Gather the heads of all our governmental agencies including the Senate, Congress, Supreme Court, Armed Forces and whatever...

FIRE the lot of them on the spot

and then replace them with Sixth Grade Students.

Do you really think they could do worse??

   

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

The wise need no advice, the foolish don't heed it.

I'm an independent sort when it comes to living my life. So decisions involving my life's purpose and direction have always been up to me, alone. This is not to mean that it don't seek out advice on other matters such as what to wear to a function or what kind of drapes to buy. That stuff is incidental to life so I don't mind the input. Otherwise I keep my own counsel and never have to worry about blaming anyone else for a bad decision.

I just answered this Featured Question; you can answer it too!

          However consider this also:

Simple.

Duck tape and a chair.

Liberally apply tape to lips, set bloke in chair and then put him on the patio where you can't hear him anymore.

   

I just silenced this Featured Question; you can ans    wer it too!

I feel so icky.

I find myself thinking.. talking.. in phrases.

A sort of mental shorthand. It hurts to think. I'm too tired for grammer.

Give a girl a break.... Neck, please.

Anything has to feel better.

It confuses my dog. I think she has run into me at least 9 times today.

I stop. She bumps. Poor dear.

My breath's a whistle. My nose a drain.

My brain is bunched up behind my eyes.

Oh, bother.. bah.

I should be making my mind up any day now.....

Maybe

Later

I just put off answering this Featured Question; you can answer it later, much later,  too!

What????? They allow trapping in Malls??????
   

I just ran screaming from the Mall; you can escape it too, if you move fast enough!

(Watch out for the traps)

It has been an overwhelming effort to be present here on Xanga for the past month or so.  No, it's not a protest thing, well maybe just a little bit.

I have a problem writing about politics or the political forum. Why? Probably because so many of my friends here on Xanga have such differing views. I don't want to let my political proclivities become a wedge between us. I do tend to be somewhat harsh and abrasive when dealing with stupid. (And all this He said, She said boarders on total insanity) There is only so much stupid I can tolerate in any one day and my stupid meter is full, way full, a long long time full. Besides I am sure that y'all also have strong views and stupid and stubborn usually produce ugly drawn out arguments about "stuff" that we have not the tiniest iota of a chance of changing no matter the promises of the candidates, semi-candidates, psuedo-candidates and a room full of wanna bees. I've earned my pessimism honestly. So ENOUGH, (for me) with the politics.

Of course, this leaves me the onus of finding other interesting life blurbs to write about. Only, I have had none. No cute g'baby stories, neighbors have been behaving, nostalgia can only satisfy on the short term; embarrassing moments? Nope... hard to believe but nothing worth the effort of exposing myself for the duffus I am. I have been a SAHMWGUKANOJ for the last year and a half. [Stay At Home Mom With Grown Up Kids and No Obvious Job] So the very fertile fantasia of office folly and frustration is but a fond figment of fractured imagination. Life has been boxed up and boring. I tried getting Hubby to take me out on a picture safari, but... let's put it this way; he's been on hyper drive and taking pictures from a moving vehicle on lumpy bumpy north country roads leaves a whole lot to be desired. What's that? Try stopping and exiting the vehicle? Silly man, that would mean using the brakes. Real men don't even brake for old ladies with walkers. Stopping has not been an option.

Ok, I will share this one tidbit. I mentioned in my '15 facts' that Hubby has always washed windows, cleaned the oven and scooped the kitty box since we have been married. One  additional fact would have been: H has a real fetish for doing laundry. (maybe fetish is the wrong word as the full definition would not apply since he is not a freak about it, only determined)  This means that for much of our time together he has been in charge of washing, drying and folding our laundry. Sorting and putting the clothes away is my chore. Especially since the time when the kids were no longer kids. If I try to invade his chore of choice, he will actually load the machine before he hits the sack and get himself up early to hang the laundry long before I rouse myself in the morning. Really!!! Scary, I admit. Once I figured out his schedule for doing the bed linens and beat him to the punch two weeks in a row. He simply revised his schedule and beat me to the punch next time. I don't get it. I'm home. I have not one little problem doing laundry. I've learned to live with knowledge that H, as unsettling as it is, considers laundry his therapy. I've surrendered control long ago. I have not yet conquered the subtle feeling of inadequacy.

POINT: My birthday is coming up soon as is his. In fact our birthdays are exactly one month apart, I being the elder by that one month. This past Saturday, H decided to take me on a surprise birthday shopping trip. Now I was confused. I knew that I had already filled out the prerequisite,"What do you want for your birthday?" form and the one item on it was to be purchased online. As we pulled into the parking lot of our local furniture, flooring, appliance store, I knew that my form had hit File 13. Not a problem because this place has plenty of very nice high end merchandize for the fussy homebody. As we entered, the obligatory swarm of  commissioned salespersons descended on us. H simply indicated that he knew where he was headed and required no assistance or guide. This place is laid out as a giant maze without a direct path to anywhere. Quite clever because you have to breeze through all the stock in order to reach your destination. So out we trekked, past the living rooms, dining rooms and bed suites. Practically ran through the flat screen bigger than any wall I have TV screens and kitchen appliances without a slightest head turn or hesitation. My man was on a beeline to... the Washers. Ours has been making the most peculiar clanking and now, my H informed the department salesperson, was in the midst of it's swan song.

So... Happy Birthday.

To Me ?????

It's not as bad as it seems

I went ahead and bought a present too.

So... Happy Birthday

 To HUBBY !!!!!!

He will love HIS dishwasher

PS, Honey... don't forget to go to Tiger Direct for that other little item. he he.

We had been this way before. I was not surprised that Hubby showed little motivation to join the crowds for a free tour of the “World’s Best Ice Creamery” and so avoided the many interesting tourist traps colorful kiosks lining the drive and the court yard and the lobby. How many ice cream scoops does any one family need?

We were on a mission!! Hubby was in full “get in, conquer, get out” mode. He can only take so much walk about before walking out, with or without me.  So up the hill we tramped making a bee line for…

a cemetery

tucked away in a pastoral Vermont tourist trap town. It was quiet and restful in a somber sort of way until you took a second look. You, see, even Ben and Jerry mess up from time to time. High on this hilltop resides a rarely visited tribute to those flavors that survived the testing and development stage only to fail miserably when presented to the public.

Not very PC

Are passion fruit purple?

 This I understand... It's potato.. duh

Sorry, MK, we didn't appreciate paradise

I thought everybody loved P B & J

Whaaaat??

Maybe it's time for a comeback !

Oh no!! Tell me it's not so !!

Just in case this is not enough Vermont weirdness for you, here are a few other nearby attractions.

Middlesex, Vermont - Clothespin Grave Marker

A handsome granite clothespin grave marker, made for the owner of the clothespin factory in Montpelier, Vermont, can be found at the back right of the Middlesex, Vermont cemetery.

Frozen GI - Rutland County Vietnam Veterans Memorial

This unusual memorial to Vietnam vets caught our eye as we breezed through town. A helmeted soldier lay face up and frozen -- half-in, half-out of a block of marble -- like the carbonized Han Solo at the end of The Empire Strikes Back , or a knight's tomb as in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

No one is buried there. The sculpture was started by John Reno, a local Vietnam Vet, in 1981. But John suffered bouts of depression, and died in a boating accident in 1982. The unfinished sculpture was dumped into the Castleton gravel pit. That's where it was discovered by John Bergeron, another Vietnam Vet, who completed the tribute in 1995.

 South Burlington, Vermont - Whale Tails

The name of the whale tails sculpture is "Reverence" and is meant to symbolize the fragility of the planet -- that is, if you think of granite as fragile. It was commissioned in 1988 by a wealthy British metals trader named David Threlkeld, who lived in Randolph at the time. Jim Sardonis sculpted each of the two 13-foot high tails from six tons of black granite. The tails resided in Randolph beginning in 1989 and were to have been placed in front of a motel and conference complex planned by Threlkeld, but financing fell through and Threlkeld split for Arizona. The tails were offered up for sale with a price tag of $100,000. New Bedford, MA was considering it for awhile, and a sale to the Hartford Whalers hockey team seemed possible until the team moved and changed its name, but the tails eventually found their way to their present location beside Rte 89 outside Burlington.

Montpelier, Vermont - Hall of Fumes - World's Most Foul Sneakers
"They smell like dog droppings, and another smell I can't identify," said Sasha Miranda, age 11

Bear with me a bit as I bring you ‘round the bush and back to a home on a hill.

Lately, I’ve been reading a book (see above) relating the history of the Great Sacandaga Lake through a series of short stories. I’ve laughed, cried and whooped in agreement as he brings various aspects of living on a created lake to light.

Within the pages he explains that although the current body of water is man-made, it did exist up to 10,000 years ago in much the same location and size due to the action of the retreating ice glaciers of the last ice age. This action is also responsible for the general look of the many streams in the area being nearly identical; shallow, wide and littered with a generous layer of boulders and rocks. Most of the year, it looks as if an army of stone is marching down through the valleys and gorges on a thin layer of dancing light.  As it was with the Sacandaga River so it is still with the Schoharie Creek. Why one is a river and the other a creek still boggles the mind. They are so like twin sisters in size and volume, one entering the Mohawk from the south the other, in long times past, rushed in from the north, that is until the glacier blocked it’s path forcing the Sacandaga to turn north once again. Both are Creek most of the year. Yet when the winter thaw begins and the spring rains pound, the Sacandaga and the Schoharie both become swollen, raging torrents, rivers capable of tearing bridges down and swallowing acres of land along their flood plains. A reservoir constrains the former while the latter is left to its destructive tendencies.

And so as I mused my mind turned from the Sacandaga, the playground of my adult years to the Schoharie, the playground of my childhood.  Much of the Schoharie is fairly level and shallow having eons ago carved and gouged its way to the Mohawk. There are no waterfalls and only short mild sections of rapids. One must look much further upstream where the twin waterfalls at Gilboa were swallowed by a man made lake in the early 1900s to find any drop of significance. Instead, the slopes grow increasingly steeper and the Creek, contrary to the norm becomes increasingly narrower until it reaches the floodplain of the Mohawk and once again is free to relax and spread its banks. Modern man has imposed restrictions for his comfort and convenience and, of course, to take advantage of the immense fertility of the valley. Before that, the Creek freely roamed the valley at will, sometimes favoring the east route, other times crowding the west bank before meandering back to center. And always capable of flooding with a regularity and ferocity that kept Native Americans and New World Colonizers clustered high on the slopes and ridges and safely off of the flood plain.

Great Uncle and Aunt had found an old homestead to call their own along the Schoharie. Their home had been built at a time when the Schoharie was still king of the valley and had not yet been subjugated by man.  One needed to know the home was there because it was not visible from the road, not in the 1800s nor in the 1950s. The approach was up a drive mostly graveled and dirt, hugging the slope on one side and bounded by a drop quite dangerous on the other. I always closed my eyes on the ride in. Up the slope and twist and turn along the field’s boundary until a quaint low set white house came into view. In the ‘L’ formed by the entrance and sleeping porch was a great tree with a wooden swing hung from a branch.

For many years I wondered at the shape and design of this home on the hill. Children were warned to never go round the back because of the well and cisterns. (Old wife’s Tales?). There were remnants of outbuildings long gone to ruin and one, also off limits, barn more than slightly off plumb. Nettles stood guard to warn off any so inclined to roam!!! I remember marveling at the kitchen… So plain by today’s standards… plank sideboards, wood cooking stove, old fashioned ‘ice box’ and a new fangled refrigerator complete with a ‘top knot’. In the corner was the wringer washer with an innovative drain to the outside of the home. (No, it could not be considered plumbing in the modern sense). Glimpses of the dining room showed a much more elaborate construction.  I don’t ever remember being allowed anywhere else in the home and as our visits were always made during good weather, inside was not necessary.

Then one late summer afternoon Auntie took me around to the other side of the house. They were selling, you see. The winters were becoming too hard up on the hill alone now that their children were married and gone. She and Uncle were moving to the city to live in one (of two) Senior Citizen high-rise buildings. She wanted me to see what remained of the home's former glory. So round we went along a newly mowed path to the back…. FRONT!!! of the little house on a hill.  The main entrance was a domed portico with wings to either side. One wing was the large plain kitchen, the other the formal sitting room.  Directly behind the entrance hall was the fancy dining room.  The beauty of the architecture had me dumbfounded. Hidden on a hill was a gem to delight the eyes. Solemnly Auntie turned and pointed to the area in front of the house. A deep ravine scared the earth where the original access road had been.  This was why the back was the front and the front was the back.

Great Uncle and Aunt left the homestead that fall. It was some years before anyone took possession of the treasure on the hill. Now, I’m told even that is gone. I went looking for the road up the slope some years back. I thought to hike in and look around a bit. But that road too, had washed out years before and the home stands no longer except in bright and wondrous eyes of a child drinking in the treasure of a home on a hill.