Maintenance

I finally upgraded my template to the "new" blogger. In the process I've cleaned house on some links, removing some non-reciprocated ones and moving some inactive ones to the "resting fields." I should change that to the "Fallow Fields." I couldn't think of the right word this afternoon. Funny how we'll have trouble thinking of something and then a few hours later it will suddenly pop into our minds. If I've overlooked any links please let me know.

At least now I've got a list of labels and a better archive. And waiting a while to upgrade templates was probably a good idea because now it is so much easier than it was when blogger first switched. A lot of people must have complained about it.

I'm still trying to decide what picture to put in the header. I think I'll give the lynx spider eating the wasp a break. Any suggestions? What would you like to see there?

Alien Tomatoes

We have three store-bought tomatoes that are freaking me out. I noticed that they were getting these weird bumps on them, as seen in the first picture. Well, being the curious thing I am I decided to cut one in half to see what was making the bumps. I figured that they might be some kind of fruit fly maggots or something like that. As you can see the tomato is not very over-ripe or anywhere close to rotten. It would still be just fine to eat if it didn't have those strange growths.

In the second picture it looks like worms are growing out of the flesh. It's not worms. It's the seeds sprouting while still inside the tomato.

I have never in my life seen anything like it. And neither has my dad who has grown tomatoes all his life. I'm guessing these are some genetically altered tomatoes that have evolved into self-propagating fruits. While I'm very freaked out and too suspicious of them to eat them I can see how it might be evolutionarily advantageous for a tomato to be able to grow like this. Or maybe they are alien body snatcher tomatoes? Either way I've left it outside to see if the sprouts are going to continue growing and feeding off the "parent" tomato.

Please, if anyone knows anything about this leave me a comment. Thanks!

(And I hope I haven't inadvertently exposed some government secret. Or maybe this is some kind of omen?) ;-)

A Thousand Words

(I will return to this post to add some explanations later.)

How Do You Feel?

Create your own Mood-Meter

Ask the Eight Ball

Create your own 8 Ball

I Can Do It!

I'm no Joanne Liebler or any of those other home improvement mascu-women who like to build houses or do other heavy construction, but I do my fair share (and probably more) of the maintenance around the house. I begrudgingly do some of it, like installing a new two-line phone jack to replace the one that was destroyed when the husband got mad and ripped the phone off the wall. Now, I'm not married to a violent man. I wouldn't marry one of those. But he is human and in the course of our marriage he has had a handfull of incidents where he destroyed some object out of anger and frustration. (I don't think I've ever actually done it, but I sure have wanted to at times. ;-) )

The phone in the laundry room was the one I used most because it was convenient since I'm in the laundry room so much anyway. And also it is near the kitchen where I also am often working. I don't even know why he got mad at the phone or whoever he was talking to because it happened many months ago and I forgot the details. He even got me a new phone for my birthday, way back in January. Well, it sat on the bar for months and months. (I don't nag anymore because it's a waste of energy.) And because the most convenient phone wasn't there anymore many times the phone never got answered before the machine picked up.

Well, yesterday I finally decided that I'd try to install the new jack myself. Here are the empty hole and bare wires:



If it was only a one-line jack that would be very straight-forward, but no, we have to have a two-line phone for business purposes. And it would be really nice if there was a very uniform coloring of the wires, but no, they have to make them all different so that the blue wires on the jack don't have matching blue wires in the phone lines, and so on. So I had to go to the box outside where the wires come into the house to see what colors the lines were and then figure out which ones corresponded on the jack. It didn't help that the only multiline jack at the store was a three-line jack. Well, it took me about an hour to do what it would have taken the husband about 15 minutes to do because of my inexperience with this obscure wire matching procedure. Here is the properly installed jack:



I have to confess that the entire time I was struggling with this man's work I was cursing men and feminism for putting me in the position of having to do a man's job. Is it not enough that I do all the laundry and other housework, as well as much of the outside work? And now I'm expected to install a phone jack too? How much money do men get paid for doing this job all day long? And here I am having to figure it out for free and take time away from my regular jobs to do it. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Man, I'm gonna see how long it takes for the man to even notice I did his job. I'm gonna make him feel guilty for this, or maybe even cut him off for a few days... Grumble, grumble, blah, blah, blah.

I had convinced myself that I would not feel accomplished for doing this thing and that it would be just as satisfying, or more so, if he had done it for me himself. Here is the phone completely installed and working:



So what happened when he got home from work? Did I make him feel guilty for not installing the jack and my birthday present from months ago? Well, of course not. I'm such a wuss. When he came in I felt myself grinning from ear to ear and heard myself ask, "Did you see what I did?!"

He looked bewildered and when I pointed at the phone he smiled with surprise and said, "You did that all by yourself?" (He knew I could all along, of course, and just wanted me to learn how to do it.) And I told him all about how long it took and how I grumbled through the whole process and how yes, I do feel accomplished about it even though I didn't want to do it and feel accomplished about it.

So, Rosie Rivetter, here's to you and doing what we women don't necessarily want to do but sometimes have to.

On the Road Again

This afternoon I'll be leaving for a nice little weekend getaway to visit some friends out-of-state. Of course, I'm happy to get to drive the Corvette for more than just a few miles. And it will be nice to be "kid-free" for the weekend. Mommas need little vacations too. :-) Everyone have a nice weekend!