Need to buy books

It's true. I worked a few hours last Saturday. The quiet and uninterrupted time in the office was glorious. Sheer heaven. It almost didn't happen, though. Those moments of glorious heavenly bliss were almost derailed by a ... wait! ... seriously ... friends don't let friends spoil endings. So here's the story, morning glory:

It was Saturday. I drove the 18.76 miles to work. Found great parking (it was a Saturday after all). Walked in to the building with nary a problem. Fished my ID out of the wallet so I could access the office suite. Swiped the card in the magic card reader. Nothing. Swiped the card again. Nothing. Checked to make sure it was turned the right way and swiped the card AGAIN. Still nothing. About now the brain started swimming with possibilities: Was I fired and didn't know it yet? Had the ID card gotten too close to my cell phone again? Did they change the after hours admit policy and I missed the email? Why did I just spend the time in the car, not to mention wear and tear on the tires, on a gorgeously sunny day just to be thwarted? Oh, why?!

So I uttered a choice word and swiped again. Still nothing. CRUD! (That's not the word I uttered, by the way.) I look at the card one more time to make sure it's going the right way in the magic card reader thing-a-ma-jig and discover that the card is -- you're gonna love this -- a Barnes and Noble gift card! Apparently the office does not accept B&N cards as legal tender. Who knew?! (Ha!) So I went back to the wallet, exchanged the B&N card for the real ID, swiped it, and was greeted by the green light and the ding-you've-got-5-seconds-to-open-the-door-now ding. Ah. Success. Followed by a giggle fest and a few hours of uninterrupted heavenly bliss in the office.

The moral of the story: get the gift card out of the wallet by buying more books!

Part of the madness

My brackets are busted. The home team Terrapins are out as of yesterday. Far from sad, we cashed in a golden ticket (two, to be exact) and headed to College Park for more basketball. Today was the Lady Terps' time to shine. And shine they did! It was great to be off the couch and part of the cheering March Madness crowd.



(Remind me to turn the red eye reduction feature back on next time. Please.)

How now, brown brow?

Running errands today I saw this sign:

EYE BROWN WAX $10

Huh? Do they use brown wax? Wax the eyes? What happened to the brows? What about blondes? Did it get changed to green wax for St. Patrick's Day? One sign, so many questions.

Fence cupping - The results show

"WOW!"
"This is the best birthday present EVER!"

These are just two of the effusive exclamations expressed by the birthday boy this morning when he saw the fence cupped birthday message. Birthday boy was literally jumping for joy in the back seat. And considering we were in a compact car, that's a feat! The previous night's fence cupping escapade was a HUGE success. Yay!

After the big reveal, the boys discussed starting a fence cupping business. Say, $10 gets a message on the fence up to a certain number of letters, extra letters are extra $$$. Just for peeps at their high school, natch. Oh, and with more environmentally friendly cups. I just hope fence cupping is not considered graffiti or defacement of public property or any other such fineable offense. If so, that would make me a contributor to the delinquency of minors. Ruh roh.

Fence cupping

Fence cupping = the practice of using styrofoam cups to spell out a message in a chain link fence; commonly seen at Turkey minor's high school


In honor of carpooler Kris's 15th birthday, the rest of the morning carpool crew trekked to the school tonight to fence cup. Cups, transportation and photography were provided by yours truly. The boys are really proud of the end result.

Snorg shopping

Turkey Minor has discovered pop culture t-shirts. I'm so delighted that he is making a fashion statement other than red shirts and white shirts. Finally! It is becoming quite a statement, too. In the course of the week he's worn the following t-shirt sentiments:
Save Ferris
I'm not dead yet.
Fear the turtle.
Sweet dreams are made of cheese.
That's four shirts this week. Count 'em - four! Considering today is Thursday, the Turkey has had a dedicated pop culture T every day this week. This is definitely a statement. Fashion or otherwise.

Last night there was a request made for some etail t-shirt shopping. We surfed over to the favored T site Snorgtees.com and spent way too much time browsing. Like the thesaurus here, most of their offerings are witty and wonderful. The Snorg folks obviously have terrific senses of humor laced with ample sarcasm. "Weapons of math destruction" is a perfect example. "Don't drink and derive" is awesome for the calculus nerds who imbibe way too much coca-cola on Saturday nights. And then there's "I'd like to double your entendre." Or the Mount Rushmore presidents singing "We will, we will, rock you!" Oh, giggle fests abound!

Head on over to Snorgtees and let us know which sentiment fits you to a T.

Big thinks

Conversation is flowing freely. Mom and teenager are having a great discussion about school, homework, grades, college brochures littering the mailbox, the usual. Mom stumbles on a thought that needs to be thoroughly thought out before being verbalized. Conversation halts. Teenager breaks the silence: "OK. This is scaring me."

"Why?"

"Because usually when you think like that it's a bad sign."

"How did you know I was thinking about something?"

"Because you think VERY loudly."

Insert Scooby Doo-ish "rhuh?" here. Loud thoughts? Hmmm. I had no clue the ol' brain made so much noise. Is this a problem? Do big thinks make a louder sound than smaller thinks? Is there a WD40 for thoughts? Me thinks I need to find some.

The snow lottery

It wasn't the Mega Millions, but we did win the snow lottery. A few inches and a day off of school/work. Yep. Today definitely qualifies as a winner!

Time to shovel ...