DON'T TELL TOM CRUISE

Today I found out that my cholesterol level is 248 and my triglycerides are 517. Can you say "Bony Hand of Death reaching out to STROKE me," boys and girls? Yeah, it's scary.

And my doctor put me on a bunch of new drugs, I had to tote these bottles home in my purse like a furtive bag-lady drug dealer, it was so overflowing with blister packs and sample bottles galore...and also....and also....he prescribed ZOLOFT for me. It's some indication of just how depressed I am, that I didn't even bat an eye. I didn't raise any argument whatsoever. I didn't even ask him the age old question, "DO YOU KNOW PSYCHIATRY? BECAUSE I KNOW PSYCHIATRY!!!"

I just teared up, sniffled a bit and put the drugs in my purse with the others. Because let's face it, since my life-altering 'event' last may (a mild stroke, a mini-stroke, a TIA, call it what you will) I haven't exactly been my perky, happy self. I've battled ungodly depression, as well as a debilitating ennui when attempting to do things like write coherantly, express myself using anything larger than one syllable words and the 'point-and-grunt' method of communication, and almost slept through an entire year. Oh, and gained a gargantuan amount of deadly weight.

So now I have to eat only chicken-fish-veggies for 30 days. Goodbye, goodbye, Beloved Red Vines! Goodbye Hershey's Kisses! Goodbye Toll House Cookies! And while I'm at it, Goodbye homemade foccacia bread! Goodbye white rice! Goodbye, Potato! The good news? I'm going to get my long-awaited CT-Scan. The doctor agrees it is time to find out what is making me so daft!

Extruded Through Tubes

And here it is another Pleasant Valley Sunday, with the church next door just letting out and all it’s happy parishioners gamboling about in the parking lot, shrieking Halleluiah, tap dancing to the tune of their car alarms, and screaming at the top of their lungs, conversationally, to the other happy worshippers at the other end of the street. It’s a gay and joyous panoply of faith. I am thankful I do not own a double barrel shotgun.

Today, face it, my brains feel like they’ve been mulched and extruded through tubes, the way they make plant fibers into rayon. Extruded through tubes. Which means that my parasitic head is giving me fits and lots of back-talk. Needless to say, I WON’T be going to the gym today. No way, Hosepipe! Okay, now. That was supposed to be no way, Josepe`, but the spellchecker insisted I change it to Hosepipe, with a Capitol H, so I let it. I think my spellchecker has demons.

I keep thinking about “Under the Tuscan Sun” Keep your childish wonder, it’s the most important thing. But how do you do that, really, on a bad day like today? Any arbitrary turning along the way, and I’d be somewhere else. I’d have ended up differently. Gotten a Tuscan Villa instead of a poverty life that is stagnant. So, how do I do that NOW? How do I realize I am at a crossroads and can turn a different direction? From where I stand, all directions are the same. All my choices end up NEGATIVE. Diminished. I wish I could change THAT aspect of life, for certain sure. I’d like, just once, to pick something that sounds good for me, and have it actually turn out to be good for me! Or turn out, period. I'd just like something to TURN OUT for a change.

I'm going to go and hang down my bloggy head and cry, Bill Bailey.

As Promised, Teapots and More!

In the absense of any brain function whatsoever, I've opted to update today with the long-awaited pics of my various teapots. Or a few of them, anyway, as there are LOTS more, and a girl can never be too pleasingly plump or have too many teapots. AND, I've come to the conclusion that it is not Mackie who will not stay in focus, it is my camera that does not! Or at least it does not focus well at close range. So, think Fuzzy.

Like squinting at Christmas lights to make them look pretty and swirly. These are my ADORABLE, hand-crafted frothy crocheted tea cozies. Yep, they really work to keep the tea warm and help me upgrade from blah to PERKY and PLEASED in my person, on otherwise very dull mornings.
Florals and Chintz! Roses! Femmy, Femmy Pinks! It's all here and it's all scrumptious!

*I'd like to say that I actually DRINK TEA out of all these teapots, just not all at once. But I am a firm believer in the philosophy that 'nothing is too good to be used' , and therefore I USE all my pots for the purpose for which they were intended. My tea of Choice? Grace Rare Teas!

I have no window above my kitchen sink, so I look at all this stuff instead while washing dishes. (On the maid's day off, of course.)













And last but not least:
I do not know why his tongue is hanging out.

A Chairless Rant

Yes, I am close personal friends with the two most beautiful beings on the planet, and yet I still have the worst computer chair. I seek a New Chair! Not just a new chair, but a new CATAGORY of chair. A Chick Chair. A Blogger Chair. It must have the tilt back, arm support, cushiony plush and padded feel of the high-toney Executive Chair, and the functional, servicable, back-supporting attributes of a Task Chair. But it must NOT be Ugly. It must NOT look like a twenty-something techie/gamer/Ikea Addict blended a space module bench with a Doctor's Office Waiting Room Seat and then stuck some MESH on it to make it 'high-tech'. It has to come in some color other than: Taupe. Black. Tan. Brown. Metallic Grey. What is wrong with pink? What is wrong with plush white? What is wrong with Martha Stewart Green? How about a Chintz Floral in a Cabbage Rose Upholstery? Or a Satin Brocade? What is WRONG with a decorative, stylish, beautiful, feminine, foo-foo chair for my computer desk?

Okay, I know I blogged about this a mere two or three days ago, but obviously I've not be able to find the chair I want. I have not vented enough about the way I Feeeeeel about this complete lack of DECORATIVE SENSIBILITY on the part of the people who design computer chairs.

So I'll just stop and show you the two most beautiful beings, here they are:
This is Mackie Manns, Childhood Terrorist With Bike. He does not sit, stand, or nap long enough for me to get him in focus! I've tried! He hears the camera make it's little pre-shutter noise and he is READY. He is going to Hunt it Down! He is going to SNURFLE it with his nose, at the very least. At the worst I fear he will grab it with his death-paws and bat it around the room in sheer glee. He wants the red light on it. I had to give up trying to shoot him from the level and just stood over him for this shot.

And the other beautiful being is Kedar: Mackie LOVES Kedar.
He used to sit as near to Kedar's Hair as possible and just purr and purr!! I think he was enamoured of the purity of Kedar's Vibe but it might have been the sandalwood oil he wore in his hair. Whatever it was, as much as Mackie loves and adores me, when Kedar would come over, I was dead meat. I was Old Mouse.

I am very dull and boring tonight. I think it is the nature of writing. I get great ideas and when I sit down they don't go onto the page. (I guess I could EMBELLISH and call it a MEMOIR.) (Snark snark to that Frey guy.)
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But I will say this: I won't use this blog to talk about my WEIGHT loss program (because I don't have one) and I won't use it to talk about poopy diapers (because I don't have those either, no offense to the Mommy Bloggers) no matter how bereft of really good material I become! I will talk about those annoying paper toilet seats in public bathrooms, though, what is the point of those? The body part that makes contact with the seat of a toilet is not a particularly DANGEROUS butt part as far as infections go. I mean, wouldn't it be better to make little paper gloves in a dispenser? It's people's HANDS I worry about. They touch the dangerous stuff and then touch the SINK HANDLES to turn on/off the faucet but those germs just STAY on the handles, wet and floculating. And how many times have you carefully dried your hands, yet got them wet again when opening the door to the bathroom as you exit? Ewwww! Paper Gloves, PLEASE! I don't care if the outer part of my bottom comes into contact with the outer part of a toilet seat which has been in contact with the outer part of someone elses bottom! But save my HANDS from all those OTHER exposures.

And I'd also like to say that although I do have lots of ingredients in my cupboard of life...like vim, vigor, and even a can of whoop-ass if I really need it, I seem to be completely lacking in that vital ingredient known as the "Weight Loss Gene." I've looked deep into the cabinetry, too, past the piss-and-vinegar, the Salt of the Earth, the Saucy Minx Mix, and there is not even so much as a pinch, a dash, an 8th of a teaspoon of the Weight Loss Ingredient. Which is why I blog with ALL my chins. I think they are here to stay.

The Unfocused Cat

Coming Soon: Pictures of My Teapots!

Well, I am learning to play with my new camera, and my favorite subjects are: Myself, my cat Mackie and my Decor. I can sit still, and the decor can sit still, but Mackie seems to be unable to manage it.

I thought the color of the bowl, the color of the quilt and the color of my shirt somehow magically match the color of my squinty eyes but you can't really tell, can you?

And Mackie, as usual, cannot resist stealing my drinking straw from my iced tea and hiding it under the doily. SO CUTE!

It's Haiku

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I fail at Haiku

Because I cannot count.

I will never own enough teapots.

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*pitiful: inspired mix of contempt and pity

The Template That Ate My Blog!

Well, I spent long hours into the wee dawny getting my blog to look so cool. Changing the colors, hunched in my old, broken TASK chair writing html color codes and previewing them and trying again. I just want a PINK BLOG is that so harsh? Pink with some misty-cloud blue font coloration. But the template won't allow it! So I changed Templates!

AND THE NEW TEMPLATE ATE MY LINKS. All that time spent painstakingly visiting all those blogs and getting the url just right, for the convenience of me and all my friends.

Now I hateses Filthy Blogspot. We hatessessss it yesssss! Nasty filthy Blogspot! Eating our links while nice, friendly bloggers STARVE.

I don't know a thing about writing code, by the way, and can only decypher it if I can do a quick look-see preview to see what I just changed. But it just astonishes me, a simple hobbit maiden, that a real Blog Template Designer person could not figure out a way to let a person try a new template without WIPING OUT all the links. And Blogger only lets you have your choice of about 9 ugly man-beast looking templates. You know, Brown on Brown. Grey on Grey, or BLACK. I blame the Patriarchy. I really do. So I'll be back, after a long rest and my elevenses, to labor away and get those links back.

Feeelthy Gypsies! I throw Them Out!

Yesterday, I went on yet another treasure hunt, this time to match a fabric swatch for one of my Aunties. I went to two Wal-Marts, a large JoAnne's Fabrics and Hancock's. I was unable to find the cloth, but found yet another mildly idiotish person to interact with. This was the salesclerk! When I asked her about the fabric, she told me that it was probably a parcel of Filthy Gypsies who bought it all.

I knew the circus was not in town, but my mind was boggling under the sudden onslaught of imagery concerning gypsies (do you know any?) salesclerks who openly loathe and revile them (what's the likelihood of THAT coming out within 3 seconds of speaking with someone?) AND the very queer notion that I did not know that gypsies bought fabric.

"What in the world do they do with it all?" I asked.

The salesclerk paused for effect. Honest! She paused for effect and in an ominous and disgusted tone she uttered, "They SELL it!"

I tried to think of the various venues around town in which a passel of feelthy gypsies could set up their caravans, dance in the night to wild strains of music, and during the day set themselves up as cloth merchants. Maybe Oregon, but Sacramento, not so much.

This lady then launched into a confidential history of her childhood on a German farm in Minnesota, and how these gypsies came to their gate one day and claimed to be starving. They were begging, and hungry, and her father ordered she and her brother to go butcher two chickens, two rabbits, as well as gather up some carrots, potatoes, some bread from the pantry, and whatever else was on hand, in abundance. Because her father was a good man. And then she told how later that same day, her father came tearing into the house for his shotgun, because he was going to go shoot the entire lot of them! Of course the good Frau of the house did not allow him to do any such thing, but what could have made him turn so angry? Apparently, the starving beggars had set up a little booth in the curve of the road, and were selling all the goods they had begged for throughout the neighborhood. Selling the stuff back to the very people who GAVE it to them that morning.

Pretty Cheeky! And here, 65 odd years later (the clerk told me she was 71) that memory is alive and well and festering in the heart of the lady behind the fabric counter at your local store!

These things amaze me. Human beings amaze me. What they remember, what they forget, whom they despise, and why.

**No real gypsies were encountered or harmed during the retelling of this story.**
***No slight, slander or libel is intended towards gypsies past or present, salesclerks past or present, or German Immigrants in the midwest, past or present by the author in retelling this story.***