Author: Tracey

If you never take a risk then you would not have to eat horseradish pizza.
But you also would never have discovered mint guacamole.

And
If you ask for understanding, be careful. You may just get it.

The other day I realized how much my life sucks. Then I remembered, nope! It’s just September again. I’m good.

Our Trip to Scenic Niagara Falls and Points South and East, the highlights:

Day One
Park Ave Fest!
Bought a grippy cover for my iphone- (won’t slide out of my pocket and looks like a golf ball now). The salesperson offered to take my phone number for their records in case I need a warranty. I said, “Uhh, it’s five dollars ? And I don’t live here?” After thinking for a second he looked up and responded, “Oh. Well when you put it that way…”
I went to a park where I was subsequently mobbed by children who decided I was a bad guy that needed to be chased and thrown in jail under the slide.
Had some drinks with the Rochester guys.

Day Two
Everyone has Sophia wallpaper today; she is so cute with that little fist in her mouth.
Got to dunk in the pool with Caroline.
Red Green is one funny guy.
Finished off the day with iron chef, I am SUCH a foodie.

Day Three
Canada!
What accent? All day I tried to place the accent I heard from those who were clearly not tourists. I decide that it is a cross between all the regions around it with some British thrown in for good measure.
It was both rainy and misty around Niagara the actual falls, we got wet in triplicate.
The falls? They were big. And wet. And falling. Actually pretty neat to watch the water falling over and misting up. Like when you see a fire burning how it kind of rises and falls sort of ethereal-looking. Niagara Falls looked like that.
Hotel rooms should all have hot tubs.

Day Four
Butterflies!
We decide to venture out towards the butterfly conservatory. We see maybe a million or maybe umpteen million butterflies in a large room. I watch some of them eat with their weird curly tongues. Dan gets landed on at least twice.
Scenic view of a whirlpool, wouldn’t want to be sucked under out there.
It’s That Clock!
“Ok the best thing about that clock is if you look at it that’s the exact same time I first laid eyes on it…oh well the clock is broken, but still it’s like the best thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life!”
Niagara-on-the-Lake is a picturesque little village.
Historic House- Some dude had to walk home to Niagara Falls from East Greenbush NY.
Cherries and cheese bread at the monument.
Nice dinner in the sky- top floor of some hotel we weren’t staying in.
I decide the accent is very ‘this hour has 22 minutes’.

Day Five
The American Falls are scarier than the Canadian ones because you can get closer to the drop…spooky.
We found an awesome lunchy place which served dirt cheap steak pizza that tasted much much better than dirt.
Dan and I critiqued good art at Albright Knox. Getting rather fond of Mondrian squares.
*sidebar and the title of this post*
Went on an adventure at the recommendation of Chris. In Orchard Park, NY there is a park named Chestnut Ridge Park (follow me so far?) that has a section near it that is not marked as in the actual park but apparently is part of it (still following?)- anyway, this area has a trail head and some maps that say ‘Eternal Flame’ and lead you to a flame burning out in the woods, eternally. We found out after some experimental hiking that the flame is almost exactly at the trail head, only it is not accessible from there. Taking the quick way down a shale rock face would get you hurt or dead. To reach the flame and a cool waterfall, you must hike the blue trail until you are basically in the river bed, then turn around 180 degrees and hike the river bed until you reach the falls. Within the falls themselves (which were low when we saw them) there is a ledge that spouts an actual lit flame about the size of two candles. Would have been so more worth it if we had known how soon to turn around.
*and now back to our story*
Last interesting thing of the day- we saw a bear that was roadkill.

Day Six
Really the only order of business was to see the Corning Glass Museum and get ourselves home.
I absolutely loved the glass museum which I call OMG-glass! Lots of displays on history of glass around the world, in the past and today, different types, and all that. We saw a fiber optics presentation, glass figure making, and glass blowing. The glass blower made a bowl and then, holding it with tongs, offered to let an audience member take it home. He said, “Who would like to come up here right now and take this from me?” as he was speaking his assistant dropped a paper tissue into the bowl which sat for a single second before bursting spectacularly into flame- so they were pulling our legs about giving away the bowl. In reality they break it and reuse it each show. The best part about the glass museum was the glass art. This was easily the best art we’ve seen on any trip. We were lucky enough to see a temporary exhibit owned by a couple who I guess really love glass art. It was some amazing stuff. All different techniques by all different artists. We saw very pure forms, very abstracted forms, straightforward beauty, misshapen beauty, pressed shapes, melted shapes, and glass plus other media (most often metal was incorporated). Every piece drew out interesting conversation by myself and Dan about what we liked and didn’t like. I even bought a small piece made by a local studio. After the glass museum we got a snack and wandered some nearby shops before driving home.

Final Score:
All in all a good trip, despite ridiculous humidity and heat. Dan’s favorite was Niagara-on-the-Lake. My favorite was OMG glass.

I was visiting a friend across town and it was raining. Walking towards me on the sidewalk were two nicely dressed guys (button shirt and tie) but with no raingear. I stopped to offer them an umbrella. They said no but thank you and one of them said I was ‘awesome!’. After talking to me for a minute or two they went on their way.

I watched a Garfield and Friends episode with the funniest US Acres sketch. I transcribed most of it:

(Orson, Booker, and Sheldon walking in the forest)
Sheldon- Orson I’m bored!
Orson- But there’s so much to see out here. There are lakes and trees and flowers and birds and fish and the weasel from last season who keeps trying to eat all our chickens and the sky and butterflies and the squirrels. (Orson stops and they all bump into him) Hang on. Did I mention something about the weasel from last season who keeps trying to eat all our chickens?
Booker- Yeah. Right between the fish and the sky.
Orson- (calmly) That’s what I thought.
all- THE WEASEL!
(from offscreen the weasel lassos them and ties them up in about two seconds)
Orson- Just what do you think you’re doing?
Weasel- My card.
Orson- (reading it) The weasel from last season who keeps trying to eat all our chickens. (to Booker) See I TOLD you.

(in the barnyard near the chicken coop Roy is pacing and grumbling)
Wade- Why so perturb-ed Roy?
Roy- Look at this! Page 7 of the script and they FINALLY got Roy and Wade into it.
Wade- (reading) The Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster… Roy! Is this episode really called The Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster?
Roy- (pulls down the title page from above) Lemme’ check. Yup.
Wade- A- a- an Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster!
Roy- Wade, we haven’t even SEEN him yet.
Wade- He’s ON THE TITLE CARD! That’s good enough for me, HELP! OH, HELP! (runs off)
Roy- I’m gonna call my agent. Page 7 indeed.

(Wade, still running and shouting about the Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster)
Wade- Oh help! (sees the weasel) Are you an incredibly stupid swamp monster?
Weasel- No. My card.
Wade- (reads it) Ohhh…I remember you from last season. (faints)

(Orson, Booker and Sheldon still tied up)
Orson- Oh it’s no use. We’ll never break these ropes. We’ll starve out here and the weasel will get the chickens.
Booker- Things couldn’t get worse.
Sheldon- Don’t say that, Booker.
Booker- Why not?
Sheldon- Because in a cartoon whenever you say ‘things couldn’t get worse’ things ALWAYS get worse.
Orson- How could things possibly be any worse, Sheldon?
Sheldon- Here comes a good example!
all- A swamp monster!
Orson- Can you untie us?
Monster- No, but I can skip rope real good. (unties them and uses the rope as a jumprope)
Orson- He’s how we’re gonna stop the weasel! Come on.

(Roy is on the phone by the chicken coop)
Roy- Whatdaya’ mean this is the only show you can get me on, Bernie? Isn’t Hanna-Barbera casting? Well how about cable? I hear they’re considering doing a funny version of Ren and Stimpy. (Suddenly Roy is captured in a bag by the weasel)
Weasel- Struggle as you will, Rooster. I’m gonna get me some chicken!

(Orson, Booker, and Sheldon come upon Wade who is unconscious)
Orson- Wade, Wade!
Wade- Orson you won’t believe what I thought this episode was called.
(The Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster towers in the background)
Wade- (noticing him) Oh, I knew he’d be along. Well, bye again. (faints)
Orson- He’ll be fine. We have to stop the weasel first!

(Orson, Booker, Sheldon and Monster come upon the weasel carrying a sack)
Weasel- What is this?
Orson- His card.
Weasel- He doesn’t even have a fax number!
Monster- Three and nine is alinumium.
Weasel- Yup, that’s an incredibly stupid swamp monster.
Monster- I love to play with weasels. I’m gonna hug you and pet you. (picks up weasel and pets him rather ungently)
Weasel- No, no. Wait! Save me from this incredibly stupid swamp monster! (runs away)
Wade- (just arriving) Is is it safe?
Orson- Wade, meet our new friend, The Incredibly Stupid Swamp Monster.
Wade- I’m charmed.
Monster- I’m sagittarius. With my temperature rising.
Orson- Lets all go in and have a meal and celebrate our new friend.
Monster- Wasn’t there something else we were supposed to do?
Orson- Relax, I never forget anything.

(later at night, Roy is still in a bag)
Roy- I’m gonna tell Bernie. Two short scenes and then they put me in a bag? I’m walking! Get me on a new show!

A sign for the route 9W has a bolt missing allowing it to swivel. The result? Route M6.

Some friends of mine and I went for a drive past a field near my house. One of them asked me about the marshmallow farm we saw along the way (some bales of hay in white plastic). We talked for a few minutes about whether they were wild marshmallows or planted. I thought they were wild because they were arranged haphazardly, but she didn’t think so. My friend Larry told me later that marshmallows don’t get that big if they are wild. So I guess they must have been grown there intentionally.

On Tuesday I had a good dinner at my house. A bunch of people showed up and brought food and we played fun games. I say my dinner was an Absurdity dinner because that was the original name for the house at which the dinners were always hosted. And it WAS pretty absurd. The line of the night was, “My potatoes came from the ground!” I also liked shouting that the Bombay Sapphire was Romulan Ale. Fun stuff.

I like the Red Green show. Red Green is the name of a guy on the show played by Steve Smith. He’s basically a Canadian hick in a made up town who is the leader of a lodge out in the woods. He and a bunch of other guys like drinking beer, fixing things with duct tape, and being inept outdoorsmen. Red Green’s early inception was as a character on the show Smith and Smith. I recently found clips of his early stuff. I liked one of the monologues so I transcribed it:

Well how’re you doin’ there? I guess you can kinda tell it’s ah, huntin’ season right up here at the lodge (guns in the background drown out his words)
Oh fer…
It’s huntin’ season up here and you know alot of the guys are out there right now trying to trying, givin’ a shot at gettin’ a couple a deer. Then they can pull outa here on Sunday night with a couple hundred pounds of venison you know? Take her on home there, give it all to the brother in law, course he’ll freeze it all up and then throw it in the garbage. And believe me that’s where I’d like to be myself.
But I thought it was more important here that I take a couple a minutes and talk just talk about gun safety.
Because well personally I don’t see how you can be safe without a gun.
I guess most important thing about gun safety is- try to keep your gun clean and dry. Or at the very least dry. The firing chamber now is the chamber where the firing is done- sometimes called the bosses office. You get corrosion and dirt and sometimes a cheese sandwich in there. Really the best way to keep that clean is acourse’ to store the gun with a bullet right in there- just put the bullet in there.
Here’s something I can warn ya about: Stinky Peterson. And also don’t hang loaded guns on the fireplace. These are not loaded back here. (points at the guns over the mantle) We used to keep em’ loaded up and then last fall someone came in here with an emergency case. And acourse’ we drank it. We had a big fire going you know and the chimney got kinda hot and the gall darn guns blew the drapes off. So it was a heck of a time in here.
Another thing too; one of the problems with storing them like that is when you get a gun out you don’t know if it’s loaded or not. The best way to check for that acourse’ is to just take a shot at somethin’ you don’t really care about. Be careful on the tar- on on what ya choose to shoot at though. Last fall now Moose Thompson, he picked a target and it was about ten feet in front of him. I think it was a boulder. Yeah. Yeah it was a boulder and jeez he got her dead center- fantastic shot.
Moose isn’t bad from ten feet. His wife you need to get a little bit farther back. But from ten feet he can hit most anything. Unfortunately he killed the boulder and he took most of it home in his leg. Then the next day Junior Singleton now he was out and he shot a tree and the darn thing fell on him. So just be careful on the target you pick.
Another thing too is I guess just one last thing is a farmer’s fence. You know you’re out there huntin’ and ya come to a farmer’s fence. It’s very dangerous to climb a farmer’s fence or anything of a farmer’s really with a loaded gun but especially a farmer’s fence. In fact what we do is we all just hop in the jeep and drive right through the sucker. Farmer gives ya any hassle just shoot one of his cows. (looks at his wrist) Oh jeez, I see it’s time for me to be savin’ up for a watch. I guess the boys are gonna come bustin’ in here lookin’ for supper so I’d guess I better go find the bottle opener. I’ll just say take her easy and keep your stick on the ice.

Sunburned skin peels off. That does not make you a snake.
I did however smack Dan. My excuse is that I thought he was a mosquito. This is a true story. No Dans were harmed in the making of this story. Really. He’s fine.

Crimes:
Love and spoon theft

Sentence:
Hanging by the heart until dead

Rest in Peace?
probably not

From an old movie when I was a kid- A couple puppets and a patchwork elephant are stuck in a jail cell. Someone says to the elephant:
Use your noodle!
To which he replies:
Oh is that what this is? (holds up trunk)

An episode of flying fairy school- The kids create a macaroni dinosaur which begins to destroy the classroom. Their teacher says:
Use your noodles!
One of them answers:
Using noodles is what got us into this mess in the first place!

Whenever I see Michael Jeter in something I shout:
Hey it’s Mr. Noodle’s brother Mr. Noodle!