Again The Problems With Children's Books

Ok, you have probably read the post by my wife, Porkchop, about the Dr. Seuss story "Green Eggs and Ham" and how it really isn't for children (click on Porkchop to read post). Well after our visit to our friends last weekend, who read a book to their son every night, we have decided to read to our son also. So... one night Porkchop went to read to Buckwheat a book with Mother Goose rhymes. Well one rhyme did not sit well with Porkchop nor did it sit well with me.

Here is the rhyme:

The Owl And The Pussy cat
The owl and the pussy cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat.
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five-pound note.
The owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
"O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are, you are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!"

Now with that being said, Porkchop has a really hard time saying a word in that rhyme. I am sure you can figure out what word it is. She was laughing at herself reading it, and had a really difficult time with it. Now either we have our minds in the gutter more than we think, or it was plain inappropriate.

So I will conclude with my original statement. There are problems with some children's books.

GRRRRRRR............

Yesterday started out great and ended up horrible. Although I came home from work and went to bed only to be woken up an hour later to take the family out to breakfast. We had a great breakfast. After breakfast we went shopping then spent some time at a friends house. We were really having a great day. After we were done at our friends house, we went to the SIL's house to watch the Daytona 500. The race went really well. Very little wrecks and cautions. My favorite driver is Ryan Newman but for the race pool at work someone already picked him, so I went with Mikey Waltrip and Porkchop picked Casey Mears.

Well since the race is over I won't be ruining it for you if I told you that neither Porkchop's or my pick won. But... MY FAVORITE DRIVER DID WIN!!!!!!!

The bad part about watching the race at the SIL's was the fact that a skunk sprayed in their basement a few days earlier. I am a considerate man though and didn't say anything about the smell b/c I know that it was an uncontrollable event, (plus I have been down that same road myself.) While other family members would comment or complain about the aroma in the house.

Well right after the race was over we gathered up the children and headed home. The whole ride home was real fun. there was about 3 inches of ice on the roads and driving was treacherous. When we got home we found the front door wide open. The children instantly thought we were robbed. I knew we were not robbed b/c there were no new tire tracks in the snow and no foot prints. Our wonderful six month old puppy that is bigger than a full grown beagle was "kicking" the door and busted the jam. All the animals were inside eating our margarine, bread, and leftovers that were still sitting on the stove. The house was cold as Antarctica and the furnace was running full bore. I ended up using a bungee cord on the front door to keep it closed.

As if all the above wasn't enough, I went down towards the bathroom and I heard this funny noise. I found out that our hot water heater had shit the bed. Water was everywhere. So I shut the water off to the house and drilled a hole in the floor so i could drain the heater under the house. This morning we headed to town and spent almost $400 on a new water heater. After we got it home I began to install it. Have you ever noticed that when ever something goes wrong and you try to fix it nothing goes according to plan? Well I didn't have all the plumbing parts needed and had to make another trip to town. The best part, I went to my work and got the parts free of charge.

So now we have hot water, a warm house, and a hole in the wallet. But... It Is All Good.

Happy Valentines Day

Let me start out by telling you that i have no problem with snow. We can get an inch or we can get 3 foot of it and i really don't mind.

Well we had a pretty good storm come the past couple of days that dropped about 1 1/2 feet of snow. No problem in my book. Tuesday, we had our nephew with us and he stayed over night at our house. Well since he doesn't live at our house, we had to take him home yesterday. We loaded up the car with our son and our nephew and headed towards our town seven miles away. Well we have a Dodge Intrepid that i haven't really had any trouble with getting through the snow. The big problem was the road crews. I am not sure if it is laziness or just plain don't care, but the road crews just don't care when or how they plow the roads. Our township road crew were the first to piss me off. We are heading down our driveway to leave and as we get closer to the bottom I notice a three foot snow bank in our driveway. The lazy bastard that plows our road, plowed the intersection right into our driveway. I instantly gain speed coming down our driveway so I can burst through the snowy wall. Done deal, we are on the road now waiting for our next encounter.

When ever we head to town we go through three areas that have different road crews (our road is Pa road crew, over the state line is a Ny township road, and about two miles from there it is county road with one little break in it that goes back to township again for 1/2 a mile.) Our road barely ever gets plowed, the township road gets plowed only when they feel like doing it and do a very shabby job at it, and the county road gets plowed frequently and they do a decent job.

So our trip to town goes as follows. We slip and slide on our road trying to break a path so other driver will have an idea where to drive. We hit the state line to find that it was plowed but I swear if I gave Buckwheat a shovel he could have done a better job. So we drive very slowly around the turns and curves so not to wind up as one of the people I laugh at. (You know the ones that have their vehicle buried beyond return in a snowbank alongside the road because they don't take into consideration that snow and ice me be present on the roadway.) I look over at Porkchop and notice that her knuckles are as white as the snow outside. So I try to calm her down by telling her that the county road is just around the corner.

Well we hit the county road and that wasn't any better. The road was all slush and pulling the car all over the place. Alas, we finally made it to my SIL's house and our niece wants us to drop her off at her Bf's house. I was leary about doing it due to the road conditions but how do you say no to young love? So she called her Bf and he told her that the roads were fine. What a crock of sh** that was. It took us a half hour for a drive that normally takes ten minutes. We got her there safely though and i was thanking the almighty that we didn't have to take her back home later. So now we are only about four or five miles from the house and they were all back roads. We start our return home. We come to and intersection that we could take either way home, turn right to go up some hills or go straight to take the longe semi flat road home. HMMM...I wanted to see what the car could do so I took the hills. We made it up the first hill without a problem (which was the one I was worried about) go around a few turns and we are faced with a snow covered short steep hill. I give the car a little gas and start climbing the hill. We get almost to the top, and I mean almost, and the car just stops climbing and starts spinning. The words in my head are too graphic to type here so I won't even try to sugar coat them. I look at Porkchop and tell her to hang on it could be quite a ride. I drop the car to reverse and start my decent backwards down the hill with my foot on the break. The car starts to pick up speed so I apply the break with a little more pressure. No go. The front tires locked right up and we were sliding backwards and picking up speed. I realized there was a driveway on the left side of the road so i spun the wheel and let go of the break. My plan worked, we backed into the driveway without a problem. I decided to drive down the hill and go the straight direction at the inter section.

What a smooth ride it was, until we got about a mile from the house. there were fields on both sides of the road. You could not tell where the road was the snow was even all the way across the fields and road. So I guessed where the road was. I managed to stay on the road without veering of in to the fields.

Now we are at the bottom of our driveway. HOORAY! WE'RE HOME!!!! With one last hurdle,
our driveway. So I drive up the road to turn around so I can get a running start up the driveway. I look over to see Porkchop getting ready to white knuckle it again. I get a good running start (about 35- 40 mph) and get ready to climb the snow covered drive. Remember the three foot snow bank in the drive? Well that was the first thing we hit. Dropped my speed down to ten mph instantly. we get 3/4 of the way up and start spinning. So I backed down. WE backed all the way to the bottom and I thought I saw A car coming so I stopped. Big mistake. Where I stopped was right in the middle of said snowbank. So here i am walking up the driveway to get a shovel after fifteen minutes of trying to free our car from sitting inside of it. I get the shovel and walk back down and shovel out the wheels. Ok, time to try again. I rock the car back and forth again, reverse, forward, reverse, forward. After another ten minutes we are free from snowy clutches. I back up and mutter the words to Porkchop again to hang on. On our way again. We hit the snowbank again losing momentum but still climbing. We get just a little further than last attempt and Porkchop says,"Just leave it here. We can walk to the house now and get the car out tomorrow." So that is exactly what we did.

I was intending to take Porkchop out for dinner for the reason I had to work on V-Day but with the car stuck in the drive, that plan was flushed. After about an hour, we hear a noise from out side. It was our neighbor and his plow. He had plowed behind our car already and drove around it to plow in front. So I go out and chat with him a little and give him some money. I went down and moved the car out of the way for him to finish. He finished about fifteen minutes later. I drove the car without any problems back up the driveway and parked it in it's normal spot. PHEW!!! Glad that's over. But wait... we can get in and out of the driveway now. I go inside and asked Porkchop if the clothes she was wearing was what she was going to dinner in. Porkchop gave me a funny look but told me that she would go like that.

Now to end this novel. Any person in their sane mind would have stayed home, but not me. I wanted to take my wife out for a V-day dinner and that is what I did. We had a nice dinner and made it home without a problem.

The moral of this story is...
When Love Is Around...
There Will Always Be A Way.

Ponder Time Again

1. A person's eyes never change size from birth to death.

2. In the movie "Star Wars, Episode 5, The Empire Strikes Back" Luke Skywalker returns to the base in his fighter and as he gets out of his fighter he calls for Leah, but instead of saying Leah he yells "Carrie". The name of the actress who played Leah, Carrie Fisher.

3. Again in episode 5, Chewbacca enters the "junk" room to collect the remains of Threepio, and in the close-up scene of Threepio's head on the conveyor belt, you can see a reflection of the camera and several of the crew.

4. In episode 4 "A New Hope", during the battle between Obi Wan and Darth Vader, watch the chest plate of Darth Vader. Through out the scene his chest plate rotates 180 degrees.

5. Also in episode 4 "A New Hope", After Vader had finished off Ben with his red light saber, he starts walking to Luke and the other rebels. While the blast doors are closing, Vader's Lightsaber is white, not red.

6. In "The Matrix", When Neo goes to work, the name of the company where he works is written on the outside of the building. It says: Metacortex. But in a later scene, inside the office, a banner says the name of the company is: Meta Cortechs.

7. In "Lord Of The Rings 1"
After the battle with the cave troll, Aragorn rushes over to the injured Frodo and brushes past some large rocks which wobble, showing that they are clearly lightweight and not real.


8. In the original "Austin Powers" When Mini-Me is drawing a picture of Scott being hanged he is using one crayon. When you see the picture there are two colors.

9. In "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective" When Ace gets in the box and it breaks down, there is only one half of a side standing. When the camera goes to the door and then comes back to Ace, there is three sides of the box still standing.


10. People who have never been married are seven and a half times more likely than married people to be admitted to a psychiatric facility.