Shark Tank Impulse Buy

When I'm at the mama's, and it's bedtime, we watch tv. For her, this means listening at a deafening volume and changing the channel every few seconds. It makes us kids bonkers, and we all employ different methodologies to cope. Sometimes I just let her do her thing, and when she gets to the end of the channels or messes up the settings, I borrow the remote, start the channels at 2 and let her rip until it's time to start over again.

Occasionally she stops for favorite things: basketball, tennis, Fox News and Shark Tank. ST is produced by Mark Burnett. I wish it were not, because I think this show is fun.

I can get the mama to watch at least two Shark Tanks in a row, and I often find myself  Googling the products. That's how I came to own an Illumibowl, which the FedEx guy just brought me. It is a light for your toilet bowl, and just might be the right night light for the sweet mama, since most night lights do not work in her bathroom.

Here it is in action in my darkest bathroom, which is dark like the mama's and needs some light for visitors. It works on battery and is activated by a motion sensor. Here it is in white. "Classy!"

But white is not the only option, and once it gets going it cycles through several colors. You can pick one, or let it rotate through them all. I like pink, of course, but found that it's hard to photograph properly.
 

 

Now I have to see whether Mom likes it (on the "classy" white setting, of course). She won't care for green.

I'm In Love

It's customary in our family to begin discussing the next meal while eating the current meal. In the spirit of this, I'm on staycation and thinking about realcation.

I am HOT to go back to Halberstadt to see the changing of the klang of the John Cage piece As Slowly As Possible. And really want to go back to Leipzig, and really drill down. There are many things we didn't get to do.

But then there is also the town of Pery, Switzerland, where my people apparently lived for hundreds of years. I've wanted to visit. So I looked it up on Google to see what I might be able to do in the vicinity. Which brought me to TripAdvisor, which led me to Hotel Florida, Studen. Down the rabbit-hole (or in this case flamingo hole) I went.

I was drawn in by the photos of live flamingos, but the other visitor photos were above and beyond.

The flamingo prison

Are those hearts on the floor made out of discarded panties?

Swings at the bar and chairs made out of oil barrels  

Florida Steak

Who writes "Sorry" in balsamic reduction on a plate? This must have been a request.

If this is Florida, sign me up. But free the flammies.

You Know What's Dumb? A Work In Progress

A growing list, in no particular order:

1) Going to Mount Everest
2) Taking selfies on cliffs
3) ATV driving
4) Leaving things in cars. Things you will miss if they are stolen. Even you, A-Rod
5) Dodgeball
6) Running the bulls in Pamplona.
7) Base jumping. Even for science.
8) Getting off the boardwalk / pathway near sources of geothermal energy (volcanoes, geysers)
9) Getting in a rocket you built in your back yard
10) Puppetry of the Penis  
11) Photographing wildlife close up in state parks

12) Challenging the world land speed record when you're 69. Everybody knows your reaction rate slows when you're old.

13) Flying in vintage planes

14) Trying to retrieve your phone by climbing inside the stegosaurus statue where you dropped it

15) Gender reveals.

16) Balcony gymnastics

17) Rich people space travel

18) Shipwreck looky-looing

19) Feeding supermarket turkeys to predators in a swamp

20) Wearing stiletto heels when you're 84 years old

I can't feel sorry for you if you're going to do stupid stuff.

Bonus points for death or serious harm while selfie-ing.

Is it a sign of age that this stuff is getting on my nerves? When you know that things are ill-advised and you make the choice to do them anyway, I'm not going to feel sorry for you after the bad thing happens.

Updates:

I just added dodgeball. It's mean. 

Space travel was suggested by That Nice Boy, and I heartily agree

People who go looking at the Titanic and then have to be rescued. Waste of money

Tooth Jail

Last week I started Invisalign, which seems silly and frivolous, given that I had braces when I was younger. But I got to a place (perhaps after my 70-year-old sister got braces for the 4th time) where I figured it needed to happen. My bottom incisors are moving around and getting sharper and thinner and I want them to last a few more years. Conversely, I was enjoying the movement I had been seeing in my upper teeth. The gap in my front teeth was widening again, and as an older adult with little to prove, I felt like I could indulge in my gap. But the doctor told me I couldn't keep it and do what needed to be done with the bottom teeth. Oh well.

So I went in for an appointment and threw down for Invisalign without a ton of worry. And now for many weeks I am in tooth jail.

Tooth jail means that my cuticles finally get a reprieve. Tooth jail means my teeth hurt always. Tooth jail means that snacking (one of my favorite pastimes) is more difficult. Tooth jail means that I always have another rig with me (toothbrush, container for my trays, chewie). Tooth jail means I have to figure out how to take out my trays and eat all my meals in under 2 hours a day, or my treatment will take longer.

I have brought this on myself.

Bird Season

I'm going to buy a Super Soaker, just like the big guy had, and I'm going to point it at the mockingbird that sits on our unused satellite dish and calls, day and night. Then I will shoot him.

The big guy had a major grudge against the peacocks that roamed free on the island where he lived. They wandered around and called all day and could lay a poop the size of an adult human thumb (male). So for fun, and out of exasperation, he'd load up the Super Soaker and shoot. Or he'd hurl a bath sheet at them, while emitting a roar that still frightens me to this day when I think about it.

His lawn was littered with peacock crap and bath sheets.

When I told mrguy last night that I was considering getting a Super Soaker he looked horrified. This, coming from a man who boasted that he threw a rock on the roof and scared the mockingbird away. But he wasn't trying to *hit* the bird, he said. I countered that I wasn't trying to hurt the mockingbird, but merely to *moisten* him.

About the time that we on the lanai mincing words about intent and rocks and water, we saw a HUGE bird fly into the pine tree next door. It was a turkey. Once ensconced, he proceeded to climb the tree one branch at a time, using his big old fan-shaped tail to counterbalance. I have never seen anything like it.

So dramatic! We watched for about 15 minutes, as he climbed higher, occasionally gobbling. In the picture below he's in the bottom-most clump of branches to the right. Those branches are easily as tall as our house.