Posts Tagged With: fun

~ If You Can’t Beat ‘Em….~

Posted on November 24, 2013 by mamaboe

Every year we decorate the Carved Wooden Moose outside the Little Cottage for various holidays.  On Christmas, he sports Ol’ Saint Nick’s red hat. He really is as festive as any 9-foot moose can be.

Last year, his red hat had a little bit of a mishap, and had to be thrown away.  (By mishap, I mean that I got so frustrated when I couldn’t remove the hat post-New Years, I ended ripping the ding-dang thing clean off of his head.   Apparently I have anger management issues….)

So this year I had the task of sewing the Moose a NEW Santa Claus hat.  My Captain promised he would help design it.  I loved this idea because whenever My (big, strong hunk of a) Captain does something as sweet and sensitive as pick up a sewing needle, I get all gushy and warm inside.  Last year, it happened when Critter’s backpack needed mending….Talk about CHICK magnet.  Good NIGHT!)

Where was I?  Right, My captain started to help designing The Moose’s new holiday hat. I was envisioning just making a ginormous cone hat out of red felt, and then cutting an “X” wherever an antler or ear might be.

This is NOT how My Captain’s Left-Brain personality works.

Before I knew it, he had blue-prints, schematics, and back-up logistic plans in effect.  He was prepared.  Newsprint for pattern making?  Check.  Tape Measure?  Check.  Sharpie?  Check.  Red Felt?  Check.

But My Captain did NOT plan on one eensie weensie, but ultimately IMPORTANT aspect of this process.

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Sir Monty of Stinky Butt.

Oh, sure, he LOOKS benign enough,

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He LOOKS like he is only being attentive….

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He LOOKS like he hasn’t an evil-mastermind within that wee fuzzikins head of his.

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And then…..The Butt Wiggle.

The Butt Wiggle means attack is imminent.

The Butt Wiggle means you’d better hurry up and finish what you’re trying to accomplish.

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Especially if you are working with Sharpie Pens.  On Cream Carpeting.  New Cream Carpeting that would be reason enough for your wife to beat you like a piñata if you got ink on it.

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My Captain tried in vain to ignore Sir Monty.  He endeavored to work around him.

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All that did was induce Monty to call in the reinforcements.  Silly Captain.  You thought this would be straight-forward.  It’s just a Santa Hat, after all.

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My Captain is a smart man.  Wise enough to know when he’s made a fatal miscalculation.  Humble enough to admit defeat.

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He picked up his tape measure, and joined the party.

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Of course, Sir Monty knew all along that this would be how it ended.

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Sir Monty: 1, My Captain: 0.

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~ Tricking The Fireman ~

Posted on September 4, 2013 by mamaboe

My Captain had his 48th Birthday yesterday.  We had a small dinner party for him at Goggy and Papa’s house, and Goggy made My Captain’s favorite childhood dish, then dubbed and forevermore thusly known as:   “Chicken in the Black Pot.”

It was yummy.

And I made a cake!  A Chocolate Éclair Cake!

And I made it sugar-free!  I substituted Xylitol for every instance it called for sugar.

It didn’t taste half bad.

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But the candles were the part I wanted to share with you.  I got the dorky re-lighting kind.  I love to do stuff like that.  Call me Mephistopheles.

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But dagnabbit!  That man knew right away what kind of candles they were just by the way they were burning and sparking.  He didn’t even TRY to blow out the candles. He just started snuffing them out with his fingers.

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Which, by the way, OW!

He thought he was foiling my plot!  But ha-ha!  Not so fast, there Skippy!

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It ain’t so easy, there Bucko!

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Whatsamatta, little boy?  Candles won’t stay out?

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Awwwww.

That smile on My Captain’s face?  It’s more valuable to me than chocolate.

And THAT is saying something.

Grandma Jane got My Captain something as well……

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And So It Continues!  THE FAMILY RUBBER CHICKEN.

(It gets re-gifted everywhere)

What?  Doesn’t everyone have one?

 

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~ Earning A Man Card ~

Posted on July 20, 2013 by mamaboe

It has been hotter than a World War II Pin-up Girl here in Dickerson this week.  Though the thermometer reads 95 degrees, with the humidity that comes with the swamp that is the greater Washington DC area, the Humiture is usually around 105 degrees.  Basically, you walk out of any air-conditioned building, and the hot, wet air hits you like a concrete and steel-reinforced, brick wall.  The air is so stifling;  every breath feels used already…. like someone is breathing directly into your face.   It’s nasty.  And gross.  I don’t do well with pre-breathed air.

My Captain, when he wasn’t working this week, has had the unlucky task of digging up the wooden border around Critter and Varmint’s old playground.

The one outside in the back yard.

The one in the sun and pre-breathed air.

The one with all the bugs and yucky mud.

Poor Captain!

Critter watched him from the coolness of the kitchen, and wondered aloud about how long it would take to finish the job.  I eyed him speculatively and answered, “I dunno, but I reckon it would go a lot faster if he had some help.”

“I can’t do anything to help him,” he shrugged.

“How would you know if you don’t ask?”

Man I’m good.  Smoother than 30-year-old Whiskey, and twice as effective.  I lobbed that guilt-grenade right over his head…he never saw it coming.  Dead Bulls-eye.  I’m like a guilt-sniper.  Ka-POW.

He grumbled and went out.  And by ‘grumbled,’ I mean bitched.  Audibly.  Copiously.  He was, as they say, unwilling.

Five minutes later, however, I watched him through the window wielding a hammer, and some other strange device that, while probably originally designed for a different task entirely, looked to me like a Medieval bludgeoning device.

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Apparently My Captain entrusted him with the task of removing screws from 25-year-old pressure treated 6X6s.  This is NOT an easy task…..And certainly not if you are 60lbs, working in the sun when it is over a hundred degrees, and the bugs are eating you alive.

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I was sure there would be more, er, unwillingness being communicated.

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But Mama learned a lesson in Male-ness that day.  Instead of focusing on being too hot, or too bug-bitten, or too frustrated when screws would be difficult, Critter dug in.  He took it as a challenge, not as an undesireble chore.  And I could see that a little bit of discomfort and adversity actually sat well with him.

I’m not saying he would sign up to do it every day, but he wasn’t a tool about it.

I could see My Captain was just as surprised as I was that Critter wasn’t quitting in disgust.  It was obvious he was enjoying being ‘one of the men,’ and doing manly tasks.  You might even go as far as to say he took PRIDE in working with My Captain.

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He didn’t have time to whine.

He was too busying earning his man-card.

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~ Picnic In A Hurricane ~

Posted on July 7, 2013 by mamaboe

It all started with the small idea that we go to Lowes and buy a simple $90.00 picnic table for Pop-Pop’s cottage at the beach.  A table where the kids can eat without getting yelled at for doing so in wet, sandy-butted bathing suits.

My Captain got that familiar look in his beautiful eyes and said in his deep, quiet voice, “We could build one way stronger than anything on the market.”

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The next thing we knew, he and Varmint and Critter were doing math computations, and trying to say “3 and 3/16ths” three times fast.

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There is something you should know about My Captain:  He has more structural engineering background than one OCD man should have… and when he has a structural challenge before him, he takes it seriously.

Perhaps a little too seriously.

This anal-retentive trait served him well when he was the Task Force Leader for Maryland Task Force One during the rescue mission at the Pentagon on 9/11.  This served him well when he was working the rubble pile at the OK City Bombing.  This came in handy when he was at Hurricane Katrina’s Search and Rescue efforts.  But when he takes on a small task like a picnic table….it becomes a little overkill.

He was putting struts and braces on his struts and braces.  He was using a heavier wood than would normally be required…and more of it. He had impact drivers and hammer drills out.  He used pulleys and mechanical advantage systems.  There was rebar littering the deck, and he wasn’t even using concrete.

He was building a picnic table so structurally sound, it could withstand a Class V hurricane….complete with Tsunami….during a tornado.

But we love him and his good intent, and cheered him on the whole time.

After day one, we thought he was finished.  Silly, silly us!

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Apparently, he had just begun.

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On day two, he added cross braces and more diagonal struts.

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On day three he added double reinforced cross supports for the umbrella stake.

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This table, I kid you not, weighs at least 2 tons.

And after day three, he turned to me and said, “Ok, you take it from here.”

I blinked innocently, and he handed me the Dewalt Sander.

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And I’ve been sanding ever since.

You see, all of those cross braces and struts and double reinforced thingy-ma-bobs have hard, splintery edges that are kid unfriendly.  My job is to make it kid friendly.

And in the shower, while I’m picking saw dust out of crevices on my body that would prefer NOT to have saw dust, I can’t help but wish a hurricane would come to test the table.

We’re THAT proud of it.

Obviously we need to get out more……

 

Bethany Beach, DE, USA

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~ Cat Herders ~

Posted on April 21, 2013 by mamaboe

See these guys?
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These two handsome lugs are Pat and Doug.  Two of the kindest, most patient cat-herders you’d ever meet.
We had our end-of-season basketball potluck today for our 4th grade boys basketball team, and they were giving their speeches.  They took the time to address each team member specifically.
They kept it short and funny for the audience. They gave lots of kudos and high fives to the same boys they have coached for several years now.
But you know what they did that made the biggest impression on me?

Look at Pat’s face here as he gave Critter his award.
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He cares.
The cats know this.

That’s the only reason they allow Pat and Doug to herd them in the first place!
God bless the cat-herders of this world!

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