Mynee's Musings

Almost a Sweep

We went to the Cardinals/Dodgers game last night.  It was the final game in a 4 game series.  The Cards had beaten the Dodgers the first three games so I was hoping that they could sweep the Dodgers but, alas, it was not meant to be.  The Dodgers beat the Cardinals 5 to 3 in 10 innings. 

I love the Dodgers.  The only team I love more than the Dodgers is the Cardinals.  I even went to a playoff game (Cardinals vs Dodgers) in 1985 and I wore my Cardinals shirt and my Dodger socks...hee hee hee.  I don't believe I've ever booed the Dodgers...until last night.  Every time Manny Ramirez came to bat or took the field, the entire crowd booed so I had to join in.  Seriously, I can't stand him, mostly because of the 2004 World Series.  I even booed Joe Torre when he made the decision to walk Pujols and Holliday back to back.  Oh well, I still love the Dodgers and Joe Torre too.

OK, gotta run.  I need to get ready for the Muny.  Happy Friday!

My New Avatar

Isn't it cute?  I changed my avatar on the crafting site, mainly just to irritate the Sarah bashers.  The funny thing is, these women continue to argue that Palin is finished politically.  Um, ok, then why do you keep talking about her?  I think that she's much more of a threat than they want to admit.  One woman wrote a very condescending post and when I called her on it, she started whining.  Some people can dish it out but can't take it. 

I painted our laundry room tonight.  It's a shade lighter than the kitchen and family room and it's color that I'm going to paint the dining room and living room.  Anyway, we bought a new washer and dryer on Saturday.  They're being delivered on Thursday and installed on Friday so I wanted to paint before the new set arrives.  It looks good if I do say so myself. 

The Music Man

We saw The Music Man last night at The Muny.  The last time we saw it, Joel Higgins played the lead.  Bill doesn't like Joel Higgins; not sure why, he just doesn't...hee hee hee.  This time, the lead was played by James Clow whom we've seen in several previous Muny performances including Oklahoma, Hello Dolly and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, just to name a few.  Georgia Engle played Mrs. Paroo.  We've seen her in the Muny productions of Meet Me In St. Louis, Oklahoma and Mame and the Fox production of The Drowsey Chaperone in 2007.  She cracks me up.  I wonder if that's her real voice.  Anyway, I can't believe that there are only two shows left this season...Camelot and Hairspray, neither of which we've seen before.

We had a picnic dinner in the park again.  While we enjoy the Culver Pavillion and have eaten dinner there before every performance for the past four or five years, the menu just didn't really appeal to us this year.  We've enjoyed either eating a quick dinner at a restaurant on the way or having a picnic.  

Happy Saturday!

    

Birds In Our Basement

There are two birds in our basement.  No, they didn't fly in through the window.  They are safely housed in their cage and they belong to our niece, Amanda, who is on vacation.  We're "bird sitting" for the next week.  The birds are cute little Budgies and their names are Belle and Peeps.    

  

Belle is the white and blue one and Peeps is the yellow and green one.  Belle is a little more timid than Peeps, however, they must already feel at home because Belle was the first one to head over to the treat that I held out for them.  Not to be left out, Peeps quickly followed suit.

Obviously with a cat in the house, we had to decide where the best area would be to set up their cage.  Since the basement has windows and is warm enough, we all agreed that it would be the safest place.  Greta cannot open the door and get into the basement so Belle and Peeps will have no worries.  I do think Greta knows that there are visitors in her basement, however.  She sat by the basement door for about 15 minutes but once she realized that we weren't going to open the door, she continued on with her regular kitty activities.

Amanda, if you're reading this, rest assured that your dear birdies are being well cared for and are having a great time.  Chirp chirp...

    

I Do Stamp

Oh my goodness, I haven't posted a card since June 22.  I've been too busy researching possums...hee hee hee.

OK, I spent some time in my studio last night and I made several cards.  This one is my favorite.  I love the combination of light blue, red and kraft .  

 

Ingredients:

Ink - Pure Poppy by Papertrey Ink 

Card stock - Kraft and Whisper White by @Stampin' Up

Patterned Paper - by Papertrey Ink

Images - Warm Words  by @Stampin' Up

Accessories- ribbon by Papertrey Ink, rhinestones by Mark Richards, Top Note die by @Stampin' Up, tag die by Sizzix 

The weather was absolutely wonderful this weekend and it's supposed to be nice all week.  It will be top down weather for sure!   

Godspell

We saw Godspell at The Muny last night.  Eric Kunze, one of my favorite Muny regulars, played Jesus.  The playbill said that Eric is "thrilled to return to the Muny, as yet another Jesus."  We've seen him perform the leading rolls in Joseph & The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Miss Saigon.  He has a beautiful voice which you can check out by clicking here.     

We packed some chips, cookies and a few Trouble Brewing amber ales and then  went to St. Louis Bread Company to get sandwiches (I had the yummy chipotle chicken and Bill had the chicken ceasar).  We then headed to the Muny to have a picnic dinner.  The weather was perfect and actually felt more like late September than the middle of July. 

We're going to grill burgers and corn on the cob tonight.  I made the yummy blue cheese, garlic and red onion topper for the burgers.  Yummo.  After dinner, I plan to head down to my Blue Heart Studio to make a few cards.  I promise to post at least one of them tomorrow.  Stay tuned...

2009 All Star Game

Ugh.  The National League lost 3 to 2.  That's 13 years in a row!  Oh well, there's always next year.  Oops, now I sound like a Cubs fan...hee hee hee.  Anyway, it was so cool to have the All Star Game here in St. Louis.  The last time it was held here was back in 1966, the first year of the real Busch Stadium.

Since I have been a Cardinal fan all my life, I have definite opinions on all of the National League teams.  I've ranked them as follows:

• Love - Cardinals, Dodgers
• Like - Nationals, Padres, Rockies, Diamondbacks
• Neutral - Marlins
• Dislike - Brewers, Pirates, Giants
• Hate - Phillies, Braves, Mets, Astros, Cubs, Reds

As for the American League, they don't play real baseball since the pitcher doesn't bat.  We don't see many American League teams here unless it's during the stupid inter-league play so I don't really have an opinion on many of the teams.  There are only a two I can't stand...Red Sox and Royals, I guess because they've both beaten the Cardinals in the World Series during my lifetime...hee hee hee.  I guess I should  hate the Twins too since they beat the Cardinals in the 1987 World Series but since my dad was born and raised in Minnesota, the Twins get a pass.  Anyway, technically the Royals only won the 1985 World Series because Don Denkinger (an AMERICAN League umpire no less) called Jorge Orta safe when he was, in fact, out.  Denkinger apparently wasn't wearing his glasses that day!  Look at the photo and it proves that Orta was out (photo from Wikipedia).  Mention the name Denkinger to any Cardinal fan and they will give you the same reaction.  Grrr....

 

Possums & Sock Puppets

A few months ago, a friend directed me to an article called Death and Deception on the Internet.  It's an article about a woman named "Evie" who was a member of a writing group on the internet.  She became ill and was hospitalized.  She appeared to be doing better (her husband "Adam" had brought a laptop to the hospital so that she could keep in contact with her "friends" on the internet) but then she took a turn for the worse and died.  According to this article, people were crying and asking where they could send a donation in Evie's name.  Well, it turns out that Evie wasn't dead after all and I'm pretty sure her name wasn't even Evie.  Anyway, you can read the entire article by clicking on the link above.

While this article is interesting in and of itself, the comments that people posted are what caught my eye.  One of the comments mentioned a woman whose screen name was Penn Mommy.  She apparently was a frequent poster on the Gosselins Do Not Need Our Pity website.  This Penn Mommy claimed to know the Gosselins.  That gave her an "in" so to speak with this online group.  Her son suddenly became seriously ill, was hospitalized and subsequently died.  The owners of the GDNNOP site became suspicious, mainly due to the fact that this woman claimed to live in Pennsylvania near the Gosselins yet her IP address was located in Bakersfield CA.  They started doing a little research and what they found was quite interesting in deed.  You can read the post outlining their findings by clicking here.  To summarize what they discovered, apparently Penn Mommy had several other on screen identities:  Jhawksgirl1, Becky Haas, and Karen and she is reported to be the author of the blog called Possummomma.  Small world.  This person is also on a particular site that I visit regularly.  When I contacted one of the owners of the GDNNOP site several months ago to let them know, she said that they were aware of her activities on said site, including all of her sock puppets.  What is a sock puppet you may ask?  According to The Free Dictionary, it is "a phony name made up by a user in order to masquerade as someone else on the Internet. Sock puppets can make controversial comments or vote for or against a cause without revealing their identity." 

Fast forward to the issues with "Anonymous" as outlined in my July 5 post.  Do I think that Anonymous and Possummomma are one and the same?  No.  I believe Anonymous is just a small fish in a pond, so to speak.  Do I think that Possummomma has other screen names?  Most certainly, and apparently I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Fan Fest & Meet Me in St. Louis

We had a full day on Friday.  We ate breakfast at St. Louis Bread Company and then headed to Shrewsbury to take Metrolink downtown for Fan Fest which was held at America's Center.  It was so much fun.  I guess if you're not a baseball fan, it wouldn't have been as interesting but it was so cool seeing all of the old uniforms,ticket stubs and programs from past world series and all star games, photos, autographed baseballs and bats, etc.  We spent 3 1/2 hours there and would have been there even longer if we had chosen to stand in the autograph lines or the lines for the interactive activities.    

After we left Fan Fest, we walked to the new City Garden which opened on July 1.  I had to take a picture of Bill peeking out of the eye of this big head...hee hee hee.  There are pink flamingos sitting throughout the garden (we spotted two) and you're supposed to move them around todifferent places, although I'm not sure that everyone realizes it so they were looking at me kind of strangely when I was lugging one of them across the garden.  I decided to place him on top of one of the sculptures and take a picture,  It started raining but luckily we had our umbrellas and the rain only lasted about 10 minutes.

 When we left the City Garden, we walked to Busch Stadium to take pictures since this will be as close as we get to the All Star Game.  We had the chance to buy tickets online but the only ones left were $800 a piece.  I seriously considered it for about 2 seconds but ended up passing.  Anyway, the stadium looks so cool with all of the red, white and blue bunting and the All Star banners!  

We rode Metrolink back to our car and then headed to Blueberry Hill for dinner.  They have the best hamburgers ever and I especially like their blue cheese and bacon burger.  Yum.  We walked around the The Loop for a little while, checking out several of the little shops.  I found cute handmade coasters at Phoenix Rising and decided that I had to have them.

After we finished shopping, we drove to The Muny.  The show this week was Meet Me in St. Louis which seemed to be our theme of the day...hee hee hee.  We've seen this musical twice before and have enjoyed it every time.  Can you believe that I've never seen the movie with Judy Garland?  Anyway, I love the Trolly Song and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas as well as the title song.  At the very end when the family is attending the World's Fair, they shot fireworks over the stage.   Too cool.

From beginning to end, our day lasted 15 hours.  It was certainly a lot of fun.  Now I can't wait for the Homerun Derby tomorrow and the All Star Game on Tuesday. Go National League!!!

No Doubt

We saw No Doubt at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater with Lisa and Randy last night.  The concert was great and I knew more songs than I thought I would.  Gwen Stefani's voice is amazing and oh my goodness, she's in such great shape.  Not many people could run around the stage for over 90 minutes while singing and then do 10 push-ups; guy push-ups, not girly push-ups. 

Bedouin Soundclash opened the show followed by Paramore.  I had never heard of either one of these groups before.  While I probably wouldn't buy their CD's, they were good, just not my style.  There were a lot of little kids (read 16 and under) who absolutely lost their minds when Paramore took the stage.  Oh my goodness...I felt so old, although the beer guy did card me and didn't card my baby sister!

Busy day tomorrow...St. Louis Bread Company, Fan Fest, City Garden, Blueberry Hill, Muny.  Stay tuned for deets.