Telltale Bubbles

Some days I can get away with everything, other days I can get away with some things, but most days I can't get away with anything. 

Last weekend I was swimming in the middle of Seneca Lake, surrounded by family and friends when all of a sudden the only thing surrounding me were thousands of bubbles. Everyone pointed my way, laughed, and left the premises, which is not an easy task when you're in the middle of a long, deep lake. In fact, Seneca Lake is the longest, deepest Finger Lake in upstate NY. It is 38 miles long, and 838 feet deep with a mean depth of 291 feet.

There you have it. Nothing is sacred, even in 300 feet of water. Those telltale bubbles have made me the laughing stock of the family for years to come. I'll never hear the end of it. My new nickname is...BUBBLES.

Manure Tour

This morning, as I was taking Silver out of the pasture to ride, her pasture mate, Sadie, cleverally snuck around Silver and pushed her way through the gate. Sadie galloped footloose and fancy free for at least 15 minutes. She ran through the barn, out the open door, and jumped over the manure pile kicking horse pucky in every direction. That little horse can jump.

I started thinking, something I try not to do too often, as I'm trying to conserve brain cells in my senior years. Anyway, as I was watching all that horse pucky flying in 100 directions all at once, I thought about the political campaigning going on and the national and local horses asses that run for office.

At least Sadie was having fun, not hurting anyone, and eventually came back to me after her scenic tour of the farm, which didn't cost taxpayers anything.

Think about our politicians. They spend millions on campaigns, then make a career out of bilking the American people with their travel junkets, lavish retirement plans and benefit packages. Doesn't matter if  they do a poor job, a mediocre job, or even a just a good job. They all retire at 100% salary plus full benefits. Who do you think pays for that?

From now on I think I'll start calling the political campaign trail, the manure tour.

The Yellow Balloon

On July 2nd, when I looked out my bedroom window, I saw a yellow balloon in my flower garden.
There was no ribbon or string attached to it; just a plain yellow balloon nestled among the multi- colored blooms.

When I went to get my camera to come back for a picture, the balloon was gone.

My Dad's favorite color was yellow. My Dad loved to garden. My Dad would have been 100 years old on July 2nd.

Fender Skirts

Rear wheel detachable fender skirt
on a 1969 Buick Electra 225*

I took a trip down memory lane this weekend because of an email a friend of my vintage sent me. As a result of the email, I began thinking about cars my parents used to own. Does anyone, besides me, remember what a fender skirt is or what they look like?

A fender skirt was used both aesthetically and aerodynamically to enhance the looks and performance of automobiles as early as 1928, but I wasn't born yet. However, I do remember the fifties and sixties when fender skirts were the vogue for car owners.

Fender skirts were often paired with whitewall tires with the length of the skirt changing over time, sort of like female fashions. Before 1950 it was the norm to have all but the very bottom of the tire covered. By the 1960s the "skirts" only covered the top part of the tire. Reminds me of the mini skirts we used to wear.

The last car produced with fender skirts was the 1999-2006 Honda Insight, although the "skirts" are still available for new cars as an aftermarket accessory.

Now that you've had a mini history lesson on fender skirts, I'll have to tell you about my running board story in a not-too-distant future blog post. 

*Picture and history compliments of Wikipedia.  Memories are original.

Empty Box Equals Shrinking Pants

Empty Cookie Box

The blogging community is made up of an interesting, eclectic group of waggish individuals. Itsme is one such delightful person. She had a "Cookies for Captions" contest on her blog "ItsMeCissy", which turned out to be loads of fun. Her blog post is titled Scary Picture...and it is. Check it out.

 Because ItsMe has a generous heart, she sent cookies to all of us who submitted a caption. There were at least two people who wrote more than one caption to be sure they got a box of cookies, but I'm not telling who.

Three of the delectable cookie creations were (yes, were...they're all gone) cranberry-white chocolate-coconut cookies, chocolate chip-walnut cookies, and oatmeal-cinnamon-raisin cookies. Boy, were they ever good! Thanks, ItsMe. You are a super baker!

There's only one major problem. The cookies made my pants shrink. Now I feel like a blivet. For those of you who are too young to know what a blivet is; it's a WW II term which means trying to stuff 10 pounds of horse pucky into a five pound bag. 

Thanks anyway, ItsMe, the cookies were delicious. When is the next contest?