Trying to fill the unforgiving minute

Farewell to the Chief

2012-01-27T00:05:00.002-06:00

The guy on the left, "Chief" died last Thursday morning. That's my dad on the right. I knew Chief before he was called that. I don't want to use his real name here. We first got to know each other in 9th grade.
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In 9th grade my junior high school started an experimental science program with Duke University called Q.P.S. That stands for Quantative Physical Science. The room had the two-seater desks in three rows. I ended up front and center with Chief as my partner. It was a strange class. I've often wondered if there were not more to it than trying to teach us science. First of all, the teacher never smiled and owned 5 outfits. Yes, 5 outfits: one for each day of the week. Second, Chief and I were very smart and the whole rest of the class were dumber than rocks.
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Chief's and my test grades were typically 98 to 106 while the rest of the class averaged about 62. It was very strange. Chief and I made a great team because he did the math stuff and I did the word stuff. We moved onto high school after that, so I don't know if they kept up the Q.P.S. experiment or not, but I'm sure our classroom confused whoever was keeping the data.
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In the middle of 10th grade I collected a high school boyfriend. He had a best friend and the three of us hung out and I guess word got out that our apartment was a cool place to hang out. (Dad smoked pot and we always had booze. Also there was a basketball court just steps away from my front door.) So by the time we all graduated, there was a pretty solid twelve of us. They were all guys except me.
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I'm not sure when Chief joined the group, but I think it was pretty early on. There was a running argument about how Chief got his nickname. My high school boyfriend claimed that Chief walked in the door one day and he said, "CHEEEEEEEEEE." And I think he meant it as an insult as in "Cheap." But with everybody being stoned or whatever, people heard "Chief" and then called him that all night. And then pretty much the rest of his life.
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Back when we were 18 or 19 we were joking around about who would be the first one to die and everyone simultaneously yelled, "Chieeeeeeef!" Of course at the time we all imagined it would be just a few years away in a car wrapped around a tree. Well, he was the first one to die, but he lived to be 50 and quite frankly we were not really as surprised by his death so much as that he lived this long.
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I've mentioned Chief before on a post way back in 2005, before I really even had any readers. It's my jail story. I have another goofy story with Chief about a stupid road trip, and then another Chief story about another road trip and a few more but they are stories more suitable for bars. He really was a character. I last saw him when Dad died. I imagine they are having a beer and some laughs together in the great beyond. If I could say something to him I would say, "May your spirit soar and be peaceful and for God's sake, stop saying 'Like I said' before every sentence!!"

My Apologies

2012-01-25T03:32:00.002-06:00

First I want to apologize to VioletSky because I was going to post some New Orleans cemetery picures for her. What happened was, I think my three favorite pics are the ones I have in a three picture frame hanging in my my hallway and it overwhelms me to think about taking them out of the frame and scanning them and all that because of my shoulder. However I googled "New Orleans cemetery" and clicked "images" and a bunch of the pictures looked just like my pictures.
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Second, it may seem like I may use my shoulder for an excuse for everything but it hurts like a bitch. Except for little things, I am pretty much a one-armed bandit over here.
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Third, having an extreme injury makes your body produce some sort of natural opiate and it has made me really stupid. For instance, I will read a blog and formulate a comment in my head and think I posted it and when I check back it's not there. Or maybe it was wanky and they deleted it. I have no idea. On the opposite end of that, I've read a post and got all excited and went to comment to find I had already commented the day before. I'm glad I do not have to take any sort of I.Q. test right now.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I am spending a lot of time getting ready for my post-surgery existence. I have finally figured out how to get my washcloth good and soapy in the shower with one hand. And how to towel off with one hand. I haven't gotten that perfected yet, but have figured out that I can use my blow-dryer to finish off the spots I couldn't reach. I'm really ready to get this surgery over with and get my arm back. And typing hurts. And only being able to sleep in just two different positions is exceptionally tiresome. But now I am good and sleepy so I will go try position #1 (right side).

10 Things I'll Never Understand

2012-01-22T02:27:00.003-06:00

1. Why people cover themselves with tattoos
2. Why women do that 70's frosting to their hair thinking it looks more natural that way

3. Why people order spaghetti at Italian restaurants
4. Why women think Johnny Depp is attractive
5. Why poor Americans vote Republican
6. Why network TV executives are so clueless

7. Why some women dress like cheap tricks for Halloween
8. Why any man would wear a tank top
9. Why any overweight woman would wear a tank top
10. The popularity of country music

80/20

2012-01-18T02:50:00.002-06:00

Well I found out today what that 80/20 on my insurance card means. It means we pay 20% of the surgeon's fee. 20% of the anesthesiologist's fee. 20% of the fee for the surgical facility, ad nauseum. Oh well. At least I'm getting my arm fixed. My surgery will be on February 3rd. After we get all the bills in the coming months I will add them up and call my arm "The Two Thousand Dollar Arm" or whatever the total figure turns out to be. In the meantime I have a lot of pre-planning to do. I have some good ideas.

New Orleans Jan 2012

2012-01-16T02:31:00.009-06:00

When we planned our trip to New Orleans we had no idea it was going to be during the BIG Football Weekend. By Saturday, all the football hoopla was starting to get on my nerves, but I must admit, I did like this balcony.:

The "girl" is a mannequin and we thought it was pretty clever. I took that picture from our balcony. Our hotel room was my very favorite so far. I stay at a different hotel every visit and I think I will certainly have to break that rule. This next pic was taken in our hotel courtyard.:

On our first night, Thursday, the 5th, we found a place to have dinner. It was a special place. We sat on a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street. It was the first place that Loretta and I had a meal in New Orleans way back when. Except that was lunch and there were no leftover Christmas decorations that time.:

I thought this van was funny.:

We went to Harrah's to gamble and I had a killer day on that Friday. I was winning at everything.:

This was our balcony.:

I love this last picture, because when I posed for it I was just thinking I was posing with a stuffed bear. I had not read the sign.:

We had a really good time. We had bad luck with the cemetery, but I will pull out my old pics and post them later for VioletSky. My Sweetie had a pedometer and we walked from 12,000 to 14,000 steps a day. He told me later that we had walked 21 miles over the course of our stay.

One of my favorite moments was sitting on the wooden steps that go right down into the Mississippi River and thinking, "There's the river that inspired Mark Twain." And at the same time a man was playing some sort of horn nearby. Maybe a saxophone. It was very Zen and I was wishing I had a hammock.
~

There's not a whole lot to tell because mainly we just walked around and stopped in bars for beers. 21 miles of that apparently. I loved it.

Tired, Sore and In Love

2012-01-11T01:39:00.003-06:00

While I was in New Orleans I fell madly in love with this ale:
It's not very sweet and I love that. I don't know why most brewers think that a fruited ale has to be ridiculously sweet. Real fruit isn't. That ale actually tastes like strawberries. I could not get enough of it. And now I want more. I've been too tired and lazy though to look for it here.
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I just downloaded my pictures but am too tired and lazy to go through them, crop and/or resize them. Why am I so tired and lazy, you may ask? Well part of it is genetics. The other part is my freaking sore shoulder. I finally get to see the real actual shoulder surgeon on Tuesday. Apparently being in constant pain keeps me in a sort of state of uhm, what's the word for feeling tired and lazy? Is it languor? Torpor? I'm too tired and lazy to google it.
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The good news is tired and lazy works just fine in New Orleans and I had a great time. I'll post more about that after I get my pictures organized. I wish I had a Covington Strawberry Ale. Man, those things are good.

Ready to Party in New Orleans

2012-01-04T00:12:00.004-06:00

There is no one thing I love about New Orleans. I love everything about New Orleans. I love the sights, the sounds, the food, the local accents, the attitude. And one of my favorite things about going to New Orleans is that I always stay at a different hotel. Hopefully I will run out of French Quarter hotels eventually, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Tomorrow, we will be staying at the Hotel St. Marie. I have booked us a room with a streetside balcony, and that is what you can see in the above picture. I plan to have my morning drink and smoke on one of the tables up there. I love the location of this hotel and I may just break my rule and stay there again this Halloween.

My Sweetie has not been to the grand old cemeteries in New Orleans so taking him there is something I am really looking forward to - as well as the music and the food. It's been years since we've gone together. I've been there with two or three other people since our last time. And the weather looks excellent. Highs around 69° and lows around 55°.

I'm almost ready to go. It seems like a great way to start this New Year. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Missing The Sparkly

2012-01-02T02:26:00.002-06:00

I usually wait until My Sweetie has gone back to work to deChristmas the house, but because of my bad shoulder, I needed help, so we did it on Sunday, New Year's Day. He did all the up in the air stuff as well as the heavy lifting and it went by very quickly. Now my living room seems rather dull.
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The one bright spot, and I mean that literally, is my friend sent me a glass block full of white Christmas lights and it has Duke stickers on it. So now I have my shiny Duke light to go with my Duke tiffany style lamp from last year. I do miss the colored lights and all the red, green and gold, but it's nice to have it all done. And now it's time to see what 2012 will bring. I'm looking forward to that.

Stupid Shoulder

2011-12-28T23:32:00.002-06:00

It was weird looking at the inside of my shoulder. Some pictures make me think of steaks and pork chops and others remind me of a big slice of roast:
I made an appointment and while it's at my hand doctor's office it is with another doctor. Apparently my hand doctor is a hand doctor after all. The appointment is at 10:40 am tomorrow (Thursday). Yuck. I will have to get up very early. Anyway, I had to go pick up my MRI from the imaging place to take with me.
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Not only did I get to look at all the images, but there was a detailed written report. It's looong. Apparently there is a lot more going on than the one tear. My Sweetie looked up most of the words and apparently of the four rotator cuff muscles, I have tears in three of them, as well as some other irritated and swollen things. And there were some early signs of osteoarthritis also. Yay me.
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Not all of the report was horrible. There was no atrophy of something and something is intact. But those were two short sentences in a very long paragraph. Anyway, so I've been having a little pity party for myself for the last couple of hours. Having thoughts like, I won't even be able to tie my shoes! Now I'm going to make a list of things to ask and tell the doctor because nothing is more irritating than remembering something you forgot to ask. Well, maybe not being able to tie your shoes.

The MRI and Christmas

2011-12-26T00:15:00.003-06:00

I pretty much went through the list in the previous post without a hitch, except the neighbor visiting was moved from Thursday to Saturday and the Friday kitchen part took about 10 hours. I was starting to feel like some sort of kitchen prisoner in hell.
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Of course that was the point: to have everything done the day before. On Christmas eve, it all went pretty easily: basically displaying things on platters and trays. We had ten guests, which may not seem like that many to some of you, but to me it felt like a million people were here.
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There was a lot of fruit left over, and that surprised me because that's what I eat at parties. I had blackberries, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and blueberry craisins. In fact I am finishing off the strawberries right now.
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Christmas day was supposed to be a rest day but I seemed to be busy until about 7:00 pm, so I will use today as my rest day.
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Thursday's MRI was very interesting. My main concern was that I would fall asleep. To try to keep myself awake, I made up things that the noises sounded like. Some of them were amusing. But I caught myself almost dozing off FIVE times! And in case I didn't mention it before, I didn't want to fall asleep because people move and jerk when they fall asleep and you are supposed to stay perfectly still in the MRI chamber. It went by pretty quickly actually, and she showed me the video. It just looked like some 1974 hippy acid video except it was in black and white.
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My doctor's nurse called on Friday and said that I did in fact have a tear in my rotator cuff. (I knew that.) She gave me two referrals for orthopedic surgeons and one of them was my hand doctor, so I picked him. I called his office pretty late on Friday and left a message. I have no idea when I will hear back. It was odd that it was my hand doctor, because for some reason I thought my hand doctor was just that: A hand doctor. I don't know why I thought that. Anyway, he struck me as a competent fellow when I used him before, so I'm good.
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Now I am looking forward to January 5th. My Sweetie and I are going to New Orleans. Also I booked the beach cottage for May. We've upgraded to a five bedroom so everyone can be there at the same time. Yay! Wow it's almost 2012. It seems like I waited forever fo my 50th birthday and now that was 8 months ago. Time flies.

2011-12-21T03:23:00.002-06:00

Wednesday ~ House cleaning, neatening up

Thursday ~ Visit neighbor, go for MRI and drinks with daughter, grocery store

Friday ~ cooking, prepping food

Saturday ~ celebrate Christmas Eve with family, go out to play

Sunday ~ Rest

I think I have this down.

The Best Laid Plans....

2011-12-19T01:04:00.004-06:00

I kind of wanted to talk about this sweet little thing I bought:
And how I plan to use it for my finely grated provolone and horseradish spread that I plan to make for the roast beef sliders that will be part of my Christmas eve finger food and how I have a strange fascination for spreaders:

(The steak knife on the right was for size reference). But I guess I should (ha! "should" almost spells "shoulder!") get to the nitty gritty about what's going on.

I have two little pills left of the Prednisone and there has been no change in my shoulder. Whenever I've taken this before, I got instant relief. Everything I've read online about torn rotator cuffs describes my symptons exactly. The good news is the Prednisone has been great for my poor thumb. My right hand is doing a lot more work because my left side is so pathetic, but I have had no thumb pain at all. And because I had to eat low fat, low protein in order to avoid a gall bladder attack, I actually lost a few pounds. Which was weird because I always thought this was all beer fat, and believe me, I have been drinking a lot of beer.

So when I wake up today, I will call my doctor and I guess he will either hook me up with a specialist or send me somewhere for an MRI. I really don't want to get surgery before my January 5th New Orleans vacation, but I'm also not sure if I can take this for 21 or so more days. I'm sure I'll have a better idea of everything in the next few days.

So that's where my shoulder stands. I do have a great menu for our Christmas eve and I'm also happy we are having it in the afternoon, so our night and our Christmas will be free. Oh, and I am SO SO VERY happy that my gall bladder held up, but I sure am craving some cheese.

~~~UPDATE: MRI is scheduled for Thursday at 3:30 CST.~~~

Not Shouldering Through The Pain

2011-12-15T01:09:00.002-06:00

I haven't mentioned it before but my left shoulder is all out of wank and quite painful. It's been like this for about three weeks. When it comes to physical irritations, because I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, I try to ignore them, thinking they will go away. They usually do. But not only is my shoulder not getting better, it began to interrupt my sleep. That doesn't fly with me.
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I am a great sleeper. Granted, I get to wait until I am sleepy to go to bed and then sleep until I am ready to get up. Yes, I do appreciate that. I remember those horrible "Insomnia Sundays" from back in my working days. They sucked big time. So at this stage of my life I have really good sleeps and I enjoy them.
~
Well this wanky shoulder and sleeping do not have a good working relationship. It wakes me up. A Lot. So today I did what any normal person would have done two weeks ago. I actually went to the doctor. Okay, I have to confess here that besides not being a doctor goer type person, I was afraid he would say: It's osteoarthritis and you will just have to live with it for the rest of your life. Because that is what the hand doctor told me about my thumb. And I'm no longer a big fan of my thumb, but we tolerate each other. A shoulder however is a bigger deal.
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And by a bigger deal, I don't just mean size. You may not realize it, but unless you are a knitter, or maybe a hitchhiker, or someone who is paid to "autograph" things for a famous person, you use your shoulder way more than you use your thumb. And when it comes to sleeping, you hardly use your thumb at all. And if you do, please tell me how.
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We looked at the x-ray together and I was happy to see my bones were all smooth and rounded and nicely spaced. He thinks I have a small tear in my rotator cuff. So he gave me that steroid dosepak thing. Yeah, the thing that gives me gall bladder attacks. I refused them the last time I was supposed to take them for something, so that should tell you how bad my shoulder hurts. I did however ask him how to avoid the gall bladder attack. He said to avoid proteins and fats. If I had known all of this, I would have had a ribeye yesterday.
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But my shoulder hurts, and gall bladder attacks are hideous, so I went to the grocery store and bought very healthy things to have for the next few days. And the doctor said if I am not good after the medicine is finished (which will be Monday) then I will have to have an MRI and possibly rotator cuff surgery.
~
The timing seems kind of poor considering it is Christmas and we are going to New Orleans on January 5th. But I think I'll always remember this Christmas season as the one with the bad timing. I forgot to tell you that we had to buy a new hot water heater ($$$$!) on Tuesday. Gotta have hot water. A good working shoulder would be nice too. I hope the medicine works.

Shower Chemistry

2011-12-13T03:34:00.002-06:00

As I was taking a shower today I was trying to decide which conditioners to mix. Then I wondered if anyone else does this. That's my shower and my husband has his own shower. I counted and I have eight shampoos and six conditioners. I don't know why.
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The odd thing is, I'm a real stickler about certain things. For instance, I've used the same soap for at least 20 years (Pears) and I've used the same toothpaste for longer than that (Colgate). But when it comes to shampoo and conditioner, I love variety. I'm always looking for something different. And then I like to mix them together. Not mix shampoos with conditoners of course, but shampoos with shampoos and conditioners with conditioners. (And I think "shampoo" is a really funny word if you think about it. It's like a combination of "Shamu" and "tattoo" which are two things that really do not belong together. You shouldn't get a tattoo of Shamu and you shouldn't tattoo Shamu.)
~
Anyway, does anyone else do hair chemistry in the shower? And to be quite honest I really just want everyone to listen to this song: http://soundcloud.com/filed-under-anonymous/a-million-chimneys

Good Art

2011-12-11T01:45:00.003-06:00

I first posted that picture over four years ago. It is Caravaggios' The Cardsharps. It's my second favorite painting and it makes its home right here in Fort Worth at the Kimbell Art Museum. On Saturday we went to The Kimbell to see the exhibit "Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome." I was excited to see more Caravaggio work. It was also fascinating to see the paintings of his students, followers and admirers.
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There are many reasons I love this type of art. Most people who have an interest in art have all sorts of different tastes. Impressionism is very popular as well as modern art. I really love the very old, very realistic paintings. I was thinking about this today and I think I figured it out. Most of the paintings in the exhibit were painted between 1590 and 1620. There are no photographs from that time so these realistic paintings give us a snapshot, if you will, into the past. Because such objects as an apple or a stein look almost photographic, I think it is safe to assume that the other objects (not the angels, of course) are also very realistic. And a lot of these old paintings feature books.
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Books were not commonly owned objects in that time and so I imagine that it was because they were special that they were included in so many paintings. They did not look like modern books. They were always curvy, wavy and somewhat crinkled. I paid particular notice to the books in the paintings. There were also some things in the paintings that were unidentifiable by me. I wish I could have asked someone what they were.
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I also got a big kick out of seeing from where the paintings had been loaned. There were paintings from all over Rome, some from Spain, at least one from The Louvre and even one from the museum in my home state of North Carolina. I've always thought it was fascinating how these great old paintings travel around the world. On the one hand, I am thrilled about it and on the other, it makes me nervous to think these fine old irreplaceable, delicate masterpieces could be damaged or lost forever.
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I guess I should just appreciate being able to see great artwork. I'm sure there are millions of people on the planet who have never seen great art. I'm lucky because I have seen my two favorite paintings. And of all of Caravaggio's work that I saw today, I still say The Cardsharps is his best.

Watching Time Flip By

2011-12-08T00:41:00.003-06:00

My best friend gave me a silver photo album as a wedding gift. It's very pretty and is a single picture page book with a photo slot in the silver cover and stands upright like a picture frame. As we did did not have a huge amount of pictures - it was a small family event at my in-laws' house - there were many pages left empty.
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I remember getting all the pictures back. Yeah, back in the day when we had to get pictures developed. I had fun arranging them in the book and then I was out of pictures. As I looked with dismay at all the blank slots, I decided that every year, we would have our picture taken on our anniversary and put them in the book. This is this year's pic:

It's very strange to flip through the book and watch yourself change. It's like Boom! Turn the pages and watch yourself age from 40 to 50. Or from 34 to 44 if you are the groom. It might be funny to do a 10 year slideshow.
~
And speaking of time passing, my dashboard says this is my 1000th post, but I know that's only partly true. They count half finished posts that you deleted or any post that you deleted. My guess is that my blog probably contains about 985 posts. But I'm not going to count them. It was bad enough counting from 40 to 50. Turn the page.

Organizational Madness

2011-12-06T03:18:00.002-06:00

I checked back over my blog to see when I first mentioned the Tupperware and it was two weeks ago. Since then I have continued with this finding of places for things. That old expression: A place for everything and everything in its place, or something to that effect, has apparently taken over my mind. I can't seem to stop. I found a good place for all of My Sweetie's school books (schoolbooks? I don't feel like looking that up). They were in a stack in the bedroom and that's fine when you're twenty, but at our age it seemed silly. I found a shelf for them in here. I also found another shelf for all of his big hardback video game guide books. And those actually seem like something you would own when you are twenty.
~
Saturday, I decided to rearrange some stuff in the library. To move bookcases in the library requires removing all the books. It was daunting but I HAD to do it. And I did. One bookcase only had to be slid four inches to the right, but take out all the books, I did. And it is all better. And I enjoyed seeing all the books. I found all kinds of things I had never noticed. I have decided to read Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Especially since I have never read a Jane Austen novel and her fans all hate it. I digress.
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On Friday, one of my MOW ladies asked if I could come over some day and help her organize her clothes. I was all WHAT ARE YOU KIDDING YES!! I did that this afternoon (yesterday - Monday- chronologically. I haven't gone to bed yet.) She could not have picked a better time to ask me. I was The Wizard of Clothes. I was more than just the mover of things from place to place: I gently chastised her for having clothes with tags on them. I also told her how I keep my clothes to a workable minimum. She liked the idea. But considering that she had eight or nine nearly indentical red shirts, I doubt she will heed my advice. I made a point to hang all of the red shirts together so she will see that she has an unnecessary redundancy in her closet.
~
This afternoon I am going to tackle a built-in storage area in the house that I don't think I've opened in six months. I can't wait. But I'll have to. I have to go to sleep now.

Pictures in Pictures

2011-12-02T02:18:00.002-06:00

One of my FB friends wanted to see my polymer cover on my porch light and so I took a picture.
After I took the picture I saw so many things in the reflection as well as the picture. It's almost like a picture puzzle.
For instance, you can see my beer in a red huggy and that's inside the house although it looks like it's sitting on bricks. The bricks are on the front porch.. You can see through my house to the backyard. You can see my neighbor's house across the street from the front of my house.
You can see the back of my mailbox out on the street.
You can see me taking the picture.
And Snoopy.
And Charlie Brown.
I was tickled that I was just taking a picture of the porch light and all these other things happened. Have fun. Let me know if you see anything else.

Silly Adult Phone Conversation

2011-11-30T04:21:00.002-06:00

Me: Hello?
My Sweetie: Where are you?
Me: Nevada
My Sweetie: So you hopped a plane?
Me: Yeah
My Sweetie: Are you having fun?
Me: Yeah, except I just lost $140.
My Sweetie: But you got groceries for that.
Me: Yeah
My Sweetie: See you in a few minutes.
~~
And just for funsies (and to possibly make you roll your eyes), I covered a cardboard box for Barney to sleep in and I really think he likes it:

Organizing the Tupperware

2011-11-29T01:09:00.009-06:00

This is the before picture of the three main shelves of my pantry:
I had kept my plasticware in that blue dish drainer for quite a while. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And don't let the picture fool you. First of all I was holding the camera up. That middle shelf is my eye level shelf. I had to use this to sort through the plasticware:

And you had to do it that way, because if you tried to just slide that drainer thing out, all the small lids would slide right through it. And the bottom shelf? Well because it was below eye level, I pretty much used only the front 8 inches. I didn't even know what was behind the stuff in front. So I cleared out that bottom shelf.:

I am ashamed to say, there were cans of stuff in there that dated all the way back to 2005. There was a can of peaches that looked like it was moments away from exploding. It was not good. Out of Sight, Out of Mind truly applied.

Anyway I got this pull out drawer plastic bin thing and transferred all the plasticware from the blue drainer basket to the drawer:

Then I put the good stuff from the first 8 inches of the bottom shelf onto the top shelf and I slid the drawer bin onto the bottom shelf with my plasticware tucked neatly inside:

And now it all makes more sense:

Whenever I do stuff like this I always wonder why I hadn't thought of it before. I've had the pull out drawer bin since 2008. It was one of the things I brought home when I cleared out Mom's house that year. I had been using it to store my rock polishing stuff - which I haven't used in a long time. And why hadn't I noticed that I hadn't looked into the back of that bottom shelf in years? There are actually two shelves below that one and I go through those quite often. Anyway, I got it done and it has worked out great so far. So yay! And thank God that can of peaches never blew up.

Christmas Fever (in my feet?)

2011-11-28T02:47:00.002-06:00

I spent most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday decorating for Christmas. I do it for me because I love love love Christmas stuff. See that stuff at the bottom of the pic? That's a clear polymer with little gift boxes printed on it. I cut out little panels of that to put on the panes of my front porch light. I love it! I didn't take a picture because although the project itself is very cute, the metal around the panes is old and crappy.
~
We went our for a little while to shop for some fun stuff on Saturday and then stopped at a bar for beers and then went out to eat. That was fun. We went to three different places to shop and I got piles of stuff but we only spent about $40 at each store. I love good deals. And now my feet are killing me!
~
Seriously, the last time my feet hurt this bad was when I wore my "ruby" slippers to walk all over Bourbon Street. What happened was, I spent quite a lot of time over these last three days, balancing on my toes on the top step of a step ladder. Standing on your toes on a step ladder uses about a thousand more foot muscles than just standing on your toes on the floor. I guess there's that whole balancing thing. I mean if you're on the floor on your toes and reaching up and you get off balance, you just take a step back. On top of a step ladder? Taking a step back is not a good idea. It requires falling. I do not care for falling. So I used all thousand muscles of my feet over and over and now I am paying the price.
~
I think Monday will be used to rest my feet and enjoy my Christmas decorations. Sounds like a very good use of a Monday to me.

Friday Goofy

2011-11-25T00:09:00.004-06:00

I took this picture Thursday night in Downtown Fort Worth
of My Sweetie in front of a painting
of what we can only figure to be Pirate Claus.

Not A Topical Climate

2011-11-23T00:51:00.002-06:00

This is going to be one of those posts where I ramble and do not adhere to any particular topic because I feel like chatting about some things.
~
Saturday night, we went out on a date night because we found out about a bar/arcade that features the old 80's arcade games as well as pinball. We played Galaga, Asteroids, Ms. PacMan, Donkey Komg and Frogger as well as a few other games as well as pinball and skeeball. The weather was perfect and they had the place sort of open air with two large garage type doors open to the patio. After we played some games we headed downtown to eat and play.
I love the crazy Texas topiary they have downtown. We went to the old City Streets which is called something else now and had some beers and played pool and wandered about. It was a fun date night.
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I have been unhappy with my current tupperware situation. And I don't mean Tupperware©. I use "tupperware" like I use "kleenex." Kleenex means "soft paper you blow your nose on" to me. But back to the tupperware. My plastic food storage containers, (see! tupperware is easier to say and type!) are ridiculously unorganized. Where they are currently stored requires me to stand on a step stool and have a hunting expedition. EVERY. TIME. So I have been mulling over this for a while and as usual, I got an idea. I will take before and after pictures when I do this - about 13 hours from now.
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Although I hate Thanksgiving, I somehow ended up volunteering to provide food for my in-laws. I have kept it super simple and it's only going to be four people so it's not so bad. The hardest part will be taking everything over to their house. And if you have just wondered, the answer is "No. It would not be easier to have them over here." Well, easier for me, but not for them.
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45 minutes ago I put an ad on Craigslist for something free. I want to get rid of a computer speaker set. And I am not kidding but I have already had EIGHT responses. One of them said "I can pick them up right now." Really? At 1:00 A freaking M? I've done this before and I met the guy in the afternoon in a CVS parking lot on the corner of a busy street. And I watched him drive away before I left. And then I didn't go straight home. I'm no dummy. That was for a box of pool and spa chemicals that we had after we had that spa taken out. And for these speakers I'm doing the same thing but also My Sweetie will be with me because I'm going for Saturday afternoon. While I have been typing this, I have already arranged for the Saturday thing and had two more e-mails. I guess some people really want some free stuff.
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Also I finally am getting near the end of this chair covering stuff. The third chair I covered was awful. As in "How not to recover a chair" awful. So that is now the chair in my smoking room. So after the third chair, I guess I was gun shy. I kept saying, "I need to be in the zone." Well apparently today (Tuesday) I was in the zone because I did my best chair yet. I wanted to go ahead and do the 5th chair after that because it was ready, but I had an accidental nap. And the 6th and last chair has not been stripped down yet. I will get there eventually. And I've taken lots of pictures.
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And now I am all topiced out. Topicked? Topicced? Topict? hmmmm

Time. How It Boggles.*

2011-11-20T03:06:00.002-06:00

Today is Mom's birthday. My Sweetie and I went out for a date night, Saturday night, and as we were cruising down the highway, I was thinking: So 73 years ago, my grandmother was a 26 year old woman with two little kids and at full burst pregnancy with mom. (I really can't picture grandma as a 26 year old person.)

By the way, I finally figured out why I never liked my grandmother. I can usually come up with things, but they never really explain how I feel. I realized after all this time that in my entire lifetime, I never heard my grandmother laugh. And she never smiled. Oh yeah there are a few photographs, but that's just for the photographer. Who doesn't laugh or smile? Ick. But enough of that.

Today is Mom's birthday. Mom was no June Cleaver. If Mom had to be described in comparison to TV people, she would have been a combination of Laura Petrie, Mary Richards, Edith Bunker and Della Street. Yeah, an unusual combination, but that's how real people are.

I really love Mom and I'm so happy she's still here. I can't believe Mom is 73. Time is a weird thing.

Mom laughs and smiles. I love that in a person. And I love my Mom.

(*I stole the word "boggles" from Jazz.)

My Weird Dreams

2011-11-17T03:02:00.002-06:00

I always have the strangest, most vivid dreams. This morning when I woke up, I was straight out of a long dream where I was a student at some sort of audio/visual school. There were all these banks of VCRs and monitors and we were all comparing our work and, of course, it all seemed perfectly normal. When I woke up I was all, "What the heck was that? An audio/visual school from 1993?" I thought it was weird that my dream self did not realize that all the equipment was so outdated.

I wonder why I have no sense of the date in my dreams. Sometimes my daughter (who is 27) will be 5 years old in a dream and my dream self doesn't even notice. Or Dad, who died in 1998, is in the dream and my dream self doesn't freak out - it all seems perfectly normal. Dreams are so odd. At least I don't get the tidal waves anymore.

I Am Not Kidding

2011-11-15T02:54:00.002-06:00

My Sweetie opened that bottle for me and pulled out that cotton. We did not fluff it up or anything. That's just how it came out of the bottle. It was crazy. Like a clown car. If the car was a vitamin C bottle and the clowns were cotton. And there are actual vitamin C tablets in that bottle. Lots of them. It was very strange.

Guess What I Did Friday

2011-11-13T13:12:00.002-06:00

Good Blood

2011-11-10T01:50:00.002-06:00

So I got the letter from my doctor regarding my latest blood work and I was very very happy to read that my liver is fine. I do so love my beer but I like my liver also. Also my kidneys are fine, which are things I rarely think about but my doctor had said that he was concerned because of one of my medicines. So that was good. The only negative thing in the letter was my bad cholesterol, the LDL was a little high. It was followed by these lines: Avoid the fried foods and foods with lots of butter or cream. Watch out for high fat dairy products as well.
~
Really? I could go months without fried foods but I love butter, cream sauces, cheese sauces. Havarti cheese? yum yum yum. I suppose this would be good reason number 18 to start walking on my treadmill regularly. My excuse that it was too hot all summer was sound, but has now expired. Trying to reduce my LDL seems like a more interesting challenge than trying to lose 20 pounds, so I think I just may have the incentive I've always needed.
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The most interesting thing about the letter was that my doctor had actually hand written my address on the envelope. I bet it had to be hand canceled. I can't imagine the electronic reader at the post office could read it. Heck, they probably had to take it to a pharmacist.

Shoes and Synchronicities

2011-11-08T01:05:00.002-06:00

I decided I wanted some black leather tennis shoes for winter and as usual after trying on five or so pairs of shoes, I felt dejected and so ambled over to the men's section where I found these great Pumas:
Yep. More man shoes for me. They are so comfy. I can see why man shoes are so much more expensive than lady shoes: They are way more comfortable and way better made. On the other hand I have funky Fred Flintstone feet. My daughter's feet are so narrow, she could probably put both of her feet in this shoe if her feet weren't so long. We have opposite feet. That actually works out great if one of us buys the wrong shoes. But enough of that.
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I've talked about synchronicity a lot. I am especially attuned to it. It all started last week when I watched Drumline while I was eating lunch. I had seen it once before, just after it came out eight or nine years ago. I was thinking: Who is this kid? I love this guy! So I looked him up and found out it was Nick Cannon. Well I knew Mariah Carey married Nick Cannon and I knew he hosted a TV talent show but I didn't really know who he was. And then all of a sudden, just a few days later Nick Cannon pops up on two of the talk shows I watch. Synchronicity.
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I also watched the movie 2012 and the German Chancellor was played by a blonde woman and I thought: That's cool they made the German Chancellor a woman. Yeah I know, the German Chancellor is a blonde woman, but I did not know that until a few days later when she popped up all over the news regarding the Greece bailout. Synchronicity. By the way, the actress playing her in 2012 was born in Vancouver - Merrilyn Gann. She also founded the Northern Light Theater in Edmonton.
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There were a couple more that I can't think of right now, and then Sunday night we were watching the TV show "Grimm" and a big bad wolf had eaten a college student in the woods. When the lead characters showed up they were told it was a girl and when they asked how they knew that, the cop on the scene said, "Lady's pink Nike." So this was just a few hours after I bought my latest man shoes and I turned to My Sweetie and asked, "So if all they find is my shoe, they'll think it was a guy?"

File Under: WHAT?!?

2011-11-04T01:19:00.003-05:00

This picture is in the November 2011 issue of National Geographic:
The article is about buried warrior's gold from medieval times. The caption on the above picture states:
A figure pocked with nail holes may represent a horse - or a bear, or a boar, or even a wolf.
~
Really? Really? I consider National Geographic to be a smart sciencey magazine and that's what they think that gold figurine is? Really? It's a freaking seahorse! It even has a little swim fin at the bottom. Or it could be a wolf. Or a boar. Yeah, no. I'm going with seahorse.

Halloween Was Fun! And Exhausting!

2011-11-03T01:27:00.004-05:00

My Sweetie has school on Mondays and Wednesdays so he wasn't here Monday night, but my daughter came over for Halloween. We had a good time. I got a late start decorating. I think I started at 4:00 and everything seemed to take 1000 times longer than I remembered from three years ago. More than likely, I didn't start at 4:00 three years ago.
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It was also very warm and although I was wearing shorts, a Tee and had my hair up, I got so hot and sweaty I completely soaked a bandana that I was using to wipe my head.

I was running so behind I didn't bother to move the step ladder for the picture and I didn't get to put as much spider webbing on the porch that I wanted to. The funniest thing that happened was Carole called me (she lives two doors down) and said that a little boy had just come by and asked for extra candy for his sister. He said she got so scared at the house two doors down (mine!) that she wouldn't get out of the car. I think the reason my ghoul is so scary is because it is 6 feet tall. It's funny to think that an old shower caddy and some chicken wire could cause a little girl to not want to get out of her car. I'm sure she'll be fine.
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The fun part of the night was the crazy conversations my daughter and I were having between doorbell rings. The strange part of the whole thing was the next day. I had a good solid eight hours of sleep but I felt exhausted and even kind of hungover the next day. It was very odd because two years ago I spent Halloween partying on Bourbon Street and I was fine the next day and last year we dressed up and went to a World Series game. And I was fine the next day. If decorating my yard and handing out candy is so exhausting, I think next year I will just go back to New Orleans.

It's Halloween!

2011-10-31T03:19:00.003-05:00

Today I'll be decorating my front porch and yard for the first time since 2008. I went all out that year and then the next year I went to New Orleans and then last year we were at the baseball game. I carved my pumpkin today. I think it looks better in person:
I spent most of Sunday afternoon finding things and organizing things to have them ready. I mean it's been three years. I'm doing a few new things this year and some of the old and I will have lots of pictures in a few days.
~
So while I was running around doing all this stuff, Barney came in the house and was acting all nuts like he was on a bad acid trip. He went under the daybed in the library and was howling like a loon and My Sweetie went in there to "talk him down." He was finally able to pull him out from under the bed to do a full body check (a "cat scan" if you will) which he always does when Barney acts oddly. You know, because he's an indoor/outdoor cat so he checks for injuries. Well he was perfectly fine and even started purring but then went right back under the daybed.
~
My Sweetie has a theory. He said, "I think it's the front door. It even scares me." It's this:

Thought Fissures

2011-10-28T00:29:00.002-05:00

This may sound odd, but I hardly ever look at myself in the mirror. Often I will leave a public restroom and moments later think, "Damn! I forgot to check my face." Yeah I wear make up on the few days I go out and of course I apply that in front of a mirror but that's close-up work and when I'm done I'm done. And when I do my hair on those days, I'm just looking at my hair. So tonight I caught a glimpse of myself walking by a mirror and it weirded me out. It was a strange blast from the past.
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Apparently my last haircut was not new at all, but some old replay. I'm not happy about that. Besides, I think my hair is too long for my age. Or I can just go kinda Katharine Hepburn and wear my hair up all the time. I guess I should figure this out when I'm not so tired.
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Oh and today I ordered a "slib of rabs." And then later while we were watching the game, I said something else backwards and My Sweetie asked, "When they took that blood from you today, did they pull out some of your brains?" And by "they" he was not talking about vampires. I had a doctor appointment. It was a kind of head to toe "look see" I guess. He even touched the top of my foot and said my foot circulation was good. Well I could have told him that. Why else would my feet be so freaking hot?
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I guess because I turned 50 this year, the doctor has to watch for all sorts of things. And ask me to do strange things, which I don't want to go into. Test things I mean, not strange things with the doctor. And not strange per se, just things I'm not ready to do yet. But he was happy with my general health, blood pressure, lung sounds and whatnot. So maybe I should just keep not looking in the mirror and it will keep me healthy.

Ponies and Rangers

2011-10-25T02:42:00.003-05:00

I went to the last home game of The World Series and we won and it was fabulous and I saw some big ponies. Life is good.

One Tired Puppy

2011-10-24T03:43:00.004-05:00

Thursday we went to the Texas State Fair where I think I walked about 18 miles. It was great fun: One of those perfect days where everything falls into place and flows ever so smoothly.

Ha Ha! Look! Fried beer. No I did not try that. For some reason I did not try any of the weird fried concoctions, but My Sweetie loved the fried pumpkin pie, as did my neighbor Carole. (She was the one that told us about it.)

So that was on Thursday. Friday was the usual Meals on Wheels delivery and grocery store trip. Then Saturday was day one of The World Series:

We lost that game and it was horrible but on Sunday we won. We were there for SIX hours on Sunday. And today we go back for game five. It's a very long walk from where we park to the stadium. I feel like I'm some sort of professional marathon walker now. I hope it's another great game. On Tuesday I think I will rest.

Halfway Point

2011-10-20T10:02:00.003-05:00

Today is the halfway point of my 50th year and I am celebrating by going to the Texas State Fair. My 50th year has been quite good so far. I'm looking forward to the second half.

Thought Points

2011-10-18T00:15:00.003-05:00

At the baseball game Saturday night (which the Rangers won, winning the ALCS Championship thus advancing them to The World Series), I sat next to a 15 year old boy who was 6'5" and wearing a baseball glove. It's the safest I've ever felt sitting near third base.

Two things about me really irritate my mother: 1) I wash a shirt (or any item of clothing) after wearing it only a few hours and 2) I don't eat breakfast food very often.

"dim-witted simpleton" is not a redundancy if you are talking about my cat.

Most foods labeled as "haute cuisine" are things I would never eat and seem ridiculous to me. Fried egg with carmelized squash and tomatillo salsa? Give me a break.

One of the new shows that I enjoyed has already been canceled. What's the point of watching new shows? Why should we even bother? (It was "Free Agents.")

It's supposed to be cool today - in the 60's. I'm still cynical about that.

If I had to give my hair a nickname, it would be "Puff Daddy."

I told my daughter today that I think that feet, like ears and noses continue to grow as we age. She did not like this idea.

I hope I was wrong about the feet thing.

And I'm Back

2011-10-13T14:29:00.007-05:00

On Monday I had lunch with a crowd of family members:
On Tuesday Loretta drove down:

This is from Monday again. My stepDad looks thrilled. And the ladies on the right are two aunts and my cousin:

After lunch on Monday, my cousin Jennifer drove me and my nephews over to the beach:

And this was my last Day. Loretta and I went back to the beach:

I had a great trip. I need to go through more of my pictures. I am happy to be home with My Sweetie but I sure do miss everyone back in North Carolina!

Friday Goofy

2011-10-07T00:48:00.003-05:00

History according to the creationists?:

Sleeping Around

2011-10-05T01:36:00.003-05:00

There was a thing going around on Facebook a while back where you click the U.S. states that you've visited and I think it said something like: don't count states that you've only driven through. I remember thinking, Why not just ask which states you've slept in? For me, Missouri is the only state I ever spent time in without sleeping there. We spent most of a day at the Gateway Arch park. I actually took what I think is probably my best photograph there, but because it featured my second husband, I left that picture with him. Anyway, I think I should get this all down before my brain stops working.
~
So, I'm going to list the states (alphabetically) I've slept in with a few notes about each one:

Alabama ~ This was just a few years ago when my daughter and I took that cross country road trip. On the first leg of our return trip, we were taking some back roads thinking it was a nice scenic route, but it was SO slooow. Plus we had spent way too much time touring the Blue Ridge Parkway before we even really got started. We were so happy to finally make it onto a freeway. Then we trucked and trucked and finally gave out. Kate said "All I want to do is sit and drink beer and smoke." So we stopped in Tuscaloosa at what we called the "Ratmada Inn." It was very rundown and the carpet was so gummy or something I kept my socks on and they became gross. But we didn't complain because it was the only smoking hotel we could find quickly and we wanted Out Of The Car. We actually had a good time.

Arkansas ~ I've actually slept there a few times spanning many years and all three husbands. My first husband and I spent the night in Hot Springs on the way back from N.C. And my second and I stayed in some "resort" roadside place several times on our way to Illinois. Maybe it was in Blytheville but I'm not sure. And my current husband and I have been to Hot Springs.

California ~ Well this would be too long for much detail, but I have slept in San Diego, San Francisco, Huntington Beach, some business park suburb near San Francisco and in Lancaster which is a small air force town in the Mojave desert. That was for my brother's first wedding and my memory of that plays like a weird movie in my head, but I don't want to go there.

Colorado ~ I have been there on three different occasions, but, and I am not trying to do a husband theme here, Colorado is memorable because I went on my first trip there with both my first and second husband. At the same time. Except my second husband was not my second husband at the time because that would be illegal. And just weird as hell. Oh and the cities in which I slept were Colorado Springs (twice) and Boulder.

District of Columbia ~ While this isn't an actual state, it is a place where I have slept on two occasions: First grade on our way to New York to visit relatives. We didn't just sleep over though, we did a day of sightseeing, and for my daughter's senior year in high school. We got lucky and caught the cherry blossoms on that last trip. Mostly I went to see the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian. Not sure why I was so into that at the time.

Florida ~ My first Florida trip is a tale worth telling. We had been in Durham about a year or two when a family from Connecticut moved into the apartment two doors down from us. We were all fascinated with them. At least I was. The girl was two years older than me and the boy was 5 or 6 years older. I was 13 or 14. One day I happened to walk out the back door and saw them packing a big camper on a large truck. I said, "Where are ya'll going?" They said Florida and somehow I talked them into including me. My parents said okay and gave me $50 or so and I packed some clothes and my toothbrush and off we went. I was a very strange child. It was a great trip. We went to Lion Country Safari and had lots of laughs. I guess I felt like I had to entertain them to justify my being there. And I did. My second trip was with a boyfriend, his dad and stepmom when I was 16 - to Disneyworld. My third trip was with My Sweetie in 2009.

Georgia ~ I went to a big concert event called "Champagne Jam" in Atlanta when I was 18 or 19 and think I slept there overnight but am not sure. I do remember cutting my foot on a beer tab - the old pull off kind. There was once a poster or album art or something which I can't find online that showed the crowd and I recognized my sleeping bag out on the field. My second trip there was with my first husband and toddler daughter. We stayed with my junior high/high school friend in Dunwoody - an Atlanta suburb. She had the perfect guest room. I'll never forget that.

Hawaii ~ My Sweetie and I went to Maui in 2004. That's where he spent his childhood, so it wasn't just a touristy thing. He showed me all his old haunts. That was a fun trip.

Illinois ~ My second husband was from an idyllic small town in southern Illinois, so I went there many times. That's where my daughter and I had our very first white Christmas. It actually began to snow about 6 p.m. on Christmas eve. I also once fell asleep in a beautiful old cemetery there. Years later I spent a few nights in a suburb of Chicago on a business trip.

Iowa ~ When the Motorola plant down here had a big reorganization back in the erly 90's, some of our friends went to Florida and some went to Iowa. My second husband's best friend went to Iowa. One year after an Illinois Christmas visit, we drove up to visit this guy and spent New Year's eve there at a party with other former Motorola friends. I always loved that guy. I should do a post about him.

Louisiana ~ Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is New Orleans. Not only have I been there many many times, I've actually been there with 6 different people. I still want to take my daughter. We had planned to do that for her 21st birthday, but that was when Katrina happened. I've also stayed in Shreveport twice. Once back in 1989 to go to the horse races on a Motorola group trip and also that was the last stop on the road trip with my daughter.

Michigan ~ Besides the 1982 SuperBowl in Pontiac when I stayed at the Ren Cen in Detroit, I have been there two other times, both were for the funerals of My Sweetie's grandparents.

Mississippi ~ Back when my daughter was a toddler, her Dad and I took a road trip to N.C. we stopped to spend the night in Vicksburg so that we could wake up on the Mississippi river.

Nevada ~ Las Vegas (too many to count) and Lake Tahoe (once). Why else would you go there?

New Mexico ~ My first husband and I were poorer than church mice. When my daughter was 2 or 3 his aunt and uncle invited us for a visit in Ruidoso. They were wealthy and retired and had a magnificent place, a "spread" really. We stayed in a guest house. They had chickens with fresh eggs, an apple orchard with homemade apple cider, a creek and some animals. It was all breathtakingly beautiful and something I will never forget.

New York ~ My first visit was as a child visiting Granny and some other relatives on Long Island. Then the two visits as a teenager to the city to see Duke games in Madison Square and New Years eve on Times Square. About twenty years later my visit with My Sweetie in Soho and then this year for my 50th birthday. All good times.

North Carolina ~ Well of course, I slept there. That's where I'm from. And I have slept all over that state.

Ohio ~ I had a rich Ohio boyfriend once. He was a Duke student, so that's how we met. He invited me to Ohio and we drove up to Michigan for that Superbowl. But I stayed several nights in Bowling Green.

Oklahoma ~ My first husband is from Oklahoma so I spent many nights there at his grandmother's house. She was one special lady.

South Carolina ~ Myrtle Beach was the place to go when I was a teen. I have spent many nights there, although to be fair, maybe sleeping isn't the right word: I was more likely passed out.

Tennessee ~ My daughter and I spent two nights in Memphis on our road trip partying on Beale Street. And I saw B.B. King!

Texas ~ That's where I live, so of course I've slept here. I've slept in Fort Worth, Dallas, Arlington, Carrollton, Richland Hills, North Richland Hills, Irving, Hurst, Euless, Keller, Grapevine, Azle, Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Galveston, Port Aransas and whatever towns I was in when I went camping on many lakes.

Virginia ~ In 2002 or 2003, Loretta and I went to Virginia Beach. It was great fun. A really neat little resort town with a free trolley bus that goes up and down the main road. We laughed a LOT! We still make jokes about that trip.

I didn't realize this would be so long, but I enjoyed remembering all of it. And now I have it all written down so when I become even more senile, I'll have it. Except I probably won't be able to find it.

Getting Ready

2011-10-04T03:50:00.002-05:00

I've been sort of an absent blogger lately because we have all this baseball going on and I am going on a trip on Saturday.
~
The baseball is good so far, but I'm really excited about spending some time with Mom. I'll also get to see my brother, nephew, a cousin, two aunts and my best friend. I'm really looking forward to it.

On The Beatles (My Response to Ian's Post)

2011-10-01T03:18:00.004-05:00

My old blogger friend Ian posted this post about The Beatles and as I was thinking about my response, I realized it was too big for a comment box and required its own post. (And ha ha Ian: by "old blogger friend" I am not calling you old, just referring to the age of our blog history. I bet you were wondering about that.)
~
The Beatles, well, the idea of The Beatles in my brain is a kinda funny study of how my thought processes have evolved (devolved?) over the course of my lifetime. Here are the stages of my brain and the Beatles:

I'm a happy kid hearing The Beatles on the radio and singing along.

I'm a teenager and I'm all, "The Beatles? Who? Yesterday? Yeah, that describes them."

I'm a young adult. A Beatle has been murdered. The matryrization of The Beatles grows to a fever pitch. I rail against it. As usual, I stand firm and unbending against a wave. A wave that seems to have no cease.

I'm at the age of the "midlife crisis" which is really just a stage of questioning every belief and assumption you've ever had. I ask myself, "Are The Beatles that bad? Was I just disliking them to be unique?" I begin to listen to their songs instead of automatically flipping the channel.

I have passed the midlife crisis phase, have discarded former incorrect assumptions, accepted the value of other lifelong assumptions, and have even added new ones. The Beatles? Yeah, they still suck. It was nice to realize I didn't hate them all these years just to be a rebel with a pointless cause. They are just not all that. Now, The Stones? Yes, Ian. They rock.

It's Always The Little Things

2011-09-27T12:07:00.002-05:00

There is a dime trapped inside of one of the dryer fins. I saw a little piece of it as I was pulling out laundry and reached for it and WHA LA! It went right down inside there. So now every load we dry, even if we were to dry a load of feathers, sounds like we have a jacket in there with a large zipper. A dime, A dime, My Kingdom for that dime!

Crazy Day

2011-09-25T03:01:00.002-05:00

We had a crazy day which I can't really talk about on here, but I can tell you that we both got the crazy laugh fits at a restaurant tonight (Saturday night). The kind where your eyes are pouring water and your ribs hurt and you can't even look at each other. I imagine people in the restaurant thought we were on acid or something. (Do they still call it acid? I'm not up to date on the latest drug lingo.) But man we could NOT stop laughing. And it was the stupidest thing. It involved a gnat. And Loretta, And Heloise. Ouch! I started laughing all over again.

Another Annual Ritual

2011-09-21T02:54:00.002-05:00

On Monday I did the horrid annual ritual of pulling out all my jeans to see if they still fit. I do this every year. I haven't worn jeans since my New York trip in April. I always think I won't be able to get into them. I was lucky this year. I haven't been lucky every year. Same thing happens every spring with my shorts: Will they still fit? I believe I've gained about 6 pounds over the summer because it's always too hot to move. Which sucks because I certainly have no use for 6 extra pounds. But the jeans fit fine, so I guess the 6 pounds is probably all over my head.
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It's funny how they always ask on these weight loss TV shows, "Why do you want to lose weight?" And the answer is always something intelligent sounding like: Diabetes runs in my family. Or: My blood pressure has gone up and I'm out of breath. But if anyone asked me why I would like to lose weight, my answer would sound so NOT intelligent and actually rather shallow: My head looks fat in photographs. The truth is, I am quite limber and don't get out of breath, I just have a fat head.
~
My Sweetie has school on Monday and Wednesday nights so I'm thinking about taking a Zumba class on those nights. My daughter wanted us to take belly dancing together but I don't think there is a class that fits her schedule. Maybe she can Zumba with me on Mondays. I just need to do something about my big fat head. At least my jeans still fit. Good thing I don't wear hats.

Officials say beaver teeth are 7 million years old

2011-09-19T03:03:00.002-05:00

Okay, so maybe this could be construed as false advertising, but since I'm not selling anything, I don't think it counts. Although I do like the idea of beavers being 7 million years old, this blog is not about really old beavers, it's about me. (Ha Ha! Insert horrid dirty joke here) Wait, I did not mean to go there. Seriously I did not. This is what happens when I have too many "Out Days."
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I had FIVE out days in a row. This is very unusual for me and also very tiresome. I do not like to go out five days in a row. I understand all you normal people reading this are rolling your eyes and asking yourself, "Huh?" But I like my IN days. I like them a LOT.
~
Granted, I enjoyed most of them: Rangers baseball game, horse races, my Friday Meals on Wheels day out and Sunday visit with the in-laws for my MIL's birthday were nice, but I am all done in and want to be IN. I'd ideally like to stay in for maybe 10 days, but that's not going to happen. At least all day today I will have an in day and I will relish it.
~
And now because I am yawning like a mad man, I will go to sleep and dream of in days with really old beaver teeth. Really? Beavers have been around for 7 million years? I'm surprised there are still any trees.

Friday Goofy

2011-09-16T01:10:00.003-05:00

This is an actual real painting that I saw in person in real life and took a picture of. Here are my ideas for the title:

They are foolish to believe this bird can pull me.

They are foolish to believe I can pull this horse.

Look! The string hangs off the canvas!

I was stoned when I painted this.

Worst remake of The Defiant Ones ever.

I do not think this will get that tooth out.

Nothing in this picture makes sense.

What might you title this hideous painting? And if you say you actually like it, I will not believe you.

Funny Old Things (My 1950 Cookbook)

2011-09-13T01:25:00.006-05:00

For years and years I thought I had drawn that dog. It looked like something I might have drawn and it felt like something I might have drawn. It was in Mom's 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book:

I always loved that the picture was upside down. Mom told me that I drew that picture and she told my brother that he drew that picture. At some point I thought she was just being diplomatic. I then realized that she probably had no idea who drew the picture, but she certainly knew it was either me or my brother. So she was always half right. Once I realized that the book was published in 1950, it seemed pretty obvious that it was my brother who drew the dog. He was born in 1957 and I was born in 1961.

In probably the early 1980's, I decided to "fix" the binding on this book. I used some high quality grey cloth duct tape that I had "ended up with" from the tv production company I had worked for. And by "high quality" I really mean just that because that duct tape binding job is still holding strong and steady after almost 30 years. That's good tape.

I love the recipes. There are a few classics like white sauce or roux, but most of it is obsolete such as the cheese sandwich loaf, the Prune Cream Pie, and the strange dessert recipes using popular cookies of the time (I guess like how now people use Oreos in stuff). There's quite a list of lamb recipes and lamb is no longer a regular meat staple here. I think you can only get it at Christmas. Almost any food item in the book has a "...with dried beef" which says a LOT about the times. And the seasonings? Salt and pepper.

Speaking of the times, 1950 was right at the beginning of the cold war and so there are no Russian foods in this cookbook. No beef stroganoff, no chicken kiev. They kept Italy also to a minimum: spaghetti and tetrazzini. No lasagne, no manicotti. They of course could not leave out the French because as is the case with ballet and war, most basic food terminology is French. And they keep it basic. There is no quiche. And hot? The things they call "hot" have a dash of chili powder. No cayenne or chipotle.

Another funny thing is that foods that were the rage at one time have come and gone since this book was published. There is no mention of chateaubriand and the only mention of fondue is a bread and cheese casserole.

Another thing I like is the back of the book is so much darker. I guess the front got sun faded over time. That makes me think the book spent some time out in the open. But not in use, or the front cover would not be so faded.
~

It's 61 years old. That's eleven years older than me. Many of the recipes sound kinda icky with a big use of ketchup and cracker crumbs along with the ubiquitous dried beef which as I mentioned earlier was a sign of the economic times and lots of the recipes are just weird, but I really really love that old cookbook. It makes me smile. Pretty much like that dog that I didn't draw.

The 5 Stages of Dishwasher Grief

2011-09-08T00:12:00.003-05:00

1) Denial: Sure, I'll be able to fit all the dishes in there.
~
2) Anger: Frikk!! There's no way I'm going to be able to fit all the dishes in there.
~
3) Bargaining: Okay, maybe if I move this bowl to the bottom rack and tilt this lid that way...
~
4) Depression: Oh,man.....this totally sucks. There is no physical way to fit everything in there. Now I'm going to have these leftover dishes here in the morning. Boooo.
~
5) Acceptance: Oh well, okay. Looks like I'm going to have to leave this pot and these cups out tonight and just put them in tomorrow after I put away the clean dishes.

(photo by William Roesly for About.com)

Getting Started

2011-09-05T00:39:00.003-05:00

On Friday I went to the fabric store and bought stuff for recovering the dinette chairs:

On Saturday, I got one done:

I didn't take any pics as I worked because I didn't really know what I was doing. That chair was the guinea pig of this project. I learned a lot. I think I have it all figured out now and will show some work in progress pics in subsequent posts. Sculpting foam with an electric knife is something that I hope I will improve at as I go along. So there will be more to come.

My Latest DYI

2011-09-02T01:10:00.002-05:00

I've decided to recover all my dinette chairs. They came in "Bland Beige" and after 10 years A: They're worn and B is for boring. I took the seat off to study it, because that's how I roll, and lo and behold I discovered there were A LOT of staples on there.
~
Ideally, I'd like to start from scratch and add some padding as opposed to just putting the new cover over the old cover. But the staples. I haven't counted them yet, but my best guess is eight hundred and seventy-three.
~
It's not like I am incapable of removing 873 staples six times, it's just that I really think it will suck. I just noticed I said "will suck" instead of "would suck" so I guess that means I have made up my mind. As they say, "If you're going to do it, do it right." I will take pics as I go. The only fun part of it is, I'm going to pick out the cloth this afternoon. At least that part won't hurt my thumb

Random Thoughts on Autism

2011-08-31T02:25:00.004-05:00

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.
~
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

2011-08-29T01:37:00.003-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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

2011-08-26T00:02:00.003-05:00

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.
~
My daughter caught a summer cold and so my SIL and niece joined us at the ballgame.
~
Mom thinks everyone is silly and they have no plan to evacuate.
~
Mom's procedure went very well and that part is good.
~
I hope Irene turns east and goes away.

Phondue Phreak Out (and other phalderals)

2011-08-24T04:54:00.004-05:00

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.
~

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.

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

2011-08-21T23:55:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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!)

2011-08-20T23:54:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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!
~
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

2011-08-19T02:09:00.003-05:00

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

2011-08-18T03:48:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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!

2011-08-16T04:10:00.002-05:00

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!

2011-08-15T01:00:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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!"
~
(I'm assuming you all knew the word was "tenured.")

I Feel Special

2011-08-11T12:48:00.002-05:00

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

2011-08-10T00:23:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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.
~
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?

2011-08-08T03:37:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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.
~
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

2011-08-04T02:01:00.002-05:00

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.
~
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.
~
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

2011-08-01T01:21:00.003-05:00

(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.

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.

Friday Goofy

2011-07-29T01:05:00.002-05:00

The puppy was an unwilling partner in the love affair of Walter and the Pink Pig.

How Gross Is This?

2011-07-28T04:43:00.004-05:00

That's the door to the ladies' room at the Movie Tavern. I imagine all that goo is from the "buttered" popcorn. Yuck.
I used my foot to open the door.

No Hello for the Living

2011-07-27T02:05:00.002-05:00

I was thinking about something sad today. A few years ago when we had the big scare with my father-in law, his daughters showed up and were frequent visitors. I haven't seen them since.
~
See, my FIL is actually my husband's stepDad. He has three daughters from his first marriage. I've met them a few times but couldn't pick them out of a line-up. They are never over there on his birthday or father's day. I know this because we usually are. I've only seen them around the Christmas holidays one time and my 27 year old daughter was still in high school. So that's been a while.
~
I wonder why it is that when it comes to old people, everyone makes time for goodbye, but no one ever bothers with hello.

Wishing and Looking Ahead

2011-07-24T23:30:00.002-05:00

Dave, one of my facebook buddies, posted that picture today and it was like salve for my brain. I think we are on 30 days this year of triple digits and 23 days in a row of triple digits with this whole next week expected to be in, guess? Yes! Triple digits! We are stilll not real close to the record year of 1980. I think that was 60 days of triple digits and and 13 days of over 110°. The funny thing about that is that was the year I worked as a groundskeeper at my parents' country club. And I had to wear long pants every day except Monday. I guess when I was nineteen, I was much hardier.
~
I do have a mental exercise to keep cool. I have booked a trip for October to spend four days with Mom. When I think about the trip I think things like:
1. I bet I'll have to wear jeans
2. I bet I can wear my hair down
3. I may even need a jacket
These are very refreshing thoughts. Just imagining being chilly is nice. In the meantime, I can always look at Dave's picture.

Heat Ennui

2011-07-20T02:12:00.002-05:00

I'm pretty much reverse hibernating. It's too hot to do anything. I go to the grocery store on Tuesday, do Meals on Wheels on Friday and we usually do something simple on either Saturday or Sunday. Other than that, not so much. I guess I'll start reading my third autobiography soon. It's the Keith Richards one and has gotten great reviews. I hope he tells some stories about being freezing cold. I can't even remember what that is like.

Surprise!

2011-07-18T03:39:00.002-05:00

We went to see Horrible Bosses at The Movie Tavern tonight (Sunday night I mean). I ordered an individual sausage and bell pepper pizza. It was delicious. There was a foil packet tucked in one side between a slice and the pan. It's dark in the Movie Tavern, because, you know, we are all watching a movie. I assumed it was a wet-nap. So after I had eaten all I wanted to eat, I thought, "Ooh that wet-nap was a good idea. I'm going to use that." I figured that was way more convenient than digging through my purse for my hand sanitizer. So I grabbed the packet, ripped it open and poured aged parmesan cheese all over myself. My Sweetie thought it was hilarious. The movie was funny too.

Friday Goofy

2011-07-15T00:55:00.002-05:00

............Granny didn't get this far by not knowing how to take advantage of a situation............

And It Was Good!

2011-07-12T04:06:00.002-05:00

When I was 5 or 6 my mother was in a bowling league and all the children at the bowling alley were allowed to run around like a pack of wild dogs. I remember playing the juke box and dancing and I remember exploring the back rooms. One time in one of those back rooms, maybe the ladies' locker room, my brother dared to me to touch two electrical wires at the same time. They were sticking out of what had probably been an outlet but was just an open place in the cinder block wall. Being 5 or 6 and not knowing any better I of course grabbed the wires and was thrown backwards by a horrible electric shock. I'm surprised I didn't have a pants accident.
~
As all childhood traumas are wont to do, that particular experience gave me a lifelong fear of electricity. Well today, I conquered that fear. I installed a new light fixture in my laundry room:

I did a previous post about the light fixture being some sort of idiotic halogen bulb and how hard it was to replace and that I had bought a new fixture, but in that post I also said I was going to have an electrician replace it for me. Well the first guy came down with a case of mononucleosis and so I called another guy and they kept forgetting about me. So today (Monday I mean) I decided to do it myself.

After removing the old fixture there was a black wire and a white wire sticking out and I made myself touch them. Not at the same time like when I was 5 or 6. I would stand at the top of the step stool and look at them and then go have a beer and then stand at the top of the step stool and look at them and then go have another beer until I had finally worked up my nerve. I got back up there and quickly tapped my right index finger against the black wire. Nothing happened. I was so relieved. But I did go have one more beer before I touched the white wire.

Once I realized I would not be shocked, I quickly did all the simple steps and had a new light fixture that uses a regular bulb. I was so tickled. Not that I had a new light fixture and not that I had saved $75. I was tickled because I had done it myself. Myself! I had conquered my lifelong fear and touched those wires. I said, "Let there be light!" I flipped the switch. It came on. And it was good.

The Help

2011-07-11T02:49:00.002-05:00

I read The Help recently and found it very interesting. It is set in Mississippi in the early 60's and explores the relationships between white families and their black maids. We had a black maid named Bessie in the mid 60's. She took care of me while my mother slept because my mother worked nights. I think she also cleaned and prepared lunch and dinner. I have very few memories of her because I was a toddler. But I do remember sitting with her on the front porch. Bessie was eating lettuce. She would shake salt between each bite from the lettuce leaf. I remember that I asked her why she was salting the lettuce and she said it tasted good. I asked to try it, and I liked it. That's my only real memory of her. I guess my mother moved to the day shift and I was put in daycare. Plus we moved across town.
~
For Mother's Day, one of the gifts I got from my daughter was a coupon good for "A Movie Night Out." So last week, I gave my daughter the book and said, "Read this book and then I am cashing in my coupon for the movie night on August 15th for the movie." The movie opens August 12th and her husband is going to be out of town then anyway, so I figured that's a good time to go. I hope they do a good job with the movie. I'm looking forward to it. And also to a fun night out with my daughter.

Friday Goofy

2011-07-08T01:43:00.005-05:00

Walter, though amused by the puppy's antics, did not make note of it in his journal that day.

More Uses For The Internet

2011-07-06T01:56:00.002-05:00

I just read an old novel from 1971 that was set in Bergen, Norway. So to get the feel of the place I went to Google Earth to look around. Also some important scenes are set around the Stavkirke of Fantoft. It was described in such a way that I couldn't quite picture it, but I could look it up and there it was (pictured above). I also was able to see what a funicular looked like.
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I first did this years ago when I read The DaVinci Code. Every time a painting was described, I would look it up to see for myself. Maybe it's because my brain is like that of a small child, but it's kind of nice to have pictures to go with my stories.

July? .... Really?

2011-07-01T00:12:00.002-05:00

I'm really not sure what happened to June. June was busting out all over and then boom! it was gone. I am very proud of myself for making it through June without going on and on about the heat. I made a vow not to do that this summer. Well, I made a vow not to go on and on about the heat on my blog. I inflict that crap on my facebook friends now.
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I ran out today and bought hanging metal stars for my Meals on Wheels peeps. I gave them festive flags last year. I thought these were cute.:

I just realized that you can't tell from the picture but they are not flat. Anyway, one thing I've learned about old people is they are very patriotic, so I think they will like these. Speaking of old people, now that I am an old person, I decided to do something weird. Well, weird for me. Gnightgirl posted this pic a little bit ago:

I've never had a pedicure in my life and I don't think I've painted my toenails in years. I figured it just draws attention to my Fred Flintstone feet. But after seeing that picture, I called my daughter, the pedicure queen, and asked if she would take me to her place to get my toenails painted funny for 4th of July. So we are going on Saturday. Kate says they don't speak English well, and suggested I bring that picture, so I guess my toenails will look just like that. I wish the rest of my feet did. Happy July!

Crazy Maragarita

2011-06-29T01:18:00.003-05:00

I ordered the Dos Equis Margarita because a bartender years ago told me the secret to a smooth margarita was to add beer. I had no idea they put the whole bottle in there. Literally. But man, is it delicious.

Work, Work, Work It Out Baby

2011-06-27T01:56:00.002-05:00

I'm not a huge fan of having workmen in my house, but I have a lot of stuff on the burner for this week. See this bizarro lightbulb?:
Well that's the lightbulb in our laundry room. And the brownish parts? Those are the holders of the glass part that I have removed and they look to me like they are burning up or something. Anyway, I decided that A) this weird lightbulb sucks and B) That's all I need to know. So I bought a simple basic light fixture that uses a normal lightbulb like you can find on Earth and won't break in your hand and make you bleed when you are trying to replace it. I mean seriously, what the hell? That's the most idiotic thing ever. For a laundry room, anyway.
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Also we are getting a new air conditioning unit in about 7 or 8 hours and a roofing guy is coming this week to replace a skylight and shore up a section of gutter. All of this is exhausting my brain. I'm going to go to sleep now and deal with all of this la........

Bobkitties!!

2011-06-23T00:41:00.003-05:00

How freaking cute are these bobcat kitties? My friend and neighbor Carole went down to the other neighbor's house and captured these little darlings enjoying some fresh rain water. They think they are at least 10 weeks old, so when I saw Timber the bobcat, she must have been out foraging for food for nursing her tiny kits.

For those who asked, our local animal control does not interfere with these animals. They are considered just part of the local fauna. They really are cute!

It's A Girl!

2011-06-22T01:53:00.002-05:00

Timber the bobcat is a female. She had kittens. She had kittens in the backyard, four houses down on my street. That neighbor believes they were born under her deck. We're guessing Timber went off to forage and the babies decided to come out and play. That lady was a little freaked out. I don't know that neighbor, but she called Carole. I am hoping some pictures will get passed my way. I've never seen baby bobkittens. If they are still there tomorrow, I may try to go down and see them. If not, hopefully I will get pictures to share.

Now It All Makes Sense

2011-06-20T02:17:00.002-05:00

After being diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my right thumb a while back, I would sometimes look it up and think about it, but maybe I wasn't really paying attention until recently. The other day it was like a lightbulb bloomed over my head like in a cartoon.
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The real reason I didn't see it at first is because I guess it's a normal function to not see one's self as defective. I kept seeing phrases like: Some people are born with abnormally formed joints... and of course, I thought: Well, that doesn't apply to me. I mean, really, who goes around thinking they were born with abnormal parts? And besides, the primary cause of osteoarthritis is aging. And I was aging. So obviously, I wasn't defective or abnormal, right?
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You know how in thriller movies, when the protagonist stumbles upon something and then you get a flashback of a bunch of scenes and you can see that they are putting all the pieces of the puzzle together? It was just like that for me. I remembered that I had my friend Cathy write my daily paragraphs in first grade because it hurt my hand. I remembered all the times I asked teachers if I could type my paper instead of writing it. I remembered how I hated having to do scissor work and how bad scissors hurt my hand. I remembered showing off my "funny double-jointed thumb." It was pretty much just like in the movies as this wave of memories of my whole life and how I avoided things like that washed through my head.
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So I have accepted that I was born defective. My thumbs were not properly aligned. I was a cute baby girl with defective thumbs. Doing normal things like writing, using scissors and using a screwdriver are painful but the good news is, it has nothing to do with getting old. I'm okay with that.

I Still Miss Him

2011-06-19T01:50:00.001-05:00

Happy Father's Day

Subliminal Advertising

2011-06-16T00:25:00.002-05:00

When I was 19 or so I dated a guy for a short while that was a very good artist. He was also a marketing major working on his thesis about subliminal advertising and tricks of the trade. Although his paper was all about Playboy Magazine, he also had lots of other stuff to show me. The Playboy stuff was fascinating - there was a lot involved and it would take me showing you old Playboys to explain it all. This was probably 1980 or so, and I haven't seen a Playboy in years, so I don't know if they still use those old tricks.
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I still look at ads with a keen eye. The picture above is the new Louis Vuitton ad. The artists have totally reproduced the female anatomy in the crotch of her pants. I was amazed when I saw it and am surprised no one online has mentioned it. Maybe because it's supposed to be subliminal. Maybe everyone else is looking at her eyes. But if you look there, it's pretty obvious.

Much Better!

2011-06-15T03:01:00.003-05:00

Apparently a little daylight seeping in helped tremendously with getting the color to photograph correctly. Carole came over and we tested the surge strip. She was very brave and plugged in the fan. The whole surge strip is dead. It was a poor design and the plug slots are all spaced so that I may have plugged into two different sockets. I'll have to get a nice new modern one for over there.

The paint color is named "Sahara Sands." It has a slight peach tinge to it. Now I can't wait to get a new countertop and sinks. We are going to go to a granite place a week from this Saturday. I wanted to go this weekend but it's Father's Day weekend and I don't want to go out three days in a row. I've lived with that horrible countertop for 10 years so I think I can wait one more week to go looking. And now I think I shall go to sleep.

Holy Cow, What the Frik?

2011-06-14T01:47:00.006-05:00

It's always something and if it isn't something, it's something else. My after pictures came out a horrible mustardy color and not even close to the real paint color, so I was going to color correct them in Photoshop. The other computer, the one with Photoshop, overheats and I use an external fan. I had used that fan in the bathroom to help the texture dry and when I just a few minutes ago went to plug it into the surge strip by that computer, crazy sparks flew out! I'm afraid of a bunch of things, but electrical sparks is certainly in my top ten. Why would it do that? I can't begin to explain how irritated I am about that. Anyway I'll just show the mustardy colored pictures, because that's all I have right now and will figure out later what the hell is with that fan.
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So this was the before from the door:

After from the door:

This was the before from the window on the other end:

After from the window:

Here are some close-ups of the texture:

The paint is a different color in every picture which is really weird because this is not Oz and the walls are not walls of a different color. I will try to get better pictures. Maybe daylight will help and I want to figure out what made those crazy electrical sparks from the surge strip. It's a surge strip. Aren't they supposed to, you know, not have surges? I don't get that at all.

I really dislike being irritated. Being irritated makes me irritated, which is not good. I think I need to go to youtube and find soothing music to get myself back to my happy place. I'll be better next time.

No Pics Yet

2011-06-12T02:06:00.002-05:00

I can't begin to explain how tough this last week was. I worked myself to the bone. The BONE. I was sore everywhere. And I was so dead set on having everything finished when My Sweetie got home, I ended up with less than four hours of sleep Thursday night. Or I guess I should say Friday morning. The plumber was supposed to be here at 8:00 am Friday morning to seat the new toilet and I was so tired and dead when I went to bed I didn't even set a clock. I decided I would just wake up when he called to say he was coming or rang the doorbell. I think I went to bed around 4:30.
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I somehow randomly woke up naturally at 8:15 Friday morning and jumped up and ran around doing last minute stuff and finally at 8:45 I called the plumber. I had told them specifically that I needed to be in the shower at 9:30. Well he ended up getting here at 9:00 and left at 10:00 and I was all Mission: Impossible getting ready after that for Meals on Wheels. But I made it there and actually I wasn't the last person to get there for the food pick up.
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I had an easy route and a nice lunch, ran to the grocery store and got home with two hours left before I had to pick up My Sweetie at the airport. I still had to do a lot of post work clean up as well as carefully removing all the tape. I also had to re-hang the window shade and shower curtain. It was 95° outside and felt like that inside as I was rushing around trying to finish. I did a sort of rush job decor wise, but had something nice to show My Sweetie when we got home. I have been making little changes since then. I am almost there and will take picures when I feel like I have finally finished. And I finally got some sleep. That was great.

Slow and Steady

2011-06-07T05:46:00.002-05:00

Yesterday went pretty well. I had finished what I wanted to do by 3:00 am. Then I had to shower and ended up staying up until 6:00 am. I woke up at 12:30 ready to go. Today did not go perfectly. The texturing is very labor intensive. After I did that first tiny patch, pictured above, I had a cramp in my left arm and my left thumb was numb. I had some sort of death grip on my mud box.
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Once I figured that out, it went better. I am slightly over halfway done with the texture and have pretty much run out, so when I go tomorrow to buy the toilet, I will get another bucket of texture. It doesn't put me behind schedule because I planned to paint on Wednesday.
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My son-in-law came over and we took out the old toilet. He'll be back this evening to help me bring the new toilet in. My daughter just changed her work schedule to fit with her schooling, so I will be having dinner tonight with my son-in-law. That should be interesting.
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So it's almost 6:00 am again and every single part of me is sore except for my eyeballs and earlobes. I bet I will sleep like a rock. I should go check that out.

Stuff That is Happening and Another Redo

2011-06-05T00:33:00.009-05:00

I've been very very very good about keeping my reading glasses in my purse. I bought some specifically for that. They are in a little blue plastic hard case that almost looks like a toothbrush holder. Unfortunately, when I travel things get disorganized, and I never took them out of my backpack and put them back in my purse after the beach trip. So on Friday when I got to my lunch restaurant after Meals on Wheels, I pulled out my USA Today and discovered I had no reading glasses.
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I was able to read the articles okay, but when it came time to do the crossword puzzle, I was having a hard time. I tried looking through the bottom of my beer glass but that didn't work. Then I got the great idea to use my camera, set it on macro and zoom in. Fortunately, as soon as I pulled out my camera, the battery died. Otherwise, the bartender probably would have cut me off.
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I charged my camera battery when I got home and took my BEFORE pictures of the blue bathroom. This afternoon I will start on my redo. Here's a picture from the door:

And here's a picture from the other end:

This is a closer image of the sponge technique I did about 8 years ago:

When I first did it, I really thought it was the cat's meow. And maybe that's because the old wallpaper was seriously heinous, but now it seems really tired and dated. I'm actually going to do a texture before I paint and I hope to do something really cool, but I don't want to say what, in case it doesn't work out exactly. So this afternoon I will sand and prep. Monday I will apply the texture. After midnight that night (they work until then), my daughter and son-in-law will come by and we will remove the toilet. On Tuesday I will buy new mirrors and a new toilet and start painting. On Wednesday I will finish up painting and clean up and on Thursday, the plumber will install the new toilet. At least those are my plans.
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I have all my materials and My Sweetie will be at E3 all week so I can work any hours that I want and play loud music and hopefully everything will go smoothly. I'm looking forward to a busy week of making new stuff. I will chart my progress each day. And I will have fun.

The Beach Trip of 2011 (May 20-27)

2011-06-01T03:52:00.015-05:00

I took this picture of my daughter and her husband at the rental car place after we landed in Raleigh/Durham on Friday afternoon:

My daughter made me some French braids that Saturday:

On Sunday we went into Wilmington to go to The Riverwalk and had lunch at The George:

I love how the guys look so cool on The Riverwalk:

My son-in-law and I played a game of foosball at a very hot bar:

And no it wasn't "hot" as in "happening," it was freaking hot as hell in there.

This next picture shows some of our fancy chalkwork:

On Monday, we all went down to volley a ball around and I sucked so bad at it, I designated myself "photographer":

This is Loretta and me on Tuesday just before she left:

A ball and a beer. That's all you really need at the beach:

My daughter, brother and I had a little afternoon excursion on Wednesday and I got this great picture of my big brother:

On Thursday, my daughter interrupted my beer pong game so I could take this picture:

My brother and I were playing beer pong against his sons:

My nephew (the one above in the grey shirt) took this rather artsy shadowplay picture of me making one of my many futile attempts:

It was a great week. We had great food. We played team Trivial Pursuit (I won one game with my youngest nephew as partner). We frolicked, we sang, we picked up beach rocks, we looked at the stars, we looked at the moon. The moon rose deep red two nights just over the pier and it was awesome (in the true sense of the word). We saw sunrises and sunsets. We watched silly videos on youtube and laughed about them all day. And we all made plans to do it all over again next year. I can't wait!

End of the Trip

2011-05-27T23:38:00.002-05:00

We are at my friend's house for the weekend. It's always sad to say goodbye to Topsail Island, but I'm looking forward to giving my husband a tour of Duke University. I hope this rain goes away.

Smart and Stupid

2011-05-22T23:45:00.002-05:00

I feel really smart just being in this wonderful beach cottage, but I feel pretty stupid trying to use my daughter's laptop. Laptops? Not really my thing. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore outside? Yeah. That's my thing.

I AM READY

2011-05-20T00:13:00.001-05:00

This will be the view from our deck and living room for the next week. I can't wait. The cab picks us up in 9 hours. Let the adventures begin!

Low Tide

2011-05-18T02:35:00.003-05:00

I just went back and read my posts from the last two years that I had written just before my May beach trip. I did this because I have been a slug this week. Where is that normal excitement energy? The 2009 post said I was so excited I felt like my skull was going to crack open. Right now I feel like such a dullard, my skull would more likely implode into the vacuum of what should be my brain. Mom would say it was my biorhythms. My best guess is that the four flights in one week that I did for my 50th birthday gave me some sort of travel brain damage.
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There is no place I would rather be than the beach cottage, so what's going on here? Is it the dread of hauling luggage through the airport, going through security, slow walking down the gangplank of stand and wait while people try to stuff their crap in the overhead bins, then wait 20 minutes for a beer while sitting in something less comfortable than a dentist's chair? I feel like Charlie Brown complaining about Christmas, which I never quite understood.
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I hope the old adage Mother knows best is true here and it's just my biorhythms. Maybe they are just at low tide or something. And maybe just like at the beach, the tide will change.

Timber!

2011-05-15T11:40:00.004-05:00

With blogger down those few days, I was not able to post and it was annoying, so I have some catching up to do. 'Tis a rare beast that I have any computer time on a Sunday, but My Sweetie has gone to a Rangers baseball game with his sister. Speaking of rare beasts, (ha ha! No! I don't mean his sister!) take a look at this:
That is our neighborhood bobcat, who I have named "Timber." I figure Timber is a good name for either a boy or a girl and it also references the name of our neighborhood. Our neighbor two houses up the hill snapped this the other day.
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I think I was the first one to spot Timber. I caught a glimpse of Timber at dusk two weeks ago. I had just gone into the kitchen and saw movement outside and glanced out the window to see it trotting across our deck. I yelled, "What the f### is that?!!" and ran to the back door and then through the house, and through the garage to the side door, opened it and then asked myself, Hey! What the heck are you doing? And then I stepped back inside and quickly closed the door. All this time My Sweetie is chasing me around going, "What? What?!!" So then I described what I had seen and we went online and found several bobcat pictures that looked like what I saw.
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A day or so later I told Carole about it. A week later when we returned from San Antonio, Carole asked if I had told any other neighbors and I had not. While we were gone, the neighbor that lives between Carole and me told Carole that a bobcat had been spotted in the neighborhood. She didn't hear it from me!
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This past Thursday,Carole and her husband stepped out in the early evening and startled Timber just emerging from their downhill neighbor's bushes and it ran across their front yard and up the street toward the top of the hill and disappeared. I ran into them when I came back from the store. They were across the street telling another neighbor. He knew all about Timber and told them that the neighbor two houses up from me had gotten a quick blurry picture. I called him yesterday and got a copy. So now every night at dusk, we look for Timber, but I haven't seen him since two weeks ago. Apparently Timber and Barney have not bothered each other although there was a wild scream in our backyard one night about a week ago. Carole and her husband also heard it as they were returning from a walk. Hopefully Barney and Timber will keep any confrontations to just screaming matches. You know, I was wondering why I haven't seen any possums yet this year.

Really?

2011-05-13T16:50:00.000-05:00

I see blogger is finally working again.

San Antonio Was Fun!

2011-05-10T02:18:00.003-05:00

After I finished my Meals on Wheels deliveries on Friday, I came back home and finished packing and My Sweetie and I hit the road. We stopped right away for lunch and I had lobster bisque and a salad, which is a great way to start anything. The actual road trip part was pretty easy except for traffic jams in both Austin and San Antonio. It was fun playing with his satellite radio. The names of the stations are funny. One station is called "The Joint" and it plays reggae party music. And no, saying "reggae party" is not redundant because some reggae music is actually serious. Anyway, we had a pleasant surprise upon arrival to our hotel. I had booked a city view balcony room because that was the only option for a balcony room when I booked online, but we were offered a river view. That's my balcony there on the third floor:
We wandered around the Riverwalk Friday night and both totally lost our bearings. We never did know where we were. We finally found a place to eat dinner that wasn't a tourist chain and when we looked up from our table we realized our hotel was right across the river. That was funny, because we had no idea where we were.
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I was surprised at all the changes to the Riverwalk since 1988. It was pretty much all tourist chain restaurants, but worse than that was across from the Alamo, where scores of men died fighting for Texas, was a wax museum and a world record or believe it or not museum of hokey stuff. I thought that was disgraceful. It was at least very tacky.
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Anyway, we had fun on the Riverwalk. It was pretty crowded but not horribly so, although May is apparently The Time of Big Events. We saw idiotic bachelorette party girl groups at night wearing stupid hats and such and during the afternoon on Saturday, we saw several prom groups. There's a picture of one of those in the slideshow below. They were all very sweet and cute The picture of the five bells represents the original five Spanish missions of San Antonio, one of which was the Alamo.
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We had great food, enjoyed a great jazz band and had nice weather. I even got to hear street musicians sing Malagueña. The pretty girl on the left in the picture is singing it. I had never heard a woman sing it. She did a great job. It was a fun little vacation. Here are some pics:

San Antonio

2011-05-05T00:39:00.003-05:00

(photo from Southern Living)

Friday afternoon My Sweetie and I are taking our first road trip together since March of 2003. We are not big road trippers (obviously!), but My Sweetie bought a new Prius this year and has been itching to take it out on the road. We are heading south to San Antonio. With a few stops along the way, it should be about a five hour trip. San Antonio is most famous for its Riverwalk. The Riverwalk is really pretty and goes on and on. There are bars and cafes along the riverwalk and there are river taxis that cruise the water. You can see a bit of a river taxi just under the bridge up there. And there are other little pedestrian bridges like that so you can change sides or just stand up there and look around.
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The first time I went to San Antonio was in April 1984. My first husband and I were having a sort of ersatz honeymoon. We had married in January on a Thursday and he started a new job the following Monday. I guess he had to work there 90 days to qualify for a few days off. We actually went to the beach. It was my first Texas beach trip and being from North Carolina, I was really disappointed, but this story is not about the slack Texas coast. What we did was stop on the way in San Antonio to spend the night with his aunt and uncle - people he had not seen in years. We woke up the next morning and had horrible scrambled eggs that his aunt made and since I was 5 months pregnant, I don't know how I was able to slurp them down - they were like soup - but I was trying to be polite. Although I was then in a hurry to get to the "beach," he insisted that we make a stop at the Riverwalk downtown. I had never heard of it and had no real interest, but it was my birthday and I was in a good mood. I was very impressed. And it was 100° which was my personal high temperature record for my birthday. Still is. So as pretty as it was, it was very hot and I was quite pregnant so we did not stay long.
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In 1988 when my second husband and I were planning our little November getaway wedding we decided on San Antonio. We found a lovely boutique hotel on the river and got a room that opened out onto a long balcony. I knew it would not be 100° in November, but also knew it would be nice out and we planned to be married on the balcony on a Friday afternoon. We got there early afternoon on Thursday and had to go downtown to get the marriage license and so did not get a long time to enjoy the Riverwalk that day although we did have time to take a short river taxi cruise. The next day was all about getting ready for the wedding and then our guests began arriving early: my parents, his parents and two of his siblings. Then the wedding on the balcony followed by all of us walking to a nearby restaurant for dinner and then stopping in for drinks at our fancy hotel bar. I was very stressed because I had not met his parents before, so obviously I had not really had time to relax and enjoy the locale. On Saturday we got up, got ready and left to come back to DFW for a reception party with friends. So again, I did not get a chance to really explore the whole Riverwalk. And that was the last time I was there.
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Although this will also be a relatively short trip, there will be no distractions and I will finally be able to just amble along the Riverwalk and enjoy everything. It's supposed to be 93° and partly cloudy, but I am guessing that all the shady trees and the river will make the Riverwalk feel a bit cooler. And I won't be pregnant. And I won't be meeting future in-laws for the first time. This should be nice.

(Still) Not Like Other People

2011-05-03T00:01:00.003-05:00

That's the picture my best friend took when I parted ways with her and her friend that Thursday night in New York. I don't care for sweets. My friend posted that pic on her facebook and women wrote things like, "I want one of everything!" and "That's making me so hungry!
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Ewwww! Not only does nothing in that picture make me hungry in the least, but I find most of it repulsive. I studied the picture to see if I could find anything at all that I could eat and finally noticed the kiwi slices at the bottom. I could eat those. And I love strawberries, but upon close inspection the strawberries, as well as the other fruit all seem to be covered in some sort of sugary syrupy something. What a waste. But I could eat the kiwi slices.