The picture above was a real casket company in Washington, D.C. back in the 1920’s.  I included it because this is a post about caskets…sort of.

Let me preface this by telling you right upfront that I am one of those wicked people who tend to laugh at inappropriate things and at inappropriate times.  And after reading the paper the other day, I burst out laughing so hard I had a terrible coughing fit (retribution?) and had to run for the Robitussin stash.

You see, there was a funeral somewhere — I don’t recall the details — but as the grave attendants were lowering the casket into the grave one of the casket straps either broke or slipped off.  The casket went kattywampus toward the grave and the deceased literally fell out the bottom of the casket — much to the horror and dismay of family members and onlookers.

Now most of you will gasp and say, “How horrible a thing to happen.”  I, on the other hand, bust a gut laughing because…c’mon it’s FUNNY.   Macabre?  Yes.  Disturbing?  I’m sure.  But FUNNY nonetheless.  This guy fell out of his casket.

I’m giving myself a little leeway here on the laughing part because you see when my Mom was buried not long ago, the cemetery actually dug up the wrong grave and they BURIED her in it.  Dolts.  They put her in a plot that was intended for a cousin of mine.  Now, that’s FUNNY.  Why?  Because my Mom was at attention hound — all eyes always had to be on here; she always had to outdo everyone else and this time she beat her own niece into her niece’s grave.  And yes she was dug up and reburied in the correct grave.  TOO FUNNY.

So I think the casket caper is hilarious.  Forgive me – I’m just wired that way.  I know it’s not overly nice and some of you may think I’m downright rude – but, frankly, I’m still giggling just a bit.

On the serious side, the family is suing the cemetery and the funeral home because as it turns out the bottom of the casket was cheap stapled particleboard.  I sincerely hope they win a tremendous settlement to ease their suffering and to ensure their loved one does indeed receive an honorable and respectful burial.

But if he falls out again, I’m warning you…I may laugh.

While I usually pay little attention to pseudo-sciences such as Astrology, I must admit to being a bit entertained by one of the local paper’s Sunday Horoscope section.  This is not your average Fortune Cookie horoscope; there are no lucky numbers included.  The guy who writes the column is something of a goofball, but I can’t stop reading them because they are so bizarre.

We all know that most horoscopes are written such that they could apply to just about anyone; much like a fortune teller at a carnival.  But this guy is way off the chart; the astrological chart.  I suspect he drinks a little too much Zinfandel wine out of the box.

Now bear with me because I’m going to quote his column for you:  Oh – btw, my sign is Capricorn; yes I’m a December baby.

“A neurosis is a secret that you don’t know you are keeping…your assignment is to uncover one of those secrets in yourself.  It may not result in an instantaneous cure of your minor personality glitch, but it will be a potent first step that will set in motion a series of healing events.  Be brave, Capricorn.  I guarantee that any ugliness  you might find lodged deep inside you will be entangled with surprising beauty.”

Excuse me?  I beg your pardon?  Are you talking to me?!  I’m a closet neurotic?  I have a minor personality glitch?  Get out!   And I’m supposed to search deeply for that nagging neurosis and do something with it so it turns into a healing event?   Have you not heard of the Hadron Supercollider experiments which could conceivably lead to the end of the world and do you fully understand what could happen to the universe if I let out one of my deep, dark secrets?   Ahem.  Okay.  I’ll do it but just because I’m a good sport; not because I have any secret neuroses hidden at all.  None.  Well, maybe three.  But that’s all.  Three…and they’re small.  Well, two of them are small.  One is massive.  I’m letting the massive neurosis out of the box…

I detest Oprah Winfrey.  There I’ve said it.  I’ve kept that hidden deep within me for years now for fear of having the hordes of Opraites stampede my door and demand my head on a platter.  I can’t stand to look at her; to listen to her; to see her constantly changing hairdos.  Half the time I don’t recognize her – she’s fat, she’s thin, she’s fat, she’s thin.  I don”t care to hear about her precious little school on the other side of the world (we love you Mama Oprah) gag (while there are children here in America who could use a hand up).  I’m sick to death of her book club picks and refuse to read them.  I believe I have better literary sense than she.  I don’t give a fat fuzzy rat’s patootie if she hangs out with Stedman or with her BFF Gayle.  I could give a hoot what her favorite items are; and,  if she endorses a political candidate you can be danged sure I won’t. I detest her magazine  O (how original); I abhor her favorite Dr. Phil. She almost sucked me in with Dr. Oz but he’s getting on my last nerve, too, sanctimonious skinny thing.    Wait…I need to take a breath…okay now recently she had a major announcement to make and ya know what?  She sucked me in and I actually watched this broad stand in front of an audience of vapid women, and she did a fine acting job as she shed a tear and announced she was retiring…in ANOTHER TWO FLIPPIN’ YEARS!  Oh for the love of Mike — I was dancin’ around my family room until it dawned on me I was gonna have to put up with her for another season or two before she would actually be gone.

Did I successfully lay bare my soul for you and spew forth that deep-seated neurosis that’s been haunting me for over 20 years?  Coz I certainly feel better for having gotten that out of my system finally.  Maybe there is something to this astrology stuff — I mean it always worked for Nancy Reagan…

Crone and Bear It wishes you and yours a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Please take a moment to reflect on all our amazing Servicemembers who cannot be home with their families for Thanksgiving.  Let’s all give thanks that they want to serve their country and keep us safe.

God Bless!

Yes, the above title should be sung to the tune of Amy Winehouse’s Rehab song…because shopping Black Friday is enough to put you into rehab or cardiac arrest or a coma.  I refuse to do it. No. You cannot make me.  All the pretty flyers in Sunday’s paper will not induce me to leave my house on Black Friday.  They may induce something else…

I believe once upon a time Black Friday was a good idea; the shoppers got some great deals and the retailers made their bottom line for the year.  But not anymore.  It has devolved into a death-causing mass panic attack to be the first to snag a 50″ HD tv or the latest in video game consoles.  People are literally being trampled to death to save money.  No thank you.

In my area, they have published the opening times of the stores as follows:

Target:  6am;  Best Buy: 5am;  the local mall:  6am;  Home Depot:  6am;  Kohl’s:  4am – YES 4am;  Lowe’s:  6am;

Sears:  4am;  and here’s the best — Old Navy:  3am.  That’s right — 3-flippin’o'clock in the middle of the night so some sale-crazed nutcase can barrel their way through untold other nutcases to snag a flippin’ hoodie.

What have we become?

I will be spending Black Friday at home relaxing after a nice Thanksgiving spent with my family.  I may work on my Pay It Forward craft projects, or read a book and it’s for sure I’ll be on Twitter.  Where I won’t be is at ANY store — I don’t care how good the sale is!

C’mon Cyber Monday — that one I’m ready for; got my laptop working (keeping fingers crossed), my comfy chair, and my credit card at the ready.  And Devoted Spouse has been counseled about the importance of delivering the coffee.

I have been literally babying my Dell laptop for months now as one thing after another either falls off or goes wrong.  Let’s recap this fun journey, shall we? …

Not counting the massive amounts of Vista-related crashing…the first traumatic injury was when the quotations key fell off, only to be re-attached by some computer geek guys, but it fell off again and refused to be re-attached.  I taped it to my whiteboard in my home office and gave it a small tribute:

Not to be outdone by the quotations key, both the backspace key and the K key decided they no longer wished to function correctly.  Now those two keys must be pounded on with the finger pressure equivalent to an elephant being dropped 30 feet to the ground in order to get them to work properly.  The fingers on my right hand associated with those two keys are getting pressure calluses.

Feeling left out and one-upped by the backspace key and the K key, the E, R, N, and M keys all decided to peel off their coverings so that if one were not a touch typist, one would be in deep doo-doo while writing a blog post.  I’m not making this up:

Then the amazingly constructed power cord decided to stop functioning correctly.  It would, at the worst time, simply pop out of its home on the side of the laptop, leaving me on battery.  Then it escalated its mischief and stopped working while it was fully plugged in and much like the old tv rabbit ears antennas, I would have to hold the power cord up and over my head with my left hand while trying to type with my right hand so the battery wouldn’t keep discharging.  Not only was the power cord acting wonky, it was not charging the battery when it was fully plugged in – so I was screwed regardless.  Power on – battery still slowly dying.  After much agony and an aching left shoulder, I ordered a replacement power cord.  It now works, for how long is anyone’s guess.

Being the highly educated, innovative, creative problem solver in the family…I got out my handy dandy Sharpie and re-drew the letters E, R, N, and M and then painted some craft varnish over them to keep the Sharpie from accidentally smearing.  I’m so clever:

And so for now we have a barely functioning laptop once again.  I can update any or all 3 of my blogs, I can Twitter to my heart’s content, and maybe…just maybe I can get to read and comment on some of my bloggy friends’ postings this week.

Nothing else could possibly happen to this laptop could it?…

courtesy of www.guzer.com

Just in case, I have this handy:

And I am not afraid to use it…

I never win giveaways.  I keep entering them but I always know it is just alot of work for nothing because I will never be randomly chosen.  Man was I wrong this time!!!  My bloggy buddy Midwest Mom had a “Sticky Vinyl Letter” giveaway over at her place hmm-sweet-splendid-wisdom and just notified me that I won.

I won!  Inconceivable!  Unbelievable!  Absolutely fabulous!  Thanks so much for having this giveaway Midwest Mom – you rock sweetie and your news really made my day!

Here’s what I picked out:

Why, you may ask, did I pick this particular saying?  Because it was part of Devoted Spouse’s and my wedding vows 26 years ago.  I can’t wait to receive it and find that special place to put it where we will see it all the time and remember our wedding day!

Can I get a Woot!

As a good southern gal (regardless that I currently live in OH), I have been a faithful subscriber to Southern Living Magazine since 1985.  I’m proud to say I have every one of their annual cookbooks dating back to that year and they’re all nicely lined up on my bookcase in the kitchen with the other tons of cookbooks.

As my friend Michele will agree, a girl’s best friend is a cookbook.  I have always collected them – I have hundreds from antique cookbooks to the modern ones; they are stored in kitchen and basement.  Recently, I’ve had to divest myself of a few since I’m running out of shelf room.

Yesterday I received two pleasant surprises; one of which I can’t divulge yet — it will be in a future post so you will just have to wait but I will tease you with the fact that it is fabulous.  The other surprise I received yesterday came in the mail in the form of the 2009 Southern Living Annual Recipes cookbook!  Woo-Hoo!  Another to add to the collection.

Now I love going through this cookbook, but the difference between my friend Michele and me is she actually uses and adapts recipes from her cookbooks.  I pretty much just like to read mine.  I might make a couple of the easier recipes but mostly my enjoyment comes from reading the recipes and looking at the pictures.  Ridiculous, I know.  Maybe this time will be different and I’ll actually go back to cooking for Devoted Spouse instead of just throwing something together.

That would make him so happy.

And because I’m dedicating this posting to Food – here’s an easy peasy recipe from the 2009 book for one of Devoted Spouse’s favorite foods — corn.  That boy would eat corn at every meal if I let him!

Corn Pudding

Makes 6 servings.  Prep time:  10 Min.  Cook time:  20 Min.

2 cups milk

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1 (16 oz.) package frozen whole kernel corn, thawed

1/2 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. whipping cream

Bring milk to a boil in a heavy saucepan; gradually add cornmeal, stirring until blended after each addition.  Cook, stirring constantly, just until mixture begins to boil.  Reduce heat, and cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Add corn, stirring until mixture is the consistency of whipped potatoes.  Stir in salt and whipping cream.  Serve and enjoy!

So because Devoted Spouse has been taking such good care of me this entire year through one ailment after another, I’m gonna whip up a batch of corn pudding for him.   I’m sure it will go well with that tv dinner I had planned to serve…

Most people treat a cold or the flu with aspirin, hot tea, and chicken soup.  Devoted Spouse treats colds and flu with sugar cookies that have sprinkles on them.  He knows I LOVE sprinkles — okay the cookies aren’t too shabby either.

The problem in this house is Devoted Spouse, myself, AND EmmaLou, the Golden Destroyer are all cookie hounds.  We love ‘em.  In fact the above container of cookies (and an additional container of oatmeal raisin cookies he brought home) were decimated in a little over 24 hours.  And THAT’S why I try not to buy cookies — we can’t stop at just one.

I used to bake them – mmmmm the smell of cookies baking would fill the house with the yummiest aromas, until Devoted Spouse got wise and started hanging around the kitchen — he would scarf down the raw cookie dough.  So I stopped making cookies.

Chicken soup is good for my cold. And I’m good with the hot tea and lemon/honey.   But nothin’ compares to bringing me cookies with sprinkles.

EmmaLou!!! Gimme back that cookie…..