The answer is: “I am A Rock – by Simon and Garfunkle”

I am used to any number of hits, on any given day, for Viggo Mortensen and his girlfriend.  Half of the world is hoping that there is no girlfriend.  The other half is wishing they were his girlfriend.  He is a popular guy, and I refuse to say which camp I belong in. 

The other big searches, for my blog, involve my series on teaching Chemistry of Photography, pinhole cameras, etc.  I also oversee my mothers poetry blog (see link on side bar if you are interested) and once made the totally innocent post of putting a poem up about After Holiday Sales on the day after Thanksgiving.  Honest, I was not trying to inflate her numbers, but it sure did.  That day she had over four hundred, probably frustrated and angry hits, by people who thought they were going to find a bargain, but found poetry instead. 

Here is a recent high day for my blog:

Title	Views
Have we all learned our lesson now?	48
Viggo Mortensen – 99.9% perfect	5
Top 100 Hit Songs of 1966	4
Film Canister Pin Hole Camera	2
FLDS-Freedom to Abuse	1
Pringles Can Pinhole Cameras	1
We have an exciting future ahead of us!	1
Let’s Play: Boys Rooms! or DID YOU KNOW	1
Do brother-in-laws have the right of fre	1
I get attached to television news people	1
The difference between boys and girls	1
Butt Ugly Running Shoes

However, on May 8th, searches for the same terms, just worded a bit different, lead over thirty people to my blog.  Or, one person landed at my blog thirty times and I just cannot figure out if this was the result of something like a treasure hunt, or question on a radio station, for tickets,  or what.  Because why would thirty people have the overwhelming urge to search for “….a rock,  song 1966” or some version of that, on the exact same day?  What is it with that??? 

It’s not that I don’t appreciate the stop-bys, it is just a bit strange .  So, as a public service announcement, I am putting a link to I Am a Rock – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, where you can learn a lot about “I Am a Rock.”  This is a is a cool song by Simon and Garfunkel.  But then, most of their songs are.

This is a what my search terms for that day looked like:  Wierd!

a rock 1966 hit song	6
a rock, 1966 hit song	3
1966 hit song ” a rock”	3
” a rock” 1966 hit song	2
– a rock, 1966 hit song	1
writing a speech from brother to brother	1
chemistry of photography	1
1966 hit song rock	1
1966 hit song “..a rock”	1
1966 hit song ” a rock	1
“? a rock” 1966 hit song	1
” hit songs of 1966″	1
” a rock”; 1966 hit song	1
1966 hit song, ____a rock	1
beatles songs vietnam war	1
“i am a rock” hit song in 1966	1
song “. . . a rock” 1966 hit	1
what is a 1966 hit song with a rock	1
a rock: 1966 hit song	1
” a rock;” 1966 hit song	1
1966 hit songs a rock	1
1966 hit song ….of rock	1
like a rock a 1966 hit song	1
“——–a rock” 1966 hit song	1
chihuahuas go out rain	1

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Okay, this post is out of order. So shoot me!

Daily Overview: August 22, 2008

AQUARIUS

January 20-February 18

 

You are starting to notice little peculiarities in something at work or at home that should be perfectly normal It’s a good time to investigate further, though you may need to keep things quiet.

 

Gaffer and girlfriend were packing and cleaning all night. They tried very hard to be quiet and I did get some sleep early on but they were scheduled to leave at 5am and , as morning drew closer sleeping was tough. Hugs all around, get back to sleep, alarm goes off to wake the three high school boys up. Usually, the EMT boy gets up early and I can just lay there and hear him moving around and go back to sleep; knowing he will wake the other two up.

 

This morning, silence, not a creature was stirring. So, I reach for the cell phone to call and wake him up. Isn’t that what a cell phone is for? Drats! Husband and I share cell phone and the cell phone is on its way to the airport. Get up, go downstairs, knock on all doors, go back up, fall asleep.

 

EMT boy comes up and says something in his “teenage” speed talk (I thought only girls spoke that fast). I wake up, he comes closer, repeats his mouth of marbles, and I knock over my water. He comes closer and repeats it for the third time. I understand it this time. I do not remember a word, but I know I understood it. Don’t THINK it is urgent.

 

Husband comes back from drive to the airport. In some odd world, he thinks I am awake and speaks to me. Wakes me up. He goes down to “take a nap.” I fall back asleep for last time, with the thought in my head that I am now the babysitter of little rabbit and he needs to get out of his travel cage and into the big cage.

 

I get up a bit later, shower, dress and tackle the rabbit situation. Big cage needs cleaning, BAD! I take it out to hose it down. Water pressure is miniscule. Finally get cage cleaned, papers and bedding down. Water, food and lettuce in bowls in big cage and rabbit in. But, during that process I find one of our many water leaks is under the kitchen sink.  Everything under the sink is wet and mildewed.

 

And, this is why, a few days later, when I went out to water and feed the garden and found the water pressure non-existent, and then hooked up to the faucet on the other end of the house,, at great personal exhaustion as hose was nearly buried, turned it on then, thought I should check it as a few years ago it had flooded my mother’s computer. And, it was supposedly fixed, AND I checked and a waterfall was soaking EMT Boy’s room, that I had a major temper tantrum about my husband never, ever, ever touching anything to do with water again.

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Sunday is family day

Sunday was always family day when I was growing up.

Once a month, we went to my grandma’s house in Kankakee, IL and visited my sister. The other Sundays were just usually church, then afternoon meal with the family and quiet.

Part of my family has returned, from their summer visit, to their home base in Santa Fe. I do have visiting rabbit though, as the airline was requiring $200 and a 3am call to the vet to fly her.  Apparently, the vet slip that got her out here is no longer valid.

Left at home is (from top and left to right)

Starkey, He needed a home and is a cool guy so another “son”,  and next to him is EMT boy.

Bottom row: JRockGuitarMan, and, now returned to Santa Fe are: Gaffer and girlfriend.

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Small house, too many people

I live in a 1,000 square foot house with a varying assortment of people. I have never been able to keep small living quarters, clean. And, living with mostly males (don’t get excited, four of them are related to me) is not conducive to cleanliness.

 

Permanent residents are husband, EMT boy and JRockGuitarMan, the teenager. During the summer we have Gaffer and girlfriend and a new addition is Fisherman; he’s EMT boy’s friend and staying for the semester.  That makes seven adults in 1,000 square feet. Oh, and Irritating Chihuahua, who insists on crunching bones on my bed.

 

My mother occasionally mentions moving back in but we haven’t found a shoehorn big enough to squeeze another person into the house. It’s a good thing the Chihuahua only weighs 6.2 lbs and the visiting rabbit is small. I would really love to live in a clean house, but that is impossible, with this crew.

 

When I was single, long, long ago, renting and working 9 to 5, I had a clean house. Every Saturday, I would crank up the stereo (yes, stereo folks, not CD player) and clean. It took maybe two hours. When you have two daughters, who are rarely home, and yourself, it’s not as big a deal. One person tends to make very little mess. It was mostly dusting, sweeping and watering plants. I don’t like curtains, so I put up shelving and plants. Tarzan could not have seen in my windows. Watering plants took up one of the hours.

 

Recovery for me, has been a long process and I am just now trying to catch up a bit. When I am cleaning, I usually just find things that have been lost for some time; lost program CD’s to reinstall that program that is not working right, old photos, notes that no longer hold any meaning for me, something I thought I had answered two years ago, all just odds and ends.

 

But, did you know —–

 

If you clean everything off your desk into a Rubbermaid, and you go back to it two years later, it really will not matter?

 

All that stuff you so carefully did not sort or throw out, but set on the desk to look at later, just doesn’t matter anymore and you can throw 95% of it in the burn barrel? 

 

NOTE: I would advise having a place to put bills separate from the other stuff on the top of your desk and not putting them in the Rubbermaid.

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Let’s Play: Boys Rooms! or DID YOU KNOW?

In the last couple of weeks, I have felt well enough again to start cleaning the house. You know that television show where they show you just how bad of pigs some people can be? Well, I have entered the room of the “child” and realized, that’s my home.

 

It has been a long recovery and with too many people, in too small a house, and the rest of them being men, who think cleaning is to use the sprayer, at full throttle, to rinse dishes, thus ensuring that that area of the kitchen also receives a shower —- well, you see my life.

 

Since the last two years of my life has consisted of me going from the treadmill to the couch, I have not traveled the vast wastelands referred to as:

 

BOYS ROOMS!

OR

DID YOU KNOW?

 

1. That JRockGuitarMan (youngest boy) is able to now provide homework from six months ago? Mind you, it’s too late!

  

2. That, while EMT (middle boy) keeps his room clean, he will manage to leave his stuff in every single other room of the house?

 

3. That a three month visit can turn your screened-in porch into a rabbit warren store room?

 

4. Did you know that Gaffer and girlfriend are able to amass more plastic drink cups, from fast food restaurants, than McDonald’s buys in one year? 

 

5. That one carefully emptied lower shelf, in the bathroom, is not enough for a college girl’s makeup and that the teeny tiny counter in the bathroom will be unable to hold the extra roll of toilet paper because it too is covered with makeup?

 

6. That just one day before Gaffer and Girlfriend are to leave, (The flight is scheduled for 8:45 am tomorrow, meaning they have to drive off just after 5am) and they are off on a stay at the State Park and this is what their room looks like?

 

7. And, that this is the sum total of dirty laundry and garbage (including those drinking cups) from the cleaning they HAVE done? 

 

GOSH, I WILL miss them.

I really will!

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All Things Bathroom

Women are always complaining they are the only person in the house to change the toilet paper roll. How is it that a man will leave one sheet of paper on the roll to make sure he is not responsible for the duty?

 

Okay, gals, to be fair, we probably do use a mite more of the hopefully soft stuff than the men. So, I have given up looking for their spare roll, you know, the one they take paper from so they do not have to go to the effort of actually changing the roll.

 

What I do know, without searching, is that if I die tomorrow, it will only take one week before they are taking a shower without any soap. Apparently, I am the only person in this house, of currently six adults and one teen, who actually know #1. Where the soap is kept, and #2. How to open it.

 

You know, those little paper wrappers can be soooo confusing. And, at this point, they have not figured out how to put the soap back in the soap dish after they use it, so I am sure opening the paper is beyond all of them.

 

There is then the whole issue of shampoo and cream rinse. It is something that must surely magically appear in the shower during the night, as they never run out. Hence, they never add it to the grocery list, nor do they ever throw out the empty bottle.

 

Garbage can emptying is also done by the nighttime elves. The upstairs bathroom is, at the end of their stay, purely used by Gaffer and girlfriend, as the rest of the family is afraid they will be lost forever, if they try to enter their room. Well, everyone except JRockGuitarMan (teen of the house), who will climb Mount Everest if a PS2 or other gaming machine is at the top.

 

The garbage can in this room is purely a decorative object as nothing is ever thrown in it until the pile around it gets so high, that the tissue falls over and into it by accident. I recently ventured, risking life and limb, to enter this sanctuary and filled a half of a black garbage sack from the floor and around this tiny little container, which holds one walmart bag.

 

Wet towels: Don’t even get me started.

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