Remember those eagles I wowed you all with? My friend Jeff informs me -- and I trust his judgement 100% on this -- that they are not eagles, but rather...
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...turkey vultures.*
Crap. But thanks anyway, Jeff. I prefer to be educated and disillusioned rather than happy but stupid.
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And now for the moment you have all been waiting, for: the contest results!
The winner is...
Dani B for her story about her grandmother:
True story: My grandmother can't quite manage on her own any more, so she lives with my aunt's family. No driver's license and a new neighbourhood have meant a big upheaval, so to help keep her social life active all of the grandchildren take turns driving her to church euchre nights or the local senior's centre or to visit girlfriends. She always protests that she doesn't want to be any trouble, we say that it isn't (because truly, it isn't), and she puts on her earrings and goes.
Last week we had this conversation in the car on the way to euchre: "Let's skip this and just go for a drink. Or I'll take you for ice cream. You don't want to play cards, do you?"
"I'm lactose intolerent Nanny, and I do like euchre. You taught me, remember?"
"Oh, piss on it, I don't want to go! I hate going to cards because all the people there are so OLD. All they talk about is their joints and their teeth and their feet and they never tell new stories!"
"Nanny, last time I checked, you were 87. How old ARE these people exactly?"
"What does my age have to do with how OLD I am?!" *scandalized stare*
Confession: It was the "Piss on it!" that did it for me.
RANDOM.ORG tells me that #3 in my list -- Lene! -- is the random winner. Yay, Lene!
Congrats to Lene and Dani. I have emailed both of you, so check your spam folders just in case an email with the subject line "You are a winner!" got tossed in there. Yeah, like that could happen.
Thanks to everyone for their good wishes and for all the giggles I got from reading your comments. A special thanks to lisa, who gave me the perfect answer to any and all stupid remarks I may ever hear: "Yes, isn't it FABULOUS!"
As in, "My, your hair is getting gray." "Yes, isn't it FABULOUS!"
"Have you put on some weight?" "Yes, isn't it FABULOUS!"
I plan to use that at every opportunity.
ETA: Smokey reminded me of what his grandfather said on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday. "Ninety isn't old. Why, it isn't even 100!" I wish I could have known the man, but he died the year before we met. By all accounts he was quite a character.
* I would have put a picture of a turkey vulture here but TypePad is being pissy uncooperative and not offering the click-able icons for easy insertion of pictures (or fonts, or indents, or any of those fun things). Just so you know, I did any and all formating in this post by editing the HTML myself. ::self-administered pat on back::
