Friday, August 26, 2011

Jury Freakin Duty

WATCH THE SEINFELD VIDEO with Elaine Benes ... just change the setting to a courtroom, the woman to me, the animals to the attorneys ...

Beautiful sunshine and no humidity outside the courthouse.

Civil suit.

5 attorneys.

Can a wife sue her husband when she willingly climbed aboard his motorcycle???

Attorneys disagree several times and have to step outside the courtroom. Hurry the f up!

Where do I look, because I feel like I am staring at people?

What do you mean we are taking an hour break for lunch?? Let's get this thing movin!!

No, I would not want me to be on the jury to decide what "percentage" of blame should be assigned!!!

People need to take responsibility for their own actions. Maybe the wife should sue herself for riding with her incompetent husband.

That man's shoulders are covered with dandruff. Ewww.

We live in a country where we can sue for anything we want, like the coffee being too hot.

Oh pleeeeeease let me go!!!!


Friday, August 19, 2011

Cricket Song

This time of year the crickets are chirping away. While in bed last night, I was enjoying their song, and thinking back on cricket memories.

I have many many good memories of crickets. As a child, it seemed like they were everywhere, especially around the large boulders that lined our long gravel driveway. We would catch them along with grasshoppers, and put them in glass mayonnaise jars to observe for a while before letting them go. Of course we did this with lightning bugs and snakes and caterpillars and butterflies, too. Crickets were tricky to catch, though, because you would seek them out based on their chirps, but when you approached they would clam up and hide. Later on, as teenagers cruising around with the windows open on the country roads late at night, we could hear them as we sped by and especially at the corners when we had to (sort of) stop.

Then there is a tough memory that rears its ugly head here and there, and that is when I was first separated from my husband, and I would be in my bed at night listening, wondering what they heck I was going to do, and how I was going to raise my son alone and keep my house. Meanwhile the crickets merrily chirped away as if the world hadn't come to an end. My stomach flops whenever I think of that dark period in my life.

But here I am, ten years after that life-changing August, and in the most content and happy place that I have ever experienced. I listen to the crickets and think about how despite what happens in our little lives, crickets and the rest of nature keep rolling along, summer by summer, season by season.

Some cricket info from Wikipedia:

The sound emitted by crickets is commonly referred to as chirping; the scientific name is stridulation. Only the male crickets chirp. The sound is emitted by the stridulatory organ, a large vein running along the bottom of each wing, covered with "teeth" (serration) much like a comb. The chirping sound is created by running the top of one wing along the teeth at the bottom of the other wing. As he does this, the cricket also holds the wings up and open, so that the wing membranes can act as acoustical sails. It is a popular myth that the cricket chirps by rubbing its legs together.

There are four types of cricket song: The calling song attracts females and repels other males, and is fairly loud. The courting song is used when a female cricket is near, and is a very quiet song. An aggressive song is triggered by chemoreceptors on the antennae that detect the near presence of another male cricket and a copulatory song is produced for a brief period after a successful mating.

Crickets chirp at different rates depending on their species and the temperature of their environment. Most species chirp at higher rates the higher the temperature is (approximately 62 chirps a minute at 13°C in one common species; each species has its own rate). The relationship between temperature and the rate of chirping is known as Dolbear's Law. Using this law it is possible to calculate the temperature in Fahrenheit by adding 40 to the number of chirps produced in 14 seconds by the snowy tree cricket common in the United States.


Ewww - I could never touch one now!






Saturday, August 13, 2011

Zen ~ Ah!

"God is the experience of looking at a tree and saying 'Ah!'"
       Joseph Campbell

~ my favorite tree: our sycamore ~

Friday, August 12, 2011

The New Yorker

Hands down this my favorite magazine, and the current issue has some especially interesting articles.

The cartoons are brilliant. The very first thing I do upon receiving my weekly New Yorker is flip through and read all of the cartoons. Then I check the table of contents to discover what the articles are about, including the movie reviews, and I also always find out the title of the cover illustration. At that point I start reading, sometimes beginning with the fiction. I wonder if there has ever been a survey conducted of readers' reading habits, and how many of them begin with the cartoons?

Today I read about Michelle Bachmann (I will not be supporting her - yikes), eating insects and how it's supposedly a really good thing to do (I will never), and how dna evidence suggests that Neanderthal man and early humans interbred (Geico wasn't mentioned but I couldn't get their caveman campaign out of my head). I cannot think of any other magazine that has that degree of diversity in a single issue.

Confession: When I am busy (not today) I mostly read in the bathroom. It's quiet, and nobody bugs me, including dogs. There. I said it.

The New Yorker magazine is intelligent, interesting, educational, entertaining, and I usually read nearly all of it every week, finishing well before the next one arrives.


~ my favorite cover ... I hung this in the hall at school next to my door ~

~ I <3 NY ~

~ remember this scandal? funnnnny! ~

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Football 101 at UB

I participated in this wonderful event along with my lovely niece and two sisters-in-law, and we had a blast! We were laughing, we were sweating, we were learning about football, and we met many friendly coaches and players. Best of all, we helped in the fight against breast cancer. Football 101 is an annual event, and we plan on attending again next year with even more friends and family.

From WKBW's page:


From UB's page:

Big Turnout for Second Annual Women’s Football 101

BUFFALO, NY – Nearly 70 women attended the second annual Women's Football 101 at UB Stadium on Tuesday night. Head Coach Jeff Quinn and his staff as well as players put the women through drills and taught them the basics of football to help them better understand the game.

Proceeds from the event went to Breast Cancer Network of Western New York.

"The purpose is not only to bring more women on campus and teach them a little bit more about football at the collegiate level - but also in conjunction with our efforts to help fight breast cancer," said UB head football coach Jeff Quinn.

Women participating in the event ran drills on the field as well as sat in on nutrition and weight training seminars.

"There is no fight better than the fight to beat cancer," Football 101 Chairperson Shannon Quinn said. "What a great way for us to give back to Western New York by meeting up with these women."

The Breast Cancer Network of Western New York's mission is to provide education, advocacy and support for people involved with breast cancer. For more information visithttp://www.bcnwny.org.
To learn more, check out UB's page and watch the video. Hope to see you there next August!