QUESTIONS! to all your answers.....

Why is it that y-o-j is of no use in Path Words,

but j-o-y is? Same letters.

Why is the wonderful aussie word "roo", (meaning kangaroo)

of no utter meaning in Yankdom?

Why can I fine 7 little words in 9 scrambled letters

but I can't see the 9 letter word?

Where are all the Scrabble players that used to be?

When, Oh when will I find time to read the 720 page book

I just got from the library,

A Team of Rivals?

Why, when we're now 4 days UP from the BOTTOM

(December 21)

do I not notice the long dark night being shorter

and the short (sometimes) bright day

being longer?

A+; how was yours ?

My sister and I used to swim at that lake right by the freeway. I think it was that one. I think it was my sister. It was in the summer when it looked a lot less like a steaming cauldron of icy vampire infested water. And it is a quarry, or sort of a pit scraped out in the mud. Never mind the details.

The teenager drove all the way to grandma's on the freeway, and all the way back, which was nice although it does not actually entitle a person to play rap music on the car radio (why do teenagers hate to be lectured unless it is via their music? I even hate for people to talk to me on and on without giving me space to say anything back or maybe run away from them. Rap music isn't the only kind of music that is like somebody hectoring you: there is a kind of frantic jazz that feels the same way. Oh, and show tunes. Or anything by Barbra Streisand or Whitney Houston.) I got to eat leftovers from my brother's family's holiday feast the night before. I really like doing that. Why can't I just go to my friends' houses and open up their refrigerators and browse whatever they have available? I could throw out moldy things as those presented themselves. The joy of not cooking and the joy of thriftiness and the joy of exploring all mixed up together and packed into a rubbery container with a lid that almost fits, who wouldn't like it? Besides some gifts selected just for me, I also got to take home quite a few things that didn't fit the nieces or they didn't like them. So did SWMBT. Good things, like fleece sweatpants and the sort of slippers you can walk around outside in, while you are being lectured via music over headphones, if you are a person who enjoys wearing slippers outdoors and lecturing music, for example.

Some of us took the hyper dog for a walk down a steep hill (the slobbery tennis ball kept getting away) and through a graveyard (oldest birth date logged, if you count having to do math to get it : 1812) and up a different street and around a twisty street and back up the hill, then (minus dog) to the backyard of a neighbor who was away in Hawaii who said we could let the hyper dog run in the enormous back yard, but first we had to check to see if their chickens were cooped up. They had a GREAT chicken run: a couple of pens connected by chicken tunnels (not underground tunnels but made of wire) with interesting doors that could segment off the different areas and a intricate folding double door system to allow or disallow access to the giant yard. Think of those plastic cages for gerbils connected by plastic hoses, and then make it much larger and turn it into chicken wire and you have the idea. I am impressed and inspired. That yard had its own hyper dog needing interaction with us and the spit covered tennis ball. One side of the dog was white and the other side had a certain amount of spots. It reminded me of a car I had a long time ago in Texas with different things painted on both sides, that somebody told me would be really useful because I could rob an icehouse, then just turn the car around and park it in the other side of the street, and nobody would catch me. I guess the dog could run at you from one direction, bite you, then run away and when out of sight turn in the other direction and sit down. "Uh, not me. I have spots. Wag wag wag."

After that we gathered up all our loot, took Mom/Grandma back home, watered her flowers for her and cut up her gift fudge and accepted some, and went back home. The End.

two more shopping days until one shopping day left!!

so, i've been noticing that all the "tarjét" commercials are coming pre-laced with a handy "countdown" calendar. in case you are too lazy to actually remember what today's date is, they tell you, in a friendly "flip-off" calendarway. they even imply that "tarjét" is so convenient that a roly-poly sandy clause will--get this!--RUN to make the closing bell. i'm a bit embarrassed to mention that the reason i know about these commercials is the vast amount of bad TV the landlord and i have been watching recently. he was sorely disappointed to miss last sunday's two hour survivor finale for a christmas party. i celebrated missing it by watching two hours of sportscenter. including chris berman's "the blitz". chris berman can SU(* *& *&^^S.
next on the agenda, we have the high cost of sled use. as a christmas gift to my boss (my portland buddy calls me a "suck-up" for this), i purchased a gallon of "VES Gold" 2-cycle sled oil. for $42.99. apparently sleds can only run on oil that is refined by artisan elves schooled at the prestigious OPEC school, from oil shale that is water-extracted on the dark side of mars. (remember that the $42.99 a gallon doesn't cover the actual gasoline part of the internal combustion reaction.) good thing i haven't had a day off in two weeks and that i won't for another two.
third on the FBC calendar: small towns. apparently i made the list of "eligible bachelors" over in the "snowsports school." while i am obviously eligible and certainly "in demand", i'm a bit taken aback by the drama and gossip it takes to be considered "eligible". most importantly, i'm worried that people in the "snowsports school" are talking about me. just the name "snowsports" gives me the "unfinished metal" shudders. or the "ceramic belt on ceramic belt" shudders. while in ballard, i was equally--possibly more than equally--"eligible". i mean, i'm a bike mechanic, for goodness' sake. in these trying economic times, considering as well the "green thrust" of our economy, a bike mechanic is like the archangel gabriel. and yet i never once heard of two neighbourhood women clamouring for my worthy attention. now i'm in the hills, telling eighteen year old "food handlers" who get paid 47 cents an hour to "stop pitching me attitude" and getting $175 speeding tickets and alla sudden my stock is "blue chips". hm. food, then, for thought.
fourth, i really like slaid cleaves. like "listen to all three albums i own at least once a day" sort of "like". i know these things, too, shall pass, but for today, i feel like a fourteen year old emo kid circa 2001 who just discovered chris carraba. for those who may have suggested i check out "insurgent country", i have this to say: i can't find but one album of his in the entire puget sound drainage. sonic boom can't see him with the HUBBLE. (thanks, aaron mcgruder.) how's that for "insurgent"?
fifth, and maybe most important, i'm wearing my black ibex wool jersey. it makes me refined and sleek and fast and awesome all at once. watch out, ladies!!!