Monday, June 15, 2015

Random Reflections On My Weekend

I probably did Trisha Yearwood a disservice when I said we had the same neck in this weekend's Ten Things of Thankful post. Hers is actually better than mine, but I do have 5 years on her. Sorry, Trisha. My bad.


We're almost neck twins. Anyone remember
when Joey found his hand twin on Friends?

There was a lot of talk about bladder control in that same post. It occurred to me that I never gave bladder control much thought until I found I no longer had 100% control over my bladder.

If I didn't act like a three year old and put off going to the bathroom until my bladder is filled to bursting, I probably wouldn't have ANY bladder control issues. Hmmmm.

When a tour guide tells me, right before I go down into a cave, that anyone who has problems with difficulty breathing when climbing stairs, a fear of heights, a fear of the dark, a fear of enclosed spaces, or a need to go to the bathroom often and might need to rethink the cave tour, I will immediately have every one of those symptoms shortly after the last chance to turn around and go back to the surface.

The above is true even if it's a cave I've been in over a dozen times in my lifetime and I know I will live through it.


600 steps down that tower, then lots of steep ramps
to get to the Cathedral Room. 

Made it, unscathed, although the little kid who kept stepping on my heels as I climbed the (slippery, wet, steep, narrow) stairs out of the cave very nearly found himself kicked in the teeth if he had stepped on my flip flop back and tripped me ONE MORE TIME.

Yes, I know, flip flops are not the best choice of footwear for a cave tour. When I got dressed to go to the theme park with the cave, I didn't know my kids were going to want to go on the cave tour.


Stalactites. Cool, huh?

I have seen more bats at preschool than I have ever seen in Marvel Cave, which allegedly has something like 80,000 bats in it. 

The tour guide who tried to tell us in the event of a bat encounter that we should hold still has obviously never seen any of my previous bat encounters at preschool, where my m.o. is to run screaming into the nearest room with a door and slam it.

Her other suggestion of ducking and letting the person behind us deal with the bat was much more practical and something I could work with.

I would have fed that heel-stepping kid to a bat if I had had a chance.


Looking up.

I recorded these for Ivy while I was in the Homestead area of Silver Dollar City. I have no real reason to put them here, except that I CAN, so I did.








Silver Dollar City, by the way, is an 1880s theme park, located on top of Marvel Cave. 


Who doesn't like a good pun?

When it starts to rain as you're waiting to get on a tram to return to your car, and by "rain" I mean raindrops the size of softballs, it doesn't motivate the tram driver and conductor to move any faster to get you out of the rain and onto the tram, because they are nice and dry where they are.

The trams don't have sides on them. Any guesses on how wet we were by the time we made the (approximately) one mile trip to our car? Does this give you an idea?

The parking lot behind me was a lake.

I could tell you how, at one point on the two hour trip home that all three cats began meowing as a round, but without a recording, it isn't that impressive.

I could also tell you how my husband brought in two Canada goose feathers and laid them on top of the piano, and how Ruby smelled them, finally sniffed out their location, carefully hopped onto the piano, stealthily stepped over to the feathers, then took her paw and WHACK WHACK WHACK killed those damn feathers, but OF COURSE I didn't think to get video of that, and, having killed them dead, Ruby was done and refused to do a re-enactment.

Sigh.

The end.

8 comments:

  1. I see the neck resemblance. For real.
    Wow. That was a lot of rain.
    We were in Branson 17 years ago. I don't remember Silver Dollar City being there, and we certainly didn't go to a cave. We've been to plenty, though, and a couple of times we've even seen bats. Those people in the tour with you have no idea how lucky they are that a bat didn't show up on your tour.
    I am very patient with kids, but I would have had to do something about a kid repeatedly stepping on the back of my shoes. Arg.
    And yeah, flip flops are not shoes. They shouldn't be worn ever unless you are taking a shower in a public shower. It makes me nuts when people take their kids to playgrounds in flimsy flip flops. (Yes, I seem to be judgemental in this instance. (Ha!))

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    1. Sad, isn't it?
      I wasn't kidding about the rain.
      Silver Dollar City opened in 1960. I remember going to it as a very young child and it was free to get in. We have a picture of me riding a mule there. They don't do cool stuff like that anymore; it's gone commercial.
      Are you saying I get a little hysterical when I see a bat?!
      It was the last climb out of the cave that I had to contend with that little stinker. Can't believe his mom did NOTHING. HE knew he was doing it. SHE knew he was doing it. It wasn't on purpose, but if she would have held him back, it wouldn't have happened. And I tried to get them to pass us, but they didn't take the bait.
      I hate flip flops on kids, especially whey they're at school or anywhere they should be running and playing. I wear them, but my feet are clean and my toenails polished :)

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  2. Your neck is way thinner and more elegant than Trisha's. Sorry Trisha - I'm sure you have other good qualities.

    Pet-A-Goat Junction would probably be my favorite part - I have a thing for baby goats but my Dad always refused to let me have one. Something about them being a damned nuisance or other.

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    1. Well, thank you. I will concede that she can sing better than me :)
      They used to have baby bunnies you could hold and pet, but they quit doing that. I think it was hard on the bunnies. Goats are cute, but annoying.

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  3. The cave trip reminded me of when the puppies went on vacation...back in the eighties yes eighties our group of friends referred to one another as the puppies because we were not yuppies.. we all went up to the Catskills for a very long weekend stayed at various houses - my parents had a house there, my friend's mom lived there her grandparents had a house there too so we all had somewhere to stay ( key word free lodging) me hubby, two friends David and Charlie got there a day or two early - Christine and Mike were coming in on Friday night by train ... she had warned us that during the week she is stuck in the office and under no circumstance does she want to tour a cave...so the four of us went to the Howe Caverns...boy was it cold ...and well it was OK - Friday night we went to the train station to pick up Christine and Mike - Mike packed his clothes in a store shopping bag :) we carried on at the station acting as if we didn't see them in years - Mike did not live that odd job bag constantly teasing him about it... LOL during the weekend we snucked into a hotel to use their pool almost got caught ...because mike and hubby do not know how to blend in ... we drove up to hunter mountain to go to a feast but was late when we got there (they were closing). on our way down the mountain we spotted a bar called cheers and we wanted to go because well everyone gotta know our names; hubby said no because if we drink then how will we be able to drive down the mountain...he said let's do something closer to home - we decided to hang at grandma's house - known as the little house no one was there it was just us... see what you did i'm reminiscing miss those freaking days... :)

    BTW you have a very nice neck ...

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  4. I remember the hand-twin thing. Can't speak to neck resemblance though.

    YOU LOOKED SO WET! Ewwwwww hate the rain :(

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  5. I hope that heel-stepping kid got et by a bat. I'm not getting the neck thing. I love flip flops. Wear them everywhere.

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  6. I just love that big fuzzlebutted chicken! I even like how she sounds! THANKS!
    Ive been down in Howe Caverns many times in the past which is a lot like the caves you saw but would never survive someone saying that bathroom line ... I woulda have been all "Nope, gotta go ... let me out..."

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