Excuses, excuses

This doesn't really look like me. I never wear high heels or dresses and never get permanents in my hair. It's just kinda funny.

My grandson, Allen and I went to Madison WI for a few days. Yesterday we went to see the Harry Potter movie (I'm not really into it, so the movie was kinda confusing to me). Today, I'm taking a friend to the hospital for surgery and Allen is watching the latest Indiana Jones movie on DVD.

The upshot of all this is that I haven't had much time to blog. I'm sorry about that. I miss you all!

Been there, done that

Oh yeah!

I like to think I'm above such violent egotistical displays, but that's exactly how I felt when AARP started sending me stuff at the tender age of 50.

Then, the day after my 55th birthday, I happened to be in Michael's Craft Store and a huge sign suspended over the cast registers announced, "If you're over 55, ask for our senior discount". It made me puddle up.

And, I must admit that I didn't take it well when my first grandchild was born when I was 42. I did not want to be called Grandma W (she was my elderly mother-in-law in a nursing home).

Sometime after I retired at age 65, I finally began to adjust to what I perceived to be other people's distorted perception of my "stage of development". I felt like I was still vital and intellectually "with it". But then, I started doing embarrassing things, like dropping really dated expressions into my vocabulary. That is soooo not cool!

There are tons of expressions that are virtually meaningless to my grandkids, like:

Filling station or Dollar's worth of gas

Penny postcard

Jar of Mum Deodorant

Bushel basket

Duz does everything

Lug of peaches

Pitcher of nectar

Cellophane package

Till the cows come home

Fibber McGee's closet

I could go on and on showing off the stash of nostalgic stuff stuck in my brain, but it's not a good way to impress anybody younger than me. I hope it gave you a laugh.

How do I crop a picture?

I would like to crop this pcture a little on either side because it's too busy. I have it stored in "My Pictures" and can't figure out how to do anything with it. Any advice kind people?

The girls went back to their home today and I now have my 15- year-old grandson staying with me. The two of us are going to Madison WI on Monday to see my sister, her daughter and family and her son and family. One of my absolute-must-see stops in Madison is Ella's Deli. I love that place! They also have a good zoo and The Original Pancake House-yummm.

Still with the kids

We put the girls to work washing cars. They had so much fun washing my car, they did the neighbor's car too!

Butterflies are free (free-will donation)

The butterfly house at the Como Park Zoo. The girls really loved it!

It's already the 6th of July!

This is the reason I haven't been posting lately. My three great-granddaughters are staying with me for a week. They keep me busy! We went to the Zoo and went in the Butterfly tent and saw lots of different butterflies. The girls really loved that. We also went to see the movie Ice Age 3.

The secret "sins" of childhood

(Picture of 40's era kids.)

Back in the forties when I was growing up, I had three younger siblings very close in age. We lived in an old farm house outside of town. That was back in the days when the only entertainment was radio and occasionally, a "Blondie" or "Pa & Ma Kettle" movie in town . Those were innocent times when everything was G-rated. Even us.

We were never allowed to use naughty words like Heck or Darn. In fact, we couldn't even say Butt. The "butt-ockal" area was called the Seater. (I found this quite confusing since my mom had a cedar chest in her bedroom.)

Since we were normal kids, however, we didn't let the prohibition on cussing keep us from talking trash to each other. We got away with vilifying each other using such nostagic old favorites as Snot, Stinkpot, Dope or Dumb-bell. When someone wimped out by crying, they were scorned with Big Baby!

Bodily functions were coyly referred to as Number 1 or Number 2. The words Pee (as in urinate)or Body (as in naked) were very edgy language in our young minds. Incredibly, there was a character on the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio show named Mr. Peabody. We happily incorporated this name into our lexicon of alternative cussing. Thus, our new order of escalating filthy language became:

Dummy > Dumb-Dope > Dumb-Dope-Peabody!

This was absolutely the most vile thing we could call a sibling. Happily, Mom was oblivious to the truly foul-mouthed implications of Peabody, so we got away with it for years--even if someone tattled.

And yet, we all rose above our youthful wickedness and became upstanding citizens. All four of us are grandparents now, but you should hear the way our grandkids talk!