...the Wise, the Witty, and the Waste of your time...

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The windy city...

Has anyone watched that old old Calamity Jane musical from ages ago? At one point in the movie they burst into an energetic tap dance singing routine about "goin' down to the windy city" which was Chicago if I remember right. Anyway, that song keeps going through my head when I look at these pictures.
We don't live in a particularly windy place but in the two years we've lived here we've had a few massive wind storms. Like, power out and roofs flying off houses and trees uprooting all over the place, smashing through cars and houses, and our garbage can lid disappearing, never to be seen again- kind of massive windstorms.
In the first picture it wasn't even the big storm and I was actually afraid of being blown off the mountain. I'm not holding on to the post and my headband just to be cool, I'm holding on to keep from flying off!



Check this out. Someone's tree went down and the root system neatly picked up the yard and peeled it back like and orange!


For the surfing nuts this looks somewhat like a wave and provides a beautiful photo op of being inside the barrel...sort of.



Look at that...he's totally surfing in his mind!



Apparently the owner came out as they were enjoying his mess of a yard and he was decidedly unexcited about both the yard and the hooligans on his yard! I have to admit, I can't help but be on his side just a little. This does NOT look like an easy fix.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Some great Stuff and Some not so Great Stuff.

So about a week ago I had some lovely friends come to visit. I'd been looking forward to their arrival for about 100 years and had great plans of going to the beach and barbecuing and staying up late. As it turns out, I unfortunately, was both very sick and had very bad cramps. What a blessing! And the weather was cloudy, gray, drizzly, and downright cold. But as good friends do, they curled up in blankets with my miserable self and watched movies and played Bible trivia.

We, of course, stayed up late every night and on one of them, it was after midnight and I was the last person getting ready for bed. The house was dark other than our bedroom and as I was discarding my clothes and preparing to turn off the light, I was horrified to look up and see hands holding a camera right up against my window. Of course as soon as I looked at it, the person I couldn't see in the blackness jerked it back and it disappeared.

I've always thought that if I ever saw anything outside my window at night that I would scream bloody murder but I was surprised at how unbelieving my brain was. I thought it was a prank, a mirage, a reflection...anything but some creep taking pictures through my window in the dead of night! I checked the livingroom to make sure the girls were there and Sally was sitting bolt upright looking out the window. Only when she informed me that there was a man in our yard did I actually panic, wake up Justin, and go racing outside. In hindsight I realize I should have waited for Justin before I tore out to attack a full grown man in my pajamas but at the time I wasn't so much rational as I was TICKED.

Unfortunately we didn't catch him and only Sally saw him and his only identification was that he has gray hair. Seeing as how this is the retirement capital, it could be anyone, so it leaves us with this sick suspicion of every neighbor we see.

Whats really disturbing is that our place and certainly our bedroom window are pretty tucked out of sight so it doesn't seem likely that it was a spur of the moment intrusion by someone wandering around at midnight with a camera. You kinda have to know where to look to find our bedroom. How many times has he been out there under cover in the darkness!?

As disturbing as it is we can't be paranoid so other than being religious about closing our blinds, life goes on. We called the police, we lock our doors....our house is easy to break into...

On a much much better note - the rest of the weekend...

These are my lovely friends curled up with the ailing.

I'm aware of how I look thank you very much.

For old time's sake we went to Walmart (before I got hit with a tanker) and got a highlighting kit; it's funny that they trust me with their hair when in times past it hasn't always been....er.....fully successful. Sometimes 'mahogany' isn't so much a lustrous brown with reddish undertones as it is just fire engine red with purple undertones....anyway.

5 hours later....we're ready for the bleach...it's nearly 1 in the morning!

OH yes, speaking of hair, note that there is some pink in my hair! I've been wanting to do that for years and just never did. Now that I finally did it I was attacked by some wicked cold sores and refused to take pictures so by the time this was taken, it was mostly faded out. Durn. I liked it while it lasted though, i was smashing! :)

In order for it to not be a 100% lame weekend we did go to a cliff jumping site.

He looks like a fairy who flew up to kiss the hills!

Since I'm not so much of a swimmer and not so much of a jumper offer of cliffs...I read. Off the charts coolness!

This is my polly pocket, Grace.

Do as I say or I swear, I'll squish your head!

We girls went out for drinks and were interrupted by a random guy who came up and high fived us and proceeded to chat aimlessly.

Undoubtedly because he saw this irresistible pose!

Or this one! Nice chin Grace!

Despite the weather, the cramps and general malaise, the interrupting strangers and the peeping toms...we had fun. This is what friends are for and I love them!