Picture Monday

Ooooh! Yes! The elusive Picture Monday has reared his head!

Well, it's all a mistake on my part, really.

I had complete plans for a Picture Sunday. You see, of course, on Thursday I saw my beloved Hackensaw Boys.

It was a bit of an odd show. Boys in fine form, make no mistake, and as sweet as ever. However, the sound was horrible, some local guy (I think) was doing it, and I don't understand why, after the sound check and everyone's happy with their mike levels, those levels can't just stay exactly where they are. But no, they'd go up and down, every time someone came in to sing lead his mike would be off and there'd be silence, while the backing fellows would be nice and loud. It got to be right maddening.

Also, I didn't have Taytie and Paul, my boys, there to dance at the front with, I went with my cousin Jacob. And not only is she more of a sitter at concerts, she was also nursing a mighty bad cold that night. So we took a table (on really uncomfortable "high stools" - those things are murder if you have short legs), and watched from pretty much the back of the room. However, once I ventured to the front near the end of the show to take some pictures, I realized it was so hot up there I probably wouldn't have survived stage-side, anyway.

Ahh, pictures. I did mention those.

It was toward the end of the show I ventured up for pictures because I was on a mission. Well, to be honest, Sherman and I were on a mission. See, as those with me from the beginning of my Hackensaw Odyssey may remember, it's kind of a tradition for Sherman to have his picture made with anyone who plays onstage as a Hackensaw Boy. He gets the new members, the substitutes, the regulars ... and they're not just him sitting on the stage with them, they're actual portrait pictures!

Well, as would happen, there has been a new percussion/charismo player of late, seeing how Justin (Salvage Hackensaw) is stuck in California. Well, he's not so much stuck, he's there with his wife doing art and being happy and only playing gigs on the west coast. In his place has appeared Nugget Hackensaw. He was most excellent onstage, drumming and banging and singing and being very happy and cordial, and so Sherman and I headed out right before the end of the concert to get his picture made with the newest Hackensaw.

I snapped several concert pics near the front of the stage, then it all ended, and I went looking for Nugget (whose name is Brian) to make a total fool of myself. And - I did just that! I told him about the tradition of Sherman, he laughed, especially when I mentioned he would now be in the Sherman Club, and he sweetly and happily posed for a picture with the boy, Sherman in one hand, can of beer in the other.

Then after it was all over and Cousin Jacob and I were out in the car, that I realized something horrid. Seems I don't know my new Christmas camera quite as well as I thought. Sure, it was the updated version of the one I had before it, and I just assumed all was well as I was snapping. The concert pictures were bad. The picture of Nugget and Sherman, horrible. So blurry not even Paint Shop Pro could fix it.

Epic Hackensaw fail. I'm surprised Sherman forgave me.

And so that was that. I had no pics for Picture Sunday. I mean, I wasn't so worried about concert pics of The Boys, you've seen a million here. But I wanted that Sherman picture with the New Boy. I gave up and went to bed Sunday.

But! But!

I got up this morning and had to get the trash out, which meant doing Poo Duty!

Now, last week here in B'field we had some massive winds. The kind that I feared when taking Milo out for a pee, I'd be flying him around like he was a kite. I got up the next morning after said winds, and yes, my poo container, where I keep all my little seal-tight baggies of Milo's poo for the week, had clean blown away.

Now, this poo container was anchored down by a full gallon can of paint inside it for heft. When I got up that morning, the can of paint was still around. And the lid, some 50 yards away. And 10 or so sealed bags of poo, all over the yard. But no poo container itself. Blown clean away.
And so I had to head out to the store to buy a brand new poo container.

When I got to the store, they did not have the indiscreet gray container I had before. They had navy blue, clear (clear? ack! everyone can see it's poo!), and a deep pink. I chose the deep pink, thinking somehow it would match my new burgundy roof and my old burgundy shutters. It doesn't. But it is distinctive, and hopefully will give at least one passerby a smile.





















But here's the thing. Didn't notice it at all until this morning, after I'd wearily dragged out three (yes, three, I've been cleaning out the back bedroom) huge bags of trash this morning, and it was time to fill one of them with the contents of the new poo container, that I noticed this golden nugget.

I flipped off the lid of the new poo container, and noticed a sticker on the inside of the lid. And this is what that sticker was.





















Yes! Listen to me, friends! Parents, do not, under any circumstances, put your baby in the poo container! First of all, it's outside in the freezing cold. It is also still anchored down with a full gallon can of paint, so the baby will be very cramped. Plus, how traumatized will the little tyke be, snapped into that container with a week's full of poo?

Heed my warning before it's too late!

I mean, really. Put the baby in an airtight container? What have we come to?

Happy week.

Betland's Olympic Update:
*Milo finished his round of meds today. I am totally convinced he will go back to his old ways now that it's done, and that I have a perpetually stressed-out doggie, and that we will just get together and jitter ourselves into oblivion.