Frog and Goat

Our friends R & J are headed our way. They live in Lancaster, MA and we haven’t seen them in a couple of years. I’m really looking forward to seeing them and the weather is going to be brilliant today and tomorrow. It should be enough warmth for them to shake that New England chill from the bones.

We have a few outdoor activities planned but the one thing I think we’re all looking forward to is sitting on the porch tonight and cracking each other up.

So we had one of these laying around in the garage.

Now we have a headboard for our guest bed.

I’m doing some research on options that Windows offers. In addition to the usual, it also offers some love. Check this out.

Tuesday night I had a dream that the Indigo Girls didn’t have a place to stay after their concert. I told them they could stay at our house. I was really excited. When we got home, I was about to burst with excitement and ran down the hall to tell Diana Ross that they were spending the night.

Did you get that?

Diana Ross.

I don’t think she was all that excited that they were staying with us.

Dear Shawn,

I caught your opener for the Indigo Girls last night. I wondered about whether or not you and the rest of the Thorns would do another album. It seemed from your comments that you probably won’t. You indicated that the record didn’t do well. I want you to know I love that record. I want you to know that you can be the opening act for any concert that I attend. You are very talented and you totally won over the crowd last night. You may not have noticed but people were yammering like crazy through your first song. Then you made that crack about how this would be a good time for your other guitarist to come in or how you wish you played harmonica. That’s all it took. People started paying attention. Your backing vocals on Kid Fears were awesome.

Thanks.

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So, guess what day today is…here’s my pantone color.

For the bulk of today I’ve been steadily working on fantabulous handouts for my contracting gig. One of the handout jobs was just to format something that was already content-ready. The other handout (the actual fantabulous one) is nearly ready but I had to stop. I was overcome by a feeling of embarrassment for the system. Yeah, I was embarrassed for a piece of software. It happens.

It is a long story but I’ve contracted with the state since late 1998 (on a full- and part-time basis). I’ve been there for the “dark” days of the software product. I was there when it was so unstable that we had to regularly cancel the afternoon portion of a class. I’ve also been there when huge strides have been made and am actually proud of several things that have changed about the system. Really. I will actually stop a class to tell folks how happy I am that some functionality or another is now available. When I write Help topics and training documentation, I try to let that enthusiasm peek into the equation without ruining the professionalism of whatever it is I’m writing.

Today, though, I had to stop because I was embarrassed about two sections of the software that are coming out later this year. I’m a little thankful that I’m not on the training schedule for these two items.

My boss laughed when I talked to her on the phone this afternoon and told her I’d have to pick it up tomorrow. She feels my pain. The bottom line is that we’re there to train the system not design it. We’ll train whatever the system has to offer–good or not so good.

Once in a imbibing mood, I decided that if I were ever going to teach on the college level that I would only teach the best course ever. The course would consist of comparing and contrasting short stories by southern writers with music from southern singer/songwriters along the lines of Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris. I believe that this would have to be a night class taught only to seniors. That’s because everyone would be required to have a cocktail while discussing the stories and songs.

You can imagine my glee and the occasional bark of laughter that this article brought.

Today for lunch we went to KFC. We actually ate in the store instead of doing the drive-thru. This is noteworthy and that’s why I even bring it up. While we were eating, a nimrod walked in and tried to order something not on the menu. Some kind of chicken sandwich. The cashier, who was very nice and efficient, said they didn’t have that item any more. Nimrod asked if he was at KFC. This is when the better-half and I locked eyes. The better-half asked me how nimrod could have missed the big picture of the Colonel when he walked in. I wondered what other chicken place was within 10 miles of this KFC.

Then for the love of God and all that is holy, the nimrod asked again if this was KFC. I asked the better-half to hold me back because I was going to hit that nimrod with the intelligence stick. The better-half suggested pulling out the clue stick instead.

This morning after a delicious breakfast of a fried egg, a couple of slices of bacon and some corn cakes we went canoeing. Here’s a brief lowdown: we saw a Great Blue Heron catch a fish and then swallow it down. We saw several muskrats and 2 beavers. One of the beavers whacked the water hard with its tail.

In other news, we saw a dead buzzard on the side of the road and we wondered if other buzzards will eat his dead-ass up (apologies to Wesley Willis) or if a dead buzzard gets free passage because the other buzzards know what that dead one ate during its life.