This Is Getting Old

Wednesday night after I posted about my thumb, I was reading blogs and listening to the radio and after the second big weather alert came on I started watching the radar screen on the TV in here. It did not look good. About 3:00 I went to the big TV in the living room because it has full cable and I could watch the special local network weather channels. They were LIVE, which meant they felt a need to inform at 3:00 a.m. That's not good. About 3:15 I woke up My Sweetie and we watched for about 15 minutes as the rain started to pound and the wind whipped up and then POOF! The power went out and about 2 minutes later the alert sirens went off, so I jumped in the closet. It was all very loud and there was some small hail, but no big pounding hail like last year. All the whooshing and pounding rain lasted about 20 minutes or so. We went out to the car in the garage to check the radio and the giant vertical line of storms had moved on so we went to bed. The power popped back on just before 5:00. I was smart and had unplugged the TV so it wouldn't come on and wake us up, but just all the regular house sounds like the ceiling fan, fridge and whatnot coming on woke me up.
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When My Sweetie got up he checked our yard and roof and said we only lost one large branch from our big tree in the backyard. He went on to work and later when I got up and opened the front door, I saw all this in my neighbor's yard:

So I grabbed my camera and snapped a picture and decided to check out our backyard. This was the big branch he saw:

But what he didn't see was the REALLY BIG branch that was still hanging in the tree:

This is the spot, high up in the tree, it snapped from, but it is still hanging on by a few strands of wood:

Around 5:00, I drove to the drugstore and there were branches all over the place and some trees just snapped right off about halfway up. I wish I had taken my camera, but as I was at a light, I remembered my phone and snapped the picture at the top of a mangled carwash. (It's my first phone pic on my blog.) There was a really mangled used car dealership, but the picture did not come out well. My friend Carole had a lot of damage to a Maple in her front yard. All we lost in the front was a lot of mistletoe from our trees, but that is a good thing.

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I really feel bad for the one house I passed. There was the tree in the yard with a little circle of flowers around it, but about 5 1/2 feet up it was just a fresh wood point, like a manic giant had whittled a crude spear tip. And there were no branches in their yard. I wonder where their treetop went?

Good News? Bad News? You Decide.

Those are the actual hypodermic needles at the hand doctor's office today. One was novocaine aand the other was cortisone. The good news was that he did it somehow with only one needle. I didn't watch so I don't know how that works. But it hurt like fu[g?]! And it hurts right now. There was a groovy space where I was sitting in a bar drinking beer afterwards and the novocaine was all going on, but that passes as everyone knows that has slobbered and bitten their tongue after going to the dentist. On the bad news side, it is not fixable really. He diagnosed me with osteoarthritis. My Granny had that and her hands got really bad, but she lived to the age of 82 and I don't plan to get near that.

Above is a close-up of the 1 1/2 inch needle from Hell. I guess some good news is I won't need surgery until way down the road when my thumb becomes gnarly and deformed, if I live that long. It's a pity, all this, because I use my thumb quite often and I rather liked it fine until the last 4 or 5 months. Now, not so much. The good news is I now have a somewhat logical excuse to drink beer all the time (since a lot of people don't understand anxiety). I can say, "Hey! My thumb! It is not good! I'll have another beer! Please place it near my left hand in case I forget." I liked Dr. Hand Doctor even though I didn't know who he was until he left. The business card my regular doctor had given me had 4 names on it. Before I left I asked the nurse to circle his name on the card for me. He was the third one down. During the shot process which seemed to take 18 hours, I was "counting" and alphabeting" out loud to distract myself and it went something like this: 6, 12, 14, 7, 127, 91, d,e,b,z,y,x,52,71. Dr. Hand Doctor said, "127? Do you know any good jokes?" I said, "I know a million good jokes, but I just can't tell one right now, 37, 14, 8, 2, 17." If he thought I was weird he can just take a number and join everybody else.

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When I was in the waiting room my phone rang, but it is a new phone and my brain still has not filed the ring, so I looked at that lady sitting closest to me like, "Why aren't you answering your phone?" Then I realized SHE was looking at ME like "Why aren't you answering your phone?" Sure enough, I glanced in my purse and it was my phone ringing. I think I should call myself from the home phone tomorrow a few times and try to memorize the ring. I tried to download a BEP song a few weeks ago, but it went to my husband's phone because that's how I roll.

I wish they had let me pick a color for my new hand thing. I would not have picked "Sallow Yellow." That little band-aid strip part? That's where the metal strip is. I'm looking forward to wearing it through airport security.

The Icky and the Good

Warning: Do not read this while eating or if you are easily grossed out:
I was having a good ole time out in the yard prepping all my pots for flowers. I have a system that involves pulling out all the old roots, pulling out all the spring weed growth, and putting most of the old soil into a big tub that I have already filled with peat moss. I recycle the old soil with peat moss to use as a base and then I use new potting soil on top. I am also excessively pigeon-toed. I always say I have Fred Flintstone feet. What happened was, I got my Mom's toes and she wears a size 10 and my Dad's feet and he wore a men's 7. And my feet are flat and duck shaped. Seriously, I could win an ugly foot contest. Or all them if there were such contests. I always had problems with my pigeon-toedness. When I was little, I'd run excitedly and trip over my own feet. As an adult I have stabbed myself in the heel many times with the other foot, but heels are rather tough. Today, I was sitting on the edge of the deck, turned to stand up and walk across the deck and my left big toe nail slashed into my right foot. At first I just thought "Ouch!" and kept walking but thought, "Man, that really hurt!" and then I looked down and there was a giant open crater on my foot. My first impulse was to throw up and my second impulse was to faint (because I am the queasy type) and my brain got confused so I did neither. But I felt all gibbly goobly and went into thought mode. My first thought was, "I need to get a beer and a towel and a Band-Aid and the Neosporin and some paper towels and take a picture for my blog and go to the tub and rinse this thing out." In the picture, the part on the left is just blood. The crater is on the right. I couldn't bear to actually touch anything to the giant open crater, so after I rinsed it really well, I put the Neosporin on the Band-Aid and put that on. Man that was gross. But what was even grosser, was after I rinsed it, and had the Band-Aid on, I thought, "I wonder if that giant layer of skin that is missing from my foot is still stuck under my toenail?" Eeeeeeew. IT WAS! Ick ick ick. Then I felt all flooby again so I decided not to think about it. I continued planting flowers and occasionally glanced at the Band-Aid which was slowly being soaked with blood. So I decided not to think about that anymore, either. My Sweetie got home while I was still planting flowers and I told him about my horrific ordeal. He and I are opposite on our queasiness factor: insects make him queasy and blood and gore make me queasy so when I held up my left toe (the evil one) and showed him the giant piece of skin stuck there, he snatched it out and tossed it in the yard. I hope none of you were eating while you were reading this.

Here's the good part: Kansas won! I won $420!!!! I think the last thing I won was a pink plastic flute when I was in third or fourth grade at a Girl Scout Bingo game. Well, if you don't count casino wins (but hey, the losses at casinos SO outweigh the wins!). I thought it was cool that the top prize was $420 because my birthday is 4/20. I'm going to send $100 to St.Jude's Childrens Hospital because that was my deal with The Universe. So I have a hole in my Fred Flintstone foot, but I have some money coming and St. Jude's will get $100. It's not all bad.

The Weekend

I finally bought flowers today (Sunday I mean, it's 3:00 in the morning here). Every year I wait until I know it won't get cold again and not only that, but I am going to a hand doctor on Wednesday and if I need surgery I want to get it as soon as possible, so I figured I better get all my flowers planted right away. We also bought some nice mesh patio chairs to replace our old tired and hail-damaged green resin chairs. And it was official "coming out day" for my poor old legs as I wore shorts out in public for the first time this year. When I first started aging, I once went a whole summer without wearing shorts. I figured the public shouldn't have to be subjected to the creepy veins and whatnot. And this is Texas, which gets very hot. I must have been insane. I remember the next year thinking, "What the hell was I thinking?" It's not like I am tying people up and making them look at my leg veins. Or maybe I just had leg "vains." When I was younger my legs were one of my best assets. Ah, those were the days. Anyway, I'll take some pictures tomorrow (today, actually) after I get my flowers potted.

Saturday was My Sweetie's birthday and we were originally going to go to Dave & Busters, but around mid-afternoon, he decided he'd rather stay home and watch the Final Four. (That's the last four teams playing in the college basketball championship, for those of you who do not know what that is.) That was fine with me, because, A) It was his birthday and he can do whatever he wants and B) Those two games were very important for me if I am going to win the money and C) Christopher Walken was hosting "Saturday Night Live." I had all the "fixin's" to make beef fajita quesadillas, so we also had a great meal. And both of my picks WON!

Not only did I have Kansas to win that game, I have them to win the whole tournament. And because I am a Duke fan, Carolina is our ARCH RIVAL, so that game was particularly sweet. We danced and marched around and whooped and high-fived for about 15 minutes after the game was over. I hope I don't jinx myself here, but if Kansas wins tonight, I win around $400. On a $10 buy-in. The worst case scenario is I come in 3rd and win $20. And SIXTY people are on my brackets. Woot woot! On the downside of Saturday night was "Saturday Night." Christopher Walken has always been one of our favorite SNL hosts and he was terrible. In every skit he stood there shamelessly reading the cue cards and never even glanced at the other actors in the scene. Yeah, he's 65, but if he didn't want to bother to learn his lines or has lost the ability to glance at a cue card and say his lines, he should not have hosted. I was glad My Sweetie fell asleep on the couch and didn't see that.

(My Other Sweetie)

A $Rant$

I've been wanting to do a post about this for a long time and I hope I haven't already because I have been blogging for a long time and I drink a lot of beer. One of my biggest pet peeves is when People or some other magazine or "Entertainment Tonight" reports on some celebrity's million dollar wedding or party and some knucklehead writes in and says something like, "I think it's a disgrace that [insert name here] would spend all that money on a party when it could feed people all over the world." or something to that effect. HELLO?!? Do these yahoos think the money is shredded and thrown into the ocean? When someone has a million dollar party they are paying for food, food servers, flowers, decorations, music, etc. etc. The florist pays people to arrange their flowers and drive their vans, the food servers and cooks are being paid, the musicians, the decorators and everyone that works for them. The money goes all over the place down to the guys that wash the dishes and vacuum the carpet afterward. When a celebrity has a million dollar party they are sending money out into the economy instead of letting it sit in their Cayman Island or Swiss bank account. Why am I the only one that gets this?

Random Somesense

I guess in a lot of ways, I am like a guy. And that's good when it comes to fixing things, changing tires etc., and using logic over emotion, but it's not always so good when it comes to going to the doctor. I mentioned in an earlier post that I finally made an appointment with my doctor to get a referral for a hand doctor for my thumb. The thumb that has not been good for like 4 or 5 months. Well my thumb has been killing me lately and I was all mad at myself for waiting so long, but then something good came of it. I made the appointment last Wednesday (meaning not this most recent past Wednesday) for an appointment tommorrow (Friday) because my doctor is apparently VERY popular. Well, what happened was, since then I have developed a new problem which, although I am not a doctor, I play one in my house, is a urinary tract infection of some sort. I said a while back that I would not discuss peeing, but since this is medical pee, I gave myself an exemption. I mean I would never post about doing mushrooms in 1979 and waking up in a park and peeing on a duck. Because that would be wrong on so many levels, the first of which is it didn't happen. Although ducks feathers do repel liquid. But really, that's neither here nor there. And I promise it really didn't happen. (No animals were harmed in the goofiness of the last couple of sentences.)
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So what I'm going to do is cause a lot of problems for random strangers. When I go into the doctor's office, they will call me back to hall 3 to weigh me and when they do, I will say, "Uhm, since I made this appointment, I have had a bit of pee trouble and will need one of your little pee cups." This is what causes delays in doctors' offices. A hand doctor referrral probably should take about 10 minutes. But now I will have to pee in a cup, describe those symptoms along with my thumb symptoms and wait for the results. My bad. And in case you thought doctors just overbooked like airlines, you were wrong. Well, in most cases.
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Speaking of airlines, I booked my Vancouver trip (YAY! YIPPEEE!) in early February and although my next trip is only 13 days later, I did not book our flights until today. Unfortunately the best flight to Wilmington, N.C. leaves here at 10:05 a.m. That will seem like nothing to most of you but I normally sleep until noon except on Wednesdays when I have to get up at 8:30. So on THAT day I will have to get up at 6:45 and that will be horrible. Fortunately I can sleep on a plane quite easily. But 6:45? Ack! Maybe my Vancouver trip will help turn my clock around a little bit. I normally wake up earlier on vacations and Vancouver is already 2 hours earlier, so if I can stick to that, maybe that 6:45 a.m. wake up won't be so bad.
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On a lighter note, it was lizard city around here today. I saw these two guys just outside my garage side door by the garbage cans. Or maybe it's a guy chasing a girl?

Then from the same spot where I was standing I saw this guy, through the garage door windows, on top of my mailbox:And this is just a cute picture of Barney from tonight. Although he weighs 15 pounds, he still acts like a kitten and is always chasing his tail. Tonight when he caught his tail, he somehow also caught his foot:

A Tornado in December?

I don't know how many of you have DVRs, but I really really love my DVR! After my husband went to bed tonight I watched a silly show I had recorded and I was recording something else at the same time. I started thinking about how TV viewing has come such a long way. I'm old enough that we had 3 stations and they went off the air at midnight and played the national anthem. And that was that for TV watching for the day. There were no VCRs or DVD players. Or cable, or anything. Then we got a few independent channels. And at Halloween one station would do an all night spook spectacular with all the old classic horror films. That was an EVENT. But I think I've probably posted about this before.
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But what I hadn't thought of before was when the VCR first came out. This sounds so stupid now, but when a good movie would come on TV, we'd try to record it without the commercials. You know, hit record, then stop, then record after the commercials and so on and so on. That seems so remarkably stupid now. I guess it took a while to figure out that it was MUCH easier to just fast forward during the commercials. But here's something even dumber: The first time Star Wars came on regular TV, we recorded it. Well the night it aired Texas was having weather. And when Texas has weather it's a very big deal, so the entire movie had weather alerts running under it, weather maps in the corners and occasional pre-emptions with dire predictions of even more weather. So when we'd watch the recording after that we'd forget it was a recording and jump up and look out the window. I really love my DVR.

More Ribbon, Please

I've barely mentioned that I've been very busy putting together a 30th wedding anniversary dinner for my In-Laws. They were married in Hawaii 30 years ago this April 29th. To some of you ladies this probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but I am no event planner. This is all pretty new to me. I have reserved The Winchester Room at a local country club, picked out a menu, picked out flowers for centerpieces, and sent the invitations that I made myself (I am a graphic artist by trade in case you forgot, although I haven't worked in 9 years). I will have a display table for photographs. When I went to my In-Law's house for Easter, I picked up the pictuers my MIL wants on the table. Well, she had a handful of loose (unframed) photos, so I decided to make a photo board out of the Hawaiian print cloth that I'm using under the floral centerpieces. I always see these things on HGTV so I figured, "Hey, that looks simple!" Yeah, my brain is simple.


I went to Home Depot and bought a 24" x 24" piece of plywood. I had some batting already, and I had the cloth. The first picture is the back of the plywood with the batting already stapled down and the cloth underneath. The next picture is the finshed board and I was so happy everything went so well. Well, what happened was, when I laid out the ribbon to figure out the criss cross pattern, I realized I did not have enough ribbon.

Saturday we went back for more ribbon. I bought all they had. Today, I started working on the layout of the ribbon, was feeling good and had a plan. Everything was going great and then... And then I ran out of ribbon. Arrrgh! The third picture is my unfinished photo board. I have a doctor appointment on Friday to get a referral for a hand doctor because my right thumb has become almost useless and painful to the extreme, so I will go back to see if they have restocked. If not, we will go on Saturday to a different location to get the ribbon.

In case you don't know what a photo board is, the 4th picture shows you how it works.

Also on Saturday, we went to Party City and bought 35 pink silk flower leis. They wore pink leis at their wedding so, I thought it would be fun to hand them out to the guests. This is what 35 pink leis look like in a pile on my couch:

And at the fabric store I found this heart wreath foam thingie and made a little tube with my Hawaiian fabric to cover it.

Except for the pain in my thumb, I'm having fun with all these projects, but my advice to you is: If you ever get the insane desire to make a photo board, make sure you have about 800 thousand yards of ribbon and that's probably 6 kilometers if you live in Canada.

Yeah, I'm gonna say no.

I've mentioned many times that I watch HGTV a lot. And I mean A LOT. There has been a terrible trend in the last year or so to put chandeliers everywhere. Bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen sinks. But what bothers me the most is when they take a ceiling fan out of a bedroom and replace it with a chandelier. I am VERY hot natured and I live in a VERY hot climate. If a designer came into my house and replaced the ceiling fan in my bedroom with a chandelier, I would slap them silly and hold a sharp pointy object to them until they put the fan back. And then I'd make them hang the chandelier in my garage. Because that would be cool.

3 2 4 1

I thought dyslexia was something you started out with and worked through and lost over time. I started out fine. I was a star in elementary school. I did pretty well in junior high. I did some fine work in high school. I graduated Cum Laude. Between all my spoonerisms and other weirdnesses, today I noticed something really odd. My Dad was an insurance salesman and in North Carolina all driving infractions have a point value that affects your insurance rates. When he was teaching me how to drive he made a big deal out of what he called a "rolling stop." He said they saw that every day on their customers' records. He always told me to count to three when I stop at a stop sign. Today I stopped at a stop sign and realized that I counted, "3, 2, 4, 1." I laughed at myself and then two hours later, I did it again.

The Story of the Dogs

Last Wednesday was a nice day. I was in a good mood because everything was going so well and I didn't have any major errands to run after Meals on Wheels. More specifically, I didn't have to go to the grocery store. I really, really miss grocery delivery service. (Dear Grocery Peoples: Please start up a delivery service in my area again. Thank you.) So anyway, I was in such a good mood, I had forgotten all about Sir Bites-a-lot. As I was getting out of my truck at the house just before that one I noticed the new board in the fence across the street and was glad it was there. There used to be dog that barked his head off with his crazy face sticking out where the one fence board was missing. And when I thought of that, I remembered.
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When I got back in my truck, I packed up all their stuff and had it ready. And the house was right around the corner so I didn't have much time to get all fired up. I wanted to just pull up and honk my horn but that would have been goofy, so I called them. A lady answered and I said (quite tersely), "Hi this is 'Geewits' with Meals on Wheels and I'm out here in my truck with your food. I'm not going to come to the door because your dog bit me last week." She said, "Oh, I'm holding him and someone else is coming to the door." I asked, "Can you guarantee that dog will not come out that door?" She barked, "I'm holding him!" So now I was "fired up" (I wanted to use the P word here, but it's not very Southern Belle, so I'll go with "fired up"). I marched up to the door and as I was walking up, Mr. Cigar (he always has a cigar in his hand) says, "He'll either be closed off in a room or someone will be holding him." I thrust his food at him and said, "Yeah, that was NOT pleasant." I turned sharply and marched back to my truck and never looked back. And Wednesday? I will call them again from my truck. And every Wednesday after that. So there!
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I felt slightly redeemed after that and continued to have a pleasant afternoon. When I got home, the yappy-ass dog that belongs to my uphill neighbors was outside and ran right up to me barking his idjit head off. Ran right up to me in MY YARD. Barking. AT me. IN MY YARD. I was furious. So what did I do? I reached in my purse, whipped out my camera and took a picture. That freaked the dog out and he ran back home. (And yes we need to mow. I have told the mower, and yet...) It's hard to complain about anything with those neighbors though because the man is a WWII vet and I have a very soft spot in my heart for WWII vets. But that dog better stay away from me.

So just in case you are starting to think I am a dog hater, I will finish this post by telling you about Lonesome George. We went to my In-Laws for Easter dinner on Sunday and were in the backyard looking at the extensive tree work my FIL had had done. They have a smallish regular backyard, but behind their little brick wall their yard is one steep hill. You can look down into the yards from the next street. Well, directly behind them is an empty house, but someone keeps a dog in the yard and just shows up to feed it. It's a Bassett Hound looking dog. Or maybe it's an actual Bassett Hound.He looked so sad and lonely. We picked our way down the very steep incline on rough-hewn stone steps, which I wish I had taken a picture of, and went to the fence where we petted the friendly lonely dog and talked to him. He was so sweet. Poor Lonesome George. My FIL named him that and it seemed like a good name for him. I wanted to steal him and take him to a loving home. Who would leave a dog at an empty house? Poor little guy!
So now you know the truth. I do not hate dogs. I just hate dogs that live next door and yap incessantly and dogs that run out and bite me all over my foot.

Mr. Watson, Something is Afoul!

Thursday night My Sweetie was very, very embarassed to ask me if I had gas. This may not seem like anything to some of you, but in our house, unless we need medical attention, we do not discuss bodily functions. Of any kind. So I looked at him like he was crazy and asked him why he would ask me that. He said he smelled something bad in the entryway by the coat closet. I went over there and couldn't smell anything. I've been getting over a slight cold so my sniffer wasn't up to snuff, but I said, "Maybe it's the trash." He took the trash out and that was the end of the whole thing. Well, the end of the whole thing for Thursday night. Friday after I got up and walked through the entryway, I almost gagged. My first thought was "Oh NO! Our sewer pies are leaking under the house!!" I bent down and sniffed near the floor and the smell was not as strong. I stood back up, lifted my head and sniffed and realized the smell was coming from above. Then I knew we had a dead animal in the attic. I called "my guy." My guy is the man that replaced my shower last year that I call for everything. I called him to get a referral for someone to put my mural behind my toilet and to get a plumber when I was replacing my faucets and the shut off valves started leaking. I can do faucets, but I'm not going to mess with a shut off valve. Anyway the poor guy was almost at a loss (and most likely wishing he had never given me his card) and mentioned several pest control companies. We have a contract with one because of our past termite problem. (And yes I could have linked to all of these stories but it would have been link city in here.) So I thanked him profusely like I always do and called my termite company. The girl that answered the phone referred me to a company that takes care of this type of thing. I called them. About three hours later, the guy showed up.


I was very lucky that it was a gorgeous day and I could open all the windows - otherwise I would not have been able to eat my lunch. Dead animals have a dead animal smell. The guy was very interesting. I told him, "You should be on that TV show." It's a show about nasty jobs and he told me they were in talks with the guy. They do all sorts of animals and as a matter of fact he had just come from a bee job and had been stung several times and his right eye was almost swollen shut. I should have done a close up of the truck so you could read the stuff on it. Well he went up in my attic and sure enough, there was dead Mrs. Brisby. She was about 8 inches (not counting the tail) long. Isn't she lovely?

I had seriously been hoping it was a dead squirrel up there because rats are just gross. Animal guy was trying to tell me that rats and squirrels are the same except "squirrels get better press" which is a very old joke. I've also heard that rats and squirrels only differ because squirrels have pretty bushy tails. I told animal guy: No. The difference is squirrels go around in the daytime doing their thing in public whereas rats sneak around and hide in the dark like they are up to something. Speaking of up to something, it cost $300. Rats! That price included some chemicals where Mrs. Brisby died and he did an inspection to see where she got in. He found a huge hole under the eaves by our front door. He told me to just put cardboard over it to see if it was still being used, so we did that this morning:

The good news is the smell is gone and we found the hole. But $300? I'll go up there myself if I ever smell a dead animal in the attic again. Oh, and that it wasn't sewage pipes. That would have cost a LOT more than $300. See? I always see the good side of things.

My Favorite Photo

I was going to do a post tonight about my return visit on Wednesday to the house of the stupid dog that bit my foot last Wednesday, but I was talking to my neighbor today and I mentioned this Hubble Ultra Deep Field photo so I decided to post about that instead.

I think this is by far my favorite photo that I've ever seen. I like it better than any famous photo and better even than any of my own personal photos. I believe it is the only picture that I have spent so long looking at. I usually look at it for about 20 or 30 minutes each time I look at it. To get a better understanding of what you are looking at go here. To think that I am able to see a tiny pinpoint in space that existed 13 billion years ago thrills me to no end. It makes me feel alive and happy and wondrous and oh, so many other good ways. I hope you get the same thrill that I do and I'll talk about the stupid dog some other time.

No Weather For Travel

It has rained ALL DAY here. And not in a good way. The news stories have been terrible. The airport was shut down most of the day and they said it was affecting airports all over the country. I always feel so bad for all those people stuck at the airport, especially the ones that were just meant to change planes. In all my years of air travel, I've never been in a situation like that. I think I'd handle it okay, though. It's not like I'd be traveling with a baby. Now that would suck! I'd probably just drink until I passed out somewhere. That would be the easiest way to sleep in an airport anyway. You'd just have to have enough wits about you to sleep on top of your stuff so no one could steal anything. Well as usual, I'm thinking about this too much because it will probably never happen to me. Catastrophic weather always happens just before my trips. Katrina happened before my New Orleans trip with my daughter and we already had plane tickets and room reservations. And some forgotten hurricane happened in Mexico about two or three weeks before a trip my husband and I had planned. I think it was Cozumel, but I don't remember now.

It's one in the morning here and I've been hearing planes pretty steadily for the past hour or so, so I guess they are working to finally get some of those people out of there. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice and even eventually sunny: A good day for my Meals on Wheels route, a bad day to work at the airport.

My Unforgettable Dad

I guess since the year turned, I've been thinking a lot about my Dad. This October will be the 10th anniversay of his death. In some ways that seems crazy. How can TEN years have gone by? I'm sure I'll be writing about him a lot this year, but for now I'll just leave you with our song:

Irish Basketball

I love St. Patrick's Day. Well, it's all about being rowdy and drinking beer, right? I'm not going to put green food coloring in my beer, but I'll probably pin one of my little leprechaun troll pins on my t-shirt today. My first two married names were very Irish and I really loved the second one. The first one is my daughter's last name and she even has red hair, so she's very Irish. Her Irish is straight from her father mostly, but I have some too. I believe it's from my Dad's mother's side of the family. And even my Dad's Dad's sisters were redheads, so there may be some over there, too.

Saturday night we had dinner out with our neighbors. I told you guys a while back about the neighbor that helped me out when my washing machine died. Well since then we've talked on the phone, e-mailed and spent a little more time together. I decided it was time for the husbands to meet. We went to Texas Roadhouse which I've probably mentioned before. I love their green beans and will be having leftover ribs and green beans for lunch today. Green beans seem right for St. Patrick's Day.

Anyway, I was a little nervous, because, well, because I'm always nervous. I got that from my Granny. We're just a bunch of nervous people in the geewits family. But as usual, everything went well and we had a GREAT time. It's so fun to meet people that you have so much in common with. I'm hoping we will spend more time with the Fun Neighbors. (Scrabble?)

Saturday wasn't all good, though. Duke lost the semi-final round of the ACC tournament, but I didn't cry. We've had such a good season, I knew we were guaranteed a spot in the NCAA tournament. I know most of you don't follow college basketball or March Madness, but I'll be living it and breathing it for the next couple of weeks. Duke got a number 2 seed in the west. I also play in a brackets game for money. I'll be studying the newspaper and the internet today to make my picks. It's always tough because I want to win the money, but I'm a loyal fan. And it's tough to pick the game Duke might lose, but I really can't see them winning the whole thing this year. Or can they? I have a few days to make my picks. I would love for Duke to win it again, but.....

Anyway, have a great St. Patrick's day and have a beer and make a toast to me, your favorite beer drinker! (Not you, Ian.)

When TV was Great

We've been working our way through the old "Mary Tyler Moore" shows since Christmas. When I was making my Christmas wish list I suddenly realized with a bit of shock that I didn't own any Mary. I got Season 1 for Christmas and we loved it so much, my husband kept ordering them. I actually felt sort of sorry for him because he was only 5 when the first one aired. I was 11 and remember how much my parents were looking forward to this new show.
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It was a Saturday night show and was part of the then "Must see TV" line-up on Saturdays that included "All in the Family" and "The Carol Burnett Show"and two years later, "The Bob Newhart Show." I loved Saturday nights. We lived across a dirt road from Leroy's which was a little country store and many Saturday nights Dad would send my brother over there for candy bars or my Mom would make popcorn. And we always had Pepsi.
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I didn't really realize how much Mary's wardrobe on the show influenced my Mom. They were close to the same age and looked a lot alike. We were not wealthy so my Mom made a lot of our clothes. She was pretty good at it too. She was always in there sewing away and make some really good outfits. It's crazy and well kinda touching watching the show now and recognizing so many outfits. When we watch the show I find myself saying stuff like: "My Mom made herself a suit just like that!" or "Mom had a dress just like that!" One of my favorite memories is when Mom went into my brother's room one Saturday and took a blue vinyl bedspread off of one of his bunkbeds and made herself a skirt and vest. People went crazy over it. It WAS the seventies, okay?
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But back to the show. It really amazes me how fresh and funny this show is. There is not a lot of topical humor, or maybe I should say there isn't TOO MUCH topical humor. It's really just great universal situational humor. We are currently on the 3rd disk of season three and it's gotten so funny, I don't even want to watch it while I eat. I don't want to choke or spew food all over the floor from laughing. My Sweetie says the third season is when a really great show hits its stride - and this show is really great now. We also have season 4 and I'm looking forward to more Mary & the Gang. If you're in the mood for something different, rent the first season and watch this either for the first time or all over again. It's really fun stuff and will put you in a good mood. You just might love it after all.

My Turn to Rant

Two weeks ago, a little dog, like the one in the picture, ran out of a house I've been to many times and went berserk and sort of nipped at me. I was pretty upset because it's taken me many years to be relaxed around dogs because I was always afraid of them because of childhood traumas and a lot of Meals on Wheels clients have dogs. I told My Sweetie and maybe Lo about it and I meant to call the MOW office but I forgot. And then last week nothing happened.

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The day started out bad enough. A woman in Dallas tossed her two sons off of an overpass onto a highway and then jumped. That's not the first news you want to hear in the morning. Your brain starts swirling with all the: Why would anyone do that? How could you do that to your children? What was she thinking? How can a mother ever cause harm to her kids? They all survived as of the last news I heard, but they are all in the hospital. And what about those poor people driving on the highway and see a kid come tumbling down? Sheeeesh. People are so freaking weird.

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After the news I was watching "The View" and getting a kick out of the womens' take on Governor Whorehound and then I was all excited because they were introducing my idol: Carol Burnett. Just as they introduced her, the network cut away to a special report and it was Governor Whorehound announcing his resignation. If I lived in New York, that would be important, but for crying out loud it was Carol Burnett!

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This house with the bad dog has a sign on the door: Do not ring bell. Baby sleeping. Well last week I was distracted because my daughter was with me and I rang the bell and as soon as I did I felt horrible and I apologized like crazy and the woman said, "Oh she's not even here." That made me feel better, but as I was driving over there today I kept repeating in my head, "Don't ring the doorbell, don't ring the doorbell." So I walk up to the door and before I can even knock, the door opens. I said, "I wasn't going to ring the bell." She responds, "I need to take that down, she's in daycare now." and then grabs the sign from the door. I start handing her all the stuff (there are two clients there) and then that same freaking dog runs out and goes berserk and attacks my right foot. I mean he is BITING me. I just sort of froze because it happened so fast. She finally reached down and smacked him and he ran back in the house and she's all "I'm so sorry, he's never done that. We'll lock him up next time." And me, because I'm so moronic when under pressure said, "That's not cool." That's not cool? Hey! 1974 called and they want their hippie back! WTF? That's not cool? Why would I say that? What am I, 14? Johnny Fever?

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It was 78 today and I knew it was going to be 78 and thought about wearing sandals, but I got lazy and didn't want to clip my toenails so I wore tennis shoes. I kept thinking, "What if I had worn sandals?" When I got to my bar I called MOW to report the incident and the nice lady said, "We haven't gotten complaints from anyone else." I wish I had said, "Well good for them." but what I said was, "Next Wednesday I will call them from my truck in their driveway and they can come out and get the food or tell me the dog is locked up." Urg.

~

There was a TV show in the 80's where a guy found a watch that froze time. He would fix situations. I wish I had that watch. I would go to that bridge in Dallas this morning, grab those children from that deranged mom and hand her that dog. Now THAT is cool.

Random Stuff

I was so sad when little David Archuleta bombed tonight on "American Idol." (He's the one on the left for those of you who are too cool to watch this show.) I actually started to tear up, but I was also chewing a bite of quesadilla and I found out a long time ago that crying and eating do not mix well.


Friday, I got the pots and pans I had ordered from Macy's. I had always wanted stainless steel cookware but never quite got around to it. Then I get this e-mail from Macy's that's all "KITCHENWARE CLEARANCE WITH FREE SHIPPING TODAY ONLY." So, you know, I had to go at least look. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. The brand is Cuisinart and I am IN LOVE. I've used 4 of them so far. That one right behind the tomatoes up there? I've never had anything like that, but I've always wanted something like that so that one is my very favorite. I stored the dutch oven away because I'm not a big dutch oven user, but I will be using the other ones all the time. Every time I look at them or touch them, in my head I sing a rousing chorus of "How [did] I live without you?" Yeah, I'm weird.

Speaking of new, I mentioned I finally got a new phone. That's the old one on the left and the new one on the right. I haven't really used it yet. I usually only use my phone on Wednesdays when I do Meals on Wheels, so maybe I will get to use it tomorrow. And speaking of tomorrow, tomorrow is Catfish Wednesday! Yay! I love Catfish Wednesday. I really am very easily amused.

Popular by default

How I felt at the party.

Friday night was certainly weird. It was a work party/(very long) happy hour event celebrating 3 different things for two different people. And yeah, I don't work, so it was my husband's company. I wasn't really looking forward to it for all the reasons you can imagine and also because I feel like I have to keep a sense of decorum at these things and I'm not all that decorous when I'm at a big loud party. Is decorous a word? But it ended up being a fun and very interesting night. The wackiest part was how people that had initially generally ignored me, upon finding out I was Mrs. My Sweetie, were fawning all over me. Like they had a sudden personality transplant. Those people really really love my husband. Or something. I started to feel like a celebrity. Or a celebrity's wife. I did take my cue from the behavior of others and cut loose a bit. I sang "Happy Birthday" to the birthday guy and "Happy Trails" to the going away guy after inhaling helium. It seemed to go over well. I have a really funny helium voice. There were also vendors there including an old vendor from my working days that I knew from 1995. I told him he looked exactly the same to me but he took it as an insult. I didn't mean it as one. I'm probably 40 pounds heavier, not to mention 13 years older, so I know I didn't look the same. If he had told me I looked the same, I would have taken it as a compliment. I even met a guy that's married to a woman that used to work there. Small world, I guess. The best one was I met a blogger that reads 3 different things I read. He asked me for my blog and I told him I couldn't tell him because of my husband's request for anonymity and he works with my husband. He said he would try to figure it out from the blogs we both read. I never comment on one of them (dooce) very rarely comment on another (Wil Wheaton) and I don't think he could guess me from TVGasm. I felt bad that I couldn't tell him, but I have to respect my husband's wishes. It ended up being quite a long night but we made it home in one piece. We were very close to the house, thank goodness.

We finally updated our phones today. And because I am quite a cheapo about some things, we opted for the free upgrade phones. They are very tiny. I sure won't miss having to remember the keypad lock thing. And the phone takes pictures in case I forget my camera. My husband's phone was even older than mine and he didn't even have text messaging so he went crazy. We went to the grocery store after we got the phones and he texted me from like 30 feet away. What a goof! I can supposedly check my e-mail on this phone but I'll probably never figure that out.

I'd love to close by saying it was a great weekend but my team lost the big game against their arch rivals on Saturday and came in second for their conference. I cried. It sucked. But they can still win the conference tournament. But not if they play like they did on Saturday. There's still March Madness after that and of course:

There's always next year!

My Blogging Mentor

Jazz awarded me the Blogging Mentor award. I have to say I was shocked and extremely honored (honoured, as she would say). When I first saw this award going around I started thinking about what it meant. Then, of course, because I have a spritely (spastic?) brain, I began thinking about my whole blogging experience. It 's a goofy story which is entirely appropriate as it is my story.

What happened was, years ago, maybe 2003 or 2004, I was reading my People Magazine and there was a little blurb about an anonymous Hollywood blog that had everyone guessing. I didn't know what a blog was, but I punched in the stuff and found a very funky website by a guy who claimed to be a Hollwood Player and had all sorts of interesting and sordid stories. He interspersed all these colorful showbiz anecdotes with little short stories. Because it was a big mystery about who this guy was, I became intrigued and did lots of research. I read the whole thing and checked dates and whatnot and decided it had to be Steve Martin. After the People article, I wasn't the only curious person checking out his site, and he got tired of people just commenting guesses, like "Are you Ben Affleck?"( Which was stupid of course, because he was obviously much older.) He started turning over his blog to guest writers and "friends" and eventually stopped blogging. I did once leave this comment: "You were born in Waco, Texas in 1945." He stopped posting close enough after that time to make me think I was right.

I also did a search on an expression once and found Plurp, a website that ended in 2004. I still didn't know the word "blog" in 2003, so I'd say, "I have to read the Plurp." Please don't look it up, because my comments there are very dorky.

I don't remember what the blog server was for "Steve Martin" but at the top of the page was a link that said something like "read other blogs" or something to that effect. I was bored one night and clicked on it and there was a page of recent posts. I would randomly click on them and most were boring or creepy, but one night I hit on one that was interesting to me. I have no idea why. If I remember correctly, she was a wife and mom of two kids in Kentucky and was in the healthcare business. I guess I just liked the way she said stuff. Well one night she said, "You HAVE to check out this blog!" That was Jay's Party, which is still there but ended in June 2005. (And if you want to check it out, you should start at the beginning.) I found it absolutely riveting! Remember the TV viewers on The Truman Show? It was like that.

Well, I found Jeanette (the cutie in the picture with me up there) in Jay's comments. The name "Jeanette" is special to me, so I contacted her to join her private blog. I loved her blog. We had that wonderful thing where we were very similar and very different (My favorite combination!) so I was always leaving all sorts of long comments and she always said, "You need to make a blog." Many times. Finally one day I did. So, I guess Jeanette is my blogging mentor. Thanks Jeanette! I'm really enjoying it!

Wecome to Texas!

I think it was 70 degrees yesterday (Sunday). I can't help but wonder if that's the day all the national new reporters flocked (like BIRDS!, heh heh) to Texas to cover Tuesday's primary. They were probably quite warm depending on their home bases. They probably spent Sunday getting settled in and playing golf. And then tonight it snowed. I think the temperature dropped 36 degrees in less than 24 hours. I wonder how many of the reporters did not bring a coat?

Speaking of the national news, ABC's "World News Tonight" did a story on the grackle problem here and of course mentioned Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, so I was thinking, Do they read my blog? It was quite a coincidence that they reported on it today. After years of dealing with these annoying birds, they have finally found a solution: Hawks. Apparently hawks can take down and kill 6 or more grackles in a day and the grackles do not like the hawks and may go away on their own. And these are pet hawks and the hawk owners are getting paid for this. Only in Texas.

Today was the first time my Mom and I have had a political argument. We have always been on the same page in the past, but now we are in different books. She is in her retirement place in North Carolina but still registered to vote here. She even tried to get her husband to drive her here to vote, but he's not only in a different book, he's in a different bookstore. She tried so hard to persuade me to vote her way and I tried so hard to explain why I was voting my way. Now I'm glad she's out of town so that her vote does not cancel out my vote. I've put a lot of thought into this vote, almost too much, but I have made my decision and that is that.

I've mentioned before how Texans love being the center of attention and now this primary has become important and the hype is incredible. Phrases like "Texas is the Belle of the Ball," are all over the news. And then it snowed tonight and Texas goes crazy for Weather. I actually felt sorry for the news directors. The night before the primary AND snow. They must have been going crazy.

But You Have To Know How

Happy Downtowner tagged me with that page 123 meme. The thing is, Ticknart had this a while back and unfortunately I have the same book near my computer. The book is Hey! It's That Guy which is a book about character actors and unfortunately page 123 is the page for Brian Thompson and there is nothing really interesting about him (I hope he doesn't read this). I couldn't help but wonder if this meme started out to build a funny story with all these random 5 lines from books.

When I was in 7th grade we did a fun creative writing exercise. We started writing a story and then a timer dinged (DING!) and we passed our paper to the person behind us. This went on until our original story had worked its way down the row and back to us and we then had to wrap up the story. I thought it was fascinating how my original concept changed. I actually kept that piece of paper and it is probably in one of those boxes that I keep.

A lady named Rhea challenged Josie to write a six word memoir based on Hemmingway's six word story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." I noticed nearly all of the responses to Rhea's challenge were very, uhm, adjectivey or haikuish. (I don't think those are real words, but what the hey?) People seemed kinda freaked out by the concept. I thought it was too easy. I recently commented on Happy Downtowner's blog that this line from The Cat in the Hat is practically my mantra: Look at me, look at me, look at me now. It is fun to have fun, but you have to know how.

My 6 word memoir is this: I know how to have fun.

How Wednesday Went

I don't go to Red Lobster enough to remember why I don't go there. I hope the next time I think about going to lunch there someone will run up and kick me in the shin. Their tartar sauce tastes like bad coleslaw with too much onion. Their shrimp is tiny and dry and the service was awful and I was at the bar. I walked in and said, "I'm going to sit at the bar." The dudes (there were TWO of them) said, "Okay, we'll bring a menu right over." About 7 minutes passed with no menu and no bartender. She finally came out and took the order of the guy on my left who had sat down 4 minutes after I did. I hope I remember not to go there again.

The morning started out bad enough. I already had the shower running when the doorbell rang. AT 9:30 A.M.!!!! My first thought was "Why is my doorbell ringing at 9:30?" My next thought was "Who would ring my doorbell at 9:30?" I opened the door and it was the lawn service guy. We just started this lawn service and I told the guy, "Make a note to NEVER come here on Wednesdays." I was very irritated because I had to close the blinds in my bedroom and bathroom. I like my blinds open. But because I am generally a positive thinker, I realized in the shower that if the guy had arrived 10 minutes later, I would have been in the shower and seen a guy walking around in my backyard. That would not have been good.

My MOW route seemed to take forever. My first stop was a no response and I had to got through all the protocol that I've talked about before. At my third stop, my buddy lady wanted me to do a few things and my fifth stop guy wanted to talk and he talks veeeerrrrrrrryyyy ssssslllllooooowwwlllllllyyyy. I finally finished my route and made my stupid lunch decision.

After my bad lunch I went to the country club to meet with James Bond and he was still in his 2:00 meeting. My waiting narcolepsy kicked in and I was just about to doze off in the lobby when I was saved by some other guy walking up and offering to show me around. The room (the Winchester Room - how Texasy is that?!?) was nice and has a great view over the golf course and a little pond. When we were finished there and went back upstairs, James Bond was ready for me. I had fun picking out the menu and discussing various things. I'm almost 47 and have never planned anything like this so it was a great learning experience.

Now all I can think about is this event and I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about centerpieces and whatnot. I need to stop that. It's just that I keep getting ideas all the time. They were married in Hawaii, so I want to have leis for everyone. But I did choose to have an open bar. And that was for me.

I'm So Jealous!

I just got off the phone with my husband. He's on a business trip and told me the speaker this morning was Lewis Black. Lewis Black is my FAVORITE comedian (and I do a funny impersonation of him). He also said there are bunnies all over the resort and that one nearly ran across his foot. Bunnies and Lewis Black. Wow.

I've been busy trying to plan a wedding anniversary dinner for my husband's parents. I am meeting James Bond tomorrow at a country club to go over the menu. Yes, James Bond is the catering director at a country club. Who knew? Maybe he's working undercover.

The Birds

I didn't realize when we went shopping for a vacuum cleaner that we were being cast as unwitting extras in an old Alfred Hitchcock movie:

Another Reason to Hate It

I don't like Dallas. The Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex is one giant metro area with a lot of competition between the two major cities and Arlington (there are also a kajillion suburbs). Arlington has the Texas Rangers baseball team and is now building a giant football stadium for the Dallas Cowboys, which will probably be the Arlington Cowboys someday, although they (the team) were in Irving the whole time and were never known as the Irving Cowboys.
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I lived in Dallas from 1984 until 1988. I hated it. I always had a hard time explaining why, but I just found this line from Yahoo Travel: Contrary to popular belief, there's no oil in glitzy, status-conscious DALLAS. If you need a hint about which words are true and also disturbing to me: It's the same reason I don't like L.A. And on top of the, I don't know, attitude, there's the traffic. The traffic is always horrible and there are several major car accidents every single day. I have honestly asked myself many times when in an introspective mood, "Did I leave my first husband just to GET OUT OF DALLAS?"
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Although I left in 1988, I couldn't just wave goodbye through my rearview mirror. My daughter was only 4 and her dad lived there, so every other weekend was the horrible drive to Dallas (or its burbs). When she turned 16 I was SO happy! I also had to work there quite often when I was freelancing (1996-1998). I can't begin to guess how many hours I spent on 635 going 45 IPH (inches per hour). I probably lost 6 months of my life sitting on 635. The best place I ever worked was in a town north of Dallas (The Barney the Dinosaur corporate offices) and they started talking to me about a permanent position and all I could see was me spending hours and hours on 635. And 75? It's as bad. And you had to take that to get to the Barney place. Aaaargh!
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Once after I left the Barney place, and I was in a rush to get to one of my daughter's volleyball games, I came upon a fresh wreck on 75. It looked like Hollywood was filming one of those post-apocalypse movies. There were about 5 or 6 cars and glass scattered all across 4 lanes. I just drove all crazy and slow swerving between all the stopped crashed cars, because I had to get to the volleyball game. I did look at everybody to make sure no one had blood spurting out of their heads, but I just wanted to get AWAY. And one time on 635 after creeping and crawling for FOREVER, I passed the wreck that had held us up. A truck was sitting on top of a car as if it had been lowered by a crane. I never saw anything about it in the news and to this day wonder how that happened.
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The only time I go to Dallas now is for the State Fair. The State Fair is worth it and is on my side of Dallas. I can only think of a few other times I've been in recent years: A Red Wings game and to meet a childhood friend at his downtown hotel. So today on the news they announced that after his term is over, Mr. & Mrs. Current President will be residing in Dallas. That seems appropriate and I think it will suit them just fine.

Whuuuut?

I didn't know Dear Abby was Italian. I always thought she was Jewish:





Okay, it's been a week and a half since my bad haircut. I think it's starting to look normal again. Maybe I just hate the fact that my face keeps getting inexplicably wider. I really need to get on the treadmill. This is a totally undoctored photo that was taken today. And by saying that, I will admit that I am a Photoshop expert (those are Art Squad's words, not mine), and I have touched up some of my pictures. But this is me today (Wednesday) and boy I wish I had done some stuff to that picture.