Is it wrong?

Is it just plain wrong to put vegetarian chili on a hot dog and make a chili dog? How would you vote on that?


The Obvious Answers Quiz
(Passing grade - 40%)

1) How long did the Hundred Years War last?

2) Which country makes Panama hats?

3) From which animal do we get catgut?

4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution?

5) What is a camel's hair brush made of?

6) The Canary Islands are named after what animal?

7) What was King George VI's first name?

8) What color is a purple finch?

9) Where are Chinese gooseberries from?

10) What is the color of the black box in a commercial airplane?


Now, before listing the answers, let's talk about the chili dog...
A friend from church gave me the vegetarian chili. The next time that she saw me she asked if I liked it. I told her honestly, very much! I didn't reveal, however, that I'd enjoyed it on top of a hotdog, and that two kinds of cheese were sprinkled on top and some BBQ sauce, too. Yummy!


OK, here are the answers:

QUIZ ANSWERS
1) How long did the Hundred Years War last? 116 years
2) Which country makes Panama hats? Ecuador
3) >From which animal do we get cat gut? Sheep and Horses
4) In which month do Russians celebrate the October Revolution? November
5) What is a camel's hair brush made of? Squirrel fur
6) The Canary Islands in the Pacific are named after what animal? Dogs
7) What was King George VI's first name? Albert
8) What color is a purple finch? Crimson

Tricky, eh? I found the quiz online. So what's new in your life?

Urban gardens and fleas

Yay yay it's Saturday! Yesterday was a pretty good day, after work anyway. HR and BZ have been really nice to me. I consider that a bad sign. They've probably figured out some way to trip me up. My job duties are numerous and visible, while most of the other staff members don't have visible, accountable duties. I am to keep the kitchen, storage room, publication room, work room and the supplies all neat, organized and labeled--plus do all of my other work and be the receptionist too. I'm sure I'll be less than perfect in at least one of those areas. They're probably just waiting to jump all over that. Oh well, I'm in a good mood today and don't really want to think about them and work!

I talked to SLA on the phone yesterday just before leaving work. She's back with the Sleazeball but claims everything is wonderful wonderful that he really is a cop, but he hurt his shoulder while training in the Cities. Could be true, I guess, but why doesn't he have medical care than? Or be able to go to PT for his shoulder? I didn't ask her anything about him but on a whim invited her over to my house for dinner. She still doesn't have a car, so after leaving work I went over to get her. SB was there on the couch, unshaven and surrounded by a horrible mess (normally her house is fairly neat) and empty beer cans. Of course the man was relaxing at home, but I didn't get any better impression than before.

I picked SLA up (wishing she had been ready to go, I hate when people make me park, come in and then wait) when they know exactly when I'll be there. But it was fun. I had leftovers from a meeting at work on Friday morning that BZ would have just thrown away. It was perfectly good (was refrigerated) deli meat cuts and cheese. I had a couple of buns left, and SLA and I stopped to pick cucumbers and tomatoes, oregano, basil and sage from the garden. I broke out the homemade dressing and mayo, mustard, salad greens a jug of Sangria and a bottle of Leinie's Octoborfest for me. After the food we had some left-over birthday cake. It was from a friend of my Mom's, made for Mom and she had given me half which had just sat in the freezer since then. It was another mini-party!

SLA talked about SB incessantly though. Any subject would immediately turn to him, especially after she'd had a couple of large glasses of Sangria. After a couple of hours I actually was tiring of her company, which has never happened before. AND then she told me that her cats had fleas, from the neighbor dog. She said she'd tried everything to get rid of them but she and SB had them too! Oh good, if she brought fleas into my house I'm gonna be mad! Yikes.

I was paranoid about getting contaminated after that and wrapped up the night shortly after--early at around 9:00 PM. Former Temp called me right as we were leaving to tell me that she didn't get the for-sure job. That's very sad. She is a single parent and we just dumped her with little warning at work, and now she has no job.

I brought SLA back to her apartment in my jeep thinking "Please don't let Jeepers get fleas!" She needed to drop off some mail and bills, so we swung around to the night deposit at the Post Office. I had split the remaining deli meat and cheese with her, and the remaining birthday cake, plus given her some herbs, tomatoes and cucumbers. We had looked for squash and there aren't any more! I was nearly positive that I had many more left. Either I am mistaken or somebody took them, as the garden is right by a city sidewalk.

Speaking of gardens, today I'm going on an Urban Garden Tour! There even is an old school converted to apartments in the middle of town (in which I was very interested in living a few years ago) that has chickens! Chickens in the middle of town, I want to see that and the other urban gardens. My Mom thinks she doesn't want to go and the tour is from 2-4:00 this afternoon. So Mom and I can do our normal Saturday thing together and I get drop her off if she decides not to go with me. Have a happy, fun Saturday and weekend!

Something funny

Yesterday I ran my legs off because it was so busy at work. Several people are traveling and I had to box their items (heavy books, etc.) to ship, plus BZ had me working on a proposal and there was a lot of work to be done in a short period of time. Why is it that it's dumped on me--I'm running around trying to get stuff done while most other co-workers are having a pretty leisurely day? It's because my job description covers all of that, while theirs...is very loose and doesn't give actual job duties. But oh well, on to the funny part of yesterday.

BZ did come into work. She was limping and frowning, had to drag herself around instead of the usual crisp clop clop clop of her high heels. I'm also still limping around, especially after all those heavy book boxes. BZ and I both walked through the hallway or into the copy room together several times--both limping. It was hilarious, I had to keep myself from chuckling about it. She would frown at me each time as if I was copying her, but hey, I was limping first! It reminded me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry is sitting, waiting to see someone who has a limp. Jerry gets up and his leg is asleep, so he's limping around. The office woman laughs because she thinks he's mimicing the boss' limp. It was kind of like that at work yesterday. We even limp on the same side, her left foot and my left leg. It was just too funny!

During the very busy Thursday, an old friend called. I have known her for nearly 30 years but we hadn't seen each other much at all lately. We used to do lots of things and our kids played together. She wondered if we could meet for dinner so I invited her over to my house instead. She hadn't seen it yet. I made three batches of those pudding cookies (to have different kinds) and she brought a Subway sandwich to split--and also a bottle of wine. So we had a really good time.

She loved the house. We got into one of my bottles of wine, too. She has a regular job at the university but works on a PT basis in wardrobe for incoming acts at our arena complex. She told me some interesting stories about nudity and stars. Then she asked if I wanted to be on the list to get called for wardrobe duty at $15 per hour. You betcha I said yes to that! Even though I'm not such a great seamstress. The work is mostly evenings and weekends. She said that newbies have to do things like match and lay out shoes, and only after I had done it a few times would I get to actually dress the stars. How cool is that?

When she was ready to leave I loaded her down with herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. Since it was 10:00 PM and dark, we had to use a flashlight to pick the stuff. She was wearing cowboy boots and accidently stepped on my favorite gourd, a little stripey guy. Oh well, it's hard to walk around in a garden at night.

Today I'm going to bring the rest of the cookies to work. There is a meeting in which the facilitator asked me to ask BZ if we could supply some cookies and juice (with the usual coffee and ice water, of course) but she said no. So these cookies will give them something to nibble on at least, and staff can eat them too.

It's about time (a happy post)

My garden: small but mighty!

I keep having these old TV songs run through my head. Today it's "It's about time" I probably won't get this one exactly right either but it goes sort of like, "It's about time, it's about space, it's about three men in the strangest place. It's about three astronauts. It's about in space..." And so on sort of like that. Do you remember it? Probably not, unless you're around my age and blogging tends to attract a younger crowd. But at least there are some people my age and up, unlike at work. At work, everyone is much much younger than I am.

Anyway, since this is a happy post I won't be talking about the badness at work here except to say, gleefully--I HAVE MONDAY AND TUESDAY OFF! Tuesday is my birthday and I always try to get that off from work as my birthday present to myself. Tuesday was also the day that the Main Office Interloper was going to move into my old office (which now won't be until Wednesday, probably because I took Tuesday off.) Some birthday present, huh? But I won't be there, nor for the staff meeting on Tuesday morning, where I now have to take the meeting minutes. Yippee, yippee, yippee! Yes, that makes me very happy.

And tonight I'm driving down to see the kids and will stay there until Tuesday night. First before I leave I'm going to figure out bills and the mortgage payments. I can do it still, this month because we are getting three paychecks in August. So I'm hanging on here, which is good.

Son and roommate (she is still living with him but they aren't boy and girlfriend anymore, just friends) told me they are planning to hang out with me the entire time unlike last time when they both had to work and I barely saw them. When I asked if he needed anything from here, son said no, but I'll stop and get that particular fast food item that his roommate loves, Rodeo Burgers. They don't have those in their area.

I wish I could bring garden produce to them, but the garden is small and has about three tiny tomatoes per day and one cucumber. The peas, radishes and spinach are done and the broccoli is getting tough. Soon I may have carrots, beans, squash and corn though! Isn't it amazing what a small garden can produce? The poor garden will have to go without water while I'm gone but I was not watering it much anyway. There isn't a hose outside so I have to carry buckets of water. Water is heavy and it's hard on my back so I've been only carrying two buckets of water per day, unlike earlier when I was bucketing probably ten or more buckets per day.

I'm really looking forward to my visit with the kids. They are such excellent hosts and take very good care of me! It looks like it's going to be a wonderful, long weekend for me! Have a great rest of your weekend and "see" you when I get back late Tuesday night!

Needed: more time

Have I got updates for ya! Not to be a tease, but I have to leave for work in--well, one minute ago. And I still have to make the bed, get shoes and socks and jacket and do my face.