To Julie, On Her Very Special Day

I use Facebook?

S.U.B.D.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 20:14:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: katy parrott
To: cjparrott@Harding.edu
Subject: S.U.B.D.

Dear Christy,

I'm writting to inform you that the S.U.B.D. is now in full swing and will in fact, be monitoring you actions involving you selection of dresses for the wedding.

The S.U.B.D. ,Stop Ugly Bridesmaid Dresses, is a non-profit organization that has been put into effect to stop the spread of ugly bridesmaid dresses. S.U.B.D. also offers a support group to help those that have suffered from such things as ugly dresses. Please go through the following check list to see if such a group could be beneficial to you;

1. have you ever stood in front of a mirror and cried at the sight of the dress you were wearing.?
2. have you ever actually thought that a butt bow could only IMPROVE the dress you were wearing?
3. have you ever been forced to wear a dress in one of the following shades; pukey purple-lilac or a creamy mold-sage?

If you answered "yes" to any of the following then this group may be right for you. And temember I'm not only the president of the S.U.B.D. I'm also a member.

Sincerely The President Of The S.U.B.D.,

Katy Parrott

A Love Story

This is a story of love.

The story of a dove.

She made her home on our porch fan.

And won't leave, despite heroic efforts by Dan.

For Mrs. Dove, as she has been named,

lives a life of what we have blamed,

As a woman of the night.

Oh yes, a woman of the night.

For Mrs. Dove, you see,

Has gentleman callers a-plenty.

She doesn't learn, that one

That her actions cause a bun (in the oven).

And so she sits on her eggs

Until they hatch and find their legs (or wings).

And then she does it all again,

She takes a visit from one of her "men".

So the cycle repeats,

Because gentleman callers she greets,

As a woman of the night.

Oh yes, a woman of the night.

Day of Rest?

Most days, I consider myself a fairly patient wife. Take for example when my sweet husband Jay announced that he wanted to tour these United States of America on tandem motorcycles. I gamely told him I would buy chaps. However, on this very rainy Sunday, Jay ran through the kitchen and this is what I heard. "ThisisthelasttimeIwalkintheraintogettotheshop!Thanksyourethebest!" Then, when I went down to my laundry room, this is what I saw.
Yep, it's a trap door to man land.

Nu-uh

No lie, this was taken today at HEB. They forgot the all-important "z", but still.

I. Love. Texas.

New Product!

I thought of the girls in our family recently. I think this would be a great product that we could all get a lot of use from. Maybe we can buy bulk and get a discount? It's important to have one for every occassion, you know, in different shades and sizes.

Vet story

Here's another little tidbit while I'm online and NOT renewing my CPR certification as was the original plan. Just a warning: If discussion of anal gland drainage from dogs disturbs you, this is not the blog posting for you. OK. Here's how it went down. Daisy, the giant hound dog was having an epic battle with her anal glands and copious drainage (nasty but true). After finding evidence of such in my sewing room I immediately phoned the vet for some anal gland touch ups. Naturally I had EB and Miles in tow. When we arrived at the vet's office there was the worlds largest bull dog sitting in his owners lap. The very nice lady who owned the bull dog smiled sweetly and we exchanged pleasantries. This is while things were still good. Miles who is normally sort of quiet until he assesses someone looked that woman in the eye and said "Guess why we're here. We are going to get out dog milked!" The woman's smile faltered but she recovered and said something along the lines of "isn't that nice". I wanted to shush him but got kind of tickled and gave him gum to occupy his mouth.
Luckily we were called in next. The vet checked Daisy's temperature with an ear thermometer which apparently triggered something in Miles' mind because the next thing I know, he is saying "Do you know what? Sometimes when I put my finger in my ear I get stuff out! And do you know what it is? It's meat! Red Meat!" The vet looked at Miles and then me and continued her assessment of nasty hound dog. (Who at this point has been diagnosed with a yeast infection in her ear.) Moving on down the assessment line, the vet has finally made it to the original problem area when Miles once again pipes up, "She is going to need medicine for her mouth too. Because when that stuff came out, she ate it!" The vet tried valiently to keep her composure but sometimes it's got to be hard...
And that's all I have for today. Please enjoy.

Back on the social scene

Katy and I are officially back in the social scene after one month of self induced crafting seclusion. Blueb Fest is done and we are excited to see everyone again. Thanks for limiting your rude comments and eye rolling to only occasionally! Actually thanks for everybody's help. Here are before and after pictures of my living room. Actually- there are no after pictures. You already know what the living room normally looks like. It's just that the before pictures were so bad!

This one goes out to you CJ-O

This is an original birthday song written to no particular tune for my fabuloso middle seester. It goes a little something like this:
This is a birthday song,
a happy birthday song.
Although the day is wrong,
A happy birthday song. (Think of this as the chorus)

Hope you had a good one.
Hope that it was great!
With lots and lots of fun-fun
and cake upon your plate.

Chorus.

You are a smashing suster,
you know that you're the best.
Whenever there's a cluster,
you handle it with zest.

Chorus. (Here's where the cadence of the song changes a bit and melds into sweet poetry)

Finally I end this song
and bid you sad adieu.
Thankfully I have no lisp
to change this message true.

For if my speech were so impaired,
twould change the meaning round.
Instead of singing you a birthday wish,
a thong you would have found!

I LOVE YOU CHRISTY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I can blog!

Ok people. This blog thing is not as easy as some people have led me to believe. Specifically my seester Christy. In the past she has made comments such as "why don't you ask Elizabeth to show you how". No bitterness here. Just proving a point... And what is that point? Simply that I can do this and do it without help from my 7 year old daughter.

As a point of interest, this photo was taken during our trip to Florida. Our sweet friends, the Blankinships showed us their favorite haunts. Did everyone else know that there are crabs in the world that crawl around IN THE TREES?!?

How do you spell fun? F-L-O-R-I-D-A!

Sisters

This goes out to all the sisters in my life - Julie, Katie and Katy.
I love you girls!

This is the very disturbing story of an unnamed girl (well refer to her as Julia in this story) and her plans to "one-up" her innocent, peaceful and very naive brother (well refer to him as Jeremiah Johnson just to keep it easy).

Jeremiah, being a simple and unsuspecting sort of man, went to his doctor seeking and expecting nothing more than a routine physical exam. This was nothing new to Jeremiah, he had been here before and erroneously thought he had nothing to fear. No doubt at the same moment that Jeremiah was sitting peacefully in the waiting room, trying to calm his soul for the upcoming appointment; Julia was in a dark back hallway conspiring with the unknowing doctor to practice her malcontent and her warmongering.

As the nurse led Jeremiah to the room that would be his demise, there was a brief moment where he passed Julia in the hall and their eyes met. This moment had happened before and had almost always led to a courteous and mutually beneficially peaceful exchange of pleasantries. This time however, something was different. Jeremiah couldn't quite put his finger on it; there was just something in the way she was smiling, something in the look in here eyes as if she had made a deal with the devil himself! The brief interaction left Jeremiah with shivers going up and down his spine and was the first moment when he knew that something was desperately out of place.

Once inside the nefarious room of pain and suffering (the doctors waiting room), Jeremiah waited, wondering if the butterflies in his stomach could in fact somehow escape, as they were trying so desperately to do. As the moment of truth came and the doctor entered the room, Jeremiahs fears were assuaged by his kind face and overwhelming truth-telling manner. There was no need to be nervous or to lose heart, this man would obviously do right and fulfill his obligation as a healer and as one to bring hope, not despair.

The first few minutes of the physical were quite routine and it just seemed like "business as usual" for both Jeremiah and the doctor. Quite suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed and the friendly bedside manner of the doctor seemed to vanish. Where only moments before the doctor had employed the most note-worthy bedside manner and exceptional kindness, now there was a harsh and commanding presence that seemed very out of place. Gone was the small talk and idle chit chat of moments ago, harshly replaced with the sound of a latex glove being thrust onto a hand. No more was the smile and caring demeanor, instead only a squirt of jelly lubricant and a none-to-gentle order to, "drop your drawers!"

In that moment, Jeremiahs very soul was crushed almost to the point of death. His gentle and innocent spirit, stomped on in the most atrociously villainous way imaginable. His body preparing for the ultimate violation, Jeremiah did the only thing he could do; he prayed to God and begged the doctor for mercy. It was obvious that there was an internal battle waging in the doctor whether to honor the dark-treaty he had signed (possibly in his own blood) earlier with the treacherous Julia, or to have mercy on the poor, innocent Jeremiah.
The doctor took a step forward and with every millimeter of movement, Jeremiah clinched his resolve tighter and tighter that he would overcome this obstacle to his faith in humanity. At the last moment before major repentance was necessary from the doctor, he stopped and with a sigh admitted to the villainous plot against the virtuous and blameless Jeremiah. As the truth was revealed, Jeremiah did what was in his heart and forgave the conniving Julia; knowing that deep down this was probably just a cry for attention.
And to this day.....he just kind of walks a little different....

this goes out to all the Parrott women

We're keeping the tradition alive down here in TX. Hugs and kisses, we miss you guys.

Taylor and the Birthday Tractor

Fishing with Granny

By George Pitcher

I got to know Granny the best by spending parts of nine summers fishing with Granny and Grandad on the Julie Ann. I wasn’t always happy to be spending my teenage summers that way, but Granny sure made things a lot more tolerable out on the boat.

Granny never took a summer off. She was there every year I came. She had many roles on the boat, including: Cook, Legal Compliance Officer, and Protector of the Crew. I want to talk about a few of them.

Granny was the cook—and a good one. Things started with breakfast—she often gave you a choice that included biscuits, pancakes, sausage, French toast, and homemade hash browns. I had the chance to bring my family up and spend some time on the boat with Granny and Grandad a few years ago. Now every time I make French toast at home, my daughter Kate complains that it’s not as good as Granny’s.

There was no such thing as a cold lunch on the boat—it was always a big, hot meal, similar to dinner. Dinners included a lot of fish—baked king salmon, salmon patties, baked and fried halibut and ling cod, and smoked salmon dip. Other favorites on the boat included shake and bake chicken, turkey hindquarters, venison steaks, and lots of mashed potatoes. The only low point in Granny’s cooking came on the occasional rough day when she didn’t want to boil and make real mashed potatoes. Then she got out a boxed product called Potato Buds. The crew referred to them as “potato duds” because they just weren’t up to Granny’s normal cooking standards.

We didn’t use this title at the time, but Granny acted as the boat’s legal compliance officer. Granny wasn’t one to just follow the spirit of the law—she also followed the letter of the law. Granny was very concerned with making sure that all fish on the boat were legal in regard to both size limit and species. There were occasional times on the boat when a crew member might make a mistake a land a king salmon that wasn’t quite long enough. Most people on the boat thought mistakes should be eaten. But you could tell that Granny wasn’t comfortable with such mistakes lying around on the deck.

More than a few sea lions got to live out their normal life spans in the ocean due to Granny’s restraint of Grandad

Granny was also concerned about safety—you knew that Granny’s first priority was getting the crew home safely. From the EPIRB to the life raft to survival suits, Granny made sure the boat’s safety equipment was in order.

Granny took quality control very seriously. If you ever ate a salmon caught by the Julie Ann, you knew that it had been cleaned quickly and put in the slush tank shortly after it was caught. You can also be assured that it came out of the cleanest, best scrubbed slush tank in the trolling fleet. Of all the unpleasant jobs on the boat, getting inside of and scrubbing out the slush tank was at the bottom. And Granny was usually in there with you.

Granny’s role as protector of the crew was particularly important. Anyone who knows Grandad very well or ever fished with him knows that he’s a single-mindedly dedicated fisherman. His fishing philosophy was to spend as many hours as humanly possible dragging his trolling gear through the water trying to catch fish. He didn’t like to run around the ocean looking for fish—he knew they were right there outside of Pedro, and if you dragged your hooks through the water for 18 hours a day, all day every day, you would catch your share and make a living.

With that background, Granny was the only person on the boat who could:

1) tell Grandad it was time to stop fishing and go to harbor;

2) tell Grandad that the crew needed to sleep longer in the morning—which still seems to bother Grandad to this day; or

3) tell Grandad that it was too rough to fish and we needed to go to harbor or head for inside waters.

Granny was always the one to announce on a busy day that it was time to come in and eat breakfast, or it was time to come take a break. Then she would go out on deck herself and start pulling lines or cleaning fish while the crew had their breaks.

Finally, Granny was the faithful keeper and upholder, along with Grandad, of her beliefs and values. She expressed this more through actions than through words. The values I saw Granny demonstrate were:

1) Hard work—Granny was always up early to help Grandad put the gear out.

2) Service to others—Granny demonstrated this every day through things such as laundry, dishes, and scrubbing. She spent a lot of time in the laundry mat in Craig.

3) Fair play—Granny was intent on following the rules and not cutting in line in the trolling drags.

4) Mix of generosity and thrift—Granny didn’t like to waste things. You sensed that she had lived through leaner, harder times, and that she had an appreciation for the physical comforts and blessings in her life. But she wasn’t stingy—particularly when it came to things like paying the crew. She took a genuine enjoyment in paying her crew a wage that was more than fair.

5) Faithful—There was not a dinner eaten that didn’t start with a prayer, and every Sunday evening we would quit fishing early to have our little church service on the boat.

6) Taking good care of Grandad—Granny was always offering Grandad a cup of tea and making him take his afternoon nap.

There was a lot to be learned from spending summers with Granny. A woman who led by example through service to others.

Jay....and the rest of the family, oh, and more Jay

The Newest Member of the Parrott Family

Were not sure what her name is yet, but we already love her. Its like a little stork came down and dropped her off on our doorstep (well, its kind of like that).

Floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee. This ferocious little guy got a Halloween costume over the weekend, and this morning was "my so sad" (to borrow from EA) when I didn't let him wear his bumble bee costume instead of play clothes.