Bah! Rumpa Bum Bum.

No, that title is not a measure of my Scrooginess. Nor is it a statement about the jobless people trying to get by in this economy. It's what The Pony thinks the title is for The Little Drummer Boy.

That's how he sings it, too. "Bah! Rumpa bum bum. Rumpa bum bum. Rumpa bum bum." He's not THAT far off. But I told him he needs to be in that commercial with people butchering Elton John's Rocket Man.

The Pony did not know they were singing the wrong lyrics.

A Matter Of Focus

Is it just me, or are kids today not as observant as past generations?

Maybe it's the constant texting and music-listening. Perhaps they don't see a need to focus attention on one issue at a time. The reason that I ask is due to some startling questions I received during a showing of The Day After Tomorrow. It's a weather-related movie, and we have a couple of days left until Christmas break. As one who gives an assignment every day throughout the quarter, this is my little gift to my students.

There were some good questions. About how such a mega-storm could form. But then there were the questionable questions.

"Is that the dead guy?"
No. He is walking along, tethered to Dennis Quaid. The dead guy is dead. At the bottom of the mall, broken on the escalator, after slicing his own rope to send himself to his death when the skylight started to crack. A walking-along guy is not dead.

"What have the wolves been eating all this time?"
The wolves escaped from the zoo. Perhaps other animals escaped. Or the wolves got into their cages. But most likely, the wolves have been eating PEOPLE. There's no shortage of people. They're laying dead in the streets, or trying to walk to Mexico in the super-blizzard. And all this time is just a couple of days. The title of the movie is The Day After Tomorrow. Get it?

"Is the President dead?"
Yes. That's normally what is meant by, "The President's motorcade didn't make it," when his staff explains that the President will never be arriving in Mexico, after last being seen leaving Washington D.C. by automobile during a mega-blizzard.

"Is that a pregnant woman?"
Well, since he has a distinct beard, an orange safety vest, and no poochy belly, and we have not seen a pregnant woman in this movie, I think I can safely say, "No, that is the police officer/security guard who led people from the library across the frozen bay on a quest for Mexico."

"Sam? Who's Sam?"
That would be Jake Gyllenhaal, the star of the movie, the main character, the identity of whom you have been happily oblivious to for 90 minutes of this 112 minute film.

Seriously. And I expect them to remember concepts that I teach. Me. Not Jake Gyllenhaal. Without special effects.

Where's The Vitameatavegamin When You Need It?

Because Sunday was such a busy day here at the Mansion, the weekly shopping was not accomplished.

The Pony and I dropped in to visit The Devil on the way home from school today. Just for necessities, of course. Sprite and pizza and holiday cake-fixin's and two college-ruled notebooks and six AA batteries and some S'Mores ingredients to go with the S'More-maker I'm giving as a Christmas gift, and some Eggo whole-grain blueberry waffles, and milk, and a plastic cake tray, and four oranges, and some hearts of romaine lettuce, and, well, you get the drift.

I wondered why the 20-item-or-less lines were so very long. We had a smidge over 20 anyway, even though I can't remember all the items at this moment. Two regular checkouts were open at my end, each with two customers waiting. So I got in line. For twenty minutes.

Sweet Gummi Mary on a paper plate! I have not seen the likes of these two young gals since I worked for the Missouri Division of Employment Security. That's the unemployment office to you lay people. They were so slow that I at first suspected a duel of Public Servant Standoff proportions. But they were not trying to outslow each other. They were just slow.

I had plenty of time to arrange my items in the way I wanted them bagged. Because once that anemic checker finally finished with the customer in front of me, that dear lady whipped out about 50 coupons. The checker sighed. She methodically scanned each one. I will never look at Extreme Couponing the same way again.

And in spite of my best-laid purchases, she took her own sweet time to pick and choose from the length of the conveyor, and put items in bags with items that SHE thought went together. So much for the bright idea of keeping my Christmas objects at the end in an effort to total their worth and swap out money from my Christmas savings.

Dang, that little gal was slow! She needed a shot of Vitameatavegamin.

Fie On Dave Murray!

Farmer H and the #1 son have gone to a Blues game. I don't know what they see in hockey. I can't even see the puck. But I can see a squirrel's nest if it's really a bald eagle! Today is Farmer H's birthday. #1's was last Monday. So they treated themselves to a game.

It's been a busy day, what with laundry and cake baking and Chex Mix making and present wrapping and The Pony's band concert listening and dish washing and meal preparing. I can hardly wait until Monday to go back to work and rest.

I'm ready to tar and feather Dave Murray, Channel 2 Chief Meteorologist, for his zero-percent accurate December forecast. He cost me two dollars in the First Snow Day Pool. And he promised three (THREE) winter storms before Christmas, and even told the schools to be ready. PLUS, ol' Dave promised a white Christmas. Fie on Dave Murray! He's not worth the eye boogies that form as my peepers glaze over while watching him on the 10:00 news. Ptooey! I spit on his as-yet-undug grave. If my job performance was as inaccurate as his, I would be given the old heave-ho!

Psst! Davey! If you can promise me a rash of January-February storms, perhaps one every ten days or so, all will be forgiven. We can commence sweet-talking again.

The Hillmomba Welcome Wagon Greets A Transient

Here's the photo of the bald eagle we saw yesterday in town. The pic is not much better than my uncorrected eyesight. But you have to consider that it was taken by The Pony on his cell phone out the window of T-Hoe. I tried zooming in, to better see the baldness of the eagle. Indeed, he does appear to be turning to look at his photographer.

Too bad the #1 son wasn't along with his fancy schmancy Canon.




I suppose you can click on it and try to zoom in. I did it in my pictures manager, or whatever that dealybobber is called where you go to save a photo in Pictures. But I didn't save the blurry zoom.

Maybe you can understand why I might have mistaken Mr. B. Eagle for a squirrel's nest. He was so BIG. And thick. He didn't look birdy. The saying, "You don't eat enough to keep a bird alive," would apply to many more people if Mr. B. Eagle was used as the standard.

He was in a little neighborhood. There's a river about a half mile away as the crow flies. I'm sure it's closer as Mr. B. Eagle flies. On the road near his tree, there was a dead squirrel laid out like a cartoon steam roller had flattened him. Perhaps that was the main attraction that drew our feathered friend to sit a spell inside city limits. Guess who's coming to dinner, indeed. It's Mr. B. Eagle.

I am terribly ignorant of eagles. My internet research (and NOT on wikipedia) informed me that they do eat dead stuff. Did you know that a full-grown bald eagle might span 36 inches from beak to tail? Or that the wingspan could be 7 feet? My only other sighting of a bald eagle was in Alaska, on a ferry trip along the Inside Passage. I hear they hang out along the Mississippi as well. Kids may have a sweet tooth, but bald eagles have a fish tooth. It's their preferred food.

Welcome, Mr. B. Eagle, to Hillmomba!

A Receding Squirrel's Nest, Perhaps?

You know how sometimes your eyes deceive you? Like when, perhaps, you see a cow lumbering across the two-lane blacktop at dusk, and say out loud, within the confines of your T-Hoe, "Hurry up, you stupid cow, before I hit you!" Only to find, as you draw closer, that it's a woman in a brown sweatsuit crossing the road after picking up her mail? Well, this is not one of those stories.

Yesterday on the way home, still in town, something caught my eye. I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Not my eye. I can put my finger on that quite easily, though it's not something I practice on a regular basis, because that's a good way to pick up a virus or a bacterial infection. I just knew something was different.

My subconscious was being contrary. It was something about a tree. Hm...what's different? Did all the leaves fall off overnight? Were the limbs trimmed? Up there. Near the top. I saw it now. A bald eagle? Naw. I was past it too soon. Probably just a big-ol' squirrel's nest. Big nest, that is. I have no idea how big the squirrel might be. I drove on.

This morning, coming from the other direction, before we got to that tree, I saw another giant squirrel's nest. Right in the top of a different tree. I was slowing for a stop sign. "Look!" I commanded The Pony. "It's a bald eagle."

The Pony contorted himself to get a glimpse. "Wait. I'm going to take a picture with my phone." He snapped two. They were kind of blurry. But when he zoomed in, there it was. A humongous bald eagle. "Mom. I think he saw me. He turned his head to LOOK at me!"

"Where do you think they get the term eagle eye, anyway?"

I have no idea what a bald eagle was doing in that neighborhood for two days, impersonating a squirrel's nest. But he was gigantic. I'll never look at a squirrel's nest the same way again.

A Day That Shall Go Down In Newmentia History

I don't mean to brag, but the Newmentia school cafeteria served chicken today. I know. "But Mrs. Hillbilly Mom," you say, "that is nothing to write home about. Or even write a blog about. Because just last year, one of your students declared that your school cafeteria was going to single-handedly cause the extinction of the chicken, what with serving some version of it four days per week."

You don't understand the gravity of this situation. The cooks did not serve chicken nuggets. Nor a chicken patty, chicken tacos, chicken sandwich, chicken and noodles, chicken noodle soup, chicken-chili crispitos, chicken tetrazzini. They served baked chicken! WITH A BONE IN IT!!! Choice of white or dark meat!

I'm surprised we weren't reviving half the student body with smelling salts. It was an historic event.

Side dishes were mashed potatoes with brown gravy, and rice. Yeah. The teacher of the class that cooks and sews but is not called Home Ec had a conniption. Indeed. One of my students remarked that he had mixed his rice in with his mashed potatoes. "Why?" I asked. "Because you were afraid you weren't getting enough carbs?"

The problem with the rice was that it was white rice. No seasoning. Kind of crunchy. And the menu had promised brown rice and gravy, and green beans. Still. Let's leave with a warm, fuzzy feeling because they served chicken. With bones in it.