Danielisms

I need to write down the way Daniel says words, before he learns the right way and I forget these!

sandwich= scramwitch
hamburger= hangaburger
invisible= invisibibble

I know there are more, I'll add as I remember.

Arrrrrrrgh!

These are for Nutty Buddy. From the Clyde and Seamore show at Sea World.

Bats in the Belfry

Call me She-Ra!

Saturday evening, I was gone at a Bunco game with my friends. Doug and Daniel were having a movie night at home. Doug noticed the cats were very interested in our fireplace. Turns out there was a little bat that had somehow fallen down the chimney. He opened the flue, but kept the outer glass doors shut, in the hopes that it would climb its way back out.

By the next morning, it still hadn't escaped. Doug took Daniel with him on an errand, and I put Nick down for his nap. As I was sitting here at the laptop not 3 feet from the fireplace, I saw the bat clawing his way across the front glass doors. I shoved the cats outside, so they wouldn't get in my way. Then I put on a long sleeved fleece, two oven mitts and a baseball cap, took Daniel's Elefun game net (link to picture) and verrrrrry slowly opened the doors. I trapped it against the fireplace wall, slid one oven mitt between the wall and the net, and proudly carried my angry squeaking trophy outside. After walking halfway across the (large) yard, I basically threw everything and ducked. Whereupon, the furry little stinker promptly flew back up to the chimney!

Here's hoping the bugger doesn't fall again, but if it does, I'm not worried. Me She-Ra, me brave, me take care of measly little bat!

July 4th, 2008

At the hotel pool while we were in Disney World.

Oops!

I got taken! The post below, about brass monkeys, is FALSE according to Snopes. Shame on me! I usually check any of those email stories out, but this one sounded so plausible that I got suckered. Here's the facts:

http://www.snopes.com/language/stories/brass.asp

Brass Monkeys

(Sorry I've been such a slacker about posting lately! Here's a neat one my dad sent me.)

Cannon Balls

It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on old war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem. The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid with one ball on top resting on four resting on nine which rested on sixteen. Thus a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon.

There was only one problem -- how to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others. The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations called a Monkey. But if this plate were made of iron the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problem was to make Brass Monkeys.

Few landlubbers realize that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently when the temperature dropped too far the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus it was quite literally cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And all this time you thought that was a vulgar expression didn't you? You must send this fabulous bit of historical knowledge to at least a few and unsuspecting friends.

Finished!

Here's the final product. The sea creatures are all wall stickers, I can't take credit for them. We have seahorses and shells coming in the mail still. (In case you were wondering, the A in the corner is his easel.) The headboard of the bed is the back of his old crib. I'm so pleased with how everything came out. I keep going in there and just looking around! (Sorry for the slight fuzziness...the pictures are clear when printed, and on my computer, I just can't seem to get the size right on here to make them clear. If you click on the picture, you can see more detail.)