Wow, the last four days have been like a roller coaster; happy, awesome, scary and painful.

It all began late morning on Saturday. My oldest son called and said he had just bought a new motorcycle. I told him to come over with it as soon as he could so I could see it, which he gladly did. His face was beaming and he took both his sister and me for a ride, me going last. It was SO much fun! I hadn’t been on a bike in years. It was awesome. Here’s a pic:

It’s a Suzuki Boulevard M109R Limited Edition. It’s a total hoot and I SO want Hubs to get one! LOL

He left for home, a thirty minute drive from here, and I told him we’d see him soon since my daughter and I were planning to go there for their annual “Old Fashioned Saturday” celebration. Talk about small town Americana! As in very small town. It was wonderful! Old classic cars lined Main Street and they had a DJ playing great music which you could hear all over town. The volunteer fire department put on a great feed consisting of pulled-pork sandwiches piled high, some awesome baked beans, potato chips and a drink — all for the cost of a free will donation. It was fabulous.

After we had all eaten, we walked down the street to where they had a couple of little kiddie rides set up and let my grandson take some rides on them. There were little cars and planes. He had so much fun! Like an idiot I had left my camera in the 4Runner, so I had to use my phone instead. The pics aren’t nearly as good as they would have been with my camera, but they definitely show how much fun he was having.

Here he is waving to his dad who was standing right next to me.

Toward evening they had a kick ass burn-out competition! I had never seen one in person before; only on YouTube. I was completely amazed. I still don’t quite understand why anyone would want to do that to their tires, but for our entertainment’s sake I’m glad they did. LOL It was totally cool! This is the guy who won:

His name is Travis and this is the fourth year in a row he’s won. You can see why!

We headed home after they finished up with the burn-out competition. We were home for maybe 30 minutes when the phone rang. It was my mother-in-law telling me that Hubs’ sister had had a heart attack and was in the emergency room in Loveland. To say I was shocked would be a huge understatement! Hubs was on a train heading home from Wyoming, so I had to wait until he got here to tell him what had happened (he told me a long time ago not to ever call him or the boys when they’re running a train with bad news — way too distracting!). Anyway, there are seven kids in my husband’s family and she is next-to-the-last, only 42 years old. She is extremely physically fit and very health-conscious. Thank God everything turned out alright. They did a cardiac catheterization and found that one of her arteries, while not clogged, was very thin and narrow where it attaches to the heart. They think she had a spasm which caused it to close off momentarily, but they’re not entirely sure. They said on a scale of 1 to 100, her heart attack was about an 8; very, very mild, causing no damage to the heart. When she is completely recovered they are going to do the whole battery of cardiac tests to see if they can possibly pinpoint what happened. They told her she’s one for the text books, and that she was probably born with it like that. Oh man, can you say relieved? Wow. It was the craziest 24 hours in a long, long time!

On Sunday morning my daughter woke up sick with a horrible cold. Being the giving father that he is, Hubs had decided to share his cold with her. She’s been miserable ever since, but Hubs is actually feeling better now. She HATES being sick in the summer and thinks it is totally stupid. LOL Not to mention she’s going completely crazy staying at home every day and night doing nothing. I told her to set her sights on the weekend; she should be feeling fine as frog hair by then.

So then came Monday and I was visited by the bearer of cramps from hell and spent the next two days downing Excedrin and cursing Eve. It is now almost 3:00AM Wednesday and I am still feeling quite upset with her, but am thinking that by the afternoon I should be able to put her out of my mind until next month, at which time I will once again curse her with every breath I take.

So, that’s what’s been going on with me. How ’bout you? What’s new?

Here are some of my favorite cartoons for the week (a big thank you to First Door on the Left).

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Technorati Tags: politics, political cartoons, satire, political humor

I have a real problem with the way things are handled out here in the Wild, Wild West with regard to wildlife that wander into populated areas. Let’s not forget that WE are the ones who intruded on THEIR environment because it’s so beautiful and wonderful and we just had to be/live/visit there. If the animals — and I’m speaking specifically about mountain lions and bears — wander into your yard and kill your cat, well then, I guess your cat shouldn’t have been left outside. If you live in bear country and are stupid enough to leave your doors and windows wide open, then you’re just asking for company.

What set me off, you ask? Well, over the last week I’ve read two different articles on 9News.com that have really angered me. The first was about three bears who wandered through open doors and windows and had themselves a little look-see inside a couple of houses. The Division of Wildlife sedated the bears and took them about 20 miles away and let them go. That’s all good and well, but then they said if the bears come back they will be killed as per Colorado law for being “nuisance” animals. I ask you, who’s being the nuisance, the bears or the humans!

I saw the second article today wherein it was reported that Division of Wildlife officials have killed two mountain lions this week that strayed into Durango city limits in southwestern Colorado. Yeah, they were two young female lions. One of them was found eating a cat behind a shed and the other one was killed because some guy happened to see it behind his house. Oh no! You live in the mountains of Colorado and you call the damn Division of Wildlife because there’s a mountain lion behind your house?! What the hell did you expect when you moved there??? Asshats!

It’s just not right. No animal should be killed unless it attacks someone when it’s living in its own natural habitat which PEOPLE have invaded! If idiots don’t want mountain lions and bears around, then they should move down here to the plains! All we’ve got are snakes, and raccoons, and deer, and antelope, and bunnies, and foxes, and coyotes — oh wait, they would probably want to kill all of them, too.

It was a frustrating day yesterday, but kind of in a funny way. Everything was perfectly “normal” around here until it came time to go run a couple errands. I got outside and dug inside my purse for my keys and came up empty. I knew immediately what had happened. Hubs took them and forgot to put them back, which wouldn’t normally be a big deal except that he had gone to work (engineer for the railroad) and was in Wyoming! He’s already lost — or as he would say, “misplaced” — his set, and we’ve only had this vehicle for 2 1/2 months! What can I say. I love the man, but he absolutely loses everything. Oh, by the way, the 15th was our 26th anniversary, so YAY us!

OK, so getting back to my frustrating and kind of funny story. I ended up having to call my daughter, who was with her friend Zach, and they came and picked me up and took me to run my errands. Another YAY for having a cool daughter who doesn’t mind doing stuff for her mom. Which brings us to last night (smooth segue, eh? ) She and her best friend Tesla came inside (Zach was out in the car), and they asked me if I needed anything from Wal-Mart. They were bored. LOL What a silly question! Of course I needed something from Wal-Mart. I always need something. So I gave her the short list and off they went. About 20 minutes later my cell rings. It’s her. She says, “Mom, I got everything and we checked out and I ran the card and the cashier says it told her there was no money!”. I was perplexed, to say the least, but not panicked. I came straight to the computer and checked our account on the bank’s web site. Everything — checking AND savings both said **** for a balance. Then I panicked — until I noticed that nothing was loading properly and everything said “we cannot display your transaction at this time”. I realized then that all of their electronic crap was down. So my poor daughter, feeling quite embarrassed and humiliated, had to leave the groceries there, come all the way back home to get a check, go all the way back to pay for them, then come all the way back to bring them home. I was feeling really badly for her, but she said when she told the cashier I had checked the web site and everything was down, she asked “Credit union??”, and when Callie told her yes, she remarked, “What’s new?”. I didn’t know they had a problem with that. It’s never happened to us before. Anyway …. it was just weirdness that you look back on and shake your head, roll your eyes and laugh.

During my daily Entrecard dropping I see a lot of really good blogs. There are a few of them that totally crack me up, which is what happened today when I visited amy oops!. I laughed and laughed and knew that I MUST share it with all of you! So, without further ado, I give you our president, George Dubya “I’ve ruined the country” Bush!

By now most, if not all of us, have seen and/or heard about this New Yorker caricature cover:

I think what bothers me the most is the ugly face of racism in America making itself so loudly known. I thought perhaps this time it would be different. How stupid of me. When Barack Obama became the presumptive Democratic nominee, I thought YES! At last America has come out of the dark ages and recognized a man for his mind, talent, words, character, ideas and passion! It was way too premature of me to think that, though. It aroused a lot of emotion in me, and while I’ve been mulling over those feelings for the last day and half and wondering what to say about it, I came across a post by Politi-Gal entitled Kvetching About Unintended Consequences and Media Effects. In my opinion she nailed it! She put into words — and very well I might add — everything I was thinking and feeling. Go take a look and have a read. And please, THINK and READ a lot before forming an opinion, coming to a conclusion, or readily agreeing with something someone else says until you find out for yourself if it’s true!

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, The New Yorker, Racism in America