Category Archives: Uncategorized

It’s pretty damned close….

May 30, 2019 Rivergirl 24 Comments

Okay ladies, (Or men. I won’t discriminate) have you ever been to Ulta beauty?

I hadn’t until the other day and my only question is…. why the Hell did I wait so long?

I was like a kid in a candy store, happily skipping up and down the product laden aisles. It was lovely… and I came home with bags full of wondrous scents, ~~war paint~~ make up, lotions, soaps and ~~spackle~~ face creams.

A little known fact, but true nonetheless.

The guys will never understand, but a woman’s search for the perfect mascara can be life long.

We need it…. like air.

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Am I right?

Of course I am.

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Never underestimate the power of cosmetics.

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So imagine my excitement when I found this –

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Yes, you read it correctly.

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Mascara that claims to be better than sex.

You know I had to try it.

The applicator is hourglass shaped…

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For obscure Marilyn Monroe reasons.

And while my husband will be glad that I can honestly report it’s not better than sex.

Believe me when I say…

It’s pretty damned close!!

Throwing some questions out into the universe.

May 29, 2019 Rivergirl 31 Comments

Why is it that….

Every time you’re in a rush to get out the door?

Great Aunt Trudy will call and want to regale you with detailed stories of her piles.

If I didn’t want to hear about them the last 3 times we spoke? Chances are I really don’t want to hear about them when I’m 10 minutes late for an appointment.

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Why is it that…

Every time I cut my hand in the kitchen?

I’m in danger of bleeding out because I can’t get the damned Bandaid package open with one hand.

Seriously, WTH?

Why is it that…

Even though I’m a font of useless knowledge, I let my friends down last week when I couldn’t come up with the winning answer in a trivia game tie breaker at my local bar?

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But, come on.

Did you know that the original name for the Google search engine was…

BackRub?

No… I didn’t think so.

Why is it that…

Every time I take the time to wash and wax my car?

It either rains, or a flock of pigeons who’ve just eaten at Chipolte follow me home.

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Why is it that….

Every time I think I have absolutely nothing to blog about?

I always manage to come up with something ridiculous.

You’re welcome.

Too busy to enjoy.

May 28, 2019 Rivergirl 17 Comments

Memorial Day.

A time to remember and honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

The weekend dawned clear and bright, and while others were out on the lake or enjoying cookouts with friends…

We at Casa River were hard at work.

A winter that didn’t want to let go and one of the wettest springs I can remember left us with an utter nightmare of a landscape. Parts of the lawn have been a swamp for a month and impossible to mow, so this had to happen.

That’s the husband.

Weed wacking the lawn.

You know how they always say the grass is greener over the septic tank?

Believe it.

He was calf deep in a veritable field of thick heavy grass.

After the weed wacking came the mowing, and after the mowing…

The raking of the mini hay field.

People think we exaggerate when we say it takes the both of us, working all day, to do the weekly lawn maintenance.

We don’t. And it does.

But the weather cooperated for 3 days with warm sun and cool breezes and we got a lot done.

I dragged the deck furniture out of the barn and finished the garden bed I had to redo….

Then hauled in another 30 bags of mulch for some others.

I weeded, and mulched and reset border stones for 10 beds.

All prepped and ready for flowers.

I spent the next day mowing and trimming and cutting back dead shrubs.

And the day after that?

I literally couldn’t move.

Everything that could hurt, did.

Neck, shoulders, arms, thighs, knees and feet.

Nothing like a long winter of inactivity to show you who’s boss.

I love our yard, but damn.

Sometimes it really kicks my ass.

A different kind of throne…

May 27, 2019 Rivergirl 41 Comments

I just learned that Linda Ronstadt recorded a song on the toilet…. and it makes me feel like I’m not making the most of my time there.

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It’s true.

Apparently the vocals to the song Long, Long Time were recorded in a studio bathroom.

Talk about multi tasking….

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I clearly need to up my game.

Have you ever gotten so sidetracked you forgot where you started?

May 26, 2019 Rivergirl 46 Comments

I was at Wal Mart the other day and decided to cruise down the clearance aisle. I don’t often shop there, but clearance racks are like thrift stores. You never know what you’ll find.

I found this:

I chuckled. I photographed it. I came home, started to write a blog and thought….. come on.

How often does corn need to wear a coat?

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Fair enough… if not slightly disturbing.

Proof positive there’s a Google Image for everything.

And then I saw –

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Which is definitely disturbing.

Corn porn?

WTH!

And of course that got me thinking of that damned corn on the cob dildo I found on Amazon a while back, which lead me to –

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Make of that what you will.

Google Images has a mind of it’s own.

But thinking about disturbing corn also made my mind go here –

Oh, yeah.

Stephen King’s Children of the Corn.

A camp classic.

But not the only strange corn…

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And that made me remember Corn Stonehenge.

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Yes, it really exists.

Dublin, Ohio

Maybe it’s supposed to be ironic, this former corn field, sprouting 109 people-sized ears of concrete corn in a large oddball art display. But it’s also a salute to Sam Frantz, an inventor of hybrid corns, and a very weird sight along the highway.

Frantz farmed this site from 1935 to 1963, using it as as a study field for tasty mutant strains. Frantz was “well known for his development of hybrid corn seeds,” and worked with Ohio State University on hybridization projects. He donated this land, now named Sam and Eulalia Frantz Park, after its farming days were over.

Field of Corn.

The artist brought in by the Dublin Arts Council to create the environment of corn, Malcolm Cochran, completed the field in 1994.

Intended by the Arts Council to remind residents of the area’s long-gone agricultural heritage, the Field of Corn instantly became a joke — giant inedible food — paid for with tax dollars, and surrounded by a sprawl of corporate offices, bland businesses and suburban neighborhoods.

And now, I totally want to go and take a corn selfie.

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(Admit it… you do too.)

But if that isn’t enough corn cuteness for you?

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Here’s a capybara.

In a pool.

Eating corn.

Just because I can.

From Wal Mart’s clearance aisle to giant rodents eating corn.

That’s the very definition of sidetracked.

Meet Great Grandpa….

May 25, 2019 Rivergirl 32 Comments

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Okay, technically he’s my 8th great grandfather.

Though I can’t say I see the resemblance.

I’ve been shaking the family tree again and found Sir Adrian Scrope…. born in 1601, matriculated at Harts Hall, Oxford. A military man, he obtained the rank of colonel before it all went bad.

Very, very bad.

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Scrope was one of the regicides who surrendered at the Restoration of Charles II. The House of Commons voted to pardon him under the Act of Indemnity, but the House of Lords demanded that all the regicides should be brought to trial. Scrope was condemned to death when Major-General Richard Browne testified that Scrope had justified Charles I’s execution to him even after Charles II’s return. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Charing Cross on 17 October 1660.

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An account of his behaviour in prison and at the gallows describes him as “a comely ancient gentleman”, and dwells on his cheerfulness and courage.

Cheerful at the gallows?

Well, good for him.

I can’t say his 8th great granddaughter would have been quite so chipper.

A modern fairy tale.

May 24, 2019 Rivergirl 40 Comments

Once upon a time there was a Princess.

We shall call her….

River.

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(River has been called a lot of things in her day, but never a Princess.

So if you’re calling?

Make it loud.)

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Princess River loves her flowers. She plants them whenever and wherever she can.

And since the Princess lives in a kingdom that’s covered by snow and ice half of the year?

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She takes her plantings seriously.

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When she first moved into her castle, she toiled long and hard until she had the biggest and most beautiful garden bed in the land.

In early summer it sprouted stunning displays of Lupine….

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And myriads of other riotous, colorful blooms all season long.

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Princess River was content.

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This went on for many happy years until her husband, the evil Prince, started mowing in close proximity to the bed. He also mowed in the wrong direction.

Bad Prince.

Bad!

She asked him to be more careful.

She pleaded with him to go the other way.

But month after month the dastardly toad blew grass clippings in to her carefully tended flower garden.

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(You do.

And I shall…)

The Princess weeded, she turned the soil, she mulched…. but to no avail.

After a year or two, the grass took over.

It choked all Princess River’s lovely flowers to death.

Princess River was not happy.

She had to leave the castle and hump 12 bags of mulch across the moat.

She had to wack down all her blooms, rake up the dead bodies, reset the brick border, lay weed block paper, re-mulch and reset the pavers that anchored the Royal Bath of Birds.

The sky darkened. The wind blew.

It started to rain.

And she ran out of mulch.

(Mathematical coverage formulas were never her strong suit.)

Princess River had to abandon her project when a deluge of biblical proportion battered her royal self.

She will be victorious…. someday.

Until then she will slowly plot her revenge upon the evil Prince and his heinous grass cutting machines.

She will plan carefully.

The punishment must fit the crime.

Sorry boys….

May 23, 2019 Rivergirl 24 Comments

But you look like weirdos this time of year.

Last fall, this buck was a 12 pointer.

Today?

He looks like a Princess Leia wannabe.

I mean come on…

The other deer are laughing at him.

And apparently, so is Chris Hemsworth.

Sorry guy…

But it’s true.

You do look kind of ridiculous.

Tomorrow is a holiday…

May 22, 2019 Rivergirl 34 Comments

And not just any holiday.

Please celebrate accordingly.

Well, that’s disturbing.

I was thinking more along the lines of…

Are we really doing this?

May 21, 2019 Rivergirl 48 Comments

I saw an advertisement the other day that made me do a double take.

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This is one of those times.

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Are we really doing this?

Baby Pod.

“The intravaginal device that entertains your fetus with an insertable speaker for your baby maker.”

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It’s basically a small ( I hope! ) speaker that pregnant women can insert into their vaginas to play music for their uterine inhabitants.

Now while I’m usually down for any new tech that hits the market,

And I’ve connected my iPhone to a lot of different things over the years….

I admit this one gives me pause.

Here’s the science behind it:

Dr. Marisa López-Teijón from Institut Marquès said that her team studies the influence of music on embryonic and fetal development.”We’ve conducted a study showing that musical vibrations increase the chances that the sperm fertilizes the egg, i.e. that music improves IVF.”

Having found better results in in-vitro fertilization through musical vibrations for embryos, the researchers decided to apply their idea to fetuses.

López-Teijón and her team placed speakers on pregnant women’s abdomens during ultrasounds but found no fetal reaction. “In fact, gynecologists had never observed in an ultrasound a change on the fetus as a reaction to external noises or the voice of the mother,” the doctor explained.

“We decided that we had to bring closer to them the source of sound,” she continued. “We had to bring the background music into the uterus. And I had the idea of inserting a speaker in the vagina of pregnant women.”

I’m sure Apple Music and Spotify are thrilled.

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For three months, the team evaluated 106 expectant mothers and their unborn babies’ reactions to intravaginal music. “We were pleasantly surprised to see the excitement of parents during ultrasound sessions to see the spectacular images of face, tongue and mouth movements of their babies,”López-Teijón said, adding that most patients wanted to repeat the experience and many more parents-to-be requested to participate.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest seeing spectacular images of their babies faces isn’t the only reason mothers are feeling excitement.

Admittedly, I don’t have children…. so forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn.

But if this had been available during my child bearing years?

Junior would probably have ended up like this.

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Where there's only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.