There are two people in our family who are just so funny that you love to be around them and often the comment is heard, “if we could get Sharon and Carol together one day, we would die from laughter.” 

Sharon lives in Indiana and Carol in Wisconsin, so it has not happened yet, but Sharon has begun blogging.  She was shamed into it really by a couple of bloggers, okay, me  and her friend.  She tried her hand, Just who are you people? « Braindebris’s Weblog, and was (as we suspected) hysterical.  She is one of ‘those’ people, who if she wrote regularly enough would be publishing a book.  She is that funny, just check out the The Immortal Rabbit « Braindebris’s Weblog if you want to split a gut.

She took a long break from blogging, much to our disgust, and is back now on a weekly blog schedule.  You would think she has a life or something!  She also mentioned it takes a good hour to put a blog post together.  Who knew!   

So, this morning, I checked how her weekend was and she brought up the often mysterious workings of the blogosphere and the people who take the time to read your blog but rarely write comments. 

My readership is not huge, it has dropped since I have gotten less regular in posting. However, in the beginning, when my readership would hit 1,000 for the month, I never had commenters, other than one.  There were 999 people out there lurking.   XUP always comments, all the way from Canada.  Aren’t you ashamed fellow Americans?  I have to get comments from Canada.  Pollyanna Rainbow Sunshine and the Needles of Doom often commented, but I have been really remiss commenting on their blog lately.  Don’t you love that name though!

 I have also been blogging a bit less lately myself, as I work on my eternal update to my website.  I feel like one of those people on the commercial, staring wide eyes, pupils dilated from staring at the screen, mind numb … anyway, you get the not pretty picture.  I only have one section left to go on the website and am soooo look forward to it being done.

This morning, here is a copy my monthly stats.  Notice the slow decline.

So, I checked Search terms. 

“no blood for oil Viggo” – as in Viggo Mortensen, no surprise there. Half of my readership is searching for “Viggo” -  Talk about stalkers! 

“Worms …” – EUWWW! especially when in the house. 

“actor with low ears” -  Okay, is this person casting a movie?  I have written about actors, and I have written a post due to the lovely commercial based on the old song “do your ears hang low. ” But, I have NEVER written about an actor with low ears.  I am not even sure why you would want to find an actor with low ears.

In an effort to raise my stats, I realize that I have three sure winners:

• Viggo Mortensen
• photography
• Movie reviews

Okay, Viggo Mortensen is hot and I do understand the fascination.  He keeps his private life mysterious and he’s hot and he likes dark chocolate and he’s hot.  What more could you want?  The only thing is, I do not actually know Mr. Mortensen (I love his name by the way— Viggo Mortensen—-it’s lyrical.  This is coming from someone named VanVleck.  Not so lyrical.

So, I shall now vow to make more of an effort to review movies about Viggo Mortensen and you, my kind readers (numbers 13 to 30 and occasionally 1,000) shall occasionally drop me a line to let me know what you like, or do not like, on my blog.

Oh, and I will try not to be a stalker myself.

This picture is “Waiting for Grandad.”  Left to right we have, EMT, JCountry and Gaffer.  Pardon my over-crowded house.

Four men in the house and anytime that we can get all four in one room, a game happens.  The latest “greatest” game is 1942, Axis and Allies.  The challenge is getting them all in one room.

The first thing that happened was EMT disappeared.  Literally, disappeared.  He left, on Friday night, to go help with Bingo at the fire department and never returned.  He told me he might just sleep at the department, but would be home in the morning. 

EMT has a bad habit of not letting us know what he is doing.  He is twenty, so it is hard to complain; however, I have repeatedly explained to him that it is a matter of courtesy to let the people you live with know when to expect you back.  Heck, it is even a matter of your own safety, as we have a relative who died when his car flipped over and he wasn’t found for three days.  The first two days he lived. 

So, the first day EMT was missing, I grumbled about him all day.  I left the outside light on until 3am and then swore and went to sleep.  The second day, I began to worry a bit.  Late that day we called his friends.  Why is it no one is ever home when you call them for something really important?  Late that day we drove around.  No one was at the fire department.  No one was at his friend’s house. 

At seventy-two hours, we went to the police and filed a report on him, missing, in our car.   He has had a problem with a couple of guys and we were concerned they had cornered him and beaten him to a pulp and left him in the woods.  We drove around staring between trees for our red van.   Our County is wooded.

Two hours later, when we arrived home from the police station and driving around, for the second time, Gaffer decided to make a library run for books, movies and high speed.  Twenty minutes later, Gaffer calls and lets us know that he is parked next to our Red Van at the library, and will call if his brother is in the library.

YUP!  That’s where we found EMT, after seventy-two hours.  During the time he was missing, he had gone camping, torn apart a car with a friend, and made money scrapping the parts, done Christmas shopping, and gone to the library.  He really does not understand why we were so upset.  In the meantime, my hair is grey!!!

EMT, anticipating leaving for the Army in January, where he will be the problem of the U.S. Government and they can figure out where he is, brought home the Harry Potter Clue game.  He gave it to the family for Christmas and wanted to get a lot of gaming in before he left.  He also figured it was maybe a game I would play.  He was right.

Playing games is akin to having a kidney infection, for me.  I am more a knit and giggle with daughter, while games are going on, preferably with a glass of Bailey’s in hand, kind of gal.  There are now three games I will willingly play: Cribbage, Dominoes and Harry Potter Clue. 

I should be cleaning my piles of projects out of the front room and baking pies or cookies for our Thanksgiving dinner, instead I am blogging and listening to Gaffer speak with a Russian accent as he rolls his dice to defend Russia from Germany.  The are figuratively spitting at each other, I am told.  JCountry is Germany.  Gaffer is Russia.  Granddad is back in from his disappearance to my studio and all is well with our world.

Grocery prices are going up, do not even try to tell me there is no cost-of-living increase.  Look at two bottles of Ivory Dish soap. 

Doesn’t that bottle on the right look impressive?  I thought they had just redesigned the bottle until I got home.  Granted I had thrown out the cap of the bottle on the left already.  I wish I had not as I would use it to refill from the one on the right, BECAUSE: 1. The plastic, of the new bottle, is so weak it smooshes in your hand.  2. When you pick that rounded side bottle up, with wet hands, it just slips right out of your hand.  That stupid indented swirl is a grip but it is in the wrong area for the shape.

Here’s the difference of 30 oz on the left and the new, same price, 24 oz on the right.  I hate that bottle.  It proves that they do not do market research because no one should be able to hold onto that bottle with wet, soapy hands.  And, that black line is not slanted it is horizontal.

Then there is the matter of shampoo.  By the way, I am limited in purchases as we have to live in a scent free house.  So, here is a comparison of my new purchase of our standard shampoo.

In the left corner, we have 23.7 oz of shampoo, on the right is 14.2 oz.  Almost half the shampoo for nearly the same price.

See why I hate shopping!

Unfortunately, no one donated this product to me.  I paid my own hard-earned money to buy it and write this review.

Mom loves the sound of words and putting words together to rhyme. Me, I love the flow of words and how they can touch your soul.  Mom never forces her words to rhyme.  She is a very good rhyming poet,Padairvanvleck’s Weblog in my humble and unbiased opinion.  But, frankly,  I think that words rhyming is a bit unnatural.

So, this morning I go online and check my Master Daughter’s blog, Braindebris’s Weblog as I do each morning dear, “Where are you?”, and through my head runs, repeatedly:

Well, it was three really good rhyming lines about checking your blog in the morning.  You know, blog-log-sog, I know they were probably award-winning, since I cannot remember a word of them.  But, like a broken record, they were in my brain for way too long.

 Then, I’m looking for my password book (yes, I know, you are not supposed to write them down) and I’m going—

My password book is always lost

 One day it’s here
 The next it’s there
 And some days it’s not anywhere?

And, now I say–

Dr. Seuss, I am not.
If this keeps up
My brain will rot.

P.S.  Maybe it is too late and my brain rotted during the night and all day everything I say will rhyme that way.    HELPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It may seem as though, with cell phones, CNN, FaceBook, MySpace and Twitter that we are more connected than we ever were.  But, we are really just more connected with a small group of people and less connected with our own world.

It always makes me feel sad to be in a restaurant and see a parent spending quality time with their child by spending the whole meal, talking on the cell phone while their child sits there alone, eating their own lunch with no one to talk to. 

People, if you are going to take your child to lunch, I do not care if they are five or twenty-five, turn the phone off and get to know them.  You can return the call when the meal is over, but you only have a short time to connect with your child.  You cannot go home and yell at them for something you feel they should not have done, if you cannot take time to get to know who they are.

I shall step down off my soapbox now and get back to updating my website. 

Thank you!

I know you are not going to believe this, but HONEST, I am not writing this blog to get my stats up.  I rarely even check on them anymore.  In fact, I was shocked to realize today, since I rarely get comments, that I have a following.  “You do love me.”  Well, like at any rate.

So, when I mention Viggo Mortensen, please believe me, that I am not mentioning Viggo Mortensen to ratchet up ratings. 

Viggo Mortensen is again in the news with his role in The Road (2009) and was referred to as being “complicated” in an article I read recently, and I apologize that I cannot find it to link here.  It seemed to me that the author had no understanding of the person he is.  Not that I would know what kind of person he is, having only read about a gazillion interviews of his, but never having met him.

But, I am thinking that he is actually a very simple person and not complicated at all.

Perhaps I can relate, as I have multiple artistic interests also  and feel as though we have a lot in common.  We both love the outdoors.  He speaks approximately five languages fluently and I can speak, let’s see, exactly one.  I was learning Amslan at one time and I have taken a Spanish class four times (obviously, not successfully).  But, I think our joint passion for Dark Chocolate counts.

It seems that he is an honorable, honest person.  I feel it is more complicated to be dishonorable and a liar as you have to keep all those lies straight.  Although, the liars I know are not very good at it.  And, you know who you are!!!

I think, as an artistic person, he is also simply entertained.  Getting in his truck and taking off on a discovery road trip, spending hours sketching, photographing, spending your time as someone else, being honest are all, in my mind, simple enjoyable things.

Now, the guys who have to have their heads full of ringing cell phones, and Wall Street numbers, and never sitting still for one minute to be in their own head—those are the guys who are complicated.

As you all know, last year I threatened to move to Canada if Palin was elected.  Well, maybe you did not know that, but the cat is out of the bag now.  I even went so far as to find out that it is apparently quite easy to move to Canada. 

If it was just not so darn cold there!  And, I’m pretty sure that my Master’s Daughter will not follow me as she is very happy in all of her jobs.  And, I jokingly mentioned to Gaffer that I would like to move and his whiny response was, “But, I just found a job!” 

So, in the spirit of good and bad lists, I am weighing my options:

First, on the downside:

1. This house needs so much work that I will be 97 before it is ready to sell.
2. The economy is down the tubes and we would probably not get our money out of this house.
3. Packing seems overwhelming.
4. I would have to find new doctors and I LOVE my doctors.
5. I would have to find a new bank.  Since my bank is in a constant state of changing it’s name and I have had three banks in the last seven years without doing a thing.
6. Mother would probably have a melt down, or more likely a “freeze up.”
7. Since it will take three years for the new health care to get running, I will probably not have a doctor for the next two years, since our oldest has found a job.  Never mind that every penny he makes will be going to Sallie Mae for his eternal student loans.  Canada has health care and when you have gone for years without healthcare, anything is better than nothing.
8. Distance from relatives.

Second on the plus side:

1. I would not be the owner of this house when it slides off the slope into the pond.
2. There is no plus side on the economy.
3. A ton of my stuff is still packed in Rubbermaids from the last move.
4. Sorry, no plus side on finding new doctors!
5. I could maybe find a bank that did not sell-out every three years.
6. My mother does love nature and we could move to the edge of civilization; albeit frozen civilization.
7. I would have healthcare.
8. I would then be “north of the border,” thus making my relatives, who think that living on the wrong side of an imaginary line makes you less equal, as the people who would THEN be living “south of the border.”

I really think I need to move somewhere though.  This house needs a thorough cleaning.

Our youngest grandson/son/ward is still struggling in school.  Having only been educated to a 2nd and 3rd grade level by the time he was 13, when he came to live with us, has been near impossible to make up.  Even the two years of nearly private teachers in Jr. High, could not make up his being approximately six years behind in education.

He is currently failing history.  My oldest grandson had a history teacher who would dress up like a Civil War Soldier and come to class and teach all about why the war was going on and how the battles were fought, and the consequences.  Our boy has a teacher who gives his tests on what year the battle took place, how many soldiers enlisted, how many soldiers died; and all this for five to seven battles at a time.

Obviously, our boy does not have a great memory and I’m thinking this teacher isn’t the best either.  To be fair, this is the side of the story I am getting from youngest boy and another mother.  I do not sit in his classroom.

The discussion always comes up, how many good teachers do you remember?  Just ponder that for a minute.  How many teachers did you have that you actually felt made you learn to think for yourself and made learning fun?

I remember one.  I think she was my fifth grade teacher and, when you read a book, if you were tired of writing reports, you could draw a picture or do a diorama, or anything you could think up to show what you thought was important in the book.  She kept a file folder for each child and taught each child.  No child was “left behind.”

Mostly I remember teachers like the coach/health teacher who chose one child every year to humiliate in class.  Then there was the history class where every day, every class was the same with the first person in the row reading the first paragraph in the history book,  and on down the line.  I remember several other idiot teachers but why go there.  I would rather focus on good teachers here.

Never mind that she is my daughter, read this good teacher’s blog at Cool Moments in Teaching « Braindebris’s Weblog and tell me what you think?  Is this not what we would like to see all teacher’s be?

In the meantime, in his freshman year of high school, youngest boy had the biology teacher from hell who was rumored to have passed four children total out of all her classes and “left” the job at the end of the year.  I knew the first day I met her, she would be a problem as she had come from a seminar and wanted youngest boy to answer a seminar problem, and he had not been at the seminar.  The next year he had another problem teacher who “left” at the end of the year.   This year he apparently has a teacher who is trying to teach him to memorize instead of think.

You know, maybe if we start paying our teachers, as if they were important (let’s see, how about we reverse the income of AIG professionals and teachers?) just maybe we could get more good teachers.

I love the new advertisement for ?? is it WalMart?  It may not be the most successful ad, since I cannot remember what it is for, but I love it anyway.

We are all raised with an idea of what beauty is.  My mother tends to use the word pretty for all kinds of things.  “Doesn’t she have a pretty face?”  “That shirt is pretty.”  “There’s a pretty rock.”

Conversely, anything she does not like is ugly.  “That sausage tastes ugly.”  “That yard is ugly.”  Etc.

My idea of pretty is a bit off from my mothers.  I think that Whoppi Goldberg is one of the prettiest actors (I guess using actress is not PC.) around.  But, somehow judging say, Nicholas Cage, on a pretty scale is just wrong.  Now, if you want to talk Viggo Mortensen——.

I have painted portraits professionally for over twenty years now, and I think all faces are beautiful.  I love Whoppi’s smile.  It makes her beautiful.  Some people have beautiful eyes.  Some have beautiful wrinkles.  Honest! 

And, I love to watch that commercial because every one of those people is beautiful, and so are you!

P.S.  Right now, I’m looking in the mirror and reminding myself that I have always thought wrinkles were pretty.

My Master’s Daughter, yes XUP this is MY daughter, not some Master of Tai Kwan Do’s daughter, or Master Chef’s daughter.  She is “MY” oldest daughter and she graduated with a straight A average for her Masters degree in education, so she is “my master’s daughter” and she is back to contributing to the blogosphere.

She is my favorite blog.  Sorry,  XUP but she is my daughter and  she is also the funniest person on this earth, and we are talking a lot of very funny people:

Like Crazy Aunt Purl

and Cake Wrecks

and even Blog | Anthony Bourdain

But, this girl was born seeing the world through funny eyes and her blog is the best ever; daughter or no daughter.  I mean, how many people can find a ton of laughs in cleaning a rabbit cage.  Braindebris’s Weblog.  And, I am talking tears running down my cheeks, laughing so hard I cannot talk now at the picture she has painted of her misadventures cleaning the rabbit cage.  You just gotta read it.

I would also like to point out that the other day I admitted to her:

Under the pressure to be witty and informing on Twitter, I am now cannibalizing your BrainDebris blog and stealing lines.  Oh, the humiliation.

This blog is property of Braindebris@wordpress.com so back away from that copy/paste bucko and think for yourself!