File Under: Huh???

I got a wonderful gift today from a total stranger in the form of a wrong number text. The text read as:

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I just framed "Grandpa Monkey".

I just might us[e] it as my own,

personal birth announcement!

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It cracked me up and I have probably looked at it 10 times since I received it. I actually called the number to see if maybe I knew the person but the guy said his name on his voice mail and it is a total stranger. What the hell?

A to Z to Distract Me (hey, that rhymes!)

In order to distract myself from this:
I'm going to do a light meme post that Ian had on his blog. And by the way, that's going to be our weather in Michigan for the funeral. I had to buy things that most people own like gloves and a coat and boots.
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The meme is an A to Z type thing and goes like this:

A – Allergies: Cats (I know, that's crazy!), house dust and mountain cedar.
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B – Bed size: Queen and twin (guests should get a hotel)
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C – Chore you hate: sweeping. It hurts my back, which means I am probably doing it wrong because mopping doesn't hurt my back.
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D – Dad’s Name: "Pappy" to the grandkids and "Dad" to me
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E – Essential start-your-day item: Diet decaf Pepsi
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F – Favorite actor(s): Kevin Spacey, Jodie Foster, Thomas Hayden Church, Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Mason, William Powell
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G – Gold or silver: Gold for jewelry, Silver for Tequila, specifically Herradura Silver:
H – Height: 5’ 4" I used to be a half inch taller but have shrunk a bit because of gravity and settling.
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I – Instruments you play(ed): The kazoo. I can play the melody from "M*A*S*H" on the harmonica and I bought a violin and will take lessons before i croak. Really I will.
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J – Job title: Graphic Artist when I used to work.
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K – Kid(s): One daughter Kate who is 25 and really fun to be around.
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L – Living arrangements: I continually arrange to be living and am doing so right now.
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M – Mom’s name: Mom (Well what else would I call her?) The grandkids call her "Grammy."
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N – Nicknames: Sweetie, Bunny, Squirrelio (and too many more to mention - maybe my husband forgot my name)
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O – Overnight hospital stay other than birth: Car accident, abdominoplasty, pneumonia (and did that mean MY birth or Kate's birth or both?)
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P – Pet peeve(s): My current one is people saying "Having said that" and "That being said" instead of "However" although the "your"/"you're" thing still irks the bejeebus out of me.
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Q – Quotes you like: "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" - Edmund Burke
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." - George Santayana
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R – Right- or left-handed: I write right-handed but probably do about 65% of stuff with either hand. Watch people play backgammon. Some people, like me, roll the dice and move the pieces with either hand and some people do every single thing with only one hand. It's like their other hand is dead (sleeping? lazy?). It's funny.
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S – Sports you played: I never played organized sports but I did play a lot of disorganized ones. I really loved all the kiddy yard games and then basketball when I got older. Tennis is fun too.
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U – Umbrellas: Jazz pointed out that the word "umbrellas" is hardly a question, but for me it was evocative. I've been in dozens of dance performances, but my very first one was to "Singing in the Rain" and we tapped around with umbrellas. So umbrellas always remind me of of my very first dance recital.

V – Vegetable you dislike: yellow squash, except I'm not sure if gourds are actually vegetables.

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W – Ways you run late: This one is easy. I have an anxiety disorder and the main, okay, only reason I am late is because I have a hard time getting out of the house. I'm pretty good about professional appointments though.

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X – X-rays you’ve had: Oh my. Hmmm. I can't think of anything that hasn't been x-rayed. Yep I'm pretty sure every square inch has been covered. Maybe my right elbow was never X-rayed.

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Y – Yummy food you make: Pretty much everything I make is good, but because like some cooks, I do not limit myself and like to experiment, I do sometimes make something that calls for an apology.

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Z – Zodiac: I'm an Aries although everything says I am a Taurus. I'm a cusp person. Mom used to really be into astrology in the 70's and do people's charts. I found one she had done for me years later and it sounded just like me. I've also always been pretty good about guessing people's signs but I'm only really good at guessing fire signs (Leo, Sagittarius and Aries). I can pick those people out in a second.

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Thanks Ian for this idea and the rest of you, feel free to steal it if you can't think of a post idea or if, like me, you just don't want to think.

For Rita

Rita died in her sleep Friday morning, January 22nd. I really loved Rita. Rita was My Sweetie's Grandmother. I may have mentioned her before. After her husband died in April 2002, she sold their retirement home in Florida because she hated Florida. She had never been alone and so she did not buy another house and never lived alone, although she owned lake property in northern Michigan.
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Rita had never been alone. She and her husband were one of those couples that did everything together. They were thick as thieves, as the saying goes. Xup has talked about her parents being like that and I'm too tired to find the link, but I think everyone knows what I mean. Some couples are like that. They had nine kids. Yes, nine. After Rita's husband died, she summered in Michigan with one daughter and wintered here in Texas with another daughter - my mother-in-law.
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Everyone worried about Rita back in 2002 when her husband died because they had been so attached, but over time, Rita's individual spirit emerged. In a big way. Rita was a riot. She would say whatever she was thinking and most of the time it was funny as hell. And not in a way like you were laughing at her. She had a great sense of humor and used it. She laughed a lot. And maybe some of those times when she was being blunt, she didn't intend to be funny. But she was.
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Several years ago when we were alone in my MIL's living room, I told her, "I really don't know what to call you." She replied, "Call me Rita, I hate being called 'Grandma'." I thought that was funny but my MIL does not like that story. About 4 years ago at my Christmas party she had several glasses of wine and was the highlight of the whole evening. I need to find those pictures. She wore a Christmas bow on her head the whole evening.
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Speaking of that: For some reason I was really into making bows this Christmas and after I wrapped Rita's gift I took a picture.:

I never posted about my bows because it seemed sort of self indulgent at the time, but now I am so glad I took that picture. You may remember that I posted about our trip over to my MIL's house on Christmas eve and we had to turn back because of the ice and snow. Well, when we made it over there just after Christmas, she loved my bow and put it right on her head:

That cross she is holding was my gift to her. Rita has always been a devout Catholic so I thought she would like that. And Rita being who she was said the funniest thing when I gave it to her. She said, "I'll take this to get it blessed by a priest and then it will be special." That still cracks me up.

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I walked into her bedroom today (Friday night) to see if I could feel her presence. I saw that cross on her dresser. Everyone knows I am not religious, but I had a strong feeling that I needed to get that cross blessed for her.

I am going to go to the local Catholic church this weekend to get a priest to bless it (hopefully I won't fry or turn to dust when I enter the building). Then I am going to take it with me to Michigan and place it in her casket. If you knew me you would gasp. I have always skipped the "viewing" parts of funerals. To me it seems ghastly and hideous. But I really loved Rita and I'm going to make an exception. Just for her. I have so many fun memories of Rita and the things she randomly said that only I heard. We had so much fun with her just four weeks ago. When she tried my tsatsiki sauce that I had made to have with my MIL's leg of lamb, she said, "This tastes like cucumbers." That was hilarious because we had already told her that it was a cucumber sauce. Maybe it was her delivery. She had a way of saying things. Really deadpan.

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I always write out all the birthdays when I get a new calendar and add little stickers and I know I will be sad when I flip the calendar to August this year and see: Rita 90 along with a bright red star. I really loved Rita and I will miss every single thing about her. It's so hard to believe she is gone and I will never hear her voice again.

Good night sweet Rita, rest in peace. I love you.

The Album You Wore Out

The musical guests tonight on Letterman were Carole King and James Taylor. Just moments into Carole's singing, my whole body got a surge of brain feel-good juice (dopamine?). Her voice to me just feels right. Yeah, she's not a voice like Julie Andrews, Karen Carpenter or Barbra Streisand, but she has a special happy sound that I love. And maybe part of that is knowing that she writes all those songs. Her Album Tapestry, is the one album I wore out.

I have no idea when I bought the album the first time, but over the years, like albums tend to do, it got old dull and scratchy. So I bought another one. That one actually was doing fine but as you all know, the age of the turntable came to an end. Somehow, I was able to skip over the cassette stage and went straight from my second Tapestry to the CD version. I think it was probably one of my earliest CDs. I still have both of my albums and it's funny to look at them. It's obvious which one is older. Looking over the playlist, I can't help but smile. Every song is good. It's hard to pick a favorite because every song means something different to me, but I particularly love the song Beautiful. The chorus is sort of my mantra. Here's a youtube version if you are not familiar with it:
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Do you have an album that you have worn out?

Tree Day (sans video)

Preface: Apparently Blogger has some sort of VIDJam going on because after 4 attempts and what seems like 22 years, I have come to the conclusion that I will not be posting the accompanying video to this post. I am also unable to see videos on other blogger blogs. Blogger's a real prick this morning. So here's the post minus the video which I may attempt to post at some other time because, well because I want to.
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See that guy up there in my tree?:

We had three trees in the front yard and one of them drooped menacingly over our roof. Here is the before picture:

And that pretty green stuff in the trees? No, those are not leaves. Well I guess technically they are leaves, but they are not leaves of the tree. All of that greenery is mistletoe. And while mistletoe is a big fun part of the Christmas tradition for some reason even though the whole kissing under it comes from Norse mythology, it is not a good thing. Nope, mistletoe will suck the very life out of a tree and that's why it's also sometimes referred to as "the vampire plant."

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I had to get up super early for the tree guys. Carole and I had worked out a deal with the tree people to give them a whole day of work with some stuff at my house and some stuff at her house. And lucky me, I got "first shift." Actually, once I got used to seeing the sun coming from the other end of the street, I really got into how those tree guys do their thing. When I was taking my before pictures, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how they would get that tree (that tree hanging right over the house) down without it crashing right through the roof. They made it look pretty simple. I made a little video that you can check out at the end of this post maybe catch in the future if you want to see how they do it. And here's an after shot from the front:

And here's an after shot from the driveway:

As you can see, they did a great job. They got that one tree down in about an hour, and then it took two guys two hours to trim out all of that mistletoe from the other two trees as well as take out a few branches. They did a really great job and I can't wait to see what the trees look like in May.

Me and Me and.....

Ticknart's brother's friend appeared on a recent episode of "Scrubs" and Ticknart gave me a link to the guy's website. I was fascinated by the picture on the guy's site and couldn't stop thinking about it. When you first see the picture, you think it's a picture of a bunch of guys in someone's backyard. Then you realize they are all the same guy. That is such a cool thing for an actor because it shows the guy in many guises. So if you were a casting agent and looked at that you could quickly see if he would fit whatever type you were casting.
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As a graphic artist, it fascinated me on another level. I'm not a photographer and can't even imagine how he took all those pictures outdoors and didn't have a lot of lighting problems. From an astronomy perspective you'd have to take one picture very day at a specific time, and not the same time because the relationship of the sun and the earth changes every single day. From a graphic artist perspective, I was thinking how much work it would be to do all the color correction if he took the pictures all day long on a single day. Anyway, here is the COOL PIC and you can see it for yourself.
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I decided to try it in a controlled lighting situation and took a bunch of pics of myself right here in this room over by the bar. This is how mine turned out:
It's a little dark, but I did that on purpose because I am old. Old broads look better in the dark. Unlike my usual pics you should be able to click on this one to see it larger. It was a fun experiment and I'd like to try it again and put a little more time into it. You should try it too.

Go Ahead, Make My Day

After only two weeks delivering meals in my new area, I have already staked out my new place for lunch and beerses. This bar/restaurant has everything and a great menu to boot. They have the NTN trivia game which I really like but for some reason today they were re-running the same games from last Friday. I've never seen that happen before. So I decided to do my USA Today crossword puzzle. There was this one clue: Cinnamon-yielding tree, and I felt like I should know it but couldn't think of it to save my life. This young girl came in and sat to my right and I asked her if she might know it. She said, "Just a moment and I'll find out." She picked up her phone and I figured she had one of those phones with internet on it, but she actually called someone. She asked the person on the other end, "Do you know the name of the tree that makes cinnamon? I'm at this bar and this girl is doing a crossword puzzle and I thought you would know." And all I could hear was that she called me "this girl." And it tickled the bejeebers out of me. Call me vain and silly, but it really made my day.
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The girl that made my day is the one on the right holding my crossword puzzle: Usually when you are chatting with someone in a bar and their friend comes in they turn away to focus on their friend, but my bar buddy and her friend were very friendly. We chatted a bit off and on. My bar buddy, who is 30, was very interested in doing Meals on Wheels and I told her that the area near her house (the area I left) always needs people. She took the number for MOW. Her friend was fun too and told us a great story about religion.
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I floated around all day after I left, replaying those words in my head: this girl. She really made my day. Oh, and the word? Cassia

A Capital Idea

After typing in one of those crazy nonsensical words in Blogger's word verification box, I was thinking they should sell that space to companies. They could make money and instead of typing in stuff like:

and:
We could type in stuff like:


Or:

It would be easier for me and blogger could make money.

Everybody wins!

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(Disclaimer: I did not recieve any compensation for using

these logos, but if anyone at these companies

sees this, please send tires (Ford Ranger) or

Canada Dry tonic water to my house)

The Airport Body Scanner

I think a lot of people think I am a die hard left leaning liberal. And I probably am in a lot of ways. So why is it I am always disagreeing with the A.C.L.U.? The local news carried a story tonight about the new airport body scanners and the controversy around them. A representative of the A.C.L.U. spoke out against them. "Invasion of privacy," she said.
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The scan is seen by someone in another room and the images are not stored. I personally would rather see my chubby frumpy body displayed on a giant screen for all the world to see than to be blown up in an airplane. Cause I'm weird like that.

My New Route

Hmmm, where do I start? Well first of all I should start by saying my new route does not have "flow." Merriam-Webster's 2nd definition of "route" is "a line of travel." And there was no line. As usual, there is backtracking and cross overing which is very annoying. Not only that but my 3rd and 4th stops were in THE APARTMENT COMPLEX FROM HELL:

That's a map of the apartment complex. A map that I stopped and got at the apartment complex office after driving around and around and around and...okay you get my point. Their layout is such that certain buildings, and by "certain" I mean THE ONE I AM LOOKING FOR, are surrounded by buildings so that they can not be seen by people who do not have x-ray vision, those people are called "humans." I am one of those people. Here's a close-up of some of those special buildings:

When I walked into the office this lady asks, "Can I help you?" In some of my best restraint ever, I replied, "Yes I am delivering food for Meals on Wheels and need a map of this complex because I can't seem to grasp your numbering system. The building next to 213 is 225." She smiled apologetically and said "Oh yes, I'm sorry about that. The buildings go in circles." Yes they do. They surely do. Circles of hell.

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And speaking of apartment complex hell, the next one is a classic. I couldn't find the road for my next apartment complex on my Mapsco, but it was in a section of town that I am very familiar with. I thought "Heck. There's mostly stores around there so there can't be that many apartment complexes." And let's say that this particular apartment complex was named "Hanover Terrace." So I head over there and sure enough, there is an apartment complex called "Hanover House." The streets are not named "Hanover" so I figure the odds are this has to be the place. I even find an apartment door with the corresponding apartment number on it that is on my route sheet." I knocked and knocked and was greeted with silence. I went back to my car and per protocol, called the client's number. A man answered and I could hear a loud TV in the background. "How strange that I did not hear that TV," I thought. I told the man that I had knocked on the door and he said, "No, I'm sitting right here. Is there a chance you are at Hanover House apartments?" And just as he asked me that, I saw the street name that I had been looking for on my Mapsco. A few houses later I had one of those streets that stops and starts again somewhere else. Now that should just be illegal. At the very least they should have to name those "East Summerhill" and "West Summerhill." And of course I was on the east side one when I should have been on the west side one. Grrr.

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Today, Sunday I mean, I asked My Sweetie to drive me around my route because I wanted to become more familiar with it and change the order around a little bit and I wanted to time it. Well we timed it at 36 minutes. That's of course without stopping and getting the food from the containers and delivering it to the people, but that's what? Maybe 2 to 4 minutes per person? On Friday it took me TWO HOURS. I had 13 people and apologized profusely to the last 7 people for being there so late. This Friday I will be much faster.

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Arctic Weather Wrap-up: Saturday night was the big ending to the giant freeze-out we've been having. It was 13°. Our spa, with the pump running, had thick frozen ice sheets floating on top Sunday morning:

When running water freezes, it is COLD. But it (the arctic front) is pulling out and it will be in the mid 50's for the next few days. YAY! I am going to go outside and sit in that.

Friday Goofy

Now that would be convenient.

W.T. Cold

There's an Arctic Front moving in right now and as they used to say (or maybe they still do) in North Carolina, "It's going to be as cold as a witch's titty." About 90% of the local news tonight was about this cold front. It's supposed to be 23° on Thursday and 27° on Friday and those are the highs. The highs without the wind chill factor. And the lows? In the teens. THE TEENS.
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Some of the news showed people shopping for this weather and said hats, gloves and scarves were selling out. And I was thinking, "There are hats, gloves and scarves? Is there a hats, gloves and scarves store?" Because I never see those. I do not own a winter scarf. I have a pair of gloves that I keep in my truck in case of an emergency but I have never worn them. And if I remember correctly, it took me a long time to find those gloves in a store. I think I bought them 8 or 10 years ago. I suppose I should wear them on Friday.
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And yes, Friday, my first day back delivering food, it will be 27°. I can't imagine the food will stay very hot, even in the container. But at least I do not have to take ice for the milks. I think I'll just put them in the bed of my truck.

So Far, So Good

On New Year's Eve I decorated, made fun hors d'œuvres, and we did the hats, horns, poppers and whatnot, but 2010 started out a little tough for me. Oh and we are pronouncing 2010 as "twenty-ten" (Thanks, VioletSky! Good idea.) The reason it started out bad was because my Photoshop went wanky on me and that's what I use for my photos. And because I was raised "MAC" I wasn't quite sure how to fix it on the old PC over there. What happened was, all I did was open up Photoshop for My Sweetie today and "Bozinga!" (as they say on TBBT). Somehow it works now.
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We had a fun night on NYE and it was really just the beginning of the holiday because My Sweetie took today and Tuesday off to make it a good long weekend. And Saturday night we went to see Up In The Air which really is a very good movie. I realized that the last movie we went to see was The Men Who Stare At Goats. I'm beginning to think we are George Clooney fans. We think he reminds us of Cary Grant and we LOVE Cary Grant.
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Today we went to the revamped Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. It had been closed for some time and under construction and I think they did a really nice job. A lot of it used to look like a 1942 high school. Now it is all modern and nice. I'm a giant astronomy buff and they have a large 10,000 year old meteor as well as a video showing them digging it up. Of course that meteor is really just a baby compared to the 112 million year old dinosaur fossils there. And what's really rich is reading the stories behind the dino finds - because they are all local finds. Texas is a hotbed of dinosaur bones. Here's me checking out a tiny dinosaur from behind:

I'm so happy my Photoshop is working again, but I have saved my very best news for last. Just before we left to go to the museum, Meals On Wheels called and a spot has opened up for me here in my own town. I will have a Friday route, starting this Friday. I've really missed MOW and am so looking forward to having a regular route again and having it right here. So Yay! 2010, I like you so far. Keep up the good work.