Home Repairs.. I hear banjo music!!!!

Wow!  We just spent the last 4 days having minor repairs done on our home including a new fence on one side of the yard and new columns for the front porch.  With a yard full of construction workers, empty Mountain Dew soda cans lying everywhere, cigarette butts from the cheapest and most vile smelling of fags strewn across the yard and HUGE diesel trucks in front of the house, the experience was similar to being a movie extra on the set of Deliverance!!

Apparently, there are some prerequisites to being a handyman:
1.  Your stomach must extend at least 2 feet and your pants must be worn below that enormous gut so that your buttcrack is exposed when you bend over.

2.  You must have 5 days worth of stubble minimum and you have to look like you have not bathed in a week.

3.  Your vocabulary has to include phrases like "I reckon so", "nary a one" and "lordy would ya look at that".  These phrases are used to respond to homeowner questions like "can you do that work without a work permit from the city ?" Answer: I reckon so, "how many fences have you put up in the past?" Answer: nary a one and "there is a HUGE gap in that fence" Response: Lordy would ya look at that!!

4.  You have to drive an over-sized, diesel pick-up that probably gets about 3 miles to the gallon and you have to put the LOUDEST muffler on it that you can buy.

5.  While working you are able to simultaneously hammer, drink Mountain Dew and have a lit cigarette dangling from your mouth and your name is Bubba, Butch or Junior.

Day 2 proved even more interesting when the contractor we hired sent his "cousin" over to power wash the house.  The "cousin" was obviously a bit "special" and it was also apparent that this family tree doesn't have many branches or offshoots!  Junior, the cousin, brought a pressure washer with him but no ladder and no hose.  The first hour he was scheduled to wash our house, he had to drive his diesel truck back to his house to get the equipment.  An hour later, he returns, walks around the house once and then promptly announces that he "is going to need 'chemical' to get that thar black stuff off the gutters" so he set off in his diesel truck to "get some 'chemical'".  An hour later, he returns and I quickly surmise that "chemical" actually means tons of Clorox bleach.  Junior leaves the "chemical" on my picnic table and then leaves again (not sure why he left this time) and returns 1 1/2 hours later. 

Within 20 minutes of actually starting work, Junior comes to inform me that "yer window screen musta been rotten cuz it tore".  I asked "tore? tore how? when?"  Junior looks at his enormous feet and says "when I sprayed it with the hose".  My next question was "why are you pressure washing my window screens and he says, in his slow Forest Gump-like drawl "I always do that because when I do a job everything is clean and shiny".  OK Rainman.. how about you do NOT wash any more window screens and concentrate on the siding. 

10 minutes after this exchange, my 19-year-old daughter, Whit, comes to me and seems rather green around the gills.  I asked her if she was ok..was she sick.  Whit quickly informed me that the 70 degree mild temperature must have been too much for Junior because he was now on a ladder, washing our house with NO SHIRT ON!!  The sight of this had made Whit feel a bit queasy and I did not really understand.  I told her "oh you are exaggerating.. he has a big tummy but it can't be THAT bad" to which she prompted me to "go see for myself".  I walked outside and there, on a ladder 20 feet in the air, was Junior with the largest non-pregnant belly I had ever seen and he appeared to be wearing a sweater!!  Oh wait.. oh my.. no he was not wearing a sweater.. he was wearing no shirt at all.  I quickly went back into my house, feeling a bit green around the gills myself.

Junior also managed to spray large quantities into the outdoor electrical outlet, causing the entire system to short out, almost break a front side-light window and knock a piece of siding off the house - all in a matter of hours.

In the end though, the fence looks terrific, the front porch is perfect and the house is clean.  Now they come to clean the gutters next..... I can't wait !

A Yank in the land of William Wallace and Rob Roy...

     I think it should be a rule that, if your spouse is an immigrant and you go with him/her to vacation in their "homeland", they should have to explain the rules.  There should be some sort of "travel school" with classes on cultural differences and language differences.  My husband and I traveled to Edinburgh Scotland last summer.  My husband is a Yorkshireman.. yes, flat cap and all but no whippett lol.  I am American born and bred.  I wanted to "share" a few pointers that I picked up as a Yankee in the UK:
1.  A "caravan" is NOT a mini van or multi-passenger vehicle, it is a mobile home and "busking" is not an illegal activity, it is performing on sidewalks for money.  So, if a woman with a very tired baby approaches you and tells you that she lives in a "caravan" and her husband is a "busker" who has locked her and the baby out of the "caravan", they do NOT live in their car and her husband is not engaged in illegal activity.  You do not have to give her money.
2.  Always LOOK RIGHT when crossing the street.  In London, they mark the streets "reminding" dumbass tourists to "LOOK RIGHT" but other, smaller cities and areas of the UK do not mark their streets and thus, to avoid being run down by a busker in a caravan, always LOOK RIGHT when crossing the street.
3.   Only people native to the UK seem to understand the difference between a "church", a "chapel" and a "cathedral".. they will attempt to explain it to you but, much like when they explain the royal hierarchial system, it is just too complicated to "get" unless you are a native.  There are earls and dukes and queens and princes and lords... I STILL have no idea who is who!!  I do know that there are some people in the UK so greedy that they are called by several different titles at the same time!  The Duke of Whats-It may also be Lord Whats-It for example. 
4.  Those signs with cameras on them are NOT telling you to that this is a photo op and you should take a picture.  Here in the states, when one sees a highway sign with a camera on it, that means there is something scenic you do not want to miss.  In the UK, it means there is a speed camera that you don't want to miss.  I wandered all over Scotland taking pictures of sheep and various "odd scenic sites" before my loving husband decided to "clue me in" on the fact that the sign was not indicating a photo opportunity but telling people to slow the hell down.  On the upside - the sheep photos I accumulated are adorable!
5.  You WILL need a translator in Scotland.  I went an entire week wondering what the hell a "helin coo" was.  Finally, one very nice older man picked up on the fact that I had NO CLUE what he was talking about so he kindly put his forefingers on top of his head to indicate that he was referring to a HIGHLAND COW.
6.  Do NOT eat haggis and the Scots FRY EVERYTHING.  Where else on earth will you find "fried mars bars" or "fried pizza". 
7.  Beer cost less than soda so SLAINTE!
8.  Never EVER say the word FANNY in the UK.  Old women will fall out of their chairs and small children will look appalled and scared.  It is a VILE, ugly word in the UK.  UK natives carry "bum bags" , not "fanny packs".  Oh and "smoking a fag" is NOT referring to a hate crime..although I still giggle like an idiot every time I hear someone say it. 
9.  It is not a good thing to be called any of the following in the UK:  slapper, tosser, wanker, minger or bollock.  Those are the equivalent of the Yank speak : slut, douche bag, moron, ugly heiffer and idiot.  Ugly women are also referred to as "food" : "she had a face like a chewed up toffee", "she had a face like dried fruit".  Fruit is baaaddd!!
10.  For whatever reason, people in the UK do not seem to believe in washrags.  They call them face cloths but good luck finding one!

People from the UK are also fairly intolerant of one another.  The english do not like the welsh, the scots don't like the english, the welsh don't like the scots.  It's such a teeny country, can't they all just get along??  Oh.. speaking of the welsh, add "sheep shagger" to that list of "not good things to be called in the UK"

Lastly a few terms to learn before you go:

Yank = you
Caravan = mobile home/trailer
Busker = street musician
Roundabout = traffic circle
Central Reservation = median strip
Chips = french fries
Crisps = potato chips
Biscuit = cookie
Lift = elevator
Lorry = truck
Rubber = eraser
Fag = cigarette
Flat = apartment
Holiday = vacation
Taking the piss = teasing/pulling ones leg
On the piss/pish = drunk
Football = soccer
Fit = attractive
Peckish = hungry
Braces = suspenders
Trainers = sneakers

Ooooh the list is long but trust me when I say be very careful what you say !!

NO MORE ROYAL WEDDING!!!

I have spent the past two weeks trying to avoid images and news articles regarding the "royal wedding".  Tornados swept across the US, killing hundreds of people and the news media chose front page fodder such as "what color hat will the queen wear", "who is on the guest list", "who will design the wedding dress".. WHO CARES??  With the amount of money foolishly squandered on this ridiculous fiasco, the wedding dress may as well have been made of starving babies or the homeless.  Why is the world obsessed with the most prominent welfare recipients in the world: the royal family??  Public money spent on grossly self-indulgent trifles is nothing to celebrate or promote!  The world is in the midst of a depression.  The economic conditions are bleak worldwide and this family of inbreds monopolizes the media for several weeks, spending money on a ceremony at the expense of the working class in the UK.  It's not news, it's debauchery!  I, for one, have no interest in the royals. I can see people on the dole any day of the week.  Come on media moguls, report the NEWS and not Tattler-esque crap!!