We Gotta Be Clean

Finally, someone came through. After very little ado, our washer and dryer arrived yesterday evening. They came, they were installed, it all went off without a hitch. I thought everyone would like to know that, while we can't sit our butts anywhere comfortable, at least they don't have to sit at the laundromat anymore. I realize that it's kind if silly to post pictures of appliances, but we don't have kids, cut us some slack!

"You can't handle the truth!"

I'd like to report a lie.

OK, it may be only a half lie.

I am a big library fan. I enjoy reading, and I enjoy watching movies from the library. It's a great place. So when the St George library closed down last month, I was a bit sad. They are moving into a nice new building, which is wonderful, but I miss being able to go to the library. I can still go to the library in Santa Clara, which is a nice library, but it is a bit far away. And so many items are "St George library property," so they are in boxes being moved into the new building, and thus cannot be checked out. They closed November 4, and will reopen "in early January of 2007."

My beef is this quote in the FAQ section on their website:

How can I keep up-to-date on the library move?
This website will be updated regularly with information on the library move.

This would lead one to believe that they would have some more recent information up. Lies! The last time this site was updated was mid-October when they announced the move. It's almost December, people! I don't really know what I was expecting to see on there, but when they tell me more information is forthcoming, I expect to see something. Alas, I'll have to wait to find out how the move is going, and more importantly, when I can pick up my next book. . .

Album

While we were in Salt Lake this weekend, I found this book at my parents' house. I had never seen it before, so I asked where it came from. As it turns out, my parents just received it not too long ago, quite randomly actually. Someone called them up and told them that while cleaning out the attic, they found this book. I guess there was some piece of paper in there that identified Florence Anderson of Salt Lake City. After looking her up in familysearch.org, they found my dad's name as a contributor of genealogy. So they called him up, and he went and picked it up. It's just an old album with tons of really old pictures in it. Most of them aren't labeled, so who knows who they are. It's kind of sad, really, because those pictures would be worth so much to the right person, we just have no idea who that would be. We think this one is Florence (who is my dad's great aunt):

Pretty cool, if you ask me. My parents didn't know what to do with it, though, because they don't know who any of the people are. They even mentioned they were going to give it to the DI. I said, "The DI?! No, don't do that, I'll take it!" So now I have it. I don't really know what I'm going to do with it either, but at least it looks really cool. If anyone has any suggestions, send them my way.

(As a side note, Thanksgiving was grand. Plenty of food, family, friends, and good times. I don't really have much to say about it, other than it was good.)

Weekly quote 11/27/06

Well, last week's quote was:

"Um, we've got a bump coming up."
from The Bourne Identity.

New quote up. I thought it was a bit harder, so good luck.

Furnishings

For those of you who don't know, we have been having some struggles getting our couch. We went in a ordered in October 3, and were told it would be in at the end of October. I called on October 31 and was told that it had been back-ordered and wouldn't be here until the end of November. And they were not helpful at all, I kept asking if there was anything they could do, and the answer was no. Well, yesterday I called them again, just to make sure it hadn't been back-ordered again or something (because they wouldn't call me if that happened, I learned this from experience). I got a different person on the phone, and they were much more helpful. He told me the manager would call me back later that day. Which she did. She gave us a number of options in order to compensate us, such as free delivery or a free rug or free lamps or just a different couch altogether that would get here faster. We went in and went for the different couch. It is actually closer to the color we had originally wanted (we ordered a different color in the first place because it would be here sooner; obviously that didn't pan out), and it is a more expensive couch. But we didn't have to pay a dime. And it should be here in the next week or so. After all the trouble we had before, I am so excited to finally have a comfortable place to sit. The camp chair is great and all, but not that great. And really, they were very nice, I guess we just needed to talk to the right people.

After we took care of that business, we went to Best Buy and purchased a new washer and dryer. They should be here next Wednesday. We're going to be furnished! I'll post pictures!

Folding, and folding, and folding. . .

Laundry day always brings such unexpected events. You just never know who is going to be in the laundromat or what they are going to be doing. Today, I walked in there to find a girl standing there folding laundry, and an older woman putting her stuff in the washing machines. I noticed that each of these women seemed to be doing quite a few loads, as the washers and dryers were almost all being used. But I thought little of it, put my laundry in, and started reading my book.

I was pretty absorbed in my book, so I didn't really notice until I put my laundry in the dryer that the girl folding clothes was still there. And still folding clothes. This puts her folding alone at 1/2 hour. That is a long time to fold clothes. I pushed start, and went back to my book.

When my laundry was done, I went to get it, and saw the folder still folding away. This means that she took over an hour just for folding, because who knows how long she had been there when I got there, and who knows how much longer she will be there. All I can say is I am happy to do my laundry once a week and not have to sit and fold it for an hour. That and I hate folding laundry at the laundromat. I'd rather keep my privacy and fold my underwear at home, thank you very much.

Weekly Quote 11/20/06

New quote up! By the way, the last quote was from The Wedding Singer. If you didn't know it, you need to go watch it; it's a classic.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dyslexia?

We often not the intended recipient of the mail we receive in our mailbox. This wouldn't be so bad if it was just mail for the previous tenants; we do receive plenty of mail for Sarah Carroll, but since she used to live here, and it's mostly junk mail, I don't get too worried about it. But no, we seem to receive mail for other addresses. You look at the address, and it's not even close. Our address has a 1063 in it. These other address have 1036 or 1136 or 1161 or some other such nonsense that is quite obviously NOT our address. And one of the worst things about it is that we have no outgoing mail slot. We keep getting mail that does not belong to us, and we have to go all the way into the post office to give it back. One time Clark just walked down the road and knocked on someone's door. In fact, when we got the checks without Clark's name on them (see Clark's blog), they were hand delivered by our neighbor because they came in his box instead. Do you see how this is a problem? Who knows if the mail is actually being delivered or if it's just randomly going to someone else's house? It makes me somewhat concerned about identity theft. Clark is going to go in a chew them out, excuse me, kindly explain our problem to them today.

As a side note, we did get some interesting mail because of this common oversight. We received something from the Purgatory Jail in Hurricane. It looked like a hand written letter. Hmm, should I be worried that someone in our neighborhood is receiving mail from a convict? Or should I be less worried because he is in "purgatory" where he belongs?

Blessed warmth.

I thought for sure that Clark would have blogged about this by now, but you snooze you lose, buck-o. After waking up to the frigid air yesterday morning, Clark and I decided it was time to turn on the heat. Yes, it was momentous. We still keep it pretty cool in here, but it's nice to have on at night. Otherwise Clark would never get out of bed. So, I just thought it would be nice to update all you northern folk and let you know that when you live in St George, you don't have to turn your heat on until November 16, and then just at night. Jealous? I thought you might be.

Health care?

I absolutely love our Health care system! OK, not really. Here is an overview of my latest run-in:

We need to get a test done. We just switched insurance companies, and just moved, so we don't actually have a doctor down here, it's our doctor from SLC that wrote up the prescription for the test. So I call the lab. We get it all set up. And then I asked for a range of the cost, seeing as our insurance company hasn't actually sent us any information as far as what our benefits are, who our providers are, etc. Unfortunately, the lab tech has no idea how much this test will cost because apparently they send it out. So she gives me the number for the billing of the pathologist they send it to. You would think they would know, right? I mean, they are the billers, they should know how much things cost, or at least a range, right? WRONG. They have no idea how much it will cost because they don't actually know what they will have to do. Um, how can you not know what you are going to do? And they had no range whatsoever for me. She said the only way to know how much it will cost is to have it done. So I thought I would call the insurance company to see if it was covered. I called, I asked, and they had no idea. They can't know if it's covered unless they have the exact code for the test. But apparently they don't know what exact test they are going to run. So, really, no one has any idea. Is this worrisome to anyone else? In the end I just asked Alex (who has had the test done before) how much it cost. She knew. The end. It might not be an exact number, but it is a ballpark, and that is all I needed to know. What I'd like to know is how not one person out of the three separate companies I called had any idea of even a ballpark range of how much things cost. I was a bit frustrated, if you couldn't tell, but I'm over it now. Today I discovered that my previous doctor is not a participating provider for our new insurance, so I had to do another run-around, but we worked it out. All is well. At least for now. I'll let you know how I feel when we finally get the bill.

Something is not quite right. . .

Reading the paper today, I came across an interesting tidbit of information. It appears that OJ Simpson has an exclusive interview with someone about his upcoming book, If I Did It. Evidently this book details how he would have committed the murders of his ex-wife and her friend if he had done it. Um, does anyone else find this, I don't know, weird? Morbid? Inappropriate? I'm not really sure what the best adjective is for this, but something seems wrong to me. Thoughts? Comments? Concerns?

In other news, I reached up to scratch my nose, and the nose pad on my glasses broke. Great. I guess I'll have to overcome my phone phobia once again and call around to find someone to fix it.

Happy Belated Veteran's Day!

I was going to blog about Veteran's Day, but then so many other exciting things were going on, what with the parents being in town and the fish dying, so I completely forgot! While reading the paper the other day, I came across an article, and I've actually clipped it out because I thought it was so cool. It was basically a tribute to the few remaining WWI veterans. Near as they can tell, there are about a dozen of them. And they are all over 100, of course. One of them was the son of slaves. SLAVES. Wow. It just struck a chord in me, made me think that there have been many wars over the course of our nation's history, and without courageous men and women fighting for our nation, I wouldn't enjoy the freedoms that I do. I truly am grateful for the sacrifices made.

I feel like Veteran's Day was a bigger deal this year than it has been in years past, partly because of the current war in Iraq, and I think partly because I live in St George, where there are more veterans. But I think it is appropriate that we celebrate this day. My grandfather was in the navy in WWII, but he didn't see any action. I think sometimes he feels like he wasn't really in the war because of it, like he didn't do anything courageous. But just the fact that he was there, he did what his country required of him, is worth a lot. So, to all the veterans out there (and I am almost positive that none of them read this blog, I certainly can't see my grandparents reading it ["What's a 'blaugh'?"] but just in case they do) THANK YOU. We appreciate you.

Obituary

Our beloved friend, Charles "Charlie" Blockburger, has moved on to the next life. He died peacefully of natural causes.

During the span of his life, Charles moved 4 times, and experienced joy in each place. He was well beloved by all who knew him. He never complained, even when we forgot to feed him. His motto was to "Just Keep Swimming." He will be sorely missed.

Services were held on Nov 13, 2006 at 10:00 at night. The family gathered around the toilet for a few words and then a burial at sea. Tears were shed. At this time of grief, we ask that you try to remember the good times had with this fish, and not dwell on his sad passing. If you would like to post your favorite memories of Charles, you may do so on this blog. Thank you.

11/13/06 Weekly Quote

New quote up! (not that it's hard or anything, but still. . .)

Zion

The Andersons came to visit this weekend - hooray! A good time was had by all. We went to Zion's National Park on Saturday, which was fun. I haven't been there in years, and the only time I've ever been was not really an outdoor experience (I spent most of the time in the car). It was a chilly November day, although that doesn't mean quite the same thing here as it does most places. It was probably in the 50's or 60's, definite jacket weather, but not winter coat weather. Anyway, we went on the river walk to the Narrows, and of course did not go in the water. It inspired me to go back there in the spring or summer to fully experience it. And we went up to Weeping Rock. Then it started raining so we headed home, but it really was beautiful. Here are some pictures:

Clark at the entrance to the Narrows



Clark and Devil-Eyes, oh, I mean Shannon (I always have red eyes!)



Fall leaves!

Tom and Sam

I was just looking at a blog by Ken Jennings, and found this website. First off, Ken Jennings is pretty funny, I like his blog. And he writes in it daily, which keeps me entertained. (Notice that a link to his blog is now on my sidebar. Like he is my friend of something.) Anyway, I found this website, and it's a doozy. These guys are from the future and are stuck here in 2006. It's mostly video clips, a warning for those of you looking at this from work or something, there is sound. But I think you'll really enjoy it.
http://www.tomandsamarestuck.com/

Spiders

First off, I have been playing the same game of spider solitaire for like an hour. I would lose, and then hit "Restart This Game," and then I'd lose, and this cycle continued until I finally won! Determination pays off, kids.

The second spider of the day: I was putting away the box of cereal when I looked up and there was a HUGE spider on the ceiling! I'm standing there in my slippers thinking, "What do I do?" I am not a tall woman. It would be awkward for me to reach up there and smoosh it with a shoe. Not to mention the fact that my aim is terrible, and sometimes it takes me 2 tries to kill those spry spiders. I was not about to let that spider come crashing down on my head. And then I thought of all those other bugs out there that spiders eat, and how much more I hate the other bugs, i.e. flies. So I decided my best bet was to set the spider free. I was a little, ok, a lot nervous, but I kept my cool, grabbed a cup and a piece of paper, pulled a chair over, and captured the spider. Getting the door unlocked was tricky, but I managed, and set him free. He immediately started back towards the house (the little ingrate), so I slammed the door shut and locked it. He may re-enter, but I feel good about giving him a second chance to stay outside and do his job.

I've decided that spiders, while creepy, are a whole lot better than the cockroach problem we could be having. Bugs that crunch when you smash them are way worse for me. I pray that the cockroach spray continues to work it's miracle.

Everwood

ABC Family has been playing Everwood lately, and I don't normally watch it, in fact tonight was the first time I had ever sat through an entire episode, but Clark is gone for the night, and it was on, so I watched. Now, while the show is ok, I am glad I watched because they were playing a Dashboard Confessional song (Bend and Not Break) in the background! And a few days ago when I flipped past it, they were playing a Guster song (Come Downstairs and Say Hello) in the background! Whoever does the music for them, they have great taste.

Ice cream every day?

I went to Coldstone today to purchase a gift certificate (ooo, if it's your birthday it could be you!), and as I was leaving, I noticed that on their door they had a sign that said, "Thanks for coming! See you tomorrow!" I thought that was kind of funny. And the thought of ice cream every day made me happy, even if it will never happen, it's still a happy thought.

"Party on, dude!"

Saturday afternoon I happened to look out our window and saw a wading pool all set up in our neighbor's backyard. It was inside one of those portable shade tents, with screens on the sides. It looked rather summery, and I thought it was kind of odd. I figured they'd be having a party later on or something, these neighbors quite often have parties.

Fast forward to Saturday night. Clark and I hear all sorts of raucous outside, so I check out the window, and there is a whole crowd of people around that little wading pool. And it appears that there are 2 girls wrestling in it. Clark tells me that he thought he saw them pouring something akin to shampoo in the pool earlier. Wow, shampoo wrestling. You have to admit, that is kind of funny. But after an hour or so, I'd have to imagine that it would get kind of old. Apparently not. The cheering continued on for at least an hour. I guess we now know what people in St George do for fun. Or at least drunk people.

Recipe

Alright, the moment you've all been waiting for - the recipe for the Yummy Mummy Dogs!

Ingredients:
-Frozen raw dinner rolls, thawed but still cold
-Bun-length hot dogs
-mustard

For each Mummy dog, cut a dinner roll in half. Roll each half into a 22-24 inch rope. Wrap one rope around the hot dog, starting from the bottom and working your way up 4 1/2 inches. Cut a 1 1/2 inch piece off the 2nd rope and set aside. Wrap the 2nd rope around the hot dog, starting at the bottom and working your way up 4 1/2 inches, going the opposite way. Wrap the 1 1/2 inch piece around the top of the hot dog. Place Mummy Dogs on a sprayed baking sheet. Bake at 350°F 10-15 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool slightly and add mustard eyes. Serve warm with ketchup and mustard.

Rabid Squirrels

I was reading the paper this morning (by some stroke of luck we've been getting the paper before I leave these days, meaning before 8:00[St George seems to suck at newspaper delivery]), and found an interesting story amid the usual talk of the death toll in Iraq and the upcoming elections. A postal worker in Pennsylvania was making the rounds, delivering the mail, when he came to a house that had a squirrel on the porch. He didn't think much of it, put the mail in the box, but when he turned around to walk off the porch, the squirrel attacked! It ran up his leg and onto his back, and it bit him! He grabbed it by the tail and pulled it off of him, and he was screaming, which brought the attention of the neighbor (nobody was home at the squirrel house). I guess the squirrel was shot with a BB gun and sent to a lab to test for rabies. How random is that? And this was on the 2nd or 3rd page of the newspaper, and it wasn't one of those small briefs from around the nation. It was an article. I thought it was funny that this was newsworthy enough to make it to me in St George, UT.

And then I got to thinking about the rabies vaccine, and I remembered that when I was younger (maybe in the 2nd grade?) someone (I believe it was a fellow 2nd grader) told me that the rabies vaccine was so terrible because they gave it to you in your stomach. I don't think that is true, but it's odd that I remember that. Perhaps this is where my fear of animals comes into play? Could it be that I was so afraid of being bitten because I thought I'd have to get a shot in the stomach? Hmmm. . .

Wretched woman!

This happened a while ago, but I was reminded of it today, and thought it was blog-worthy. We were flipping past the radio stations and when I heard the smooth sound of Delilah's voice, I had to stop. For those of you who don't know about Delilah (where have you been?), she is a radio DJ who takes requests and is just about as cheesy as they go. She is always busting out this corny "wisdom," and you never know when a real gem is going to come out, so of course I had to stop and listen to her.

This man called in, and he basically confessed that he has not paid much attention to his son lately. He was all choked up about it, you could tell he was crying, and he felt so bad that he has been too busy buying a new house and worrying about finances to go play ball with his kid. But he has had a change of heart, and wants to do better, and is asking Delilah to play a song for his son so that he'll know that he loves him. At this point, Delilah busts in there, and I'm pretty excited for her sympathetic ear, trying to make this man feel better. But no. She tells him that his priorities have been way off, and maybe he is feeling guilty for not spending time with his son, and he should reassess his life because kids don't care about mortgages, they care about quality time with their dads. I couldn't believe it! After this guy had confessed, and was quite penitent, she was telling him that he did a bad thing, and he should feel bad. He already does, woman! And then she plays a song for him - "Cat's in the Cradle." A song all about a dad who has no time for his son until he's all grown up, and then the son has no time for his dad, and the dad realizes the mistake, but it's all too late, and it's very sad. Wretched woman! Make the guy feel even worse, why don't ya? Unbelievable. Outrageous! So non-Delilah-esque.

Mummy Dogs

Here are my Mummy Dogs. I was pretty proud of them. They might not be SO gourmet, but I thought they were rather cute. I really like the mustard eyes.

Hail the conquering hero!

Moments ago I was engaged in a battle of the fiercest sort. There was even a point where I believed I could not prevail. But in the end, I conquered my enemy! Yes, the giant stapler jam is no more.

I've had trouble with this large stapler before, it never seems to actually be working properly. But usually I can take care of the jam in just a few minutes. This time, there was real trouble. The biggest problem with the stapler is that when it does get jammed, the bottom does swivel away, as with normal staplers. No, you are forced to come in at an angle, try to use the stapler jaws of life to get at those daggers of metal, and pray that you aren't stabbed in the process. It was quite the spectacle, I'm sure, staples were flying, but I finally got that last one out with the letter opener. It was empty then, so I reloaded. You can bet your life that I'm not going to be the first one to use that thing - let some other sap see if I actually fixed the problem, I'm staying far far away from it.

Halloween? Let's move right along to Thanksgiving!

Halloween has come and gone. Really, what an uneventful holiday. Last night we sat around, answered the door for trick-or-treaters, and watched an old Hitchcock film, Sabotage, which really wasn't all that good. I made a huge orange mess (it was supposed to be a drink called "Orange Ooze," and I did make the drink, and it tasted good, but making it turned out to be a very large mess, mostly because we don't have a real blender, and the small one we had sprung a leak all over the counter, so I switched to the hand blender, which worked ok, but I set it down and it "oozed" all over the counter and floor; it was a hard night). And I made mummy dogs, I was so proud of them, I made Clark take pictures. I'll have to post them up. But other than that, it was rather boring. The best part of the whole deal is that now it is November, and that means we can start gearing up for the Holiday Season! I love Christmas, but I'm not proposing we all go out and deck the halls just yet. I also love Thanksgiving, and the fall harvest decor that goes with it. It's just such a great time of year, when you get to see family and friends, and enjoy good food and good company. Particularly the food.