Neighborhood Friend

The other night A. was outside working on the car while I was inside getting dinner ready.

"Hey babe...you want to see something really cool?", he said, coming quietly through the back door.

"Sure", I say, as I follow him outside.

"Shhhhhhh, be quiet.", said hubs bringing his finger to his lips, "Look." He points up at the street light at the end of our driveway.

I look. There it is...a gorgeous hawk enjoying a freshly caught meal on the top of the street light.

"Wow", I breathed.

And there we stood. A. and I, together, quietly and peacefully enjoying watching nature and the circle of life take place.

My pathetic zoom showing off in all it's glory...sigh, where is an SLR when a girl needs one?

You Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends

...or in this case fun tokens of appreciation!

Our friend C. came to visit bearing sweet gifts...

Hand-picked flowers for moi...


...and a police K-9 card for Hubs. C. is a parking officer, so this gift was very much from the heart, hilarious, and appropriate. On the back there is a message from "Martie" that says:

If anyone make you feel afraid or uncomfortable, always tell a responsible adult.

This struck me as funny when given to a 36 year old man:).

For The Love of Ignorance

As I post this, there is a march happening outside of my office. It is the annual “A Day Without Latinos” march. Thousands of Latinos are skipping work to march down the streets of Milwaukee for immigration rights. Fine, whatever, they are marching for something that they believe in supporting. Nothing wrong with that.

There is, however, something wrong with people and their ever growing ignorance.

Cue a comment I just overheard:

“Why are the Mexicans out there marching in this state of epidemic (referencing the swine flu)? Don’t they realize that their culture is a carrier for the swine flu?!?!?! Now they are just spreading it around and infecting us!”

Um, hello? Now, I am not a medical professional, however, I am confident in saying that just because someone is Latino, it doesn’t make them a swine flu carrier. A “culture” doesn’t catch and spread a virus, infected people do. Furthermore, the swine flu, like any flu, is spread from human to human regardless of race, religious belief, age, or social status. You might even say that the flu virus is an “equal opportunity” virus. So unless all of the people marching outside of my window right now were recently in Mexico visiting with an infected individual (which I doubt) or sharing a water glass with the now two cases that have been positively ID as of Wednesday here in Milwaukee (which I also doubt), I think that we can put this ignorant and lame accusation to rest.

Disclaimer: please don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the swine flu epidemic isn’t freaky (actually, as I am partly a hypochondriac, I find it very freaky and am looking for budding symptoms in myself and hubby constantly). What I am saying is that some people are very ignorant and deserve to be called out on it.

Etsy as 1-2-3

Promenade Olive Tunic; tortillagirl

Bird Sanctuary Clutch; ClutchThat


Olive with A Twist; Rock Paper Silver

Awwww, Shucks

My very dear friend J. came to visit this weekend. Guess what she had as a little surprise birthday gift for me?

Pure delicousness Twilight.

Edward is now in my house (stored on a shelf in DVD form but still)...

One of "Those People"

You know who I am talking about. “Those people” are the people who hold up check out lines because they insist on paying for their $20 purchase in change. “Those people” are also the ones who insist on always using the Express Lane (aka: 20 items or less) even though their cart is heaping with groceries. Oh, and “those people” is the couple who has a cart FULL of groceries rang up and when the clerk tells them their total, they look at each other in shock and sheepishly say, “we don’t have that much cash, we are going to have to return some items” while a mile long line is forming behind them.

Hmmmm, I wonder where this is going? Can you guess?

Could it be that I was half of the couple with the cart full of groceries and not enough funds to pay for the bounty of food amassed during a "we only need a couple of things" grocery store run?

Ding, ding, ding...you got it.

This weekend, while checking out at the grocery store, the typically very conscientious and courteous hubs and I quickly became “one of those people”, taking items out of our already bagged groceries to be returned so that we could pay our grocery bill.

I Married a Mathlete

An actual conversation between me and hubs this weekend while on an early Sunday morning drive heading for my Grandpa's house:

Hubs: [out of the blue] So, can you believe I used to get up this early on the weekends for fun to attend competitions?

Me: Oh? I didn't know that you played any sports?

Hubs: Yep. I spent my weekends attending mathematics competitions. What, you didn't know that math was a sport? [chest puffs out] I was a mathlete.

Me: A what?

Yes, it is true. No matter how well you think you know your husband, there may still be skeletons in his closet. One of those skeletons came out of my husbands closet this weekend. Who would have thunk that there was such a thing as Mathletics?!?!?!

Smartee pants.