Randomly Random Things

Three exciting things happened here at OWTL in the last two days. First, as previously discussed, the K officially crossed into the ranks of the middle aged. Any car dealers, please be on the lookout for a tall, dark man with Lebanese circles under his eyes on the hunt for a sports car. Tell him that his wife is purchasing pink flamingos in bulk and he needs to get home to stop her.

Second, this flew into our shed yesterday:

I'm talking about that blob on the wall

See 'im sitting on the toolbox in the back left

I know that the pictures suck, but it's a bird. A brown thrasher according to the Boy, who I trust on this topic mostly because it doesn't involve telling the difference between toilet paper and paper towels. I just finished reading "Flight Behavior" by Barbara Kingsolver, which is all about butterflies that mysteriously show up on a hillside in Appalachia instead of going to Mexico where they're supposed to spend the winter. It's all a metaphor, of course, and very didactic with Kingsolver banging on her global warming drum (rather tediously, if you ask me). But, so in the midst of reading this, the bird shows up in the shed and I thought, "Hmmmm. Perhaps this is the sign I wasn't looking for." But then the bird made its way out of the shed and flew away and I decided to stop reading meaning into things.



Then the third exciting thing:

 The Baby got a response to her letter and flag redesign from the Governor of New Mexico! Now it is officially my favorite state despite this weird law introduced in the legislature. Just to be clear, I'm against stupid laws and this one makes zero sense no matter what its intention. Moving on before I lose the half of y'all I didn't lose for writing about smashing kittens. Check out their cute governor:

The inscription reads, "Your flag is beautiful. Thank you for sending it to me. Suzana 2013." So, someone actually read the letter! Even cooler! Naturally, I love that her name is Suzana, which is close enough to Susannah that when I was nine, I totally would have bought a sparkly, purple keychain with that spelling of my name. I'm a terrible speller anyway, so I probably wouldn't have even noticed. They also sent a map of the state for the Baby to color:

We now know more about what New Mexico produces than we do about what is produced in Georgia.  I mean, obviously the four "p's:" peanuts, pecans, peaches, and pollen, but after that I'm not sure. They also sent the Baby a coloring book, "Color Me New Mexico" (as opposed to Color Me Badd, singers of the romantic and subtle ballad, "I Wanna Sex You Up."). Here's the Baby, inexplicably lying on the kitchen counter next to the book.

I'm trying not to look a gift horse in the mouth because I really do think it was incredibly nice of them to send her anything, but the coloring book is a little...oh, strange. It features a bear named Oso who visits different locations in New Mexico and provides some facts about the areas, So here's the page featuring Silver City, where happy OsoBear comes dangerously close to being trampled by a bronco. But that's not the odd part.

Here's a close up of the caption:

"OsoBear says 'No Bull--Ride 'em cowboy'" (punctuation is apparently as optional and arbitrary in NM as it is on this blog). What I love in a children's book is oblique references to profanity. I think this was the second choice in caption after "OsoBear says 'I'm about to get my a-- kicked!'" or possibly, "OsoBear says 'I just sh-- my pants!'"

Here's the second questionable page from the coloring book, featuring Truth or Consequences, Sierra County:

So, OsoBear appears to be getting into a hot tub with a lady and two gentlemen. The caption at the bottom reads, "Oso Bear says 'Truth or Consequences is hot...Hot...HOT!" Presumably, this refers to the temperature of the water and not the company or what's going to happen in the hot tub. I've seen too many MTV reality shows to see a hot tub and not think that something inappropriate is about to transpire. Here I'm thinking some kind of interspecies menage-a-quatre.

Also, I think that I may be having flashbacks to a commercial for Mount Airy Lodge (a Pocono Mountains resort) that played throughout my childhood. Ah, Youtube:

Finally, I just read that article about how Facebook is making everyone miserable because we're all jealous of our friends' fabulous lives. Since I know you are all feeling incredibly envious of our family's close, personal relationship to the Governor of New Mexico and our slightly inappropriate coloring book, I give you this:

That's my bathroom counter as I attempted to clean out my vanity drawers. Yes, I had an allen wrench in the drawer next to my toothbrush because you never know when you might be locked in the bathroom and forced to assemble some Ikea furniture. Also, that medical tape is from three years ago when the Girl nearly cut off the top of her finger playing skee ball. I'm entirely serious. Our family can't even get injured normally. I've kept it even though we've only used it when the Girl decided to play Olympic gymnast and needed to tape her wrists.

See, nothing to be jealous of here unless total weirdness elicits feelings of jealousy for you, in which case I cannot help. Tune in tomorrow, or realistically, later today, for Funny Friday!