"Lately I've gone a lot of places, and seen a lot of things I didn't need to see..."

I'm sure you all recognized that as a lyric to the Ozark Mountain
Daredevils' "Followin' the Way That I Feel." What! You didn't?
Then go get yourself some Ozark Mountain Daredevils songs.
There may be a quiz coming up.

Saturday is Hillbilly Mom shopping day. Me and about 3000 other
people here in Redneckland. Hillbilly Mama volunteered to watch
the boy young'uns so I could get done quicker. Shopping without
the kids. You know what that means...car tunes! Yes, it was time
once again for the Hillbilly Mom sing-along with music in the car.
What poured out of my speakers at max volume today?

• Bring Your Sorrow Over Here...Jason Morphew
• I Think I've Found A Way...Katie Bell
• Odysseus Now...Katie Bell
• Sharp Cutting Wings...Lucinda Williams
• We Close Our Eyes...Susanna Hoffs
• Way Down Deep...Vern Gosdin
• Perfect Fingers...Tami Greer
• Romeo and Juliet...Dire Straits
• This is the Day...The The
• Till I Hear It From You...The Gin Blossoms
• Sand and Water...Beth Nielson Chapman
• Talking to My Angel...Melissa Etheridge
• Polaroids...Shawn Colvin
• Infinity...Bryony Atkinson and Inara George
• Baby, Now That I've Found You...Allison Krauss
• Night...Feisty

I doubt you normal people recognize any of these. They are mostly
from various bad-movie soundtracks.

Sorry, Rebecca, I would not dream of singing any of them on an
audioblog. No...really...I couldn't. Even though I feel like I owe
you one for all the hard work you did perfecting my challenge...

So...what did I see on my shopping spree that I didn't need to see?

• A 100 Year Old Cashier
• Demolay Boys Pumping Gas For Tips
• Big Fat Beaver
• A Man Driving A Motorized Kid's Scooter in the Road
• A Man Hammering a Mailbox With A Hammer
• A Mouse in My Mailbox
  

Welcome to my life, people. I know you are dying to hear about
these sights, but I will have to put that off until tomorrow. This post
would be way too long.

The Famous Author

Hillbilly Husband is in Connecticut to fix a machine and visit with
his company's big boss. He called tonight to check in. It went a
little something like this:

I'm at the bottom of Connecticut. You know, that little part that
sticks out? I am overlooking the New England Sound. I can see
across to the lights of New York, and what's that island just off
of New York?

You mean Manhattan?

Yeah, I guess. The place where everybody goes for the summer.

No, that would be the Hamptons. Long Island.

Yeah, whatever.

My boss lives two doors down from some famous author lady.
Betty something. I can't think of it now.

Hmm...you mean like famous for her writing now? Or did she write
classic literature? Or poetry? How old is she? Does she live by him,
or just her house is by his?

She just died. I think she was born in the 1930s.

You're not giving me much to go on.

I know. I don't know that kind of stuff. I'll have to ask him again.

Thirty minutes later #2 son answered the phone. Hey, Dad is back
at his motel.

Ask him about that author lady.

Oh. Mom, it was Katherine Hepburn.

Only at my house, people, is Katherine Hepburn best known for
her writing. And her nickname "Betty." Nice of HH to shave 30
years off her age, because she was born in 1903. And only at my
house does "just died" mean 2 years ago she died.

We won't even get into our geography issues.

Odds & Ends

Nothing much interesting to blog about here in Redneckland. But
have I ever let that stop me before? Let me answer for you: NO.

Hillbilly Husband left Wednesday for Connecticut. He's doing
some such thing to a machine. I don't really listen when he talks
to me about work. Shh...Don't tell him. It will be our little secret.
He should return Saturday, so the kids and I are making the most
of our freedom.

#1 son removed the epidermis from his elbow on Tuesday in a
kickball competition on the school outdoor basketball court. It will
not stay covered with Scooby Doo and Fairly Odd Parents band-
aids. I also apply a thick layer of Neosporin (or at least the Wal-mart
version of Neosporin, which I believe is called Triple Antibiotic
Ointment). Today it is finally looking better. More pink, less green.

#2 son has learned some sign language in 2nd grade. He proudly
showed me how to sign "stop talking." Do you think he was trying
to tell me something?

My school computers did not take kindly to the changing of the
server this summer. I can find my HS class rosters on the MS
computer. But no MS rosters anywhere. I can not change my
home page. It reverts to that blasted MSN on all 3 computers,
no matter how many times I try to reset.

I have been calculating area and volume of circles and cones and
cylinders for 3 hours each day. And explaining how to describe
an experiment to see if ants prefer honey or butter. And telling the
purposes of the 1st and 2nd Continental Congresses. And explaining
why the U.S. entered WWI. And diagramming subject/verb thingies.
And explaining the differences among Pilgrims/Puritans/Quakers.
And scratching my head over Economics, because it is just so abstract
that I have to read the book and question the students on "...and then
what did he tell you to do?"

I have also been blessed with lunch duty this week. The 9th grade
lunch shift. I didn't have to watch the weather to know there was
a storm moving in. These kids stirred themselves into a frenzy. Do
not doubt Deadpanann when she likens her students to ferrets on
crack. I suppose the hillbilly version would be weasels on meth.
If I could only bottle this energy and use it instead of gasoline, I
might win a Nobel Prize. It is kind of hard to fit the kids into the
gas tanks, though. OK, so I'm still ironing out the bugs on this plan.

But really, nothing interesting is happening. You will be the first to
know if it does.

Crackpot Theory

I am not the only person who believes we did not land on the moon.
My reasons come from a show I saw on network TV, people. I think
it was called Conspiracy Theory, and had a different agenda each
week. This was four or five years ago. I might or might not have an
illegal copy on videotape.

Can you recall the technology we had in the 1960s? When a computer
took up a whole building? Are we to believe that NASA sent men to
the moon and brought them back, numerous times? Why didn't any
other countries manage to do that? Remember the space race? Why
didn't Russia put men on the moon? They were neck and neck with
us in the rocket department. Why not the Japanese? I hear they're
pretty technology-friendly.

In no particular order, here are some of the questions raised by
that TV show:

The lunar lander thingy was very unstable. We even crashed one
on earth trying to land it. When it set down on the moon, there was
no blast crater from the blast that slowed its descent. There was no
moon dust on the landing feet. Wouldn't you think it would kick up
a big cloud of moon dust while landing, that would settle on the
landing feet? The jumping-around astronauts kicked up little puffs
of dust with their feet.

Why did one of the astronauts say, "It looks like the high desert of
the United States" when they first landed. Why would they bring up
something like that unless they were afraid people would think they
faked it in the high desert of the United States?

The U.S. flag blows in the wind. Uh...there is not an atmosphere on
the moon, so no wind.

The rocks in the pictures show different light sources for their shadows.
The sun should have been the only light source. The only shadows
should have been on the side of the rocks opposite the sun, not on
the sides.

The astronauts run and jump like in slow motion, but they do not jump
higher than they could on Earth. Hello! Their weight is one-sixth of
what it is on Earth. Why no Michael Jordan jumps, boys? If you speed
up the film, it looks like the way men on Earth would run in a spacesuit.

There are no stars in the background of those beautiful pictures we
took. And how did we get such great pictures? The astronauts could
not look through the camera very well, what with the bulky spacesuit
helmets. What about those crosshair things in the pictures? Some of
them are behind part of the objects in the photo. Hmm...doctored
photos, anyone? Astronauts and equipment superimposed on a
background?

The films of the astronauts riding in the Lunar Rover, and walking
around on the surface were taken in the exact same place on
supposedly different days. The films can be superimposed on
each other and line up exactly, right down to the same rocks
and shadows. We are told these were taken in two completely
different areas.

The noise of the engines would have been to loud to hear the
astronauts talking to each other while taking off and landing
on the moon's surface.

The mathematical chance of us sending someone to the moon and
returning them safely to Earth during the time of the alleged moon
landings was 0.0017 %.

Why all the secrecy around Area 51? Satellite photos show large
buildings such as movie sound stages. Have you ever seen the old
movie Capricorn One? It's about a fake Mars mission. Is it possible
that our government faked the moon landing to cut costs, and to
win the space race? We could have launched the astronauts into
orbit, then sent footage of the "moon movie" to the networks. Why
haven't we been back to the moon?

The only thing that foils my theory is that I do not see how so many
people could keep this secret for so long. I want explanations for
all these inconsistencies, people! I want to know that we really
went to the moon, not to a movie soundstage in the high desert of
the United States, with movie lighting and professional photographers.

I checked out this site, but I was still not convinced. Just label me
one of those stupid hoax believers.

No New Tricks

As some of you might have guessed from my previous posts, I am
not technology-friendly. This old dog is not very accepting of new
tricks. I put off getting one of those new-fangled DVD players for
a long time. Middle school kids would offer to bring a movie for
a Christmas party, and I would tell them, "But my TV only plays
tapes." Oh, that didn't bother them. "I can bring in my DVD player
and hook it up." The h*** you say! When my then-7-year-old
child promised to hook it up if I would get one, I knew it was
time to give in.

Down through history, I would have been one of the doubters.
Sail to America? (OK, so it probably wasn't named America
yet, cause we were trying to get to India to spice up our lives,
and that map-maker hadn't named my country after himself yet.)
I would not have gone. What if the ship went over the edge of
the world? Then where would I be? Hanging by my fingernails,
gasping, in the waterfall at the edge of the world, still with no
spices!

So maybe they kidnapped me and made me go. "Hey, Hillbilly
Mom, look at this red juicy plant thingy! Try a bite. They're
great!" Uh...no. Everybody knows tomatoes are poisonous.

"Let's move out west! There's free land and gold and buffalo
as far as the eye can see." No, thank you. I prefer to keep
my hair on my head. I don't want to live in a dirt house and
sweep the dirt that falls off my dirt ceiling off of my dirt floor
and out the door into the dirt.

Why would anybody need a bank? Are they too lazy to dig
a hole in the backyard and bury their money like everyone
else? I swear...the way some people put on airs.

Telephone? Is that like a really long string and a bunch of tin
cans? What was wrong with the Pony Express?

Vaccinations? You want to do what with that needle? Stick
some disease in me so I can make antibodies against it just
in case I ever get exposed to it? I think I'll take that chance.

Send a man to the moon? And bring him back safely? How
can you do that when the technology to run a future calculator
takes up an entire room? What are you, a movie producer?
(We'll discuss my moon landing propaganda another time.)

Cook food without heat? That radiation might give me cancer.
How can something cook from the inside first? With no heat?

CDs? That will never catch on. It's gonna be pretty hard
to carry those things around and try to play them in the
car or on a Walkman. That would be like carting a 45 rpm
record around with you. You'll need to strap a record-player
on your back and get a long extension cord.

Information Superhighway? What is that creepy little commercial
girl talking about? Will we ride on the big big bus and zoom
around to different libraries until we get our fill of book-learnin' ?

And don't get me started on MP3s and picture phones and
missions to Mars. It is boggling my mind. Must. Stop. Now.

I'm in the Dog House Now

I am in trouble. Seems I left out somebody important from my faculty
in the Department of Beclakian Education. Shame on me. It was only
my bestest friend who is an actual teacher in the very same building
where I spend my working life for 174 contracted days. Leave it to
me to ignore the obvious. Why would I consider putting an actual
teacher on my Department of Education? Duh! I know I selected
Deadpanann, but I found her back in the day, when she was just a
basement blogger, not a teacher yet. I didn't consider the real live
co-worker kept in captivity in my actual school building.

I didn't know she would feel left out. Honest. She doesn't have a blog.
But she is my faithfulest reader. (I do know how to spell, but I like to
create my own words.) So I am sorry, bestest buddy. I will call you
"Mabel." We both know who that really is, and I am not saying you
are a Mabel, mind you, but that is a name I associate with you. So I
am adding Mabel to my faculty, and she is going to teach the following:

• Hot to Trot: a model for anger management
• Bring Me a Hall Pass (Or Ya Gotta Sing to My Class)
• March 14: Three hundred fourteen ideas for Pi Day
• Scaling the Slippery Slope: you must rise before you can run
• The Day I Met Wernher von Braun
• I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Unit Multipliers

Sorry to give you so many preps, Mabes, but you know you've
done it before. And you'd better show up at 7:20 am for tutoring,
too, or you're gonna lose a good thing. Do you think Sonic Diet
Cherry Cokes grow on trees in Beclakia? Think again. You must
earn your keep.

So here's to you, Mabel, for fighting the good fight. For writing up
those lovebirds who dare to kiss at your end of the hallway. For
giving me my favorite all-time gift: scratch-off lottery tickets. For
giving me a rubber doorstop that lasted two years before somebody
stole it even though it had my name written on the side in Wite-Out.
For tracking down your VCR cable (and we both know who took
it). For making me laugh with comments such as "And there he was
on my stepping stones, wearing his fancy women's shoes!" For
slicing those odd-numbered answers out of the back of the textbook.
For setting your expectations high, and not taking any guff from the
enablers of those not-working-to-potential students. My hat is off
to you. My pointy-headed sweat-stained hillbilly straw hat. Now
you gotta look at my unstylish hair. Be careful what you wish for.

Can anybody guess the actual subject that Mabel teaches? Anybody?
Be specific. Put on your thinking caps. You can have hat-hair, too.

Outcast Island

Even though I appointed myself Minister of Education in Beclakia,
I am not likely to remain a citizen in good standing. I'm not bad,
I'm just not a model citizen. Actually, I'm not even a normal citizen.

I am one of those odd folks who would be shipped off to an island
in the center of Beclakia, on a slow boat with long oars, paddled
by a stubble-bearded Popeye-looking old man named "Nub" wearing
a beret and a black-and-white striped shirt, who calls women "girly"
and men "partner."

There I would be left with the other human oddities to marinate in
our "socially unacceptableness" until the government needs us for
testing the medical vending machines. We would simmer in our
collective juices of absurdity, until a winner rose to the top, to be
crowned with a pineapple-stem crown.

You know people like us. The woman who wears an old pair of
panty-hose wrapped around her neck as a winter scarf. The neighbor
who steals your newspaper from the front porch and leaves in its
place a dead bird propped on its wings so it is "looking" at you.
The guy who drives the lawnmower around town, getting a DUI.
The woman with a streamer of toilet paper hanging like a tail out
of the waistband of her pants. The man who talks to himself and
replies. The boy who says, "And then my sister turned up pregnant.
She don't want 'im. I hope she gives me the baby so I can raise 'im
up right." The woman who goes about her daily business with a pair
of panties hanging out her jeans leg like a used fabric softener sheet.
The audio-visual helper who says, "Let 'er eat!" every time you are
about to start a film or a tape or your car. The woman who wears
pants under a dress. The man who blows up the bread sack like a
balloon because air is a good insulator. The woman who boxes up
trash thrown out on her road and mails it back to the rightful owner.
The guy who saves his clipped toenails in an old Vlasic pickle jar.
Okaaay...I think you know what I mean.

We would be kept on Outcast Island, allowed to fly the Beclakian
flag, but only permitted to listen to one song: "It Goes Like It Goes,"
recorded by Emperor Rebecca. This would help us concentrate on
our job of translating Beclakian classics into the national dialect
(which Rebecca has decided is a mixture of Beat Poetry, Horse Race
calling, and Oprah Winfrey). Thus, "It was a dark and stormy night..."
would become:

Girlfriend,
that Stedman horse
is moving up on the inside,
his thundering hooves
glistening black,
slicing nocturnal,
carving the cobwebs
from my brain.
What was I thinking
when I bet all my money
on him?
You go girl!
The prize is under your seat.

As you can see, it is not an easy life for us misfits on Outcast Island.

WooHoo! Here it is!

Well, well, look who finally showed up. No, it's not the original
message, but his poorer country cousin. You see, the original
explained how I can't call from in the house, because our tin-can-
and-twine phone system only gets reception in certain areas. We
must be the people that the "Can you hear me now?" ad campaign
was designed for.

I don't know for sure when Mr. Audio appeared, but the time stamp
is the time I called it in. I didn't check right away, because I had to
go to Wal-mart and deposit what was left of my summer paychecks.
When I got back around 1:30 pm, there he was, like the telephone
man waiting in the driveway because you left after he didn't show up
during the 4-hour time slot he promised.

Rebecca left me a comment on how she put sound on her blog.
All Hail Rebecca, Emperor of Beclakia! Careful, Rebecca, you
are scaring the freaks. Now it was right neighborly for her to offer
to assist the technologically challenged. I consulted with the resident
10-year-old computer guru who I keep on retainer, and he spouted
out a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about why Bec's method wouldn't
work for me. It went a little something like this: I don't have the thingy
I need to convert a file to mp3. My computer would save it as a wav
file, and I would have to buy something to change it, and "those things
are not exactly cheap." Then he said that since I do not have my own
server, I would have to leave my computer continuously online for
anyone else to be able to hear the audio file. Tomorrow I am going
to check with the hospital to see if they sent me home with the wrong
baby.

Now, for all I know, this is something the kid made up to mess with
me. It might be something like storks bringing babies and leaving
them under cabbage leaves. I would not know the difference. I can
barely use the cell phone. He has to show me how to get my voice
mail. Every time. I don't even like that phone. Why do you need a
phone that takes pictures? Won't a camera do that just as well? And
it is too small. I always drop it and the battery thing pops out. When
I try to hold it and talk, my fingers hit something on the side that puts
it on speaker or camera or "scrub your kitchen sink" or some such
feature. I want an old-fashioned cell phone, like on Seinfeld back in
1992, when it was as big as a shoe box.

Technology. Can't live with it, can't blog without it.