Maddy

Hilarious, r-rated joke.

http://www.quietlikehorses.com/2009/07/friday-night-funny.html

2 out of 3 ain't bad.

.... Let's start off with the vent.  HDTV.  How many people out there use an antenna?  Me too.  I don't have cable.  HDTV may be great if you have a cable connection, but if you are relying on an antenna it can be frustrating.  With analog TV, when the signal fades a little bit you get snow.  The more it fades the more snow you get, but at least through the haze you continue to get sound and moving pictures, unless it is incredibly bad.  Not so HDTV.  I tried watching regular TV the last couple of days, my front room DVD player decided to go on vacation.  Either that or it died, all I know is I haven't even got a post card from it yet.  Anyhoo, you know what happens when the signal fades with HDTV?  It starts to sound very much like a music CD that's gone bad, cutting in and out, making that annoying "I'm stuck here" sound CD players make.  And the picture?  The picture freezes up and gets those miscolored squares much like a corrupted digital picture.  It can freeze up anywhere from half a second to three or four seconds.  That may not sound like a lot of time, but considering the average video is around 60 frames per second, that's annoying.  Add to it the intermittent sound and the "duh, duh, duh" sound, it's downright frustrating.  Gonna go get a new DVD player and give up on regular TV forever. (Except for Channel 2 News, I can actually get Channel 2 without any problem.)

.... Now for the good.  Spot free car cleaning.  Yup, five, six, ten, whatever years after my brother and I installed my water softener, I finally hooked up the new outdoor water faucet we planned for.  Which means I no longer have to go to the car wash to get the spots off the cars right after cleaning them.  Niiiiiice.  I already washed the wagon, because it's dark green and spots show well on it, and it's lookin' good.  There's still going to be spots, here and there, but at least they're not those highly visible, honking rings of minerals drying onto the car. 

.... And final - another good.  I've been waking up every morning for a while now thinking "damn, I haven't slept this good this many nights in a row in a long time."  Yup, said it before, probably will say it again:  Love my new mattress.

Angels at the Chevron

.... Freak night at the Chevron. Must have been a full moon, because all the lunatics were out. But my goal is to focus on the positive, since people get the idea working at the Chevron is hell from my posts. Probably 'cause all I do is complain about negative stuff. But that's just me venting.

.... It was a good night, since I wasn't alone from 9 until we close, because I was training the new guy on how to close. It must have been about 10:30 when this lady comes in to get gas. She spent about 15 minutes looking for her gas card in her purse, and since she was the only customer at the time, we both chatted with her. Weather, Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, how she's never misplaced her gas card before, and apologies for taking so much of our time (we're there anyway, so no big deal). She couldn't find her card, so she went out to her car and looked for it there. When she comes back in, with her card, she informs us that she found it where they always say you find things: where you left it. Chuckle, chuckle. As we ring her up and run her card, she again thanks us profusely for being so patient with her. In the middle of signing the slip for us, she looks up and asks "Are you guys angels?" Dumbfounded we just stare, two seconds pass. She states "You guys are angles!", hands us the signed receipt and goes on her way.

.... We laughed (in an appreciative way) about that all the way until the guy came in and asked us how long it would take Verizon to restart his phone.

Family Picnic.

.... We had one every year when I lived in Mass, they still have them to this day. (If you've been reading my blog for over a year, you know we went back to Boston for the one last year, had a blast!)  Now, I've never heard it referred to as the Family Reunion, always Picnic.  Or, as my paternal grandmother (Nonni) used to say it; "pick-a-nick-a". This year we had the first, to be annual, Rossi Pikanika West.  A few of the relatives from Boston had planned to come out, but no one made it.  We suspect it was because the economy tanked, not because we are now the Western Outcasts.  We would have loved it if the whole family was there, but we had a blast anyway. 

Everybody made their favorite Italian speciality and it was all excellent.  Three unusual things we had were gluten-free pasta salad, gluten-free lasagne and gluten-free pie.  (Do you see the theme here?)  There are a couple of the family that have been diagnosed with celiac disease, and even more of us that simply refuse to make it official, so my sister offered to make her pasta salad gluten-free, and I decided to tag along with my lasagne.  I don't think either, and the pies also, suffered from the change.

.... Good food is one requirement at the Rossi Picnic, wherever it be.  The other requirement is a few good games of bocce.  So Mr.Gearhead stringed off the appropriate sized court and Pedro brought the bocce balls and we played.  The two funniest things about the games were first of all the way my oldest niece threw the ball.  Not your usual throw, it was more like a ballet dance, or the way Fred Flintstone threw his bowling ball.  But at least Fred put down his drink to bowl. The last bocce game was played by the young kids, 8 and under.  The pallino never made it past the required halfway mark, but nobody was worried about it.

.... Well, we had such a great time that we dicided to make it an annual thing, with an open invitation to the family back east, and wherever they may be.  I think the concensus was to do it about the same time of year, middle of Julyish, so start planning and keep your ears to the ground if you want to make it to next years.  Hope to see you there, and if you want to see my pictures from that evening, just click here.

No, those are ROOT beers.  But it did look kind of amusing so I had to take the picture.

Two of my grand-nieces having a heart-to-heart.

Toddler complete makeovers.  (Shhhhh, if Fox sees this there will be a new show Thursdays at 6)

Intense discussion about the ongoing bocce game.

My sister being, well, herself.

My older brother's son-in-law and grandson playing on the teeter-totter.  I think the little one was doing it just to make his dad happy.

I will post a link to The Gearhead's photo album as soon as he gets it set up.