Tongue Twister Time

Don’t cha just love a tongue twister? I remember getting a book of tongue twisters as a kid and saying them out loud…over and over. I practiced saying them as fast as I could… in case I was ever in a World Tongue Twister competition. I wanted to make sure I could win the title.

The most noteworthy of all tongue twisters is about Peter Piper and his peck…er I mean, peck…of pickled peppers. I loved that one. It was especially fun to pucker when pronouncing the p’s…so you could get a mouth spray going with each “p”.

I got to thinking….(please Kat don’t think) that the ole Peter Piper tongue twister is outdated…and the world needs a new one…for future tongue twister competitions. I’ve come up with a modern-day tongue twister…which leaves a non-pleasing Peter Piper picking pecks of pickled peppers…plenty in the past. Twitter is the perfect word for a tongue twister.


A Twitter Tongue Twister
by TKat

Twanda Twain tweeted a twit of twittered tweets.
A twit of twittered tweets Twanda Twain tweeted.
If Twanda Twain tweeted a twit of twittered tweets
How many tweets of twitter did Twanda Twain Tweet?

Bet you can’t say that 5 times…TFAST!

Gonged to Dogs

“They” say: Necessity is the Mother of Invention. I say: Duncandog is the Father of Invention. The other day when I brought Duncandog home from the groomer, I had him ride in the seat next to me. His presence made quite an impact. Hefty Duncandog weighed just enough to set off the seatbelt alarm so the dang thing dinged…the whole weigh home.

I lectured big boy for the next couple of miles home. It was a serious conversation…gato to perro: “Sorry Duncandog, but starting tomorrow I am putting you on Dog Food Lite…this seat is screaming that you are too big to ride shotgun.” His look of misery showed he understood that his fat and happy days were over. Then it hit me…EUREKA…a perfect weight loss device.

Alarms could be installed in our favorite chairs. Whenever we sat down a little “ding” alarm could go off…to remind us of our recent Frito-Lay Fest. Or for a more impressive effect, the alarm could be a “gong.” Remember the Gong Show? The device could work in the same fashion…Outta here lardo. The gong could be heard reverberating through the house and down the street proclaiming: Put down the Frito, you Bandito.

If my chair had the capability to humiliate me, I might rethink the whoopee pie I was about to shove in my mouth. And god knows I love the whoopie pie! And maybe rethink the Chubby Hubby I was craving (the Ben and Jerry’s version, PaulA.)

After months of a long winter in the blog chair, my ass has grown to its full potential. A gong device could be just what I need to take action. I’m gonna have to thank Duncandog for his weighty contribution in helping to keep katkind fit.

I know Duncandog will be happy for me to join him in the dog house of humiliation. Misery always loves company.

The Waiting Game

Yesterday I waited. We’ve all had to do it at some point. We’ve all had to sit and wait at either the doctor’s office, dentist’s…or in my case, the auto shop. I had put off service for my car long enough. But when an SOS flashes…I think it’s telling me…"get off your blogging butt and take me in.”

Waiting can be boring, so it helps to pass the time by taking a look around the room to see what people are doing. Heck we all do it. We all sneak peeks at each other…trying not to get caught. That’s how the waiting game is played. And if you get caught and make eye contact…you lose. I managed to get some good peeks…………...

One man was diligently working on some papers with a red pen in hand. I took a closer look and saw that that he was correcting test papers. He obviously was a school teacher. So this was how he was spending his spring break vacation…while his students were teens gone wild on a Florida beach? I watched him carefully as he unloaded his red ink on one particular paper. I hoped the kid who would be getting back the red Jackson Pollock paper was having a real wild time during his break…’cause his paper wasn’t exactly a masterpiece.

The woman next to me was on her laptop and madly typing. I think she was trying to impress us by showing off her fast keyboarding skills. I tried to look over her shoulder to see if she was typing real words or if she was just going with: ;alkj;vodiu ;oikdfnm;sdklj ;oijv ;oj. Heck, even I could do that. But I didn’t get a good enough look to make a determination…too much glare on the screen. Come on lady, get an anti-glare screen.

The other people around were pretty tame in a lame sort of way. There was the cutest preppy older couple wearing berets and plaid outfits. (It’s hard to top that for cuteness.) But the worst part of the wait was the television…which ironically is supposed to help you pass the time. It was a beautiful TV…a big, flat screen TV with HD…no complaints there, but many complaints about what was showing: Dr. Freakin’ Phil.

When I first saw Dr. Phil back in the day on Oprah, I thought he was pretty good. But that guy has since slid downhill and landed right in-between Maury Povich and Jerry Springer...the new Three’s Company. Only difference between Phil and his present company is his Texan accent. At least give me Kathie Lee and Hoda!! Those are some spunky spitfire women.

I watched one man leave the waiting area to go to the bathroom 2 times in 20 minutes. But who’s counting? I think that’s where he went…I didn’t follow him. He must have a growing problem. If he ever stayed seated long enough and watched the loser television, he might recognize himself in one of those growing problem commercials.

So I did quite well in the game of wait. I proclaimed myself a winner. "Self, you are a winner." I avoided all eye contact…Not one single person caught me sneaking peeks. My Grand Prize for winning? It would have to be this blog. Unfortunately that doesn’t do much for you.

Klutzy Kat

There was a reason I was not given the name Grace. It would have been a misnamer. When I was a freshman in college, our dorm floor gave out awards at the end of the school year. The awards were paper plates…with a simple description for each girl. Mine said “Klutz.” Klutzy Kat…simple and to the point.

When ‘they” gave me the award, they said I had the unique talent of tripping up the stairs. They were right…I did that a couple of times a day. But come on, it takes a special talent to trip UP the stairs. If I tripped going down…I would have gotten the ‘Most Broken Bones Award.’ That would have been an easier award to win. No real talent there.

So I’ve thought about it and admit…I can be clumsy. It mostly happens when I try not to be. Isn’t that the way? If the pressure is on…like I’m know I’m being watched…that’s when I trip over an invisible obstacle directly in front of my mother-in-law…just miss spilling my plate of food…as I catch my balance. Whoaaaaaaaa. Whenever PaulA sees me working with a knife…he always stops me. He has saved me from me…cutless times.

I think I would rather be called Butterfingers…than Klutz. It has a sweeter ring. Usually I know it’s gonna be a Butterfingers day…when I first wake up. When I’ve dropped the toothpaste 3 times, tripped over my shoes…and can’t fight the urge to stop at CVS for the candy bar…it’s a dead give away.

Luckily my clumsiness has never hurt anyone. My kids were never dropped…although there was that time I fell holding Colinboy as an infant. But that wasn’t my fault, we were looking at homes and the front walk was covered with ice. As I went down, I held my Colinboy ever so tightly…he never even bounced off the bricks. I took one for the team.

Oh, and I did spill blood on me every now and then when I worked in the blood bank lab. Mostly on my shoes. Nothing like going home to PaulA with a little blood on my shoes to set the mood.

As I’ve gotten older, I think I am less clumsy. Not that Grace has moved in and taken over Klutzy Kat. But I eat more Butterfingers these days than act like one …………although I do enjoy a good SNICKERS once in a while.

Writer's Block

What if I get writer’s block? (How is that, Kat…you’re a blogger?) Okay, What if I get blogger’s block? What if Kat comes up high and dry…got nothing….nada…zilch…a big fat zerO? That my friends, is a possibility. Today I’m at 365 blogs…a year of blogs. I might have gone to the blog well, one too many times. What if the blog well is drying up and becoming just a trickle of ideas?

What could I possibly do to help unblock the block….unstick the stick…juice the juices. Maybe run around the room, then stand on my head? That might get the creative energy flowing to the brain. But, I think I would probably just end up winded with a monster headache. Actually, I’ve tried it….so I know it doesn’t work.

What if I took a trip somewhere exotic…Bali, Tahiti, Yonkers…to experience new experiences …that would give me new material and insightful views. Yeah, that’s the ticket. But that’s the problem. No tickey…no go.

What if I ate some weird combination of food like tacos, garlic, and oysters and then went immediately to sleep? Maybe I would have some weird ass dreams that would provide me with some crazy material to write…get my thoughts running. But I have a feeling the only thing that would be running, would be me…to you know where.

What if I went to visit Colinboy or Big C …lived their wild and crazy life…maybe that would kick my imagination…kick it into overdrive? But then I’m afraid the only thing kicked….would be my ass….kicked out.

So I’ve exhausted all possibilities and probably exhausted my readers in the process. I just might be stuck in a moment and I can’t get out of it. (Borrowed that line from U2…didn’t steal it.)

That’s it! I’ll steal stories….I mean, borrow them. Blogger’s block over.

Feathered Friends

Most people think the world is divided in half...between dog people and cat people. But there is another population to consider…that is the bird people population. The bird people population consists of those who are fanatical about birds…they watch birds, study them, follow them, feed them, and wash them. And then there are the Ornithologists, the bird experts.

Once my bro-in-law pretended to be a Bird Expert. We (PaulA, bro-in-law and his wife, and I) were trespassing in a bird sanctuary (having a picnic)…and a distraught woman brought a wounded bird to the sanctuary for help. To cover our trespassing butts, Bro led her to believe he was the resident Bird Expert there. It didn’t take her long to figure out he was no Dr. Beak. She looked at him in bird fraud horror.

Some people are freakish about birds. They are so afraid of birds that they duck and run for cover…especially if there is more than one flying overhead. They probably saw Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds” and ruined themselves for life. I still remember the telephone lines covered with hundreds of birds in that movie. Sometimes it only takes one Hitchcock movie…to do permanent damage. That ‘s why to this day, I am so terrified of men who wear grey haired women’s wigs.

Normally I could give a flying sparrow about birds…until now. Interesting enough…right outside my blogging window I have been watching a cardinal. I don’t usually know the names of birds, but we lived in St. Louis for 2 years. I do know the difference between a bald eagle and the Froot Loops Toucan Sam. That Sam is one impressive bird.

I have become quite fond of the cardinal and look for it every morning when I sit at my ole blogging chair. I watch the little bird brain as he builds a nest in our bushes with little twigs and leaves that he carries in his beak. Suddenly, I find that I have developed a real interest in birds.

Each morning, I sit with my nose pressed against the window as my eyes shift back and forth…. following the little red bird from branch to branch…carrying each leaf and twig. I’m finding that I have more than a passing interest in my feathered friend…as my hungry stomach rumbles.

Then I wonder if being a Kat has anything to do with it.

PostScript: Sorry for being such a rare, odd and old bird. I realize this blog is for the birds, but a little birdie told me to do it. Please don’t blame me…and flip me the bird.

Truth or Consequences

Miss California lost to Miss North Carolina in the 2009 Miss America Beauty Pageant…because she gave the judge, Perez Hilton, a politically incorrect answer to a question about gay rights. Granted the woman is blonde and…blonde equals dumb. How dumb? (Okay, no dumb blonde jokes here.) Doesn’t she know to lie or answer middle of the road, like politicians do…especially if her views are controversial. Miss California didn’t deserve to be the winner. You must, at all times, know your audience. She gave her “truth”…and had to suffer her “consequences.” Second Place.

There are certain times when asked about your feelings on a particular subject…that you shouldn’t blurt out your true feelings. Didn’t her mom ever tell her that it’s okay to tell a white lie, once in a while? And that it’s important to know…when to lie. Not all lies are equal. If Miss Cali wanted to win the contest, she should have known that this was definitely poker-face-lie-by-omission-white-lie time.

Men do it all the time. A wife asks her husband: “Do I look fat in this outfit?” There’s only ONE dumb guy in a million who says, “Now that you’ve asked…Yes…Very fat. Why don’t you wear your moo-moo tonight, sweet lard. I mean, sweetheart.” If the husband ever wants to get jiggy with his wife again…he will have to come up with a better answer. A more middle of the road answer: “You look beautiful in everything you put on, honeybunchkins.”

You’re a parent and your child brings you his drawing and asks: “Do you like my cow?” You look at the drawing and see scribble. Do you say: ”You call this a cow? It sure doesn’t look like one. You could have at least put 4 legs on that blob.” Or do you give a more middle of the road answer and say: “What a wonderful picture you drew…tell me more about your cow.”

You’re a grandmother of five and little Lucretia asks you: “Nana, Who’s your favorite grandchild?” You definitely have a favorite…you can’t help yourself. Do you go with the truth: “Well Lucretia, I’m so glad you asked this question. I like Joey the most…but you are a close second…or third. I might give Joey a few more presents for Christmas than the rest of you this year.” Or do you go more middle of the road and say: “All my grandchildren are a gift from god…I am lucky to have all five of you.”

A young student says to his teacher: “Mrs. Thomas, Jack says there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.” Do you go with telling the truth: “Jack is right. That story about flying reindeer and a jolly fat man sliding down your chimney is ridiculous nonsense. It’s about time you grew up. You’re the laughing stock of the 3rd grade." Or more middle of the road with your answer: “Christmas is a time of love and magic when anything can happen.”

If YOU are asked: “What do you think of Kat’s blog?” You have 3 ways to answer:
“Kat….Schmat. That stuff sucks....total garbage.”
“Kat is brilliant. So insightful and damn darn witty.”
Or a more middle of the road answer: “Comme ci - comme ca…Asi - asi…Sometimes crappy - sometimes not as crappy.”

Careful of the “Truth”….you may suffer the “Consequences.” Second Rate Blogs.