Niche Humor, My Day, New Plans

I had a huge laugh today and laugh every time I think about it, but I realized it would only be funny to people who cook. So I told Mom and she didn't even laugh. Now I think it was just funny to me. Here's what it was: My daughter came into Italianni's, sat down and said, "I tried to make cream sauce last night and it was horrible and I had to throw it out." I asked, "What did you do?" She said, "Well I thought making cream sauce was like making gravy." I told her, "It is. It's exactly like making gravy. Walk me through what you did." She said, "Well, I started with the cream..." And I burst out laughing. Oh my, that still cracks me up. hee hee started with the cream. Okay, I'll stop.

I also get a big kick out of typos and missing letters and was behind a car today that looked like this:

I couldn't take an actual picture because I was just turning into the gas station and after taking that 1957 Chevy Bel-Air picture last week out of my back window while I was driving and turning left, I've become a little shy about taking pictures while driving. But that's a reasonable facsimile of what I saw.

~

Speaking of reasonable facsimiles, the girl I had to train today (I think I forgot to mention that) was almost a duplicate of my daughter's stepmother. Well, maybe from 15 years ago, but I haven's seen the SM since 2002. And she was seriously directionally impaired. When she dropped me back at the new pick up spot to get my truck, I said, "I'm really worried about you driving on your own and finding everything." She was all, "I'll be fine." I gave her my cell number in case she ever needs help and then as I was leaving (a few minutes behind her), I saw her ahead of me. She crossed the street she should have turned on, stopped and turned around. It didn't surprise me a bit.

~

The new pick up spot was nice and open and will have a "helper" there to help us collect the foodstuffs. But all they did was get in my way. After 9 years I can do that in just a few minutes. They were all over me, "What are you doing?" "Oh, that's smart!" "She's really organized!" Well, duh.

~

After a lot of thought and anxiety, I realized that no way in hell was I going to my high school reunion. But I also realized that I had been really looking forward to the road trip with my daughter to see Mom part of the trip. So we made a cool new plan. We will leave that Wednesday, drive to Memphis, Tennessee and stay two nights to explore Beale Street:

Beale Street is like an upscale Bourbon Street and is one of the birthplaces of Blues. Like New Orleans is to Jazz. I've never been there, but I've heard of it and read about it. They also claim to make the best ribs. So we will explore there and then leave Friday and drive the rest of the way to Mom's mountain place. We'll spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday night there and then take our time driving back and exploring Urf. I mean the country. We'll take it easy and stop at roadside inns Monday and Tuesday night. I think it will be a blast. And man did I feel better after deciding not to go to the reunion. And no, we are NOT going to Graceland.

My Weekend

Saturday night we were going to stop in at Papa G's for a few drinks, then eat, then go to the grocery store, but we ended up staying there until after 10:00. We went for Mexican food at the Tequila Factory, came home and My Sweetie went straight to bed. I was still wide awake and being the crazy wild party animal that I am I watched The Wizard of Oz.
~
Speaking of that, today I ordered my halloween costume for my Halloween New Orleans trip.
I was going to make my own shoes but went ahead and ordered those, too. I might add red glitter to them or something. I'll see. Oh and at the bar we ran into my daughter's high school best friend. She was celebrating her 25th birthday. Which was really awesome considering she almost died at age 18 from ITP. I guess we really got closer to her than my daughter's other friends because we spent so much time visiting her in the hospital back then.
~
I also finished my first batch of this year's beach rocks:

I had so many this year, I divided them into three groups by size: small, medium and large. Those were the large. I'm going to start the mediums next, but I'm giving myself a few days of quiet time. The tumbler is in the one room in the house where I can smoke when it's too hot outside and sometimes the noise gets on my nerves.
~
I also spent some time working on a school project for my daughter. If you are rolling your eyes and thinking "Oh, she's one of those moms" then you would be wrong. I'm only helping her because it is ridiculous busywork, does not pertain to her degree, she works full time and it's a summer class. Oh and it sounded fun. I'll tell you about it in a minute but let me first say that in her whole life, I only helped her with one other project. When she was a senior in high school she asked me if I had any old pantyhose. When I asked why she said she had a project for physics class to design a container that would keep an egg from breaking when dropped from a certain height. I was all, "Me! Me! Can I help?!?" because it sounded fun to me. This current assignment was to pick 50 of 75 art vocabulary words and find a piece of art to represent them. I picked 17 words that sounded interesting and had a nice time looking at all the art. I used a lot of Renoirs, some Picassos, Matisse's and Rembrandts. I discovered a Rembrandt that I am in love with. It's called "The Evangelist Matthew Inspired by an Angel." I used it for "Analogous Harmony." I could look at that all day. For the first time, I actually want to go to The Louvre.
~
My Next Project: I bought this hideous stool at the Goodwill store for $5:

I'm going to cut off the legs, paint the wood, recover the top and make a cute little footstool. That's my plan and if you are reading this on Monday afternoon, I am probably working on it. And as always, there will be pictures to come.

A Must Read!

You have to go visit Naomi's post today about meeting Picasso! It's part 10 of her France visit series, so you will probably end up wanting to read them all. Wow, just wow.

Change Be Coming

I was a little grumpy driving to the church today to pick up the food for my delivery because I knew it was my last time there. This church is my second pickup spot since I started, but next week I'll have a new and out of the way place to pick up my meals. And they've changed the time to about a half hour earlier.
That's a diagram of my route today. It's all to scale, but for privacy reasons I deleted the map behind it. And my house is 12 miles east of the old pickup spot. That's to your right if you are not a map person. The numbers represent my stops. I had 4 doubles, meaning 4 places where I was delivering food to two people, so I actually had 14 meals. Yeah, I was a little freaked when I walked in and saw the dreaded staple. When you have a staple it means you have two pages. You don't want two pages.
~
I walked into the church secretary lady's office and told her thank you and goodbye. I don't know her but we've spoken a few times and she's the person that has to take last minute cancellations and pass them onto us and she's lent me a pen once or twice. Just after I left the church, my grumpiness was slightly chipped away when I saw this car:

I love old cars. And then at my very first stop, I saw that one of those feral cats that lives under their trailer had had kittens. There's nothing like little feral kittens to chip big chunks from your grumpy:

Another positive was that the mother (that has cancer and that Carole made the hat for) and daughter that used to be on my list were back on my list - I had lost them after that last change. They were both so happy to see me and gave me hugs. And best of all, the cancer is in REMISSION! YAY!! Her hair is growing back and was about 1/8 inch long and so soft. I had to pat her head. Just a little later after my last stop as I was driving to my bar for my two beers, I really felt like a heel for having felt grumpy at all.

~

Yeah, next week I'll have to get up a little earlier and drive a little farther, but I promise not to feel grumpy, because all I have to do is think about today.

~~

~~

The roasted zucchini I said I was going to try? It was so delicious. Doesn't it look yummy?

And the chicken was good, too:

I told My Sweetie, "I think this zucchini will be the new basic side dish." He agreed.

On Meals and Mountains

Since you guys seemed to be starving for meal ideas (yeah, ouch that was bad), I will share tonight's meal with you:

I've been making cold pasta salads about once a week since it got hot, but I wanted to do something besides ham or tuna. At first I thought of a BLT pasta salad and looked that up and it does exist, but once I started thinking about bacon, I remembered something: Before Ruby Tuesday's closed, I was addicted to a broccoli salad that was always on their salad bar. One day as I was oohing and aahing over it, the bartender said, "You can make that at home. It's only four ingredients. It's broccoli, bacon, cheddar and cole slaw dressing." I added twirly pasta to make it a whole meal. I discovered that Hidden Valley Ranch makes a very good cole slaw dressing:

If you're a natural foods person you can make your own cole slaw dressing. And if you are a vegetarian, you'll need something salty to replace the bacon. Maybe a smoked stronger cheese instead of cheddar? And the broccoli is raw fresh broccoli. It was delicious and I didn't add anything else, not even salt or pepper.

~

I've also got some drumsticks marinading in Allende Hickory Smoke marinade to which I blended in a little olive oil. Marinade, in my mind, is supposed to have some oil in it and this did not. I'm going to grill (or barbecue as some people call "cooking out") those on Tuesday night (tonight if you're reading this during the daytime) and serve that with roasted zucchini. I have never made roasted zucchini, but it seemed like a good idea. I'm going to toss the sliced or chunked zucchini (I haven't decided that part yet) in melted butter and sprinkle with salt, pepper and herbes de Provence. I'll let you know how that turns out. I also have some parmegian reggiano in the freezer which I should probably grate over that.

~

And now for something completely different: After changing my mind two thousand times, I think I am going to go to my high school reunion. It just happens to fall during the time that my daughter had taken off to visit Mom in the mountains. When they bought the house by the beach in April, they decided to give up the mountain place when the lease expires in November, so this would be my one chance to visit them there and probably my last trip ever to the N.C. mountains.

~

The tentative plan is to fly into Raleigh/Durham on that Thursday (Aug. 6th) spend two nights with Lo, go to the reunion on Saturday with Kate as my "date," drive to the mountains on Sunday (about 4 hours), and stay until Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, then drive back to the airport. But I haven't done anything yet. We'll see.

A Really Nice Weekend

I really enjoyed my weekend and even had that free-floating euphoria this evening that I get every so often and wish I could bottle. I guess it's only fair that I get that sometimes to counter-balance my free-floating anxiety.
~
Friday afternoon I walked down to Carole's and we looked at my beach pics and videos on her humongous television. I always enjoy my time with Carole. She is sweet and kind and fun and seems to relax me whereas most people make me tense. And we are a good pair because we always seem to know the stuff the other one doesn't. If I am Q she is A and vice versa.
~
The bad part of Friday was My Sweetie came home with food poisoning but he was determined to work through it and insisted I make the dinner I had planned. He held it down and didn't feel great on Saturday morning but insisted we carry on with our plans for a seafood dinner out that night. I knew he was fine today when he suggested we order pizza for lunch. But back to Saturday.
~
We went to a ridiculously expensive place downtown and both ordered meals from the bottom of the menu that said "market price." And we didn't even ask the current prices, so it was rather shocking to see the check, but we played it cool. And I just had to have crab legs. This is me in my bib:

My Sweetie is not the best photographer in the world and took pictures of me while I was talking so I looked really bizarre. That's why I "cut off my head." That crab claw on the plate between the butter and the wine was HUGE! I brought that and another piece home and recycled those tonight with sherry and butter and ladled it over a piece of cod.
~
Our table was beside a big window and there was always stuff going on. I remarked, "I didn't realize it was dinner and a show." Some guy walking a pretty lab stopped next to us and kept telling her to stay, then he stepped inside. Then some other fellow came by carrying a "doggy box" which made the lab go crazy. The owner had to run back out.

Then an employee brought out a cup of water and she drank like she had not had water in three days.

Our next show was a youngish mom with a kid on her back, piggyback style, and another lady and kid, and that lady, in a short dress, squatting down to get that kid on her back and they could not figure it out. So the lady already with the kid on her back was leaning over and lifting the second kid onto the other lady's back. They were finally successful and as the mom in back straightened up, the boy on her back noticed us and flashed the biggest, cutest, gap-toothed, freckly grin. I think he even gave us a thumb's up.

~

We stopped at Papa G's on our way home and played some trivia games. We hadn't been there in quite a while and it had been all remodeled. I saw the whole new section which had been My Sweetie's dry cleaner and looked horrified and asked, "But where are your clothes?"

~

I also did something else this weekend that I had not done in a long time. I read a book. I'm always reading our magazines, the newspaper and the internet, but I haven't read a book in a while. It was a Mary Stewart book, Rose Cottage. I first discovered her when I was in high school and read Touch Not The Cat. I've always found that after reading these British romance mysteries that my English improves. See. I wouldn't have used the term "I've always found" if I hadn't just read this book. It was a light easy read and I read it in the wing chair in the library. That's my new favorite reading place and doesn't make my left shoulder ache. For some reason, reading books was always causing pain in my left shoulder, so that's why I had stopped. It's good to know I can read books again without the pain.

~

Today was pleasant. I watered my flowers and read and hit the grocery store with My Sweetie. I'd been in a cooking slump but came up with some fun ideas today for meals, so the grocery store wasn't as bad as usual. It's far worse to go to the grocery store when you can't think of anything than when you have some fun plans. Wish me luck on my dinner experiments this week. And I wish all of you some good ole

free-floating euphoria like I've had today.

I Love Google Earth

I really love Google Earth. While my husband was in L.A. earlier this week, I could see where he was and the walk he took to go to the thing he was there for. Sometimes I look at Mom's house. Sometimes I look at my beach cottage or the French Quarter or NYC. While I was looking at L.A. I took a little cruise along the Pacific coast.

~

I also checked my house yesterday and they have finally updated the picture. It shows my "new" deck and my little red truck. Both are over 4 years old, so even though the picture is new, it's not new. And if you're wondering how I know that, it's because a building that has gone up in the past 6 or 8 months near here has not even begun in the picture.

~

While I was cruising the area, I checked out the old "cracked house."

I've mentioned this house many times, I think. When My Sweetie and I got together we rented this house because it was next to my daughter's school and had three bathrooms. That's all the positives. This thing had been slowly and oddly "remodeled" over the years by drunken monkeys and had a terrible foundation problem. But I couldn't help but laugh as I looked at it. And I was laughing at my daughter. She was constantly asking for a ride to school. I know!? And when we'd walk out after a volleyball game she'd look at the parking lot and wail, "You didn't drive?" I am not kidding.

~

I remember a few times when I was out mowing or edging and Kate's P.E. class was running around that track and all these girls were yelling, "Hey Kate's Mom!!" and Kate looked mortified. And once a CareFlite helicopter landed right there under the word school when a kid got knocked out playing football. That was loud. He was okay.

~

There used to be a baseball field in the corner right across from the house, but it looks like they moved the track over. If you notice, you can see the outline of the old track just to the left of the current track. And I just noticed it is no longer marked for football. Anyway, kids used to play softball in that corner in the evenings and on weekends and the ones that knew Kate would come over and knock on our door and ask to use the bathroom. That was kind of annoying, but I always said okay.

~

It was a really weird house and we were glad to get out of there after Kate finished middle school, but it still makes me laugh that she always wanted a ride.

Stupid Bathtub Tiles! And Grey Stuff!

Is there a rider on Murphy's Law that says something like "75% of the time you start a simple home project, the rest of the iceberg will pop up and bite you in the ass."?
~
I try not to look at my husband's bathtub, but when I do I always shudder and clean it. Recently it had reached that point of no return where no matter how much X-14 you sprayed on that caulk between the bathtub and the tiles, there was always some grey left. I hate grey caulk spots. Yuck city. It can smell clean and you intellectually know it's clean but when you can see the grey, it just doesn't seem clean.
~
My Sweetie left Monday morning to go to L.A. on business so I thought it would be a good time to strip out that gross caulk. When I was working in the front corner, two tiles were loose, so I thought I'd popped them out as it would be easier to clean them. Oh my!
~
The "dry"wall behind those tiles had obviously been wetwall for quite some time. I was met with a big oddly colorful mess of mushy weird yuck falling out of the wall. After I knocked out the loose fluffy stuff, I still had this left:
I worked for some time getting that stuff out and found out there was wood back there:

That was good. I had some random pieces of drywall left over from when the plumber rerouted our hot water pipes after the big leak a year or so ago and cut some out and put those in:

And if you wondered why I used the plural just then, it's because that wood back there was two drywall thicknesses away so I had to do layers. A lot of that weird colorful moldy old wallboard goo was stuck on the back of the two tiles I pulled out so I soaked them for several hours in soapy water. The smaller tile cleaned up nicely but the larger tile had a thin layer of what seemed like cement on the back. I had extra tiles, but when I pulled out a nice brand new, non cement covered tile, I realized that the one from the wall had been cut. The new tile was too big.

~

I spent several hours today with a hammer and small screwdriver. I used the screwdriver as a makeshift chisel and bit by bit, pounded that layer of cementy stuff off of the back. I realise I could have figured out a way to have a fresh tile cut to fit, but I figured out the chiseling was good honest labor. And I pretended I was an archeologist finding a rare ancient treasure. Those guys must have hand muscles that I didn't know existed, because my hands are killing me.

~

After I got that stuff off, I replaced the tiles and then several hours later grouted them:

It will need some touching up and cleaning, but the grey is gone and that is good. I hate that grey stuff.

More On The Beach (And Mom)

I loved the ocean, I loved vacationing with My Sweetie, I loved getting to visit with my best friend Lo, but I have to say I really loved spending time with Mom. You may remember that Mom turned 70 last November so I went to visit for Thanksgiving. I realize that many people's moms live in other states, but for almost 30 years, Mom and I lived fairly close to each other.
~
Mom's new house was right on our way to the beach cottage so we stopped in on that first Saturday on our way. We got a quick tour of the new place but had to take off to get our keys before the office closed. Sunday night Mom and StepDad came over for dinner and I made my shrimp boil.
~
The weather in the beginning of the week was unusually chilly and damp. It wasn't like last year when I went to Vancouver and was just stupid about the weather - whenever the news came on they talked about how strange the weather was - it was 20° degrees below normal. So Tuesday morning I called Mom and asked if she would be coming to the island for breakfast because we wanted to borrow some warmer clothes. My Sweetie had bought me a cute Topsail Island jacket and he would wear it when he walked to a store, but if I was wearing it I felt bad for him and when he was wearing it I was cold.
~
Mom said she would let me know what they were doing for lunch and call me back. She called back at 12:10 and asked, "Can ya'll meet me at the camper at 12:00?" I said, "No, because that was 10 minutes ago." (Hee hee. You can see where I get that from.) She had to go over there to get something and it is a lot closer to the island than their new house. So we opted for 12:45. Their camper yard was even prettier than I remembered. My Sweetie took off for a cruise on the golf cart and Mom plied me with jeans, sweaters, jackets and just random shirts she thought I would like. Most of my favorite clothes are Mom hand-me-downs. Last year I told her, "When I wear your clothes I feel like you are hugging me." And that's true.
~
As we were wrapping up the visit there at the camper, she asked if we'd like to come back out to her house. My first instinct was to go back to the cottage, but then I thought, "Why not?" So I asked My Sweetie and he said, "Sure." We headed back that way and I had a really fun afternoon. My Sweetie took off with StepDad to do stuff in the yard and run some errands and Mom and I rearranged furniture and redecorated stuff. I would have stayed longer but I didn't have my medicine with me, so we had to head back.
~
On Wednesday, My Sweetie and I picked up Mom to go to Wilmington. My Sweetie had not been there before and I wanted him to see it. Especially the Riverwalk area around the Cape Fear river. And I had to have the awesome she-crab soup from The George. This is a picture of Mom and My Sweetie at our table at The George on the Cape Fear river:

Even though the weather was slightly drizzly and Mom's foot was bothering her, we did take a short walk on the riverwalk before driving around town to see the lovely old homes.
~
Thursday and Friday were the Beautiful Days that we had been waiting for and those were spent playing on the beach, but we stopped by Mom's on the way back to the airport that Saturday for one last visit. Wait, I don't like the way that sounds. I meant one more visit. I gave Mom a great big hug and we took off. I already miss her.

Beach Trip Beginnings

We had a nice easy flight two Fridays ago and got to Lo's house in Durham around 11:30 p.m. We flew into Raleigh/Durham airport instead of flying directly to Wilmington, because I had not been back to Durham since Grandma's funeral and I wanted to see Lo's new house. Two of my high school buddies were there waiting for me and we partied well into the night (morning?). I loved her house and the next day I got to see more of it before My Sweetie and I took off on our little road trip. The ride was nice and easy and the highway had random spots of beautiful wildflowers which I took pictures of and we stopped at one rest area that had a WWII Howitzer. And wow! North Carolina has really nice rest areas. We stopped at Mom's new house and had a quick tour and visit and headed to our cottage. A few hours later, Lo arrived and we went to dinner at Daddy Mack's. It's a nice place we could walk to and was on the beach. We sat outside had great food, stopped by Buddie's (my bar) and headed back to the cottage to watch "Saturday Night Live" and about 5 minutes after the show started, this is what happened to My Sweetie and Lo:

(zzzzzzzzzzzz)

~
I sat there on that loveseat and watched the show by myself and once when I got up to get a beer, as I was returning to my seat, when I stepped over My Sweetie, I clanged my foot into that fish table and broke my right pinkie toe:

That picture was taken on Monday when all that blood had washed into my foot (in the circled area). I guess my skin reflected the flash but that "bruised" area looked much darker in person. I guess you are thinking that if I am going to drink beer around the clock I should probably wear shoes. Yeah, that's not going to happen. With me and shoes it's First & Last: First things off and Last things on. And yes I did break another toe not long ago, but the other toe I broke was 33 years ago, so I was probably overdue. And I still have 7 good toes. That's plenty.
~
I didn't let my broken toe cramp my style. Between the beer and the etodolac that I take for my thumb, it wasn't really much of a problem. We joked that the fish had bitten me because I hit my toe right on that fish's mouth:

Saturday had been cloudy and we had even hit one rain spot on the drive down but Sunday morning started off sunny but cool. But by noon, it started to cloud up again and then was pretty much rainy through Tuesday. I felt really bad for Lo because she had to go back home Monday evening and didn't get any beach time. Those first few days with the bad weather I mostly spent on that loveseat doing sudoku puzzles, chatting, and watching silly TV. And enjoying the view from where I was sitting:

I don't have to be on the sand. As long as I can see the ocean, I'm good.

Back from Vacation

Man, I got home from my trip with a seemingly terminal case of the Post Vacation Lazies. I've barely been on the computer at all and just today looked at the backlog of Astronomy Pictures of the Day. I have watched a lot of TV and been to the grocery store, unpacked, did laundry and even had a Memorial Day cookout for my daughter and her fiance. But I've been one slow moving bunny over here. So tonight I made a little movie from my trip and will type more later, but now I think I'm going to rejoin the ole blogging community and read some blogs.

"Sea" ya later

Le Hodge De L'Podge

Funny Products: Last Saturday when we were at the grocery store, I spotted this in a freezer:
It seemed so stupid I had to take a picture. What is that? Chickensaurus Rex?
~
Today at my hair salon I saw this in the bathroom and for some reason thought of Jammie J (whose blog is no longer private if you guys want to visit):

Speaking of the hair salon, I was SO happy to get a haircut. It's still long enough to "put up" but it had gotten so bad that I told people that rinsing my hair after I shampooed it was like trying to rinse a pair of jeans wrapped around my head. For the last two weeks I had dreaded taking a shower because my hair had gotten so thick and heavy. It was hideous. Now I feel all light and breezy. And I know just what to do. (ha ha, did anyone get that reference?)
~
For the Frenchies out there: The French seem to have terms for situations that the English do not have so I'm wondering if there is an expression for the following (and I think everyone has experienced this): This morning while I was getting ready for Meals on Wheels my phone rang and I saw it was Mrs.V. I immediately thought, "Oh, no, what can it be?" Well she called to ask if I had a camera, (uhm, yep) and told me her cactuses were blooming and asked if I could take some pictures when I got there:

So I was all, OH NO! and then it was nothing and I really felt like an ass. Is there some foreign expression for that situation? And don't just say, "Yeah, you're an ass."

Must Keep Brains Intact

I'm getting so excited about going to the beach on Friday, I feel like my head's going to crack open.

The Baby Mockingbird

Saturday was a dreary day. Not long after I got up, I was out in the garage and heard a loud bird ruckus and wondered what was going on. I opened the door and saw two Mockingbirds going crazy screeching at Barney who was hunkered down looking frightened. I ran out to shoo them off, but they didn't go far. I figured Barney was trying to get from the backyard into the garage to eat and the birds were just being asses. He came into the garage with me and I shut the door and didn't think too much about it but mentioned to My Sweetie that some mockingbirds were bothering Barney and we were both all, "Poor Barney, he has the hardest time."
~
After lunch I went into the backyard to water the flowers and realized those birds were still going at it. I came inside for my Nerf gun. I went out and fired some shots of little Nerf pellets at the birds but they never went far (and of course I didn't hit them.) I continued with watering the flowers and then saw one of the mockingbirds actually dive bomb Barney. Then I was getting irritated. I grabbed my Nerf gun and went after them in ernest but they were smart. They either stayed on the fence or just inside my neighbor's yard. These are the neighbors whose cat attacked Barney last year and when I demanded money, it didn't go over well and so I knew I couldn't fire into their yard, or I'd never get my Nerf "bullets" back.
~
So now I was thinking "prevention." I called Barney to come over onto the patio with me so they couldn't bother him. Barney wanted to go back to the side of the house which was the bird stronghold, so then I got irritated thinking maybe he was hungry and couldn't get to his food. I walked with him along the side to the garage door, but he didn't follow me. He was more interested in a bush. I thought "Why does he want to hang out here to look at a bush when it's obvious it's making these birds crazy?"
~
Then something clicked in my tiny slow brain and I went over to inspect the bush and found this little guy:

Suddenly everything made sense. I grabbed Barney and went back to the patio and decided to keep him over there until the parent birds could do something about the baby bird. Twice, over time, one of the big mockingbirds would check back with us to see where Barney was, but the fuss died down and now Barney was busy in the grass on the far side of the backyard. It got quiet and I figured it was all well. And I like a happy ending. Since Barney was preoccupied, I decided to go check things out. I slipped over there and didn't see Ma or Pa and was about to go check the bush when I saw the baby hopping toward the gate to the front yard. There's plenty of room under the gate, so I figured he'd make it out just fine.
~
I opened the back door and called for My Sweetie to go check baby bird's progress while I kept and eye on Barney. Sweetie opened the gate and gently helped Baby out into the front yard. At this point I thought it was all over and the parents could take care of their tot without worrying about Barney and went about my day. I took my shower and started getting ready and then realized I was still thinking about the bird. Barney was asleep on the deck and all was quiet. I went out the front door and walked over to look for the little guy and found him under a bush. But where were the parents?
~
I kept going out to the garage where I could keep an eye on him and not scare the other birds away and kept watch through the garage door window:

I stood there for a long time listening to the radio, sipping beers and watching all the birds and lizards in the neighborhood. Finally, just to the left of the Crape Myrtle that you can see part of on the left of the above picture, I saw a mockingbird on my neighbor's mailbox:

That bird was one of the parents and flew over to the baby and looked like it was feeding it. I was really happy, because I thought they had lost each other. I continued my watch and saw the bird come back again. I felt like it was all going to be good. As we were leaving to go out, I took one more picture of the bird:

We went out to eat and then to the grocery store and when we returned I watched the driveway carefully as we turned in so we wouldn't run over the tiny bird. I saw something by my truck tire under my truck. After we parked I jumped out and checked with the little flashlight that hangs on my purse and that was him. I figured he'd sleep through the night and his parents would come back in the morning to take care of everything.

~

When I woke up on Sunday, My Sweetie told me that he had gone out to check early that morning and the little baby mockingbird had died. I was so sad. I like a happy ending and there was not one. Poor little bird.

Beach and Beer Good

I am now just days out from my trip to North Carolina and my beach cottage. I spent the whole day printing out all sorts of different maps and things. Usually we fly straight into Wilmington and Mom picks us up, but Lo, my bestest buddy bought her first house almost a year ago and I have not seen it yet, so we are flying into the Raleigh/Durham airport so I can see Lo's house. We will spend Friday night there and drive down to the beach cottage on Saturday, stopping to see Mom's new house. A distance of 159 miles. (That's 12 kilograms Canadian.)

~

My brain is so full of stuff to take. Now that Mom has a real house instead of living in that camper thing, we can leave all the bulky items that you have to take like sheets and towels and kitchen towels, oven mitts and stuff so I'm picking out things I can live without here in Texas. And because the light pollution there is almost nil, I spent some time looking for my planisphere.

It's going to be nice to be able to name all the constellations we'll be able to see. I also called Mom to issue a "formal invitation" for dinner at my cottage on the 17th. I will be making my yum city shrimp boil using shrimp that I will buy off a boat right there on the island. Speaking of Mom, guess what she has been doing all week? (I am so laughing right now - literally) Well she has been working her ass off all week getting ready for the yard sale they are having this (Saturday) morning of all the junk that was left in the house they bought. Paybacks are hell. She has been calling me for prices and oddly she has agreed with everything I have said.

~

Of course everything will be easier for them because it's a laid back place and they can put signs pretty much anywhere and everywhere they want to. I had regulations to follow. Mom has been a real sweetie pie, though. Today she told me not to bring towels. She decided she needs new towels and will let me have her "old" ones. I've used them and they are lot nicer than what I was going to take. We will also be getting our birthday presents and she told me "I want to tell you now, so you won't have to buy as many groceries when you get here: I'm giving you some cash with your gifts so you can eat out more." She's so cute. She forgets about my semi-agoraphobia. I wouldn't eat out every day if it were free and I could have anything I wanted. I need my IN DAYS.

~

Anyway, I'm so excited about my trip that it pretty much occupies my thoughts at all times except, you know, those moments when I think, "Time for another beer."

May The Dust Be With You

My Star Wars shelf

Of the 15,000 or so shelves in my house, this is the one I most hate to dust. When I noticed my daughter had written her name in the dust a few weeks ago, I sighed and collected the "tools" I would need: dust mask, air spray can and tray. I gathered all the little Star Wars guys, put them in the tray and took them outside and blew the hell out of each little fellow with canned air. Then I dusted the shelf. I probably only do it twice a year or so. I mean how many shelves require that much effort to dust?
~
That picture on the back left is an autographed picture from Peter Mayhew. I didn't meet him but he was at one of my husband's work events. There's more little things on the side walls of the shelf you can't see. And what's cool is I didn't buy a thing. They were all freebies through My Sweetie's job except for my lightsaber and I "won" that at Dave & Buster's. Oh and my Darth Vader does this:

Earlier, when I was thinking about this post, I started thinking about lightsabers and wondering what the energy source could be and I was thinking maybe photonic ions and then I thought, "No. That's Star Trek." And then I thought about how geeky my thoughts were. But here's the thing: People who do not follow this stuff at all would think I was a total geek because I do know a lot of dorky fun details and histories, but to the "true fans" I would just be a muggle. Oh wait! That's Harry Potter.

My Brother Jesus

About two years ago, my brother was in a play and starred as Jesus. I had a DVD of the play for almost a year and never watched it until this afternoon. I took it down to watch it with Carole my neighbor. She knows all about the Bible and I know very little so I thought she could help if I had any questions. Plus My Sweetie had no interest in watching it. I really didn't know what to expect.

~

I don't think I've talked about my brother much here although I have spilled some stuff in some of your comment boxes. In a nutshell: In the years before Dad died my brother had a really nice house with a wife and two kids. He was a junior partner at Dad's insurance business, was a member of a civics organization, a Cub Scout leader and a Little League coach. After Dad died he took a long bad ride on the white powder train. After his nose blew out, he took to smoking the stuff. I cut off communications with him at this time because as everyone knows, the personality has been replaced by the drug. He lives in North Carolina and I live in Texas, so most of this was out of sight and out of mind, but I got phone calls from his wife (they were separated of course) and heard of sightings from my friends. And I had many long sad conversations about him with Mom. Before he ran the business into the ground, he sold it and once that money was gone (he had already blown through his inheritance), he was evicted and lived who knows where, occasionally showing up at some unlucky old friend's house asking for food or whatever.

~

Well, one of those old friends said, "I'll take you in and give you a job but: 1) you can not drink or anything else, 2) you must study the Bible with us every night and 3) you must attend church with us on Sundays.

~

Whatever your personal beliefs about churches or religions (and I know what most of yours are), this worked for my brother. He cleaned up his act and reconciled with his wife and kids. I thought it was all an act and kept my distance, but after a year or so, I saw that it had "taken" as they say in the south. I tentatively started talking to him again and that was a few years ago and now we are friends.

~

I guess I must have had the DVD since either June or September of last year when Mom gave it to me on one of my visits to N.C., but for some reason I just didn't feel up to watching it until just now. Carole, who is awesome, invited me over to watch it on her TV which is as big as my truck. So watch it I did, and although I am not a Christian, I found it very moving. On many different levels.

~

And yes that's a screen capture of my brother from the movie.

~~

~~

And now, on the lighter side: My tongue has always been terribly tangled by tongue twisters and tonight I discovered that I cannot say "Splenda® goblin." (Please don't ask me why I was trying to say it, it's too stupid and I won't tell you.)

Just Some Stuff with Irony

Do you have certain words that never look quite right to you? I'm like that with "bottling." I saw this truck on Wednesday and it nearly made my brain explode. I mean it's not a word you see every day. My brain wants to pronounce it as "Bott-Ling" even though I know it is "bott-uhl-ing." They should have spelled it "bottleing." Or not. My third grade teacher Miss Parker taught me so many great basic pronunciation rules but it seems like there are a trillion words that defy Miss Parker. You know what they are.
We went to The Tequila Factory tonight. There was a musician there and his range was so insane I can't even describe it. Oh and My Sweetie ordered a margarita and then I noticed it was red. I asked, "Why is your margarita red?" He had ordered some sort of Chambord margarita. I didn't know such a thing existed.

I didn't know hiccups could affect typing but they do. I have had to retype almost every third word. Hiccups both amuse me and irritate me. Sort of like a toddler. Hiccups I meant, not myself. Oh and getting back to that musician guy. He played all sorts of music, but the weirdest part was he looked like Garth Brooks with the cowboy hat and everything and he was playing this when we came in:

My Sweetie and I were cracking up and he said "I think he appreciates irony." Either that or he doesn't get it. Or maybe he had the hiccups.

On The Facebook Thing

I was never really crazy about Myspace, but joined to see what my daughter was doing and because one old friend posts all her pictures there, so I was not in a big hurry to check out Facebook.
~
I thought it was somewhat interesting at first and did reconnect with a few old friends and even my former step-mom, but then found myself sort of hanging out on this one guy's page. He's a nice friendly guy from high school and married a nice friendly girl from high school and a bunch of people from high school seemed to converge there. Then I realized I was feeling the same old anxiety from the the same old people and I had to ask myself: What the hell are you doing?
~
So I decided several days ago to not even look at it anymore. Then two days in a row, two old high school friends - actual friends, not Facebook people, called me about talk of a high school reunion. So out of curiosity, I checked the site tonight and had a friend request from someone from high school, someone that I always thought was really cool and interesting. We've since exchanged nice long catch-up messages. She's even in San Diego which is one of my very favorite places as you all know.
~
So maybe Facebook isn't all bad.