You're Doing It Wrong

The other night we had an event after work and didn’t get home until 10pm. As soon as we drove up I saw the blooms and jumped out of the car to take a closer look.

Then I noticed that the entire flower bed and wall of my house was covered with snails. I have been seeing a few when it’s damp out but this was crazy.

I went into the house and changed in my garden clothes and got a flashlight and a bucket and picked 133 snails. Plus I stepped on two by accident.

Here is a simulation. There’s a wall on the left that faces away from the photo that was also snail land although many of these snails were too high for me to reach and are probably desperately reproducing right now while we sit at our computers.

Why can’t I have more dollars than I need and be wishing I had extra snails?

Gross, huh?

These are from our trip to Canada last summer. Bob wanted me to sit in the giant yellow chair and I said, “That’s so stupid.” Then this random stander-by encouraged me so I crawled in. I stuck them together for our xmas cards and this was photo 1.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen Jupiter Ascending (the Wachowskis’ bright and loud space opera), Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise time travel-Groundhog Day-ish), and finally, Guardians of the Galaxy (Marvel movie, but funny and I was hugely resistant to but finally bowed to pressure, not sorry.)

Then we ran out of xmas cards so I made more and I wanted to try to improve the photo and I did this one. Just so you know, there are 2 versions if you’re collecting.

The main things these movies have in common is major set pieces in the middle where it’s hard to tell what exactly is happening. Also, stories that don’t really make sense.

At the same time, they are very entertaining and satisfying. Especially, Galaxy. I’ve been humming “I’m Not in Love,” non-stop. I love hearing songs that I haven’t thought about for eons and then finding I can remember all the words.

That happened last week with The Eagles, “Life in the Fast Lane.” “He was a hard-headed man/ he was brutally handsome, and she was terminally pretty …”

I don’t think I was won over to 10cc until “The Things We Do For Love.” I bet my sister still has the cassette.

But back to the movies, what is the lesson? If you know what you like and you’re entertained, who cares?

I think this is a tomatillo skeleton. I saw it when I was taking out the compost.

We received a giant Whitman’s sampler box for Christmas.

My spouse is a choco-fiend and I sometimes get after him for eating all my See’s Candy or in the alternative, eating it all except 3 little crummy pieces. The most recent box I bought still had a few pieces in it that he’d left for me. I thought I would be clever and consolidated it all into the Whitman’s box.

I kid you not less than 48 hours the See’s were all gone. Just the wrinkled paper wrappers left amongst the Whitman’s chocolates.

(I still have a box of See’s stashed away. I also still have Christmas candy including a box of Harry and David’s truffles. I’m not hurting.)

I couldn’t make anything clever happen with this photo. I tried a bunch of clip art and goofy shapes and it all looked too stupid for words. So I added a filter and gave up.

I have this habit of fiddling with my wedding band. As in taking it on and off. I do it all the time and there have been times when I was sitting in bleachers or standing on a pier where I said to myself: if you drop this, you are going to be sorry.

Which is why it’s funny that when I finally dropped it I was sitting on my couch. And the ring fell into a very narrow crack. Too narrow for hand or fingers.

This happened Thursday night. I still haven’t gotten it out. But I haven’t exhausted my ideas yet. I tried putting duct tape on things that would fit down there and tried a hook. At least I know where it is.

Can I take the couch apart? Probably but will be major undertaking so I’m holding off on that for if I become desperate.

Can I use the vacuum? Maybe. Haven’t tried that yet. That’s the next attempt.

I’m also wondering if I tilt the couch it might slip into an easier to reach spot or even better, fall on the floor.

I have a couple of other ideas.

I take the ring off sometimes, like if I’m cleaning something really ooky, but I’ve never not worn it and it feels really weird. I keep grabbing my ring finger right there and it feels indented. When Bob came home I felt really bad and kept apologizing and he reminded me that he lost his ring and didn’t wear one for years. I finally bought him a new band last year.

I try to give myself Photoshop assignments which end up being revised and revised to my skill set until I end up with three ghost chickens and a misty tree. Once again, my artistic vision was compromised by my weak skills and being in a big hurry.

We’ve been getting mail addressed to a different person at a similar address but not the same and a different zip code. I kept writing wrong address on it. I couldn’t figure out why these items kept coming to us.

I finally figured out these were from a student loan company and fired up my search engine and figured out that the address was correct except for the house number was missing a single digit. So the most recent one I forwarded and hopefully it will get to the right person and he can fix the address.

I hope I win some good karma points on this.

I remember when one of my greatest goals in life was collecting lots of flavors of Lip Smacker. I think I had a giant one in peppermint and then a bunch of small ones like strawberry, watermelon, and cola.

Bonne Bell is no more. According to the article the company was founded in 1927 and the Lip Smacker created in 1973. They also had this face toner called 10 0 6 lotion that supposedly helped my zitty face.

There was another kind of lip gloss that was a liquid roll-on thing which I don’t even understand the point of. I think I put it on and then licked it off. I think I had bubble gum flavor. And while it was on, my lips looked slimy. Those were the days.

I was missing my summer favorite berry and peach pie so I decided to try to make one with frozen fruit. We have lots of strawberries and blueberries that we froze ourselves. I bought a bag of peaches at the market.

I looked at recipes online and they suggested doubling the thickener to make up for the liquid released from frozen fruit. This was not a good suggestion. The pie is juiceless. Next time I would maybe use one extra tablespoon. (I use tapioca.)

I was also a little bit timid with sweetener, for no clear reason. I guess I thought the fruit got magically sweeter in the freezer. This was also a mistake. I’m afraid of things being too sweet but fruit pies taste bland without enough sugar.

Finally, the recipes recommended a much longer baking time. You don’t thaw the fruit first. This was operator error. I had it in the maximum time recommended and I thought it looked a tad under-baked but since I over-baked a pie last summer, I was nervous about leaving it in too long.

So overall, a decent pie and better than store bought, but lots to improve next time.

My sister is visiting and she brought me a manatea. Isn’t he cute hanging out? I hate to get it all gungy with tea but it will come in handy at the office.