At this point, I myself fear how my brain works.

I couldn't help but add on to my earlier post today.  Naturally, this bit came to mind.



Why not make this a Cheech & Chong theme post?  This was a favorite of one of my brothers when I was little.  All I could remember from way back then was the yelling, but now I think the rest is kind of funny, too.



Thank you.

What's that you say?

I had occasion to visit Voice Mail Land yesterday.  I got stuck with one of those voice-recognition packages that I find, for some reason, more infuriating than pushing buttons to nowhere.  Somehow, I said the right combination of words, and it let me talk to a real, human being!

It was nice to have someone responsive and with a brain, and his accent wasn't so thick that I needed a sharp knife to carve through it, but it still was difficult.  I wasn't sure he said "Sanders", so I asked him to spell it.  He said "F-o-u-n-d-e-r-s".  Hoo boy.

Actually, he spelled it and then gave an example word for each letter, such as "F as in Frank, U as in universe, D as in dumbass, E as in earresponsible..."

No, sorry.  I meant earregardless.  Oops, that's not a word either.  Well, not to anybody but VanGogh.  I mean, he's the only person of note.  No, wait.  That would be Beethoven.

Smile! You’re on ‘Candid Camera’.

When we arrived at work this morning, there was a pile of dung* and a white sock outside our shop building. I thought it might have been a dog, but a dog would’ve gone under one of the trees, wouldn’t it? Perhaps a transient did it, but he would’ve gone around the back of the building to be hidden from street view, wouldn’t he?

I pulled up the recording from our security cameras and traced the time back through the weekend. (The mess definitely wasn’t there when we left work on Friday.) At 12:23 a.m. on Saturday, a dark SUV pulled into the parking lot, and a heavyset woman exited the driver’s door. She opened the passenger door on her side of the vehicle and did something. She then removed her shorts, squatted over the asphalt and relieved herself, then stood up, reopened the passenger door, wiped herself (presumably with the sock she left behind), put her shorts back on, and drove off. (Um, is this where I’m supposed to come up with a gross pun about the sock and her behind?)

Not that I ever thought I’d have to keep track of something like this, but this incident has to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen on camera. It’s a good thing it was too dark for details, or my eyeballs would still be burning, and I wouldn’t be able to type this.

I couldn’t determine the color or make and model of the SUV, and it wasn’t facing the right way to show me the license plate. The kicker here is that, based on the direction it entered the parking lot, I figure she had to have driven right by the port-a-potty next to the sidewalk on the very same block.

So, how’s your Monday going?



* What’s brown and sounds like a bell?

I can halve my cake and eat it, too.

Some years ago, a woman I used to know baked what she called a "Harvey Wallbanger Cake" for a party for her daughter.  Not only was it yummy, but I got a buzz off of just one slice.

Since Thing One is an exemplary cook, and since she makes a cake whenever one of the management team has a birthday, I asked if she thought she could make it for my birthday earlier this month.  Lo and behold, she pulled out the recipe from hers and her mother's trove of gastronomic secrets!  The downside is that she expected me to bake it myself. She was nice enough to let me use her kitchen, though (and her Mixmaster and her cake pan and...), and we both provided ingredients.

It didn't turn out as well as she hoped, although you couldn't prove it by me.  I thought I was scraping the bottom of my bowl of baking lore when I suggested we could turn the cake pan upside down to cool, as my mom always did for her angel food cakes, so that the cake wouldn't settle.  She figures it's because the cake mix instructions said to add all four eggs at once, whereas she always adds and blends them in one at a time, when she makes a cake from scratch.  (For me, using a mix instead of buying a completed product is "from scratch".)

The alcohol in the cake batter evaporates while baking, so you needn't worry about everyone at work getting tipsy.  The leftover section I took home, however....  /grins broadly/  I cut a slice, put it on a plate, and pour the two kinds of alcohol from the recipe over the top.  Then I let it sit for a bit.  After a short while, I turn the piece over, so that the other side also can soak up what dribbled onto the plate.

I haven't gotten a buzz, though.  I need either more alcohol or a bigger piece.

It probably wouldn't fit me anyway.

I received an e-coupon from a chain of sandwich restaurants, offering a free kid's combo with purchase of an entree.  It's probably something to do with Fathers' Day, but who am I to turn down a free meal?

I saw two men there with children I presumed were theirs, and the kids had a plastic, wearable replica of a fireman's helmet.  There's one pictured on the coupon I turned in, so why didn't I get one?  Maybe they hand it out only if there's a child present.

My balls have more (oo)mph.

About a month ago, our league's bowling alley changed the scorekeeping computers.  One of the changes was the addition of a radar or sensor or speedometer or something which tells you how fast your ball was going.  I'm not sure how accurate it is.  Most of my rolls clock between 23 and 25 miles per hour, but 26.1 m.p.h. was my highest.  Until this evening, that is, when the monitor displayed 27.5 m.p.h.

All of my league mates bowl somewhere between 13 and 20 m.p.h.  Yes, that means, in addition to having the heaviest ball in the league, I also have the fastest.

I felt like Charlie Brown at Halloween.

The project dominating my time (and thoughts) this week has been trying to find an irrigation line at a construction site, before they break it again.  If any plans exist for this site, they're lost in a roomful of disorganized plans.

At one point, I tried using a metal detector to locate the shutoff valve which we hope exists.  (You see my problem?  Not only do we not know where anything is underground, what we really want to find might not be there in the first place!)  This was a snowball's chance in Hades, since it's most likely a plastic valve in a plastic box.  The detector beeped whenever it sensed a cluster of small rocks/gravel, a large rock (but, oddly enough, not large rocks showing at the surface), or, rarely, bits of metal.  I found the bottom of a dip/tobacco can, one of those clips that holds an ace bandage in place, a penny (at least I got paid for my troubles), and scissors.

In my next life, I hope I have x-ray vision, so I won't have to go through all this again.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?

According to the classic commercial, three.  Coincidentally, that's the number of lawnmowers two of my crew broke yesterday.  (One knocked off one of the cutting units by running it up against a foul pole on one of the baseball fields, and then the battery gave out on his replacement mower.  The other guy flattened a tire so badly, it came off the rim.)  Then there was the employee who injured himself with the hedge trimmer, in a way that I can't quite figure out.  Then there was the guy who went home sick.  Then I had to print and present the staff training.  Then I helped my irrigation guy check if his repair from yesterday took or not.  Finally, I was able to get back to seeking the main irrigation line for the area under construction, in case they hit another sprinkler line.  (We found a valve that shuts off three sites at once, but I'd really like to find a shutoff valve for just this site, so I don't kill the grass on the varsity baseball and the lacrosse fields.) Did I mention that I've worked late four days straight so far?

Do You Know There's a Mouse in Your Gym Bag?

No, but if you hum a few bars, I can fake it.  :)

The next time I open my protein bar during my workout, I'm going to have to find a nice, high place to set my bag.  It's a pity I'm a muggle, or else I could just charm the bag to make it hover.

This is *not* one of the Verdant Rules.

It seems to hold true, however.

Cap'n C. must work late every Friday, even if it's his birthday.

Working late and being another year older brings this song to mind.  (It is sung, appropriately enough, by "Tennessee" Ernie Ford.)



See my Verdant Rules here.  In the meantime, I'm going to invoke Rule #2.

It's a beautiful day for a party.

So where are you throwing me this party?  And what time is it?

It's supposed to be sunny and in the mid-80's today, with a light breeze.  That's about all the remarkableness I can come up with for my obligatory, annual, birthday post.

Oh, I guess I could say that I'm now going to admit my age again.  It was a long, tough year, but I made it without saying even "the big four-oh".  As recently as this week, someone asked how old I was, and I said, "Nearly 41."

I guess I can take off the "nearly" now -- but I still have the right to say I'm 29.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

After my weights routine, I've had time to walk around the outdoor track.  I take off my shirt, so that I won't be as pasty white as usual.  Even after just one hour in the late afternoon sun, I started turning rosy pink on the first day I tried it.

It's interesting that my back got sunburned but my chest didn't.  I mean, I can understand that my abs didn't burn because of the shade cast by my mountainous pectoral muscles (especially in the deep valleys between each abdominal muscle, where it's always shaded, like crevasses on the moon), but why didn't my pecs burn?  (Maybe it's because my big head got in the way.)

My legs didn't burn, either.  Of course, that could be due to the hair on them, which diffuses or blocks the sunlight.  (I guess I wouldn't have burned at all, if I had hair on my back.)

I have more hair, too.

This week, we started our summer work schedule.  I still get up at dark-thirty in the morning, but now I eat breakfast and go to work.  My workout comes in the afternoon.

Because my crew starts so early but the other crews remain on the same shift year-round, I often see some of the employees while on my way to, during, or after my workout.  They're not used to seeing me out of my uniform.  As such, it didn't surprise me yesterday, when one of the housekeepers said this to me.

"You look familiar.  Do you have a brother who works in Grounds?"

Sure, I do.  Only I'm younger, smarter, cuter, and in better shape.

You get it from a pig in a poke.

You may not be able to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you can still make a pretty decent, leather (pigskin) purse.