How I Spent My Weekend

[fenchurch]

It was a Sometimes My Brain Really Confuses Me moment. Friday morning, I woke up with a song running through my head. Not an unusual occurrence, since rackham wakes up to a radio (though I've never figured out how... the volume is turned so low I can barely hear it when I'm awake!) and whatever song is playing on the 80s station will occasionally get embedded in my brain. Not the case this time. Nope. I woke up with a camping song I haven't heard or thought about in at least 20 years, front and center in my head: "Oh, I had a little chicken and it wouldn't lay an egg."

For those not familiar with it, the song is sung to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw" and, like many camp songs, the lyrics can vary wildly depending on region... I went looking for it online and found about five different variations. Here's the one I know:

Oh I had a little chicken and it wouldn't lay and egg
So I rubbed _________ up and down its leg
Oh the little chicken cried and the little chicken begged
Then the darned old chicken laid a ___________ egg.

Filling in the blanks with things like:
hot water................................hard-boiled
hot grease..............................fried (or, as it's sung, fri-yied)
hot chocolate..........................Easter
a demon.................................deviled
etc.

And no, I have absolutely no clue where that came from.

Friday was also the day I took Polly back to the kitty ophthalmologist to get her follow-up blood pressure check. The medication is definitely working! A week earlier, her systolic pressure was 230... as of Friday, it was down to 190. Normal in a cat is about 170 and below. No wonder she's been acting like she feels better!! Her appetite has even improved (which was something I was getting a bit worried about).

One thing we really liked about the hotels in England was that they all had a tea service in the room rather than a coffee maker. Okay, if you like brewed coffee in the morning, that kinda sucks, but for the rest of us it's wonderful! We could heat water and make whatever tea we wanted... or even instant cocoa! Fantastic!! I found I was eyeing the electric kettles in the stores there and kept having to remind myself they wouldn't work back home (but they were so inexpensive!! I guess that's the difference in having a large population that's going to be buying them). So, when rackham got a coupon for 25% off our total purchase at Linens-N-Things, he printed it out and Saturday we picked up an electric kettle (cordless! With a base that plugs in and a pitcher for the boiled water that can just be lifted off) and a bed skirt for the guest bed. Yeah, we live the wild life!

Sunday, Rackham wasn't feeling well and my shoulder was killing me, so we ended up staying home from church. I popped Advil all day, while he slept. The weather really took a turn for the Autumn... in fact, we had the odd experience of the warmest point of the day being at 3:00am the night before. And then the cold front moved in. It was overcast and blustery and really felt like Fall for the first time... with a serious bite in the air. Which means we were fairly prescient in what we bought the day before to fix for dinner... some nice crusty bread and all the fixings for One Can Plus Five soup (though we usually just have that stuff on the shelf, which is one of the beauties of the recipe) -- perfect cold blustery weather food.

We also did something we swear we're going to do every year and never get around to: We carved a Jack-o-lantern!!! We always buy a pumpkin, intending to do it... but somehow the pumpkin just ends up sitting forlornly on the porch, uncarved, until we have to get rid of it sometime in November. Not this year! If we can get some decent photos, I'll have to see about posting a few.

Woke up this morning to all the trees covered in frost for the first time this season. It's so beautiful, looking out over the park when everything is all frozen and sparkly. And sometime over the weekend, the leaves all started to change color in earnest (and not just a smattering here and there). They've also started to fall off... so the wind is swirling them all over the place, making it look a bit like a brown/gold/red ticker-tape parade.

And now I'm off to physical therapy... and hopefully they can make my shoulder stop hurting!! (I'm pretty sure the rib is out again and it's pulling everything all out of whack -- making my shoulder pop every time I move. Ow.)

Comments

[tomte.livejournal.com]

Hopefully it's just that your rib is out of alignment, and it's not that your shoulder is giving you twinges from the drop in air pressure. It does sometimes happen after a bone break--that old "Cold weather's a-comin', I can feel it in m'bones" thing.

Glad to hear Polly's blood pressure is coming down.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

It's the other shoulder giving me problems though... and I can really feel the pull through the muscles (plus, I can feel something "sticking" a bit when I move, down around the rib I've had problems with). I just wish there was some way I could put it back in, myself. Because it gets pretty intolerable... I can't believe I lived with it for so long before we figured out what was wrong! I guess that just proves we can get used to nearly anything.

[jerusha]

That sounds like a good weekend. I have to confess that I much prefer coffee, but I do like my tea. An electric kettle would be a good buy.

[dm-lunsford.livejournal.com]

Congrats on the new cordless kettle. You'll love it!

I put off getting one for some time, myself. I remember thinking, what's the big deal? It boils water just like putting the kettle on the stove, right? And yeah, basically it does. But oh, there's just something oh so convenient about it. ; )

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Well, they bring things to a boil so much quicker and you don't have to be watching them to make sure they don't boil over, either.

Alton Brown uses one for all sorts of things when he's cooking, so we've had it on the list of kitchen essentials to buy for awhile now...

[rosiewook.livejournal.com]

You did get a Vitesse, or some such quick-boil pot, didn't you? One minute to boiling water is a nifty thing. :)

And hooray for Fall! I LOVE this kind of weather.

[hlynn.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's one thing I loved about the hotels in Japan--electric kettles and lots of different tea packets. They'd have the obligatory instant coffee packet as well, but it did my tea-drinking heart good to see tea as the forefront drink of choice, instead of coffee. :)

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Do you not usually all have electric kettles then? I don't think I've been in a house in Britain without an electric kettle in the last 20 years, and almost everyone has cordless. It hadn't occured to me that my kettle was any different to what you were used to! And I can boil water in about a minute to make my instant coffee in the morning.... ;~)

I am not making a lantern this year - either pumpkin, or the more traditional here, turnip version - but I made D-d a card with a turnip lantern on it, and decided the picture would make a good icon.

[cathyteach2.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, the cordless electric kettle is a wonderful invention. Since Patrick is from Ireland, we've had one in our house ever since we've been together. But 12 years ago it was HARD to find one here in the States. They are becoming more popular now and I see them all over the place. Glad you got one - they really are handy. I just used mine to boil some water for making gravy for dinner.

We have 3 pumpkins on the porch, but have not carved them. I think BT (my 3 year old) might get upset seeing her pumpkins get carved up. We painted them instead. Maybe next year I'll get to carve a cool scary face on one. :)

Have a Happy Halloween!

[pmgoose.livejournal.com]

LOLOL!! What radio station does Rackham listen to???

I wake up to the radio, too. The incessant blathering is annoying, but it does wake me up.

My Granny used to sing "Turkey in the Straw" when I was a little girl, but she didn't know the words, so she'd hum it, saying, "doody-doody-doo." I would request it, saying, "Granny, sing the doo doo song!"

Glad Polly's meds are working!

I love my coffee, but I like tea, too.

Sorry your shoulder and rib are hurting. Hope PT helps.