Eau de Toxic Vanilla

Now here is something in the history of mankind I never knew existed or was necessary.  Please look closely at the label – ah yes, it is VANILLA SCENTED CAULK!

Let me say that once again VANILLA SCENTED CAULK!!

 

Who on earth – Why in the – What possessed – When did this – and How is it - ?????  

Did caulk need a scent?  It has a scent, a pretty toxic scent, but a scent none the less.  Now that scent is combined with the smell of vanilla to make a vanilla toxic scent – does it come in chocolate toxic smell too?  Are children now in danger of discovering scented caulk and having it become the replacement for the old glue/paste that used to come in those brown jars with the dabbers?  

Were the tradesmen of the world complaining that day in and day out they never got smell anything other than paint, caulk and sawdust and wouldn’t it be nice if lavender, vanilla, or hell even coffee scent, was added to their work supplies to wake them up in the morning and make them smell like a pretty scented bean?  You know, just a more enjoyable day overall – while up on ladder ten feet above ground – sniffing epoxy…

Here’s what really scares me, women get a bad enough rap in the world of skilled trades, craftsmen and home improvement, like we don’t know how to do anything and only use pink tools.  Did some fool woman executive come up with this to appeal to the ladies so we would want to do more around the house and be more handy?  Make it enticing to the Little Lady of the house… we hear they buy lots of vanilla scented candles, let’s go with that!

 I purchased this, unaware of the Vanilla Scentedness of it all.  If some polling group was staked out in the store watching the purchases of caulk by women, would I have verified to them as proof that adding scent was working?   See, a chic just bought some of that crazy vanilla scented caulk!!  Executive Suzie Polly Anna was right!!

I bought this to seal up the windows for winter – I do it every year - me, all by myself, on a ladder in the yard, every fall and spring.  Years ago I had Plexiglas inserts (Perspex for you Europeans) cut to size for each of the house windows and I stick them up every fall to act like the old storm windows used to, only better.  It gives us a third layer of protection from old man winter (and greedy man gas company) and virtually makes the house sound proof.  

I thought this was pretty cool idea years ago and so far it has worked great!  I use the peel and seal removable caulk for easy take downs and clean up.  The first year’s brand of caulk (over ten years ago) came in a blue spray-ish kind of can that didn’t need a caulk gun, they don’t make it anymore, but I found this stuff and I stock up on it every year.   

And now, lucky for me – the girly girl that I am, they made it smell pretty too, so I can feel oh so good about women’s liberation and my ability to caulk things all by myself.  Hey, can you put it in a bubble gum pink can next year and sell me a new caulk gun in unicorn purple?  I don’t think women have been demeaned enough yet.  

Oh, and maybe you can make it smell like my favorite perfume – I like Beauty by Calvin Klein.  Yeah thanks – tee hee tee hee, swirl my hair on my finger….

Oh and I bet if you polled the boys, they would rather have it beer and sausage scented instead, maybe you can do a research panel on that?  Brilliant! 

Magic Carpet Ride!!

 

http://youtu.be/Jv11g9qr-4o      (Link on YouTube)

It’s the most amazing thing; we have a magic carpet in our house!! Weeee!!!

It kicks on every night when it’s time to go to bed.  Now it doesn’t work for everyone, you must be a dog to be able to use it.  A dog that sleeps like she’s in a coma, tongue sticking out and who usually doesn’t wake up when she’s turned in for the night, even if you shake her. 

So here’s the thing, puppy is getting old, it’s hard for her to get up on the bed like she used too, and she used to turn in every night around 10pm, whether you were going to bed or not.  She’d just get up from the living room, walk down the hall into the bedroom, hop up on the foot of the bed and go to sleep.  

Not so much anymore, since it’s hard to get up on the bed, she just stays with us in the living room at night.  So we bought her a blankie (pillow really).  Our last dog used to carry his around in his mouth and take it with him everywhere; therefore I thought every dog instinctively knew what they were.  It took this one about a month to discover what the gray thing was laying in her spot in front of the chair.  For the longest time just her foot would be on the pillow. Then one night her head made it on, then her whole body and she realized it’s soft and it has magical powers!!

And for us, it’s handy!  Coma dog is tough to deal with when you want to go to bed.  It takes about a 20 minutes of prodding, shake her, go to the bathroom, shake her, go brush your teeth, shake her, go get a glass of water, shake her, go plug in your phone, shake her, go figure out what you’re going to wear tomorrow, shake her  – FINALLY wake her and go to bed.  Then listen to her grump on the floor.

After she embraced sleeping on the soft blankie, one night I just picked up the corners and pulled her into the bedroom.  Viola!! There she was, all set, no shaking, no trouble with old hips waking up and gimping down the hall after she’s been in a sleep coma, no problems at all – just a MAGIC CARPET that deposits her in the bedroom each night, ever so delightfully!!

It’s great, but I don’t really think we can market it.  My husband and I can’t be in everyone’s living room at bed time to pull the pooch around, but if you care to steal the idea – go ahead, just make sure the Magic Carpet is big enough to accommodate the dog with some extra room. We cannot be responsible for dogs who roll off their blankies when you pick up the corners and start the ride…..thud...

Ohhh - shake, shake, shake - shake, shake, shake - shake your doggie, shake your doggiee!!

They Have Parking Attendants?

Sometimes I’m a bit daft.  Really, it’s not something I’ll admit to very often, most the time I’m pretty smart - but on occasion….

So I’m driving to go workout in the morning (I row indoors two days a week).  In order to row, you must find a community that has a rowing club; lucky for me, I can find that community in the Grosse Pointes, which are right next door to my community - one that would never ever have row machines set up anywhere or possibly even know what they are, even if we did have a place to work out – which we don’t.  You wanna work out? Put on your tennis shoes and go for a walk, but make sure it’s daylight and you have your phone close…. Yeah.  (I jest, but only slightly)   

So, some of the Grosse Pointes are known for being very affluent communities.  I row at a place called the Hunt Club, it’s a damn horse stable in the middle of the suburbs.  Not way far away out in the boondocks kind of suburbs, but right on top of Detroit kind of Suburbs.  It’s a bit odd when you drive down the street and see horses grazing in a field outside - in a very close to urban neighborhood, or what we here call the city of Detroit. 

This past Tuesday was the big Presidential election, voting precincts were packed with cars and lines and people waiting to vote.  As I drove by a school in Grosse Pointe that doubles as a voting precinct I saw two people in the entrance driveway in BRIGHT YELLOW shirts and I thought – my God, they have valets for parking your car to go vote.  Holy crap, I have NEVER seen such a thing.   

So I quick, whip out my camera and get a shot – through the trees.  I would have driven around the block to get a better shot – but I would have had to drive around the golf course - a very big “block” and yes, they have enough open property to also have a golf course in the middle of the city.  It’s a lovely place – really.  They also have a very long shoreline.

I grab the shot and drive about a block down the road and it hits me, oooohhhh, they are probably people handing out pamphlets and asking you to either vote for them directly or the candidate they are supporting.  Ahhhhhh, I get it now…..

In my defense, at my voting precinct the people that hand out flyers don’t wear matching fluorescent yellow t-shirts, so it was not a sight that I had seen before.  The people I have seen wearing fluorescent yellow t-shirts are parking attendants at every event I have ever went to with a big parking lot.  And it’s not totally out of line with the community I was in to not think that there COULD have been parking attendants to assure their voters every convenience.   

So there, maybe I’m not daft, maybe they really were valets instead of volunteers soliciting votes and quite surely – we probably do live in the wrong neighborhood…..

Oh quick – suns setting, I need to get my walk in – I mean, go off to my local club, the one that promotes nature and all the benefits that go with it – now where’s my phone???   

Weighty Matter

 

I missed the shot –I’ve started to carry my camera to catch great photo opp’s, but it’s harder to do than you think.  I’m going to need your visualization skills for this post, shouldn’t be hard – I’ll set the picture for you. 

Hubby and I were out and about for his B’Day yesterday and we were in the parking lot of a mega shopping plaza.   You know the kind, there’s always an Old Navy, A Bed Bath and Beyond and an Ulta Store, plus far too many cars stopping everywhere, people walking all over and kids and carts jutting out in front of moving cars.  Yeah, that’s the one- good. (Borrowed the above pic off internet – apparently they don’t have people at this one) 

Now, we were sitting in our car waiting for a gentleman to cross “the street” so I could pull into the lane to park.  I was watching him all bundled in his brown winter coat, he was a big man, very tall and he was carrying this square thing made out of clear glass.  

Now whenever something looks interesting or makes me scratch my head, I should whip out the camera immediately and just go for it, leaving the details of what I am seeing until later.  But no, I was trying to figure out what on earth he had in his hand.

So he’s crossing the road and holding this square clear glass thing, I’m looking at the store immediately before him and it’s called Five-Below, doesn’t fit, that’s a clothing store.  I’m thinking there should be a Home Depot around or something manly, but there isn’t.  What on earth is in his hand?  It’s not boxed so it has to be a return, where is he going?  

Now he’s across the road,  I have to drive, but I can’t look away, then it hits me and I laugh out loud and then try and explain to my husband what is going on so he can see it before the gentleman gets to the store and disappears, plus now I have to park – all in mere seconds…. All the while I am now thinking – OHHH, My camera is in my purse… can’t possibly make this work, purse is in the passenger floor – damn, this would be a great photo...

Alright – so you got the man visualized - tall guy, big guy, in big brown winter coat, walking in mega shopping plaza that does not contain a Home Depot or a Lowes (normally somewhere you’d send the wife and avoid at all costs if you were a man) carrying a glass item about a foot square in one hand and he is heading to the Bed, Bath and Beyond…. Any guesses???  

  

A Scale, he was returning a scale, hmmm, think he didn’t like what it told him and it had to go back?  

I weigh what?  No way man can’t be right – last time I owned a scale – a regular un-fancy white metal one, it told me I weighed 40lbs less.   You little fancy pants glass scale can’t possibly be correct and if you were, wouldn’t the glass shatter from all my weight?  No dude, you’re wrong, harumph – I’m going back for a regular scale and I’ll have money to spare after returning you, 40lbs indeed… I don’t know how I got talked into this fancy glass thing…. All I needed was a scale, now I’m in this mess of a parking lot, gonna take me an hour to get this settled, gotta pick out a new one, stand in line, find my car, get back out in traffic - damn its cold….

Thunderous PA

Championship Game, Michigan Division of Pop Warner Football, Pee Wees runner ups, Buffalo Soldiers.

I just love waking up to a booming PA system – I never know what is going on over at the high schools.  We used to have four high schools and three stadiums that backed up to each other.  The three private schools closed five or so years ago, but one of those has been taken over by an Academy (yeah). Our high school tore their old stadium down and built a new one, closer to our house…  The track is now like our cities community center.  I like it!

Can you imagine what the 1960's - 1980's used to be like here?  A heaven for teenagers – at any given Friday night in the fall, three football games could be going on, all in the same giant plot of land  – next to that plot of green space is a big mall, there were two movie theaters (torn down ten years ago) and a McDonald's and a Burger King (closed).  Must have been a teenage dream!! 

Hey lets go check out the boys (girls) at this other game, the ones here are boring, hmmm, there’s a few here at the Lutheran school who look fun, but we have one more stadium to check out, let’s go try the wild Catholic school….. All within neighborhood walking distance, no cars needed…

I didn’t live here then – it’s a much different scene now, but I still love it when the high school has something going on.  This morning it was a Pee Wee Championship Football game.  OMG, I love young ones who play sports, this division isn’t the youngest, the Mighty Mites are (5-7 years old) But still so damn cute in their football gear – all cool and swaggering at 8 and 9 years old.   They got their big pads on and their helmets in hand out running on a giant football field, so cute (probably not what a swaggering 9 year old wants to be, but they are just adorable). 

This must have been special for the playoff; there hadn’t been a game at our high school prior to this.  I looked up the boys above, they are from Canton, a bit of a haul for an early morning game, these little guys probably got up at 6am, no wonder they came in second – the winners are from just down the street in Detroit and an extra two hours of sleep can do a world of good. 

The first place trophy stood bigger than most the boys.  Couldn’t get a good shot – the proud parents were swarming….

Next year you’ll get ‘em soldiers, next year…  Woy, Yo, Yo, Woy, Ya, Yo, Yo, Woy, Ya, Yo, Ya, Yo, Yo, Yo, yo!