The Plinko Dozen

We're ready for the Plinko Random Dozen. If you don't know what plinko is, or what random dozen is (are?) then you need to click here and read all about it. After readying my answers, of course. And commenting on them, of course. Then you can click there and read all the other answers before linking up with your own. And away we go!!!!!

1. How old is the oldest pair of shoes in your closet?

It's probably a good thing you said pair because I have several single shoes that have lost a mate and are languishing in the back of my closet. I'm thinking about putting an ad for them at match.com because I'm certain they are not the only shoes that have lost a mate. I tend to be rather hard on shoes. Or else I lose them. But I never lose a pair which is really kind of weird because it's not like I take one shoe off and set it down while wearing the other one for a while. I usually take both off at the same time so how could they not end up in the same place at the same time? It's not like one could just walk off. (Oh, I crack myself up!)

2. Did you buy Girl Scout cookies this year? If so, what variety?

This is actually the first year I ever bought Girl Scout cookies, and I bought the thin mints. I must say, though, that I don't believe they lived up to the hype. I never trust a cookie that wasn't made by an elf.

3. Do you know how to ballroom dance? If not, would you like to?

I would love to ballroom dance, but sadly, I have no ballroom and therefore it is not allowed. Or possible.

4. Were you a responsible child/teenager?

Absolutely! Anytime something went wrong I was responsible. (Oh, come on! Like you didn't see that one coming a mile away!)

5. How many of this year's Oscar-nominated movies did you see?

I haven't seen any Oscar-nominated ones, but I have a few that Bert and Ernie recommended. (Sesame Street, people. Try to keep up.)

6. If you're going to have a medical procedure done, such as having blood drawn, is it easier for you to watch someone else having the procedure done or have it done yourself?

I think it would be hard for me personally to have my blood drawn from someone else. After all, it's my blood, and therefore, usually it's in my veins.

7. What is your favorite day of the week and why?

I like all the days that end in "y", but my favorites are the days that end in "day".

8. Do you miss anyone right now?

No, but I'm not presently shooting at anyone either.

9. Do hospitals make you queasy?

No, but bad Chinese food does.

10. At which store would you like to max-out your credit card. Not that you ever would, you responsible person, you.

Considering I don't have much of a limit on my card, I'd probably have to go with the Dollar Store.

11. Are you true to the brand names of products/items?

I stick with brand names for underwear and spaghetti sauce. Everything else is negotiable.

12. Which is more difficult: looking into someone’s eyes when you are telling someone how you feel, or looking into someone’s eyes when he/she is telling you how he/she feels?

Unless you're talking about good feelings here, I can't imagine that it's very easy to look into someone's eyes at this point. And because we're talking about levels of difficulty, I find it hard to believe we would be discussing something good. So I'm gonna go with neither, but I am very proud of myself for the deductive reasoning I've exercised on this question. Wanna tell me how you feel about that?

I Could Use A Smile

 It's a little dreary and rainy today, and I'm a little down. So how about leaving a bunch of comments today? Tell a joke, tell a funny story. Make me laugh. Please.

Monday's Memories

So if you were expecting huge changes and new layouts after Friday's hint of something new, I'm sorry to disappoint you. The blog will be undergoing some changes in the next few months, but I'm not sure how sweeping they will be. In fact, maybe I'll start awarding prizes to anyone who can spot the miniscule changes that come over my blog this year. But then people would start identifying accidental changes caused by a lack of design knowledge so forget that idea.

When I started this blog, my purpose was to make more friends, and to affect others in various ways. One of the easiest ways for me to influence others is to make them laugh. That's why I do Random Dozen each Wednesday. That's why I write posts about being married to Indiana Jones, or about my failure at our church fellowships.

With the desire for laughter in mind, I've written about recent weekend guests  and my struggles with my inner Martha. But it has occurred to me that, getting into humorous situations is not something that's restricted to present day happenings. I've always had a knack for getting into things that, quite frankly, make for a good story. So I'm dedicating Monday posts to memories. Now, I know there are other blogs out there that have flashback posts and memory posts. They are often sweet and warm thoughts from great milestones in the bloggers' lives.

Do I have to actually mention that mine won't be like that? While I do reserve the right to get warm and fuzzy once in a while, let's focus on our actual purpose here--laughter. So my Monday Memories will, for the most part, consist of funny things that have happened to me in the not so recent past. I'll keep doing these memory posts on Monday until I get bored, run out of stories or have something better I want to talk about. In the meantime, I bring you the Tale of Two Tickets--

Once upon a time I lived in Wisconsin, 90 minutes north of my mother's house, and 60 minutes east of my sister's. When my sister was expecting her first baby, I drove her to my mother's house so that we could give her a baby shower. Long after the shower was over, we packed all the gifts into my minivan, and I drove my sister to her home. I say long after because it was an afternoon shower, but we didn't start the two and half hour drive to my sister's until after eight o'clock that night. When I got off the interstate, I still had quite a drive on the county highway in order to get to her town.

I was cruising along at a good clip because, after I dropped off her and her presents, I still had another hour to go to get home. When you entered the outskirts of town, the speed limit dropped from 55 to 25. I didn't see the sign that announced the new and much slower speed limit, neither did I see the police officer that sat right near the sign, waiting for dopes like me to fly on by. My sister had just commented that I might want to slow down when I saw the flashing lights in my rearview mirror. A short time later I took my ticket from him, threw my driver's license in my purse in disgust and drove my sister home.

I knew my husband was not going to be happy. When I left him with our two small children earlier that day, he had no idea he was going to be babysitting until well after midnight. And he certainly would not be thrilled to find out I had a ticket I would have to pay. I helped my sister haul all her baby presents inside, kissed her goodbye and started the trek home.

It had been an extremely long day and I was dreading the rest of the drive home. In addition to being exhausted, I also had to contend with a pretty fierce wind that had come up. The wind pushed and pulled at my minivan, and I had to constantly struggle against it as I drove. I was pretty miserable, but I was also sure it couldn't get any worse. At least, that's what I thought until I once again saw flashing lights in my rearview mirror.

It seems that I had been weaving back and forth in my lane enough that the police officer wanted to check and make sure I hadn't been drinking. I was both horrified at the suggestion, and incredibly relieved that he didn't make me get out and walk a straight line or touch my nose. The police officer asked for my license, and I dutifully reached for my purse. This was getting to be old hat.

Except I couldn't find the license.

"Just a minute," I assured the officer. "I know it's in here. I just had it out a little while ago."

Never mind why.

I dug frantically, but that license was nowhere to be found. I couldn't help it. I started to sniff. And then shiver. And then I sobbed. "I know it's here," I babbled almost incoherently. "I always carry it."

I wasn't hysterical, but there was no sign of the storm ending soon and the officer started getting uncomfortable. Finally he stopped my frantic pawing through my purse. "That's okay, ma'am," he said, holding his hand out. "If I could just--is that another ticket?" He pointed to the yellow paper sticking up out of my purse, and I sobbed harder. "Could I just--" he reached gingerly for the ticket. "If I could just see that, I can probably get what I need off of there."

I surrendered the ticket and struggled to get a hold of myself while I wondered if the fines increased when you were stopped twice in the space of an hour.  When the officer returned, he handed me my original ticket and explained that he'd stopped me because of my erratic driving. Had I been drinking? That started another deluge of tears. When I could speak, I squeaked out that, while I was perfectly sober, I was fighting the wind and was very tired. "I just want to go home," I wailed, like a bad actress in an afterschool special. The officer cautioned me to be more careful in my driving and sent me on my way.

The moral of the story? You can cry your way out of a ticket, but only if you show the officer the citation you just got less than an hour before.

The other moral? Your husband will be aggravated with you for the ticket, but he'll get even by telling everyone at church about it the next day.

Ahhhh, memories!

Public Service Announcement

I've been so tied up with our meetings at church this week that I've had no time to blog. I just wanted to pop in today to say I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, and also to tell you to expect something new here on Monday.  See you then!

(I'll also post my two tickets in one night story on Monday.)

Oh! One more thing--I will give my undying gratitude to anyone who can tell me how to get rid of the white square behind my signature. It's driving me crazy!

An Irish Dozen

For this week's Random Dozen, you're going to want to click here to go and read other bloggers' answers before you post your own. You were going to post your own, weren't you? Come on! It's fun!


1.  Do you prefer even or odd numbers? Any particular reason?
Even numbers are important when you're talking about donuts and shoes. Odd numbers are my favorite when you're talking about having "just one more."


2. On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being "not at all" and 10 being Carly Simon-worthy, how vain are you?
Obviously the correct answer to this (as it is to almost any scale question) would be 5. Clearly, someone who claims not to be vain at all is fudging on the truth, and no one wants to be a 10 unless Carly Simon has written a song about them.

3. Among these Irish stereotypes, with which do you identify most closely? Talkative, Proud, Inquisitive, Love to party, Hot-tempered
You tell me. But remember I am part Irish and pay attention to that last choice.


4. How lucky do you consider yourself?
I'm lucky enough to have not gotten that second ticket that night, but unlucky enough to have gotten the first one. (That'll be a blog post next week. Am I whetting your appetite?)

5. What is the subject of your favorite post that you've written?
I wrote a series of posts about the last time I went to the dentist. Click on this link and then click on the "newer post" link at the bottom of the posts to read about stitches, way too much novocain and why I will never go to that dentist again. I don't know if it's my favorite post, but it was funny.

6. Describe March weather where you live in three words.
Sunny. Warm. Beautiful.   (Don't hate me.)

7. How apt are you at detecting blarney when you hear it? (Smooth talk, flattery)
It depends on how good the other person is at speaking it.

8. How "green" are you, environmentally speaking?
I think I'm more of a muddy brown.

9. What is your favorite song this week?
I've had no particular songs running through my head this week, but I've had a few nightmares in there. 

10. You are walking along and see a coin on the ground. What denomination does it have to be before you will stop to pick it up?
Hey, I am not prejudiced. I will pick it up whether it's Baptist, Methodist or Episcopalian. 

11. Complete the sentence: "Every time I look outside my window ...."
That body is still lying in the bushes. (These are the jokes, people! Work with me!)

12. What was the #1 song on the day you were born? Seethis site to find out.
The #1 song was Summer in the City by Lovin' Spoonful, but I think it should have been Anticipation. I was a month late and my mother was more than ready for me to be born. My birth set a pattern and I haven't been on time since.


Head over to 2nd Cup of Coffee and join in this meme. You know you want to!

Which Way is Up?

So last night was the first night of our conference. Awesome start by the way. But I'm sitting there and my phone buzzes. The display says it's one of my best friends and my former pastor's wife. She's in Alabama, but her husband was on his way here. She knew I was in church, so I could only assume this was an emergency.

When I slipped out of the auditorium to answer the phone, she told me that her husband had just gotten to town, but the hotel had no record of his reservation. Turns out he was at the wrong hotel. I told her the name of the place where we had booked his room, and then described the surroundings a little so he'd know what to look for.

My friend called me back a short time later. Hubby wanted to know what exit he needed to use to get to the hotel. And here's where I had a problem. That particular exit has an "A", a "B" and a "C". I live around here. I don't pay attention to which exit I use. I just know where to turn.

Fortunately for me, I had been driving over in that area just a few days before. My boys had a big discussion about which exit to use so I could confidently tell her that he should take exit "B". That would have been correct if he'd been driving west.

He wasn't.

I went back inside the church to play the organ for some congregational singing. When I finished, I got a text message:

"Still can't find it."

So I headed back outside and called her again. "Jill, you've got to help find that hotel. He's getting pretty frustrated. He finally said he's going to pull over and get something to eat while he waits for someone to call him with directions."

One of the men in our church is a deputy sheriff. I figured if anyone could talk the man through some directions, it would be him. My friend gave me her husband's phone number, and I gave him a call.

"Hey, this is Jill. How're you doing?"

"Well, I'm lost."

My wicked sense of humor kicked in. "Okay. Let's start with Romans 3:10. We'll take you through the Romans Road and have you saved before the end of the night."

The deputy sheriff thought it was funny. My former pastor did not, so I quickly got down to business and asked him what road he was on.

"I don't know. I took that "B" exit you told me to and drove for a long time. I finally got off at Exit 50 and now I'm sitting at a gas station. I had to pay a toll to use the exit!"

I think the toll aggravated him as much as the faulty directions did.

"I don't even know what road I'm on. I'm at a gas station and there's a Wendy's and an Arby's across the street."

Now, his hotel was about 10-12 miles from the church. At that moment I realized he'd driven so far he was less than 2 miles from the church. And he had apparently been driving around for over an hour, trying to find the hotel. I quickly put the deputy sheriff on, and he gave detailed instructions how to get back to the hotel. He did finally reach his destination, but I don't think he's too happy with the accidental detour I sent him on.

I'm going to put together a peace offering before I see him today. A butterfinger, some Twizzlers and a few other favorite things. Oh! And fifty cents. I think that toll still bugs him.

So how directionally challenged are you? Are you always turned around yourself, or are you one of those people who know how to get there but couldn't tell anyone else? Or do you work a second job as a GPS unit? As for me, I think I'll include a map in that peace offering. It couldn't hurt.

Rook and the Male Ego

So have you ever played Rook? It's a game that requires skill and strategic thinking. And devoted followers. We knew a lot of Rook players when we lived in Alabama. We had evenings of Rook, Rook tournaments and all sorts of Rook-related things. There are also Rook related traditions. For instance, did you know that you cannot play the game unless you are munching on some sort of junk food? Appetizers are okay, and the occasional piece of fruit, but only if it is washed down with a big bowl of chips or popcorn.

Another unwritten rule is that you can never, absolutely never play just one game. It always has to be two out of three. And if the women are winning, then it has to be four out of five.

One of the most important rules is that, if at all possible, you must not play with your spouse as your partner. If there are two couples, it must be men against the women. And again, the women must not be winning. Men somehow seem to consider this "their" game. Like they have the corner on strategic thinking and outsmarting others. Come on.

We've got some long time friends staying with us this week. They got here yesterday, and it took us until after supper (all of three hours after they got here) before we began playing Rook. The women won three out of four games last night.

The men were not happy.

They made up reasons why they were losing.

They demanded a rematch after lunch today.

Now we're at the point where, technically, we've each won an equal number of games. So we're tied for now. (That's the only reason the men agreed to stop the game and let us all get some sleep.) But if you add up the total points scored in all games so far, the women are beating the men by over 500 points. That's like winning a whole extra game. So really we are probably actually winning.

(It's only the male ego and need for superiority that has a problem. I'm perfectly fine with this. As long as I can prove that we are winning.)

Our friends will be here all week. I foresee a little friendly competition ahead.

What about you? Are you competitive at all? How far will you go to win? Will you fudge the rules a little? Are you a poor loser? As for me, I'll answer these questions at the end of the week ... or not ... guess it all depends on who wins.