I’m a big royalty fan, but glad that we have a President and not a monarch.  However, I do get my kicks from the antics of the British Royal Family, past and present.

This Queen, has had no scandal in her own life…her kids, however, can’t say the same.

Since I’ve already planned a post about another Queen, which continues on my theme of “Love”  for Monday, I’ll say congratulations to Her Majesty today.

God Save The Queen!

He said, “Well, I’m about to be $30,000 lighter here in a few minutes.”

We kinda like it when that happens.

I replied, “Oh, you getting something new?”

He quickly said, “No, my wife is.  She’s in the restroom.”  (TMI)

“Great”, I said, “how long have you two been married?”

His reply was, “Married? or Together?”

I shrugged.

He told me they had been married for 43 years, but had been an item for 51.

They met in the 10th grade.

He said, that he was in home room in Wilmington, Deleware, where his father and her father worked for DuPont.

She was new to the school,  had just transferred in from the Catholic Girls School, and came into home room with two other girls, whom he knew.

He went on to say, “I asked a buddy, who she was, and he told me not to bother, she was dating someone else.”

Then he added, “I knew new I could f’n nail that!”

Apparently, he did!

When she came out of the restroom, she said, “What are you talking about?”

“I’m just telling him how we met.”, he replied with a huge grin.

I’ve never seen a woman slug a man so hard in the shoulder!

Ah, romance! Chivalry!  True Love Ways!

I have tons of friends on Facebook, nearly 500 followers on Bloggers.com, and have heard from people I’ve never met in lands on six continents.

Recently, Kajal, a blogger from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award.

I don’t really know what that is, am assuming there is no money, nor a plaque, nor a certificate.

But, it’s nice to be recognized for my versatility.

Kajal has asked that I share the love with other bloggers, and so, I will.

I am to post a picture of the award on my blog.

See below.

Thank the award giver:  Thanks!!

Share seven random facts about myself:

1. I eat the same lunch ever day – well, not the SAME lunch, but I have a salad with Vermont White Cheddar Cheese and Blackened Turkey each day at lunch.
2. I eat the same breakfast every day – again, not the SAME – one egg, scrambled with cheese, one piece of wheat toast, grape jelly and about a gallon of coffee Redneck Latte.
3. I am totally addicted to Downton Abbey.
4. I do not have a nook, kindle, nor ipad.
5. My cell phone is still a flip phone…it works, don’t judge me.
6. I was bald by the time I was 20.
7. I often ruin friendships by working too hard to maintain them.

Now, as to nominating others for this award, that’s a little difficult.  I don’t want anyone to think this chain letter award must go on, but I read other bloggers each day/week/month, and there are many, many that I really like.

So, here goes:

Check out my blog roll on Redneck Latte Ravings.

I”m a no pressure guy, and don’t want anyone to think they HAVE to pass this on.  I mean, it’s not like the world’s gonna end if you don’t.  Well, not counting for the Mayans and all.

…and check out Rajal’s posts at The Purple Chronicles.

He’s most remembered as the American Footballer who started elaborate end zone celebrations.

He got the nickname in High School, when he dyed his shoes white on a dare.  His height kept him from Division I schools, but he played at Widener College, a Division III school in PA.

He played for the Houston Oilers, The Canadian Fooball League, and the Atlanta Falcons!

Johnson started with the Oilers as a kickoff returner, his speed helped the offense.  He celebrated his touchdowns by doing “the Funky Chicken”, a dance stemming from the song by Rufus Thomas.  It is considered the fist touchdown celebration in the NFL.

Oddly enough, his funky chicken was more well received than Tebowing!!

So, dance on, White Shoes Johnson, dance on!

And Happy 60th Birthday from another Dragon.

I find it odd…

…that people who are supposed to believe the same things and are members of the same political party can rip each other apart for months on end, and then come back together like nothing has happened.

… that most plus size clothing is blowsy and flowery rather than dark and slimming.

…that rather than embarrass her lover, Potemkin, Catherine the Great passed a law that said no one was allowed to blow their nose on her drapes.

…that Warren Buffet really cares what people pay in taxes.

…that Michael Jordan and Nike haven’t done something to prevent the mall mess and violence caused by each release of Air Jordans.

…we consider any country in the world an ally.

…that we think we can win in Afghanistan when the Greeks, Persians, Romans, British, and Soviet Union couldn’t when each were at the height of their power.

…we continue to pour money into places that hate us, steal from us, and trash us to the world.

…that Brad Pitt left Jennifer Anniston for Angelina Jolie.

…that “Friends” lasted as long as it did.

…and kept the same cast.

…that more people don’t feel the same way I do.

Some days, I’m really dragging too.

But, since 2012 is the year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac, and I was born in the year of the Dragon 1952, I thought I’d check it out.

Now, frankly, I think horoscopes are a bunch of hooey, and remember my Dad having a hissy when we would read ours in the Dayton Daily News.

It was just for fun, it usually never even came close, but it was playing with fire as far as he was concerned.

The Chinese Zodiac has several signs just like the one we see in the paper each day.  The Dragon is the 5th cycle or sign.

According to the websites I’ve googled, the dragon personality or being born in the year of the dragon, since the dragon is a creature of legend and a symbol of good fortune, are usually good things.

OK, how can that be.  Aren’t dragons mean, fire breathing, ripping people to shreads?

It’s a sign of intense power too.

Again, a miss.  I’ve no power…none, zip, zero.

And, since the dragon is a divine creature in Oriental cultures, and brings good fortune, people born in dragon years are respected.

Yeah, right.

Dragon people are free spirits.  OK, one right so far.  I do consider myself a free spirit, and since conformation is an anathema to the dragon, I’ll go for two.  I have, in my dotage, become a bit of a non-conformist.  But in my younger days…

Dragons think rules and regulations are for other people.  Oh, crap.  This guy’s good!

Restrictions smother the creative flames of the dragon, dragons are free and uninhibited.  I’m not so sure about this one.  My inhibitions are probably normal.  The Creative piece, well, I HOPE I’m as creative as I think I am.

Dragons are beautiful, colorful, flamboyant, bundles of energy, gifted and irrepressible.

Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.  Colorful:  my closet is full of black.  Flamboyant:  well…ok, maybe.

Gifted:  aren’t we all?

Irrepressible:  hardly.

But, some of this crap stuff hits the nail right on the head.  Dragons do things on a grand scale.  I would, if I had the means.  Really, I love grand things.  I have big ideas, make ornate gestures, and am ambitious.

Dragons are supposed to be fearless.  Another miss:  I’m not.  Dragons are mostly successful:  really, can we define success?

Dragons are usually enthusiastic, but that usually leaves them tired and unfulfilled.  I’m not so sure it’s the enthusiasm so much as the working all the time that leaves me tired and unfulfilled.

I suppose it’s all a guessing game.  After all, the people who came UP with this stuff were born a jillion years before I was.

One thing I find interesting is that dragon people are supposed to have generous personalities which give them the ability to attract people and make friends.  But in the end, they are really loners at heart.  They love to help, but their pride gets in the way when they need help.  And they have trouble making close bonds with others.

Honestly, doesn’t this sound like a lot of people you know?

One site summed it UP by saying that Dragons are innovative, enterprising, flexible, self-assured, brave, passionate, conceited, tactless, unanticipated, scrutinizing, and quick tempered.

Which immediately pissed me off!

But, headlines galore, a math teacher at Beaver Ruin Elementary School, which is across the street from ‘that place where I work’, has been front page news for several days here.

Doing what the school board has encouraged them to do, a teacher gave a math test which combined a social studies lesson with math.

The result was a brouhaha that enraged parents, prompted protests, calls to the Principal, school board, and picketing.

Really getting to work was a bee-atch, and well, in the end, it’s all about me.

After teaching the kids about slavery – which, I might add was a reality – and following direction of integrating (no pun intended) courses, a teacher created a math test with questions such as those pictured below.

Parents were outraged.

Furious, UP in arms, on the phone, in the faces of everyone who would listen.

The social studies lesson was about Frederick Douglas, a former slave, who was beaten, and if not cotton, I’m sure picked something.

Slavery was and remains a horrid thing.  It should be taught as a lesson of what not to do, and the teachers (there were four who used the test) were doing their job by combining lessons as directed, and reinforcing both math and social studies.

Now, one of them as resigned.  Luis Rivera, left his/her (I’m not sure as to the gender of the teacher) job on January 18 amid a personnel investigation.

I would venture to guess, and this is merely an educated guess, that Rivera had a choice, resign or get fired and lose his/her teaching credentials.  It’s happened before.  Teachers rarely get fired, they chose to resign.

The other three are still under investigation, and we…shall see.

The school board is using the old saw that the test “failed to undergo a content review”,  I say, caca del toro.  Tests are made UP every day and very few of them are reviewed.

Frankly, I have in the past made UP test on the fly, asking the questions as I went.  There was no review.

In an elementary school where 88% of the students are either Black or Hispanic – which leads us to the conclusion that fewer than 12% are Caucasian, allowing for Asians, of which in that area there are many, it isn’t the usual Black/White discrimination story.

More than 50% of the faculty and staff at the school is ‘non-White’ as well.

This isn’t a race thing.

It is just an ill-advised plan being implemented in an ill-thought out way, by dedicated teachers who were trying to balance all the balls and dance as fast as they can at the same time.  It was bad judgement, not maliciousness, as some parents would have us believe.  One angry couple, featured in the AJC, were scowling in the picture while their happy, smiling child showed them the paper.

I’ll admit, beating and picking cotton aren’t pretty things, and better examples could have been used, but they happened.

Get the hell over it!

Slavery existed, math haunts us today, and kids need to learn both.  So, if you want an integrated curriculum, plan it better or live with what you get.

With more than 60 hit records over the years, it’s a great age!

Thanks for all the great music, and Happy Birthday

Saturday evening when the Patriots-Broncos game became just too much to bear, I switched the channel to the Miss America Pageant.

I like pageants, Miss America, Miss Universe, and especially Miss USA.

Kim Seelbrede after all, a Germantown girl, was a Miss USA back in the day.

It got me hooked.

But, sadly, I flipped the switch just as Kris Jenner asked her question of a contestant.

Earlier in the show, when asked what she thought the winner should have, Kris replied, “Somebody that’s really got confidence, who’s passionate, who has worked really hard.  These girls are applying for a job.  I think somebody who’s got an amazing work ethic really impresses me, too.”

The Kardashian Mom’s question, and I’m not quoting here, was something along the line of  ”…Tim Tebow gets a lot of flack for Tebowing and professing his faith.  Do you think it’s right for celebrities use their power and position to promote their platform of faith?

I was appalled at the gall of that broad!

The real question is, “…is it right for the beautiful one, the pretty one, and the other one to use their positions of power to promote their platform of promiscuity, materialism, and shallowness?”

But then, that question will never come UP, will it?

Oddly enough, I have no pictures to go with this post!

Gilda was our first.  We got her six months after we were married, the day before we moved 400 miles away to Tennessee .  She rode in the car with me all the way, spent most of the time whining her box and some between my neck and the car seat head-rest.  She was a cutie.  Eleven ounces and six weeks old when we got her, she actually fit in the inside coat pocket of my old Navy Pea Coat.

We took her everywhere.

She chewed up everything, would not sleep in her bed, wound up in ours, and woke me up everyday like clock work once she was house broken.

But we loved her.

Eight years later, when our daughter was born, Gilda had to go.  She was jealous, snippy, and snappy.  I really didn’t want to A. permanently scar my child’s face; and B. Explain all that to the Department of Children’s Services.  I hear they can be picky.

After child number 2 came along, grew to walking stage, wiping his own butt stage (hallelujah, one of the greatest days of all time and a whole ‘nother blog), we all felt the ‘call of dog’.  Many feel the call of God, but alas, we felt the call of dog.

Then came Lacy.  A blonde Cocker Spaniel that was obviously more inbred than I, had the IQ of a lawn chair, and came with her own IEP.

She would dig one hole under the fence to get out and another one to get back in.  After a while it looked like it was warped, and the neighbors would point and shake their heads as they walked by.

One day she disappeared.  Really, just gone.  I had nothing to do with it, though I was accused, glared at and repeatedly questioned.  The lie detector test was “inconclusive”.  But alas, another one gone.  (Remarkably, my Sister-in-law’s dog, who was Lacy’s litter mate vanished the same week.  My brother-in-law survived the questioning much better than I.)  We never found either of them.  I was not sad.

Again, the dog conversation started.  I hedged, said no, fought, and as all of us do, gave in…just as you will Emily.

That was Dagy, or Dagmar.  Pure bred, black as coal, sweet as sugar and the most wonderful companion ever.  She met me at the door every night.    When every one else was mad, she loved me, when every one else was out, she was at the door.

Then her back went out.  $600.00 and several days at the vet’s later, we had to let her go.  On my 50^th birthday.  Yeah, happy freakin’ birthday.

I swore off dogs, again.

Forever.

But, again, I heard the call of dog.  So I bought two at the same time.  Don’t ever do this.  They won’t learn their own names, they will both come when you call one, they will not train, they will not stop chewing, and they encourage each other to mischief.

After I cam home from my quadruple bypass surgery (I promise to talk about that at length some day),  I was actually afraid they would jump up on me and open up every slice and dice the doctors had done.  Thank goodness for rescue sites.  They were both gone in 2 days.

Then one day, Mugly (short for my ugly dog, ‘cause she was clock stopping hideous – I mean, seriously, “cover your watch!”) showed up.  Really, she just arrived in the yard, decided she liked the place and stayed…for exactly a year.  Then she moved on.

Oh, I looked for her.  I put UP post-it notes advertising “lost dog” on telephone poles, canvassed the neighborhood…all ten houses…but alas, we never found her.  Until I went walking a week later and there she was, dead on the side of the road.  She wasn’t hit; she just went off to die.  I was sad, and swore off dogs, once again.

Then there was Lola.  Lola was my son’s dog.  She had feet the size of hams when she was born.  Now, the biggest dog I had weighed in at about 18 pounds.  This one was 40 at six months.

She was part yellow lab and part idiot.  She was a chewer, a whiner, a barker, a digger, just like all the others.

She had to go.

I bided my time.

Well, the boy decides to go to college.  (I’m happy about that.) He left his dog at home.

Error!

Duh!  Working two jobs and napping got in the way of play time with Lola, so she had to go.

Napping is important.

It just wasn’t fair to her.

One add on kijiji.com and 8 hours later.  I was runnin’ through the house singing “Dog Free” and praising Jesus.

This dog, the last dog, didn’t die.  She went to a nice family with four kids and big fenced yard.  She could have been a science project at UGA and I’d have lost no sleep!

She was the last dog…well, for now.

Seriously, Em, get that bunch under control!  Heed not the Call of Dog!