State Fair Edition

So, yesterday, I hit the road for the fair.

Whole lotta nothin' in the ninety miles between here and Syracuse,  where the fair is held, but it's still a pretty drive. I was not feeling well (Hello C-diff my old friend; you've come to f*ck with me again) and I  couldn't eat any trashy fair food (deep-fried oreos! chocolate coated bacon!) but I was able to handle some preshus, preshus soft-serve ice cream.

There was a sand sculpture:

And a butter  sculpture:

That thing  on top is a cow statue of liberty.  Awesome!  I was having a hard time getting good pics in the buildings.

And I got to thinking, they ought to make the sand sculpture out of brown sugar instead.  Then, at the end of the fair, they could take the sugar sculpture and the butter sculpture and bulldoze them together and dump a truckload of flour and lots of eggs on top and make cookies!  State Fair cookies!

Yeah,  I think about weird stuff when I'm wandering around the fair.

There was a display of miniature circuses (circi?):

Bought:  A dress and a skirt (I am not immune to the trashy, supposedly "ethnic" crap you can buy at the state fair), some two-bucks-each cocktail rings, and an amazing pair of bobblehead dragons.  My bobblehead animal craze faded away several years ago, but if you can pass up bobblehead dragons, you're a better man than I am,  Gunga Din.

Got to see a heifer calf being born - let's just say that the people in the audience who were dismayed  when the chains came out have obviously not spent much time on a farm.  And there were plenty of piglets:

That mama looks like she's just about over it, don't she?  "Yeah, yeah, you guys keep eating, I'm gonna take a little nap, here."

You could buy a chicken:

Those 4Hers are a practical lot.  "I will display my chicken with pride, and then sell it."

And I always love looking at the flowers:

I didn't even know they MADE round carriages, did you?:

I love the carriage and the agricultural museums, because they have volunteers there making baskets, and quilting, and blacksmithing, and doing all kinds of old-fashioned stuff.  And the average age of the volunteers is, like, ninety-five,  which is awesome.


Oh, and I spent a less-than-entertaining half hour in the parking lot arguing with my doctor's office over whether they would prescribe more Vanco for my third (or is it fourth) C-diff recurrence.  Final answer?  "No".  Should be an interesting next coupla weeks.

I  think I saw just about everything at the fair.  It was a ton of fun, and the people-watching is EXcellent.  You've just gotta carry a map and choose your restrooms wisely.

See ya next time, fair!

Oh, you shouldn't have!

... I mean, REALLY,  you SHOULDN'T have!

I got home from work last night to discover that when my neighbor mowed his back-backyard yesterday, he also mowed MY back-backyard.

I understand that he thought he was repaying a favor; earlier this summer, I mowed HIS back-backyard, when we had had a lot of rain and I knew that he wouldn't be able to use his big ride-on mower without getting it stuck.

It was really in my own self-interest, since the LAST time he tried to mow his back-backyard, he DID get the  mower stuck.  And then his son came to tow it out, and got his pickup stuck in MY backyard, and they never DID fill in the ruts like they SAID they would, and so I mowed his back-backyard that one time.

So!  He mowed MY back-backyard.  Sadly,  he evidently had his mower blade level set on  "bare earth", because now my back-backyard looks like a schoolhouse lawn where the kids walk every day, i.e, there's no GRASS there anymore.

*sigh*

Time to buy some  green spray paint, I guess.

Pretty pretty girls

So!  While the calico is slowly, slowly becoming less afraid of me, the tortie's favorite spot is still under the bed:

She IS a pretty thing, isn't she:

She looks kinda like a Jackson Pollock painting.  I believe her actual coat designation is "tortie and white" - please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I have to confess - I am not fond of torties as a rule.  Their schizophrenic personalities are wearying.   Rescues I've volunteered with call friendly torties "anti-torties", because most torties want nothing to do with people.  They're really kind of ideal for someone who ... can take a lot of ignoring?  And sleep with one eye open?

Jump in any time with your friendly tortie stories - it gives me hope for the future.  And I'm hoping that by badmouthing torties here, the gal in my bedroom will prove me wrong and turn into a lovebug.  Hey, one can hope, right?

ANYhow, at this point, her sister the calico really isn't a whole lot friendlier:

The one-eye-eyeliner look SLAYS me.  I call her the pirate cat.  And her coat is really interesting.  Here's a better shot of it:

Isn't that gorgeous?  I think technically she's a Caliby, or Calico Tabby.  Maybe.  I'm really bad at coat designations, and I still have NO IDEA what a "torbie" is.  Anybody?

That's Tinks in the foreground of the pic above.  Both of the fosters IDOLIZE Tinks.  It's adorable.  As soon as he strolls into the room, they are ALL OVER HIM. The calico lays down in front of him and purrs and purrs and purrs.  He is a rock star of the cat world, evidently.

So!  That's the news from the foster room.  Slow and steady progress.  These gals were four months old when they came to me, which most rescues regard as "too old" to be socialized.  And up to that point, every single contact they had with humans resulted in bad things - Being live-trapped, being separated from their mama, being spayed, being vaccinated ... It's like if I was walking down the street one day, minding my own business, and a spaceship full of aliens swooped down and beamed me up and started doing experiments on me.  I don't think I'd be befriending my captors any time soon, if ever, and that's what these guys are going through.  I'll tell you what, when you foster ferals, you've gotta be good at handling rejection.  It DOES hurt to have a cute, cuddly kitten in your house who hates you. But as it turned out, my busy schedule hasn't been a problem, because about twenty minutes at a time of "human in the room" is all they can handle at this point.

And I will keep soldiering on, because every cat (yes, even torties. *sigh*) deserves a chance.

Who knows?  One of these days I may actually be able to PET them.

So, yeah, I was all excited about it until I wasn't

The Million Second Quiz, that is.

I was watching some god-awful show on TV last night when an ad came on for something called the "Million Second Quiz".  I wasn't really paying much attention, as usual, but I did hear the part where you could qualify on line.  Ha!  A way to fill up my lunch break!

So today, on my break, I went on line and qualified for the show.  It's basically a remake of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", and my butt is STILL smarting from the time I blew it with that one (back when Millionaire was big, I ALMOST made it on the show, but choked when I got a question about "The Godfather", which I'd never read or seen.  Sh*t!).

Wait ... where was I?  Okay, so yeah, Million Second Quiz is multiple choice like Millionaire, and to qualify, you just go on line and sign up, and you can either play against your friends, or have the software randomly match you with someone.

It took about half an hour and nine or so rounds to get enough correct answers to amass enough points to qualify.  Of course, like Millionaire, nine billion OTHER people are qualifying, too (the questions AIN'T THAT HARD) (except for the ones about rappers, I'm kinda screwed there), so in order to up my chances of getting called for the show, I'd have to keep on qualifying.

But!  I got my first qualifier, and filled out all the contact info, and realized that I didn't have a current picture to attach, and that I'd have to *gasp* take a selfie.  Errrrrrr ... I skipped that part, figuring it could wait.  Forever, if possible.

But then!  I got to wondering where the "million seconds" come in, and it turns out that the show lasts for twelve days.  Twelve CONSECUTIVE days, where you're shut in a building in Manhattan and have to keep going head to head against other contestants, dueling it out over and over until it gets narrowed down to the final four.

Ummmmmm ... twelve DAYS?


Yeah ... no ... that doesn't sound like so much fun.  Even the free trip to NYC wouldn't be any biggo for me, seeing as how I could get in my car and DRIVE there in four hours.  And the whole thing just sounds kind of ... grueling.  Kind of Long Walk-ish.

I mean, of course, I could just go, and tank out whenever I got tired of it, but I'm pretty sure the producers will come down pretty hard on somebody trying to do that, and ... meh.  I dunno.  And I STILL haven't read or seen The Godfather, so there's that.

In the end, I'll probably keep qualifying.  It IS kind of fun, even if it is a massive time-suck. 

And I need to avenge my Millionaire blowage, dammit!

That time I got my brother busted for trespassing

Yesterday, my brother was in town, and we decided to head up to the schoolhouse. We walked all around and were heading back to the car when this lady came screeching up in a black SUV.

"HEY!" she yelled. "Can't you see this property is POSTED?"

 There was a posted sign on the corner of the building, although it was pretty faded, and you couldn't read the name of the property owner. And the land itself wasn't posted. But I wasn't gonna argue with her. She was pissed.

 "Yes, ma'am," I said. "We just wanted to take a look at the schoolhouse."

 We kept walking toward the car.

"This property is POSTED!" she repeated. "Can't you READ?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said. "We're leaving now."

Posted Lady glared at us from her car, waited until we got in our car, and then FOLLOWED us to make sure we were really leaving.

Phew!

 Look. I understand posting your property. It's just that around here, it's done almost exclusively to keep uninvited hunters off your land. Or, in the case of the schoolhouse, to keep kids from partying there, I would imagine. Most people who post their land don't care if someone just walks through. And I don't know if the lady who had a hissy fit even OWNED the property, or was just a pissy neighbor.

 In any event, we were in the wrong. We were on posted land. Bad us.

And I'm sure we'll be talking about Posted Lady at family get-togethers for quite some time. As I sing-songed in the car, "I got my brother in TROU-ble! I got my brother in TROU-ble!" And as my sister Ditzy's boyfriend said later, "You went looking for ghosts and found a witch!" Posted Lady. Part of Clark family lore since 2013.

The schoolhouse story

Here we go, guys!

As I mentioned yesterday, I was chatting with the door guy, and Ingraham Hill Road came up.

"Do you know the cemetery there?," he asked.

"Sure!," I said.  "I was just there a few weeks ago, checking out the headstones!"

"You know the story about the cemetery, right?  About how it's there for the schoolhouse?," he asked.

"Ermmm, no," I admitted.  "What schoolhouse?"

"That building right up the road from the cemetery," he said.  "The one that's boarded up?"

"Ohhhhhhh!," I said, the light dawning.  That was an old schoolhouse?"

"Yeah, and something awful happened there."  He lowered his voice.  "A long time ago, the schoolteacher locked the doors and set the building on fire.  He killed all of the pupils and himself.  The cemetery was created to bury the bodies."

Whoa.

"Whaaaat?!  How long ago was this?," I asked.  "I've never heard anything about it!"

"Oh, a long time ago," he said.  "Like ... back in the early 1900s.  That's a really spooky neck of the woods," he continued.  "My friends and I used to go up there at night and there was definitely something ... strange.  They say you can see the ghosts of the students in the cemetery.  And one time I heard the school bell ringing in the night."

Sadly, like most good ghost stories, this one did not hold up to scrutiny.

I remembered that there were headstones in the cemetery dating from the 1860s, long before the cemetery was supposedly created for the victims of the fire.  And I didn't remember seeing a large number of headstones of school-aged children, circa early-1900s, at the cemetery.  And I've lived in this town for most of my life - it seemed odd that I'd never heard of this incident before, even if it did take place a century ago.

Time to do some research.

Googling "Ingraham Hill Schoolhouse Tragedy" or "Ingraham Hill School Fire" didn't cough up any info.  I did find a couple of old photos.  This one is dated 1920, and it looks like the building was still in use.

I found some photos of newspaper clippings.  This one says the building hadn't been used for two decades, but there's no date on it:

This photo shows the same distinctive woodwork that I saw the day of my visit:

But there's no mention of a tragedy.  In a local town historical society newsletter, I did find the reminiscences of a woman named Eleanor Maxian Haines of her time at the school:


"As a small child, I lived on Town of Binghamton family farms.  At age 5, in 1930, I started Grove School on the corner of Hawleyton and Maxian Roads.  I walked (really) two miles to school.  With no kindergarten, everyone started in first grade.   One teacher taught 8 grades to 20 students in that one room schoolhouse.  When I was 8, we moved to Ingraham Hill.  There were only 13 students in Ingraham School. My mother, and both her parents, also attended this school.  Usually we went home at noon, but in winter we ate lunch at school. Sometimes a mother would make scalloped potatoes or a kettle of soup. One day a small child brought a mustard sandwich. (Remember, it was the ‘30’s...)

It's so purty

Meet the new door:

It's so funny - this morning I kept walking into the living room and going, "Why is the door open?"  Duh.

The trimwork still needs to be finished up, but I think it's safe to say that that's one purty door.

And oh!  The door guy and I got to gabbing while he did the install, and guess what?  Remember that boarded-up building?  The door guy says that it's an abandoned one-room schoolhouse!  And according to the door guy, it's got a tragic past that ties it in with the cemetery and holy cow it's a rip-snorter of a story.  Which I will tell you tomorrow ...



 

The door guy is here! The door guy is here!

When the contractor called last night and said he could come over today to install the door, I was all, "OH YEAH!"  Such! Excitement!

Here is the old door:

Other than the cool,  cool spyhole, the door is just meh.  I like the natural wood finish,  but I need more light in the living room.

Here's the door from the outside:

It's not exactly ... welcoming, is it?  It's more ... "Halt!  Who goes there?"

So now the old door is gone:

Coming soon:  New door!

And oh!  In other neighborhood news, my crazy-a** neighbors are resealing their driveway AGAIN.  When I saw L.  pulling their car over into the park this morning,  I was all ... naaaaw.  Can't be.  But then I asked her, and yep!  They're having their driveway re-done for the third time in three years.  Ohhh-kay, peeps.  Just DON'T ASK TO PARK IN  MY DRIVEWAY THIS TIME.  Sheesh.

Papa ... papaRAZzi

Oh, these gals are shy.

I was told that the calico would make a mad dash for a hiding spot as soon as her carrier was opened, so I snuck a pic first:

Yeah, she just wanted OUT.

and here's her sister, Closet Cat:

Lordie, she's a tortie.   Heaven help us all.

And I only have half the litter - there's another girl and a boy still to come.  I'm going to start with these two first and get some progress going before the other two come along.

Oh leetle keeeeeteeeeessssssss .....

I got a new doo-ooor, I got a new dooo-oooor

As in, "door".  But it's not as much fun if you don't sing-song it.

I have been delaying buying a new front door for literally years now.  Any time I had the money, something else would come up.  Cat to the vet, car needs new tires, water heater goes kaput, it always seemed to be something.

And then there was the added difficulty of finding a contractor to do the install.  Around here, at least, finding a contractor to do a "small" (i.e., less than a couple of grand) job is nigh impossible.  And no, I will not use Craigslist.  One disastrous experience with a Craigslist "contractor" was enough for me.  And you guys KNOW I'm too cheap to subscribe to Angie's List. 

But!  Back this spring, I found a contractor who would do a door install.  Hallelujah!  And then all three of the cats needed their vaccinations.  And the car needed work. And then I got sick. And and and then I realized that there was never going to be a time when I had a big ol' pile of door money just laying around.

And my old front door was not getting any prettier.  I mean, there was nothing wrong with it, exactly, but I really wanted to get more light into the living room, and the old door only had one little spyhole window in it, which was actually pretty damn cool, but I needed more LIGHT, dammit!

So ... I bought a new doooo-oooor.

The contractor is (hopefully) coming next week to do the install. Yaaaaaaaaay!

ALSO coming soon to my house?  (Looks around to make sure no one is watching) (Leans in to whisper in your ear) (ssssshhhhhhhhhhh)

kittens.


Dun dun duuuuuuuuuun!

Reactionary

When I was a little kid, I tended toward the histrionic side of things.  My family still gets a kick out of the time I picketed the family room, trying to get Dad to stop smoking.  "But, Dad, I don't want you to diiiiiiieeeeeee!" God.

And I was a junior hypochondriac, too.  I must've worn my Mom OUT with my requests for bandaids, for cold packs, for ATTENTION MOM GIVE ME SOME ATTENTION.  Jeeez. 

And then I grew up and left home and in my late teens, all of my drama tended to revolve around my romantic life.  Then I got a little older and poorer and got more involved in the day-to-day struggle of finding enough money to pay for annoying sh*t like food and gas.  *sigh*.

THEN, as I hit my thirties, I got a little more comfortable, money-wise, and a little more resigned, romance-wise, and all of a sudden I had time for CAUSES.  Save the whales!  Feed the children!  MAKE LIFE FAIR!  Oh, yeah, that whole, "life should be fair" thing is a big one at a certain age, ain't it?  And of course, I knew EVERYthing and my self-righteousness knew no bounds.  Oh, I went through an insufferable spell, no doubt about it.

Then the forties rolled around and ran right into fifty, and now?  If you poke at me, instead of being met with an "AAAAHHHHHHH!" and a screaming lecture, you're gonna get a side-eye and a sigh.  Oh, I still CARE about things, just a little more ... selectively.  And somewhere along the line, I actually learned to, well, LEARN about things before going off into a steaming hissy about something.  And most amazingly of all?  I learned that I don't have all the answers.  I don't even know if there ARE answers to some of the big things, to tell ya the truth.

Who knows?  They say that as you get older, you regress, so maybe thirty years from now I'll be in the nursing home begging for band-aids and ranting about how President Bieber ruined everything.

Is this common?  Does everybody go through sea changes in their thinking as they age?  I kind of hate to think that I'm the only one.

Yet another hare-brained scheme

Do you ever see something that at first you think is kind of cute, but after a while it starts to grate on your nerves?  Kind of like those Anne Geddes photos of babies - the first couple that I saw, I was like, "Oh, so cuuuuuuuuute!," but after the millionth one, I was, like, "okay, that's just creepy.  Get the kid out of the flowerpot."

Right now what's bothering me are those family car window decals - you know, the stick figure ones?  When they were just stick figures, I was kind of okay with it, other than that it's letting potential pedophiles know exACTly how many kids you've got in that minivan and, therefore, the odds of being able to snatch one out of the herd without mom noticing.

But then they started to get a little fancier - Mom with a briefcase, Son with a soccer ball - and then, of course, the zombies came and ruined everything.

But now that I am evidently about to start fostering again (I KNOW), I was thinking of doing family decals of my own.  Stick-figure me, and my three stick-figure cats, and then one stick-figure each for the cats I have fostered.  I figure I can fill up the entire back window AND some of the sides.  Leaving room to see out, of course.  Safety first!*

Well, my dear religious neighbors will probably like it better than the Darwin-fish-with-legs bumper sticker, at least.  I'm just trying to be considerate, here.



*Ha.  Speaking of car safety, ask me about the shattered seat belt clasp that I shoved under the back seat.  On second thought, don't ask. 

Recently Read

Blah blah blah, skip it if you wanna.

1.  Nine Years Under by Sheri Booker - Memoir about a teenager who worked in a funeral home - Interesting.

2.  Clay's Quilt by Silas House - Novel about a contemporary coal miner in the Appalachians and his courting of a fiddle player. So-so.

3.   Next to Love by Ellen Feldman - Novel about WWII war brides.  I dunno; I felt like I've read this exact same book, by different authors, before.  Meh.

4.  Mama's  Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes - Short novel about an immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 1900s.  Charming.

5.  Dwarf by Tiffanie DiDonato - Memoir about a Little Person.  Interesting.  

6.  This is Graceanne's Book by P.L. Whitney - I loved, loved, LOVED this book about a girl coming of age in 1960, as told by her ten-year-old brother.  I actually dragged out finishing it because I didn't want it to end.  The only thing I really have to compare this to is To Kill a Mockingbird - it's almost that  good.  Highly recommended. 

7.  The House on  Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros - Vignettes about growing up Latino in Chicago - good.

8.  The Supremes at Earl's All You Can Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore - Novel about three women who are life-long friends - Funny and good.  Reminded me of Fannie Flagg's books.

9.  Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool - Novel about an orphan during the  Depression - Technically a kid's book, but still interesting.

10.  Movie review time!  "Foo Fighters - Back and Forth" is a doc about, duh, the Foo Fighters.  Interesting and enjoyable, especially if you like Dave Grohl.

11.  West of Here by Jonathan Evison - Novel based in Port Bonita, Washington, with sections set alternately in the 1890s and the present day.  I had the same problem with this book that I did with a lot of stuff I've read lately - I didn't care about any of the main characters.  Meh.

12.  Palisades Park by Alan Brennert - Historical fiction focusing on a family working at Palisades Park.  Interesting and an enjoyable read.

12.  Faraway Places by Tom Spanbauer - Novella about a teenage boy in 1950s Idaho who witnesses a murder.  Lyrical and absorbing and short.

14.  Ten Cents a Dance by Christine Fletcher - Novel  about a teenage taxi dancer in WWII Chicago - Technically a YA, but with adult themes (premarital sex, gambling, etc.).  The novelist did her research, and it was an interesting and entertaining book.

15.  Big Girl Small by Rachel DeWoskin - Novel about a Little Person navigating her way through high school.  Sharply funny and a good book.  I'm not going to give away any plot points here, but suffice it to say that the author navigated several difficult subjects with humor and tact.  Recommended.

16.  Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster - Short, autobiographical stories about living in Chicago - Self-deprecating and funny.

17.  The Sweet By and By by Todd Johnson - Novel about two women in a nursing home and the people who care for them - Very good.


How about you?  Reading anything good?

Turns out the Mormons aren't the only ones with holy underwear

Remember back when Mitt Romney was running for President and people got all in a snit over the holy underwear the Mormons wear?

Yeah, well, I was perusing the Discount Catholic Store on line today (don't ask) (I need a plastic shrine, cheap), and it turns out they have a whole section devoted to "scapulars".

Which is a pretty gross word, actually, as it seems to be some kind of unholy mash-up of "scrape" and "scab", but do you know what a scapular actually is?

Here ya go.

My brother-in-law is a deacon in the RC church and now I kind of want to ask him what he's got on under his clothes, except that would be gross.

What IS it with these religious people, anyway?  I mean, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I don't give a sh*t who or what you worship, as long as you don't beat people over the head with it, but that's how it always ends up, isn't it?  You don't believe what I believe, and wham, there's a war on.  And now you add in holy underwear and all this other hocus-pocus bullsh*t, and I just can't with these religious types.

I mean, I understand that religions were basically created to keep people in line, because our ancient ancestors figured out pretty early on that a lot of people would run around killing each other and banging sheep and stuff unless there was the threat of an angry God hanging over their heads.  But now, millenia later, is that still really necessary?  Because it seems that there are still an awful lot of people acting like savages, usually doing so in the name of religion.  That don't seem right.

I don't know.  I don't believe in anything.  I'm fairly certain that the sun is going to rise in the morning.  There are lots of things that I like, but that doesn't make them beliefs.  And there are plenty of thing that I believe, even though I don't understand how they happen.  Like, I believe that planes can fly, even if I don't understand the mechanics of it all.  I see planes fly, therefore I believe that they can.  Or should it be, I see planes fly, therefore I *know* that they can?  I mean, it's not my belief that's keep those planes up in the air.  It's ... aerodynamics. 

There ya go.  Your daily dose of religion, with a side trip through aerodynamics, courtesy of RockyCat.  Ha.






 

Movin' on up

This year, my beloved kiddy pool seemed a little ... well ... cramped.  So I decided to go for the dee-luxe model:

 But wait!  What's that paper in the bottom of the new pool?

Why ... it's an owner's manual!  Just in case you couldn't figure out how to ... set it up?  It's a solid piece of pre-formed plastic.  In case you didn't know how to ... fill it up?  Put hose in pool.  Turn on hose.

Seriously, the entire manual is basically, "Do not leave children unattended.  Do not leave children unattended.  DO NOT LEAVE CHILDREN UNATTENDED."

Thanks for the pro tip, pool manufacturer.  Hey, kids!  Come 'ere and take a swim while I go to the store.  Sheesh.








 

Quick Question

Okay, so I'm getting ready to start some new "arty" (read: "weird")  projects.  And I need to know the best way to adhere things to other things.  Beads to mirrors, sequins to wood, metal to plastic, etc.

I need an adherent that's fairly industrial - Something that can stand up to wear and tear and is water-resistant.  Superglue is worthless, and tacky glue isn't tough enough - I'm thinking along the lines of epoxy or rubber cement, and with a long enough drying time that I could take fifteen minutes or so to get things "set". 

Any ideas?  Thanks, folks.


p.s.  Oh!  Here's another question:  A local rescue has asked me to foster four, four-month-old, feral kittens.  Yay or nay?

I don't get it

"Duck Dynasty", that is.

I watched a couple of episodes when it first started airing and thought, "meh".  A bunch of hillbillies, hillbilly-proud, acting like dipsh*ts for the cameras.  Eh.  I mean, I watch my fair share of crap reality tv ("Below Deck", anyone?), but this show just seemed ... pointless.  And boring. 

But then I was in Walmart the other day and saw racks of "Duck Dynasty" t-shirts.  And calendars.  And books.  And ... welcome mats.  Yes, there were "Duck Dynasty" welcome mats.

Whaaaaa?, I thought.  Maybe I missed something the first time around?

So I turned on another episode the other night and ... nope.  Still a bunch of hillbillies acting like morons.  In slow-motion, no less.  I swear, that show has the pacing of syrup.  And I cannot for the life of me bring myself to give two sh*ts about the making of the world's largest duck whistle or whatever the hell it was.

So ... what am I missing?  What's so spectacular about "Duck Dynasty"?  Enquiring minds want to know.

Soda says, "Hey! I can do that too!"

"Yes, here I am, just lounging in my hammock ...

... with a sock hanging off the top 'cause mom is classy like that ...

... I am very talented at leisurely pursuits ...

... come closer, pretty laydee ...

::CHOMP::"

Yep, that's my boy.