Frozen Car Doors

A couple of Michigan winters ago, I went to a ballet recital downtown in the freezing rain. When I got back to my car a couple hours later, my car was beautifully frozen over. I chipped the ice off the lock and got it unlocked, but couldn't open the door. I ended up unlocking and crawling in through the hatchback and over the stick shift and finally home to a garage where I reversed the process in order to get out.

My Ontario friend outdid me this year. She got into her car just fine and drove home, but after she pulled into her garage, she couldn't get out. Yep. That old freezing rain bit again. She called on her cell phone for her roommate to unlock the back and crawled over her stick shift and out the back.

Are there flexibility-safety classes teaching the proper way to exit a frozen car? And I wonder: is there freezing rain down in Arizona?

It's all about the Timing

May has been crazy. (Anything different from normal? Not so much.) But it seems that instead of blogging, I've given in to other priorities this month. I thought of lots of great funnies to post here the past few weeks. There was this really good one I had for May Day, and another for Mother's Day, and several entries from my son's 3rd grade journal we just re-discovered cracked me up. And that end of the world business? I could have posted lots about that, too. But I let the month keep slip-sliding away. I did end up doing a lot of writing and a lot of yard work, but neither of those were too very giggly to write about here.

ALL THIS brings me to a very important point about humor: timing. I could share a Mother's Day funny here and now, but it wouldn't be nearly as amusing as it would have been then and there.

So... until another day, keep looking for funnies.

A Personal Funny

When I was 19 years old, I was a chaperone for 50 inner city high schoolers from Des Moines on a cultural trip to Minneapolis. It was a long drive. Most of them slept through the Shakespearean play. We stayed at a hotel. As the other female chaperone and I patrolled the halls after curfew, we smelled something funny. My partner recognized it as marijuana.

I knocked on the door from which the odor emanated. No answer. I knocked again, identifying who we were, and that they had better open up, RIGHT NOW. Still no answer. I pounded on the door, telling the occupants through the closed door that they had better stop what they were doing or the hotel would kick us all out in the middle of the night, to say nothing about getting arrested. It was late. Not a peep of a response. I didn’t feel like packing up and getting 50 sleepy kids back on a bus to another state. So we went to bed.

In the morning, I checked the roster of rooms where our people stayed. I was going to really chew those girls out for being so stupid. It was then that I discovered the room I pounded on in the night was not one of the rooms on our list of kids.

Ice Storm

... So I'm walking down our street today, trying to get some good photos of this storm. The ice-covered snow is so thick that my steps don't even crunch through. I took my time, walking with care. Didn't want to slip. I have pictures of icy berries, icy branches, icy forest, icy wires, icy lots of things.

Last night, police sirens kept me awake. They continue going off now and then this morning, too. I imagined all the accidents I'd read about in the past 18 hours. During my 45-minute trek, about five cars passed by, barely traveling faster than I was walking. I thought how foolish they were, driving on ice.

... So I'm in this wooded area, stepping over fallen branches, looking for good shots, when I notice the swaying trees above me. Hmm... 20 mph gusts predicted today... power outages have already happened in the area... with more expected as icy branches take out electrical wires.

I quickly -- but carefully -- waddle my way towards home, praying the branches won't spike me as they fall, wondering just who the foolish person is who is out in this icy weather today.

What Disabilities?

I attended a song-writing workshop this past week. Our presenter started out with, "Can anyone give me a starting line for a song?" The woman next to me raised her hand high, waiting to be called on for her suggestion. Thing is, our presenter has been blind since birth.

Real Family Tree -- in the woods!

We hiked yesterday, and came across this tree which seemed to have several nests in it. I found it amusing. My husband called it a Real Family Tree. What do you think?

Another Michigan Road Sign

There's a road sign in Kalamazoo which reads:

"Complete left turn when traffic clears."

Um... yes.

I like my husband's response to the sign: "That takes the fun out of it!"

4th of July Joke

An old, but true-blue joke for the 4th of July...

Question: Do people in the UK observe the 4th of July?

Answer: Yes. And the 5th and the 6th and the 7th of July, too.

A Wilderness Adventure with Kids

We were in the Canadian wilds. We'd paddled up the Little Madawaska River for a couple hours without seeing any other canoeist or hikers since our campground. Loons dove in the water near us; we'd passed a swimming beaver; there were frogs the size of our fists; we ducked under fallen trees as we paddled past. Ahh... the wilderness.

The river opened up into the next lake. It was ten times the size of the lake where we'd set up camp. We could see the road which ran through the park. It traveled alongside the lake, about two miles from the mouth of the river where we were.

Suddenly, we passed a boat ramp. How odd, we thought. no boat trailer or car was in the small gravel parking lot and grass grew between the pebbles. Then, we came to a picnic table along the beach. Curiouser and curiouser. We pulled in by the picnic table in order to stretch our legs and eat our snack lunches.

Our young boys spotted an outhouse back in the woods. Again, how odd to have such a sign of civilization in the wilds. They suddenly "needed" to go. I looked around at all their tree choices, and shrugged an "okay." My husband and I stood on the shore watching the waves on the large lake and taking in all the beauty and wonder before us.

Then, from the woods behind us, came a "ker-flush!" It took a moment to identify the sound. There were no sinks, but the outhouse in the middle of the wilderness had a flush toilet. Surprise! Guess we weren't as far away from civilization as we thought.

Hearing Voices

Is it difficult having a son who is a psychiatrist?... NAW.

Mom (me): Am I hearing voices? Or did someone just say something?
Son: Yes.

Racoon Food

Having camped in dozens of states, we've noticed the mighty raccoon is a common campground companion. There are many a tale I could tell of them. But one particular time, after fixing a dried food meal which tasted really bad, we decided to treat the neighborhood racoons, and left the uneated food out on the picnic table. In the morning, we discovered footprints all around the food, but even raccoons wouldn't eat that stuff.

(BTW, this was very early in our camping experience. I would not recommend leaving food out for wild animals. It encourages them to hang around humans, and they are wild, after all.)

Cell Phones -- part 1

I'm not old, mind you, but I do remember a time when we had party lines. (And if you have to browse for what those were, just forget I mentioned it, please.) Getting used to new technology can be... interesting.

Being on the ground level of cell phones was one of those times. I remember a day when I could not shake these couple measures of a song out of my head. They went on and on, over and over in my brain. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the words were. As I walked up the grocery aisle, suddenly I heard the very song I was trying to remember. It was the ring tone of a cell phone of another customer -- the same ring tone on my own cell phone.

The Proper Way to Hang Toilet Paper

Hey! I just made a lens page on The Proper Way to Hang Toilet Paper.

Curious? Check it out at...

http://www.squidoo.com/lensmaster/new_workshop/Ways-To-Hang-Toilet-Paper

Breakfast Fruit

This morning at breakfast, my hubby commented, "This fruit was picked by a sad dog."
(a melon collie)

Athletic Squirrels

Our present house had stood empty for a several months before we moved in. There was so much to do inside that I only went outside to mow or fill the birdfeeder.

Then came a day when I needed to simply sit in the sunshine and get some fresh air, to relax for a moment. I took a chair to the backyard and sat for the first time in weeks.

My eyelids were starting to droop, when out of my peripheral vision, I saw something dark, wandering slowly towards me, and now about three feet away. It was as obviously unaware of me as I had been of it.

I don't believe we have flying squirrels in this part of Michigan, but when I screamed, that black squirrel jumped about eight feet straight up, moving its little limbs for all its worth -- trying to fly, I think. Impulse made me leap up as well. But only a few seconds after the squirrel landed, it had scampered out of sight.

How to Keep Deer Away From Your Garden

While living out west, deer were very much a problem, both in city and in the country. It was not unusual to read about houses advertized for sale, listing they had an 8' deer fence around their garden. I've seen deer standing parallel on the outside of our chainlink fence, and in a blink of an eye, magically appear on the other, inside our yard. I swear, her legs didn't bend at all.

For a week one spring, there was a herd of about 30 deer who chose our yard to be their residence. It was nice for them since our fence protected them from the neighborhood dogs. And every day I scooped up the fertilizer they'd leave as rent payment.

Gardeners in the west have a secret which I'll now share with you. How to keep deer away from your garden? Cougar poop.

Moving to Michigan, I strung a rope around my little garden, not so much to keep the deer out, but to discourage them. A woman with several preschool kids passed by as I was stringing up my rope.

"Know what keeps deer away?" she asked me.

Without thinking, as I sometimes do, I answered, "Cougar poop."

Forgetting what she was going to suggest, she asked, "Where do you get cougar poop?"

And I, again answering without thinking, responded, "From cougars."

MyMother's Word Substitutions

My mother would hardly ever get my name on the first call. She'd call me by my brother's name, my sister's name, our cat's name, and then finally -- BINGO! -- my own name. She did this with other words as well.

When our grad school son got his first car, my mother asked him if he was a member of AARP. This threw everyone into a fit of laughter, not knowing where it came from. I, of course, mystery lover of words, figured out that she meant AAA.

When I was in high school, she never liked me going to the public swimming pool because I might get syphilis. Of course, she meant athlete's foot, but it still brings a smile to my face whenever I go near public swimming pools.