Her Side Funnies

Emergency hem job? Or unknown new kid in the school drum section?

If you like the teenage drama series, you’ll appreciate this. My husband, Ken, was gone last week, and conveniently for him, everything went to heck as soon as the airplane door was fastened securely shut. This was lucky for him because, had I known, I would have pried the door open and plucked him out to help, fending off air marshalls if necessary. That not being an option landed all subsequent drama onto my shift, which was unfortunate.

When we first married, we divided child care 50/50. I called the first 10 years, he got the second. I got paperwork, he got yucky stuff. On both counts, age and yuckiness, the events of this week should have fallen squarely on his shift. But noooo. He was sitting on a plane at 40,000 feet debating the relative merits of peanuts versus pretzels while I was suffering the pangs of parenting teens.

The week progressed with the usual doses of tantalizing ups and downs including our daughter’s prom drama (a riveting story unto itself), son’s first lovelife hitting the skids and housekeeping necessarily being thrown out the window. By Tuesday, it was clear that Martha Stewart did not live here anymore. By Wednesday, it appeared the landfill had been relocated to our living room. (more…)

Coyotes are notoriously unpredictable farm funeral directors. They rarely take the right bodies, preferring registered young stock over those about to die.

A few years ago, I was kidding a friend who was complaining about his wife. I told him that if he and his

wife did not work out, that Grace-the-goat would have fallen for him with no concern for pre-nuptial agreements, unless they tasted good. Another goat, Matilda, would have fallen for him too, but instead she fell over dead.  I would have noticed something was up if she didn’t always act that way.  She was the one that I thought was brain damaged from late horn removal by a previous owner. 

My main criteria for determining a brain-damaged goat was that whenever the whole herd went right, this one stupid goat went left. When they all easily came in for grain, she stood outside in the rain. When all the other goats were eager to be milked, this one made an event out of it. Anyway, we did not expect to lose her and it was a shock to my daughter, Heidi, and probably to Matilda, too!
It also brought up that our resident farm funeral director, Dad, was unable to complete the normal dad-duties of disposing of dead livestock with the tractor claiming “I had a massive stroke. I cannot do it.” We all know this is a lame excuse, but since he can get half of his face to droop, when none of the rest of us can do that – despite valiant attempts – he succeeded in avoiding the duty. Now, looking back, I think he would reconsider and the rest of us would have tried harder to mimic a stroke. (more…)

Evidence of primordial life? Poison? Or incredible football beverage?

This post follows “Brandy, the new hobby.”  To view that post, click here.

Well, I do believe I’ll be feeding the first batch of brandy to Ken and his football buddies.  To call this batch “unappetizing” would be an understatement.  It is a murky blend of decomposing apricots,   The poor apricots look like aging women in there…losing their perky forms and digressing into blobs of soft pulp.  Yes, AARP is not hiring me as a marketing rep.  And the brandy institute is not interested in my skills, either.

For those of you interested in following the brandy experiment, I guess it is important to know that the fruit supposedly begins to ferment at 28 days.  Hmmm.  28 days sounds familiar.  Oh, yes, that’s coincidentally the same length of time it takes women to develop a “change in character,” too.  You can disregard that last statement as brandy consumption and PMS are rarely related, except in extreme cases.

As I spin the gallon jar around, the bodies of the apricots look like lifeless eyeballs in a high school science teachers lab.  Mind you, this is in direct contrast to the crabapple brandy.  The crabapple brandy looks great!  Clear liquid, still perky bodies at 28 days – very tasty looking indeed.  (That’s the one I’ll try…three days after Ken and his buddies try batch number one. )  If Ken is grabbing his stomach and moaning in pain, I’ll blame it on the nachos, but I may delay drinking my portion…indefinitely. (more…)

Ben is not happy with the cash for clunkers, unless you are willing to give him enough to buy a replacement clunker

Son Ben was the first to complain about the “Cash for Clunkers” program being counterproductive.  Frankly, not being in the market for clunkers, I did not “feel his pain,” but now I do.

Ben is 16.  He drives a 1981 Toyota Corolla.  The car is a decade older than him.  It was what he could afford.  He paid for it in cash from money he’d earned, been given as gifts and saved along the way.  The $1,100 purchase price was HUGE to him.  It could have been a million dollars from his young view.  I’m ashamed to admit that we all kidded Ben about his big purchase.  When he called his car a “bullet”  we called it his “bomb.”  Big sister did NOT want to ride in it for fear that it would ruin her reputation.  With no radio, no heater, an odd smell and questionable wipers, no one except Nana was eager to take the first ride.

Ben, the poor kid, had worked so hard to be responsible, to only buy what he could afford, to love it and treat it like a Bentley, and he was rewarded with our laughter.  We should all be ashamed…But not his dad.  Ken thought that Ben driving an ancient car was important.  “He needs to learn to work hard to better his position in life,” said Ken.  “He needs to know that things are not handed to him on a platter,” he said.  “He needs to develop a work ethic so he can provide for his family,” he would say. 

And so the lessons have been underway for a year when Ben’s clutch went out.  It was expected.  A car that old cannot run without a menagerie of broken parts – which, translated, means that whenever Ben got his savings account up to $200, or $300, he’d get a car problem that cost $500.  So when Ben said he wanted to upgrade his car, I offered to help him in his hunt.  That was before I had considered that the Cash for Clunkers government program had encouraged people to take in old cars and get ridiculous prices ($4,500+) for old vehicles, only for those vehicles to be destroyed. (more…)

Skinny-dipping anyone?

Well, we are less than 24 hours without goats and the withdrawl symptoms hit Ken.  Actually, it was just lucky timing.  We have a pond that has been a money pit.  It got all gunked up with gloppy, gross crud including a floating crust.  Ken hired a smiling tractor guy to dig it out and the ensuing stench left the air nearby smelling worse than a sewer for nearly a month. That was nearly a decade ago.  Then, Ken looked into getting grass carp. 

Grass Carp are a regulated fish because they eat virtually anything that does not eat them first – which makes them a hazard to all other fish because they eat literally everything and then the native fish die.  Ken invited the Division of Wildlife folks out and he filled out a bunch of forms.  Then, the idea got sidetracked and the fish never arrived. 

Well, yesterday he got the call and he was like an adoptive parent receiving word of a new baby.  Today, he dashed out to pick up the new babies.  They are now several years old and 18-20 inches long.  They are sterile fish, so it is unlikely I will look out there and see a school of them.  Then again, with our luck….

Supposedly, the fish will clean the pond within a year.  I’ll try to do a follow up as the pond progresses.  The biggest concerns are namely that the fish will get snagged by eagles or hawks, or just die, and secondly, that they will clean that pond so clean that Ken and Ben will skinny-dip in there.  The second risk is the most worrysome to wildlife officials.  Anyway, we have put fish into this pond before.  None have thrived.  The pond expert took a sample of the goop out of the pond and said it was a veritable delicatessen for grass carp.  I guess we’ll see.

I wonder if the fish messed in the back of Ken’s car.  I’ll probably mention it the next time we go somewhere.  Something like, “Wow, this car stinks…like FISH!” To which Ken will have a coronary and probably give an impressive tirade using various adjectives which are rarely used to describe goats.  Then again, maybe they ARE commonly used to describe goats. 

To fast forward six-weeks to see the progress on the pond, click here.   To see other comical posts from this blog, click here.