Ice Ice Baby

Yesterday our news was filled with nothing but details of an impending winter storm.  Dire warnings are being issued about the likelihood of power outages due to ice and then a possible foot of snow following.

I'm not at all thrilled with the coming of this storm.  It sounds dreadful.  I can only imagine what the sky-is-falling crowd is going through.  Last night we drove past a Walmart and the lot was filled all the way to the street.  Completely unbelievable.  The forecasters have St. Louisans terrified of this storm.

If we lose power I have a tentative game plan although I wish we had a functional fireplace.  The one in this house was outfitted with gas and it hasn't passed approval for use since I moved in.  We may have to seek shelter with a neighbor.  We do have an awesome grill and several bags of charcoal so we can cook.  The fact that these thoughts have filled my head means I'm taking the warnings seriously.  Then again, I've been through this before.

The day I took the picture in the header was after the ice storm in 2006 that knocked out my power.  Here's to hoping today's storm is more picturesque than dangerous.

Sunday In My City - January 30, 2011

I was 13 when my family moved from Portland, Oregon to St. Louis, Missouri.  I was practically kicking and screaming in protest.  It was a hard adjustment and in many ways culture shock.  Things look, feel, sound, even SMELL different. 

Sometime during my first year here I participated in a walk-a-thon in Forest Park.  During the ten mile stroll we came up to Lindell Boulevard on the north side of the park and soon my heart started to melt.  The street was lined with old, big houses, something I have always adored. 

I was soon to find out that St. Louis is jammed packed with big and old all over the place.  But there is something about this row of houses that I particularly admire.  Forest Park is the site of the 1904 World's Fair.  Many of the backyards of these house still have the original concrete fencing, marking the north end of the fairgrounds. 

It is, quite simply, a beautiful area with killer views of the park.

Travel to San Fransisco to visit Unknown Mami and her city and then check out everyone else sharing their city/town/village.  It's lots of fun.

Friday Fragments - January 28, 2011

In case you've overlooked it, today is my HALF birthday.  And good Lord, you all know what a freaking nut I am about birthdays.  No?  You're new?  Oh well let's fix that!

In a few minutes I need to place a call to my friend Mendy and remind her that although it is her actual birthday she has six months left to prepare for my birthday.  And in six months she will return the favor.

OMG!  In six months, ON MY BIRTHDAY, I should be a GRANDMA!!!!!  My first grandchild is due mid July, just before my 45th birthday.  Excuse me for a moment while I absorb that... eh... I still can't wrap my head around being a mother so the grandma thing is just impossible.

So let's get into my fragments for Friday.  Yeah, I know, I have posted a metric shit ton already!  Does it bother anyone that I swear in my posts?  Hope not, my filter was lost somewhere in college.

1.  As I was getting ready to leave work last Friday, I got a frantic call from my future DIL (daughter-in-law) that my son (baby daddy) was on his way to the ER.  Never a good call for any mother, but when your kid is a diabetic that is exactly where your thoughts go.  Nope, not a diabetic problem, HE GOT IN THE MIDDLE OF A DOG FIGHT!  Grotesque descriptions were conveyed and I flew home.  I never made it to the hospital (45 minutes away in no traffic, but this was the height of rush hour).  My SIL called from the hospital after her 15 yr old daughter drove him to the ER.  Turns out it wasn't a dog fight and there weren't huge hunks of flesh dangling from his arm.  THANK GOD!!!!!

The two family dogs were playing and one caught her jaw on the other's collar, strangling the dog.  Keith held the dogs and by necessity had his arm in the jaws as his cousin cut the dogs free.  He has six puncture wounds that could have been stitched, but they butterflied them shut and he was out tromping around in the woods on Sunday shooting airsoft guns at his little brother.

2.  We attended a trivia night on Saturday.  I love attending these.  The one we attended last year was HARD.  This year someone else compiled the questions and our table ended up with 72 out of 100 correct.  Not too shabby.

3.  We're working on a new recipe for our business.  I'm playing with my mom's roll recipe.  Unfortunately my first run used old yeast.  Absolutely NO rising whatsoever.  Instead of tossing out the dough I rolled out some of it and sprinkled salt on it... CRACKERS!  They weren't too bad, but rolling out the dough was too much work so we tossed the rest.

4.  My youngest has missed an entire week of school.  He just cannot shake this fever.  The doctor's office suspects a sinus infection, but in a little bit we'll make a visit to make sure.  Hopefully his teachers will take some mercy and not slaughter him with homework.  I've got emails out to the teachers trying to get the assignments so he can work on them over the weekend.  We'll see.

5.  Yesterday I ran an update on my mac laptop and received the new App Store in my apple menu.  And I discovered a ton of free and incredibly cheap apps - some for my iphone others for my laptop.  OMG!  Lots of fun.  I've spent a couple of hours with one called RINGER that takes songs in your iTunes library and allows you to make ring tones with them.  Oh so much fun.

YAWNNNNN

I cannot think of a single thing to write this morning - don't you hate when that happens?  I could blather on how I have nothing in my head, but clearly I have too much.  I could also share with you that what I'm doing right here, right now, is exactly what we're taught to do in creative writing class - just write, even about nothing.  It helps clear writer's block.

But anyways...

1.  Please ask me a question and hopefully that will be blog fodder for the next several days.  Ask something about me you're dying to know, ask about St. Louis or my childhood in Oregon, or ask advice... OOOH!  I love answering advice questions.  I love coming up with smartass responses.  It's loads of fun.

2.  Read a couple of blogs from my sidebar, somebody you don't normally follow.  Make sure to leave them some comment love.

Have a glorious day.


(Wow, I'm being really bossy today!  Sorry.  No I'm not.  DO MY BIDDING)

Winter Flowers

When people discuss winter they use drab descriptions with shades of gray, but nothing could be further from the truth.  If anything winter is bright and strong, a fact that struck me as I walked around my favorite park after a recent snow.

The color that pops out the most is a burnt orange seen in trees, tall grasses and dried flowers. 

 

When you get down and feel pent up by cabin fever, get outside and reconnect with nature, even if it's for a few minutes.  There is beauty to be found everywhere, you just have to open your eyes and your heart.

NINETY-ONE

Last week sometime I reached 91 followers!  I know it's superfluous and that the 91 people listed don't necessarily read this blog regularly, but I look at that little box every single day.  It thrills me.  I remember back when I was excited about 15.  Oh hell, I get excited every time another face pops up.  I was just as excited about number 16 as I was about number 14 as I am about 91.

Thank you everyone.  You thrill me and I love your faces/icons.


please don't go away

I need your validation

What were you doing ten years ago???

I have a little note about some off the wall stories I thought I would share on my blog one day.  Well, this particular one has been listed for a mighty long time and it just struck me that this week is its ten year anniversary!


Have you ever wondered where "QandleQueen" came from?  Well, once upon a time, like ten years ago, I called my old college friend who was a PartyLite candle representative to schedule a party which rarely ever happens in the home party world.  She said, as is the procedure like upselling french fries, "have you ever thought about selling PartyLite?"

I was adamant that I did not want any part of being a sales rep.  Nope.  Back in 1989 I signed up to sell Tupperware and I had all sorts of problems.  Not with the product, mind you, but personal issues like an unsupportive husband and two toddlers underfoot who always wanted my undivided attention the second I got on the telephone to make a sales call.  It was difficult and I had a real problem juggling a home-based business and home life.  No way was I interested in diving back into that world.

On Thursday before the party I had over $500 in outside sales.  Something clicked and I started to consider that outrageous question.  Maybe I could be a rep?  My life had certainly changed and I really needed a second job.  We turned my Saturday night candle party into a starter party, launching my six year career as a rep.  I loved it and actually made money!  Qandle is a play on "candle".   **and the crowd goes OOOOHHHH!*

Now the more memorable part of the evening happened after the party was tallied.  My regular drinking crew was in attendance and really aren't that keen on demonstration parties.  They came for the promised after-party.  We packed the candles away and headed to a bar.  We drank, we danced. we laughed.  We had a fabulous time!

At the table we were loud and attracted a lot of attention.  The manager visited our table several times, not to tell us to pipe down, but to join in the fun.  Hey, we're fun people!  We tossed ice cubes into each others mouths and laughed and laughed and laughed.

Unfortunately the bouncer was not nearly as amused with our antics as we were.   His grumpy scowl was cast in our direction several times.  He even came over to the table and asked us to tone it down.  WHAT???  Dude, this is not a fucking library, lighten up.  If we were making a mess or damaging property or starting fights, we would have understood, but we were just having a good time and not hurting anyone. 

Then he came over and told me how immature my friends are.  REALLY?  SOOOOO?????

Well, it was time to leave any way so my two bestest buds were going to show him "immature".  We were told to wait at the table and hold their purses while Piranha and Booty waltzed out the door past Grumpy, waving toodle-loo.

And they each bent down

And started doing

CARTWHEELS

O.M.G.

The spectacularly tiny Booty did perfectly executed cartwheels down the length of the sidewalk and above the tiny part of the window that wasn't painted we could see her feet flip past.  We roared with laughter.

The tall and gangly Piranha had never mastered a cheerleader quality cartwheel and did the strangest... flop... down the sidewalk.  We only caught glimpses of her flailing legs.

That genuinely killed us DEAD

As I walked out of the bar, still laughing, the grumpy bouncer stopped me and said that his four year old daughter was more mature than my friends.

Really?

Bite me

Taco Bell

I have been eating at Taco Bell since I was a wee tot.  I jokingly say it was one of my first solid foods.  I joke only because I don't know for sure, but it is very likely as I lived in Los Angeles from 1966 to 1970.  I just checked Wikipedia for the Taco Bell timeline and they say that by 1967 there were 100 restaurants in southern California.  Quite likely.

In the 1970's when my mom struggled to keep a roof over our heads, the el cheapo prices and mutual agreement among the ranks made it a dining-out treat for us kids.    To mix it up a little we would go to McDonald's, eat in the car and toss french fries out the window to the seagulls - big excitement in our little world.  I'm pretty sure that is my youngest brother's earliest memory.  He would squeal with delight as the big white birds would swoop in for the kill.  But when we went to Taco Bell, it was mandatory indoor eating because they had those blue chairs bolted to the floor and we could swirl (a bit).  We also didn't ditch our food to any scavengers.  My mom was guaranteed full bellies.

Dare I share the TMI factoid that I discovered my first period in a Taco Bell restroom?

Taco Bell was my employer in the 1980's as I worked my way through college.  I was terrified that working there would kill my love either by bombardment of product or discovering some nasty secret behind the counter.  Neither happened, however, when I was pregnant with my daughter the red sauce triggered my morning sickness.  Fortunately, I didn't have to endure that exposure for very long as I packed up and left school for marriage and a six month honeymoon in Florida.

When I started my illustrious job as a techno geek, driving between schools with my car serving as my office, Taco Bell was my lunch stop of choice.  It was a joke among my co-workers that if our dining options were left to me we would end up at Taco Bell every single time.  That is a huge lie, but we did end up there quite a bit.  I went there even more when dining by myself.  I could and still can, eat there for less than two dollars.  One year I kept a log how much I spent on lunch.  I had sunk over $400 at Taco Bell alone that year.  In other words, I had eaten there at least once a week, usually multiple times a week.

Today I don't indulge in my favorite bean burrito very much, mostly because the Taco Bell nearest to my house is a shithole.  The quality, cleanliness, and service basically suck.  For the longest time I was dismayed because I thought corporate had dropped the ball, it just didn't taste the same.  Then earlier this year we dined at a different Taco Bell.  Clearly this one shithole was not representative of all Taco Bells.  Thank goodness.

I know it's not "real" or "authentic" Mexican food, which by the way, I love and could eat every single day as well.  I understand the difference and I get why everyone thinks it's crap food.  It's fast food on par with any burger joint, amped up in calories and trans fat.  It's teenager food, feeding those who can't afford a real sit-down meal but can afford the caloric dump.

And yet the basic bean and cheese burrito is the food of my childhood, of my life.  And I love it.

Sunday In My City - January 23, 2011

SNOW!!!!  St. Louis style

To see everyone else's cities, visit Unknown Mami

Friday Fragments - January 21, 201

WHEW!  What a week!

*I had a friend from Chicago arrive last Friday night to spend a few days away from the chaos of her home.  Don't we all need a break every so often?  I think I could use a weekend in Chicago... SOON!  It was fun to spend a few hours with her catching up and then driving around St. Louis.  We didn't stop anywhere to play like real tourists, but we cruised through town and I managed to get some fairly awesome pictures from the backseat - check out last Sunday's post.

*Saturday night we attended our annual Sangria Party.  Didn't we just hold a sangria party back in September???  It may be an annual party, but WHEN in the year it happens is a crap shoot.  It was a ton of fun.  Our adult sized daughters were able to reconnect and while there was a judo demonstration in the middle of the livingroom, no one was hurt, offended or pissed off... at least when I left.  My Chicago friend said we were a fun group and wants to come back for Sangria Party 2012 - whenever that may be.

*Monday our office was closed to observe the MLK holiday.  I spent the day running errands as the rest of the weekend was consumed with playing with our guest and then recovering from Saturday night.  I could use an extra day in my weekend.  That was nice.

*Tuesday was HELL.  It was the all-staff meeting which is always a stressful day for me with the bagillion requests that roll in with everyone converging on the office at the same time.  But it was also the first day of the work week and Mondays for me never fit any known pattern except I usually walk into a shitstorm of someone else's making, frequently multiple shitstorms of multiple people's making.  I've learned to not schedule anything or anticipate accomplishing anything on these days.  Doing so keeps my stress down at least one notch. 

*For several days the weather people have been predicting a doom and gloom snowstorm for the greater St. Louis area.  The Husband made the mistake of going to the grocery store Wednesday morning, forgetting that the storm was barreling down on us.  He said it was INSANE.  A local DJ says days like this the grocery stores open the Panic Aisle, the last two checkouts that are usually stacked with overstock and other miscellaneous crap.  Even with every checkout running the lines go all the way to the back of the store with people loading up on french toast supplies (bread, eggs, milk).  And salt.  Wednesday night the storm arrived and I have a few pictures that are sort of like a time lapse.

*Yesterday was BEAUTIFUL!  There is close to seven inches on the ground.  Just a few miles north people have close to a foot of snow.  School was out and so was my office.  I took the opportunity to take a walk, something I haven't done for MONTHS.  I managed some really great photographs, but this one excites me the most..

This is the original shot and you can barely see the tiny bird, I think it's a chickadee.

After I attacked the shot in iPhoto, I got this!

Come back next week to find out how my next seven days go.  In the meantime check out everyone else's fragments...

It's A Hot Cocoa Kind Of Day

Don't you hate when a beautiful cup of hot cocoa burns your mouth?  I remember just a few years ago we took Ian out to McDonalds and had a coupon for a free cup of hot cocoa.  Before The Husband or I could stop him, he popped a straw into the cup and slurped a scalding gulp of chocolate tainted water down his gullet.  It totally ruined the evening for him and he couldn't eat his McNuggets or drink any more cocoa.

DON'T DRINK COCOA WITH STRAWS!

I think the lesson was learned.

He recovered quickly and has returned to drinking steaming mugs of goodness, albeit more cautiously and certainly without straws.

But my point this morning is that St. Louis has been walloped with another fluffy layer of snow and my thoughts instantly go to how perfect it would be to drink hot cocoa today.  I wish we had more milk in the fridge because I would love to make cocoa from scratch. 

Sorry, I'm not going to share a recipe because that would involve getting my ass off the couch, but it's like looking for a good grilled cheese recipe on the internet.  There might be some awesome variations but the basics are the same.  If you're looking for grilled cheese you'll need cheese, bread, butter and a hot skillet.  Hot cocoa requires milk, baking cocoa powder and sugar gently warmed in a sauce pot.

OMG!  I think I will make grilled cheese and hot cocoa for lunch today!!!!!  Except that my cocoa won't be from scratch, but from packets and hot water.  Eh, who cares.  I have marshmallows and that makes everything yummy.

We have enough snow outside to warrant pulling out the sled and giving it the annual trip down a snowy slope.  The news reports look like my older kids and my mom got close to TEN INCHES over night!  I'm looking at about 3-4 inches outside, but another blue cluster on TV is rumbling up Hwy 44 so tonight we might have 7-8 inches on the ground.

My deepest apologies to my snow hating friends, but I'm loving it!

Happy Hot Cocoa Day!

Getting The Kids Together

Ha!  Not MY kids, but my great-grandma and her siblings!  Her parents are on the right.

50 years ago

Fifty years is a long ass time.  Yet as I near the half century mark, fifty years isn't quite so... immense?  I certainly find men over fifty attractive, something that turned my stomach back in my twenties.  The thought of me turning fifty also isn't terrifying.  In fact, several people have said they enjoyed being in their fifties.  I look forward to it!  Certainly better than the alternative, right?

But the historical events that happened "FIFTY YEARS AGO" just don't seem quite so freaking long ago.  Fifty years ago was 1961.  Kennedy was a new president, Martin Luther King Jr was rattling the status quo, Vietnam was rumbling into our vocabulary, and Americans stood in mortal fear of communism.  These are all images recorded on film, played over and over through my school years so that I remember them as if they had happened in my lifetime.  I know, I know, I'm a young puppy for not being alive during the Kennedy Administration or to be able to participate in the conversations of where I was when the President was shot.  Sorry, I was a cluster of cells hanging out in an ovary, unfertilized, unconscious of the world's events.  Take it up with my mother, not like she had any power over the issue either.

In the mid-70's I was force fed these images.  Adults around me discussed them with just yesterday like tones.  "Fifty years ago" back then was the 1920's and that was ancient history!  We studied President Wilson, discussed the after affects of World War I, and the boom years proceeding the Great Depression.  The films lacked sound, the pictures were all black and white, the style of dress foreign and odd. 

Is this how kids today view the ancient 1960's?

Sangria Party 2011

Another wild evening for the record books.

This year our daughters joined in the melee.  It's odd having children old enough to drink and hold their own in our adult conversations.

Booty's daughter is the oldest of all the children and has laid the groundwork for us allowing the other kids into the circle.  Piranha's daughter is the youngest of the big kids and is still in college.  She drove home just to join us this weekend.  My daughter also attended and it was fun to see the three girls reunite.  The boys are pretty much avoiding us like the plague.  Maybe they need a few more years?

The big entertainment for the night was Piranha's daughter not taking any crap from Ripcord and saying she could flip the woman onto the floor.  Game on, challenge accepted!  They moved to the livingroom floor and proceeded with a judo demonstration.  I'm pretty sure there were aching bodies yesterday and probably today.
 

Somebody brought the pretty blue Hypnotiq.  But, ugh, it does not sit well on a belly filled with sangria.

 Of course the bathroom has been attacked.  Usually things are just rearranged, but this time someone (NOT ME) took the liberty to redecorate using toilet paper

The toilet paper decor was extended to Piranha's car which she probably won't discover until today

Overall it was a good party with no blood shed, tears or hurt feelings.  What else can you ask for?

Sunday In My City - January 16, 2011

Yesterday we had a houseguest who had never really spent any time in St. Louis.  As we drove her around town, I snapped pictures from the backseat.  Finally it dawned on me that these might be good shots for my blog!

Downtown St. Louis, Missouri - The Arch, Lacledes Landing, and Eades Bridge:

Please Take a Moment

A treasured internet friend has entered hospice.  Her spirits are high and I'm sure she's giving the staff hell.  Please offer up some pain-free, happy thoughts for Patty.

P.S.  FUCK CANCER

Friday Fragments - January 14, 2011

Ahhhh... Time to defrag with Friday Fragments!  Here's the thing, I could ramble on and on with the details, but my reminder list can stand by itself with no details.

-It snowed. 

-Someone (not me) shoveled my sidewalk.

-Kid was sick

-1st hockey loss of the season (for the kid - boo)

-Took an HTML class (ready to cut loose and play with web pages!!!)

-Christmas tree is finally down

-It's effing cold

-We're playing biggest loser at work (just started last week)



You know what?  Here's the most important part, the one that keeps me going.  In just a few weeks we'll be seeing THIS!

So there you go.  Quick and easy.  Check out everyone else defragging:

Getting Smarter

Going to spend the day sitting in class.  I'm going to learn HTML.  woooooooo

Actually I'm really excited.  I'm plundering through our company website, making changes without much idea what all of the codes mean.  So far I've been quite successful, but it would be a good idea if I formally knew what those doohickeys are.

See ya on the flip side!

Commenting Pays Off

On New Years I made a very real effort to click on all of the blogs listed in my sidebar and wish everyone a happy new year.  As a participant in Friday Fragments I voiced my desire to comment more when I read a blog.  I was very disappointed that I couldn't hit more blogs, but I certainly hit more blogs than I do in a regular weekend.

Well, wow!

First welcome to the new followers!  That was amazing watching new faces pop up in my follower list.

But I'm also being rewarded with lots of comments from all of you.  It's very exciting.

Thank you

The New Economy Size Package

Have you noticed the different sizes in packaging?

Maybe?

No?

Yesterday I was reading blogs and at Patchwork Times she was discussing this very issue.  She pointed out the reduced size of toilet paper rolls.  Well, this struck a chord in my little heart.  A few years ago I was driving across the state and pulled into a Wendy's for the requisite roadtrip stop.  I came out of the bathroom brandishing a fresh strip of toilet paper at my travel companions, indignant at the reduced width.  I swear it was barely wider than register tape.  No one seemed to understand my disgust, but maybe they were still trying to process why I was flailing toilet paper around.

If you look at the toilet paper at home, notice how there is ample room on the roll.  Can you remember a time when there was less space, side to side, on that spindle?

Does anyone remember buying a FIVE pound bag of sugar?  Do you even know that you are now buying a FOUR pound bag?

Someone else pointed out that ketchup and salad dressing bottles are skinnier.  Okay, that one threw me for a loop.  No, I had not noticed, but you can bet I'm taking note now.

I had suspected for a while that chips and cereal have extra air pumped into their bags.  I have noticed that cereal boxes are MUCH skinnier.  They're the same height as the old boxes, but they are very much narrower.

Does anyone remember not too long ago when everything was super-sized with "30% more!" or bundled packs "for your convenience"?  Then after the sale the prices slowly crept upwards beyond the original price?  Penny by penny those prices creep.  Yes, that we noticed, but it was slow and gradual and we adapted.  But there is a point where customers retract and stop buying a product because the price is too high so the manufacturers have to do something else to increase their profit margin. 

This repackaging crap is their latest ploy.  I would never begrudge someone making a profit, but this is outright greed.  Consumers need to speak up and react.  But this is another quiet adjustment that many people just do not "feel" and therefore will not flood the consumer lines with complaints.  And that, folks is exactly why it will continue.  We don't FEEL screwed so we won't speak up. 

In the meantime, everyone scratches their head wondering how the hell their grocery bills are so much higher than just a few years ago.

My Favorite Kitchen Utensil

...is a fork!

Yesterday I made bacon and french toast for breakfast.  Don't faint, I don't always force the fam to eat cold cereal for breakfast.  On weekends or sometimes for dinner I will make breakfast, it is my favorite meal after all.  But anyways, I managed to use three different forks in the meal preparation.

I always make bacon with a fork.  It is just easier to flip the pieces over with a fork than with tongs or a flipper.  Yes, I even use a metal fork on my non-stick cookware, causing my husband to flip out every single time.  Listen, I make perfect bacon with even brownness and no floppy fat and I never scratch the pan.  He simmers down when the results are on a plate in front of him.

Now if I'm also making gravy with bacon drippings I will switch to something plastic to stir, but honestly I prefer to use my all metal skillet so I can continue using my fork.  The metal skillet also has better drippings since pieces of bacon stick to the bottom.  Again the fork is the perfect utensil scrape up all that goodness. 

The fork is also my weapon of choice when mixing up eggs.  I have two different whisks that I love.  One is a standard whisk but the wires come straight down to the handle and is perfect for hand whipping.  The other is a spring looking thing introduced to me by my aunt.  I'll frequently use this one for jobs like mixing the eggs and milk for french toast, but it's just as easy to grab a fork.

The third fork was a spur of the moment inspiration.  We had a pack of berries bought last week with the intention of making fruit salad... that never came together.  So I grabbed a fork and mushed up the berries with a few scoops of powdered sugar - voila, sweet berries for our french toast.

I won't brag about my dish fairy, but he's not very happy about my excessive fork usage.  We won't talk about my child who eats soup with a fork.

Sunday In My City - January 9, 2011

A few months ago I went to lunch with a few coworkers at a local park.  It was a brilliant fall day and gratefully I was carrying a camera to capture it.

We like to pick on each other as to has the most severe case of OCD.  Usually it's me eating my M&M's by color, but this time it was someone else dismantling acorns while we talked and then lining them up in a nice little row.  A little Squirrel Buffet if you will.

We were only gone barely over a half hour and in that time the sky changed from a crisp blue to a windy, cloudy, blustery grey. 

Such is a day in St. Louis, Missouri.

Check out everyone else's city with Unknown Mami

Friday Fragments - January 7, 2011

So last Friday I resolved to visit as many blogs as possible.  Sadly I didn't hit nearly as many as I had hoped.  I do plan to comment more, but already I've fallen to my old ways - read and move on.

*While I was writing last week's post, I was sitting in my basement with tornado sirens blaring.  It was a quick storm, but I did hear the strangest groan in the air.  Afterwards we headed out to Kohl's, unfortunately the power was out.  As you can see in the picture below (taken while I was driving *grin*) the powerlines were wobbling over the street just across from Kohl's parking lot.  This is a little east of the stuff you saw on TV where the tornadoes blew through Sunset Hills in southwest St. Louis County.

From a coworker:

Please keep my friends and neighbors in Crestwood and Sunset Hills in your thoughts as they deal with the aftermath of the tornado that touched down on New Year’s Eve. The property damage covers a much larger area than many of the pictures you may have seen. In Crestwood and Sunset Hills 110 homes and businesses were damaged, 15 of them have been designated as uninhabitable.

Walking in and around the affected areas shortly after the tornado struck was both heartbreaking and awe inspiring.  Just blocks from my home roofs were blown off and many huge old trees were uprooted. At my house, not a twig was out of place.

It really is a miracle that no one was killed and that there were only a few minor injuries. These communities have much to be thankful for and lots of work ahead of them. Please keep them in your thoughts.

*It turns out that during our New Year's celebration we found out we were eating AMNISH bread.  There were other words stumbled over, but I cannot remember any of them.

*Finally I got copies of our ugly sweater contest at work.  I was among the finalists with my hideous pink flamingo (with Christmas wreaths on their necks) turtleneck (at least it wasn't a duckbilled platypus).  The green sweater won.  I don't remember why we were posing with candycanes hanging off our faces.

*It seems I may have escaped the Hippopotamus Flu (read Monday's post) but I have come down with an old fashioned cold.  I'll be driving the couch for the rest of the day.

Thanks for stopping by!  Please just comment with a "HI" to guilt me into commenting on everyone else's posts.