(no subject)

A joke that I'm sure others will have as well: 

One sunny day in 2005 an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he's been sitting on a park bench. He  spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Bush." 

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The old man said, "Okay" and walked away. 

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in a meet with President Bush." 

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, Mr. Bush is no longer president and no longer resides here." The man thanked him and, again, just walked away. 

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying "I would like to go in a meet with President Bush." 

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking  to speak to Mr. Bush. I've told you already that Mr. Bush is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?" 

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it." 

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow."

life in the house

once a week, you have to help with dish crew.  This means setting the table, putting out the food, saving food for those who aren't going to be eating at the normal dinner time, and then cleaning up afterwards, including making tea or coffee and washing all dinner dishes and a general kitchen clean up.  I did this last week.  There were 3 of us on the crew, and only 8 people eating.  I could have fit all dishes into one run of the sterilizer if it had been empty to start with.  Today?  I was a few minutes late (had to drop off my health insurance papers, and (bad celia!) buy my brother a graduation present from the Body Shop (two types of aftershave balm, as he lost the one from there that he'd really liked due to being stupid about things like that.  (he thought it was bath and body works, not body shop, and left it in Ireland when he came back, because he thought it could be easily replaced.))).  So I was about 10 minutes late, which usually wouldn't be a problem, except that today, there were 29 people eating dinner.  There's no dishwasher.  I ate two pieces of a fabulous carmelized onion/potato pizza (minimal cheese, since it was part-skim), and jumped up to start washing dishes.  Three full loads of the sterilizer later, we were done.  I was the only one washing dinner dishes, I did break a glass (by hitting it with a plate--my depth perception is a little off now and then), but I got all the plates, all the rest of the  cups, all the silverware...well, that's it actually.  washed, loaded into the sterilizer, and run.  Others usually appeared when I opened it up, so I didn't have to put away most of it.  I do however have a serious stitch in my side where I pulled something at some time.  Ooh.  It may have been while stretching, as I just did that and it hurt.  But I think it's probably from jerking when I broke the glass.  It's the sort of thing I do a lot.