Is it just me?

I was watching a show last night called something like Nazi Scrapbooks from hell about this photo album that had been sent to the Holocaust museum in DC. The scrapbook held 116 photos of Nazis just enjoying life. Laughing and joking and mugging for the camera. In one photo one of the women was pretending to be heartbroken because they had run out of blueberries. The owner of the album was an officer name Houck w,ho was a medium high officer at Auchwitz, as were all the others in the photos. In fact this Houck guy was tried at Nuerenberg where he insisted that he hadn't hurt anyone himself and that he hadn't even been on some ramp when the Jews were unloaded from the cattle cars. So now this show had people checking a known photo of this Houck guy with a photo of some officer standing on the ramp with his back to the camera.
The curator who received the photo album looked so seriously at the camera and said that it couldn't be Houck in the picture because he told the war crimes trial that he never hurt anyone and he wasn't on the ramp and he wouldn't lie to the court and when they determined that the photo of the guy was this Houck character the curator got all indignant because the Nazi LIED to the court. HELLOOOOOO!!! The guy was NAZI and this woman is irate because the GUY LIED to the courts. A NAZI AT Auswich no less and heaven forfend, the guy lied to the courts.The woman needs to get a dose of reality. Imagine... a lying Nazi. Well I guess if the Pope was once a Nazi Youth they couldn't have all beem that nad even if they did LIE TO THE COURT.

The GRILL

Despite our ever present money problems the Husband and I did something we rarely do. We splurged! While shopping in Wal Mart, the Husband wandered to where they have the summer stuff all set up and while looking at loungers he spied THE GRILL! THE GRILL deserved its name to be written in caps because it is not a grill it is THE GRILL!!

Oldest son has become the household cook and he love to grill. He has a cheapie grill bought at wal mart last year while what he really wanted was to build himself a grill out of bricks. While we aren't exactly sure that we will be able to keep the house THE GRILL seemed like a good alternative so we bought the monster brought it home and told Oldest son that it was a birthday gift... ignoring the fact that his birthday isn't untiul July 5.

At first Oldest son didn't seem too taken with it but then he and a friend assembled it and every time I looked out the window yesterday ther was someone new in the yard admiring it. THE GRILL is a big sucker whose coals can be lowered or raised and has its own little door to scoop out ashes and is big enough to barbeque Rocco the wonder dog, if we so wanted.

Today was the designated first cookout day and by evening's end on Saturday young men were showing up bring, among other things, a haunch of pork.. basicly a should and a leg... no hoof thank goodness, a london broil, a package of chicken breasts, a rack two packages of hotdogs and a choclate raspberry cheese cake. Hotchee mama! Unfortunately bad weather made cooking nearly impossible because it kept lowering the temperature in the closed grill. Did I mention it had a thermostat built in? So while the quarter of a pig and the london broil are f done and the chicken breasts not removed from their packages we did have the ribs, the cheese cake and the hot dogs as well as my contribution of a pasta salad and oldest sons hours of trying to cook.

I wish I could have bottled the excitement that grill brought to the whole neighborhood. Think of young men and a new car... that was Oldest son and THE GRILL. The shiny handles were admired, the charcoal bed raised and lowered, the side vents opened and closed, the thermostat inspected and i swear someone even kicked the tires.

As for oldest son, my responsible rabbit, while he didn't run around yelling yippee he did take pictures of the grill with his phone to send to friends and each time he came into the house, he told me of some new feature he discovered. May he cook well and long.

Of Bigfoot et al

I am a believer in most things weird. I know ghosts exist and would love to think that Big Foot and Nessie and all the rest are real as well. Just imagine how much more exciting life would be with 7 foot tall primates and throw backs to the jurrasic period running around.
So yesterday I was watching some discovery channel about the hunt for big foot. I should have known what I was in for when some supposed expert says, with a straight face, that the mountain gorilla was believed to be a legend until 1958 when one was spotted in africa. Uh Huh. Let's get this right oh he who sounds like he knows. It was 1901. At least he got the continent right.So now two teams are converging on the forest. One team male one team female. Both are searching for Bigfoot. First of all it's an all woman team because it seems that Bigfoot is drawn more to women than men. So the women strap their cameras to the trees, cut up apples and then move about the forest singing lullabyes and Christmas Carols. I KID YOU NOT. One owman who had been camping in the area earlier and had been visited by something in the night playing with her tarp, brought, a tarp. I think bubble wrap would have been better.
Team two, the men, with their expert whatever just strapped cameras to trees and then set out bait to draw the Bigfoot in. NO apples for them, these are manly men. Instead they hung Onions in the trees, cd discs and wind chimes. And in another place along with the onions cds and windchimes they sprayed with trees with a essential oil of wintergreen. Isn't that sort of like taking coal to Newcastle? There in the WOODS for god's sake. Don't you think there was enough tree smell already. They weren't even spraying the trees to mask human scent. Instead they sprayed the trees to make them smell like...well... trees.
Yabba yabba yabba.The women are wandering around the woods in ecstasy over broken twigs and mooshed down grass. While the men are stringing more cds and onions. Personally I thought they ought to add some glitter glue, markers and paper and let bigfoor create his own tree art.
So the show grinds on, the people go back to retrieve their cameras and share with us, endless pictures of deer and elk until one of the women gets all excited about something dark in the lower right hand corner of one picture. Couldn't even see the thing even when the show kindly circled it. What is it, what could it be, could it be... just the rear end of a truck passing by on THE ROAD! Come on ladies. A road? Why not just set your camera up in a MC Donalds parking lot and see what you get. As for the men. They got more pictures of deer with some elk thrown in for good measure. Sheesh. What happened with these two groups. Were they sitting around one day and just decided hey let's go find big foot without giving it any thought.
If it had been me, well I probably would have been out there yelling "Soooeeee bigfootbigfootbigfoot' but then I don't claim to be ann expert.

All was not lost, I then wandered over to ancient egypt night on another discovery channel and to my delight involved were two of my favorite egyptologist. Dr Nassar somebody or other and Nadia what's her name. Dr. Nassar is Egypts head guy and a tomb or a mummy case can not be opened unless he gives his permission and is in attendance. You would think this would be old hat for him but he was as excited as a kid on Christmas each time something was opened. In fact, one time, he played father and told the photographers and journalists crammed into a tiny tomb that if he heard one word out of anyone, they were all out.

As for Nadia, she is thes arftifacts expert and was as thrilled over a mummy case of pillows as she was over what she thought would be an unknown mummy. Her unknown mummy case was without mummy. Instead it had clothing and jewelry and ornaments and textiles and the like and when someone asked her if she was disappointed she was in raptures telling them that what they had found was better than a mummy. These things that they just found they had never found before. I love the enthusiam of the two. Especially Nadia doing her work in a hot tomb while dressed in long sleeves with the muslim head scarf on. Sweat rolling down her face, she's beaming at the camera and thrilled with her work.

So I guess last night started with the ridiculous and ended with the sublime.