The Makings of a True King

-- Britain's Prince Harry has been serving on the front line in Afghanistan, CNN confirms.

Calvin & Hobbes

Okay, maybe this isn't funny. . . but it's very true. Remember this when talking to anyone in your life.

Love you all!

Have a Great Weekend, Y'all!

Happy Friday!

Oh, wait, it's now Saturday since it's 1:15 a.m..
I've just put my Sim to bed after giving her an aloe plant to soothe her sunburn. My god complex is out of control here. Tomorrow, after I push the hair balls from the corners of my floors, I will probably end up making my sim build a sandcastle, have sex in the elevator of her house, and prune the orange tree. Ah heck, maybe she'll finally plant those tomatoes too.

Scary, idn't it?

Visited with new friends tonight. Had a great time. Very interesting people, great conversation. We played a half hour round of 6-degrees-of-whomever-the-hell-you-can-think-of, and much to the delight of my friend's 10-year-old son, he discovered he was four degrees from Hannah Montana and her dad, all by himself. I was so proud.

Anyway- gotta head north to the bedroom. My pillow is lonely, and if I have any hope of being productive, sleep must be a priority. Lord knows I'm lazy enough without adding tired on top of it!

Hugs to all - - be sure and scroll down just in case you've missed anything. There are some pretty funny videos.

Leave me comments - please? I know you're here, but I don't know what you're thinking when you visit this part of my asylum. Say hi, and tell me what's on your mind.

'Night!

P.S. - Congratulations to Kimmer Limmer Ding Dong and her new diamond ring, courtesy of her fabulous italian stud of a fiance, Dante! Much love and happiness, you both deserve it!

J

Life Lessons with Jon Lajoie from Jon Lajoie

I am very quickly becoming quite the Jon Lajoie fan. . . .

Life Lessons with Jon Lajoie from Jon Lajoie

Random thoughts. . .

No column this week - not officially anyway - couldn't think of what to write about - first time in more than a year! Good Lord, Joyce can be struck silent! It's a miracle?

So, is there anything anyone would like me to write about? Ideas welcome.

Bravery vs. Boredom

Wick is our almost two-year-old tabby whose personality is unlike any other cat that has decided to accept me as their human.
With the cold of winter snapping its icy teeth at us, the Wickster can’t be bothered to go outside, except on the most necessary of occasions. But the boredom of self-imposed house confinement makes the deep, belly-rubbing snow look like it might be kind of fun to her. Add a little false-warming sunshine and Wick is outta the house to play.
When Wick steps out of the house, the first thing she does is shake the snow from her front paws. Then she licks them and puts them back on the icy ground. And then wonders why she can’t move.
Once she’s thawed her paws, she jumps off the patio to the snow below, staying close to the house where the snow isn’t so deep. But a fluttery leaf grabs her attention as it rolls across the stark white landscape towards the forest and she chases it, landing neck deep in the snow with each leap. She stops and starts stepping more carefully, as if realizing that her weight won’t sink so far in the snow if she doesn’t jump in it. Smart kitty.
Then a random woodpecker, at the very top of a 50-foot tree grabs Wick’s attention. Uh oh. I know our cat. She’s going for it.
She dives towards the trunk of the leafless tree, scrambling up about eight feet to do some reconnaissance from the roof of a bird house nailed to the side of the elm. She looks up – way up, and spots her plaything.
The woodpecker is oblivious, but can’t seem to get what he wants from the frozen tree. He jumps to another branch, and Wick climbs another 20 feet. Oy. That’s bravery.
Our cat is now at least 30 feet in the air and I’m having visions of firefighters dancing through my brain.
As she perches on a precarious-looking branch, I open the back door and ask her how she plans on getting down. She glances at me for just a moment before making a dangerous hop to another branch that bends despite her light weight. She looks skyward once more and finds her potential toy has flown away in search of less-frozen branches.
Now little Miss Wick has to get her furry behind down the tree, that too-tall, stick-straight tree where she is looking down from her 30-foot-high throne. Great. I call Peter and tell him to have a look. He wisely tells me not to worry – she got up there, she’ll get down.
And down she comes. Like she’s sliding down a fireman’s pole, using her claws as she backs herself down to the birdhouse perch that started the whole ascension into the sky. She jumps from the birdhouse to the ground, and comes leaping back to the warmth and safety of the house.
She meows at me a few times, as if asking if I saw her, what I thought, and too-bad-I-scared-you-but-I-would-do-it-again-you-gutless-human.
Sure, do it again, Wick. But wait until spring or summer when the leaves hide your bravery. Until then, please, kitty kat – you’re aging me. Stay bored! It’s much easier on us humans.

The Bastard Break Up from Jon Lajoie

And oh, what a bastard he is.

Now they just need a woman to do the same kind of break up video - mean - but hilarious!

The Bastard Break Up from Jon Lajoie

Goodbye, Randy. We'll Really Miss You.

 

How can anyone sum up a man’s life in just a few words?

I knew Randy Slater for only a couple of years before he left us suddenly on Saturday, February 2^nd. As I write this, it’s still difficult to wrap my mind around the fact that Randy isn’t with us anymore, that his larger-than-life personality and sense of humour is gone forever.

I imagine that most of our Lanark County community is feeling the same way.

Of course, I do know that Randy wouldn’t want us all crying about it. He’d want us to get back to work, get the job done, quit whinin’. After the work is done would be soon enough to tip one in his honour. He’d want us to celebrate his life, but make sure that business carried on as usual. Even Winston, the family dog would probably be ordered to go bury a bone or something.

Randy was entirely too young to be finished on this earthly plane, even though none of us can pretend to know why he had to go. He was about to celebrate his 50^th birthday, and took the ribbing with his normal good-natured humour. In 2007, he celebrated 25 years of marriage to his wife, Lisa, and has two children, Megan (21), and Lindsay (19). Lisa and Randy were looking forward to a well-deserved holiday in a few weeks.

Randy was one of the hardest working men I knew. He always had an idea, was always on top of whatever his beloved Home Hardware store needed. There wasn’t anything that he missed when it came to his work, and even if he was a little disorganized and messy, Randy knew his stuff. Whenever I visited the friendly chaos that is upstairs in his office, I wondered how he could possibly know where anything was in the paper explosion that was his desk. The chaos extended to the entire office, but that man was sharp, missed nothing. Even Jody, his faithful assistant, wouldn’t dare to upset his system.

Randy loved life, loved people, his Home Hardware store and his Home Installs business. He enjoyed a business growth spurt last summer and was over the moon about his success in Home Installs, his plans to buy another installs truck and hire more crew on the top of his list. His attention to customer service was unequalled, and it was an admirable quality that he enforced on all of his employees, making Carleton Place Home Hardware the friendliest and most helpful place to shop.

Randy was a man that knew how to get the job done, and usually that job started with a handshake. A handshake meant something to him, as did every person he did business with. He loved both of his communities of Smiths Falls and Carleton Place and all the people he knew in them.

The bewilderment and sense of loss will be with us for a while, as it’s all part of the process. But Jody’s son Logan says it best when speaking of Randy: “God must’ve needed Randy to build some mansions in Heaven.”

You will be greatly missed, Randy. And we may shed a tear or two, but just pretend you don’t see. And we’ll promise to keep going and carrying on what you built in your life. Don’t worry, Randy, help will always be close to Home.

Rest well, have a kick-ass afterlife, and thanks, Randy - for everything. 

The Writers' Strike is Killing Us, One Reality Show at a Time!

With no end in sight to the Writer’s Guild of America strike, it’s time to come up with something else to do than watch television.

Unfortunately for me, it’s the middle of winter and outside scares me.

So what is a person to do who is addicted to television and is afraid of icy winter conditions? And please don’t try and get all superior on me and tell me I’m the only one with this particular personality combination. I have statistics to back up my claims.

Here is one good thing about the writers’ strike. Commercial breaks are shorter because nobody wants to advertise on a reality show or a third-time-run program. Yay for that.

The strike also expands the mind. Hear me out. Hopefully all of us are aware of this strike, are thinking about it and maybe taking a side. Our minds expand with the knowledge that it’s so much more than the ‘stars’ of whatever shows are on the idiot box. The Daily Show (now A Daily Show to show solidarity with the strikers) is amusing, but not nearly as razor-sharp funny without John Stewart’s brilliant crew of writers.

The strike also expands the mind by forcing you to watch new shows if you can’t find the OFF button on your remote. I’ve been enjoying a couple of new choices because I have no idea where my OFF button is, and my Tivo likes to work overtime.

Did you know that Scott Baio is 45 and Still Single (at press time, Scott Baio is now 46 and married with child, after he 'manned-up' and droppedhis Lothario ways.)?

When I was 12, my dream was to marry him (after I’d given up on my dream of Donny Osmond), so my curiosity was more than piqued by this reality show. After two episodes, its’ clear to me why he stayed single for so long.

Did you know that 80% of The Real Housewives of Orange County have had some sort of plastic surgery, and they all live in some form of gated community? Is it any wonder I’m happier in Canada? Way too many expectations back on the home-turf.

The Donald (Trump) has an even tighter grip on the reality wagon handles with his latest reality offering in Pageant Place, a ‘show’ about the current title holders of Miss USA, America, Universe and Teen USA, a conglomerate he owns. He takes all his current title holders and makes them live in a house for a year while the cameras are rolling. Let’s just say that this is not a glamorous picture of the franchise, and it wouldn’t surprise me if participation in these pageants dropped dramatically. I thought this was supposed to be about poise and beauty and education? Something about a scholarship? HA!

And what’s worse? I watched it. With fascinated horror, and maybe a little bit of glee.

Come spring when it’s no longer a danger to my aging parts to have a nice long walk outside, this won’t be an issue for me anymore. I will be able to find the OFF button because what’s outside in Lanark County is infinitely more interesting than what’s on the tube.

But until then, let’s support our writers. Watching the further deterioration of television alone should prove how important and talented these people are. Click the link to get an understanding of what the WGA strike is all about.

And if we don’t get the writers back soon, I can’t be held responsible for my further deterioration into the voyeuristic realm of peeking in the windows of someone else’s life through ‘reality’ television.