underdogishere

Unable to leave
work -- thunders bang, rains hammer.
So what else is new?

Labels: Haiku

In case you didn't believe that we actually visited the one-and-only real Oscar Mayer Wienermobile, here we are, as photographed by the Official Oscar Mayer Wienermobile Professional Photography Staff, a couple of Oscar Mayer hot dogs:



FWIW, I think my photos were better than the OOMWPPS's, but hey, what do I know?

We were there.

Labels: Out and About

The Oscar Mayer Wienermobile was in our area last Thursday afternoon. And since Judi is, at heart, only six years old, of course we had to go see it! You can click on any of the following pictures to see a larger version.

It has a pretty big butt:



We got a glimpse of what looks like a pretty cushy interior:



Judi standing in front. Don't you think it looks a little like an insect? (The Wienermobile, not Judi.) Also, you can check out Judi's new glasses and hairdo in this picture:



A close-up of the bug eyes. Bug eyes with double-barreled windshield wipers:



The Wienermobile from the side:



Okay now, all together, let's sing the song: "Oh, I wish I were an Oscar Mayer wiener/That is what I truly want to be/'Cause if I were an Oscar Mayer wiener...." (You know the words!):



We were given Wienermobile whistles, too!

Labels: Out and About

JUDI: I want this planted in the middle.

ME: The middle is the place that's the same distance from this post and that post.

JUDI: The middle is where I say it is.

Labels: Out and About

Judi has had a Bird of Paradise plant growing in a big pot on the back deck for a couple of years, but it has persistently refused to bloom. Until a week or so ago. So, naturally, I wanted to take a picture. But it's been raining, raining, raining -- not to mention thundering and lightning-ing -- constantly here for weeks, and when I went out with the camera, the sky was dark and violent. I wanted sunlight on the flower, but sunlight was nowhere to be found. So I went with Plan B: Instead of taking a picture of the flower with the gray sky behind me, I turned it around, knelt on the deck, and took a picture of the flower rising into the menace:

Labels: Uplifted

...a coworker:

You know, we didn't rectally deliver that.

Labels: Overheard

We Americans (and probably others, too -- it's probably common among lower and middle classes everywhere), but anyway, we Americans love to despise and ridicule snobs and elitists. We do not look up to them. We laugh at them.

There are few snobs and elitists who are easier to despise and ridicule than Starbucks patrons. I mean, four dollars for a cup of coffee that's been beaten to a froth and topped with a squirt of whipped cream? And why can't they use the words "small," "medium," and "large"? What's with the... Italian? It could be Azerbaijani, for all I know. They may even be nonsense words. Yes, it's summertime, and easy to mock those who drink at Starbucks. It's especially painless for Judi and I, since we both hate coffee.

And yet.... A few weeks ago, we were in a local Target, and the Target's in-store food slop was -- can you believe it? -- a Starbucks. Judi was thirsty, and scoured the menu board for something tolerable. Finally she settled on the passionfruit tea.

It was addiction at first sip. That's Judi's own choice of words: "Addicted."

So now I, yes I, I am regularly found in a Starbucks, and I, yes I, can be heard saying, "A venti shaken passionfruit tea, two pumps," holding up two fingers, because if the "two pumps" isn't communicated effectively, then the poor schlep -- er, barista -- will add six pumps, making it too sweet to be drinkable.

And so, now, I can mock myself.

Labels: Out and About

Unexpectedly,
Blues in my mailbox. Busy
day, ends hopefully.

Clara in a crash!
Just as she predicted. Please,
no more predictions.

Zeus hanging in there.
A guy who knows when to kiss,
when to wag his tail.

Labels: Haiku

Judi and I were riding our bikes on an errand last weekend when we passed this Sandhill Crane sitting serenely (but aren't all cranes serene?) on the grass only about ten feet from the bike path. We stopped our bikes and got off very slowly to take pictures while this beauty posed for us. Sandhill Cranes are endangered, and we've never been this close to one before.



Judi has had to go to Orlando for some specialized dental work. While her doctor is not Vietnamese, his office is in the Vietnamese Quarter, aka Little Saigon (I'm not using "Little Saigon" as a pejorative -- you see it everywhere in the Quarter, as in Little Saigon Grocery and Market, Little Saigon Pho, and Little Saigon Laundromat and Dry Cleaners). There's a Publix Supermarket near the doctor's office (Publix is a chain local to Florida, kind of like Ralphs in Southern California). I assume that these signs, which are all over the parking lot, say, in Vietnamese, "Parking for Publix customers only":

Labels: Seen

I don't think either of you two readers live here in Florida, but if you did, you would know that one thing you need (unless you are lucky enough to be able to garage your car all the time) is a reflective sunshield for your car's windshield. A car parked in the Florida sun absorbs about as much heat as a moderately-sized desalinization plant, but without water to desalinate. I heard on the radio that the temperature inside a parked car gets to eleventy-gazillion degrees. I'm not making this up. But reflective shields in the windshield hold the temperature down by, like, I dunno, twelve, maybe thirteen degrees. At least. And that makes a difference.

So Judi and I were in Target (the store) a week or so ago, and I spotted a reflective pair of windshield screens sporting...

...butterflies!

In case you haven't been reading this blog lately, butterflies are Judi's new obsession project. So, naturally, I had to have these sunshields for my car.

So that brings us to this past weekend. We pulled into a parking spot prior to getting some lunch. You should understand that the new butterfly shields collapse into an amazingly compact package, but only after you execute a procedure that resembles the mating dance of the loon. It's a trial. So Judi got out a pair of scissors and began clipping coupons. I got out the collapsed reflective shields to unfold them and put them in the windshield.

"I figured I could get this done," said Judi, coupon-clipping, "while you wrestle the butterflies."

Wrestle the butterflies?

Of course it caught my imagination immediately. Wrestle the butterflies. It sounds sort of Zen-like, or Buddhist maybe. I don't know what it means, but I know I will figure out a way to use it that gives it meaning. Wrestle the butterflies....

On another word-related note, Judi left her gadget that exfoliates her feet in my car because, as she said, "When I'm in your car I'm almost always sandalfooted."

Sandalfooted.... Don't you love the way that sounds?

Labels: Butterflies, Out and About

So early this morning we went to our local WalMart to buy chips for our Independence Day celebration, which consisted (Plan A) of taking Princess Sunni and her sister The Amazing Skye-Dog to a local dog park. Judi picked out a bag that the tag on the shelf said was $2.49. The cashier in our checkout lane was an old, small, bitter woman -- what you would expect was in keeping with the WalMart experience. Nothing in the world was right with her.

She slided Judi's chips across the scanner. Judi handed her a twenty-dollar bill, and the dour old woman punched her register and said, "Your change is...."

And then the dour old woman lit up: She smiled, her voice went up a couple of registers, and she said:

"Your change is 1776!"

With great delight, she counted seventeen dollars and seventy-six cents out of her cash drawer.

As she handed it to Judi, she said, with a big beaming smile across her face, "Happy Birthday!"

And so I say to you:

Happy birthday, America!

Labels: Out and About