Tuesday Stuff

Hello.

You don't really want to see more Oktoberfest pictures, do you? Of course you don't. However, it's all I have this week, and even I'm tired of looking at Oktoberfest pictures. So let's just chat.

Place Day:

As I was heading down the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway Saturday on my way up the mountain to Oktoberfest, I plugged up my iPod and started listening to music. Here were the first five songs it played:

Memphis Thing, Rob Jungklas
El Paso, The Gourds
Baker Street, Gerry Rafferty
Gallows Pole, Alvin Youngblood Hart
Mercy Seat, Nick Cave

Yes, it was Place Day on the old iPod. I'm perfectly willing to admit the last two are places we wouldn't necessarily want to visit, but places anyway. Sometimes I wonder if my iPod really does have a brain.

My Sister's Going To Prison:

I like to read the headlines on cnn.com at work. Most of the time, the headlines are all I get to read, because so many of their stories are video and not plain old as-God-intended text.

So I was reading down the headlines the other day and saw one concerning Nancy Grace's favorite topic of conversation, Casey Anthony. As you may or may not know, she's the girl in Florida with the missing daughter, who has lied over and over to the police and been arrested and released five or six times. Now, I don't know if she killed her child, I don't know that I want to know, but I know she's up to something. And actually, that's all I want to know as far as that story goes. There is one thing about this whole story that drives me crazy though, I mean, one thing that drives me crazy besides the fact that it's really up to the police to figure this out instead of the American Public At Large.

And that thing is that the press constantly refers to Casey Anthony as "Tot Mom." Boy, God Jesus Lord Have Mercy, do I hate that.

Anyway, as I was reading headlines, I came upon a headline - attached to a video, of course, so I couldn't continue with it - "Tot Mom Calls Daughter Snot Head."

Now.

As I said, I don't know what she did or didn't do, but for God's sake, if people are going to be suspects of the police for calling their kids Snot Head, I think we're going to need to start building some more jails, and pronto.

I was telling my sister about it later that day, and she replied, "I've called Taylor Bird Doo Head for 19 years. I guess I should go turn myself in right now."

A Solution!

I think I have finally found a way around my video woes. It's a long story, and not very interesting, but I downloaded a trial version of another video editing program. It's quite difficult but I'm learning, and even if I don't learn, when I save videos in that program I can import them into Movie Maker and they contain - gasp! - both audio and video.

And so, there is a new movie at the Comfy Chair Cinema. Or will be, as soon as it gets finished processing. It's exceedingly silly and rather embarrassing, but around the Comfy Chair, that's pretty much par for the course.

An Answer!

Speaking of the Comfy Chair, I forgot to give you the answer to the trivia question there on the site. LilyG did notice the inclusion of my foot during a good deal of "A Moveable Feast," but that was not the screaming gaffe I was asking about. In fact, the title is where the mistake lies. As the movie starts, the title appears: "A Moveable Feast." As the movie ends, the credits roll, calling the movie "The Sandwich of Destiny." And that, my friends, is called not paying attention.

Recipe du jour:

And yes, friends, we finally have a recipe du jour for you. As stated early in the weekend, it's a guest recipe, not only thought up but also created by Betland friend Duke (of comments). He's a creative fellow, Duke, and I'd like to introduce his recipe, from the "Makes Life Easy" file at cardland, Hamburger Helper.





















Yes, there they are. They're hamburgers, and they're prepared to start helping at a moment's notice.

Thanks, Duke!

(And thanks, Mr M, who fixed the titling at the top of the card, because I still haven't learned the ins and outs of the new version of Paint Shop Pro. And I fear I never will.)

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! So, tell me about Oktoberfest....
- Honorable Mention goes to DeepFatFriar, with his "Phucking Oktoberfest! Thui! Thui! Oktoberfest? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaGGGH!" (The Friar was very fond of this acro, since he used it three times.)
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her "Play on, trumpets, trombones. Oktoberfest approaches."
- And winner also goes to LilyG, who was just churning out the great acros this week, with her, "Put on that tired old apron." And that pretty much sums up how I feel every year about this time. (And my apron is tired.) (And threadbare.)
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well!

Acrochallenge!

Hello, lovers of letters. Welcome to another round of acromania.

We're going to have a little schedule shift this week. I'd planned Picture Sunday for tonight, but just haven't had the time to get it going. So let's go ahead with acro tonight, Picture Sunday on Tuesday, then hopefully I can come up with a blog for Wednesday.

What has me running around with no time? Well, Sauerkraut Band, of course. It is that very bewitching time of year when I don a dirndl and play German music. All over the damn place. So why not? This week's acrotopic is "Oktoberfest!"

All the rules are the same. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronym they can that not only matches to the topic above, but also the letters below. The letters are randomly drawn from the acrobasket. The acrobasket isn't much on Oktoberfest, but he likes the occasional beer. Then tomorrow night at 10:00 est I shall be reading the entries and naming the winners.

So the topic, "Oktoberfest!" The letters:

P O T T O A

Blecch. There you go - you might want a beer before you start that acro.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Hold your breath, gang, I may have found a solution to my Comfy Chair cinema problem. Will explain more tomorrow.

Weekend Blogs Delayed

Hello, weekend-enjoyers. No, there's not a great technical disaster, I just realized that I'm going to be gone all weekend. A Sunday night Sauerkraut Band gig will not only keep me from the season premiere of "The Amazing Race," but also from doing a Picture Sunday.

Do not fear!

I'll be back at the beginning of the week. I will do a Picture Sunday for you then. And recipes du jour? Well, someone took me up on my plea for recipe ideas, and not only came up with an idea, but made the recipe card for me! Now that's the kind of initiative I like.

On the homefront, I'm still floundering around in Comfy Chair Cinema hell. After coming up with a really silly idea for a movie and making the clips, I'm finding that all those fixes I read about in the "Vista's Movie Maker Hates The Flip Digital Camera" debacle have not been the miracle cure for me they have for others. Movie Maker has become a space-wasting hulk of program, and so I've been trying out other movie-editing programs to see if they're viable.

I've found one, but, to be honest, it's so damn hard I worked for an hour last night and only managed to get one 15-second clip and a title in the timeline. But then I'm generally pretty slow on the uptake in this area.

Now a second problem has appeared. My Flip doesn't even seem to want to upload the raw clips into my computer. Is it the camera? Is it Vista? Is it me? Well, I don't know who it is, but boy did I feel dumb at about 3:30 this morning. Then I decided to stop feeling dumb and blame it on the first two of the above.

Anyway, as Mr M always says, "I'll figure it out." But until I do, if anyone knows anything about codecs, movie-editing programs, Flip digital cameras, or just likes to talk to nice women, please give me a shout.

Stay tuned for more fun and frivolity in a few days. Until then, Ein Prosit.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* However! Head over the Comfy Chair's way for a second, and see if you can play the (one question) trivia quiz.
* First debate over. John McCain, Mr NonCongeniality (so he says), held Bob Dole's pen and managed to work "war hero," "maverick," and "my running mate" into the mix. I was afraid Barack was being way too nice to him, thus letting him run the show, until I started reading the reviews. And I sighed.

Bad Blogger

Yep, that's me. I'm a bad blogger.

Owing to a few minutes of sleep on Monday night, I came home Tuesday and fell flat-ass asleep in the Comfy Chair. I swore that before I headed bedward I'd at least name the acrowinners. I didn't.

Then I swore that I'd at least name the acrowinners on my lunch hour Wednesday. I didn't.

I went to band practice Wednesday night, and leads us smack dab into today.

And I'm going to name the acrowinners, dammit! (And don't think for a minute that you, the acroing public, don't deserve better. I know you do.)

Anyway, I wish I had something of note to tell you, but I don't. Oh, wait. Actually, I do.

Since the old computer-new computer changeover, I seem to have lost the ability to make movies with my Flip camcorder. I mean, I can make them just fine, but they don't seem to like to coordinate with Windows Movie Maker.

Instead of importing into a Movie Maker project as a video with audio file, they import as an audio file. Yes, I get sound but no visual. I've scratched my head, cursed, and tried everything I can think of to change it, but so far I'm coming up zeros.

So unless I have a Eureka! moment this weekend, Comfy Chair movies will be put on hold. I'll keep trying, though. For you, the discerning viewer.

Now those acrowinners.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! So, where would you like to see Sherman?
- Honorable Mention goes to Kellie (with an ie), with her "In Nissan, Red, Entering Rockwall, Texas."
- Runner-Up goes to DeepFatFriar, with his "In New River enjoying rapids tubing."
- And this week's winner is LilyG, with her "Inside nuclear reactor, eating radioactive Twinkies." This wins because Sherman would eat radioactive Twinkies. For the taste and the glow.
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well!

Acrochallenge!

Hello, lovers of letters, lovers of life. It's Monday, and that means it's time for another round of acromania.

Well, thanks to those who weighed in on the "Where's Sherman" Picture Sunday. I had fun doing it, and if no one really hated it, I'd like to do it again sometime. I'm still waiting for recipe du jour ideas as well.

Anyway, tonight's acrochallenge: "Where Would You Like To See Sherman?"

In a coalfield on top of a handcart? In a blue sink in Grandma's bathroom? You tell me, as long it matches the letters.

All the rules are the same. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acro they can that not only matches the topic above, but also the letters below. The letters are randomly drawn from the acrobasket. The acrobasket wants to see Sherman in Des Moines, sitting on an old woman's lap. But the acrobasket's weird that way. Then tomorrow night at 10:00 est I shall be reading the entries and naming the winners.

Again, the acrotopic - "Where Would You Like To See Sherman?" The letters:

I N R E R T

Yes, "inert" with an extra R. Now, get out your maps and acro.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Where's Sherman answers!
1. Starbucks
2. McDonalds, lying on the "enter here" sign
3. Community Band practice (I would have accepted "with a band," or even "in a high school," for that matter)
4. 7-11 (mmmm, weenies!)
5. Applebees
6. Seeing the Hackensaw Boys
7. Virginia Tech (Kellie had an "in" on that one, and even knew the exact spot, which - I did not! I call that "the overpass")
8. At Graham High School, my (and Taytie's) alma mater.
* So kudos to Kellie with an ie, and to Lily for honing in on 7-11, and to Michelle the dishy for chiming in as well.

Picture Sunday

Hello, end of weekenders, and welcome back to Picture Sunday.

It's been a wild weekend - well, wild in one respect only. Last night was the official opening of Oktoberfest at Mountain Lake. So I was in my (now very tight) dirndl with Sauerkraut Band, whooping it up and playing German music. The same German music I've played year after year after year. Really, Ed - a new tune or so every now and then?

Anyway, it was fun, but it was the oddest thing. You know, I was off seeing the Hackensaw Boys in B'burg on Thursday. Now, as you know, normally the day after seeing the Hackensaw Boys I can only limp around the house because I've danced myself silly. Well, I didn't dance myself silly Thursday, though I did stand and bop around throughout, but I was fine on Friday morning.

This morning, after standing during every song of our performance, I'm so tired and sore I can barely walk. Now, it's not mandatory to stand during the numbers, especially for clarinet players, but that's just the kind of gals we are. Not to be outdone by the standing trumpets, we stood, too. But I think I need to spend this week practicing standing, from the time I get home till I go to bed.

Anyway, I was completely useless today, and when I say useless, I mean I wasted this entire day, didn't even get out my pajamas until about 6 pm. And so for that reason the recipe du jour I've been promising you for weeks now will not appear tonight, either. Yes, the recipe du jour - Promise Never Fulfilled.

In fact, here's a challenge - I'm a little recipe du joured out, so how about some suggestions from you? I asked for some quite a long time ago and you all came through with flying colors. Put on your thinking caps and send me a few more.

However, my friends and blogees, do not assume that because I was a complete and total lazyass today that there are no pictures in Picture Sunday. For this is not the case! I may have had no internet last Sunday, but I had my Picture Sunday layout all ready to go. So it shall appear tonight.

Remember the kids' phenomena a while back, "Where's Waldo?" Picture after picture of crowds of people, and we were to pick little Waldo, in his hat, out of the crowd? Well, how about a variation on that? This week's Picture Sunday is the "Where's Sherman?" Edition.

No, you don't have to pick Sherman out of a crowd. That would be way too easy. Instead, I have taken pictures of Sherman out and about. You have to tell me where Sherman is in each picture. Sometimes the answers will be very specific, the name of an actual place. Sometimes they will be rather generalized. You'll get the idea as we go along.

And yes, this is a competition, so you may wager, and a winner will be named tomorrow night in the acrochallenge blog.

Let's go!

We'll start you off with an easy one. Picture One. Where's Sherman?

























Picture Two. Where's Sherman?

























Picture Three. Where's Sherman?

























Picture Four. Where's Sherman?




















Picture Five. Where's Sherman?

























Picture Six. Where's Sherman?
























Picture Seven. Where's Sherman?


















Picture Eight. Where's Sherman?




















OK, folks, there you go. Where you do think Sherman is? Just let me know via comments, and we'll see how good you did. And a helpful hint. If you're stumped on one, it might help to click on the picture and get a closeup. I'll say no more.

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* You know, I've been ragging Sarah Palin for giving the same speech over and over (and over), and rightly so, but has anyone noticed that no matter where McCain speaks, even at one of his so-called "town meetings," he's always reading from notes? I know he's old and perhaps has no memory left, but can't he at least speak off the cuff?

Pity Party Pooper

Hello, friends and neighbors. Well, well, well. Look who's back online. Yes, it's been a harrowing five days, but our long national nightmare is now over.

It all started Friday night when I noticed I had a distinct lack of connection to the internet. It went on for a couple of hours and I got antsy, so I decided to call the Comcast Bastards and they said, "Nope, we're not having an outage in your area. In fact, we're not having an outage on your street. It's you, my dear, you're all broken." Then they told me they could send someone right out to fix it, if you consider Tuesday "right out," which of course I didn't. Made no difference that I didn't, that was the day, and so I've been internetless for five days.

You have to understand a little of what this was like for me. Both Friday night and all day Saturday I was still full of infection and bee venom and I really didn't feel like doing much, and certainly didn't feel like going anywhere. When one doesn't want to go out and has already watched the home college football team play, it's frequent trips to the internet or, well, or coloring, which is what I did for hours on end Saturday.

I felt a little better, well, physically better, on Sunday, so I got out, headed to the office to post Sunday's blog (I haven't been fired yet for that), and had to make a little foray to WalMart because, as always happens at the worst of times, the hose leading from my toilet tank to the water cutoff had begun to leak. It was a task I truly did not want to deal with, but that's something you just don't ignore, especially when there's a towel under the spot that gets wet enough that you have to change to a new towel, which also gets wet enough to change.

So I did those things, bought those things, and came home. Since it was still light outside and therefore light inside, I decided to work a little on an idea I had for a Comfy Chair Cinema. That took a good three hours but went well, then I made a nice big salad, sat down to eat, took a little rest, and decided to get at the toilet task at hand.

It was about 8:00 by then.

Now, here's the thing about toilets. To do anything, be it changing toilet innards or simply changing outer hoses, one has to first drain the tank. The instructions for draining the tank are simple. Turn off the water at the cutoff and flush the toilet. The water drains out of the tank and does not return.

You really didn't think it was going to be that easy, did you?

Well, of course it's not that easy. Because even though flushing the toilet makes the water go out of the tank, not all of it goes out. There's about a half-inch still left at the bottom that doesn't drain out. It's too much to be sponged out, and it's not enough to be bailed out. This presents a conundrum, well, it did to me the first time I encountered it, and I went out and bought a cheap turkey baster that I used to suck out the remaining water. And that's what I did this time as well, after searching around for about 20 minutes trying to find the damn thing, and I began sucking, sucking, sucking, a baster-full at a time, and this takes about a half hour.

So, there I was. An empty toilet tank, a bloodstream full of bee infection, on my back with my head in the toilet, working at changing the hose. It took me about 20 more minutes to get the current hose disconnected. You know, I don't think of myself as a particularly strong person, but I must become superhuman when it comes to screwing on toilet accessories. I can never get them undone.

After cussing and screaming and swearing oaths that would make my mother disown me, I finally got the old hose disconnected, and started connecting the new one. Screw, screw, screw, bottom complete, screw, screw, screw, screw, screw, screw, top complete, because we all know the top end leading into the tank is much more frustrating to connect, because you also have to stick your head in the toilet to hold the big pole-like thingie in the toilet so it won't turn around in the tank and break.

The new hose was installed!

I turned on the water!

Water started spewing everywhere!

"Oh, shit," I said, as I do, and I immediately turned the water off. I turned it on again, gently, and found that the water was coming out between the connector and the hose. In other words, it wasn't that I didn't have it connected right, it wasn't that the cutoff had gone bad. I had a shitty hose on my hands.

And it was at that point I started to lose faith in both God and mankind.

I shut the water off again - and by the way, for anyone who's done this, isn't it interesting that the minute you drain your toilet tank is also the minute you begin needing to pee? - anyway, I shut off the water again and proceeded to drain the tank again, for it had filled during that last fiasco of a water turn-on.

And so I proceeded to drain the toilet again by flushing it, only of course it doesn't drain all the way and I had to spend a half hour with a turkey baster sucking water out. And then I tried to remove that hose, the bad one, thinking, "Listen, I'll put the old one on till tomorrow. I have to pee and I can't deal with it tonight."

Only I couldn't get the new bad hose off. And believe me, friends and blogees, I tried. I tried like you wouldn't believe. I heaved, I twisted, I assumed every position I could think of where I could grab both the hose and that tall thingie in the tank, and nothing was moving.

It was at that point I had a little bit of a nervous breakdown.

It was a bit of everything. It was the bee sting, the no internet, the low-grade fever I'd been running from the infection, the boredom, and my old standby, "Other women have people to do this for them." I started to cry, invoke saints, ask God why He hated me so. "If this is a test, I've failed it," I told Him. I really was at the end of my rope. (You know, normally, a day or two after the fact, I find these breakdowns rather funny. I still don't find this one funny. I was really in a bad way.)

Finally I gave up and walked around the house a little. Just walked, from room to room, crying and getting it out of my system. Then I went back, assumed the "on my back, one leg in the air, head under the toilet, right arm in the toilet tank, left arm on the new hose" position, took a deep breath, and decided I wasn't going to breathe again till I unloosened that hose. If I died, so be it.

Oddly enough, I didn't die, and I finally got the hose off the the tank. I put the old hose back on, and stuck a particularly large and thirsty towel underneath it. I gingerly turned the water back on, hoping for the best.

Now.

Now, I don't know about life, and fate, and the way the planets align and karma and all that. But the old leaking hose is still on my toilet and is as dry as the day I bought it. I have no idea what's going on, I have no idea if this was some joke the universe decided to play on me when it got bored, I know nothing. It may start leaking again tomorrow, and I might have to go through it all again. But the old hose is working.

And I told you all that to tell you this.

Even after it was all over with, and took two hours of my night, I was still a mess. I was just pissed at the world, feeling sorry for myself, wondering why in the world it's me that always ends up in these kind of situations.

I finally ambled off to bed, tucked myself in, and turned on the TV. There was a show on the History Channel I found quite by mistake. It was called "102 Minutes That Changed The World," and I have to tell you it was one of the most fascinating things I've ever seen in my life. It was certainly the best program I've seen on September 11, and I've seen more than a few.

It was basically real-time footage shot by normal people, no news footage at all, just people with camera phones, and cameras on the scene, and videos sticking out their apartment windows. It gave me a perspective of the day I've never had before. The footage was just amazing, and it's hard to describe, but I encourage all of you to seek it out.

Anyway, as I was there in my bed, all tucked in, it came to me. "I don't know why I had to go through what I did tonight, but I sure as hell know why I accidently found this TV show." Watching all that amazing footage it took me, oh, about 4 seconds to realize that "why me" crap is, well, it's crap, plain and simple, and I don't care if my internet goes out for five years and my toilet breaks down every day, compared to anyone involved in what happened on September 11, my life is a cakewalk.

I woke up Monday morning and headed back to work, where the day wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting. The weather turned cool and so I decided to gird my loins and hit the yard with the lawn mower when work was done. I did the front, both sides, bagged grass, then headed to the back yard.

Where I was promptly stung by a bee. In the left arm.

As I write this, it hurts, it itches like crazy, and it's hard for me to lift it above my head. My folks' bugperson came and looked at the yard today (as the internet was being restored) and found an underground bee terrorist headquarters. She put some kind of magic powder in there that's supposed to kill them all.

And I hope it does. I hope they die.

And so the universe is still bored and fucking around with me. But it's OK. I'm already on antibiotics for the last bee sting, so hopefully after the initial hurt and itch, I'll be back to normal. I'm glad mowing season is coming to a close, though.

I don't have any body parts left to sting.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Yes, with internet comes the ability to upload the latest Comfy Chair movie. Please hie yourself to the Comfy Chair Cinema and give it a look. It's called "A Moveable Feast," and it's, well, a moveable feast. Go here to view, if you dare.

These Are The Times That Try Men's Souls....

Hello, end of weekenders. It's Sunday afternoon, and I'm risking termination by writing this at work. Because

I HAVE NO INTERNET!

Yes, it began Friday, when I called the Comcast Bastards and was told the problem was with me and not them, and they'd send someone right out for a service call - on Tuesday. Yes, Tuesday, and that puts me in a really bad way.

The worst of it is Monday is of course Hucklebug podcast recording, and I'm hoping there's a way around that. But also keep in mind the fact that I'm not feeling well, I'm still full of bee infection, and, well, I'm now bored out of my mind. I spent last night - yes, this is true - coloring for about three hours. I'd watched movies and football and TV and there was nothing else to do but get out the colored pencils and have at it.

Then I napped in the chair, woke up, napped again in the chair, woke up, went to bed, napped, woke up, and my life really sucks right now, folks.

So I came by here to let you know this is as good as it's going to get until Tuesday, but that I'm somewhat alive, at least until I leave the confines of my office and head to WalMart, because in all this mess I call a life my toilet seems to be leaking again. So it's off for a new hose, then back home where I get to stand on my head all afternoon.

Lucky me.

Anyway, keep fingers crossed for me, and let's hope I never have a vacation quite like this one again.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* And did I mention I have no internet?
* And that I'm full of bee infection?

How To Go Nowhere On $50 A Day

Ever since I first mentioned having a vacation from work this week, people have asked me where I was going. And sadly, I've had to answer, "Nowhere."

And the main reason for that is simply that I couldn't afford to go anywhere.

I scheduled the week off knowing that. Well, almost knowing that. I thought, "Hey, I'll do a lot of cleaning and get all those household things done that I normally neglect, like cleaning windows. I'll pressure wash the outside of my house. Then maybe on Thursday or so I'll just take off and go somewhere for the weekend."

Those plans went by the wayside very quickly. Somewhere around Friday evening last, approximately one hour into my vacation, I thought, "Screw that. I've worn myself to the bone at work. If I wear myself to the bone at home, I'll go back to work just as tired and depressed as when I left." So I amended the vacation plans to trying to clean the house over the weekend, get it out of the way, and spend the week resting, getting some sleep, working on Comfy Chair movies, and then maybe taking an overnight trip around the end of the week.

I liked that plan a lot, but it didn't last.

By about Monday I realized I was just too damn broke to go anywhere, even overnight. And so my vacation plans became, "Screw it all. I'll stay home all week, hang out, rest, do what I want, watch a lot of movies, and work on my own Comfy Chair movies. How much could that cost?"

More than you'd think, really.

Monday was OK. Monday was fine, because I didn't leave my house. Unless one is on the phone ordering stuff from catalogs, one can't spend a lot of money confined to the house. It was a lazy day, bordering on boring, but I got some laundry done and got some rest.

Tuesday saw me having my car fixed, that's $74 I took on myself. It would have been paid by my car insurance, but I'd just turned in the big-ass hail claim on podmobile2, so I figured, "Under $100, I'll handle it myself." And I did. Then I decided that I wanted to be near greatness and headed out to try and catch a glimpse of Barack Obama in Lebanon, which didn't work out, and cost me a tank of gas.

Yesterday was interesting. As you'll remember from last week, I got a rather nasty bee sting (my second) while mowing the yard on Tuesday. It was on my head. The base of my head. It hurt, and itched, and I cussed, and I really hate both mowing my yard and the bee species, and one would think that surely by yesterday, a week and a day after the fact, all would be well. All is not well, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that at least part of that stems from the fact that I can't leave it alone. I pick, probe, prod, poke, and any number of other things that begin with p. It's just a rotten place to have a bee sting, mainly because it's where my neck bends, but also because it's in my hair and I can't see the damn thing.

So Tuesday night it was still bothering me as I went to bed, and I did my nightly routine of slathering it with Neosporin. And yet when I woke up yesterday morning, my neck hurt. It wasn't the kind of hurting neck that comes from sleeping funny, it hurt in a specific spot. I reached up to feel my neck, and about a half-inch south of the bee sting was a knot. A painful knot. I began to poke the knot, thinking, oh, I don't know what I was thinking, I guess I was thinking I could poke it back down into my neck. I couldn't, a fact that comes as no surprise to anyone with a brain, which apparently I was not at the time.

Wednesday is band night here in Betland, and so I headed out to B'burg to practice. I left early in an effort to go secure Hackensaw Boys tickets for next week, then do a little window shopping at the stores in the area. The good part of all that is that I didn't have to pay for the tickets up front. I was put on a list, deferred of payment till next week when I go to the concert. Also good, though it sure didn't seem so at the time, is that the little town of B'burg was so teeming with students and traffic that it took me a good hour or so to get in, get parked, get to the venue, and get out. So that curtailed any window shopping that may have turned into actual shopping. The bad, however, was that I went to B'burg at all. Another tank of gas.

Band practice was abysmal. It's the new fall season of band, and I suppose it's a good thing that our membership drives are paying off, but the band is growing by leaps and bounds, and frankly, it's getting way too big. We have been completely overrun by flutes, so much so that they now take up the entire first row, and the first clarinet players (which includes yours truly) have been moved into the second row. The second row, as you might imagine, has the dubious dinstinction of sitting in front of the third row.

Our third row is the saxophone section.

Mr M once made a confession to me. It went, "The thing I'm most frightened of in the world is that I'll be on my death bed, and the second before I go the saxophone section of the Blacksburg Community Band will pop into my head, and that will be the last thought I have before I die." It would be a horrible way to go.

And so there I was in band, in a room so full of people there wasn't enough air to go around, it was hot, my knotted neck was in pain, and I was listening to two hours of absolute saxophone hell.

It wasn't worth a tank of gas.

And that brings us to today. I woke up today with my neck in more pain and the knot in my neck bigger. It looked like a ping pong ball had been embedded there, slammed into my neck by an Olympic ping pongist. I figured it might be time to look into a visit to the doctor.

I did not choose my old friend and nemesis Smokin' Dr Javier. I haven't seen him in ages. I didn't choose him today because he's only in in the mornings, and his office visits are outrageously expensive. It was already afternoon anyway, so I called Joe. I know "Joe" just sounds like some guy down the street, and he is down the street, but he's a real doctor and everything, he's a nice guy, and he's a client of ours. It's easy to just call and walk in, and that's what I did. I called, then I walked in.

I got in very quickly, and was immediately found to have a fever, which is very odd for me. Then Joe came in and looked at my head and said, "That's ugly," which is something one doesn't like to hear a doctor say. He poked and prodded too, and I felt very justified in my p, p, & p actions, and said, "Oh, yes, you're infected." He also vindicated me by saying nearly all bites and stings carry some form of bacteria and mine seemed to have taken up housekeeping in a lymph node. The fact that I was p, p, & p'ing it all week certainly didn't help the sting site heal, but it didn't necessarily cause the knot.

I was given a high-powered antibiotic and wished well. $52 for the visit and drugs. I had to make a quick $25 stop by the grocery for a few provisions, where I leaned on the grocery cart like a zombie. Then hey-ho, bang-zoom, back home. Where I - did absolutely nothing. Dammit, I felt bad, and I sat in the Comfy Chair and napped off and on, the cheapest recreation going.

I still have tomorrow and the weekend to go. I have to pop out to the post office tomorrow to mail something for Mr M. Pre-paid postage. Thank God.

If I can get away without buying a stamp, maybe I won't have to declare bankruptcy.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* OK, before you start sending me cans of food, I must say that this poverty is hopefully only temporary. Note to self: A credit card balance of $900 is not a federal crime and it doesn't have to be paid all at once. Still - bring on payday Monday.

A Greatness Drive-By

Day 2 of vacation started with a trip to the Subaru place to get a little cosmetic surgery for podmobile2. As you know, he had something of a run-in with a raccoon about a month ago, and though the raccoon got the worst of it, podmobile2 didn't exactly come out unfazed.

The appointment was at 11:00. My original plan was to spend my waiting time (they said it would take less than an hour) test driving cars. Not because I think I can afford to buy one, but, oh, I don't know, just for giggles. However, it was raining hard this morning, and not even I'm silly enough to test drive cars, cars I have no intention of buying, in a pouring rain. I grabbed my brand new issue of Games magazine instead, and a pencil.

I got there, found the perfect chair for waiting, it was right beside a small file cabinet I could use as a desk for my magazine. I decided which checkbook would be taking care of this little foray (I chose the blue one, the barely used one, there for emergencies), then got out my pencil and opened my Games magazine.

I turned to the first crossword puzzle. I read the first clue, knew it immediately, and began to write it in the grid. My pencil had a broken lead. You know those sneaky kinds of leads that look like you have a sharp pencil till you go to write, then they're all wobbly? I had one of those. But I valiantly soldiered on, holding the pencil this way and that, still getting it to write letters, wobbly letters, but letters nonetheless.

I sat and tried not to pay attention while the lady in the body shop office was repeatedly abused over the phone by a customer, the same customer over and over, who she kept whispering to the body shop manager was drunk (remember, it was 11am). The manager whispered back, yes, he knew, the man generally was by this time in the day. I did feel quite sorry for the lady because I've taken abuse at my job and know it's no fun, especially when some stranger with a wobbly pencil lead is sitting in front of you taking it all in.

Somewhere around the bottom of my crossword my pencil lead finally gave up and said goodbye, and I was left with working crosswords with a felt pen that would bleed through my paper or talking to the office lady. I chose the latter, and she really was a very nice lady, and so the time passed quickly. It took an hour and ten minutes, but it was no big deal. Podmobile2 fixed. At least until the jinxed little bastard runs over something else.

So I headed back home knowing I had a decision to make. And here was the decision. It actually began Saturday, so let's go back a few days.

While I was working hard at getting the new computer all loaded in and comfy I decided to check my hotmail email account. I was scrolling down among the junk and saw a mail from the Obama campaign. The subject: Obama Appearing in Lebanon Tuesday.

Now, that's not Lebanon the country, that's Lebanon the little town in Virginia about an hour or so away from me. Needless to say, I started jumping up and down in my chair and making plans, and I opened the email and read that he was at their local high school, you had to have a ticket to enter, and that tickets were free. "Woo Hoo!" I said.

Then I kept reading and saw the list of places one could obtain a ticket. They were establishments in Lebanon and beyond. Beyond being farther away. Then I read that tickets were being made available for pick-up on Saturday till around 6pm. It was about 9pm when I read the email. And I stopped saying, "Woo Hoo!" and started saying, "Well, damn."

I kept thinking about it, though. Surely he's going to enter the building. Leave the building. Surely he's going to have a crowd greeting him. I began to think that since I didn't have anything else on tap I might head down that way.

Then today came, and it was raining and all, and I started hemming and hawing. Was this possible? Would I be turned away before I could even get out of my car? Would I go there and be able to see Barack? Who knew. I mentioned it in an email to Stennie, who said by all means go.

And I decided I'd go. As I answered in the Stennie-mail, "If you want to be near greatness, you have to go to where greatness is." I grabbed a camera, a green tea, and my iPod, and hit the road.

I made really good time, much better than I was expecting, and arrived in Leabanon about 20 minutes earlier than I'd planned. "Oh, this is great," I said. "If they won't let me in the parking lot with no ticket, I'll at least have time to ask someone what my options are."

I turned off on the road to the high school and in about a half-mile - came to a dead halt. I may have been early by my own standards, but not by those of the good people of Lebanon and beyond. The line of snail-like traffic wound around the road, up and down, hin and yon, leading to the school.

No one asked me for a ticket, so I just kept on driving, thinking, "Hey, I'll drive till they tell me to leave." I drove past the high school, where I saw more cars than I thought Lebanon could hold, huge television trucks, and people. A line of people snaking from the door of the rear of the school down the sidewalk, looping around the track, out past the football field, and, well, I know there had to be 8000 people in that line, and I didn't know how they were going to fit them in that high school.

I actually got to turn into a parking lot, past that line of people waiting to get in, it was very far away but I didn't mind (except that it was in mud). I crept along, being directed by high school kids, till we came to a stop and one of those kids came up to me and said, "There just isn't anymore parking here. You'll have to find somewhere else."

And so I followed the car in front of me out into the road, I headed back the other way, like I was going back home, then found a field where some other people were parked. I filed in and got out.

Everyone seemed to be happy and excited, and they all looked friendly, so I asked some questions, but I didn't get many answers. I got to look at a ticket, which was bright orange, and then I found out that I wasn't heading west on the Betty Bet Bet Inspirational Highway with all the facts. The email said 4:30. The meeting actually began at 5:30. The doors opened at 2:30. That pretty much boggled my mind. I was looking at 8000 people waiting to get in, with tickets, and the doors had already been open about an hour.

I was feeling pretty doomed.

But I kept walking, and finally girded my loins and did the one thing I was the most afraid to do. I found a policeman. As you might imagine, they were all over, but most were very harried trying to direct traffic. I told myself I'd only talk to one who looked like he might be on a break of some sort. I finally did.

I said hello and could I ask him a question. I told him I didn't have a ticket, and he immediately looked at me with a combination of "oh, you poor soul" and "I really don't want to deal with you." But I continued on that I knew I couldn't get in, had no intention of trying, but what were my chances of just hanging around hoping to see Barack.

Now....

I began to realize as I was saying it that it sounded creepy and no policeman was going to say, "Sure, you just go right ahead up this street we're not letting people pass, and you wait right there." But on the other hand, somewhere in my head I thought, "Maybe he will!"

He didn't. All he could tell me was that I had to follow the line like everyone else, and after standing in that line I'd reach the school and be asked for my ticket. And I wouldn't be let in without one.

As I saw it, I had two options. One was depressing, one was silly. Depressing, I could pack up and go home. Silly, I could walk along to that line and stand in it until I inched my way to one of those TV trucks. I figured, hey the press might be able to tell me if he was in the building and when he'd be leaving it, and again I felt very creepy about even thinking such a thing. I packed up and went home.

And so this is how close I got to Barack Obama today.



(If you'll click on that, you'll get a better view.)

Back in the 70s I bought a Monty Python album called "Monty Python's Insant Record Collection." The cover was amazingly cool. It folded out into a cube that, when sat on a shelf, looked like a, well, a record collection. Only the spines of the records all had extremely silly titles. The one that always made me giggle the most was "A Man Who Once Sold Paul McCartney A Newspaper- Live!" That's kind of how I felt today. "A Woman Who Was In The Same Town As Barack Obama!"

But you know, I'm glad I went. I'm glad I tried, even though I could have probably tried harder or come up with a more cunning plan. It was actually a sight to see. All those people in that little town. Of all kinds, colors, ages, classes, all there to see Barack. I talked to some nice people, even the policeman who gave me a bleak prospect.

And I got out of the house, got to listen to music in the car for a couple of hours.

However, when I was about 15 minutes from home, it hit me. I went too early! I should have gone to be there as it was ending. I'd have had a much better chance of seeing Barack on the way out. If the thing ended at 6:30, I should have planned to get there about 5:45. And you know, I came an ace of turning the car around.

But I didn't. That probably would have been the way to go, though.

Except for the exiting. If there were that many people standing in line to get in, could you imagine the traffic line when they all exited at the same time?

I tried, though. I failed, but I tried. I'm glad I did. Disappointment's better than regret.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners! So, give me your thoughts on laundry.
- Runner-Up goes to LilyG, with her "Cheer, All? Instead Tide, OxiClean." (Oh, Lily - Billy Mays?)
- And this week's winner goes to DeepFatFriar, with his "Carrying armloads, I trip. OUCH!!!!"
- Thanks to all who played, youv'e all done very well!

Acrochallenge!

Hello, letter lovers, and welcome to another round of acromania.

Well, what's going on? I need an acro and I need it now.

OK, after much thinking, let's go with this as this week's acrotopic. "Laundry." That should be simple enough. Like laundry? Hate laundry? Lose your socks with every load? Have to go to the laundromat? Tell us all about it.

All rules are the same. Everyone gets three entries to come up with the best acronym they can that matches not only the topic above, but also the letters below. The letters are randomly drawn from the acrobasket. The acrobasket dry cleans. Then tomorrow night at 10:00 est I shall be reading the entries and naming the winners.

So the topic is "Laundry." The letters:

C A I T O

Ewww. I'll go with LilyG, who says, "Don't redraw the acrobasket." Good luck.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Going to get the podmobile2 fixed tomorrow. That's from the raccoon collision.

(This blog was supposed to be up some 10 hours ago. Thanks, Comcast.)

Pictureless Sunday

Hello, end of weekenders, and welcome to a Picture Sunday blog. With no pictures.

I left it a little late to look for my camera software and can't put my hands on it at the moment. It's been a busy day. Cleaned my house for several hours, a shower, dressed, Mr M came down, and the family celebrated Granny's (my mom's) birthday tonight. The birthday was Friday, but we never celebrate on the day.

I thank you all for being patient while things return to normal here. I'm almost there. I even have my next movie idea, and since I'm not working this week, I'll try to get it going and online.

I did get Paint Shop Pro back up and working again, so never fear, recipe du jour lovers, there should be more recipes in your future.

In the meantime, let's play a round of "I Was Driven Crazy This Week In A Way You May Have Been At Some Time, Too."

It all started this past Monday. I sat down in the Comfy Chair to watch an episode of "Top Gear," the BBC show that's a car show but so much more. It started right off the bat with host Jeremy Clarkson reviewing a Ferrari. And the beginning went a little bit like this. And when I say it went a little bit like this, I of course meant it went exactly like this, because I got a sound clip of it.

Listen!

The second that segment began, I popped out of my chair. "What's that piece of music?" I asked myself. "I know that. I've played that. I think Community Band has played that." And as you'll know if you listened to the clip, it was just a few seconds of song, but it immediately burned itself into my memory. That night I mentioned it to Stennie in passing as we were recording the Hucklebug podcast. Well, it was passing in the conversation between us, but I couldn't get it out of my head.

After recording, I went straight to iTunes. I went to their music store and started searching for every suite of songs Community Band has ever played. "Aha!" I exclaimed. "Got it! The pavane from the William Byrd Suite!" Problem solved.

Until...

Until I realized I liked that tune so much I wanted to buy it, and so I bought the pavane from the William Byrd Suite, and that wasn't the song. That was Monday. I spent the entire week in agony.

Wednesday after band practice I stopped by Mr M's. I tried to hum the song for him and he looked at me like I was from outer space. That was my fault. It was a pretty random and tuneless hum.

Saturday, after finally getting my Polderbits sound recorder and editor all configured up, wait. Doing that was a wild time. I got my new access key, the Polderbits people make that extremely easy, and got everything reloaded only to have it not work. The help site kept telling me my sound card wasn't configured, or was configured but not capable of doing all the stuff it did before. I had a couple of martinis and sent a few frantic emails to Stennie, and somewhere in between my hinkiness and her trying to find alternate solutions, I did the strangest and most random thing and I still have no idea how it happened. I basically right-clicked and got a new icon that looked like a sound card, hit a button that said "enable," and voila, Bob's your uncle, easy as piss, I had a Polderbits that worked like a charm, just like the one on the old computer. And I was happy. A little buzzed, and very happy.

OK, so that all taken care of, my first order of business was to grab an instrument, the flute was the handiest, and make a recording of the melody line from the song. I sent it to Mr M. Again, he said he'd never heard that in his life. I was still frustrated.

Then I started to change my way of thinking. I'd looked through our band website's music library, I'd pulled out some old Band spring concert CDs and listened through them - and believe me, folks, that's a pretty scary proposition - and I kept coming up empty. So I decided that if it wasn't a band arrangement, maybe I knew it from a movie.

Ah, but then I got smart. I remembered that BBCAmerica shows repeats of "Top Gear" on Sunday mornings. I got out the Flip video camera and stood at the ready. That's how I got the above sound clip.

I sent it to Stennie (movie person that she is), and said that since maybe I could know this song from a movie, please give it a listen. She emailed back. Not familiar in the least. But she said she'd ask her friend Scotty Dude, who was generally very good about song recognition.

Not much later Mr M showed up online and I rushed to send him the file. And just so you'll all know what a bad flute player I am, he immediately recognized it this time. "It's a Polovetsian Dance," he said. "Hans Conried." (I thought he was either crazy or trying to be silly, and only found out tonight he meant "Hans Conried used to sell those albums on TV with the Polovetsian Dances on them.")

I went to the iTunes music store again and searched for the ol' Polovetsian Dances, and all I could find was that horrible "Stranger in Paradise" one, I detest that piece of crap, but that's beside the point. As I was getting ready to get all dejected again, Mr M chimed in and said, "No, wait, it's a pavane. It's 'Pavane for a Dead Infant.'" Again, I thought he was being silly, as I once translated the duet "Dunque Io Son" to "I Drowned Our Son." ("I drowned our son/he's only one/o look out yon/he's in the pond.")

Then all of a sudden he boinged me online. "Wait! It's Faure - it's a pavane by Faure." I went back to iTunes, found something called "Pavane, op. 50," and there it was. The song that had driven me absolutely batshit crazy for a week.

Community Band has never played anything by Faure, God knows the Sauerkraut Band hasn't, and so then I was thinking, "Ah, from a movie then." Mr M referred me to a wikipedia page on the piece, though, and as I read through the tidbits on this piece of music - including its being used while Jeremy Clarkson drives a Ferrari on "Top Gear" - there is no reason at all this song should be so familiar to me.

(By the way, later, Scotty Dude knew the song as well, right of the bat, but still, no movie it was from.)

So now I'm going crazy trying to figure out where I've heard it. If you know where I've heard it, please tell me. I'm crazy enough.

And just in case you're wondering, there actually is a song called "Pavane for a Dead Infant." Well, it's called "Pavane pour une Infante Defunte," which apparently means "Pavane for a Dead Princess," but sounds like it should be "Pavane for a Dead Infant."

It's our son. I drowned him. Look out yon. He's in the pond.

Stay tuned for pictures and acros and movies and all those things that used to be regulars at Betland. Thanks.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Ready for vacation, day one! Cleaned the house today, so on tap for tomorrow - nothing!

See, I Have This Friend….

I was mowing my yard Tuesday night, and, well, it’s never really very pretty when I mow my yard. It’s all I do, and it isn’t pretty, and so my summer has been an ugly little season.

Here’s what it’s like when I mow my yard. I start out pretty peppy. I put on my mowing shoes (the walking shoes I deemed one day too ugly for general wear), my mowing hat (either the B’burg Community Band bucket hat or the red baseball cap with the Mr Peabody patch on the front), then I go and get my gardening gloves, and a sweat band for each wrist. Because mowing is a sweaty proposition. Then I grab my iPod, the keys to my shed, and I head outside.

I gas up the mower, pop in the iPod, and let ‘er rip. And it rips for about 15 minutes, and I get more and more tired, and the grass-bagging activities get harder and harder, and I cuss and become of a very foul demeanor, and by the time I’ve heaved the last grass from the mower bag to a leaf and garden bag, I’m walking aimlessly around my yard breathing and sweating, breathing heavily, and loudly, so that with each exhale I let out a high-pitched whine. I’m walking around my yard going, “Heeuh, heeuh, heeuh,” like I’m being tortured, which I guess I am. Actually, it sounds like the bray of a big ol’ donkey, which I guess I am, too.

Anyway, all that was moving along as planned Tuesday when I hit about the midway point of the back yard, stopped to unload more grass into the bag, bent over to unhinge the mower bag, and whammo. Stung by a bee once again. The little bastard that got me this time was a bee, not a wasp, and he stung me on the back of my neck, right where my neck and head meet, right at the base of my hairline. I cussed a blue streak, came inside, started throwing hats and gloves and - well, not the iPod, I wouldn’t throw that - and made a baking soda poultice to put on my neck. I stood there awhile, just like last time only without the tears.

Then I went back out, loopy and in pain, to finish up the yard. It was dark by the time I finished, and I put all my stuff back in the shed and “heeuh’ed” my way back inside.

I really hate mowing, and I hope it snows tomorrow.

I also am now sporting a large knot at the base of my head, and I’m still rather loopy, and I’m convinced that bee venom is just coursing through my bloodstream, and before you know it I’ll sprout antennae and start buzzing.

That has absolutely nothing to do with what I was going to write about, though.

What I was going to write about is that this past weekend I once again hauled my cookies, and my computer, to B’burg and Mr M’s, and he was going to try once again to put a second drive and more memory in my computer. I don’t know if I even mentioned this before, the last time I did the same, two weeks ago, and nothing really went as planned. My computer was so full that during the making of my epic “2001 (Sort Of)” I actually got a message telling me I didn’t have a enough space to be running in a happy manner, and I had to go jettison a bunch of stuff just to finish the movie.

So Mr M bought some more stuff last week and was prepared to give it another go on Saturday, and the more he worked the less progress he was making. He’d decided to install the drive I’d bought internally, then finally gave up (and it was a fair give-up, he did try) and decided to make it an external drive. He needed a case for this external drive, and I believe that because I don’t know a thing about it and he sounded very emphatic. He asked if I wanted to make a trip to town with him to pick one up, and I love a good trip to town, so I said sure.

We got to the store, and Mr M went back to the computer parts section while I was hanging around speakers and laptops, and he came over to me and said this:

“I’d much rather buy you a new computer than work on yours. Pick something out.”

And of course the first thing out of my mouth was, “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I’m saving for one anyway.” (At the time I had a whopping $38 in the New Computer Fund.) But he went over and started looking at computers, and I went over and followed him, and it was such a nice and kind offer, and I thought, well, actually I thought, “What a nice and kind offer.” Then I thought, “If he’s really serious, I’m going to say yes, dammit.”

And he was, and I said, “Yes, dammit.”

We headed back to Poderosa East with a new computer, one with a shitload of memory and a drive as big as all outdoors. I can now make movies that would bring a tear to Cecil B DeMille’s eye, surf the net with alarming speed, and, according to Stennie and Mike, get another Facebook doggie. (My original, Gordon, froze up my computer so badly I had to delete him to a large acre of cyberfarm where he can run free. And I really don’t know if I want another one. You actually have to pay attention to them or they’ll starve. Does my already delicate psyche need that?)

Anyway, I can now do all those things and more, but this is Thursday, and from Sunday till about yesterday it was all in doubt. The transfer of information didn’t go swimmingly, which I was blaming on the hated Vista, but I was assured by Stennie it wasn’t Vista, it was just reloading and installing stuff from computer to computer.

I limped along Sunday night, and when I say limped, I mean crawled, I stayed up till 6:45 on Monday morning and went to bed with nary an improvement from when I arrived home and hooked things up. I was hinky and cranky and all sorts of other things that end in y, and I didn’t have my iTunes or my bookmarks, which was just killing me. (The iTunes was a nightmare, but more about that later.)

I also, for now, anyway, have none of my stored email addresses. So I’m asking you at this time, if you email me, or have ever emailed me, to do so right now. Give me your most current email address, lest ye never hear from me by mail again.

Anyway, Monday was a holiday and I spent all of it (save the four hours I slept) at the computer with Mr M at the remote assitance. He went above and beyond the call of duty and got a few things running, but the iTunes was still not working, and I was missing my bookmarks. And really, without those, why do we own these machines?

Hucklebug recording time came along, and afterwards Stennie was kind enough to give it a try with the iTunes, and got it all going. That lightened my mood considerably, as did the beers during recording, and then she gave me written instructions on the bookmarks. (Which Mr M did also, he says, but I must have been ignoring him during that, for which I apologize.)

The next day, the day of the bee sting, so I needed some good news, I got my bookmarks back, and from there it’s been smooth sailing. I’m walking around getting used to the new digs, and loving it. I’m all excited because I have a DVD burner, a first for me, and I’m going to play with it tonight and see if I can burn my movies to disc. My folks have never seen a Comfy Chair movie, so I thought if I could make a DVD of them, well, they’ll be confused, but probably proud nonetheless.

And so that’s what it’s like to have a generous friend. Cranky, yes, but that’s a façade. He’s really a sweetheart, even though he'd prefer that was kept secret.

And now I have to leave the comfort of the new computer to go do the trimming in my yard. I’m wearing long johns and a turtleneck. And gloves, and possibly a beekeeper’s mask.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* I also seem to have a cold. I think it's the bee venom.

"How I Spent My Summer," by Bet

Mowing the yard.