The Extended Golds

A Stinkin’ Contest

O.k. I am not usually in to the tootin humor, but I came up with this idea and I thought that I would see where it will take us.

I want to have my own little contest. (I plan to do this from time to time – with different topics of course, but I had to start with the most popular for humorists: the good old fashioned passing of gas)

The contest: Comment with a link to the funniest true flatulence story that you have written. Whoever I think is the funniest will win.

The deadline: This Friday, April 18th by midnight.

The prize: I will mail this funny whoopie cushion to ANYONE of your choice in the US or Canada as a totally hilarious SURPRISE. Of course it will include this funny joke, a url to your funny blog post, and an explanation of how YOU decided to make someone’s day.


O.k. , we are settled, and if this isn’t the funniest contest you have ever seen on the internet, I would like to know about the one that is funnier.

Here is a joke for you:

SILENT BUT DEADLY
Doctor, “What seems to be the problem?”

Patient, “Doc, I’ve got the farts. I mean I fart all the time,”

The Doctor nods, “Hmm.”

Patient, “My farts do not stink and you can’t hear them. It’s just that I fart all the time. Look, we’ve been talking here for about 10 minutes and I’ve farted five times. You didn’t hear them and you don’t smell them, do you?”

“Hmm,” says the Doctor,

He picks up his pad and writes out a prescription.
The patient is thrilled “Great doc. This prescription, will it really clear up my farts?”

“No,” sighs the Doctor, “The prescription is to clear your sinuses. Next week I want you back here for a hearing test.”

And, I can’t leave this post without honoring my father in law, Duane.

You will never see the man laugh as hard as when the subject of “tooting” comes up…it literally draws tears from the man.

He laughs so hard when we talk of the subject that my brother-in-law Jordan has promised his dad that when he dies, we will have a fart-off at his funeral, just to see if we can hear his laughter one last time, coming from the other side.

Oh…the laundry!

To start a long post, and hopefully motivate you to keep reading, here is a joke I read recently:

Seconds after he stepped into the laundry room, he shouted to me, “What setting
do I use on the washing machine?”
“It depends,” I replied. “What does it say
on your shirt?”
He yelled back, “University of Oklahoma.”
And they say
blondes are dumb…

Warning this is a loooooong post…but it just had to be done all together, and if you want to know why, you must read the whole thing.

The laundry that a mother of 3 has to gather, treat, wash, (and sometimes rewash) fold, and put away is NEVER ENDING. My friend Tracy told me that if you ever want a glimpse of eternity, you should just compare it to laundry. Eternity will be different and hopefully a lot more fun than laundry, but the cycles will probably very similar. Clean, put away, wear, dirty…you get it.

I have posted about laundry before…here and here (for the more spiritual side of laundry). It shouldn’t surprise you that the subject has reared its ugly head again. I am a mother. And mothers are made of the stuff they learn while laundering. Some of us glean more lessons than others. That is why I like to take so long to do my laundry…I have the opportunity to learn so much more this way.

A couple of weeks ago, Faye and her mom, Grandma Henderson stopped by. They were on their way to go and help a very pregnant cousin, but some bad weather gave them a “wait out a Southern storm” pit stop at my house. They were greeted by my 10 loads of laundry waiting so patiently on family room floor to be folded. The pile had been growing for at least three days.

Grandma didn’t even try to contain her amazement, as I kept bringing her basket upon basket of clean and wrinkly clothes (the only way we fold laundry around here is wrinkly). I have to give Grandma credit though, she was so cute, as she just kept folding steadily and cheery.

Grandma grew up with 10 siblings in a log cabin in the hills of North Carolina. She also raised 4 children. In response to the hour of the 3 of us folding constantly (except when I stopped to snap photos) Grandma said with all seriousness, “I have never seen this much laundry in my life. It reminds me of when I was growing up and my mom didn’t do laundry between Christmas and Old Christmas, and even then we didn’t have this much.” (Grandma didn’t know what Old Christmas was, but you can read here for a good history lesson…so interesting)Yep, I can always amaze people; even when they are aged and think that they have experienced everything, they really just haven’t spent enough time with ME!

Well, I have to say that I was kind of embarrassed, and partially relieved…luckily, there was no lingerie in the pile. Faye also did my dishes; it was lucky for her that they had only been piling up since that morning. (did you know that I have NO dishwasher? – married for ten years and I have only had a dishwasher for a total of 10 months – and THAT is something to brag about – my hands are even still soft at times)

It was so nice of Faye and Grandma, especially considering they were only here a total of 2 hours. What can I say though, LG is a product of some of the best women in the world? I hollered out as they were leaving, “Any time you want to come and do my laundry or my dishes, just stop on by.”

It can probably go unsaid, but laundry is always something that I have NOT mastered. What can I do to make it less torturous…I have no answers…yet.

So, when I was out with some girls the other night, we sat and talked and talked. We had so much fun, even if The Olive Garden fed us “puke dip”(affectionately named by the one and only Cally) OG’s new Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta Dip is NOT good. That was an understatement..it was nasty (what a bummer) And, yes, I took a picture of it. (Keep reading this does have to do with laundry)

If you want to read from the girls I was with, go to Cally, Lori, and Mandy. Sorry, Rachel doesn’t have a blog (what is she thinking?) I had no idea that Cally and I shared an affinity for Black Tie Mousse Cake….YUMMY! But they changed the crust from Oreos to cake. I hope they go back, it used to be so much better; I was so disappointed.

Come to think of it, I was disappointed with the only two things I ordered that night, between the girls and the bread sticks, I didn’t even notice.

Anyhow, back to the laundry. Throughout the night, I was laughing so hard because it was as if we couldn’t start ONE sentence without the word blog in it. Here are examples of starter sentences. “On my blog”, “Oh your blog”, “Did you read that blog”, “That is some great blog material” or the best being “I have got to blog about that”.

On the way home, we were discussing how pathetically addicted we all are at the moment…and it only makes it worse that we feed off of each other.

To change the subject, I proposed the question, “Can anyone help me with my laundry dilemma?”

We had a great lengthy discussion of many great ideas that I am too lazy to try and have already ruled out. The discussion really led to my confession of forgetting to stay on top of my laundry because of my blog. The girls and I all decided that they should send me random “do your laundry” reminders in the my blog’s comments from time to time. This way I couldn’t conveniently forget. You can imagine my delight, when a week later, Cally posted this. (She has a way with surprise…she waited just long enough for me to forget the conversation…the Cruze’s are so good with the element of surprise)

This is what the boys did while we went out. ..

Maybe I should have taken over my laundry for them..surely we would have got home before 2 am if they were folding instead of warring….Man, I can’t remember the last time I stayed up until 2 when blogging wasn’t involved.

Can Faye figure it out?


I love my mother-in-law Faye. I really do! She is at the top of my “I love” list. She is one of the people in my life that I can not imagine living without. I literally have been brought to tears several time by the thought that she will more than likely kick the can before I do. I will be utterly lost in this world without her.

Here is a picture of Faye and her good friend Jean on their last visit to my house.

I thought that the picture is appropriate because Faye has taught me more about friendship than anyone else I know. I am so blessed to have Faye in my life. (I also just had to put this picture of Jean on the blog because she hates to have her picture taken)

I helped Faye set up her blog today. (go and leave her a comment) In response to Faye’s surges of trepidation with the technology, I kept trying to reassure her that she couldn’t ruin anything unless she pushes a delete button. I came home to find this quote in my box… I thought it was especially pertinent to the occasion of Grammy starting her new blog in her ripe old age:

“To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.”

You have to know that this is especially funny to me because I have always told Faye that she is absolutely perfect. She adamantly opposes this idea and has even let out a curse word just once to prove to me that she isn’t perfect…to which I am sure she instantly crawled to the quiet of her room to offer up a prayer of repentance.

I can only hope that by introducing Faye to the blogging world I can someday say that I was truly instrumental in helping her “really foul things up”. I will feel so powerful knowing that I could influence one of the greatest souls in this world to come over to the dark side once in a while…even if that dark side is just the world of blogging…because I know Faye will never utter another curse word in her life!

Funeral Processions

After getting an e-mail from Karie about a funeral procession that honored a fallen serviceman, Spc. James M. Kiehl, I decided to take Kristen’s advice (read it under the comments from my lemon post) and I googled the story. (Thank you for the forward Karie, I loved it)

I mostly googled it because I thought that the story was so sweet, I had to know if it was really true. Is there still such humanity in the world? According to the forwarded e-mail, it occurred in TN, and I wanted to be so honored to be surrounded by these good people.

Here is what I read about on Snopes. (an amazing site where you can check the origins of internet garble) So, the touching story is true. Spc. James M. Kiehl was killed in action, and the people of his hometown really gave him a true hero’s goodbye. The community members lined the streets from the service to the cemetery, standing in total silence with their hands on their hearts and waving flags.

I would like to add my personal moment of silence in thanking Spc. James M. Kiehl for his ultimate sacrifice. How can one put in words the true gratitude they feel for their freedom that is won every day from the sacrifice of another family’s son/husband/brother/father?

Now, I would like to tear into the person who saw it fit to change the original e-mail. (which I am sure was not Karie) The part that so perplexes me was this sentence: “There is a lot to be said for growing up in a small town in Tennessee.” (compare this sentence to the original from the link above – “There is a lot to be said for growing up in a small town in TX”) This story didn’t take place in TN, but in TX. Why would anyone really feel the need to put their own state in there? As if this story wasn’t just as good if it happened in TX. I think that sometimes Tennesseans have a little bit of an inferiority complex. Can’t we all just be happy that the good people of TX can honor a man as good, if not better than us?

I know that the people of TX honored this man better than I did some person who was buried in Kingsport a few years ago. After reading Laura’s recent post about Southern traditions, I was reminded that I am not totally Southern. In fact, after I tell you the following story, you may wonder if my husband is either.

The first thing that came to mind after reading Laura’s post that if to be truly Southern, you have to appreciate the lack of sidewalks, I will never be Southern. I so miss sidewalks. In California people actually get out and walk, just for fun. You can’t do that here without worrying that someone will run you right over.

The other thing that Laura mentioned about being Southern is the ability to stop on the side of the road for any funeral procession. So, (Alice, focus, off soapbox, back to story) years ago LG and I decided to sneak away and catch a movie. It was a last minute decision and we found that a movie we wanted to watch was starting in just 15 minutes. It takes 10 minutes to drive from my in-laws to the theatre. We said goodbye to the fam and ran off. My in-laws live out in the country and you have to pass a cemetery on the way.

We were cruising along, glad to make it to the movie on time, when all of the sudden, we spotted a funeral procession ahead. There was a line of about 30 cars. Lucky for us, they were just turning into the cemetery, and they were lined up on the opposite side of the street. We thought and discussed that because they were so close to pulling in, we would be safe to just keep on our merry way. We thought very wrong. The front car (the hearse) decided that he needed to teach us a lesson. He yanked the wheel as to spin his car out in front of us while simultaneously flipping us the bird.

All I could think about was the poor deceased soul in back of the hearse. The decease’s driver seemed more concerned about these strangers on their way to what would be their only date in months than the person who may just come tumbling out of the back when he jerked the car like he did.

Now, you can all call me insensitive. And, LG and I both may need some lessons on funeral etiquette, but really, I don’t expect anyone to stop or get out of the way of the car that is taking me to my resting place. I especially hope that the driver of my hearse won’t pull out any offensive gestures in front of my posterity. Really, what good would it have done for us to just stop there? Did all of these people expect us to just stop in our tracks as they all so very SLOWLY pulled into the cemetery? It’s not like we needed to get out of their way.

I very much respect the deceased. May they all rest in peace! I have even volunteered beautifying cemeteries before, multiple times. I just don’t think that we have to pull off on the side of the road to show respect, and that, my brothers and sisters, makes me a Westerner. It is just so hard to give up that fast paced life sometimes. Really, when I am dead in a casket, I truly hope that strangers to me will go on living their lives as usual….especially if it means they don’t have to miss the previews!
And the quote of the day: You are alive. So live. ~ Tomi Miyasaki

The Edited Flu

Lori chronicled the flu of what seemed to be her whole blogroll. (that’s how bad this flu has been, or maybe there is some way we have all been passing it from between keyboards?)

Cally (if you link, scroll down to #2, couldn’t get the piknik post to work) inspired me to give you this edited picnik version of the flu at our house.

What does a woman do when she is supposed to rest, her husband is studying for the bar, and they cancel two days of school?

No prob…”Children, you have free reign of the TV, toys, and the snack cabinet. Yes, those 4 boxes of fruit roll ups are not only yummy, they will keep you alive and semi-healthy.” (If you add in the gogurts and dry cereal, they almost get every food group.)

Yes, they wore those pj’s for two days straight. Sophia has been really into keeping up with her new “days of the week” panties that she got for Christmas. Last night I told her that she needed to change out of her pj’s before she went to bed. This is what I hear Abigail exclaim from the bedroom, “Sophia, you are still wearing Wednesday.” This statement was echoed by Sophia in between her fits of laughter.

My mother-in-law will be so stunned…she thinks that I am the clean underwear nazi. I don’t know where she gets the notion, except for the fact that I always pack the girls double underwear when they go to her house. I once said to Faye, “I am not an underwear nazi, I only make them change their undewear daily. How often did your kids change their underwear?” She never did answer me.

We are now in the beginning stages of clean up. I have found at least 50 piles of wrappers that look just like this. Maybe we should clean up after the bar, what do you think?

dad = goat


So this morning as we were getting the girls ready for school, all of the girls were telling their dad about their trips to see our friend’s baby goats. Thanks to Grammy for the field trip. The girls just loved these baby goats. And thanks to Steve and Stori for their fun petting zoo.

Here is the goat with Bella. Isn’t she cute? I was talking about the goat. This baby goat’s name is Carameletta. Isn’t that a cute name? Again, I am talking about the goat. The other two babies are Dotty and Pedro. (Pedro’s the boy)

So, back to the name of the post. This morning the girls were telling LG all about the goats:

“We had to chase the babies dad. We caught Dotty. The baby one is called Dotty
because she has a lot of dots. The dad has a long beard. The dad is
harry-er. The mom goat looks like she is mad at you and being protective,
but she doesn’t really care. The dad goat is bigger than the mom goat. They
were all so cute dad. They were so fun. The dad goat has bigger horns.”

LG in response to the girls: (yes his wit is really keen in the mornings) “So, I think I got it all, tell me if I am right: the dad is fatter, harrier, and hornier?” Yep I guess that dad really does = goat.

I just rolled on the floor laughing. What a great way to start the day.

I think that Gina’s hubby’s humor is also a little twisted. Gina informed her hubby that I suggested he win a good hubby award, he said, “What does a man do to win the chubby award?”

Conversation Pieces

LeGrand has repeatedly warned me that blogging about “the bedroom” is off limits and so I hope the following two funny conversations don’t cross the limits. If you are the kind of person who is afraid that you may not want to read further, please stop here. I don’t want to embarrass you or me. If you are even just 1% like me then I am sure I just peaked your curiosity and I know you will have to keep reading, even if you don’t know if you want to. If that is the case, I don’t mind if I embarrass you a little, just don’t tell me if I’ve offended you. I offend so many people in my life, and I just don’t need one more. Consider yourself warned.

LeGrand and I have been trying to get pregnant for 8 months now with no luck. We’ve never really had to work at it before and so we have gotten a little worried. As we were talking for the two minutes that we actually saw each other last night, LeGrand felt it necessary to share with me the infomercial that he had heard on the radio. I vaguely remember, as I was half asleep, but the commercial mentioned that there is a link to an enlarged prostate and fertilization. So, my memory was jogged about another short conversation that had occurred that I meant to blog about: (for your reading pleasure, here it is)

So, we were at LeGrand’s parents for Christmas and an interesting conversation took place that I thought was worth sharing. LeGrand’s little brother Logan started commenting that he needed to go and relieve his bladder in the bathroom. This small statement blew up into a huge thing. Jordan, the middle brother, starts telling Logan that he shouldn’t hold it for so long. “It’s not healthy.” Logan then says, “Yeah, when I hold it too long it almost starts to hurt.” So, this conversation is going on and on and it is almost making me uncomfortable re-sharing it here. (At the time it didn’t seem to be such a big deal) During the whole conversation, where even Faye and I added a few suggestions, LeGrand, the oldest brother, was sitting across the room at his laptop, totally oblivious. All of the sudden, LeGrand looks up and loudly exclaims, “Oh yeah, well I have an enlarged prostate.” What in the world? If you aren’t already laughing, then you have to imagine the look on the face of my usually quiet and subdued husband. The look was as if to say, “So, top that, you wimpy bladder brothers!” LeGrand swears that he was trying to warn Logan that he may have the beginning of prostrate problems, but I think he was just bragging.

And another funny conversation that is totally not related yet is in a round about way. (has to do with male body parts – again stop reading now if you are easily offended) This is a conversation that happened between my brothers and sisters and I about a year and half ago. I have wanted to share it for a long time ago but have never felt appropriate. (I am going to now lose the two new readers that I gained this week, but hey, this blog is for me anyway and I like writing about funny things)

We were at my sister Sarah’s house. She lives in Lincoln, CA, and her house became the gathering place when my Grandma Dorothy died. The funeral was in close by Sacramento. All seven of us siblings were together for the first time in 6 years. So, where did the conversation head? – The natural place of course, what name were we each teaching our own children for the male body part. I have all daughters and so of course I wasn’t as involved here. My brothers, who all have sons were really getting animated. The following names were mentioned: Pe Pe, We We, Tinkles, Wa Wa, and on and on. Who knew there were so many choices? I had put my two cents in towards the beginning of the conversation, “We just teach the girls the correct scientific terminology like the parenting books tell us to….penis is the only word we use.” You should have heard the roars of disapproval from the peanut gallery. This is what really got the conversation going.

Seriously, I didn’t know when it would ever end. We were talking about his for about ten minutes, and the brothers started making up new names that would be good to use. I couldn’t stand it another minute. How could I possibly stop the conversation? Like a pro, if you ask me, “At our house we just call it King Kong.” (LeGrand is going to kill me because it really isn’t true) Yes, I really hope that you are laughing. But, if you are offended or not, I have to say that it’s o.k. because at the time, my plan worked like a charm. Everyone laughed so hard that we finally had a lull long enough in the conversation to change the subject.

Papa’s Puns

A comment left on my post from yesterday made me think that my father-in-law is secretly reading my blog. (I would be so honored) The anonymous comment was in regard to me working as a cashier at Target and said:”Some people hope for change; some people talk about change, but I’ve been working hard to make change since 2007!!!!!!”

Sure, anyone could have left this comment, but really, who left in this world has a pun in his pocket so readily? Duane does like to torture us all continually with his play on words, but it never really gets old. He may be getting old, but unlike him his humor will live forever. I don’t think that it would be possible to erase the practice of punnery from the Gold DNA. I am left to wonder where it all originated. I have been told that Grandpa Gold was a great humorist also.

So, I chose the picture of Duane above from behind. I am sure that he will be able to come up with something really good using the word behind. (He always does)

What is a pun exactly? It is just humor that is a play on words. Try to come up with some of your own, it is quite fun. I must warn you though, you may have to think really hard, I have been sitting here for the past 30 minutes and haven’t been able to come up with one. Thank goodness for the google search. It brought up this page from UT which left me wondering if punnery is a Southern thing. No wonder why all those Southern guys are funny.

In our family, Duane’s puns are numbered. Duane likes to pull out his little plays on words whenever his wit is up to the challenge, which unfortunately for us, is always. After ten years in the family, I have observed that Duane always awards himself with a little chuckle as to tell the intended listener that they had better acknowledge the humor also. I love this! And, I also love how the family tries to remember which number the pun is whenever Duane has succeeded at remembering. Really the jokes have never been assigned numbers for that would take all the pun out of it.

According to Erskine a pun is the lowest form of wit. Now, don’t be offended Duane, he also says it is “the foundation of all wit”. Freud also said that, puns are “the cheapest- can be made with the least trouble” (which Duane will find as a compliment I am sure because the Gold’s pride themselves on being thrifty.)

Leave it to Oscar Levant to astutely point out: “A pun is the lowest form of humor- if you didn’t think of it first.” I am making it my goal this year to memorize a few puns so that I can perpetuate the humor into my children. I would also love it if I could master the lowest and cheapeast form of wit – wit in any form, is good to me. It may be an accomplishment of a lifetime if I can ever think of just one good pun before good old Papa.

Here are some puns just for the reader’s delight: (these are all Duane typical)

1. I used to be twins. My mother has a picture of me when I was two.
2. I work as a baker because I knead dough.
3. A dog not only has a fur coat but also pants.
4. Today I’ve got a pressing engagement. I must go to the cleaners.
5. I recently spent money on detergent to unclog my kitchen sink. It was money down the drain.

Hey Judicial LG

Hey Jude!

Alrighty, Here is the long awaited video that LG was hoping I would forget about. Hit the “Hey Jude” link above. You should have seen LG’s face when he finished helping me post this on googlevideos. It was a three way tie between total fear, complete embarassment and ‘imsofunny”. You know I have to thank LG for two things: 1 -for acting like a complete dork and 2 – You know I couldn’t have uploaded this video without his help. It only took us five days to figure out how to do it. I hope it was worth the trouble.

As I saw the embarassed smirk on LG’s face, all I could say is, “At least it’s not YouTube, right?”I think that this is absolutely hillarious, if you didn’t already know that bymy laughter that drowns out LG as a star on the video. Those of you that know LG will really enjoy it. The rest of you, may just have to suffer.

One of the best parts of the video is Uncle Dirk’s comment at the very end…it is in the background very quietly…In Uncle Dirk’s best southern boss hogg accent, “There’s a trial lawyer in you yet, boy” or something like that.

LG was totally hamming it up at Claytor Lake with the family Karoake Bar. I LOVE Karaoke! Can you tell that LG was happy to have the Bar Exam finally completed! And of course, The Beatles bring out the best in him.

In The Clouds


While in the car on Saturday, I noticed this cloud on the bottom right. I saw an upside down pig that looks like he is cracking up after booting a football. I named the cloud pig on pig. (get it, they call a football pigskin) – perfect cloud for this time of year, huh? And, guess what, the Vols won later that day.

The other pic, I thought is a great catch of an obvious heart. The pictures above just 1 – of the beautiful southern sky with clouds and trees and 2- Sophia’s other piece of “in the cloud” artwork. A quadruple decker cracker and cheese sandwich….YUM! And, yes, I have to sidenote that this sandwich was made with her spreadable cheese, not the sliced kind. She really needed a bath before we hit the baptism we were heading to, but what do you do?

Cute, that later in the day, Sophia and Uncle Logan were at a neighbor picnic. They were laying in a hammock, observing the clouds. Sophia asked Uncle Logan if she could take pictures with his cell phone and then she proceeded to capture every available cloud and tell Uncle Log what she saw. Man, don’t ever forget that your children are always watching!