Shun the Non-Believer!

This is the weirdest, dumbest, strangest, funniest video I've ever seen. The first time I watched it I said, "What the...?" and had to watch it again. And once I had seen it twice it was all over. I've watched it hundreds of times now. I can quote most of the lines. So consider yourself warned. Do NOT watch this video. Unless you like weird, dumb, strange, funny videos.

Last Bloom

The weather got so warm in September that my little hydrangea bush put out one more beautiful bloom. Since the weather has held up this month, it's still looking very pretty. Thought I'd better get a shot of it before the rain starts tomorrow.

Oh, and a blog update...apparently the Obama-giver is my sister Monica. Thanks for the awesome gift! You rock! If Obama doesn't win I'll console myself by crying myself to sleep while hugging him each night. I just have to watch out for that pointing finger...

The Nose Knows!

This is Madison's nose.

Madison is my eight-year-old niece. She will hate that I put this picture up here FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!

She will also love that I put this up here FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE! Because for those of us who are born as the oldest child, it is all about ME! Uh, HER. Anyway, you get it.

Love ya, Maddie-pie!

Comin' through the rye...

Today I ate haggis. It kind of looked like this. (The dark stuff, not the light and green stuff, which are vegetables.) I didn't eat this much, though.

The church my friend Liz attends put on a Celtic Fair, though mostly it had a Scottish emphasis. She invited me to come and have a lamb dinner with her. They also had a haggis and I tried some. It wasn't too bad, though I was nervous that it would be gross.

For the non-haggis eaters among you, this is kind of like a hash/sausage combo. They take the parts of the sheep (or cow in this case) that are less desirable (like heart, liver, etc.) and cut it all up, mix it together with some onion & spices, use oatmeal as a thickener, put it all in a casing and boil it. Traditionally the casing is a sheep's stomach. Thankfully, this one was not...the casing looked more like red plastic wrap. The taste and texture reminded me of flavored ground beef. I kind of mixed it with the potatoes to get it to hold together.

So I wouldn't want to eat this every day, but I'm glad I can say I tried it. And no, it did not taste like chicken.

Supper Club

Behold the remnants of banana pudding!

Every few months a group of us get together for Supper Club. We have a theme and then everyone brings a dish to share. This month's theme was Fall Harvest and we had some great chili, stuffed acorn squash, butternut squash soup, cornbread, etc. It was all really yummy. My contribution was this banana pudding. It's not really a fall type thing, but I'd made it in the past and I brought it back by special request (thanks, Jill.)

There were only six of us, but we did a number on this...partly because I asked everyone to take some home so I didn't have to eat the rest by myself. I didn't have to do too much arm twisting. In fact, I had to break up a fist fight over who could lick the spoon!

I'm not the most creative cook, but I'm great at following directions. So here's the recipe (stolen from Paula Deen) if you would like to make your own banana masterpiece. You could even leave the bananas out and it would still rock. But beware, this could also be called "Heart Attack on a Plate." And I don't know why the cookies are Christmas oriented. I couldn't find the normal ones at Safeway. Enjoy!

NOT YO' MAMA'S BANANA PUDDING

INGREDIENTS

2 bags Pepperidge Farm Chessmen cookies

6 to 8 bananas, sliced

2 cups milk

1 (5 oz) box instant French vanilla pudding

1 (8 oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12 oz) container Cool Whip, thawed

DIRECTIONS

Line the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch dish with one bag of the cookies and layer bananas on top.

In a bowl, combine the milk and pudding mix and blend well using an electric mixer. Using another bowl, combine the cream cheese and condensed milk together and blend with mixer until smooth. Fold the Cool Whip into the cream cheese mixture. Add the cream cheese mixture to the pudding mixture and stir until well blended. Pour the mixture over the cookies and bananas and cover with the remaining cookies. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Or see the original recipe at Food Network.

Special Delivery

Look at what showed up on my doorstep today:

It's Barack Obama, "An Action Figure We Can Believe In" or so it says on the box. I was a little scared when I first saw the package because it's from Jailbreak Toys. I was afraid I had gotten on a scary mailing list of some kind. This was so perfect though, because I went in today and spent a few hours phone calling for the Obama campaign. I was a little nervous at first, but most people were pretty nice. The worst one was an immediate hang up, before I could even say hello. But I still don't like calling people when they really don't want to talk to me. It was nice when I could just leave a message. Here's the sign I got for helping out.

They are really trying to support the Governor's race because it is so close right now and was last time, too. I don't understand this at all, because, even though I don't love everything about our governor, she's about a million times better than her opponent who is definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Plus, he's named after the pet dinosaur from "The Flintstones."

I am assuming this lovely action figure is from Michelle, especially since I once sent her an Oscar Wilde action figure when she named one of her cats after him. If so, thanks Michelle! If it wasn't her, then please let me know who to thank/blame.

I don't think this particularly looks like Obama. But I like the pointing finger. It reminds me of an Uncle Sam poster (I want YOU for U. S. Army!) Did I just really date myself? Oh well, I'm old and most of you know it, so no big deal.

I signed up to phone call again next week. So if you live in Tacoma, you can expect to hear from me. I think I'll take my action figure in and put it by the phone as I call people. Then I can do bad impressions to leave on their answering machines. "Barack says uhhh...get out there and uhhh...VOTE!" or "Barack says I want YOU to vote for Obama!" I'm sure the phone bank people would just LOVE that. :-)

Fish

These are pictures from my fish tank. The orange platy is named Lucy and the African Dwarf Frog is Stretch. Of course, this was a few months back when I was cleaning the tank regularly and there wasn't a scary algae problem. My friend Kathy took these when she came over for my last tea party. She has a rockin' camera with a kick ass lens and I really want to steal it from her. I think she'd notice if I traded my little camera for her amazing one. But I might try anyway! (Don't read this Kathy!!!!)

p. s. Michelle rocks for commenting on all my previous posts!!

(Comment now and compliment me highly for your special mention in an upcoming post. But wait, there's more! For only $19.95 you can have your picture accompany your special mention. Or, maybe for only $19.95 I won't post your picture...whichever gets me the most money.)

My Addiction

It's finally time to come clean. I can't hide it anymore. I am addicted...to ANTM.

For the (happily) uninitiated, I am referring to America's Next Top Model. This show has absolutely no redeeming qualities. But it's so much fun watching a bunch of clueless 20 year-olds arguing, gossiping and practicing their runway walks that I just can't stop.

It's gotten so bad that I even have an addiction buddy. Every Wednesday night, my sister Monica and I call each other at all the commercial breaks and say things like, "How many girls do you think will cry during their makeover?" and "Oh my gosh, these girls are so dumb!" It is a guilty pleasure that I enjoy even more because I get to rehash all the silliness with her.

So whatever you do, do NOT watch this show. You will lose brain cells by the second and worse yet, you could become addicted like me!!!

Um, okay...

This is a house in my neighborhood. No, you're not seeing it wrong. They have their Christmas lights up. And burning brightly. On October 21st. There's even a wreath on their door.

At first, I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's an older couple. There's a pretty old-people looking car out front. Maybe they wanted to take advantage of the nice weather and get the lights up early. Maybe a friend or relative could only help them in October. But why, oh why, are they letting these lights glow brightly at 10:00 p.m.? That is the question of the day. How sick will everyone be of these lights (them included) by the time TWO MONTHS FROM NOW when Christmas finally rolls around?

And I thought the Halloween candy was out early this year...

Socks

These are the super cute socks I bought at Target last week. I wasn't sure I wanted them but they came in a pack of three and I wanted the other two. Now I like these ones the best. I think it's the pink stripe that does it. (If you double click on the picture you can see the stripe close up!) I even took off my shoes and showed them off to one of my classes today. No wonder they think I'm crazy!

And yes, that's my absentee ballot on the table behind my feet. It just came today. Can't wait to cast my vote. Go Obama!

JOE!

Today was so exciting! I went to the Joe Biden Rally at Cheney Stadium in Tacoma (renamed Obama-Biden Stadium for the day.) I was supposed to go with a friend and we actually drove together, but then I ended up just going by myself...long story.

Anyway, I ended up out in the cheap seats. They opened up a bleacher section behind the stage so they could fit us all in. Apparently, this was the most highly attended Biden event to date.

If you look very closely, you can see Joe at the podium. Next to him is Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senator Patty Murray and Rep. Maria Cantwell, who all introduced each other.

They made a special effort to notice us out in the way back. So this is Joe waving to us and we were more than happy to wave back.

He is an excellent speaker and really had the crowd with him. I enjoyed his message, but also found myself paying attention to how he would change his voice to really focus us in and keep our attention.

It's really neat to be a part of the political process, and even cooler to have a candidate I not only support but believe to be a good person with our country's best interests at heart. I haven't felt this optimistic about a politician for a long time.

After the rally, I had to walk all 49 blocks home (that's right, count 'em. Four nine.) So on the way I stopped across the street at Fred Meyer to use the restroom and grab a bite to eat. I thought I was so smart, but apparently many other rally attendees had the same idea. I found it very funny that the line at Starbucks was longer than the line for the bathroom. Only in the Northwest can we not make it for two hours before we must have coffee!

Tea Par-tay!

I hosted a tea party today. This is the third one I've done, and it's a lot of fun to plan and put together. Unfortunately, it was one of THOSE days...partly due to inept time management. So I ended up running around at the end and stressing out, missed greeting my guests, and broke my shoe. WAH!

Anyway, this is a picture of last summer's tea party first course. Our resident photographer couldn't make it this time, so none from today.

My parties are all about the food. The tea's good, too, but only after I add 3 cubes of sugar and lots of half and half!