Box O' Crap

On a recent trip back to my hometown, I was met at the door to my parent's home by my sister April who was in frothy frenzy.  She was attempting to re-organize my parent's entire house in a few short days!   She insisted that I help her.  

I didn't want to help her.

I wanted to watch nineteen solid hours of HGTV!

Because I don't have HGTV.

So I feel it is my duty to catch up when I am at the folks.

But April would not let me.

Before I arrived, April had already sorted through MY old bedroom closet.  She had a box.  A box of stuff that she had found in that closet that she thought I needed to have.

I did not want the stuff in the box.

I left it at home.  

A few weeks later, my mom came for a visit and she had the box of stuff that April had found in my closet.

And SHE LEFT it at my HOUSE!

The box has been sitting in the study for several weeks.

I was tempted to pitch the entire thing in the trash, but on Saturday I sat down and went through it

Here is what I found in that box o' crap.

Old Dance Pictures....

Why could not the photographer have said... 

Uh Miss...  Miss... you might want to pat down your hair... your hair... it looks like you have two horns.... just give it little pat.... maybe run your fingers through it... here I have a comb.... and a mirror...  Go ahead fix it... There!  That's better!  

But no...

Instead I have horns.  

I really loved this particular ballet costume.  

I thought it was very wispy and elegant and princess like.   

I remember thinking that in this photo, I wanted to appear serious.  I wanted to be pale and waif-like and fragile and somber.  I wanted to look like an oil painting.  I wanted to look like something out of a fairy tale.  

I don't think people in fairy tales EVER have feathered hair.  

But I succeeded in looking somber.

And slightly pissed off.

Now here is a study in contrast.

Note the lace buttoned collar and the austere sweater vest and the ZIT which is set off so nicely...

By the ROYAL BLUE EYELINER!!!

This appears to be some sort of photography project where I was to write about what was wrong with the photos.  I have been taking bad pictures for a very long time.  This is a skill I was just born with.  You can't learn it.  You either have it or your don't! 

Now let me tell you what is wrong with these photos.  

What is wrong with the first photo is that April took a picture of me jumping off my parents' well proving once and for all that  I AM A GIGANTIC DOOFUS.

What is wrong with the second picture is that my sister looks like she is dressed for an episode of WKRP Cincinnati.

My High school graduation tassel was in the box o' crap.  I don't know how I got through the past twenty years without it.

And THANK GOD my sister placed this precious artifact in that box!

I found the last will and testament from my entire graduating class.  I willed my talent to look good after a football game to my High school boyfriend.  

I must have been referring to the blue eyeliner.

I found this assignment from Home Economics.

I got a C.

How do you get a C on a wardrobe inventory?

It appears I was supposed to write something about my attitudes and values towards clothing. I don't know why I missed that part of the assignment.  But I can tell you now that my attitude towards clothing when I was in High School was that CLOTHES WERE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THE WORLD.  

There!

Can I have a better grade now?

Can I???

Then there was all this stuff.

and GEEAWWW...  all this stuff!!!!

And OH LORD this stuff!  

I am sorry to tell you this...

I was in a pageant once...

Yes, I was.  

It was hard times then.  

Small town...

Not much to do except stand around in corn fields and drink beer...

...and be in pageants. 

So I chose the pageant route.  

Sorry.

What is funny about this, is that as I was paging through the photos in the booklet, I was trying to remember which girl won...

I remembered which girl I wanted to win, but I knew she did not.  

I remember which girl I thought would win, but she didn't win either.  

Then I found this picture...

I guess number 18 was the winner.

And judging from what I did to her mouth - I guess I was not too happy about it...

And this is my pink fluffy sister in a hoop skirt.

She is the one who made this box o' crap possible.

Thank you April.

I am saving Donald Duck nightlight and the seashell just for you.   

The Season Ends

Guess whose team won the tournament championship?

Can you guess???

I know I complain A LOT about sports...






But of all the sports, I find baseball the most tolerable.

Every kid gets a chance at the plate, and an opportunity to make a play in the field.

The kids are not covered up in helmets and pads.  You see their faces, you get to know who they are and who they belong to during the long, long, long, double long, triple long, tournaments and regular season games.

There is almost always a fabulous concession stand.

You get plenty of opportunities to use you child's entire name (first, middle and last) when they fail to catch the ball at first base for the third time in a row!

In a small town, your other kids can run free and play and beg you for money to get another snack at the fabulous concession stand.  And then twelve seconds later they beg your for more money... and then more... and then more...   I am pretty sure our family alone has made it possible for the folks who run the concession stand at our local park to purchase a second home in the Bahamas.  

You spend many a summer evening at the park, seeing friends and neighbors and getting to know their kids.

Little League is a lot more than the final score of the game.

But when you do win...

You must celebrate.

So it is a round of ice cream for the whole team.  

And give these coaches a double.

And give their wives a triple... 

and a chance to catch her breath... 

because football camp starts next week!

Pride and Prejudice DVD and Paper Dolls Winners Announced!

Oregon!

Oregon!

I had no idea that Oregon would be such a popular and beloved vacation destination.  I think it was mentioned more times than anywhere else, but then again, I am not exactly a math person.

Yes, Oregon and camping trips seem to predominate among favorite family vacations.  So I guess my plans for a villa on the beach in the Italian Riviera are way off.  Dang!  

79 entries were eligible for the contest (I discounted any second or third entries).   The winning numbers were chosen by my dear friend the Random Integer Generator.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

27
63
Timestamp: 2008-07-16 03:40:40 UTC

© 1998-2008 Mads Haahr
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS
Web Design by TSDA

Those numbers line up with #27 - My favorite was and always is Florida. We always have the best adventures and love condos where we can wake up and stumble out to the balcony and watch for the dolphins, sharks, turtles to show up.
Teresa

Teresa wins the DVD!

#63 lines up with - my most memorable is probably the family vacation my family took when I was 10 years old. My parents and 2 girl sibs and my cousins and my Granny. My parents are SOOOOO cheap they would NOT run the air in OUR car but my cousins were over in their car singing songs and fresh and sweet with A/C. We were vacationing ... uhmm it was torture from Minnesota in July THROUGH the desert to California with NO A/C are you seeing that? I could go on and on :::::SOBBing:::: I want those paper dolls Pleaseeeeeeeee? I need those dolls to recreate what could have been a nice vacation. UGH it was awful.
Rooth

I am so glad you won Rooth and I hope the paper dolls help you. I really really do.


Teresa and Rooth please send me your mailing addresses at www.countrydoctorswife@live.com.

Everyone else go rent any Colin Firth DVD and make yourselves feel better.

As always, thanks for playing along,


Rechelle

The Country Doctor's Wife Fabulous Summer Reading Program GiveAway #5...? #6...?

For the next selection in my summer reading program, I am selecting a movie instead of a book. 

I am allowed to select a movie because this is my summer reading program and I am completely in charge and no one can tell me what to do. 

This is why I love blogging. 

I am the boss. 

I am the CEO.  

I am the entire board of directors.   

And I am also the largest contributor 

So the CEO and The Board of Directors have to suck up to ME!  

Which is also ME so it doesn't even matter!

All of this authority makes me very happy. 

Deliriously happy. 

Fanatically happy.

It especially makes me happy right now as The Country Doctor and I are in the middle of family vacation negotiations... and it is not going well. 

You see, my idea of a vacation is to find a comfortable chair, overlooking a beautiful vista, with a cold drink and a book, and a few snacks and to not move from this spot for several days, except to go to dinner, and maybe to sit in a hot tub.

And I also would not mind doing a little shopping and maybe finding a good cup of coffee in a quaint little bakery.

But then it is right back to my book.

HOWEVER!!!   

The Country Doctor's idea of a vacation is to cover at least 300 miles a day, stopping only to buy more baloney and cheap bread.    

The only places we are allowed to linger more than fifteen minutes are at civil war battlefields, where we will all be forced to don ear phones and lumber around an empty grassy plane while trying to maintain consciousness, as every move of the battle is repeated over the head set, and at professional baseball games in whatever region of the country we are visiting.

Except that I won't go to the professional baseball games anymore, because I put my foot down about that a few years ago.  Now I shop, while they go to baseball games, and we all are much happier.

But back to the book giveaway which is a movie giveaway this time.

This is me holding Colin Firth tenderly in my arms.  Look at how at peace he seems.  It is clear we belong together.  I bet Colin does not even like baseball.  I bet he hasn't even heard of the Civil War!  I bet Colin would love to just sit and read for his entire vacation.  OR I could sit and read and overlook COLIN instead of a beautiful vista!  

Hmmmmmm....

This is Colin taking a shower in coffee.

I really love this picture.

As a second prize in this give away I am offering a chance to win a fabulous booklet of Pride and Prejudice Paper Dolls!

Please try to contain your excitement!

I love the paper dolls because they remind me of  a vacation my sister and I took with our grandparents to Arkansas one summer.

To entertain my sister and I on the long car trip,  my Grandma had a plain brown paper sack in the front of the car and every once in a while she would open it up and give us something from the bag.  

Sometimes it was a snack... sometimes it was a toy... sometimes it was a book of crossword puzzles... but the best thing she had in that bag were paper dolls.

  

Those paper dolls entertained us for hours!

And I just know that one lucky winner will have the same fun that we did with this set of paper dolls!  

Here is Mr. Darcy in his underwear.

And this is the Country Doctor planning our vacation with the kitty (Stormy) at his side.

To enter to win the Pride and Prejudice DVD or the Pride and Prejudice Paper Dolls tell me the location of your most memorable family vacation.

And please no civil war battlefields!

Contest ends Tuesday at 7PM CST

How to Fritter Away Your Saturday

One of the best things about having kids is all the fun stuff they just seem to know about on the internet. I don't want to think about this too hard, how they know... where they learn... but my boys have led me to much hilarity on the world wide web. Oh and also to a lot of huge skateboard jumps.

Today as I was working in the kitchen (read eating a muffin and wondering when my live-in housekeeper was EVER going to SHOW UP and the butler and the cook and the full time gardener), I kept hearing my son laughing in the study. Finally I had to go investigate, and he was watching this guy.


We sat down and listened to him together, and I laughed until my face was slick with tears.




Later that same day...

I wandered over to Miz Booshay's blog and saw this guy...


I have no idea why... I started out laughing... but by the end I was sobbing.

I have always said that the world just needs more dancing. That is all. More dancing. If we had more dancing, everything else would work out so much better. I love all of those dancing people. Every single one of them. And I love that funny dancing guy the best.

Also, last night, I curled up with three of my boys (one was at a camp out) on my "soft bed" as Drew calls it, and we watched 10,000 BC.

What a GREAT MOVIE!!! Oh I loved, loved, loved it! Oh, it made me so happy to see a movie that didn't have to do the crude thing. Oh yeah, there might be some hefty violence, but I have sons. Violence is nothing to us. We laugh at violence. Not really, but you know, we are men. I mean they are men. I mean they will be men. I mean... oh I don't know what I mean... but 10,000 BC is like killing a prehistoric beast type violence.

I just loved how the story was careful. It could have had all sorts of horror and rape and sex, and torture, but it drew a line at throwing spears at the bad guys and a few beasts out of control and um some war... and um also some slavery... and a human sacrifice... but still...I can handle that. Especially in terms of a fantasy type film.

Quite honestly it is the gratuitous sex and language that bugs the hell out of me. What does that mean???

Oh and finally and maybe the most fun... Mary at Little Red House wrote a post with info on how to create your own magazine cover.

So of course I had to create one for me.



And you can too.

.

The Pyro Crew

Every Fourth of July. our small town hosts the most spectacular fireworks show in the area.

It is planned, organized, designed, built, and set off by a volunteer group of local men known as the Pyro Crew.

This year the fireworks show was moved from it's old location in the City Park to the brand new ballfields, which meant that the show could be even bigger, louder, and that even more people could watch it from the surrounding soccer fields and hillsides.

Because I am a very serious blogger and am also practically dripping with investigative reporting skills, I went down to the ballfields on the morning of the Fourth to interview the guys about the process of being a member of the Pyro Crew.

They told me a lot of things about all the planning...

 

and the organizing...

 

and the technical difficulties...

 

and the paperwork...

But mostly...

I just noticed how cool their shirts were.

And it made me want to be a part of the Pyro Crew so that I could have a Pyro Crew shirt.

But I don't think they are going to let me join them.

Because after talking with them for quite a while... all I really remember is this one little detail...

The Pyro Crew uses pipes like the one pictured above to light the fuses on the firework thingys...  

I asked them how long they had after they lit the fuse to get away.

They told me you have about one second.

Then they said...

You don't get away....  

You just try and duck down a little bit...

After that I decided that I don't really want to be on the Pyro Crew after all.

But that is okay...

Because the world of investigative journalism needs me much more.

The British are Coming... The British are Coming!!

Last night, we had some very special guests from London arrive with our good friends Mike and Liz. I worked half the day at the Garden Center before their arrival, so was in a bit of a tiz when I got home to get the house ready for company and preparations for dinner under way. 

The Country Doctor had taken half of the day off so he was already home when I arrived.  He asked me what he should do to help get things ready and I mentioned picking up the yard, checking the boy's bedrooms, and cleaning up the grill.  He set the boys to picking up the yard and sort of limped half heartedly upstairs to check the bedrooms. He glanced out of the window at the grill, but I could tell that none of my "jobs" were very inspiring to him. They were simply too mundane... too simple... too easy... He was looking for a challenge.  

He is ALWAYS looking for a challenge.  

Preferably something that includes a lot of suffering and pain.    

Then he noticed the screen porch.

The screens on the screen porch had accumulated a layer of cotton from some nearby cottonwoods. He decided to spray them off.

So FIRST... he had to move all of the screen porch furniture into my freshly cleaned living room.

And I thought... okay... well okay... but just hurry up!  

Our guest were due to arrive in about half an hour!

Next, he REMOVED THE DOOR to the screen porch!  

And I thought.. what.... huh... wait... what...?

THEN he took that door out to the barn and decided to shorten it a little bit because it was sticking... 

And I thought.... wait... hold on... just wait a second... you know... it could probably stick for a few more days as OUR COMPANY from LONDON is going to BE HERE ANY MINUTE... and my LIVING ROOM... is now a total WRECK!!!  AND my screen porch is EMPTY!!!  And now I have to stop what I AM DOING and BLOG THIS!!!

The Country Doctor was not moved by my vivid emotional outburst, which included both of my hands wrapped around his neck in an attempt to rid myself of the problem once and for all!   Instead, he removed my hands from his neck, and calmly went about fixing that STUPID DOOR as if he did not even know that me and my emotional pain existed. 

Which is nothing new!

Then he carried the door back in, rehung it, sprayed off the porch and put the furniture back out just in time for our company to arrive.  

But that is not the point!

The point is - HOW MANY YEARS OF MY LIFE DISAPPEARED due to this callous act of disregard for my feelings!   

How many I tell ya!!!  

HOW MANY!!!!

Othello in a Nutshell... OR Othello IS a NUTSHELL!!!

Prior to the opening on Othello, which was this year's selection for Kansas City's Shakespeare in the Park, there was a puppet show put on by Paul Mesner.  

Paul wrote a fifteen minute rhyming version of Othello, which was so much more compelling than the actual Othello, that I almost converted back to puppeterianism.  But then I had a really bad flashback, and I managed to stop myself.  

Paul's show, as opposed to the actual Othello, was highly entertaining, funny, and somehow mysteriously lacking in all the twenty minute monologues where the actor tells you what is going to happen and then the actors do what the other actor said was going to happen and then the actor tells you what is going to happen next and then the other actors do what the other actor said was going to happen and then the actor says I will now do this and then he does it and then he says this is what will happen next and then the other actors do whatever he said... on and on and on.  It makes you wonder if Shakespeare was just either really tired when he wrote Othello, or if was just TOTALLY CRACKED OUT!!!  Because it is a really BORING play! And none of it makes any sense!

However, in Paul's puppet version, there is not time for a bunch of stupid boring monologes...

They just act.  

And they speak in short clever rhymes.

And they speak quite well, for a bit of painted plastic that does not even have a movable mouth!!!  

Plus, Paul did all the voices himself!!!

As a former professional puppeteer (full of hate for the artform), I know how hard that is!

Hark!

What Lo!

Behold!!!

If only the real Iago and the real Othello did not have movable mouths!

The real show might have been so much more enjoyable!

To prove my point, I will give you a brief synopsis...

This is Othello (the one in the purple apron) with Iago in the apricot cape.

Iago is an evil villain who talks a lot and then he talks some more.  And just when you think all the fluid has leaked from your brain and you can't listen to a single more word out of his villianous mouth... he talks even more.

Othello is also a great talker.  The thing about Othello is that while he is talking and talking and talking and talking and talking... he is constantly saying that he is not much of a talker, making him possibly even more irritating than Iago.  

This is Iago giving Cassio some booze to trick him and make him die.  

Cassio is on watch and not supposed to have booze.  

Plus Cassio can't handle his liquor so he should never drink.  

But of course he does.  

Because if he didn't this whole stupid story would never even have happened.

In the meantime 

Back at the ranch...

There is a hanky...

And the hanky is the star of the show.

The End!

Not really!

Because Othello NEVER ENDS!!!

It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and ON!!!

And then four VERY STUPID people die because of a hanky.  

Here is Othello strangling his sweet, stupid wife because of a hanky.

And even though she is dead (because Othello kills her two times) she comes back to life just long enough to say that she loves her little smoochy woochy Othello and that just because he killed her stupid ass, does not make him a bad guy.

And then she dies again!

A few minutes later (read hours) Othello stabs himself because he is a dumb ass and also because he is a total stupid head.

And then we all left.

But I am pretty sure the show is still going on.

And that Othello has killed his wife AGAIN!!!!  

The bard totally rules...

But everyone writes a stinker once in a while.

This has been the Country Doctor's Wife world renowned Shakespearian critic, reporting to you from her messy bedroom.

Our Free Vacation!!!

First you load up in the van at 8:30 AM the morning after the Fourth of July.

 

No one will be very happy about this ridiculously early departure on the heels of such a late night, except for the Country Doctor who loves suffering in all of it's various forms.

Next, you drive to Lawrence and have breakfast at Wheatfields in Lawrence, Kansas.   

The breakfast is not free. 

It also does not cause suffering.

This caustic lack of suffering accompanied by real maple syrup and a side of bacon will make the Country Doctor a little grumpy... 

To compensate... he will order only a small bowl of fruit.

Next you will drive out to April's Pig Farm, to pick up Seth.

Then on to...  

Kansas City.

 

Your first mission, upon arrival in KC is to try and find the original Fritz's hamburger joint and have lunch.  And yes, you did just have breakfast and no, no one is very hungry, but that is not the point.  

The point is that you use a phone from your table to call in your orders...

And then this happens...

Oh dear!  

Fritz's is also not free...

Fear not...

We are getting to the free part.

Sometime....

Relatively soon...

But first you must go to the Kansas City Union Station, which is very beautiful and also very grand and also very tall, and makes you wish you were born a hundred years ago and had a trim navy suit with a feather in your hat and gloves, and silk stockings, and a collection of small suitcases at your feet, one of them round, and you were being helped aboard a train, bound for California to meet the man of your dreams...

But you are not.

Instead you are noticing that all the attractions (except the weird fake horse) are very expensive.  So you use the bathroom (free) and you get back in the van and head to Liberty Memorial just across the way...

You are considering going to the WWI museum which is underneath the Liberty Memorial, but just as  you drive up to the Memorial, you get kind of creeped out about going to a windowless, underground WWI museum on such a gorgeous summer day, so instead you head south to the Plaza.

And you decide to wander around the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art which is  full of large sculptures made out of old tires and huge paintings of  red circles on a black background, and videos of a strange wolf like creature painting eyeballs on it's hands.  

This museum is wonderfully free.

  

Next you will wander across a shady residential street to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.

Where these massive shuttlecocks grace the vast green lawn.

Did you know that the husband and wife team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen designed and installed these sculptures while the Country Doctor was living in Kansas City and attending Medical School?   

In fact, the Country Doctor and his very stunning, young wife were living just a hefty stones throw from the museum itself!

The newlyweds, while very intent on each other, were occasionally distracted by news of the city which surrounded them, being engulfed in a frothy brou ha ha over the installation of these "birdie" sculptures.   Many Kansas Citians felt that the shuttlecocks were simply not important enough to warrant placement on the majestic, sweeping lawn of The Nelson.

Claes and Coosje also had incredibly difficult first and last names and no one knew how to say them or spell them and this added to everyone's consternation...

Finally, Claes explained in a tired, yet noble manner, that in his visits to Kansas City he was continually stunned by the city's mortality. Every grandiose structure (including the Nelson itself) was a war memorial, and he felt it was time for the city to have itself a little fun.

So he and his wife threw a party on the city's biggest lawn.

And people have been partying there ever since.

Then Jack found a big stick.

Which he carried (or more likely had someone carry for him) the rest of the day.

Whereupon,  you will walk to the Plaza, go to Restoration Hardware, and sample the outdoor furniture collections.   

Which are not in any way, shape, or form...

even close to being free.

Then ice cream.

 (not free)...

And fountain...

(free...)

And shower...

(free...)

And architectural eye candy for the mom...

(free...)

And finally... The Shakespeare Festival in the Park which is adjacent to The Plaza, The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art AND  The Nelson...

(also marvelously free...)

Grumpy self portraits - free...

Happy self portraits... also free...

Wonderful day in the city....

Priceless...  

Well...   

almost priceless...

Tomorrow -