I take a lot of photos while driving around town. Usually when stopped in traffic or walking. I have been known to take a picture or two while driving but I don’t recommend it.

I took this picture earlier this summer, I wasn’t really thinking blog at the time but I knew I had to have a picture of this. It’s been sitting on my desk top for a while now and I decided to make it into a contest.

I don’t have any prizes.

But, it’s pretty easy.

Where do you think I was when I took this picture?

(You will have to embiggen to get the full picture of what’s happening here)

Wait a minute, I do have a prize. The winner will receive a free month membership on Tribal Blogs, the coolest and funnest blog network out there.

This heat is killing me.  The worst part? We aren’t even breaking any records. It’s hot, but not OMFG I’m so hot I will melt if I stand still outside.

My bedroom doesn’t have A/C. In fact my bedroom is probably the warmest room in the house which is why the youngest child and the dog pile into bed with me each night.  My daughter’s room is in the attic, it is OMFG hot up there but she has an A/C unit in her window. She just doesn’t like it.

The dog is a pussy and won’t go anywhere in the house alone anymore. Thank you all you people who light off firecrackers, I really appreciate it.

Prior to everyone else joining me it isn’t that bad. I have a ceiling fan and it does a nice job of keeping the air moving. Add a kid and a furry dog and suddenly the fan is just spreading warm air around, and gas, the dog has a lot of gas.

So I get up and go into the living room and sleep on the couch. Which means I watch TV at 2 o’clock in the morning. Because I can.

There is nothing good on TV at 2am. Nothing.

I try to fall asleep but the couch is really uncomfortable as a bed. It’s great as a place to sit but not to lie down. The dog hair doesn’t help the situation.

So I go back to my bedroom, try to move both of them out of my space and give it a try again.

I end up watching TV again (I have a TV in my bedroom and usually set the timer to fall asleep to it).

I get up and go back to the living room.

Where I watch TV again. I watch some cable news channel and see a story about Microsoft Tone. Kinda like Spellcheck and Grammarcheck but this one checks the tone of voice in your emails. I laugh because if I used this it would never let me send anything because I always have a ‘tone’.

I can’t remember being this uncomfortable when sleeping except for when I was in the last month of pregnancy, that time when you really need your sleep because it won’t be happening again for several years.

I’ve called a guy about installing central air. When I had the furnace replaced a couple of years ago we made sure it had some little doohicky so it was all ready to have the A/C installed when it came time. Last year it was 74 and perfect all summer long. The guy will be here later this week to give me  a proper bid.

I am sure that once it is installed the weather will settle into something like 74 and sunny for the rest of the season. But at least I will finally get some sleep.

My boy has spent the last week house sitting at his dad’s, while they are on vacation.

I miss my son.

A lot.

At first, I didn’t think it would be a bad thing, less laundry to wash, fewer dishes in the sink, and no bickering between the kids.

It hasn’t worked out that way except for the laundry part. The boy still stops by the house on his way to and from work to eat a little something.  In those few moments he is home he manages to pick on his sister just long enough for her to get all worked up for the rest of the day.

I still miss him.  Usually when he is here he is downstairs in his boycave, doing boy things, but I know he is here.

And that gives me comfort.

I’m not so much worried about him as I am just missing his company. I figure, if he gets into any trouble at his dad’s house it is his dad’s problem.

I keep thinking about a mother duck and her ducklings. The duck walks along with her babies following behind. She lets them wander off a little but always has an eye on them and if she gets too far ahead they come running, or waddling, to catch up to her. And then sometimes they fall into a grate and the mother duck freaks out until someone comes along and pulls the duckling out from the sewer.

I miss him so much that mentally remodeling his room no longer makes me happy.

He comes home tomorrow and I can’t wait.

What am I going to do when he goes to college in a year?

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As much of the country has, we have been getting rained on quite a bit. We’ve also had a fair amount of humidity. And it really sucks.

Apparently it sucks much worse for my cat.

That is not my cat but I, the woman who blogs about just about anything, didn’t bother to take a picture.

Let me explain.

This past weekend it was tropical. Yucky, sticky, unbearable humidity. The kind where half an hour after you take a shower you are asking yourself if you forgot to put on deodorant.

And then we had tornadoes.

With lots and lots of lightening.

Stanley, the bassador, hates thunderstorms. He hides under my desk and gets tangled in all the cords. We manage to cope.

Dini, the cat, never seemed to care about thunderstorms, loud noises or little girls who hug her and squeeze her and call her ‘George’. Dini always went with the flow of things. ‘Chillaxin’ could have been her middle name if it wasn’t already ‘shut up’.

Not this weekend. Something happened, I don’t know what it was, but the cat was acting kinda funny.

I walked into the kitchen to see her sitting by the back door. A place she spends a lot of time, usually at 2am, because she likes to go in and out of the house.

She was sitting there all normal except she was fluffy. Really fluffy. Her hackles were raised but so was the rest of her hair. She looked just like she would had she taken a spin in the dryer.

I really wish I had taken a picture.

Instead I called my son up from his room to take a look at the cat. We both stood there and laughed at the cat who got a little irritated with us and walked into the living room.

She sat in the middle of the living room, fluffy, and stared at the floor. She looked as if she was sleeping, and she could have been. She has been known to fall asleep sitting up.

I tried to pet her hair down but it just kept popping back up.

I was a little worried about her because this had never happened before, at least to my knowledge. For all I knew the cat got fluffy each day but I just missed it.

For a moment I thought about calling her vet but realized it was Saturday night and I would have to call the emergency clinic to talk to anyone.

And really what was I going to say?

“Hi, my cat’s all fluffy, is that normal?”

She wasn’t doing anything else strange, she wasn’t breathing heavy or fast, she was just really fluffy.

Eventually the hair raising ended and all was fine. The dog was still wedged under my desk but there was nothing I could do about that. He would come out when the sirens stopped blaring.

Yesterday I was still wondering about the fluffy cat thing. I thought about Googling it but I have been watching too much of the OCD Project and have started to pick up their phobias, one of which is if you Google something it becomes true. Which doesn’t really work here because the cat had already been fluffy but for some reason I was apprehensive about asking Google.

So I asked a few friends who laughed their asses off at me.

And then they suggested, no, they actually goaded me, to call my vet.

Which I did.

Me: Hi, um, my cat was really fluffy the other night and I just wondered if that is something I should be worried about. She isn’t fluffy anymore, it went away.

Vet nurse lady: Is this a joke? Your cat was fluffy?

Me: No, it’s not a joke, she was really fluffy, like she had just gotten out of the dryer.

Vet nurse lady: Was she in the dryer?

Me: Of course not.

I explained the whole fluffy cat thing just like I did for you guys

Vet nurse lady: I don’t know why your cat was fluffy but I am going to have the doctor give you a call.

Now I felt stupid. This vet nurse lady was going to tell the doctor about my fluffy cat and have her call me. Obviously if the vet nurse lady had never encountered this problem before then the doctor wasn’t likely to know about it either. It was at this point I decided the cat had been fucking with me.

A few minutes later the vet called back, unfortunately the vet nurse lady hadn’t explained the fluff and I had to explain all over again. Or maybe she had and the vet just wanted to hear me say it. I don’t know but she too was laughing.

Vet: Did you take a picture?

Me: No, I was too busy laughing at the cat to think of taking a picture.

Vet: That’s too bad, that would have made a great picture. You could have sent it to those LOLCats people.

Me: So what’s wrong with her?

Vet: I don’t know.If she starts acting strange or displays other odd behavior you can bring her in. If she gets fluffy again be sure to take a picture.

This vet does not know I blog.

So that was it. I have no answer, I don’t know why the cat was fluffy and worse, I don’t know how to make her do it again so I can take a picture.

This has been a crappy summer. If it isn’t raining, which it usually is, it’s too hot and humid to go outside.  And we aren’t getting rain in small increments, we’re getting rain in 2 inch downpours. So that means my grass is still really dry because when it rains it all runs into the street and eventually into the river.

Because of all the rain I have had children inside my house for the last 6 weeks. Lots of children, or at least it seems that way when they take over the living room with their Webkinz, Barbies and Beanie Babies.

Because of all the children I have spent my days cooking, or at least preparing food, cleaning, and nagging. I haven’t had a lot of time for the internet though I am trying.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t really have anything to write about today but felt it was important to say something. I actually considered lying and telling you that my computer was on the fritz but that would be lying and when I lie I get all red in the face and you can tell I’m lying. So I didn’t do that, my computer works just fine. Of course, now I have jinxed it.

Anyway, while I try to come up with something interesting to say please head on over to some of these blogs to read something entertaining.

The Mother has been writing about motherhood and all things women and medicine for some time now, this series is so entertaining and informative you will need to take some time to take it all in. Her Nefarious History of Motherhood is an ongoing series chronicling the wild and wacky history of obstetrics and gynecology. You will be thankful you live in today’s modern world.

Superficial Gallery is holding a contest that you might find to be a lot of fun called Picture Perfect.

If you are like me you probably haven’t read or seen the any of the Twilight movies, that’s okay because the Fledgling Blogger tells you all about it.

Jennifer has unveiled this years Chipmunk Hotel. It’s quite stunning and makes me feel horrible that I reach for my slingshot rather than build a five star hotel for the rodents in my backyard.

I don’t consider myself a creative writer, I’m just not that…creative. However there are two bloggers I know who are participating in Magpie Tales and they are wonderful. The Cat Lady and From Roses to Rainbows. Both are wonderful writers, I wish I had their talent.

The Tribal Blogs redo is still underway, I am sorry it is taking longer than I originally thought it would. It will be worth the extended wait and I will tell you all about it as soon as I can.

There are trends that come and go in the music business, the Auto-Tune is an extremely popular trend these days. And it would be nice if some would give it a rest. I’d actually like to hear what your real voice sounds like. But this post isn’t about that. No, this post is about songs with great drum solos and songs that are basically just a three minute orgasm.

Let me be the first to say that my musical exposure was not that great. We had one top 40 radio station when I was a kid and that is what we all listened to. I wasn’t a stoner so I didn’t listen to better rock music. I tried but it usually gave me a headache. So when you make fun of my choices in music, keep that in mind.

Also, since when can’t we embed videos? Did I miss the memo?

Drum Solos

Everyone has their favorite kick ass drum solo, and I certainly want to hear yours, but I think we can all agree that the following songs have drum solos that are show stoppers. I am a kick ass drummer in the car whenever one of these bad boys comes on the radio. Thankfully, I can drive with my knees while banging out the solos.

In The Air Tonight by Phil Collins (Solo 3:18)

Jack and Diane by John Cougar, back before he insisted on being John Mellencamp (Solo 2:31)

Wipe Out by The Ventures (Solo is the whole fucking song)

My Kind of Lover by Billy Squier (the solo is played throughout the whole song)

I know there are way more but as I was writing this there were six guys on my roof banging nails and yelling things in Spanish. It’s incredibly difficult to get your kick ass drum solo on when you can’t think and you are worried about immigration showing up.

I wanted to include something from Def Leppard but I couldn’t find any one song that had a great drum solo, all of their songs have great drums in them, especially when you consider their drummer only has one arm. I’m including this because it’s a great song and it should be a part of the RSB over at IDoThings.

Pour Some Sugar On Me by Def Leppard

On to the orgasms

Love To Love You Baby by Donna Summer

You have to watch this video just to see the horrible dancers in the background, Donna isn’t that great either.

Touch Me by Samantha Fox

This actually has a pretty good drum solo in it too. You might need some tissues after this one.

Could it be Magic by Barry Manilow

Don’t laugh, just listen to the lyrics. Also, the plastic surgery was a really good thing.

Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye

Come on Get Higher by Matt Nathanson (2:02 if you don’t want to watch the whole thing)

Is it just me or does everyone want to pull that thing out of his nose?

You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC

More talk than action but still belongs in this category, because it is a most awesome song.

Cream by Prince

Actually any song by Prince is about orgasms.

The Stroke by Billy Squier

This is more about hand jobs but he still blows his wad at the end so it works.

In my search of Billy Squier videos I ran across Rock Me Tonite and have decided that this is when Billy jumped the shark.

So those are mine, what are yours?