Crouching Pine Cone Hidden Spider Web

It didn't start out to be a martial arts epic.

I was simply going outside to help clear up storm debris in our back yard that was bountifully spread across our lawn from the next door neighbor's pine trees. They have two great whacking specimens that dump their needles, branches, twigs and pine cones of every shape, size and color onto our yard after each and every west to east storm front.

Normally, I don't think about it much because that's just how neighborhoods are. The neighbor trees giveth and the other neighbor taketh it away.

Today, I went out with my handy little grabber that I got during my stint in the rehab unit. It allows me to pick up things on the grass without falling onto my face on the uneven ground. As it is, it is hard enough to walk out there amidst the pine cones, branches and divots in the yard - said divots that are the direct result of various hound related landscaping tips. You need to be on your toes walking out there lest you become part of the debris instead of the cleanup crew!

I found the grabber to be most helpful as it would grab hold of a pine cone or a small branch and allow me to fling the offending pine cones to the debris pile we have in the southwestern corner of the yard. It also allowed me to practice my golf pitching wedge "onto the green" work as I lofted a few back into our neighbor's yard. Just enough oomph to get it over the fence, but not enough to hit their sun porch.

As I backed around a small area looking for pine cones, I managed to accidentally discover the spider web artfully draped between the red oak and the neighbor's overgrown flowering ornamental that is now part of the chain link fence.

Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li have NOTHING on the sweet ninja moves I was throwing down in the yard. I am certain I was employing muscles I don't even have. I'll probably feel that tomorrow.

But back to the danger...

Had that spider and its lethal web been part of a deployment of a trained fighting squad, it most certainly would have come out looking second best as I whirled and kicked and punched my way through the sticky entrapment which lay in wait for me as I simply tried to clean my yard.

I'm sure the neighbors were about to choke to death on whatever they were drinking while they snorted and laughed as they watched me fight off the arachnid assassin with his eight limbs of death.

The good news is that I've had a complete cardio workout in addition to the walking I did earlier today.

I think I'll sleep well tonight after that exercise... or scream my way through nightmares of ginormous ninja spiders of doom...

Wait... what is that by the corner of my eye...

EEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!

That is a piece of the spider web!!

I'll have to get back to you later... this may not be over yet.

That spider may be lurking behind a pine cone after having delivered a sticky calling card to invite me back out for round two!

Is it cheating to take Raid to a ninja battle?

Is THAT lemonaid?

A penny pinching and frugal sort of people we are in our household. By design we are careful with money and do all that we can to prevent waste of any kind. It is in our nature both personally and as a couple to be less extravagant and more careful. Having had families that shared these traits and taught them to us from the time we were babes on the knee made it an ingrained fundamental.

But sometimes, fundamental on savings just becomes mental... and I'm talking rubber room, white jacket with extra long sleeves mental.

Witness our latest moment of frugality gone awry.

With the disposition of worldly goods from my father's life estate, there have been many things among the carefully saved items that have blessed our life and most certainly the lives of my siblings and their families.

We have stored up dry packed foodstuffs against the lean times and in recent memory due to Rick's job circumstance we were thankful to have them upon which we could lean. I know food storage isn't big sexy Hollyweird glamor to most people. But in this house there isn't much sexier than being able to eat more than once a week.

As part of the stocks of foods carefully shepherded to our storage fold was some dry beverage mix in various flavors with the indicated and expected contents color and taste displayed on the label.

The other day, Rick brought in a container boldly proclaiming its status as "lemonade". We opened the container to find that the sugary mix had become the hardened consistency of a mortar round. It was roughly the same color as well. I was not amused.

Rick said we should get it chipped up and see if it was salvageable. Not being enthusiastic about this venture, I mentioned that as it didn't look right and as I was extremely certain that dish washing liquid contains more lemon based upon the sniff test that this might not be safe to drink.

After about two days of "working at it" to produce anything resembling a powdered drink mix, I was ready to call it a day and, in the words of the current popular Disney movie Frozen, "Let It Go!". Rick was not there yet and tenaciously hoped to save a few pennies for our family.

Sometimes the mental part of the fundamental equation is truly a hilarious addition to our marriage relationship. I admire that pioneer spirit. Really I do. I am appreciative of it every single day because it is how we survive in a very expensive world. What I am not too sure of appreciating is BROWN lemonade.

That's right happy campers - the lemonade was BROWN. B - R - O - W - N. Brown.

Now, I do not know about you or what kind of lifestyle you may lead in your zip code, it really isn't mine to judge, but in THIS little Alabama gals experience lemonade is most assuredly NOT brown. Not even a brownish tint. Lemonade is YELLOW. Cheerful, ebullient, inviting YELLOW.

Alas, that was not the color in the pitcher.

Most happily, Rick said "you come taste this!".

Looking upon the pitcher's contents, my stomach rolled as if on the high seas in a gale and I said "Uh, NO!"

I REFUSE TO BE THE SACRIFICIAL GUINEA PIG!!

I REFUSE!!

He plunged in for a quick taste test. Pronouncing that there was "not quite enough of the mix in it yet", he added more and stirred anew. He took a second furtive sip and then brought me enough for my sampling pleasure.

Fair enough, I've drunk band camp swamp water and scout camp swamp water and McDonald's end of shift swamp water for a sufficient number of years to be relatively immune to odd colored beverages.

I took the tiniest sip that all creation would allow.

Let me tell you brothers and sisters, I was thankful - THANKFUL I TELL YOU - that I keep a garbage can by my desk.

Why, you ask?

Because I spit that foul, wretched faintly lemon scented brown swamp water right into the trash!

I demanded that he throw it all out.

Rick wanted to simply add more of the mix because it "tasted kind of flat". Campers, there was not enough of the mix in all of Christendom to have made that palatable!! GROSS! NASTY!! YUCK!!!

Upon further reflection, and as he viewed the dismal coloration of the offending beverage, he reluctantly agreed.

Children, the moral to the story is this: when you have to apply so generous amount of the powdered mix to have created TWO complete batches instead of just one and are STILL contemplating the addition of even MORE of the brownish chunkage, and when the heretofore mentioned amount STILL does not create anything worth drinking, it is time to call it a day and turn out the lights on this attempt at saving money.

I am not even convinced that the application of the entire container would have produced anything resembling a drinkable beverage but instead just a brown slurry of sticky goo unfit for human consumption.

Rick dumped the chunky mess of what was alleged to be drink powder into the field next to us. To have put it into our garbage would have been an invitation to every critter in nine counties to come taste it and perhaps die on our property. I can't handle that kind of mess.

So, as a recap, lemonade should be YELLOW, not brown.

You aren't saving money if you have to use an inordinately larger amount of ANYTHING to produce the results the package says you can get with a lesser amount.

And sometimes you have to learn to let it go.

But, because I know that there are born skeptics out there, I promise that I will save the very next can of alleged beverage mix for you.

You may conduct your own experiment on its value and taste.

Just do one thing for me first.

Make your life insurance policy out to me, because when you croak from drinking it, I'd like to be able to bury you more decently than I have buried frogs, lizards and a hermit crab. My back yard is running out of funeral space and our garbage men will only take so many dead bodies to the landfill before even they will become suspicious.

Snorting milk out my nose

It happens that I have a very well developed sense of humor.

Sometimes that gets me into all manner of difficulty as that funny bone gets tickled at inappropriate times and occasionally for inappropriate reasons.

Because I begin my day at the computer most days, I like to check in on the news and happenings of the world, read a few items posted on Facebook and catch up on Scrabble online. There are days those news and happenings absolutely crack me up.

As an example, I reference a news article from a while ago that I found while perusing through the small town newspaper from a place I've never even been before. I do that sometimes when I am sick of the newscasts in our area. As a disclaimer, I am NOT advocating vandalism in any form.

However, having said that I am also not advocating drinking milk while you read this article. I managed to snort milk from my nose because I was laughing so hard at the visual imagery in my head and it could have been a dangerous choking incident (or at least ruined my computer keyboard).

This comes from the newspaper that serves the delightful hamlet of Beatrice, Nebraska:

"Toilet seats are meant for restrooms. Not public park restroom ceilings. But that's not the case at Hannibal Park in Beatrice. There, vandals took sparklers, made a bomb, then practically took out the men and women restrooms.'They take what traditionally would be just a sparkler, they tape them together and because of the confinement of them being taped together, it causes a really really big explosion,' Beatrice Police Chief Bruce Lang said. And what a big explosion it was. Debris can be seen outside the bathroom stalls. Near the roof, the air conditioning hangs loosely by its hinges. Inside the women's restroom, the toilet was blown to pieces. Inside the men's restroom, wet tissue and porcelain pieces were strewn everywhere".

INCOMING!! Flying john pieces at 12 o'clock!!!

I will cop to the fact that I have had more than a few run-ins with homemade explosives. Heck, I may OR MAY NOT have been responsible for an outhouse that sort of exploded. The jury is still out on that one... but the description of the incident with the accompanying picture of the toilet seat jammed through the roof of the outhouse is just funny to me. Milk snorting through the nose funny.

Please do not take this as an invitation to go blow up a toilet just so you can watch me snorting milk from my nostrils. And don't go cow tipping either. It doesn't work and you get poop all over your shoes. Which is likely what the people in that restroom may have discovered after the untimely demise of their facilities.

Have a nice day and remember that just because you CAN explode a john doesn't mean you SHOULD explode a john.

Drano and a happy morning to you

You know today will be bringing a few challenges your way when you are taking your normal morning shower only to realize that a puddle is forming around your feet and ankles while you stand there covered in soap and shampoo. Nice.

The first thing you try is rinsing your foot around the top of the drain to see if a pesky hair wad is globbed up to block the drain. Alas, it was not hair ball causing the drama. Oh no happy campers! That would be way too easy.

Next, you hold off on the shower water figuring the combination of the rinse cycle on the washer and the shower is overwhelming the pipes. Nope, not that either.

Then, I tried to create a suction by blocking the drain with my foot to see if some kind of vacuum would form so that when I removed my foot it would miraculously drain all the soapy water away.

That didn't work either, dang it!

So I was left with the inescapable conclusion that happens every single spring... the tree roots in the front yard had once again invaded the pipes in search of fertilizing water from our wastewater pipe that leads to the sewer in our ditch. Woo hoo. I love it. In that way that I mean NOT.

Being a resourceful gal, I hunted down the Drano. Of course, I did wait until I was dressed to do so because frankly the very idea of prancing through the house on slippery tile while dripping wet and buck nekkid was just not something I was willing to countenance. Low they may be, but I do have my standards. Plus the blinds were up...

Finding the appropriate container in the cabinet beneath the sink in the main hallway bath, I poured a generous cupful of the miracle pipe cleaner down the shower drain and the rest of the bottle into the toilet. Now I am playing the waiting game until it is time to douse the drain with hot water in the hopes that the acid in the drain cleaner will eat up the blockage but not my pipes. It's like being in final Jeopardy, but with less glamorous prizes.

I'm not sure I hold out a lot of hope as the last time this happened I was forced to call the nice but expensive Roto-Rooter dude to come with his fancy truck and grind the blockage to bits. That was helpful but sure made the bank balance pitiful. Shouldn't someone be willing to accept payment rendered in sincere gratitude? Reckon not...

Is it possible to pray over your drains? I don't say that in jest as we are told to cry over our families, our flocks, our herds and to cry against the devil. While I am not claiming wastewater pipes as cattle or flocks of any kind, I would certainly say that there is something devilish in having a clog that makes you feel like you are going to drown in soapy water. For the record, I am not a fan of drowning. Plus the epitaph would be most unflattering... "Suds to death in what was evidently the prime of her life".

Hmm. I shall have to ponder this sudsy conundrum.

In the meantime, liquid chores are waiting for resolution of the problem before being pursued. I can't imagine what kind of backup another load of laundry would bring to my drain system! And I live in fear of a toilet overflow - mostly because they are plain gross and cleaning them up is no picnic. That and I am secretly afraid of the toilet plunger...

So I wait on the magic promised on every bottle of Drano. That it will fulfill the intent of its inventors and rid me of the sinister clog that has rendered my day at a standstill until such time as the clog either dissolves through the might of chemical intervention or it is eaten up by the invading and hungry tree roots that sneak their tendrils through and into my pipes.

It does make one reconsider the idea of an open sewer system but certainly not the stench from one. At least in an open system you can see what the problem is and rectify it speedily. But the overpowering scent would be an eye watering, nose burning experience indeed. I do not envy the Romans on that account. Ew!

I well remember the halcyon days of youth as we would drive by the "poop factory" where our city's modern municipal water supply was allegedly cleaned. They had settling ponds where the solid materials would literally settle out into concrete holding areas and the water would be drained out and chemically cleaned and reinserted into the drinking supply. It was a nasty smelling place. Just what they did with that sewage slime and chunks was beyond my kin. I am convinced they just chucked it into the river. After a school tour of the facility, I was almost ready to give up drinking water entirely until Momma pointed out that the milk I was drinking was from cows that pee and poop in their drinking water all the time. Plus she mentioned something about dying from lack of water that sort of derailed my erstwhile plans of becoming an H20 teetotaler. Oh the price we pay for knowledge!

Now I understand fully that there are challenges in every life. I am not being made to chop wood every day, I seldom haul water and it has been decades since I bathed in a washtub on the back porch at my grandparents house in Sylacauga. I even doubt that the back porch (or the house for that matter!) is still there anyway.

But dang it, when you step into the bath in an allegedly modern home with connections to that great sanitary sewer system lauded in story and song (okay, so I exaggerate), you don't expect to be ankle deep in sudsy water that should have just drained away. Yes, I am spoiled. Spoiled rotten.

At any rate, it is time to make some hot water to pour down the offending drain and see what happens. I'm just hoping to see some positive movement. If not, don't be surprised to see me, my slippers, my robe, my towels and my Alabama elephant loofah ringing your doorbell. I will be conducting an informal test of YOUR water system's drain capabilities. And if it is satisfactory, I may well be a guest each morning for a quick rinse until this temporary crisis is over.

Happy towels to you until we rinse again!

P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, The Drano and hot water treatment worked! Yeah me!