Last call for the boys

I realize (when I was disappointed that friends' blogs weren't being posted as often as I would like) that I was posting as much as I should. My excuse is exhaustion - too tired to put together thoughts to post. I was thinking about what I could write, and found a pattern (did I tell you how much I love discovering patterns - real or unreal). Someone pointed out that my online dating service would most likely just automatically renew since they had my credit card info - something I think should be illegal. I checked out the site, and low and behold, my "default" settings had me down for auto renew. The good news, it's set to go this weekend, so before I cancelled my subscription, I scanned one last time for any eligible boys, and found one possibility, Pete (or rather, as he writes it, pete). He seems really nice (they all do, I realize), and we have been emailing. Also been in touch with Chris, from before, who I had gone out with before India. The pattern, (I know you are dying to know), is that they both know some German - that being something in common with me (yes, I know some German, it's not alot, but it's some). A little strange, enought to justify a post.





I had a fun weekend with my mother and brother who were in town last weekend. In the search for shoes for my brother, I ended up with two outfits, and three pairs of shoes (and one blister, when I insisted on wearing a new pair while shopping for the outfits).





This weekend I am heading up north to New Hampshire to visit Reegan - a long over due visit as it's been a year and a half since I last saw her - and she's only 2 hours away.





And, finally, the latest count is 66 in the duck world.

Guess where rescued chickens go

I was just about to switch off the tv last night when I caught the beginning of a King of Queens episode called Offensive Fowl. Two points. First, Doug has an incident with a chicken, where he hits one in chinatown, it comes back from near death only for Doug to realize its owner, a chinaman with a big butcher knife is looking for it. So Doug kidnapps the chicken and the only place he can find that takes in rescue chickens from NYC is none other than Plattsburgh!



Than, he has trouble eating chicken, and other meat and the episode is about him becoming a vegetarian and the changes he goes through. They had quite a few stereotypical granola-like references, the worst being a hemp dress he buys his wife to wear that is just awful. But my favorite part about the show is that apparently, if you become vegetarian, you go from low-brow to very intelligent, glass wearing, russian author reading, intellect. There was even an NPR reference thrown in.



And in other news, the latest duck count is 64 - with my brother finding one last night when he got in (it was in the sofa bed).

Ducks, Ducks, Ducks Everywhere

I finally brought in the pictures to add to the April Fools Report post I've been wanting to record (because it needed pictures to help get the point across). In the days leading up to the event, I gleefully shared my plans with friends and collegues, and the vast majority of responses were, "Oh, that's interesting", in very moderate tones. I realize that people are not understanding the setting very well, so that is where I will begin.

Imagine if you will, two main characters, let's call one Tom and the other Barbro. They are married, they live together, they share in each other's passions. Several years ago when they married and moved into a new house together, with a fairly small bathroom, it was discovered that from both households there were a fair amount of rubber duckies of varing shapes, sizes and colors. This collection was artfully arranged on any and all available surfaces in the bathroom - on the toilet, in the shower, around the tub, on shelves which seemed to be more dedicated to ducks than holding toothpaste, on the shower curtain (ok these weren't actual three dimensional ducks, but they do have eyes), to the point that one did get the feeling of being silently watched by a multitude of eyes while brushing one's teeth, shaving, etc. I accidently gave a pair of little rubber duckies as a stocking stuffer a few Christmases back to only hear two simultaneous responses, the first a joyful glee from Barbro, the other a groan and plea of no more ducks by Tom. That of course cued me in for future plans to exploit the situation.

Fast forward to 2007. I have a distributor of ducks, I put the order in for XX amount of ducks, and started making lists. Lists of where ducks could be tucked away and found at some distant point in time. The lists were long - there were a lot of ducks. I started getting nervous. Having never taken on the role of hiding items before, I had no idea how long it would take me. I could drag myself up and hide them in the middle of night, but frankly, I do love my sleep. So, Saturday, the last day of March, I started hiding some of the more "long-term" ducks. Feeling fairly confident that they wouldn't be found for at least a day or two. In the end I was able to hide all XX ducks without the main characters in the story being any the wiser, except for one:

This guy, or one similar, was found late at night when dad was cleaning up the office. Almost had it in the bag, although we had all gone to bed so he couldn't find out what it was about until the next day, where there were three ducks (sorry, no photos) lined up on the sink with a message: "And so it begins - Happy April Fools!"

By the time I had left, a fair amount had been found, a total of 13 including the message ducks from the morning:

It turns out Barbro is better at noticing the ducks placed in plain site, but Tom has stumbled on more in his daily going ons. By Monday evening, April 2, 35 ducks had been discovered:

And by Sunday, April 8, a total of 57 ducks have been located. Again, a different strategie taken by the two characters. One likes to hunt the ducks, the other likes to let the ducks come to him.

Needless to say, there are still a few more ducks to be found. I was suprised at how many were found in the first week, but in the end the joke was enjoyed by all. But the brillancy I must point out. In my best guestimate, it will still take quite awhile (months, years, decades?) for all the little ducklings to be discovered (and yes I do have a final head count, sealed up and stored in a safe place). The period of time between sitings will grow, and so it will be a year from now, a duck is found in a pocket, or a shoe, or somewhere and a smile is brought to the face of the fond remembrance of the brillant April Fools joke of 2007.

Rubber Duckies

Of course, I forgot to bring in the camera with the pictures to download to disclose the wonderful April Fools from yesterday. So will wait to write about it later in the week. It involved hiding Rubber Duckies around the house at dad's - such a simple plan, and coincidentally, I have a related picture:

This is of Griet - my friend from the previous post, Emilia wrote back a nice long note and she is now married (to an old college friend - Fred) and has a daughter about to turn one! I would have never have guessed. Got some updates of other mutual friends, one is in law school (Andrea) and another has a son (Jess). Which reminds me that I forgot to post that a friend from Michigan, John, just announced the birth of his daughter (second child). It seems they are popping up everywhere. Friends at work are complaining of the plethora of weddings, I seem to be surrounded by a wonderful bounty of babies! It gets one thinking...

I was worried Emilia was still in DC or NYC but is even closer, just outside of Albany! I can't wait to visit and catch up. I was able to view some of their (many) pictures on flicker and it's strange how much her and Fred look the same after all these years, but yet are older. It's been almost six years since we last talked and I don't know how many since we last saw each other (I'm guessing it's close to 9)! In case you haven't noticed yet, this seems to be a year of catching up with old friends after long gaps of time.

Also, on a side note, saw John Young on tv Sunday morning in an interview. It's crazy that the guy I went to prom with (ok, it was sophmore hop and senior reception, but still counts), has won a Tony and is somewhat famous. Same thing, he looked the same, but older - which is obvious but in my head, I freeze things whenever I don't see tham anymore - including people. Reality messes that up for me.