The Muppets

We recently returned from a trip where we celebrated the memory of my uncle who recently passed away.  It is a crazy family situation, and somewhat tragic.  I'll just leave it at that.  Anyhow, in a desire to lighten the mood here at our house I found this today, and it brought a smile to my face.  I hope it does the same for you.

Not sure about this one...

Ok.... I just have to say, as I'm looking around for 'human anatomy puzzles' on Amazon this one caught my eye.  Yes, it's just the human head and it's a little pricey (these are toys I'm buying!) but definitely interesting. I'm shopping for birthday presents for Austin and Charlotte!!

I think it's especially interesting that they have an advertisement for a water gun combo on the same page for $7.50.  What immediately came to mind was, "Ok, so you want me to buy the model and then use my water gun with it for target practice?"

Probably not something the general public would think, eh? 

Yeah, I thought not.

killed

Recently we were in the middle of a long car ride when we had an impromptu gun safety class with our three kids, initiated by our almost-four-year-old.  She started us off by saying,

"Daddy, if you are working on your shooting thing and then you are trying to fix it do you think it can go shooting and get you killed?"

So we talked for a while about what those shooting things are (guns!), how they are not just for "fun" (at least not yet), and I veered my dear husband away from talking about shooting people for fun (a la bb guns and paint balling) so as not to confuse the dear children.

They know they are never allowed to touch -- without permission -- what they may see around (which isn't so much any more, if you were reading my blog about a year ago you know it was gun crazy at our house); we talked about how some kids don't follow the no-touching rule and they have either killed other people or killed themselves even on accident.  It was a really great conversation; of course, at least we thought it was.  And it ended nicely on this note, as again, something only an almost-four-year-old could say:

"Daddy, when you were little did you get killed once?"

 Maybe the conversation didn't go quite as well as we thought.  Oh well.  It's a process.

Update: Nasty & Noxious Style

You may remember how surprised I was by the nasty and noxious lady at my local coffee shop recently.  I should have known better... but evidently she is an institution there.  So when I went there again today, well... there she was.  I shouldn't have been surprised, but... I was terrified.  :O

I ran into a former neighbor who was on his break from working at said coffee shop, and asked him about her. Is she generally not too nice?  He confirmed that he thinks maybe something's not quite right with her.  She's had run-ins with other customers in the past, evidently.  Whew!  I'm glad it's not me.

And he confirmed, they DO mop the floors every night so it really wasn't that big of a deal.  Whew!

Does it take all types?

I think it takes a special kind of person to be a police officer.  In fact, there are lots of jobs that take a special kind of person.  However, I think being a cop is such a unique job that it has a higher percentage of people who are ~ well, very similar.  It makes me think that "it takes all types" doesn't exactly apply when you're discussing the personality of a cop.

Of course I'm writing about this because of a recent conversation I had.  I ran into an acquaintance of ours who recently lost his job.  He had talked to DH in the past about becoming a cop, and when I saw him again recently he started up with asking about the job again.  I've known this person for years.  Years and years and years.  He would NOT make a good cop.  But how do I flat out say that?  I guess I could say that but it is for reasons that aren't all that flattering.  Anyway I think DH told him he wouldn't be a good cop when they talked about it too.  Let's just say he has temper and confrontation issues.  So finally I said "Well, you know DH says that his very best weapon is not on his duty belt, it's his verbal judo.  He gets into so few fights and 'befriends' so many of his suspects because he can make friends with the scumbags and act cool then slap the cuffs on them all quick-like.  So if you think you can really use your words to finesse all kinds of situations that is probably a point in your favor."  In my mind I'm thinking... well, I'm thinking "please read between the lines." 

After we had been chatting a while, his wife comes out of left field with some comment about how she doesn't think he would make a good cop because his personality is more like mine and not like my husbands.  Excuse me??  I don't think she knows what an insult that was to me.  Obviously she must like her husband (she married him) but .... yuck.  She was saying how we both have confrontational personalities and it's not a good idea to have that as a cop.  I was so flabbergasted.  When I mentioned it to my DH he chuckled and said "Maybe she meant he is so girlie and wasn't insulting you."  That's a possibility, because he sure is girlie.

After this comment I recalled a recent conversation where a friend of mine said I am not at all what I seem.  She clarified by saying that when she first met me she thought I was tough and sarcastic... but now having known me for a few years (and I would say now she really does know me pretty well), she realizes that I am actually super sensitive and it was a shock to her to realize this.  Now that I'm thinking about it, I have another example.  But I'll leave it at that.  So... what is it that people think I'm one way but really... I'm not?  I never, ever try to be anything but "real."  I don't try to be someone that I'm not, but I'm certainly private.  So you see one side of me mostly until you really, truly get to know me.  Maybe that's what's going on here. 

But it still makes me think.  Who am I?

Ok, now back to that acquaintance who thinks being a cop would be easy-peasy.  We kept talking and he started asking me about academy.  Now, I can only speak for our (my husband's) experience, not every academy in general.  But I'm coming from a place of being married to a man who went to one of the academies in our state which has a reputation for being one of the toughest, if not the toughest, places to graduate from.  The class before my huband's had a 20% graduation rate or something ridiculously small like that.  They were flabbergasted that my husband's class had such a high graduation rate of around 50%.  I was trying to explain it to this guy... the idea of having limited chances to remediate on exams, always living in fear of being dropped, watching your classmates fail out... I did tell him he would do a great job on the physical fitness part. :) He basically poo-pooed all my comments saying that it is only emotionally difficult because he has a degree from [insert name of University here] and he's not stupid so he's sure it would be so easy.  I just about wanted to puke my brains out when I was listening to this arrogant talk.

The best was when I suggested being a dispatcher.  "They hardly make any money!"

Then I did suggest Starbucks.  You know, they offer health insurance and you don't even have to work a full 40 hours.  "That is so insulting I would never, ever work there."  My response?  "Well, you better put your house up for sale then if you aren't going to do whatever it takes to make some money for your family."

Never a dull moment, people.  Never.

Don't be nasty and noxious

This is a story about the kind of old lady I do NOT want to be.

This is a story about the kind of present day lady I do NOT want to be.

This is a story about an old lady who needs some serious love in her life.

Recently there was an event around town where people were allowed to chalk up the sidewalks with beautiful drawings.  We were walking around town and one of our stops was at the coffee shop so I could get a drink.  :)  Do you know what happens to chalk? It makes lots of dust.  While we were walking around town, as much as I tried to avoid the drawings, they're on the freakin' sidewalk and some of my stroller wheels went over them and got chalk dust on the wheels. 

I ordered my drink at the coffee place and was waiting for them to call my name, when Austin ran over to get a straw for me.  An older lady ("nasty noxious nagger") was knitting and said something to me.  She muttered something about the floor, and I thought she was saying that Austin picked up my straw from the floor.  No, with her evil grimace she said something to the effect that "all those marks all over the floor are from your stroller!" I looked and indeed, there was a little track my wheels had made from the door to the register and then to where I was standing.  With disappointment in my eyes and face I said "Oh, no!  It must be because of all the chalk on the sidewalk!"  She just looked at me and rolled her eyes.  If stares could get you covered in mud, this one was the dirtiest look I'd seen in a long time.  What an evil old spiteful lady!  I did feel bad, especially because I am usually very sensitive about cleaning up after myself.  But... guess what??  They mop those floors every day!  It was as if she wanted me to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the tracks up myself.  I bet you, in fact, if I had gone back there a few hours later they would be all gone from people simply walking over them. As we were leaving I gave her my sweetest "Bye, have a good day!" and boy did that make her unhappy!! 

I feel two ways about this.  First, she really got under my skin and made me so mad.  What right does she have to be so nasty to me?  Then (although I was still annoyed), I felt bad for her.  What horrible things have happened in her life that she has to be so uptight and nasty about something like that, to someone she doesn't even know?  Finally, I thought, I will NEVER be like that.  (I hope!!) 

How about you?  When you are mistreated, can you see both sides of the coin?  My husband, after dealing with "the scum of the earth" day in and day out, has a really really hard time seeing that flip side of the coin.  I always go back to the "they were someone's child" ... at one time they actually *weren't* "scum of the earth" but now.....?  And I'm certainly NOT saying I can see both sides every time, but any which way you look at it, it should be sad.

As a LEO wife I do my best to bring balance to my husband's life.  Just like I get enmeshed and overwhelmed with the kid-life of three kids five years old and younger, my husband gets completely wrapped up in his "you are all scum" job outlook.  I'm obviously being extremely black and white here but it's generally true.  I do my best to battle against that and encourage him to do the same.  Do you?

If only we were all this honest...

Seeing as so many of us either visit, or hear about visits to court quite a bit, this was an entertaining item I read this morning:

Thanks goes to Abraham Piper of 22 Words.

The Confessional

Y'all know that I have three kids, ages 5, 3, and 11 months.  Recently we were at a nearby park because I couldn't take it any longer with all of us at home.  I struck up a conversation with another mom who brought a young baby (6 months old) to the swings where Dallas and I were hanging out.  Boy!  What is it about the park and moms?

I got the whole life story from this mom, including how she met her husband, what she does for a living, what they plan to do about work and childcare, and details about all her infertility struggles and her IVF treatments.  I'm opposed to IVF but it was not the time to get into it with this person I don't even know.  (Nor is it the place here.)  When she asked, I told her my husband works in "business services" and that seemed to appease her.  Better than my usual preferred response of "garbage collector."

What is it about the park?  It's like a mommy confessional.  This is not the first time this has happened to me, either.

Reflections on my contributions

I think it's great to understand what a contribution I am making to the blog world.  I love it that people can use google and find my blog useful for things like:

corsets
This was simply for my post about tactical corsets, nothing exciting here. Move along, folks.

diapers paralyzed
None of my three children have been paralyzed by the wearing of diapers yet.  

handcuffed and loving it
I'm definitely handcuffed to my lawman and we've thrown away the key.  I would not say I'm always "loving it" but it does have it's good moments.  :) You can also read this to find out what you should know about using handcuffs.

happy easter capitalized
Well, if you wanted it capitalized you probably should have typed it in the search box that way.

someone's novelty worn off, what does it mean?
Ok, I'm just speechless on this one folks.

Tactical Corsets

If you read Slam Dunks' blog you've already heard about this. But if not, you'll have to go over and check out the Tactical Corset that allows women to have both practicality and beauty in one. My thing is ~ with the, um, neckline on that thing, there is no WAY I'm going anywhere near a gun ejecting hot casings!



I think I should label this "on duty" given it is tactical and all... but I think I'll have to add "silly stories" to that too. ha.

If you don't have enough of your own...

...stop by the video store (in my friend's town) for free ones!!



Thanks for the suggestions about food in the previous posts. Keep those suggestions coming! I will mention that I did make Stephanie's Barbequed Pulled Pork yesterday and I was in heaven. I saved some of the juice and poured it over ~ DELISH! It gave me even more confidence in my slow cooker. :) I will mention that my meat was 6+ pounds and I cooked it on low for 12 hours, and it probably could have gone a little longer. Just FYI. yummmmmo!

Eating...

Most people totally take eating for granted but it's a learned skill. (Sometimes it's one I wish I had never learned, ha ha.)

We're learning how to eat at our house.

Some important tips:

1) Food goes into the mouth and should be swallowed.

2) Food should not be played with like finger paint.


3) Nor should food be blown out of your mouth like bubble gum bubbles (although it's quite charming).


That's all for this Public Service Announcement.

Now it's your turn. What are you learning at your house? Are you doing any fun crafty things for Thanksgiving? I'm open to stealing your ideas! :)

Who are YOU?

Mrs. Fuzz blogged today about a recent on-shift incident of her husband, HF. Evidently a concerned citizen really needed proof that he was a true-to-life, authorized, uniformed cop. You can read all about it here.

Although it's not identical, DH had a similarly interesting event happen to him on shift a while back. A young woman, who lived in a house with a bunch of other young ladies, had been inappropriately advanced upon by a male while walking home. Once she arrived back to her house, she told some of her housemates and eventually someone called 911 (or let's hope it was the non-emergency number since there was no immediate danger -- although I doubt it!) and requested an officer come by. On DH's beat, he took the call and when he arrived at the house someone let him in. Eventually several ladies descended upon him and demanded he leave the house until he could provide proper credentials.

Excuse me?

I know DH (and now all of you!) are thinking the same thing: "YOU called ME and now you want me to prove I'm the real deal?"

That would be one really sneaky criminal to
1) listen to the radio
2) beat the REAL cop to the address
3) be gone before the REAL cop shows up

Oh. My. I did forget to ask if these were all blondes. Given the law of averages I'm sure they were not. But I do wonder... was I really that dumb 10 years ago too? I hope not!!

I just sit around and eat bonbons all day...

In addition to sitting around and eating bonbons all day (yes I've trained the three kidlets to care for themselves, and the baby even changes his own diaper!), I surf the web.

Tonight I was on Cafe Press. I typed in "police" in the search box, and here for your reading pleasure are some of my favorite slogans, in no particular order:

• BDRT: Baby Daddy Removal Team
• It Became My Problem When You Called 911
• God Made Police Officers so Firemen Would Have Heroes (I'm not commenting, just saying I think it's funny, 'k?)
• crooks+drunks+dummies+dumbasses=job security (ha ha ha)
  

For the younger set:

• resisting a rest ** THIS ONE would have been purchased in two seconds if I had found it a few months ago -- Dallas was NOT SLEEPING for those of you who recall my complaining.

Ok, well, that's enough of that entertainment. I'm happy to report, that if you have been around long enough, you know I've been longing for a new toaster oven. I'm sad to report that no, I did not get the one I'd been salivating over (with the $225 price tag) but I did get the next best thing (I hope) at Costco today ~ their Cuisinart Toaster/Convection Oven is on coupon right now... at $80 I couldn't pass it up! I'm so excited!!

And THAT, people, is this week's THANKFUL THURSDAY (on Friday).... Thankful for humor and thankful for my new toaster oven! :) Have a great weekend.

a REAL 'thankful thursday'

Yes, REAL in that I'm REALLY posting on a Thursday!

First, I cannot BELIEVE it is already October. My life is passing me by as I sit on the side of the road in a sleep-deprived stupor. sigh.

I'm thankful that there was no fire in our building last night. Curious? Read on.

Around 6:30 PM last night the fire alarm went off. And it wasn't stopping. After thinking "gee I really should have a better renter's insurance policy" I peeked outside and, seeing nothing suspicious, carefully opened the door. I did a quick sweep of the three residential levels and saw nothing interesting. No pulled fire alarms, no smoke. My next thought was that the gas dryer in the laundry room had gone haywire (they recently replaced it with a new OLD -- yes, older than we had before !!!! -- gas dryer) and we had a raging fire in the laundry room. That would not be good. Anyway, nope, no smoke, no heat, and peeking in the window, no apparent fire in the laundry room. EXCEPT for the **pulled fire alarm handle** !!!! ugh!!! Nice. Don't you people have anything better to do than to maliciously pull the fire alarm?? Oh, I forgot, with the crappy economy you are jobless and trying to find ways to occupy your time.

Now I'm getting a little hazy on the order of events here but at some point I went into the bedroom and said to DH "Hey, dude, wake up! Do you know how to turn off the fire alarm?" (Come on, cops have to be good for *something*!) Negative. Note that by now the alarm had been going off for several minutes, and he is still sleeping. "Oh, that's ours? Call the fire department." [snore] I quickly Google the FD non emergency number (by this time I'm 99.99999% sure there is no fire), and call in the alarm. Sigh. Of course the dispatcher wants to know who pulled it (not me) and if I smell smoke or see a fire (nope).

Interesting factoid about our living situation: Our bedroom window faces the home where our affectionately named "crazy lady" neighbor lives. She drives an old, loud convertible and she likes to listen to loud (although generally decent) music in her convertible. She likes to warm up said loud convertible while listening to her loud music and talking -- at the only level she knows -- LOUD. While DH is trying to sleep during the day, this is a recipe for disaster. But evidently she's a good neighbor. While I was checking out the fire situation she had moseyed over to see what was going on, and how soon the cars in the garage would catch fire and then burn up her house. So nice. In fact, she had a nice little chat with Austin and Charlotte. Sooo nice.

So the alarm continues to scream while Austin, Charlotte, Dallas and I are waiting out front for the FD. (Because you know, no one "responsible" lives here and will give the FD access where they need it.) They sent two large ladder trucks (trucks? engines? happy medic would not be proud) and as they pull up I see several of them leaning out the window and assessing the building. (Yes, guys, honestly, no fire here.)

So they all hop out, swarm the building, I give them the keys they need for the access they need and eventually, after the 1950s era alarm is silenced, all is well. They agree with me that there is no fire and the alarm was maliciously pulled. Lovely.

So all's well that ends well. (I guess?) The funniest part of the whole thing was at the end, when one FF from each truck brought over a few hats for the kids, one older and one hot younger.... at which point the older one (who'd beaten him by a few seconds) says to the younger "Hey, rookie, too slow! Glad there's no fire!"

Are they bulletproof??

I received a link to this article from Police Link, which I guess at one time I subscribed to out of sheer frustration and need to connect on any level. Well, a few days back I was rewarded with this hilarious article. Well, the article isn't necessarily hilarious but the title of it is:

Sheriff's Office Fighting High Crime Areas With Sumo Suits

What's your first thought? Of course mine, as mentioned in the title, is "Are those sumo suits bulletproof? Probably not the best outfit for undercover work, but, ok..." Hope you get a good laugh like I did out of the inconsequential.

ha ha ha

If you haven't read it yet, go read this over at The Dispatcher and Her Officer. I was dying laughing and really could have used the good laugh today. Forget lying to the cops, we just don't need 'em! ha ha ha

America's Finest?

I was watching the "Ocean Patrol: San Diego" marathon on tru tv today. (Yeah, what a way to "celebrate" the 4th of July, eh?)

Anyhow, San Diego is called America's Finest City. They even have it listed on the police cars.... or at least most of them. The one I saw on the show today said "America's Fi st."

so true...

Mrs. Fuzz over at A Police Wife has related stories about one academy classmate of her husband's whom she calls "CJ" or "Calamity Jane." My DH works with his own version of a CJ right now and I thought some of you might be interested in hearing.... Recently on shift they had a discussion of the various types of legal and illegal weapons citizens may own, and with a large arsenal in the briefing room the officers were asked which weapons were legal and illegal and why. DH's "CJ" said "Aren't they all illegal? They all have scopes on them which allow you to see your target up close." As DH related this to me he said "uh yeah.... and those binoculars you use for bird watching UP CLOSE are illegal too."

Following up on the "dumb girl" stories, later that night another (female) officer walked out to her POV to go home. She told DH not to laugh if her car didn't start. "It only seems to happen when I'm low on gas, and I need to fill up!"

Uh.... yeah... what do YOU think the problem is?? After some inquiries it seemed to DH like maybe she needs a new battery, but seriously... low on gas? Hmm......