Random

OK, this post is going to be completely random, as the title implies. I just love taking random pictures with my digital camera. Since I have started this blog, I have taken to keeping my little camera in my purse at all times and bust it out quite frequently when I see something that I think it interesting or makes me laugh. I have collected quite the collection of random pictures so I decided to throw some of my recent favorites on here.

I feel I should give some background to introduce this first picture for anyone out there who may be unfamiliar with the area in which we live. See, in our neck of the woods, fall means harvest time. Yes, this area is known for grapes, walnuts, and other mainstream crops, but it is also widely known for the other cash crop: Mary Jane, Ganja , wacky weed, demon weed, the dank, whatever you want to call it. Whether you love it or hate it, marijuana harvest time is upon us and the growers are delighted.

We have been watching this garden grow and prosper over the past couple of years. This grow is in plain site in the back of a trailer park. We pass by it every day and have seen it grow taller than this 6 foot fence. I imagine the owners are quite pleased with themselves, telling themselves this year, maybe this year, they will make enough cash to move out of the trailer park and into the house of their dreams. I took this picture from inside the car, slowing down just enough to capture it without being obvious. I am glad I took the picture when I did; there was rain last week and the growers hacked down their crop before the storms came through and ruined all of their hopes and dreams. Like they say, "Farming is tough!" The upside to the popular hobby of growing is that Jason's job has become a little more secure as a result of it. He works in a home improvement store which caters to the grower's needs such as soil, fertilizers, and trimming shears. These days, with the economy the way it ism the growers are their best customers.

Ok, I can't complete a post without mentioning something wonderful that D has said or done.

D is really into the movie Finding Nemo and especially likes Dorie, the little forgetful but sweet blue fish. Anyway, the other night D was supposed to be brushing his teeth before bed. I could see he was preoccupied, playing with something in the bathroom and being awfully quiet. I walked in to see what he was up to and this is what I discovered

D had put his Dorie to bed in a soap dish and covered her with wet cotton balls and Q tips. He really is a sweet little boy and has a nurturing side to him it seems.

This is the other thing he did:

He really digs matchbox cars. He wants to play with them every night. Aside from stepping on them occasionally, I am really happy these are his favorite toys right now- no batteries to replace, no obnoxious noises, it really is pretty cool. The funny thing is, he does not spend much time actually driving them around, racing them. He mostly inspects them and likes to line them up. He will be very quiet, sizing each one up and carefully lines them up in rows or long lines. Other times, he will stage these magnificent crash scenes where he carefully piles up all the cars in a horrific pile of mangled metal and debris. He is especially proud of his crash scenes and will yell for everyone to come look every time he assembles one.

Fall also marks the end of yard sale season. Jason introduced me to this hobby and we go on yardsale hunts almost every available weekend in the summer. jason is ultra competitive and skilled in the craft. He seriously uses the GPS in the car and brings along his laptop or will call his mother on his cell to check a high ticket item on ebay or to gather further information before he makes some of his purchases. I really can not poke too much fun at him because in all actuality, he has literally made or saved us thousands of dollars in his efforts. He is truly a professional and master of the art. While Jason mainly scours for tools, electronics, and fishing stuff, I look for random items and those diamonds in the rough types of treasures. Here are some of my favorite finds from recent years:

I found this Airedale doorstop a couple summers ago at a tweeker house in Nice. It was on a table amongst a pile of rusty tools and crap. I think I bought it for $1 or less and I love it. It is stamped with "1929". Not sure if this is the date or not. Maybe I should look it up on ebay and find out. Anyway, it is sturdy, substantial, and I use it to prop my bedroom door open. Our house is not really level so this comes in really handy. When I find old treasures like this, I always wonder who originally owned it and how it came to be in the tweeker yard sale. Were they a dog lover like me? Did they get it as a gift or pick it out themselves? Was their house slanted too?This is another gem that I found. I just think this is beautiful and yes, I did hang it up in the house. Ok, we live in a Manufactured home, a mere cousin to a trailer but I just thought it was a classic. Maybe someday I will have a sweet retro travel trailer. If I do, I will absolutely hang it in there with pride.This was a find from earlier this summer. It was so funny to find this. When I was little, my mom was given this same exact print and it hung in our bathroom. I don't know what happened to it in later years. Anyways, it is funny because there is a story behind this, two stories actually. My mom went to an all girls Catholic school and was somewhat of a rebel. She and her little friends thought they were so clever - they would sneak smokes in the mens room at the school, thinking they would never be caught. The story goes they eventually got busted by a priest walking in on them on one of their little clandestine smoking breaks.

The other story involves my Grandma Moran. She had announced she had quit smoking to the whole family and we were all so happy for her. When she came to visit us, my parents found obvious clues that she had in fact been smoking in the bathroom at our house, thinking she was quite sly, like her good catholic school educated daughter!

This is the other prize from this summer- A light up frog.......for .25 cents! I just felt I needed it. Jason looked at me sideways, but I know I will find a purpose for it someday. Maybe D would want it in his room when he gets older, maybe I will just plug it in outside during our next BBQ, I don't know what I will do with it but I felt compelled to buy it. I would hate to see it ending up in a landfill.

Ok, on to my final random picture:

Yes indeed, folks Rip Van Winkle is alive and well in Ukiah! I spotted this character in the Carl's Jr. parking lot. He was just sitting there propped against a tree, reading his paper, and smoking a pipe. I just thought, "This is just classic" and reached for the camera in my purse.

Rollin' with my homies

Big D and his friend Aiden. Aiden is D's Homie, compadre, partner in crime, and cousin. No, he's not really his biological cousin but D refers to all of his friends as his cousins. You know someone is really accepted into D's fold when he says, "I like him, uh huh, he's my cousin" If he doesn't like you, he will call you a Jackass. Even the four month baby at daycare is a Jackass. D does not discriminate. Honestly, we did not teach him to say Jackass -he learned that in daycare. Speaking of daycare, he recently started a new preschool which we are much happier with. I will get to that later on in the post.
Here is a pic of D and Aiden cruising in Aiden's Cadillac Escalade on his (Aidens) third birthday.




The two of them were so funny cruising around in that thing. They took their driving privledge very serious and D was a great co pilot, working the CB radio and tuning in the FM radio. Their ride had to be taken from them after a while as they grew more confidant and started ramming into the house and running over the adults.

Later on in the day, a pinata was brought out. In my day, the kids busted the pinata with real baseball bats or sticks, all the while blindfolded so that when the candy fell out and all the kids dove in there was always the potential for injury as the holder of the destruction device sometimes continued to swing. That's the way it was and we liked it!
Now look at what the safety police have done to this beloved pasttime:


The bats have been replaced with safety strings! Now, instead of swinging sticks and bats, the kids line up and one at a time go up to the pinata and pull a string. One of the strings will be the key string that opens up the candy trap door. I really think the kids were deprived of the thrill and danger involved with heavy bats and blindfolds. Here is the mad scramble for the candy:

I suppose you could still use a bat to do the job, but it's the whole change thing that bugs me...
Moving on....
Here is D with some other good friends of his, T and L. These boy's grandparents live right accross the creek from us and his mom and dad grew up with Jason. We just happened to run into them at McDonalds one weekend and coiincidentally, D and T were sporting matching scabs on their foreheads.



T. got his roughhousing with his brother, seen there on the left, but D got his after being wrestled by an 8 year old at daycare. This was the second time D had been injured at daycare because the provider was not paying attention. (there are only 3 kids there) Long story short, D started a new daycare last week and we are so happy with the way things are going. We are looking forward to fewer trips to the ER and less TV time for him.
Anyways, see the lady in the lavender outfit in the background? Her name is Anne and she is T and L's great grandmother. Anne is a very interesting lady. She has lived in the area forever and used to own and operate a coffee shop in town. Anne is a new-age guru who does Tai chi and has been known to bury crystals in parts of the world that she senses are spiritual locations. I only know this because she approached the elementary school that my mom worked at and asked if she could bury one of her crystals there. Anne also is known to have the ability to determine the sex of unborn babies by using the pendant she wears around her neck. I think it may be in the picture there, but can not say for sure. Anne used this tecnnique on me when I was pregnant but she was not correct. I am not sure if she remembered this and I did not have the heart to tell her she was wrong.
Ok, signing off.