You people are hilarious. It's been difficult to post, and more difficult to read, some of the posts recently.

Kevin, you always manage to start posts that are inclusive, invite involvement and fun. Thanks.

I had trouble thinking of anything to complain about after reading everyone's very clever and humorous responses. My DH came all the way from another room to see what I was laughing at.

Ok, it did tick me off this week when I broke off a spike on my zygopetalum like a spear of asparagus. Damn! Nothing like waiting a year for something and then screwing it up yourself. Can't even get ticked at someone else for doing it....since it was my own clumsiness. Now that really ticks me off.

Susan

Sue, he claims to be a voodoo shaman.

littlem, if he were smiling, I'd say he's a politician. A senator maybe (the moussed hair).

But with a pinched mouth -- maybe Headache Guy?

:D

I guess he must give you guys nightmares.
sue

Sue, actually, he is pleasant - highly fragrant. You cannot smell it over the internet. The profile of his sweet and elegant scent is wonderful.

So, he is definitely better than the smiling politicians who stink.

My twinkle smells like-NOTHING. Cute plant,kind of cute flowers but what a let-down!!Just waited so long for this one to flower-shouldn't complain :)

Criminy! I totally forgot the rest of the bunny posts. No wonder it didn't make sense. Cut and paste can play havoc on forum posts. Sorry for the omission:

Robert Irvine's Bunny Stew

3 pounds bunny, cut into stew sized pieces
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup celery, diced
2 cups diced carrots
2 onions, finely diced
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 bay leaves
6 cups water
4 cups red wine
4 medium-sized potatoes, diced
1/2 cup sliced sauteed mushrooms

Using half the flour (3/4 cup) coat the pieces of bunny, shaking off any excess. Heat the oil and butter in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan, and brown the floured bunny on all sides. Add the celery, carrots, onions, salt, pepper, bay leaves, 6 cups water and red wine, and stew for about 2 hours. Add the potatoes 45 minutes into the stewing process. Once the bunny and all the vegetables are cooked, use some water to form a paste with the remaining 3/4 cup flour. Stir the flour mixture into the pot as a thickener. Add the already sauteed mushrooms to the stew and allow to simmer for about 10 minutes. Adjust seasonings, if necessary, and serve.

(some of you people would do well on .... the Dark Side...)

I used to like you, Shady, but bunnies are near gods to me.

So I'll complain that Shady is making bunny stew. (and almost all recipes are deserving of the addition of broccoli)

;) carolyn

Dog saliva can be healing - maybe dog slobber is the same, but I had to rule out several wonderful breeds because they're slobber dogs. A friend's Bloodhound hit the family, the sofa, lamps, walls, guests, and the ceiling. The drool even hung from lampshades and things - always nice during dinner parties.

That same friend is an MD and says dog saliva is antiseptic. Dr.s don't worry so much about dog bites, but human bites are cause for alarm 'cause of the germs.

Mehitabel - Dog breath is dog breath, even if they gnaw on bones all the time and have clean teeth.

Kevin - DH ran a restaurant kitchen that had to pass Health Dept. inspections. He says the reason more people don't get food poisoning in restaurants is because the food moves so quickly from delivery to serving. A piece of raw chicken would get scooped off the restaurant kitchen floor in about 3 seconds, so everyone's safe.

Chicken on your floor from the day before - No, Kevin. Just don't do it. We don't want you out sick.

In our house, Brooke, the 2 big dogs, the 1 little one, and the 3 cats streak for any food that hits the floor. Easy to believe their hearing is a million times better than ours, or whatever it is. We've gotten used to 7" long dog hair in our lemon custard pie that's retrieved from the floor and have to stop ourselves from assuming non-dog guests are the same.

Carolyn, yep, our critters are aces on cleaning up the food, but the vacuum comes out for loads of other messes they make.

Brooke, maybe you could desensitize yourself to putting in contacts by eating double crust deep dish apple pie at the same time. Or drinking wine till you didn't care - as long as you remember your success the next day.

T-bred - How long has your Twinkle been open? If not long, maybe the scent will come soon. Otherwise, you could probably sell it for big bucks to breed w/ to decrease the stinkle.

snasxs, w/ that face, your Shaman Cym could charm bunnies out of the stew. Can you see it?

Susan - I feel your pain. Awhile back, I was pulling up the tie on a stake as the spike grew longer on my Phal. Cassandra 'alba.' Well, pulled a bit too much, and the spike snapped off. Why couldn't it have stretched? Huh?

Tonight we had the bean soup. So far, no near-death experiences. Maybe that sinking to the bottom thing works.

Whitecat8

Hmm...
I have my own free range chickens, ducks and turkeys, so that's covered.
Uhhmm...Can't eat cane sugar anyway, so that's no problem.
Although, beet sugar is far more expensive...so stop complaining, Clara!! ;~)

And, as far as, Medical warnings!
The completely confused hysterical warnings from the media, have no validity.
They all start off with flawed food and unhealthy food products.
You feed the cows, chickens and pigs to each other and wonder why they all walk around drooling for a while before exploding!
The same with fruit and veggies!
Garbage!!
Dump a bunch chemicals that were meant for exploding and killing other people on your foodsupply for a few generations...
Then wonder why we're slowly dying or getting pregnant at eight yrs old.
In some cases, not so slowly!
Americans are getting fat through starvation!
We sit around mindlessly eating because we really are hungy.
I have two huge organic gardens and am building/expanding more.
I've built them over the last six years and improve them every year.
Also, a herd of 40+ (not middle-aged) grassfed only Dexter cows and a few crosses.
100+++Shetland and Jacob sheep, two hogs, six dogs, maybe four cats and...! :~)
Several freezers full of beef, pork and lamb...
both blackberries and three different kinds of raspberries...
many lbs of several different kinds of 'taters'!
I also froze several huge hefty-sized bags of rosehips and choke cherries that I'll can later.
Btw...
It's my understanding that the milk now sold in N.Y. is being imported from Russia.
Is that a good thing?
Does anyone think that their quality controls are any better than China has??
China likes us better than Pooty-poot (sic) does!
Milk does a body...good?

The rancher that we buy our alfalfa from, told us that there is a major shortage with domestic milk.
It's all being shipped to S.America, being made into cheese, etc and being sold back to us at a profit!

"That's something else that bugs me - organic."
It should!
It means nothing anymore!
The big guys have bought and patented it, with Uncle Sam's stamp of approval.
The rules have been change and those of us that have grown that way (exclusively) all our lives are being harassed by officials with investments in the big guys.
Most of us have changed to calling ourselves sustainably harvested(or something along those terms)!
Keep a look out for small guys with a proven record that want to avoid being crushed by all the new paperwork.
Ask around and realise that they might be using terms that weren't sold out from under them!
It's not just the big bad Republicans either.
Some of my (used-to-be)favorite Democrat politicians are owned by the mega-corps, as well.
That's even worse!

No Hummers around my place!
Just Jeeps and several super-duty diesel Ford trucks.
Sorry, a Prius just won't pull a big horsetrailer or flatbed very far!
Well...it would be easy to just push it outa' the mud and snow! ;~) ...

Shady

When you did the 'Hugs & Bunnies' wish, I was kind of wondering if those bunnies were skinned and gutted or just had their throats cut? I suppose it doesn't really matter, it was the kind thought that said it all.

OK, I REALLLY don't do the chicken-on-the-floor thing. Chicken flesh creeps me out. It's gross. I always wear plastic gloves when I touch the stuff.

T-Bred - check for "Mini -Stink" in the morning. Get your nose right on the plant. Mine is strongest about 10am by noon, gone.

The white one smells like almonds, the red one smells like rotten coca

Clara

Ooooh, Scott's got three slobber dogs but at this time of year, slobbers make great Christmas decorations, if frozen. It's good for the environment too to keep the aluminum foil out of landfills. Way to go Scott, Greenpeace might put you on the Board of Directors.

pcan maybe your neighbor needs some slobber dogs - oops, you live in FL, that won't work.

whitecat when I have enough wine, I don't care if I can see until the next day when it hurts to put my glasses on. Now where did I put my Head On?

Brooke

Whitecat, no self-respecting dog ever misses out on a single morsel, nothing too small to be worth their time. When you drop something, they hit the door with their nose down ready to vacuum it up.

They also operate on the theory that it's easier to get forgiveness than permission: I caught one of my dogs once with a rabbit in her mouth and spoke sharply to her, trying to get her to give it up.

She just swallowed it whole the instant I started toward her. I couldn't believe it. I thought that big mouth was for biting and instead it's for swallowing things whole in conditions of necessity.

I'm still laughing, remembering it.

OK Brooke I got the scoop on the blinking Christmas car.
Dude calls wife at work .."where you want me to hang the lights??"
Wife: "put them anywhere, I'm busy, bye"....click....
As a joke the 2006 350 "Z" goes up in lights.....(snowflakes...blinking)
When wife gets home from work she thinks it's cute ...."oh that's Cute!!!"
and makes him leave like that it for the whole weekend......

This morning driver and car are gone off to work, snowflakes in a heap in the driveway.

I'm pretty happy about that - the blinking "Z" car was really distracting attention away from the charming waving snowman under the large palm tree.

I try real hard not to get too ticked off (high BP, and I don't want to explode). We've been battling tree-stripping deer already, though. I feel sorry for them (too dry, not enough food?), but we went to great expense to have TONS of large pine and cypress trees planted on our mountainside (no way we old fogies could have done that ourselves, especially given that they had to use pneumatic jacks to break up the granite boulders just under the soil). DH wants to potshot at them with a BB gun, but I'm against possibly hurting one, so he's throwing ice cubes at them instead. He'll just have to drink his scotch neat...

What I do love is everyone's sense of humor on this thread!

Sharon

"charming waving snowman under the large palm tree." - That's just wrong, wrong, wrong. Snowmen do not live in Florida. They belong here. People in the south should not be celebrating Christmas to begin with. It's a northern thing.

Sharon - I feel for you. Deer are beautiful, but can be so destructive. I was watching a TV program about the attempts to reestablish white pine in Northern MN. Decades ago, it was all cut down during the excess logging in our state. That's kind of putting it mildly, since the forests were almost wiped out. Anyway, the biggest problem for the folks trying to reestablish white pine was deer. They love to eat the terminal bud which once destroyed kills the young tree. The deer killed almost all the seedling planted. A solution was found, but I won't go into that. Not sure what you could do about your problem. Bummer for sure.

K

Clara - SUGAR - 98 cents for 4 lbs. this week Must have a coupon though and I have one!!

Great Kevin!!! That's just great!! That's nice!!
First "they" take away the "Head On" commercials....;0(
Now "they" want to take Christmas away......;o)

Here in the **deep** south we ain't gonna take it anymore!!!

SO!!! Here is a picture of a cat wearing a taco.....
{{gwi:2101639}}

Kevin- I'll trade you a phal for your coupon :-)

Clara

Clara - YOU gotta deal! I'll mail the coupon. You mail me the phal. I need more organic material for my compost pile.

pcan - I hate to tell you this, but I don't think the cat is wearing a taco. The taco is eating the cat. More proof folks - DON'T MOVE TO FLORIDA! Hurricanes, monster bugs and now tacos have evolved to critter-eating freaks of nature. Like the snowmen, just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Don't mail it off just yet K.!!!
I'll trade you a taco!!!......eh??....

79 degrees outside.....oh when will it end...burrr......

My car...driving to work today and a 'ding-dong' goes off. Can't figure where its coming from. Notice these blinking yellow lights on the dashboard. Right by the speedometer are these yellow exclamation points - blinking fast. I am driving, doing 60mph and trying to figure out what is happening. Now these horseshoe-type icons appear and begin to blink. Meantime, the ding-dong is going off and I'm wondering if I shouldn't pull over immediately as the car is about to blow up. Bravely, I continue to work and call Honda to ask them what this is all about. The lovely girl says she doesn't know, you should probably bring it in for service.

Anyone have a Honda?

Jane

Jane
Is it the brake pads? Horseshoe might be brakes. Make sure someone didn't hit the hand brake. Good Lord

Clara

Jane's post reminds me of something else I hate. Pictures - I love pictures of orchids but instruction pictures should be banned.

I WANT WORDS! By the time I figure out what the picture is telling me, I have run a stop sign, gone down a one way street backwards, made a left turn where I can't, ruined my engine when the oil spewed out, and darned near wrecked my car when the light on the dash told me my tire was under inflated - for the spare in my trunk.

Brooke

"Now these horseshoe-type icons appear..."

Maybe it telling you that, although, you're completely screwed...Good luck and have a nice day!

I HATE INSTRUCTION PICTURES! Especially like the ones in the link below. A couple of months ago, I was going to fix my sister's kitchen faucet. Took it apart and then couldn't figure out how to get it back together. That picture is all I had to work with. After about 8 hours, she called a plumber and I went home and smoked some crack. Worst day of my life.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Jane, check your tire pressure.

HAHAHHA re Kevin - that's hilarious, although I'm sure it was better after you inhaled some of that Erythroxylon. Sometimes I get ikea instructions, which pride themselves in not using any words....except sometimes there are little tiny differences, ie a board should be oriented a certain way and I don't notice the fact that on the miniscule picture instruction thing, one hole is drawn 2 centimeters further to the left than the other hole.....and then it's too late and I have to take everything apart.

What is the point of pictures, icons? Who can make sense of these bloody pictures. T-bred you were right, it turned out to be a tire sensor. How does a horseshoe with an exclamation point in the middle, tell you your tire is low.

Drove home from work, still not sure what it was. Three of these horrid icons flashing bright orange, every now and then a 'ding-dong.' Did 30mph on the highway in the dark with everyone zooming past me flashing their brights in my mirrors. I was a wreck until I got home and got the manual. There it was - low tire pressure. Went outside and kicked the tires, they were hard as a rock.

I would like to know what moron Honda paid to come up with these pictures - glowing. Interesting that their dealership didn't even know what they were.

Jane

{{gwi:2101640}}

Obviously Honda hired the one from Toyota who invented it. Or maybe the flashing icon guy is an independent broker who sells his little flashing, dinging, wreck causing, nerve shattering ideas to everyone. Free enterprise at it's best.

Brooke

Miss Jane
Honda forum below. Ask there. Be safe
Mike

Here is a link that might be useful: Honda Forum

Thanks Mike, too bad that wasn't available as I was waiting for the car to explode on the highway.

Brooke, how very true! I plan to drive again today with the flashing/donging on my low tires.

I come from the day when you noticed your tires looked a bit low. You'd say, 'hummm that tire looks like it needs some air.'

Stupid!

How about this? I had a session about some private issue with a lawyer. I only talked with him for 15 minutes. He did not give me ANY solid answers. Then, he charged me $ 1,350 at the end.

I feel like ... mugged, but I have no police to call. He is the lawyer.

Jane, I'm cackling out loud at the image you painted. I know the feeling and I understand that it wasn't funny at the time. Last summer I had a rental car absolutely loaded to the gills with the residue of my mother's estate, just getting on the interstate at 8:00 a.m. for a 10 hour haul from NC to NY. Suddenly the tire warning goes off. Unlike you, I was lucky enough to know what it was - maybe the sign said TIRE I don't remember. Since it was a Sunday and the only service stations with air hoses were the no-service stations connected to jiffy marts, I pulled into one. The tire refuses to inflate. In fact, it deflates further. All the other tires take the air just fine. But the low one just goes flatter and flatter the more I try. Starting to panic (and feeling like an idiot), I try another air hose at another no-service station with the same result. At that point I had to drive all the way back to the rental agency at the airport in the opposite direction from where I'm going, naturally (now running 2 hours late). THEY want to give me another car, which meant another hour of unloading and reloading. I'm exhausted from the day before, hung over from the night before, and it's raining. Since they did HAVE a service center with an airhose I turned several different shades of red, purple and blue until they at least tried to refill the offending tire. They did, it did and all was eventually well. But heaven almighty, what a nightmare.

John

Do none of you see what I see when I look at that little horseshoe icon? Based on the picture in Jane's post, it looks like a ladies ass. LOL, if that little icon came on in my car while I was driving...I wouldn't know what it meant but I'd surely be laughing my ass off.

Susan

Susan, I'm hysterical! Wish I knew that today. I'm still driving with the dam 'ass' thing glowing. Now another picture appears, visualize trying to make out what the hell this picture is while driving 65mph cursing. After stopping, I notice it is a glowing pic of a car with two wheels glowing darker. So I guess it is showing my rear tires.

John, I feel for you. I'm embarassed to say that I have no idea how much air to put in or how to do it. There are no 'service-stations' anymore. So I'll drive all winter on these tires. Probably just 1-2 lbs. low, but now cars have to tell you. Who cares, if they ain't flat, I keep driving! They are hard as rocks. Probably the freezing cold weather. By the time I got home tonight, only one wheel in the picture was glowing. So I guess the other tire inflated itself, but the ass was still blinking..

Thanks for a good laugh,

Jane

While, I feel for you ladies, I feel bad for you ladies...

Damn, I know if my tires are low, when my oil needs changing, when I need 'pisser' (wiper) fluid. While I have AAA, I am confident that I could change a tire (I don't go to the gym just to look pretty ;) )

And when I go fishing (much to the surprise of the hands on deck), I can bait my hook with bunker.

And at the range...

So I'll complain about women who sell themselves short.
Carolyn

Jane, you poor dear! It's soooo funny if you're not living it in real time on the Interstate.

One time, my Toyota got a funny icon. The very serious head of the service department got very serious when she told me to drive a max of 5 more miles and then have it towed to them. Yipes! I was close to home - thank you, goddess CarCar - and the icon disappeared about a mile later. Serious Woman said everything was fine but to bring in the car to be checked.

Take care of that car - Whitecat8

Ha, Carolyn, you'd never catch me with a tire-iron in my hands. That's why I pay for AAA. Never liked fishing or hunting, always felt sorry for the deer and the bait.

But give me a shovel, and I can dig a ditch to China. Move wood, fix fences, dig any kind of flower/vegetable bed and any kind of woodworking. I've hauled my Rottweilers all over the East Coast to dog shows, obedience work, etc. I like hard work, but changing oil or tires, not interested...that's what I always though men were for...

Jane

I read on that Honda forum the "ass light" goes on during holidays frequently. Honda built a sensor into the drivers chair in their American cars. It measures the size and weight of your ass. It also goes off if you go to the drive through too often. You should have seen a 1 "cheek" warning. 2 cheeks, watch the holiday goodies ;-) It's the new "smart-ass car".

Clara

Good one, Clara!

I stopped and to get air tonight. A nice young guy offered to help, but I didn't have quarters, he didn't have quarters - do you know you have to pay for air??

Kevin, I have another complaint....

Oh my! Jane, you are way out of touch. The last time I saw free air was 8 years ago in 1999.

Jane

There once was free air. That's when it didn't have so much gunk in it. Now that it's enriched with chemicals and particles, it's more valuable and hence more expensive. That makes sense doesn't it?

K

Hehehehe, got a good laugh over the Honda issue. My Honda has always had electrical problems. Every now and then it just starts beeping and blinking for no good reason. I just turn the radio up louder.

OMG I can never get air into tires either, always turn them into pancakes trying. I don't deal with car issues, that's what my dad was for. Course, he's been gone awhile....

Deer ate my purple oxalis last night and raccoons ate all my tomatoes. Why can't they be happy just eating oranges? They don't even have to work at getting the oranges, they are all over the ground. If they don't like my oranges, they can go visit the neighbors. But NO, they have to eat my tomatoes.

A friend was here from Canada last weekend. While on our way to go kayaking, we went through a small town that was getting ready for its christmas parade. She about died laughing. Yes, in the south you can watch a christmas parade in your bathing suit.

There should be tacky police to fine people who put that huge inflatable Christmas crap in their yards. That should be punishable by the death penalty.

One word - underwires. The person who came up with that idea should also be shot.

My scooba has become anorexic and quit working. The battery won't hold a charge. I have to mop my own floors. Hate that.

Heh, I once had to change a tire...drunk, in three inch heels, at 4 in the morning. The one and only time I ever drove drunk. We were trying to get to house of pies to sober up, and I jumped a curb and killed the wheel on my volvo. Then, I had to sober up and drive an hour back home. It was a good thing it was 4AM, so there was nobody on the road. By the time we left after having to call someone to bing a jack, it was 6:30AM. Way to kill a buzz.

Whatta mess. Still have those boots, though. Me and those boots have been through a lot.

Worst part was, I had a guy with me, but he was drunker than me and didn't know HOW to change a tire. There's a complaint! Guys that have no practical guy skills!

-Cj

Things are looking up. I've discovered a bunny living under my deck.

Cj LOL that's entirely other post topic ;-)) Keep a pair of Tennis shoes handy. They are more useful to you

Clara

Bunny? Mmmmmmm. What's the best fertilizer for bunnies?

John

I believe Shady is thinking Bunny cobbler or sandwiches or quiche or something.

not to mention four lucky feet. LOL

ANd a nice muff, if it gets big enough.

-Cj