Posts Tagged funny

We were shopping the other day at Ross Dept store in Norfolk and passed down one of the aisles where they have those various figurines. This caught our eye and we couldn’t resist taking a pic :)  Not meaning to be sacriligious, just found it funny… Pictures speak louder than words, so here it is, Merry Christmas from Jesus and friends ;)

Merry Christmas

Yet another case against teaching children to spell it like like it sounds (hooked on phonics). This was at a local dollar store nearby. If only 3 screws are missing missen , then its probably a good deal! ;)

disco style ;)

and just for the record, I had a burning permit  :P

I was reading the news from some of the Cyrpus online newspapers this afternoon as I often do, just to keep up with things going on where my baby lives… for now ;) Well just a while ago I went to one of them, the Famagusta Gazette, and immediately one of the headlines grabbed my eye “Hospital needs help with dead bodies”!

Well I know its a serious story as I have read it, but I get amused sometimes to see the way the headlines are written and it struck me funny, yes I have a warped sense of humour :) . At first glance of the headline, I was thinking I definitely would want to avoid that particular hospital for any kind of treatment, or even to visit someone there! LOL  Well if that one didnt make me laugh, look a little farther up! Now I don’t know about you, but I wondered right away how in the world they got inside the foreigner’s nuts to find the drugs to begin with! LOL Well the story was of a man who was hiding drugs inside hazelnut shells, but of course the title is leading one to imagine something else. or maybe its just me. I had to laugh at the last line of the story itself too… “Drug squad officers said they had never seen drugs hidden in nuts before.” Well I can honestly say I havent either! LOL   I guess with the official language in Cyprus being Greek, sometimes the editors and proofreaders dont realise the way it sounds to immature Americanos like me! Well American news site make just as many, if not more, funny sounding headlines than these.

Garden Grass Snakes also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophissirtalis) can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes.

Here’s why.

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze.

It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.

She let out a very loud scream.

The husband (who was taking a shower) ran naked into the living room to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa.

He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind.

He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor.
His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, wouldn’t listen to his protests and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out.

About that time the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher.

That’s when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor man.

He volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, she dangled her hand in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted and the snake rushed back under the sofa.

The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor’s wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband’s mouth on the woman’s mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp so that he needed
stitches.

The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man’s throat.

By now the police had arrived.

They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake.

The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife.

The little snake again crawled out from under the sofa.

One of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it.

He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over and the lamp on it shattered and as the bulb broke it started a fire in the drapes.

The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the startled family dog who, jumped out and raced into the street where an oncoming car swerved to avoid the dog and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, the burning drapes were seen by the neighbors who called the fire department.

The firemen had started raising the fire truck ladder when they were halfway down the street.

The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area. (But they did get the house fire out).

Time passed and both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police were issued a new car, and all was right with their world.

Several days later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring in their plants for the night.

That’s when he shot her.

Just a test post from Live writer to see if I have finally got this damn thing figured out after months of trying! LOL I have the settings here on the pc, but will it post?! getting ready to find out!… let me try a pic too.. if I’m gonna be disappointed, might as well do it doubly..

http://www.garazon.com/uploads/YorkshireAirlines.wmv
Thanks to Alison for sending this funny vid!

I was noticing the other evening when I was writing a mail to Alison that I now automatically seem to use the UK spelling most all the time now. Well specifically those words that here end in ‘or’ where there it’s ‘our‘ such as humour and colour. Well that in itself isnt that uncommon. But I got thinking about it more and realised I also use phrases and words now that 2 years ago I wouldn’t have ever imagined saying.. simple things really like ‘petrol’ I am often sending my love a text kiss from the petrol pumps, (the romantic man that i am!) :) Well here we say ‘gas‘ of course and even that is showing how lazy we are to shorten it from gasoline. And then not only do we use ‘gas’ for that, we call propane ‘gas’ too! And on top of that we call just about anything in a gaseous state that we use for fuel or burning, such as acetylene and such… yes ‘gas’ again! well in polite circles a fart is called ‘gas’ too but I dont want to go rambling on too much in that direction… lol

I now also ring someone instead of call. I can remember well watching those BBC sitcoms from the 60′s and 70′s and hearing them saying to ring someone and laughing at how absurd it sounded to me at the time. Now I don’t think twice about it, either writing it or saying it~ And car park… there’s another one! I dont know when that slipped in really. Well I still use parking lot often too, but its about 50-50 now. Well I don’t know when but I do know how I got to using it. Ever since Alison and I have been texting we have got into the habit of sending some at very specific times during the day, well in addtion to those off and on just to say hi. Theres the wake up text and kiss… well they all have a kiss in them! and then one when we leave the house for work, well naturally the one after that is the car park text! Well as I said I still say parking lot just as often too. It was just so funny the other day someone at work was asking me if I had an extra box cutter, and I said ‘No, but I’ll go out to the car park and get one from my car’ and it was only after I got a funny look from him that I caught what I said!

(more…)

A Trip to the Mountains

On the second day, Thursday October 11th, we decided to have a change of scenery and headed off to the Troodos mountains to walk through and tour a couple of the villages, Lania and Omodos. It turned out to be another hot day so it was good we decided to head to the mountains as it would hopefully be a bit cooler, turns out it wasn’t so much cooler at all! But still better than it would have been going somewhere near the sea. Its only a 20 minute drive or so from Limassol but it’s like entering a completely different place and time to see these villages which mostly retain the old way of life.

Photos for this post are here: http://picasaweb.google.com/garazon/Day2Cyprus

Before I go on about the villages I want to relate another story. We needed gas/petrol before we went out too far today and made a pit stop just before leaving Limassol. Well we pulled into one of the stations , can’t remember the name of it right off, well anyway I noticed a couple of employees near the pumps as we pulled in. I didn’t think much of it, one was sitting down in a small chair and I just assumed she was taking a break and I thought the other was just there to collect the money. Well Alison mentioned upon pulling in to see about getting someone to check the water as she had just had a new radiator put in the car and wanted to make sure things were ok before we headed up, and asked me to see is there was 50¢ CYP laying about to tip the guy. Well being from the states I was used to nothing but self service stations and was wondering what the tip was for. Ok we do have a couple of places that come pump the gas for you and collect the money, but that’s all they do. well the guy puts the gas in and heads back to the pump and then I found myself dumbfounded as the guy turns and comes back with a bucket and a squeegee! He then proceeds to clean not only the windshield, but the door windows and back window as well! I was in shock almost! I haven’t seen that kind of service since the late 60′s here in the states! Well he didn’t stop there, Alison popped the hood and the guy checks the oil and topped of the coolant tank as well! WOW! It was one of those twilight zone moments almost! well it made me smile too to see that there are still places that do this sort of thing in the world, I was loving Cyprus even more then. :)

Well with the car filled up we set out on our way. Our first destination was a smaller village that Alison said was one of the more picturesque, Lania.
She was right as usual :)
(description from website ) LANIA
Lania is a small, beautiful village, built at the foot of Mount Troodos on the main Limassol to Troodos road, about 26 Kms from Limassol. Lania is one of the main wine producing villages.
According to tradition, Lania got its name from Lania, daughter of the Greek god of wine and pleasure: Dionysos. This indicates the deep roots of the village in the field of vine-growing and wine-making. The village is well known for the high quality of its grapes and wines.
At the time Erricos was King of France, the country’s vineyards from which champagne was produced were destroyed by disease. The King went in search of healthy plants, which he found in Lania. The plants were loaded on a ship, transported to France and used to replant the Champagne vineyards. It is believed that during his stay in Cyprus, Erricos used to spend time at the Royal Oak of Lania, an 800 year old oak tree which sadly collapsed in 1997. In the same area, only a few metres from the Royal Oak, there is another oak tree, even bigger and well worth a visit.
The inhabitants of the village are occupied with vine-growing and the production of wine-related products including Zivania, Commandaria and Sousouko. Amongst the flower-lined streets and traditional architecture lies the village church, dedicated to St Mary. The Icon of St Mary of Valana, one of the oldest paintings in the world, is displayed in the church.
In Lania one can find an ancient and authentic Linos, a wine press, formerly used in the production of Commandaria. The entrance to the village is dominated by the old fountain from which villagers would get their drinking water and still today brings back memories of bygone times.

I totally fell in love with this village with it’s narrow stone streets and old stone houses, many of which have been restored and updated but kept their look and feel. And the amazing variety of floral plantings all along the streets and houses was beautiful. Somehow we missed the church, but did see the Linos. I guess because of the time of the year some of the places that usually are open, artists galleries and souvenir shops, even the Linos, were all closed. It was so quiet and peaceful and as we strolled the streets you could sense it. I could live in a place like this, long as they have Internet access! ;)

Omodos was the next stop. (from the website) Omodhos is located in the district of Limassol and is one of the best wine producing villages in Cyprus. It is about 35 kilometres (26 miles) from Limassol, 80 km from Nicosia and 7 km from Platres. The first view you get when you arrive in Omodhos is of its enormous big square, surrounded by whitewashed stone house, mulberry trees, tavernas, coffeehouse and souvenir shops. The village consists of many narrow streets, white houses and a picturesque church. The villagers speak the original Cypriot language and are very devoted to the contact with each other and their religious believes. Without doubt, when visiting Omodhos, one will be astonished by the women, farmers and traders who still maintain the traditional way of working.
For centuries, the people of Omodhos have worshipped and established this richness with care and devotion, which explains their, and my, proud. The inhabitants of the village Omodhos form a close community, who sometimes tend to exaggerate in their proud for their village. (Of course, we are just as common as any other villager in Cyprus, but we like to think of ourselves as the best people of the island. The village has a rich cultural heritage and is especially famous for its agricultural and natural resources, for example the many vineyards that can be found in and around the village.

A more detailed site for Omodos can be found here, giving the history of the village, the church, the wines and more. Including some links to photos of the inside the church. We weren’t allowed to photograph inside ourselves.

Omodos was much larger than Lania and of course had all the little tourist shops open as well as a few restaurants and taverns. We parked near the large village square and went there first. The entire square is paved, if that is the word to use, with stones and rocks mostly set on edge rather than flat, and you need some good shoes to walk on it very long! The walk down the square leads to the Monastery of the Holy Cross, a really lovely setting with the church in the center and the surrounding structure housing some artifacts and restored rooms now, as well as a museum for the National Struggle and a folk art museum as well is housed in one of the areas. We spent a good while in this area taking a few photos, outside of the church itself. :)
Being about lunchtime we decided to grab something to eat and drink and have
a sit down for a bit. Even up in the mountains it was still warm this day. We decided on a spot just across from the entrance to the square at a grill/restaurant/tavern. Like most place here the seating is outside as well as inside and we opted for a table out in the breeze under the umbrella. It also gave us a good view of all the activities. I had my first taste of Calamari here and actually liked it!. Well actually Alison ordered that, and me being the adventurous American tourist ordered a … cheeseburger! LOL Well it wasn’t the best tasting thing in the world mind you, probably some frozen beef patty, maybe containing beef somewhere in it, and some kind of very bland cheese. Cypriots do some really wonderful and great tasting Greek and Cypriot dishes, but they suck at American ones! LOL Well nevermind I ate it and it was filling. I tried the local Keo beer too, but wasn’t so fond of that either. Well what else goes with a burger… oh yes.. Pepsi please! lol Anyway we had a nice time sitting and talking and yes smooching too! ;) Right across the street there is part of a winery and all the time we were there the local farmers were transporting their grapes to sell. A steady stream of pickup trucks hauling crates of grapes and waiting in line to unload them. Quite interesting to see this side of things, instead of just seeing the bottles in the stores! We sat a right good while and then strolled around a bit more. We had been walking around 2 days now in the heat, between that and me trying to adjust to the time we were both ready to call it a day!
The villages were lovely to see and I liked Lania the best, just smaller and quieter and less touristy than Omodos., but both gorgeous villages and I loved it. Loved the guide more though :) Thanks my love for everything! XXX

In the evening I rode with Alison and JM to take him to the base at Akrotiri where he is in the Air Training Corps as a cadet. He wants to be a pilot and this program at the camp has given him a lot of good expereince and this summer he had his first solo flight! Amazing, he’s only 17 and already took off and landed a plane himself and I have just for the first time set foot on one!
So while he was doing his thinkg alison took me around to see some of the places she hangs out while she waits for him to get done with cadets. Most of the time she goes and caht with some friends at a little bar called Mom’s. Just a small place but a very nice relaxed feeling when you walk in. I got to meet Julie, a friend of Alison’s who has a son also in the cadets that she met and passes the time with. We sat there a short while and chatted, but had to leave before too long as we were supposed to go and meet Dee and Philip who live in Kolossi and then go back and pick JM up. Julie was nice enough to offer pick him up and to drop him off on the way so that we might have a longer visit with Dee. Dee works with Alison at 3D and is a lovely and very funny person. They have a gorgeous home and we sat and had a glass of wine or two and talked and the time passed so quickly. There are so many people I have come to know through Alison that she always see and tells me about I really would have liked to have met them all and spent more time with them, but we just couldnt manage to fit it all in with the short time we had. Everyone made me feel so at ease and in a way I felt I had already met them and they said the same about me! :) Well we had to meet up with Julie to get Jm and then headed home. We hadn’t eaten yet so aliosn stopped at a take away place and I had my first taste of sheftalia, a Cyrpriot style grilled sausage of sorts . Oh I loved this! it was in a pita bread with tomatoes and cucumbers.. wonderful taste, and I have been craving it ever since I got back to the states!

Another wonderful day that passed much too fast, but memories that will last me a lifetime. I love Cyprus, and especially one Cyprus angel! :)