Chicken Hood Ornament

Looking for theories on why a neighbor places an ornamental, fake chicken on the hood of her mini van, see below -

Seems to always be there.

I’m thinking one of the following - as a deterrent to keep critters from climbing or perching on the front? A superstition or personal habit, like a routine or lucky charm? Folklore? Joke? Habit? Dunno but curious.

Whatever the reason it’s unusual and a tad comical.

Open-air Footwear

I’m a bit confused 🤔 

I’ve noticed many of the folks I pass when out walking, who are out walking themselves, wearing flip flops or sliders or sandals or something similar. Believe it or not, there was even this one dude who was actually jogging in sandals, no socks (sock with sandals is a whole different rant), I kid you not!

This seems super uncomfortable to me. Putter’n around the house, at the beach or pool I can see but walking any distance, especially running seems odd to me. However, full disclosure, I’m not a flip flop or sandal kinda guy so there’s that.

Just an observation that I find unusual.

Carry on.

About 1 In Every 100,000 Birds

Driving down to the far end of our property the other afternoon we spotted a rarity trying to hide in the tall grass.  However, due to it being all white, it stuck out like a sore thumb, so there was no hiding.

She was allusive and stayed low and hidden well. That's her circled in red below -

Eventually she popped out of the tall grass along the fence line, which allowed for the perfect photo opportunity below -

Certainly seems like a rarity to me, an albino wild turkey. I even asked the Google machine if a white turkey was rare and here is the response - "White wild turkeys are extremely rare, with estimates suggesting they occur in about 1 in every 100,000 birds", so there's that...

Perhaps, there's something in the Limestone water, as the Bright's Zoo, just 4-miles up the road, had a female giraffe give birth to a rare pattern-less baby giraffe back in late 2023.

Hoping this is a good omen and that we'll see more of the her once we get moved in.

An Oddity, Pricey Too!

Came across this Facebook Marketplace posting this morning for a wasp's paper nest -

"$50 or best offer. You cut down. In tree."

You can't make this stuff up!

I can certainly see offering something like this up to a teacher or a program geared towards kids, and I understand people are in a tough spot these days, but $50.00 really?!

Of course the add doesn't say how high up in the tree this nest is but looks like it's up there.

It's just a very weird posting.

Is it me?

Sweet Baby Jesus of Chicago

The oddest thing...

While cleaning up the front yard flower bed at my daughters new house in Chicago, I found this 3" Jesus status that was upside down and pushed into dirt with only the base visible.

I'm thinking this is a good sign for the new homeowners, so with a little elbow grease and the garden hose I hosed Him off to remove all the dirt -

He cleaned up quite nicely and now sits upon their front deck watching over the house and those that pass by.

#Blessed

Frequently Bought Together...What?!

I was doing some online research to get pricing on 5-gallon driveway sealers.  I checked out the websites of The Home Depot, Lowes and BJs Wholesale Club to see who offered the best price.

BJs Wholesale Club presented me with the below "Frequently Bought Together" items list, which is both confusing and hilarious.  I'm not sure what their algorithm is to generate such a  list but it's weird -

By the way, The Home Depot has the best pricing on 5-gallon buckets of driveway sealer AND they offer an even lower price per bucket when you purchase (4) or more.

Who wants to come help seal my driveway with me?!

This Looks Like A Good Spot...

I'm confused...

For reasons I'll never understand Trixie chose to piddle smack dab in the middle of the walkway yesterday morning!  It's not that she had to go really really bad, as she sniffed around a bit first before copping a squat.

It's SO weird to me.

She has always done her business on the grass just a mere foot to the left.  This pic doesn't show it but the grass in that general area is all brown and dead...from her peeing there, so why the sudden need to go there on the concrete?

Of course, and even though I hosed that area off just after taking the pic, last night and again this morning she stop, sniffs that same area and does it again.  However, these subsequent pees appear more like she's marking the spot versus relieving herself, as they're much smaller deposits but still STOP IT!

Guests Best Check For Their Stay!

I opened the basement door that leads into the garage the other morning (this was back in April) and this is what I was presented with.  Do you see it?

At first I thought it might have been related to a very near miss I had with a red-tailed hawk driving home from the commuter rail.  We almost collided, as the hawk was weighed down by something in it's talons.  I assumed that this dead bunny was what the hawk was carrying and to avoid the collision it let go of it, which somehow landed on my car unbeknownst to me and slid off at some point once I parked in my garage.

However, after finding some additional oddities in the garage, here is what I think happened -

First, the other oddities were the mouse traps I had set in the garage, al four had been tripped and one was missing. I looked high and low I could not find it.  Only after mowing my lawn, when I was cleaning off the mower before pulling in back into the garage, did I find the missing trap.  It was on top of the mowing deck, an odd place!

What I believe happened is the rabbit ventured into the garage, perhaps when I had left the door open and was puttering in the front yard, and got itself trapped in there when I finished for the evening.  At some point it got into the traps, although small mouse traps, perhaps one injured it enough to eventually be fatal.  The one missing trap found on the mower deck would indicate it had shut on the rabbit in some way and came off as it moved around.  Or, maybe it was too cold in the garage, on the concrete floor, for an overnight stay and it didn't survive.

Who You Gonna Call...

Something weird and eerie has happened the last two nights!  Something I CANNOT explain and it's a bit unsettling.  My computer, printer and desk lamp are all powered off.  Except for the lamp, the PC and printer are always on. I never shut them down, never have. Here is what's happening - 

The light switch in the above picture, which isn't all the accessible as you can see.  It's behind the door, which is always open, in the location shown, and out of reach with the desktop in front.  Definitely not something that could be accidentally hit. 

This switch controls one of the wall outlets in my office; the one that my PC, printer and desk lamp are plugged into.  The switch always remains in the "on" position and has been this way for over a year now and there have NEVER been any issues.  However, the last two mornings, this switch has been turned off, which powers off my PC, printer and lamp.

WTF?!

How is this switch physically getting flipped into the off position?  I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THE HOUSE, except for the dog and cat but that's silly to think of them as doing this, NO way!  Back to back nights too, it's freaking me out!

I kid you not!

Mystery Solved

Doing some deep cleaning in the kitchen, I removed each and every drawer, and look what I came across. An Amoxicillin prescription bottle from March of 1996 with two pills still inside!

Someone didn't complete their full dosage, tsk tsk.  I'm guessing they were baffled at what happened to, and where, this pill bottle disappeared to all those years ago.

Leaf Thief?!

While on a conference call the other afternoon, I noticed a car straddling the sidewalk in front of my mailbox, so I watched to see what he was up to.

Much to my surprise an elderly man was taking the big brown leaf bags I had raked on Saturday, nine of them, and loading them into his 4-door sedan; in the rear, in the backseat, even in the front passenger seat too!  God love him, he got all nine crammed in there and all doors shut.

Of course my OCD was bouncing off the charts, as I was thinking about the mess being created inside the car.  The bottoms of the bags being wet from sitting on the ground, how I overpacked the bags and when placed in any position other than straight up "stuff" would fall out, dirt and dust, ICK!

My initial thought was this dude has a screw loose, what in the world is he doing and what does he want with those?  But them it dawned on me, that back in the day when I was a youte, my dad did the same thing only grander.  He would hook up the trailer, see below actual trailer, to the old station wagon and we'd drive around the neighborhood picking up leaf bags too! Back then, we'd knock on the door and ask the homeowners if we could have them first, then load them into the trailer.

My dad would use the leaves in the garden and the compost pile. One of his gardens was in a low spot that would often flood when the spring thaw would start.  I guess my dad thought the leaves would help prevent the soil from washing away when flooded.  I can't say it wasn't weird back then, so I will give the elderly man a pass, as I'm sure he has a valid reason, if only in his mind or perhaps he's kin somewhere in the ole Frye family tree...

Thanks for the walk down memory lane, as odd as the subject is!

#Blessed

Welcome To The New America

 Along the same concerns with an earlier post of mine about vehicles driving into buildings and planes falling out of the sky, comes this post!

WTF is up with all of the food recalls?  Again, seems like every time you put on the news there's some report of a food product being recalled for one reason or another.  

According to the FDA website, see link below, there have been over 200+ food products recalled in 2023 to date, and as you can see from my screen shot below there are over 1005 recall entries going back to September of 2017!

Seems America has lost it's way.  No one seems to care anymore.  Work ethics and workman ship, once superior, is now subpar is SO many ways.  It's really a shame!  Sloppy work, too many owners, CEOs and upper management types more interested in the bottom line and lining their pockets, then they are with safety and doing the right thing.  Too much is being grown outside of the US and imported.

FDA US Food and Drug Administration

USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service

The other thing folks should be aware of and concerned with, is when you start looking into many of the products available to us all - from cleaning supplies, to pots and pans, to plastics, to our food and what's in it, you'd all be shocked!  The chemicals! the dyes! the PFAS! All very bad for you!  It's scary

Something stinks here!

Why Even Bother? People Know!

At the end of the day, I don't care one way or the other, as I'm not an avid or even a casual user for that matter or fan of the app "X", formally known as Twitter.  However, here is the problem I have with the recent renaming of the app.

Seems, most articles and news stories that contain references to "X" often times follow said reference with the following statement or something similar -  "the platform formerly known as Twitter", UGH!

Here are a couple examples I pulled from random news articles - 

"Not the way any of us wanted it to go, but we know the commitment you've made to this team will continue to impact us moving forward," the Jets wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

"House Republicans have been investigating the President for 9 months, and they've turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. His own GOP members have said so. He vowed to hold a vote to open impeachment, now he flip flopped because he doesn't have support. Extreme politics at its worst," Sams wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Was similar with Prince, when he changed his name to that symbol, forever referred to as the "artist formally known as Prince"

PALEEEESE and fuck off!

Oddities

 

Why is it that whenever I place a bowl, with a spoon in it, into the sink and turn on the faucet, the water inevitably hits the spoon and splashes everywhere?!

It never fails, even when I'm cognizant about it, SPLOOSH, water everywhere!

Is it just me?! 

Commute Oddity

Something you don't typically see...ever, around here anyway.  Especially when driving 70mph on the highway.  A woman, driving a fancy SUV Mercedes with the windows up, wearing a surgical face mask!

Of course I don't know the reason or history behind why this person is doing such a thing and there could be a perfectly good reason but it still struck me as very odd.

Hmm, note to self - stock doomsday bunker with surgical face masks...just in case.

The Summer of George

I just saw something weird -

I was just walking behind a man who didn't more or swing his arms when he walked.

Reminded me of "The Summer of George" episode of Seinfeld.  In this episode, Elaine mocks a coworker who walks without moving her arms.  Very funny!

It was odd.  He was walking like a robot; very mechanical.

Or as Elaine Benes put it, "as if he's carrying invisible suitcases".