You know the joke…   Knock, Knock.  Who’s there? Interrupting cow. Interrupting [MOOOO!] cow who?

I find that when I’m not correcting my daughter about her tone or attitude or reminding her that she is not the adult, I am barking at her to stop interrupting.  I have been on her case about this since she was old enough to wobble into a conversation and demand attention.  I know I’m not alone in this because yesterday, I listened to Ken correct his daughter about the same exact thing.  I say it’s the age, but it seems that at 10 years old we should be approaching an age where it stops.  Well, I would say that except I notice adults doing this same thing. 

I have often been frustrated at the way manners in general have gone to hell in a hand-basket.  It’s so bad that when someone is actually polite and uses ‘yes please’ and ‘no thank you’ or opens the door for me it shines like a beacon.  It’s sad really.  What is even more frustrating is that I watch adults… people my age or older… barge into conversations and demand attention the same way my daughter did when she was toddling.  There is really no excuse.

We have a general joke around my office – we’ve used it for years and years… it’s my invisible unimportant sign.  I hold up my invisible unimportant sign whenever I am in the middle of a conversation with a coworker and someone barges in without even an ‘excuse me’ and begins talking over me.  It happens often.  Now, sometimes this is just the product of someone being desperate for information and in a hurry. In those cases, it’s pretty obvious and forgivable especially considering those offenders usually toss out a quick apology as they are rushing off to use the information they needed.  Then we have those that I refer to behind their backs as an interrupting cow.  I have worked with many of these over the years.  These are the ones that will just walk in behind me while I am discussing something work related and just begin talking over me about anything that comes to mind – usually personal – and will not quit.  Not when I glare at them… not when I say, “excuse me”… they just keep talking like I was never there. 

I’m sure you’ve run into these people.  They speak over you while you are asking the clerk something at a store or they will begin a conversation with you while you are obviously on the phone.  They are everywhere  – impatiently wondering  around with a false sense of importance and enough disrespect to everyone around them that they will stop at nothing to make sure they are noticed. What happened to these people that make them think that they or what they need to say is more interesting or necessary than anything I might be doing at the moment.  I swear, if I weren’t afraid that spectators would think I had a bad case of sudden turret’s, I would just yell “MOO!” at them until they stop and go away.

Ken’s son Alex just turned 18, and as the rest of us get to do, he chose his party theme… dinosaurs. I commented to him that it might be difficult to come up with something suitable for a man because usually small children request such a theme. It was then that he looked at me and said, “I don’t understand how a theme involving two-tonned reptilian killing machines can be childish.” He has a point. So with quite a challenge set before me, I set out to find dinosaur decorations that are not cuddly. I also didn’t want extremely realistic dinosaurs as I was afraid it might look more like a science classroom than a party. After a quick search on the web, I decided I was better off just making them.

To add a personal and comical touch, I made a few posters. Flipping through a ton (no pun intended) of free on-line coloring pages led me to a few cartoonish characters that were more funny than childish. I turned to an old classroom friend to easily and flawlessly transfer the online pages to the poster board – an overhead projector. For whatever reason, we have had this overhead projector in our supply closet at work for years. I always assumed it was a tool to lead presentations many years ago. Boy, am I glad we had it; it was really the perfect tool. I simply printed off the coloring pages onto the transparencies instead of paper. Taped the blank poster board on the wall. Flipped on the overhead projector and Viola! instant tracing lines for poster board sized reptiles. After the lines were traced with pencil, I went over them again with a thick black marker, colored them in festive dinosaur colors and added a couple of personal messages.

I had also considered trying to find a nice printout of a pterodactyl to cut out and hang from the ceiling until I ran across a terrific craft project. I found instructions on how to create them using empty milk cartons. They were actually fairly easy. A couple of tips…

Overall, they were a great addition to the decor.

Ken set out to find green and grey streamers and other dino props to set around which turned out to be quite a challenge, but he found a few things. He was also tasked to make one of his famous themed cakes. He made a dino head that was patterned off of one of the posters I made. Of course, it looked like it’s head was on fire after adding 18 candles, but it was very well done.

All in all, the room looked great,the cake was delicious, and we had a roaring (har, har) good time.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and boy do I wish I had one right now of what I saw just a little bit ago. I’m just not sure words can do this justice. While I was out driving to get some lunch, I saw the most awesome jogger I have ever seen. Usually, I don’t give joggers a second look unless they happen to resemble Ryan Reynolds a little. This jogger certainly got my attention, and there wasn’t any hotness going on… just beautiful hilarious irony.

This man was quite large, and although I commend him a great deal for getting out there and jogging, I really wish I could have been a witness to the thought process he must have gone through to end up where he was. First of all, he was wearing collared polo shirt complete with red, orange and blue horizontal stripes with his running shorts and tennis shoes. I might have not thought jogging his original intention had it not been for the circa 1982 head band he was wearing. The attire was not the best part. This man, with a determined expression on his face, was running along, eyes set on the prize all while drinking a gigantic Icee.

Do you think that this beverage was the only thing available at the time to hydrate him? Could he have been trying to run off the calories as he was drinking them? Maybe he was just rushing to the next convenience store to get a refill and to try a new flavor. The world may never know.

I’ll admit it; I’m old… old enough to not understand what in the world they are saying in many of the songs on the radio these days.  I thought this was just limited to some of the new top 40 stuff because they use those voice changing machines or have really quick, mumbled lyrics. Well, yesterday, while Ken and I were singing along to some music, I learned that it’s not.

Did you know that in the song “Need You Tonight” by INXS, Micheal Hutchence sings, “the 21st century’s yesterday”?  Well, good for you because for more than 20 years now I’ve thought he was singing “24 cents from yesterday” and had just assumed all this time that it was some pop-culture reference that I had failed to understand.   I was reminded that the same thing happened with the song “Voices Carry” by til Tuesday where for years I thought she was singing “This is scary” even though those particular lyrics are actually in the title.  Sigh.

If you think that’s bad, this ability to confidently sing along with the music using completely wrong words is apparently genetic.  My daughter on many occasions has come up with some great misheard lyrics.  Most of the time I just correct her and move on.  Sometimes, however, the words that flow incorrectly from her mouth are so beautiful it warrants them being sung her way forever.

Artist: Gavin Rossdale
Song: Love Remains the Same
Correct lyric: Gravity like lunar landing
Allison’s much better lyric: Gravity has noodles landing

Artist:  U2
Song: Vertigo
Correct Lyric: All of this, all of this can be yours.
Allison’s much better lyric: Olives, Olives and Eeyores.

And the best and the greatest so far…

Artist: Journey
Song: Separate Ways
Correct Lyric: Though we touched and went our separate ways.
Allison’s much better lyric: Larry touched the whale in second place.

I consider myself pretty handy, and I love the challenge of doing things myself.  That coupled with my overall frugalness has made me a big fan of the Do It Yourself (DIY) trending of the last few years.  Obviously there are some projects that I can’t do myself… if I were to need to weld something for instance, I would probably seek professional services.  Now some things, like a craft project or many kinds of home repair, I will tackle.  Some projects go better than expected,  some things are more difficult than they should be, and some things you learn by trial that they should never be tried again.

Well, hair color is definitely one of those things for me.  It shouldn’t be; it looks really easy, and the instructions are pretty simple.  But the fact remains that I am sitting here writing this with red hair… and by red I mean the crayon color red, not the natural red I was shooting for.  It’s a red that might cause me to be attacked by hummingbirds as they mistake me for a giant flower.  So, I’m going to put on a hat to prevent pointing, laughing and possible air assults and go try and get it fixed. 

You live and you learn.

Apparently I have a bad side. Sure, I knew that I have bad mood days, but over all I try to be mostly pleasant.

I leave the car for two minutes to ask for directions, and my daughter takes advantage of my absence to quiz Ken on why and what exactly he likes about me so much. Like the good man he is, he explained to her that he loves everything about me. This wasn’t good enough because she wanted specific information. He explained that I take care of people and that I’m nice and anything else he could think of at the moment to satisfy her curiosity. Then she asked him… “What about her bad side?” Taking the opportunity to enjoy her unique perspective, he asked her “Your mother has a bad side? What is her bad side?” With a tone only a very serious 10 year old can muster informed him bravely and sternly, “Yes, it’s her left side.”

I had no idea, but I’m going to make sure I tilt my head sightly to the left from now on so I can show the world my good side.

This morning on the way to drop off my daughter we noticed that the skies were becoming a bit overcast.  This is a devastating time for things to look like there might be a chance of rain because the potential to ruin fireworks is there.  I expressed out loud what we were both thinking; “I sure hope it doesn’t rain on Saturday for fireworks.”

The following serious conversation occurred:

Al:   (in deep thought) I’m sure God wouldn’t allow that to happen.
Me:  Well, He knows what’s best and might know of something more important.
Al: [looks at me like I’m an idiot for thinking there might be something more important than fireworks]
Me: There could be a farmer that needs the rain or his crops might die and the family could starve.
Al: Then God should go to Iowa!  He can rain on the farmers there.
Me: (testing her logic) Don’t you think there are people that would be just as disappointed in Iowa if there are no fireworks?
Al:  Mom… [insert sigh meaning that she is being patient with my idiocy] They are farmers… they don’t have time for fireworks.

My daughter and I decided to have dinner at Panera’s tonight.  After we got our soup, I left the table to go up front to grab some salt.  I stood there for a couple minutes waiting for the man to finish putting a lid on a drink before he noticed me.  He quickly apologized for having been in my way, and I quickly told him that it was fine and reached over to grab the packages I needed.