Brett, Jenny and Kyle Came For The 4th of July

Little Denis the Menace

Elaine's Deck Is Decorated For July 4th

Shameless!

The boys love Stan so much and he doesn't do anything for them! I'm the one that buys their food, feeds and waters them everyday, cuts their nails, cleans their ears, change their diapies, picks up the poop, takes them outside, takes them to the Vet, etc. Sheesh! I would be jealous except they do me this way too. They shamelessly adore us!








Here is Little Miss MoneyPenny loving on Persephone after she got home from the Vet. She had a mass on her little front paw next to her dew claw. Since her brother died of cancer, we had to take it off and it will be biopsied. I should learn something in about a week. Anyway, she has a little boo boo with some stitches so Miss MoneyPenny is giving her the once over to make sure she's OK.

Stan Is Cooking The Hash!

We almost decided not to make the hash this year since Luke, our nephew, isn't here to help. He's become Stan's hash buddy! Luke is in Iraq serving our country. But our neighbors came over and asked if Stan was making it this year because they wanted to buy some. So he finally decided to do it. But he misses Luke.

The Fourth of July has always been a big deal in Stan's family and this will the first time Luke has ever missed it. But not only will he be here next summer, so will his BABY! Luke and Hannah are expecting! So we will have a new little booger for Stan to teach how to cook the hash.

Say "Happy Birthday" With Flavor!

In what might be one of the most ridiculous product roll outs since Smell-O-Vision, the folks over there at American Greetings (you know, the card company that is not Hallmark) have announced via PR News Wire, their new line of cards called Tasties. That's right. It's a greeting card that you can taste. Wait. What now?

Correct. According to a one Mary McClain, who is the creative director of new product concepts over there at American Greetings, "Just think, haven't you ever secretly wished you could actually taste that delicious looking piece of cake on the front of your birthday card? Well, now you can literally have your cake and eat it, too." Um, well...wait. How many birthday cards have pictures of cake on the front of them? I know that there are probably SOME, but certainly not all of them. And the ones that do, I'm not recalling them looking all that scrumptious. Cartoonish, if anything, would be how I'd describe them. But really, I'm not ever thinking that I wished I could taste the cake on my card because, if I'm receiving the card for my birthday, I know that there actually is a real cake right around the corner! That's what you do on birthdays! You eat cake!

The press release goes on to read that "Each card in the new line features a deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip, safely sealed inside, which recipients can enjoy along with the warm wishes of friends and family." Clearly, the folks over at American Greetings have never met my friends and family. We're not exactly the "warm wishes" type of folks. Good Lord, especially not my friends. We're more of a "Happy birthday, bee-yotch!" sort of crowd.

And I don't know that I'm finding a lot of appeal in the though of a "deliciously dissolvable flavor-strip" that I'm supposed to eat. And of course, with all of those damn well-wishers sitting around you, you wouldn't have any choice but to eat the thing! And probably to chants of "Eat! Eat! Eat! Eat!" Good Lord, it sounds like a bad idea all the way around.

Here's an example of what you can expect: " One birthday card in the new line features a mouth-watering image of a cupcake and reads, "If nothing else, birthdays are a great excuse to eat cake." The inside reads, "…lots and lots of cake." The dissolvable strip included encourages recipients to "take a bite," and enjoy the taste of vanilla cupcake, expanding on the fun and sweetness of the greeting. Other flavors to help consumers celebrate include everything from donut to margarita." Eww. Eating a dissolving strip is not like eating "lots and lots of cake". I don't care how good the strip tastes, it's still not cake. It just doesn't sound like all that great of an idea to me. Yeah, so, eww.

What, exactly, does "everything from donut to margarita" include? Because if we're going alphabetically, that doesn't include cake! It also wouldn't include alcohol or tequila. There'd be no pie. No chocolate. No sprinkles. Oh, frosting! There'd be frosting! Again, I'm back to eww. And really, I've never tried to connect the dots from a donut to a margarita. Is it like a 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of thing? Like 6 Degrees of Really Dumb Ideas?

This won't last long at all. The card companies aren't willing to admit it, but we're not all that fond of those musical cards that they insist on shoving upon us either. Those should have gone wayside a long time ago. But I think that it will be pretty evident rather quickly that this was a silly idea (and I use the term "silly" quite loosely, as this is completely idiotic).

Hannah is 3 Months Pregnant!!

Twilight Isn't Real

I've come to the conclusion that, in general, these confirmation hearings for a Supreme Court justice nominee are a big, fat waste of everyone's time. What is the point there? The shaping of the court? Granted, I know that a justice can lean to the left or lean to the right. But if they're really doing their job, it shouldn't matter. I don't know how you're going to be able to figure out how someone is going to perform in the future (and for the rest of their life, actually) by asking them asinine questions during the hearings.

Take a one Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota. According to The Huffington Post, Sen. Klobuchar decided that the confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan would be a good time to throw freaking Twilight into the mix. That's right. Twilight. The sparkly vampire movie series thing that I don't understand. How does that play a part in the confirmation hearings? Well, obviously, it freaking doesn't! But Sen. Klobuchar managed to cram it in there anyway. Let's see how she did that.

She started off by saying "You had an incredibly grueling day yesterday, and did incredibly well, but I guess it means you missed the midnight debut of the third Twilight movie last night. We did not miss it in our household, and it culminated in three 15-year-old girls sleeping over at 3 a.m. So I have this urge to ask you about this..."

Let me just interrupt here for a moment. So, she knows that Ms. Kagan had an incredibly grueling day the day before. Why make this day any worse for the woman by asking her a ridiculous question that is purely fictional?! I don't know the answer either. Let's see how Ms. Kagan responded.

KAGAN: I didn't see that.

Wow. She did a lot better than I would have. My response would have been either a blank stare or a string of obscenities. That's probably just one of the reasons why I'm not expecting to be nominated to the Supreme Court anytime soon.

The problem with Ms. Kagan's answer, however, it that it encourages the dimwitted Senator from Minnesota to continue along with her fictional line of questioning.

KLOBUCHAR: "I keep wanting to ask you about the famous case of Edward v. Jacob, or The Vampire v. The Werewolf."

She keeps wanting to ask her? How long has she been a-clamoring to get this out?! It's not a famous case! It's not a case at all! They're fake and sparkly vampires! There's no case! Besides, do we really want a Supreme Court justice that is into Twilight? I can't say that we do. Granted, I can't say that we don't, but I'm leaning heavily in that direction.

Fortunately, Ms. Kagan said exactly what I would have said (only without the obscenities) when she replied, "I wish you wouldn't." Yeah. Me, too.

Of course, that didn't stop Ms. Klobuchar from continuing to try to be witty when she said, "Well I know you can't comment on future cases." Aaarrgghhh! There IS no future case! Vampires AND werewolves are not real! It's a movie! They sparkle! You're a Senator! We're talking about the future of the Supreme Court here and you're asking non-sensical questions about non-existent werewolves and non-existent vampires that may or may not sparkle! What is wrong with you, Senator?

The video of this interchange is below. We're doomed, I tell you. Doomed.