bird dog

From our Word of the Day feed

bird dog noun
1. one of any of various breeds of dogs trained to hunt or retrieve birds.
2. Informal . a person hired to locate special items or people, especially a talent scout who seeks out promising athletes.
3. Slang . a person who steals another person's date.

---

My pop used to raise bird dogs, even taking them to trials and winning trophies. I've got some old home movies around here of the last hunting dog he owned, along with her litter of puppies but I haven't transferred any of them to digital yet. (I'm sure my home movies would really drive up the traffic to this blog!)

I've never known a person who fit the second definition and heaven knows I was never a good enough athlete to be bird-dogged.

I AM familiar with the slang term, though, because I was a bird dog when I met my ex-wife for the first time. Some home town boys brought their dates by my house and my roommate and I got the boys drunk and after they passed out we moved in on their women. Looking back, we shouldn't have done it...not because it was a despicable thing to do (all's fair in love and war, after all) but because neither my or my roomie's relationship with the girls turned out well. Oh well.

When I first saw the word in the widget module for today, the first thing I thought of was this old tune. It came out a long time before this concert, but it was the best YouTube had to offer.

Bird Dog - Everly Brothers (live 1983)

#WishMeLuck

Do you do Twitter? I do, but I don't tweet. (a "tweet" is a post, just in case you don't know)  I signed up for an account mainly to follow a few people/organizations, two being Alton Brown and the Dallas Cowboys. I've followed others, but the constant, multiple re-tweets from other followers drive me crazy so I've un-followed nearly everyone else.

I am a huge fan of Alton Brown and his work on The Food Network and his tweets are sometimes funny, sometimes full of snark but usually both.  He often tweets a reply to a question with an uploaded photo of his answer on a sticky note, almost always good for a smile.   I noticed a *"hashtag" #WishMeLuck  on one of his posts and clicked on the link.

*(from the site- Definition: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. It was created organically by Twitter users as a way to categorize messages.)

I almost wish I hadn't.  Most were mundane, one of the main reasons I don't follow many on Twitter:

Gonna try to sleep early tonight #wishmeluck

Driving lessons with daddey :) #wishmeluck

(I realize most tweets are done on a phone and typos are frequent, but "daddey" need to give her some spelling lessons)

Some were a little sad, even though I didn't know the people:

Surgery got moved to tomorrow #wishmeluck

Surgery tomorrow #wishmeluck

Got Tommy John surgery tomorrow. #wishmeluck

2 surgeries in 1 tomorrow #wishmeluck

I don't know the demographics of Twitter, but I would wager the service is mostly used by young people because there was a lot of angst about school. With some of these tweets, there's no wonder there's angst.

Looks like I'm winging this exam tomorrow. #WishMeLuck

im gonna actually try to study rn for the first time since like 5th grade #WishMeLuck

Memorizing Romeo & Juliet prologue in one night #WishMeLuck

I find out if I got into UGA tomorrow night... #wishmeluck

Gonna go bomb my chemistry midterm. #wishmeluck

Hopin for the best on these exams lmao #WishMeLuck

Early night, I have an exam tomorrow, #WishMeLuck

One exam tomorrow at 10am then my stresses about science is over!!! .... At least until January #wishmeluck

If I can make it to school tomorrow it will be my 3rd time this year making it a full week #wishmeluck

There were a lot of tweets about jobs, either starting them, applying for or interviewing for them:

Wellll, just sent in my application to be a Flight Attendent #wishmeluck

Got My First Job Interview Tomorrow #WishMeLuck

Bout to go get interviewed at chilies!! #wishmeluck

All ready for my interview!:) #WishMeLuck

applied at Maurice's #wishmeluck

Just turned in my TEC application #wishmeluck

And some were really funny; I think I'd like to know more about them...or maybe I wouldn't:

Teaching mom how to follow people on twitter was hard enough, now she has an Instagram. #wishmeluck

Setting my alarm for 6:40 so I can get up and attempt to look cute tomorrow #wishmeluck

Drinking till my mouth doesn't hurt anymore #wishmeluck

first tattoo #wishmeluck

About to shave my fur off #wishmeluck

Helen is gonna try to shower #wishmeluck

And my personal favorite of the bunch; he sounds desperate, using quite a few hashtags:

Court in the am  #wishmeluck #praying #pleasedropcharges #missmycannabis

Skinner's Guilt Confirmed

So says the Texas Attorney General:

Abbott says DNA testing confirms Skinner's guilt in murders - Houston Chronicle

Being Green

From the archives:

Being Green...

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.

The woman apologized and explained, "We didn't have this green thing back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

She was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were truly recycled.

But we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags, that we reused for numerous things, most memorable besides household garbage bags, was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our schoolbooks. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags.

But too bad we didn't do the green thing back then.

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throwaway kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy-gobbling machine burning up 220 volts -- wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.  We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the green thing back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint.

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smart-ass young person.

We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

Bug in the Frosting

When I got a post in my reader from one of my favorite recipe sites, I did a double-take. What sort of monster bug was in her kitchen?

It didn't seem to have any eyes, but that didn't make it any less frightening.  I then thought that might be the rear end of the bug...even more frightening!

Then I scrolled down to see all the photo.

Whew!

Visit Cooking Classy for some great recipes!