Random Thoughts on Autism

I was at the sink peeling boiled eggs and for no reason at all I started thinking of autism and how the studies always say the cases have increased and if that's really so, then I figured it had to be something people have been doing differently in the last 25 or 30 years.
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I thought and thought and thought and I could come up with only three things: non-stick pans, microwave ovens and pot smoking. Oh, wait, I think it's called weed now. So maybe one of those things is causing autism or maybe it's one of the four possible combinations of those three things. Or maybe it's something else altogether. But at least it made sense at the time. I mean, it's got to be something.

Picking a Groundhog Day

I read an article on Sunday where a guy said if he had could pick a recurring day it would be Christmas 1997. That made me think about the movie Groundhog Day and having a day to relive over and over. I think the article guy meant relive exactly tha day, but in Groundhog Day, Murray is aware that he is reliving it and chooses to do different things each time. That would be better.
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So then I was wondering which day I would choose. My first thought was October 9, 2010. I was running through all the fun different things I could do on that day before my daughter's wedding with Mom, my brother and my best friend here in town. Then I felt guilty and thought I should pick a day when Dad was still alive. I immediately thought of times when my whole original nuclear family was together doing fun things like beach trips. Then I felt guilty that that would not include my husband or daughter.
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After I thought about that for a bit, I realized that in the three years that My Sweetie and I were together before Dad died, there weren't any particularly spectacular days that I would relive and also they would have not included so many other special people. And I think if you have to keep reliving the same day, you would want a large cast of characters. So I think Dad would understand if I picked a day from the beach cottage in May of this year. I think I even know which day. But it really is a tough to pick one particular day to relive in a loop. What would yours be? It's certainly something interesting to think about.

Brain Fires

UPDATE (Sunday early AM): Mom is fine. They lost power for about 8 hours and are still without cable and phone but are fine with no property damage except some broken tree limbs. YAY!


So we almost died of heatstroke at the baseball game and left after the fourth inning.
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My daughter caught a summer cold and so my SIL and niece joined us at the ballgame.
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Mom thinks everyone is silly and they have no plan to evacuate.
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Mom's procedure went very well and that part is good.
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I hope Irene turns east and goes away.

Phondue Phreak Out (and other phalderals)

We took my daughter out to the fondue place for her 27th birthday and I was a pissy pissant and kept trying to stop being such a bitch and would try to have some quiet times, and it was tough on my poor Sweetie. (He's a saint, he really is.)

(I love the above picture because the table was HUGE and I had my "PHUN WITH PHOTOSHOP"

and made the table skinny to get us all in the picture.) I kept trying to be cool all night, but was having a hard time and after spending a long time thinking about it, I think I figured out that the reason I was such a pissy pissant was because Mom is having another procedure to get another tumor (that's "tumour" for my Canadian friends) out of her bladder on Thursday and hurricane Irene is scheduled to hit her house on Saturday. Maybe that's no excuse to be a pissy pissant on my daughter's birthday, but... Wait! they say when you end a sentence with "but" you've negated everything you just said. And by "they" I mean Dr. Phil.
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Anyway, I called my daughter to apologize and we are taking them to a baseball game Thursday night and we have killer seats and a parking pass, so I hope I can make up for everything and I hope Mom's procedure goes well and I hope hurricane Irene doesn't demolish her house.

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I love The Cat in the Hat's line: It is fun to have fun but you have to know how. And I know how to have fun, but I have a hard time doing it when I'm thinking about Mom's troubles. I want her cancer to go away and I want her house to not be blown away. Is that asking too much?

I'm A Dummy

I made a point of charging the battery for my camera on Saturday for our play date at Dave & Buster's and then we didn't take a single picture. How goofy is that? We did pretty well with coupons and got some fun goofy toys. It really was crowded, though, so we are going to go back on a week night.
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And here's an odd synchronicity thing: I saw a fondue place when we were out Saturday night and said, "I've always wanted to try one of those fondue places." Well, my daughter's birthday is Tuesday and and I told her to pick a place for us to take her out to dinner and she texted me today and wants to go to a fondue place downtown. I thought that was bizarre. But in a good way.
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My latest word goof was today. I was talking about hard candy and I said, "I really miss those tangerine androids." I meant "altoids." Tangerine androids. I'm a dummy.

Boudreaux Arlington Souxe (Sucks!)

I had never eaten at a Boudreaux Cajun Kitchen before. We were playing and having fun at Dave & Buster's in Arlington but decided not to eat there because of the crowd. We walked out and saw Boudreaux. Mmmm, we thought. Cajun food? Sounds good. We have missed our cajun food since Bedford's Razzoo's closed. I wanted to sample several things, so I ordered a bowl of shrimp gumbo, a side of dirty rice and some red beans, no rice.
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The first odd thing I noticed was the shrimp in the gumbo. The parts of the shrimp at the top of the gumbo were untouched by the broth, like the shrimp were dropped in at the last minute, not cooked with the gumbo. And the gumbo? Oh my. This so called cajun restaurant skimped so badly on the roux for the gumbo. The "roux" tasted like McCormick's brown gravy mix and tomato sauce. McCormick's brown gravy mix and tomato sauce are okay on their own I guess, but mixing them together and trying to pass them off as a cajun roux was a horrible joke. Oh and my shrimp was not completely peeled and I got shell in my mouth. Yuck!
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If you have a hankering for cajun food, do not go to Boudreaux Cajun Kitchen. At least not the one in south Arlington. Take the extra drive and go to Razzoo's downtown Fort Worth or try to find some place in Dallas run by some of the relocated New Orleans folks. But do not try this chain. You will be sorely disappointed.

Friday Play Time

I made this on Thursday with Play-Doh. I like to play. Speaking of playing, we are going to Dave & Buster's Saturday night. It's a fun arcade/bar/restaurant. And also speaking of playing, I went out partying with my daughter Monday night and had a blast. I'm going to post about that soon. We went to a bar, the the Movie Tavern, then a pool hall and then a club. And the club was a blast from the past. I can't wait to post about it. Anyway here's a pic from the pool place.:

I'm blurry.

Missing Dad

Today would have been Dad's 75th birthday. I wonder what he would have thought of facebook and cell phone use and texting. I wonder what he would have thought of DVRs. I bet he would have loved his DVR. I imagine him being so tickled to be able to pause the TV when the phone rang or to be able to pause the TV just to get a beer. I can imagine him complaining, "Why does Kate keep texting me? Why doesn't she just call?" Because my mother always asks me the same questions.
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I wonder what he would have thought of blogging? I bet he would have gotten into it and tried to hit on all the ladies. I can imagine him planning trips to go meet his blogger buddies. I know he would have been proud that we elected a black president, but he would be irritated by the current extreme partisan politics.
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He would have been very proud of our team. We've won two national championships since Dad died. I always think of Dad so much during basketball season. And when I hear certain songs, or anything by Pink Floyd. Dad missed a lot in the last thirteen years, but I'd like to think he has missed me the most, cause I sure do miss him. Happy Birthday, Dad.

Stupid Prepositions!

I originally was thinking of naming this post "Not Your Normal Thanksgiving." What happened was, I was thinking about something and then I thought: Now that's something to really be grateful for. And then I thought: Grateful for? You can't end a sentence with a preposition. Then I was trying to think of the proper way to say it. Is it: Now that's something for which to be grateful? And then I thought, well, no, it's "of which." And then I realized that wasn't right at all. So if it's "for which" and not "of which" it still sounds stupid. It also sounds not like anything anyone would actually say. And what kind of a word is "which?"And the worst part is I can't even remember what it was that I should be so grateful for. I mean, for which I should be so grateful. I think that's what I mean. I wonder what it was?

College is Tough!

I decided to resume keeping up with my spoonerisms and other general word flubby things and I had two last week within just a few days. One was a word switch/mix up and the other one was really weird, where I totally reordered the sounds of a word. That one cracked me up. I think I laughed for five minutes.
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I had done something goofy and My Sweetie was teasing me and then he started laughing. I said, "Hey! Now you're laughing at me. That's just putting wound in the salve!" I meant "salt in the wound" but it went all awry somewhere between my brain and my mouth.
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Friday after lunch, I was sitting at the bar doing my crossword puzzle. 26 across was "----RED" and the clue was "like some college professors." I thought, "Oh, that's easy! NEUTERED!"
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(I'm assuming you all knew the word was "tenured.")

I Feel Special

My cell rang a few minutes ago. It was a local number with no name. I answered it and it was one of my Meals on Wheels clients. She asked me if tomorrow she could give me some money and I would get her some groceries. I told her that would be no problem at all as I had already planned to go the grocery store after my lunch tomorrow (after my deliveries). I thought it was sweet that she chose me over her other people. It made me feel special.

The Barney Experiment

Because of the extreme weather we have been having Barney back in the house for most of the day. If you've been reading here for a long time, you know that Barney was a house cat and then we discovered he was peeing all over the place. And no it wasn't because he had a dirty litter box. I believe it was because he was partly feral when we found him and he had not been properly trained by his mother.
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So to recap the whole Barney thing: Our cats lived in the house and as we started finding pee, we thought it was one of the old dying cats. As time progressed and we had those cats put to sleep, we moved Barney's litter box and food and water into the garage and put a pet door in the door to the garage. Well Barney was the cat peeing in the house. So we closed off the pet door to the garage and bought a small doghouse and moved Barney's stuff to the back yard. Well that didn't work out. Possums were eating his food and he got into a $500 cat fight. So we put a pet door from the garage to the back yard. We put his food and water and a litter box as well as his dog house in the garage. I even bought him a heater for winter and he could go outside when he wanted to.
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So now because of the heat, we have been having him in from noon to 6:00 am. My Sweetie lets him out when he wakes up at six, and I let him back in when I wake up at noon. We put a litter box and his food and water in the laundry room. So far he has peed in the litter box twice and in the house nonce. I guess he does most of his peeing outdoors between six and noon.
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We are keeping our fingers crossed and if all goes well and he doesn't pee on anything by September 1st, I'm going to reopen the pet door to the garage and give him full access from the house to the garage to the yard. Hopefully, if all this pans out, he will become an indoor/outdoor cat of his own choosing. Hopefully he won't bring any lizard kills indoors or be followed by some strange animal. For now, we are just waiting, watching and hoping. Wish us luck!

Where's My Mellow?

In the last ten years before Dad died at the ridiculously young age of 62, he was a fun pleasant mellow fellow. I know that everyone that reads this blog knows I adored Dad, but he was not always pleasant. Well, not always pleasant to others. He was always sweet to me with very few exceptions and I was probably equally to blame in some of those because I was a hothead myself at certain ages. Dad was a terrible husband. Dad also made many mistakes when it came to my brother. Both Mom and my brother always say that I was the lucky one. Dad had a terrible temper when he was younger and would fly off the handle. It was just never directed at me. But about ten years before he died, he had totally mellowed out. I assumed it was a natural part of the aging process.
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So either I was wrong about mellowing being a natural part of the aging process, or I am just not normal. I've noticed that I have become less tolerant about certain things. The last time I stopped to pick up a rib dinner at the great rib place, the country music felt like it was stirring my brain and thumping me in the eyeball. I saw the bartender sit the bag down. After about four minutes I asked, "Is that mine?" She looked at my beer and replied, "I didn't realize you were ready to go." I said, "Oh, I am so ready to go. I hate country music." The guy next to me laughed. I continued, "You don't understand. My brain processes country music the same as it would a baby crying on an airplane." The bartender and the guy next to me thought this was all funny and I was not kidding. I wanted to GET OUT of that building.
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I have also become worse and worse about children. Today's parents seem to be clueless and have lost all control and sometimes I just want to shake them and yell, "MAKE IT STOP!" Not the poor kids. The parents.
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And because I've realized that my tolerance is slipping, I started thinking about the etiquette doyens who pretty much say that manners are what separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom. I guess I am becoming more like the rest of the animal kingdom. I'm surprised. I really thought I'd be getting my mellow on. But apparently I am going wild.

The Seven Year Switch

I had always heard that your taste buds change very seven years, but had not given it too much thought. Until this week. I've become a spinach freak. I think about spinach a lot. When I was thinking about spinach and wondering why I want it all the time, it was pretty amazing because I never ate spinach at all until about twenty years ago, and that was only when it was part of something else like quiche florentine. I worked my way up (or down maybe with fewer ingredients) to creamed spinach and finally to just spinach. I love it.
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I've also become a big fan of cooked carrots. Now they do have to be part of something else, like a soup or stew and they have to be really really cooked down, but I love them. Cooked carrots used to be my least favorite cooked vegetable. For 49 years. I really detested them. I used to forfeit my dessert at daycare rather than eat cooked carrots. I always picked them out of canned soups and ate around them in stews.
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I can also eat raw celery now. I used to think raw celery tasted like poison. So I was thinking about all these taste changes and because I am so terrible at math, I thought, Well I'm not anywhere near a seven year thing. Then I remembered that 49 is 7 x 7. And I was 49 until April.
So I guess that old saw is true.
Mmmmm, spinach.

Birthday Twins

(photo from Oprah.com. Please don't sue me.)

I caught the Oprah rerun last week with Barbra Streisand. As a surprise, Robert Redford shows up. Robert Redford walks out trying to rock his 70's The Way We Were hair by wearing what really looks like a wig. I was so embarassed for him.

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The thing is, Robert Redford and Dad were born on the exact same day. Seeing a man Dad's age or I should say, what would have been Dad's age, wearing a wig that was a facsimile of his hair when he was sexy in the 70's, really made me think. Firstly it made me think how cool Dad was to embrace being an old dude. Many people have said Dad looked somewhat like Papa (Ernest) Hemingway. I thought Dad looked pretty cool. Secondly it made me think, what if Dad were still alive and tried to rock his 70's hair? And then I had a good laugh. See, Dad's 70's hair was that really goofy whitemanfro like the dad from "The Brady Bunch." Then as I thought how horrible that would be, I realized that Robert Redford's wig really wasn't much better.