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...or whatever that Latin phrase is that means "take up space" or "enter text here" or whatever it means...

That's what I saw today while I had to log onto blogger.com from my parents' computer, since on my laptop at home, my login info is defaulted in and I am automatically signed on. I deprived you of a Thursday post and will deprive you of a photo post today, so I thought I would consolidate, and hey, I might as well yell it one more time, for the last time: SPRING BREEEAAAK! It was awesome. Many thanks to all those who made it possible.

Now to talk to you about today's book review: How to Survive a Garden Gnome Attack.
I gave this book to my dad as a gift for some holiday a year or so ago. It is hilarious because it contends that the yard gnomes of the world are planning an uprising to kill their owners (and all humans, actually) and take over the world.

Although silly, the book does offer practical advice like, "keep a manicured lawn." Yep yep.

I will now summarize chapter 7 for you as part of my thesis that the authors of this book wrote it to prepare people for the apocalypse, people who would never buy a book labeled, "Prepare for the Apocalypse."

Chapter 7 is "Ten Tips That Could Save Your Life" and discusses the importance of PRACTICING exiting a first-story window, memorizing room layouts so you can find your way around when the gnomes cut your power (less important, in my opinion, in the days of cell phones), and keeping a weapon in every room. Chapter 9 is "Your Arsenal." Weapons include yarn tools (shovels, rakes, pitchforks), hockey sticks, baseball bats, furniture, garden hose, pepper spray, sledgehammer, firearms, land mines, "your body," and using gnomes to attack other gnomes. So, keeping a weapon in every room is easy when the term "weapon" is used loosely.

Again, practice makes perfect, and the book recommends practicing getting out of bed in attack mode. Keep floors and counters clutter-free (see how this book would be good for your favorite teen or messy roommate?), being prepared with a bicycle in case your car gets disabled, and...not yelling.

So, that's that. A less-than-one-page manual for surviving disasters in the category labeled "other."

And now, without further ado, Happy Easter. Onward to Memorial Day.

Spring Break Snow Day

I'm officially done (after this) hollering SPRING BREEEAAAK!!! because it is half over.

Originally, this was to be a short product-review post discussing the virtues of the Toro Power Shovel. Ace, who shoveled after what was at first the Most Disappointing Snowstorm Ever but soon shaped up to the tune of eight and half inches of snow, not bad, not bad.

Ace's evaluation is that the power shovel is no good. Of course, it is the less-expensive alternative to the traditional snowblower. It looked pretty cool to me, but I wasn't the one shoveling. Most online reviews are pretty good. 

And that was supposed to be the post, until I met, a day late and a dollar short, Plants vs. Zombies.  

That was how I spent my snow day. 

I still have never played Oregon Trail. At least not that I remember. 

I'll give you a couple of screen shots, and then you can click the link and thank me later. 

With Breathless Anticipation...

...I count the hours until Spring Break: 18!

But, in the meantime, I have two things to share with you:

1)

2) Good luck getting into the rent check! I suffer from a hereditary condition called "hoarding." This means that you are probably used to receiving packages that seem like they are filled with my trash. However, I prefer to think of the packages as being filled with recycled goods. They often come in recycled containers, as well: envelopes or boxes that someone else sent to me first. It may very well in fact be that you will receive one of my recycled goods...as your birthday gift. Please do not be offended, and know that each item is special and sentimental to me. Usually, it is a souvenir of some place I've enjoyed, and I want to share it with you, or it is an artifact from a special time in my life, whether you were a part of that time or not. 

If perchance you have no idea what I'm talking about and would like to receive some of my recycled goods in the mail, send me a facebook message with your mailing address, and let's get the ball rolling. 

Patience is a virtue, though, and the ball isn't going to roll until after SPRING BREEEEAAAAK!!!!!

When You Not Only Forgot But Also Temporarily Misplaced the Thing You Need

I was texting back and forth with a friend of mine today, and the poor thing has a phone that uses T9 (don't mock her - I also will probably have one of these sooner than later), so she said to me, "Fannit! You are supposed to always be prepared!" 

Fannit, indeed. No giant knitting needles when I needed them. 

A short post this evening. Just enough to tell you that when you go to a very easily accessible national park (not like Canyonlands or Escalante, maybe in another lifetime), one where there are a lot of other people who are able to access the park just as easily as you:

- DON'T FORGET YOUR HEADLAMP!

- DO remember your marshmallows. 

- DO remember your firestarters and pie irons

- DO NOT be a jerkface and tell an old man who asks you to turn down your music that he, "should be in a rest home."

The parks are for all to enjoy. 

Which brings me to tonight's product review, of the long-ago-purchased Black Bean Chili Pie. 

First of all, I forgot my headlamp, so step two was I spilled half the spice packet. 

It cooked like a charm because I followed the directions. 

It was spicy enough to kill something that might logically be killed by spices. It was...too spicy. 

Conclusion: For the foreseeable future I'll stick with the time-honored (because we invented it back in 2010) pie-iron-pierogi. 

The good news: the fact that the chili pie was soooo spicy gave me a grand excuse to eat LOTS of marshmallows. 

The remainder of my week will be spent preparing for SPRING BREEEAAAK!!!!, so I'll have no new adventure to report on Thursday, only more useless blathering for you to look forward to. 

Another Random Sunday PM photo post

The second most useful item in your home

A few days ago I was foolishly weeding the side yard without any gloves on, and my left thumb was pierced by a thorn. Lo and behold, yesterday afternoon, a white spot showed up under my skin on my thumb, and it HURT. Like anyone in my situation would do, I went to the school nurse. 

She advised me to let it "fester."

*ahem*

I just got finished teaching about the Black Plague, and "fester" is not a word I take kindly to. But what was I going to do, force the poor woman to go digging around in my thumb with a needle and tweezers? Besides, she claims not to have any tweezers there in the health office. 

In a moment of not being able to sleep, I went on a very well-known medical-advice website and typed in "festering splinter." This very well-known website is famous for making the same diagnosis no matter how simple the symptoms:

YOU'RE GONNA DIE!!!!

In my case, 

YOU'RE GONNA DIE! POSSIBLY FROM BLOOD POISONING!

Um, no, not from a festering splinter, I'm not. I mean, I might, but I doubt that I will, and what a horrible obituary to have to read about your 2nd-favorite-blogger! I am confident that I will make a full recovery from my splinter. 

So, I switched websites and found more agreeable answers. 

Because I love my three loyal readers, rather than digging around in my thumb with a needle and tweezers, I followed one of the remedies from the Farmer's Almanac website/wiki. 

First, I soaked my thumb in warm water for 10 minutes. Then, I made a baking soda paste and band-aided it onto my thumb. (Thanks to spending a year gathering supplies, I have enough band-aids to keep the aforementioned health office in business for an entire academic year.) This is somehow supposed to draw the splinter out. 

This morning, noticing the whatever-it-is still stuck in my thumb, I washed the wound and microwaved some water (I know, I know) before driving into work in jeans and my shamrock pi shirt to celebrate pi day. I also prepared a baking soda paste in a shot glass and put it in the cup holder. 

After about 5 minutes of driving, I hit a bump and spilled water all over my pants. I rolled down the windows and trusted the air of the Mojave Desert to dry my jeans, which it eventually did. At a red light, I finished the minor surgery, and just took the band-aid off now. 

Drum roll...

It looks pretty much exactly the same as it did yesterday. 

The Farmer's Almanac recommends repeating the treatment until the splinter magically emerges from the skin in which it is annoyingly lodged. 

So, I will follow its advice and keep you posted in a future update. 

Look for some changes coming soon to my amazon store, and feel free to share any of your own home remedies for splinters, preferably ones that don't involve digging around in my thumb with a needle and tweezers. I am happy to use myself as a guinea pig for most, but not all, home remedies. 

Until next time...always put your gloves on before pulling weeds. 

Around the Block

According to yahoo answers, which I think is less reliable than even wikipedia, the phrase, "been around the block a few times," originates with British Pagans who believed their lives would be prolonged if they danced around the "blocks" of Stonehenge. It might not be right, but it's a good story. 

I'm using it here to refer to the obvious writer's block that I complained about in last Friday's post, which I'm hoping to get around. 

The Memoir of Narrow Escape actually does have a theme, and I wonder what you think the theme is. Haha. 

In the meantime, I have envisioned other blog concepts, one of which I'll discuss now. I suggested it to my cousin, but she did not respond to my suggestion, so feel free to steal it. 

Concept #1 is "Second Life," wherein the blogger follows an item s/he has sold, freecycled, or (dare I say it) pawned, either researching to find the story of the object as told by its previous owners, or keeping in touch with its new owners to see where the object ends up. Kind of like a geocaching travel bug, but concentrating more on something like the ratty old couch (which is how the idea started, because the ratty old couch came from Krista's first classroom, and I know there's a story about how it got there, but I don't remember it). 

(More parentheses, huzzah! There's a second ratty old couch that was purchased by the former project facilitator, now a high school teacher, which at last viewing was in the lounge of a high school where she worked a decade ago but doesn't anymore.) 

Concept #2 (that's right, there's more than one) is more of a short story collection, because it is fiction, and it involves a Sliding Doors-type collection of vignettes that follow Jeannette Winterson's idea that there are millions of versions of us, because each time we make a choice, there is a parallel universe where one version of us lives out the other choice, the one we didn't make. Therefore, we follow an opportunity that we failed to take advantage of, all the way to its natural conclusion. 

All of this reminds me that I would still like to write a novel. 

Any suggestions as to what it should be about? Let's see if your concepts come anywhere close to what I have in mind. ;)

A Photo Essay of My Weekend

It includes some things and leaves some things out.

Alright Wittenberg! I think I'll make this one my profile photo!

The chain, which gets shorter and shorter...

New firestarters, and

a show at which photography was not allowed, which I'll talk about later. 

I like this idea. After all, why should you have to wait from Thursday all the way until Tuesday for a post?

Sometimes you win...

...and other times you return home with nothing but a Subway sandwich.

This post is a stream-of-consciousness celebration of the USPS and the little things that keep us sane and happy.

Luckily, word on facebook is that my Mammaw enjoyed the Fig Newmans I got her for her birthday while I was looking for the supplies that we are supposed to buy in March. For the first two weeks:
- a can of meat (veggies)
- a can of fruit
- antiseptic wipes
- compresses

Had I looked at my handy Southern Nevada Health District emergency calendar before the gun show last weekend, I could have purchased the last two items there. I'm still behind a crescent wrench, but it'll get done. It'll get done.

I am very glad that my cousin Randy didn't decide to get married THIS weekend, what with the flooding and the 47-degree weather. Which is glorious, by the way, just not for a wedding day.

Speaking of cousins, I have exactly 34 minutes to finish composing this post before my favorite DIY homegrown Chicago-based rock band, Shiloh, streams live on whpk.org/stream. OR NOT. In order to stream it, I would have to update my RealPlayer, which I believed I did. That settles it. I officially prefer Loyola. :(

Umm...WELL...I'm listening to NEIL YOUNG...
and now something involving instruments that sound like sitars that encourages me to "just travel with" my "mind."
this is confusing. And slightly disturbing.
I'm not a fan of the sitar or whatever it is, so I composed a text to my poor cousin asking him what gives with the sitar or whatnot. Luckily, the message failed to send.

I also abhor the word, "just."

Speaking of junk food in the mail, I just (note that I'm not using the word "just" in the way I don't like) returned from the mailbox with the BEST PACKAGE EVER! It includes some junk food which I will munch while waiting for something to interrupt all of the dead air that's currently broadcasting on WHPK. I...I'm not going to say anything offensive or sacreligious...this Chex puppy chow stuff tastes really good.

I just got off the phone with Dana. Recently, not in this conversation, she told me that one of my blog posts was so all over the place that she affirmed that I need to find focus after finishing my theme of the apocalypse. She is so absolutely right. But this is what happens when I skip a post and then decide to attempt three in one week.

Look for a more sensible post on Tuesday, because...they're on.
In the meantime, what are some of the little things that keep YOU sane and happy?

A Shot in the Dark

Ever mindful of my need to keep up with my blog, Miss Gokey invited me to accompany her this past weekend to the Las Vegas Gun Show. Well, it was either that one or the Crossroads of the West gun show. The date matched with the location has disappeared from the internet. Anyway...

They don't make guns like they used to. Too many of them show signs of shotty workmanship. Haha. This CNN Student Newsworthy pun comes to us from the folks at this website. I apologize.

The Gun Show featured cookies. I was happy with that. It also featured...well, guns and ammo. Among the non-firearm merchandise was a good supply of survival gear. There were rainwater harvesting systems, CPR masks with one-way valves on sale for $15, Scandanavian army jackets, sleeping bags and camping pads, lots of mace (which I guess is called pepper spray, and I really want some, but it's illegal on school campuses), and one charming little old man who had a cell-phone stun gun for sale for $35. As you can see, there are plenty of online sources for these items, and many are not unreasonably priced.

The same held true for what Miss Gokey was looking for, a spare magazine for a Glock 17. One salesman offered to sell her one for $66, which some passersby insisted was a good deal, but when she called home, this turned out to not be the best price.

Should you pay $13 to get into a gun show? I say...probably. There are cookies. And flyers for free classes for Concealed Carry Permits. And an opportunity to visit your old pals from the Zombie Apocalypse Store. In addition, there are plenty of knowledgeable people who are not selling things. You can chat with them and learn a lot about various aspects of gun ownership, survival, and personal safety.

In concluding this post, I return to my family's visit, especially the part where we visited the Mob Museum. We might do well to remember the immortal words of Al Capone:

Into Each Blogger's Life...

...a little distraction must fall. I will specifically say two things.
1) I am less of a fruit ninja and more of a fruit smasher.
2) After shoving the English, French, and Industrial Revolutions into 20 slides with 4 short video clips and one really cool game called Who Wants to Be a Cotton Millionaire, I decided to push Russia's slides to another day.

Since I got distracted and cheated you out of a post, I am also shoving my blog posts this week to Monday, Wednesday and Friday before returning you next week to your regularly scheduled memoir.

Right. My magazine problem.

The editor-in-chief of one of my favorites, Sunset magazine, had this to say in the February issue:
"Long, meticulously planned vacations to far-off places are enormous but rare pleasures. It's the short trip, maybe just one night, that keeps us sane."

I totally agree with her, and I am happy to say that this past weekend, I was able to ride along on an overnight trip to see my favorite baseball team, the Cubs, lose to the San Francisco Giants in a spring training game.

Here it is:

You can see that the stadium is small and intimate, therefore completely making up for my annually neglecting to go see any Cubs games.

I was surrounded by happy Giants fans wearing sunglasses. I bought a totally-neutral t-shirt. I celebrated having survived the apocalypse by doing something ostensibly non-zombie-related, and hopefully, my sanity will reward me by sticking around to fight for another day.

On the way to Arizona, I flipped through my recently acquired copy of Cooks, Clowns, and Cowboys, but I made quick work of it. It's filled with full-page glossy photos of "101 skills and experiences to discover on your travels." I give it a thumb-to-the-side, which is my way of being noncommittal. There is no way we can ever do all 101 things. The skills are interesting and include survival classes in Utah, cheese-making workshops in various countries, dance lessons, etc. They are the kinds of adventures that are "enormous and rare." If I ever go on one of the suggested journeys, I will share the full report.

In the meantime, what short trips have you recently enjoyed that helped keep you sane?