further ado, I present for your viewing pleasure the 2009 model year jack-o-lanterns of the Rimpington household:

First we have Grandrimpyette One's jack, which she "designed" (by drawing a kitty face on some paper which would have been impossible to render on a squash), and I executed as best I could. I used a drill to make pupils that the candlelight would show through.

Then I made the one that I was "sharing" with toddler Grandrimpyette Two, who was napping at the time. I was feeling rushed and lazy and I already had a drill at hand, with predictable results. Besides, I've always wanted to experiment with power tools as jack-o-lantern carving implements. I think it turned out rather nicely. That mark below the right eye was already there.

Next we have Grandrimpy's offering. I'm not sure what he was originally going for, but it didn't turn out the way he wanted, so he turned his jack 180 degrees, hacked out some eye holes and finished it off with the drill. Very twelve-year-oldish.

Here we have Bunny's Jack. I don't know what "GD" stands for, but since she's heavily into Japanese pop rock, I'm sure it has something to do with that.

(I would sure like to know why some of these pictures end up on the left instead of centered. What's up with that, Google Blogger?)

Dudekazoo made a smoking Jack. It's hard to see here, but there is a very thin cut representing smoke rising from the stogy. It looked really good at night. For special effects he put an incense stick inside for smoke, but that mostly came out of the left eye.

I saved the best for last: Nike's drunken, barfing Jack (or, considering the runny mascara, Jill). Great!

Well, that's about it. You folks are probably the most people to see these wonders. My hilly, retirement-heavy neighborhood doesn't have a lot of kids, streetlights or sidewalks, so we don't get many Trick-or-Treaters. On the plus side, we have lots of left-overs of the candy we always buy "just in case".