When we lost our electricity in a storm last week I was glad that I have little flashlights scattered around the house. I had bought a bunch of them at Wal Mart around Christmas and used them as stocking stuffers and little fun gifts for kids, and the ones not given away as gifts found a home here. I put one by the bed, one in the bathroom, one in the kitchen, one downstairs by the laundry equipment and then one in each car.
The problem with all these flashlights is keeping enough batteries on hand. Thankfully, they all use the same size of battery, the small ones called Double A. So I bought a huge multi pack of AA batteries at Sams Club for about $15, and I keep those in the hall closet. Once in a while, perhaps two or three times a year, I will travel through the house and click on each flashlight to make sure they work, and if they need replacement batteries I have them right in the closet to take care of it!
There has been a lot of noise about claiming your name on popular site like Facebook and even getting your own name as a domain name can be tough to do if you have a common name. My name has always been a combination of middle of the road but not difficult. I can never find my first name on one of the popular kids names toys, like the little license plates for your bikes or the personalized pencils. Some people mispronounce and misspell my first name, but it is hard to mess up the last name, Sands.
Today I am claiming my blog on the Technorati web site by entering this code: 37pbckrfwg. I’m not sure what this will do for me, but my geek friends have told me that I should claim it now before someone else does, so here I go!
At the Sam’s Club today, I picked up a multi pack of Bic Stic pens. They were really inexpensive at Sam’s and buying them there while shopping for groceries saved me a special trip to the office supply store.
The stic pens are the really cheap ones with ballpoint ink and removable caps. They come in three different ink colors: black, blue and red. I almost never use a blue pen and have absolutely no use for a pen with red ink. I was glad that the multi pack did not force me to buy assorted colors. I wanted black ink and all three boxes of pens had the black ink.
This is my all time favorite song. I heard it over 16 years ago and it still moves me to tears every time. I wish there was a video for it, but this photo of a red rose comes close to what it means to me – even better is the album cover art. Beautiful.
It was so hot yesterday that I truly felt like I was melting in my car. The air conditioning does not work, so the windows were all down., There was no breeze and sitting at a stop light next to an 18 wheeler, I felt like my skin was melting and running down my arms and back into a puddle on the drivers seat. If I had sat there more than 10 minutes, all that would be left of me would be a couple of gold and porcelain crowns and my titanium rimmed glasses. And my cell phone.
Ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity makes for an awful drive in stop and go traffic. Thankfully we are not in the triple digits and most days I have some flexibility for travel arrangements. If it gets over 95 this weekend, I will not be leaving the house until dark falls and takes the edge off.
Maybe because my father was a musician I have different thoughts about music and dancing. I love music and I love to dance. I can’t dance the fancy competition type of dances, but if I have a good dance partner I can probably keep up with most of what he wants to do. Mostly I dance around the house and annoy my dogs.
When I first moved here in the early 1990′s, you could drive anywhere and park your car for free at just about any doorstep where you had to go. The very few parking meters and garages were in the downtown business district and they were only used until 5:00 pm. After that you parked free because they wanted people to come downtown and patronize the restaurants and clubs.
So I guess it is the Southerner in me that expects to be able to park conveniently and not have to pay for it that gets rankled when someone wants me to pay to park. The lots downtown now charge $10 for just a couple hours, the parking meters run all day and all night, and even the state parks charge you to park while you swim, fish, or take your boat out for a cruise.
Pity the people in big metro areas that have to pay $25 per day and upward to park while they slave away in a high rise office from 8 until 5. That just doesn’t seem right.
Sarah Palin got her panties in a bunch about David Letterman. I think she deserves every joke thrown her way. Apologies, Letterman Style, just profit from the controversy. She would be better off putting up or shutting up. He offered her an appearance on his show – she should take him up on it.
If you think you have great communication skills, try explaining to a first grader what a Gecko is.
I have a beach towel that was given to me by a big pharmaceutical company with their logo and a bunch of different frogs, salamanders and geckos on the towel. I have no idea why the drug company wanted these animals on the towel other than they are colorful.
At the Lake, a first grader came over to admire the critters on the towel. He wanted to know what each one was. He was fine with the explanations until we got to the Gecko. That’s where I got stuck. I don’t think we ever came to an understanding about that Gecko. But he thought they were really cool.
Meeting people has always been easy for me, but many people need help with this. Sometimes it is easier to talk to people you don’t know if you have a safety filter in place, such as the internet or a phone line.
It can be fun to call a local chat line and just talk freely with the people on the line at the same time as your call. You might find that special friend on the phone! If you’ve never tried it, here are some links you might like:
