New Screen Door

Yes, only 7 or 8 weeks after Valentine's Day, my Screen Door is finally installed and fully operational. That Patrick is such a dear, but he does everything as fuddy-duddy and jerry-rigged as a thing can be done. Rather than position the molding by measuring it, for instance, he just attaches it and then has to go back and saw big chunks off it to make the rest of the stuff fit. I didn't say a word, though, because it was HARD WORK to hang that door and get it all together, and I am sooooo grateful to have a screen door at last.

So what if all the doorknobs are upside down and the dead-bolts bolt the wrong way.

Spring has sprung

The first day of spring came and went and I didn't even notice it, due to the torrential rains. And I'm not complaining! I just love the rain! I just wish we'd have them in July and August when we really need them. Oh, what I wouldn't give for a really good thunderstorm in summer!

I have a gigantic list of "To Do's" for today, my very first full day off in over 14 days, and so far I don't feel like doing a single one of them. Get gasoline, pick up my contacts at Wal-mart, clean the litter box, find the little box of white lights I bought at the Christmas close-out sale in the likely event of the strand I have over my plate server burning out, which it did a couple days ago, get groceries, scrub the cabinets and put down new shelf-liner paper, tackle the floors with broom, mop and vacuum cleaner, and dust at least one section of something that needs to be dusted. (Whew! How was that for a run-on sentence?)

Why can't I get people to do these things for me? If I won the lottery, forget about expensive cars, cruises and beach vacations. I would hire some help. I want people to do all the things I just don't want to do! And it's not that I am lazy, because really I'm not, it's that I'm incompetent. It's quite the realization, at 49, to wake up and clearly see that I can't do a darn thing to meet my own cleaning expectations. When other people mop the floor, it comes out clean. When I mop it, I make a rather muddy swirl of slob-water that I spread out evenly on the floor and let dry, hoping it will look like a nice coat of finish. Dirt Finish. But even.

Things I do well: make the bed and brush my teeth, daily. I do those things whether they need it or not. But vacuuming? I will stare at little annoying pieces of scrap paper on the floor for a week before it even dawns on me that I could vacuum them up and then they wouldn't annoy me anymore! But when I do vacuum, it doesn't stay that way. It takes a mere 30 seconds before it looks like I never did any cleaning whatsoever!

If I had people to do these things, the floors would stay mopped and vacuumed, the powder room would miraculously smell like a bouquet and the toilet tissue would be forever folded into a little point at the end.

I guess this tirade is my version of 'spring cleaning!' I call it Airing my Grievances.

Boring and Blurry

Well, I'm pretty blurry today! These are the best shots I got out of a dozen. It's the New Table Centerpiece, which is still-life proof that St. Patrick's Day is Boring for the Decor. Fortunately, I only have to leave this up a week before going to something springlike and pre-Easterish. At least I have a shamrock tablecloth. That's more than most weirdo's can claim!


Here's Mackie. I'm having a challenge finding the right spot for his blue nap donut. This seemed to work for a small nap, as he could keep an eye on me, feel like he was close, and yet not be ON TOP of me while I'm trying to work at the computer.

On Friday, the Old Goat came in from getting his mail and announced that I owed him $2.50 per day for garage parking privileges. I told him it was a good thing his garage was full of his cars then, because I wouldn't be able to afford to pay it. He thought that the little red car in the garage was mine, but actually it is his Grandson's who parked it there while on vacation.

This guy is determined to make sure he gets his money's worth out of me and that I am not cheating him in some way. Since no matter how much I vent and snark about it here, I take my job seriously and bring a whole lotta integrity, compassion and loyalty to the table, I find this utterly disgusting. As I was preparing to leave yesterday, he even asked me if I had stolen a book and put it into my purse. Sooner or later I'll have to ask to be replaced, AGAIN. Because I'm not up to being downed every day.

The Sacred Twelve

American Idolatry continues with it's usual fervor and hot sweaty palms. I really like that Ryan Seacrest. He is such a nice guy! And he is so required to handle the Awful Simon's nasty jabs, and do it with a smile and a good bit of showmanship. I don't think it's an act that those two hate each other's guts. I'm so glad I don't have to live inside Simon Scowl's skin!

Aside from the fact that pretty much everybody knows that American Idol(atry) is just a gleeful way to watch cruelty and torture on Live Tv--in a safe manner of course, since there isn't ever any blood and rarely any tears--people really seem to BELIEVE this stuff. And they don't seem to look behind the surface as to what a bizarre show this is.

For instance, nobody seems to think it the least HORRID that after you've dragged out the anticipation of the Hanging by making the person about to be voted off until the last possible minute just to build the fever pitch and feed the advertising revenues, that you then FORCE the LOSING PERSON to Sing the VERY SONG that got them booted off the Island to begin with.

You've woven this lovely hemp rope, and now we get to watch you hang yourself with it!

Scratch the veneer, my friends, and look upon what bloodthirsty, cruel and barely civilized beasts we are! And do it 3 nights a week for two hours each night!

Anyway, I'm just disgruntled. I really LIKED Gedeon, even if his Mom couldn't spell Gideon when she signed his birth certificate. He was interesting, could sing the birds out of the trees and had that very sweet smile. And....he was ODD. In the way that Taylor Hicks is Odd. Quirky and cool. You are drawn to that spark of unusual glowing meteorite inside them.

But America, subjected endlessly to subliminal programming and guided by a herd-of-sheep mentality, chose to vote out Gedeon and leave the wee lisping babe Kevin Covais in the running! Why? Is he really that cute? Is he really America's Darling? I thought for sure that Bucky would go. And Kevin. Bucky can sing, if you don't have to look at his teeth. Of course if he gets a recording gig, he can pay to have them capped. But I don't think you can have the 'cute' removed, and that is what would have to happen to make Kevin Covais the least bit palatable. You can dress 'em up in torn jeans, teach them some gang signs, and have them sing rap, but you can't take the 12 year old into a BAR! PEOPLE! The kid is not old enough to be up past his bedtime! He could never perform in an evening concert! PLEASE get your priorities straight on who you start voting off next.

Because no doubt about it, there are some seriously talented people who have been booted in order to keep the Kevin in the running.

Oh, and what made Ace decide he needed to hide his eyebrows? Because for the last couple of performances, after having explained to us his winter knitted ski-cap fetish, he's decided to take it's Beigeness out of his back pocket and start wearing it all the time now. It's STUPID. And Ugly. And doesn't do one thing to help his pretty boy looks in my opinion. I like his soaring, raven-wing eyebrows, why are the buried behind stretch wool?

On the home front, I'm working too much and ready to stuff my client in a velvet sack and toss him in the Yellow River, the way they used to do to Imperial Personages they were tired of and wished to depose. Yesterday he insisted that he had already taken his pills, and I told him he hadn't and that he had to take them while I was watching. He called me a NAG. He knows just how to dig his spiked tongue into the places it would hurt the most. I told him it was fine with me if he didn't want to take his meds, I have the number for the funeral parlor written right down by the phone. He thought about that for a second and then told me he decided he didn't want to take that chance and took his meds. But every day is like a WAR and I'm the losing country. Except I'm not. Because every day he loses a little bit more of who he ever was. I just hope at the end there is something left besides the nasty, digging, suppressive personality that he exhibits so much of.

My Dad used to sing a little song, and it went like this:

"Be Kind to my web-footed friend

The Duck may be somebody's mother!"

So I have to remember that this guy was and is someone's best memory of the greatest Dad. No matter how many names he calls me, or how many times he belittles me in general or tries to control my being. Because I can come home and change out of my martyr suit and live my happy life, and he cannot. He'll never get to live a happy life again. No matter how long he lives.

Fun Mackie Pics

Here's just some fun Mack pictures for today, before I'm off to the salt mines. Funny, that expression. We always use that in my family, and one time one of my boy cousins asked me with total sincerity, what the inside of a salt mine was really like. He actually thought I worked in a salt mine!

Here is Mackie NOT watching Bones, which is my favorite because I get to see the heavenly smile of David Boreanaz.

I love these near meditative looks.

If you don't plan on entertaining me or holding me, I think you should mind your own business.

And finally, asleep by the heater.

Expensive Cat Carrier

Why buy an expensive cat carrier when an ordinary plastic grocery bag will do? Sorry these are so blurry, but I was laughing so hard when I took these shots.

Swede for a Day

I knew I shouldn't have answered the phone today. I had the whole day off, after a mix-up in scheduling, and was looking forward to doing absolutely nothing. But instead I got called to do a fill-in for a sick girl, and I couldn't say no.

This lady was nice, but she lives with her son who is in a wheelchair. He lost his right leg from the knee down from cancer, and he smokes like a chimney. A dirty chimney. And he's one of those dysfunctional slobs. Filthy dirty tee-shirt, (and we know how I feel about those as outerwear) over an absolutely enormous gut. Probably shaved last month sometime, but the ear fuzz has definitely not been trimmed since Woodstock.

This lady had a hair appointment which I took her to, with instructions to return to the house, mop the floor, and iron her clothes. The dear has a thing about ironing. I kid you not she had me iron all her polyester pants. You know, the kind designed never to wrinkle under any circumstances? She even counts how many items there are. "Dear, you will have 7 pieces to iron!" she told me gleefully. So I dropped her off at the salon and scooted on back and tackled that kitchen. It was a sty, really, I'm not kidding. I went into the back bedroom, bearding the den, so to speak, and said to the son, "What was your name again?"

"Oh Bob" he replied.
"Well, Obob, could I get you to take the garbage out like your mom said you would?"
" Oh Sure" Obob replied in a sullen voice, not budging.
"What ya building there, Obob?"
"Oh just working on my satelite TV hookup"
"You're attaching it to a car battery?" I queried.

Obob had a car battery on his bedroom desk, grease and caustic battery juice dripping, attaching wires to it, semi-industriously. All the televisions in the house were on rabbit ears, so I kind of wondered how long he'd been working on this invention. I know he was doing it to make an impression. You know, so I'd fall in love and he'd finally get a life. Everywhere you looked, this house was crying out for a little maintenance. Things that Obob could easily do. But he spends his time in the Lanai surrounded by gutted television carcasses and stereo equipment under various strata of dust, smoking Cloves and blasting his radio. In piles at his feet were empty packages of cigarettes strung with cobwebs.

As I sped through this cleaning job, which I wanted to do quickly and thoroughly so I could get it done and also so I could do a little extra for this lady, who could use a little industry on her side, he rolled out to his den and cranked that radio up to glass shattering proportions. You know, so I could hear how lonely he is and how multi-musical. I stood at the pane glass door and waved his severed right wheel chair footrest at his glumpish back. "Does this have a home?" I asked him. He took the chair attachment from my hands and threw it onto the suede sofa, where it was to begin with.

"Obob, you've taken over and decimated this once beautiful home. Leave your Mother a lovely, clean living room, will you?"
"Oh I help around here plenty!"
"Like what? What do you do?"
"Oh I cook. I took Oh, 4 years of Home-Ec in high school so I could get out of going to study hall." Censure enough, in a man who obviously skipped the entire semester devoted to hygiene and halitosis.
"Oh don't tell your Boss or anything, but that girl who works here normally is the horniest thing I ever saw!" (Like I didn't see this coming).
"Really, what makes you think so?"
"Oh every time she comes over she says, Oh Bob, when are you going to take me to bed?"
"Are you sure you heard her right? She may have said Obob when are you going to take a BATH."
Obob left the room abruptly and troubled me no more.

When I went to pick up Mom of Obob, she was having her comb out. I heard her say, "Dear me, yes, I hire her from a service! And I'm just sure she's Swedish! I really like her so much! I'm Swedish, you know!"

As we gathered up her various paraphanelia and I loaded her into the car, she asked me if I was Swedish. She wanted me to be Swedish so badly. Why didn't I just tell her I was? What harm would it have done? I've probably got some Swedish blood mixed in there with the German-Scots-British, after all. And she so dearly needed to be able to be related to me by nationality. Obob is so obviously a trial to her, taking after his Slobakian Forefathers, rather than her tidy Swedish ones.

When we got back to the house, it was filled with second hand smoke. Obob had decided it was war, smoking in the house where it is forbidden, in true passive-aggressive style.

Poor lady! I turned to her and "Oh!" I said. "Oh! Come to think of it there is quite a bit of Swedish blood on my Grandmother's side."

God will just have to forgive me, because after all it was just a lie! It could have so easily been a Lie AND an Obob murder. Oh!

New Face!

Yes, here is my new profile picture. I can't seem to get the icon to be any bigger than a postage stamp, so here it is in a larger size so you can actually see it with the naked human eye.

AMERICAN IDOLATRY:

Get rid of that ACE character. I do not see what the fuss is about him and he needs a haircut. Of course Paula is in love with him so he's not going anywhere. But is he really THAT good? And what is with that stupid affectation of needing a beanie in his back pocket all the time? Get a haircut and you won't need to smash your hair down to make it manageable. I suppose we are supposed to think that is cute? Like a signature trademark, how endearing?

I'm all for the little chipmunk cheek kid, but he needs to go, as well. He's Munchkin-cute, but is he really necessary? Also, time to get rid of the other white boy, the non crooner one, the one who looks like he's one of the Brady Bunch. It always sounds like he's singing High School Theatre to me.

I'm all about Taylor Hicks! He's such a natural, so enthusiastic, and how can you not love anyone as spastic as Joe Cocker was who looks like a mush between George Clooney and the Young Steve Martin? And, he wore a suit, how refreshing from the obligatory torn jeans and long-sleeved shirt-under a teeshirt fad that I can't stand. A Teeshirt is UNDERWEAR, people. I don't care how many logo's you put on it, it's an UNDERSHIRT.

THEN, I just adore Sway. He's short, he wears hats indoors, which is my bottom line pet peeve, but he's quite the singer. I'm sorry he was so deluded, though, about that magic moment when his parents were together again watching him sing. Anyone with an ounce of female hormone could have read the body language between those two! Like total strangers only worse, absolutely NO eye contact and obviously so loathing of each other they wouldn't even let their elbows bump accidentally.

Of course, I really like the raspy voiced bald headed Chris Daughtry with the dude McDude sideburns. He is so very good, and I loved it that he said his kids are now really popular in school. It's fleeting of course, but kind of sweet, having a semi-famous Dad and all.

I didn't like the scurfy looking tall blonde pony-tailed Bucky but last night he was very good and I got that southern singer feel out of him. And once he gets his teeth capped, he'll be spiffy.

As for the girls, well, The Snot who Poses, Briscuit or Brillo or whatever her name is has too much Ego Malfunction for me. I like Kelly Pickler, the Divine Mandisa, and of course my choice for final winner is Lisa Tucker. She won't even need a stage name! And I love it that she is too young to wear lipstick, so she doesn't.

I'm not nearly as smitten with that perky little Paris as everyone else seems to be, but whatever the outcome of Idol, she's got a guarenteed career because not only is she good, but Randy Jackson cannot get his nose far enough up her butt in adoration of her famous Gramma. She'll be signed to a label pronto, so she's not necessary, is she?

But I guess we'll have to wait and see for tonight. America can be so stupid sometimes.

Oh, and people? POST COMMENTS, please? I'm so bereft of feedback.

My New Childhood

I'm revamping my childhood. And I've got photographic proof of my altered past! Here I am, in the garden, as an angelic wee tot, not a care in the world and totally, blissfully, perfectly happy all the time.

Night Mackie

I just spoke with my cousin Deet on the phone for almost an hour. She just returned from a long road trip across the south and into Texas and back again. She had me in stitches with the way she was describing things to me.

For instance she was telling me about an elderly gentleman she knows, who is 86, "But you wouldn't know he was a day over 75." She says these things with perfect sincerity and never misses a beat. I just fall out laughing it strikes me as so funny.

On her trip they went past so many signs for this place that they just HAD to stop. "Mile High Shoo Fly Pie, the signs said, over and over! We just kept seeing these signs so we knew we had to go there. Oh, maybe it was Foot High Merangue Pie, maybe. Well, anyway when we got there the piece we had was only about 8 inches tall."

They also went to Home of the Thrown Roll, which apparently is a restaurant where they throw your food at you and you have to catch it. Ah, America!

Here's the Obligatory Cat Shot. It looks just like he is having a cup of tea and a muse.

I may not know...

Where I'm going; but I know where I am from.
This is my maternal Grandmother, who still made her own jams, jellies and preserves right up to the end.

And this is she in a younger era, up on the well rig, the job she worked every day of her life except for Sabbath Sunday, for nigh onto 50 years.

And here she is in an even younger pose. How dear! How dear she was to me.

Kablooie!

Well, I woke up two mornings ago all primed for a neat entry, and had no internet! Since I have cable, and my TV was still having cable channels, I couldn't figure it out. They had to come on a service call, but of course the first slot was for 5 TODAY, that's 36 hours without the internet. Can you say Detox? Delirious Tremons?

And now my work schedule has also gone Kablooie, and I've got some grueling 11 hour shifts coming up. Will I be able to blog? I was just getting into the groove.

I will say this. All this hoopla about not having a qualified medical person who is willing to administer a lethal dose of sodium pentathol for that rapist/murderer on death row at San Quentin? Where's Doctor Kevorkian when we need him? HE'd do the job!

My opinion is this: If the Federal Goverment intervenes in the execution of a death row inmate, then the families of the victims of that criminal should be given TAX EXEMPT status for the rest of that criminal's natural life behind bars. Because I can't think of a more OFFAL (pun intended) thing to do to the families of a murder victim than to ask them to cheerfully pay to house, clothe, feed, medicate, entertain, educate and supply a decent burial to the person who took the life of their loved one. Or, let THEM administer the lethal injection. A bullet to the side of the head is not cruel and unusual, not in the least.

Seasons change, so does the decor

Before I had my stroke, I used to change my table centerpiece with every month or with every holiday. I liked the variety. I loved the visual of showcasing a few of my favorite teapots in that way. Just yesterday, I suddenly remembered I used to do that! How odd! I totally forgot, for an entire year, something that I would have said was vital and inherent to my being. I was in the mood for indigo and decided it's much too early for all the St. Patrick's stuff so I did this:

Blue on blue, heartache on heartache. Other than running to the store for water, that was the only thing I did all dirabongdiddleydamn day long. And don't I just look all happy about that?

Since changing the decor used all my creative juices, I'm a little short on verbal content. It will have to be pics for today. Here is Mack, sitting on my lap, and looking at me with those blue eyes like I am possibly the most beloved of his possessions, after the new donut, the catnip muslin beanbag, the mini-faux-mice, his hairbrush and my drinking straws.

Thanks for the donut now get outta my face

Yeah, Human Servant, I love this comfy plush sheepskin donut you bought me to keep my face and paws off the keyboard so as to prevent me from slamming the computer into sleep mode in the middle of your vital tasks, but now please get that flashing light thingee out of my face I need to get back to my Slacker Career.

Even though I know my cat gives new meaning to the term "hedonistic layabout" I far, far and away prefer him to the little dirtbag doggies I have to care for at my new clients' house. These little darlings are total con artists and food moochers. Last night I took my homemade foccacia bread and some sundried tomato basil pesto along to make grilled panini sandwiches for dinner, along with some steamed asparagus and an avocado saladine* in champagne dressing. These folks have a professional Wolf range with the Griddle in the Middle, so how happy am I? If they only had UTENSILS. I scoured that kitchen for a vegetable/potato peeler. None was to be found. Although they eat ice cream every night of their lives, there is no evidence that they posses an ice cream scooper. My guess is the Lhasa Apsos ate it. These little guys ignored me for the first few days I worked there, until finally it dawned on them I was another source for a potential handout. From then on out it was 'hairy-footstools-underfoot' in the kitchen!
*foo-foo talk for wee salad

Last night, as I was slicing and dicing, mixing and fixing, I would toss little bits of deli ham, paper-thin swiss, and bread crusts into their greasy gaping maws. If a crumb actually made it to the floor, it was instantly Hoovered up by a wet snout. When I actually had to start grilling the panini, I was given such looks of utter disbelief you cannot imagine! Shock and Fear of Starvation were written upon their little furrowed brows. If they could have manifested bloating and edema around the ankles in a bid for more food, they would have. As I served their Human Hosts this delicious gourmet meal, I noticed an absence of dog snurfles around my feet and then saw that they had already taken up their position by their masters' chairs! I stood in the kitchen, helpless to intervene, as Mrs. Humanhost tossed giant bites of grilled-to-perfection homemade foccacia bread swiss and ham and sundried tomato pesto panini into greedy little dog faces. As I was redding** up the table I had the mini-moochers in attendance once again. I fed them every scrap that was left, including letting them lick the ice cream dishes. Obviously they were still hungry! Probably hadn't had a bite to eat in 15 or 16 seconds. As I was loading the dishwasher I heard the unmistakable sounds of crunching and munching dog kibble, and turned around to see the dear little beasties chowing down a REAL dinner from their food bowls. They definitely know how to clean up their plates!

**Hoosier for 'readying' or clearing up the table

The reason these little beggars are not obese is because in the course of their nightly walk, which I have to take them on, they poop out 47 times their weight in excess snacks. Is it any wonder I just love my darling litter box trained, self-cleaning, non-mooching, wont-touch-human-food-if-you-paid-him-in-catnip cat?

Meme Me Up, Scotty!

Nobody ever memes me! It's disemboweling! However, I've cadged this from a friend's blog, so there:

Finish the sentence:

My ex was...
…Forgotten!

Maybe I should...
…beat around the bush more often. Procrastinate. Put things Off.

I love...
…to laugh. Hands down, I’d rather laugh than fall in love.

I don't understand...
…why things cannot go better for me. Not easier, just better.

I left my...
…heart in San Francisco. Above a Blue and windy Sea. Assuming the seagulls haven’t devoured it, could you mail it back to me if you find it?

People would say that I'm ...
…utterly charming when I’m not annoying them with the strength of my opinions.

Love is...
...a many splendoured thing. No, wait. Love…Sucks. Yeah, that’s it!

Somewhere, someone is...
…worried about their rice paddies, and completely oblivious to the petty concerns and cares of this individual known as me. I don’t know why, but that thought gives me great comfort.

I will always...
…be enamored of cats.

Forever is...
…Waaaaaay too long to be promising something for.

I never wanted to...
…be this po and downtrodden.

When I wake up in the morning...
…I rise up singing. It’s just later when it all goes sour, along about 15 minutes later.

Life is full of...
…false hopes and unattainable dreams. And not nearly enough Lilt.

My past is incredibly...
…colorful! If only I could remember it!

I get annoyed when...
…things are too noisy. Car horns, cell phones, neighbors.

Parties are for...
…fun and enjoyment and sharing blessings with loved ones, oh, and getting presents and sipping tea in congenial company, of course!

I wish...
…I could eat lobster and king crab legs and oysters and shrimp every single day. And chocolate for dessert. And I wish I could wake up (singing, of course) in a Posh Hotel in a Foreign Country. With room service and a mint on the pillow. I wish my heart would lift and lilt like it used to over simple things. I wish just a single wish would come true.

My cat is...
…an incredible being who endlessly fascinates me with his personality, his actions and his very presence. He is also very, very good company.

Kisses are the worst when...
...he tries to swab out your tonsils with his tongue and has gingivitis breath, and when you open your eyes you can see UP HIS NOSTRILS. (what did you expect I’d say?)

Tomorrow I'm going to...
…rise up singing and then make the bed.

I really want...
…answers. TRUE answers. I want to know everything. Life fascinates me.

I have low tolerance for people who...
…are dull bores with closed minds and repressive personalities and overbearing religious convictions.

If I had a million dollars...
…I’d be blissfully happy forever and ever. And I’d buy real estate for all my friends and family.

Anatomy of a Stroke, Part One

WARNING: There is nothing FUN about this post. No hearts and flowers, no daisies, no crumpets, no champagne or dessert. No Happy Ending!

On the day it happened, I remember feeling like my body chemistry was racing, racing really fast and hyper. It was bothering me, I’d never felt anything like that before. It was as if my mind had been pumped full of speed to the breaking point. No matter what I tried, I could not slow my mind down or stop the racing.

I was standing at the foot of the bed when it felt like someone had pulled the handle on a slot machine and sent my mind into such a spinning reel of motion that the external world didn’t exist for many long moments. When the slot machine stopped whirling, I felt my mind set back into itself with a physical thump, as if someone had flipped my brain over like a pancake and slopped it back onto the griddle with a squishy plop. My mouth felt funny; the right side of my body felt tingly and asleep. I remember groping for my mouth and thinking, “Am I having a stroke? Is this what a stroke feels like?” And then I waited to fall down dead, but I didn’t. So I didn’t know what to do next. I wasn’t sure if I should call 911 or perhaps fall down first and then crawl to the phone? This was what I was thinking!

And then I have no clear memory of the passage of time. Somehow, my life went on in a kind of strobe-light world of snap shot impressions, for days and days. My next clear memory is sitting at the kitchen table and being slightly surprised that my head still felt so odd. I thought, “Should I just sit here a while and see if it clears up? I think I’m having a stroke. Should I go to the hospital? How will I get there?”

I remember laying down in bed to sleep in the afternoon at one point, and thinking, “If I fall asleep will I slip into a coma?”

There was no continuum of time, no string of moments all tied together with clear thought like in the normal way of things. I remember thinking I was blind in my right eye. I simply could not see anything out of it but hazy, blurry shadows. Later, I discovered that my right eye worsened by almost two whole powers. I’d been a 7.5 in that eye, and am now a 9.

I knew who I was. I knew where I was. But I had no idea how much time had passed. Was it a day? A few minutes? Or had weeks flown by, with me just standing or sitting or sleeping in suspended animation while the world went on around me, oblivious?

Much later, a neighbor said he had seen me standing outside in the alley by the dumpsters, just standing and swaying. When he told me that, I remembered that I had gone to take out the garbage and had thought the sky looked nice and the night was still, and I just never went back inside again. I don’t know how long I stood out there. I don’t know why my neighbor, normally so damn nosy and intrusive and judgmental, did not come over to investigate why I was swaying and standing at midnight in a darkened alley when normally I don’t even go outside once the sun sets.

My next memory is on a Friday, when my friend Patrick came for tea and told me he was taking me to the hospital. Something seemed very wrong with me, he said. I kept tipping over. I was disoriented. Although I remember talking to him, and him saying I was speaking normally, to me the conversation came out of my mouth in slow motion. Listening to his words took almost unbearable concentration, and all the while there was this growing terror in me that I would lose all touch with comprehension.

And I do mean terror. Something as simple as getting into the shower set me sweating and trembling. I was terrified to think I might get into the shower and it would feel so soothing that I would simply never get out. That all time would run out in the world and I’d still be standing in there, not knowing if I’d soaped up and rinsed already or had just gotten wet moments ago. None of my moments attached to any other moments. I remember standing at the sink and having a feeling of ‘waking up’ and becoming suddenly lucid. It was the strangest feeling. A normal person on any given day feels lucid all the hours he or she is awake. I remember how frightening it felt to realize I had no idea how long I’d been standing with my toothbrush poised in the air. Had I brushed my teeth already or hadn’t I begun? I had to feel the brush, feel the inside of my mouth with my tongue and try to taste toothpaste to see.

My life became a science project, a puzzle needing constant scrutinizing and heroic efforts to grasp reality. I went to work, to care for my Alzheimer client, my regular two hour shift. She looked at me with her penetrating eyes at one point and asked accusingly, “Did you have a stroke?” I remember just looking at her. Looking at her and saying, “I think so. I think so.” And when I left, it took every fiber of energy that I possessed to remember how to stop for a stop sign; how to turn into traffic, how to get home. I knew where I lived, I knew my name, but I could not figure out how I could possibly get home. Sitting at an intersection, I felt nauseous and sticky with sweaty fear. How long had I been sitting at this traffic light? Had I simply ‘gone away’ for hours or had it only been a moment?

And all the time, the deepest pits of terror I had ever known. Any sharp movement sent a heat wave of fierce fright coursing through my bloodstream. Just a gentle breeze stirring the trees gave me the same reaction. Later it was explained to me that when the brain is damaged, and all it’s resources are going for vital repairs, the basic functions like discernment of known objects versus deadly foes do not work. My brain, sensing danger in anything and everything it perceived, sent primal ‘fight or flight’ impulses through my body, just to keep me safe. Home was the only place I could bear to be. The world outside had become, literally one giant Danger-Death-Fear-Flee Zone.

I slept for 18 hours at a time, woke up to eat, shower, move around, and then would go back and sleep for another 12.

Somehow I continued to work, continued to have conversations, buy groceries, put gas in the car. But I don’t remember any of it. I could not remember yesterday and I could not remember 30 seconds ago. Memory was a foggy blank space, filled with potentially poisoned, sharpened sticks and staves that I might fall on or stumble into. Forcing myself to concentrate on something I’d already done was futile and agonizing. So was trying to anticipate the future. Looking at my planner, noting the date or realizing I had to pay a bill or write a check for the rent, also caused a painful harsh sensation in my head. My brains couldn’t handle the stimuli.

There were moments of simple childlike innocence, but they were few. I remember thinking that I had known people, post-stroke, who were sweet when before they had been rude or bitter. Like the slate had been wiped clean, and they were starting out fresh. I never felt fresh. Fear is a rotting thing, a hellish thing. For every moment of quiet blankness in which I could rest, there were thousands of moments of the deepest dread. When I was not engulfed in pounding, survival based terror, I was in a no-man’s land of utter despair.

You don’t want to go through this. Get your cholesterol levels checked. You cannot FEEL cholesterol. The long road back to normalcy is not worth the blissful ignorance of thinking you don’t need to get checked because you feel just fine! So did I.

Writer's Block

You know, I'm beginning to think that my writing abilities are not going to improve. What a scary thought! I wanted to start this blog and feel the flow and have fun doing it. Believe it or not, all evidence to the contrary, I used to be a rather smashing writer, before my stroke. Writing, for me, was like traveling...you step onto the path and the journey takes you to amazing places; odd, unlooked for byways, smooth and rolling, with all my mind engaged and excited at each new vista, words and stories and concepts pouring in from the landscape and out through the pen.

Now, there is no vocabulary. Now, my brain is a cauliflower. It may LOOK like a brain, but it is essentially functionless. Not even spongey like a proper brain, just white and ossified and crunchy. All travel has ceased, the vista is flat, stagnant and non-lilting. It's a hidious place in which to be stuck.

So, assuming I cannot fool the masses, I make a Full Confession! I fill up this Blog with PHOTOS because otherwise it would have no content at all. None whatsoever.

This is what you do when given a charming, adorable teapot that has lost it's lid. Like me. Fill it with flowers and make a vase out of it. Exchange function for something decorative, and beautiful.


And some creatures just get to sleep all day long.

Mackie started to stretch and then fell back asleep in that position. Obviously all this napping is just wearing him out!

Original Tin

I learned to type on this very typewriter.









And, as a matter of fact, I used this very ink in my Dad's office to re-ink all his stamp pads.







And this is the very brand of 'baccy that I used to chaw when I was sitting around shooting the bull with the boys.

Ah, the good old days!

Fashion

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.
--Quentin Crisp











This is a collage card I made today as an alternative to having a nervous breakdown. Wait. Maybe it IS a nervous breakdown...

Writing with Mackie

There is no task whatsoever that I can attempt without the professional lounger who assists me.
This cat is so darn cute I have to put up with him! Notice his paw ON the paper.

The Paw really IS mightier than the pen.

New SHOES!

New Shoes! New Shoes! New Shoes!




Is there any felicity in the world that can compare with this?

Big Mack Attack

I have been up since 3 am and it is now 6 am. For some spring-feverish reason, Mackie decided that last night was Play Date Bonanza, and he started pestering me to play with him starting at about midnight. I fended him off until 3 but after that I was unable to go back to sleep. What is UP with that? I've had him since he was 4 weeks old, rescued from a flea market by friends of mine. He is a tabby cat bar sinister in an otherwise all pure-bred Seal Point Siamese litter. The despicable breeders plucked him from his mummy so they didn't have to claim she had whelped a back alley bastarde! So I have had him for ten-plus happy years and although he has always been a terroristic cat, he's never kept me up all night long, before.

He yowled, he pounced, he loudly galloped across the floor like a herd of hairy mammoths upon frozen tundra, he licked my fingers stealthfully which always scares the beejees out of me, besides being a decidedly unpleasant way to be roused out of sleep, and generally badgered me umercifully until I had no option but to get up and cater to his every whim.

And then he was soooo happy! He purred, he rubbed my legs, he cavorted in glee. I glumpishly filled his food and water dishes, brushed his little furry body, carted him around like a baby playing his favorite game of "What is that object?"*

Normally he just goes outside and hangs out with his hoodlum friends but he would have no part of it this morning. I opened the door for him at least 5 times and he'd sniff to his hearts content but would not budge. I simply could not figure out what got into him. He's not even that much of a night owl, preferring to sleep butted up against me or between my legs so that I am pinned and trapped in one position all night long. I honestly think he just thought I needed a treat. You know, like he was entertaining me as a Valentine's Day present.

*This is where I toss him over my shoulders like a sack of potatoes and tote him from room to room and let him sniff at high-up objects he can't normally reach, like the curtain rods, the upper shelves in the linen closet, the many plates mounted on the walls, etc.

Speaking of Valentine's presents, does anybody know what kind of plant this is, and more importantly, how do I care for it? It is not a geranium nor is it a carnation, but it looks like some kind of hybrid of those two.

Rose Amoebas

My friend Jeff came over here this morning and brought me a pretty plant for Valentine's day. I don't know what kind of plant it is or how to take care of it. He told me it was a perennial, to which I replied, "Oh, that makes it doubly horrible when I kill it like an annual"

Jeff was looking at my wallpaper on my computer, which is currently this:

And he said, "that looks like Amoeba's to me."

I scathingly told him it's called P-A-I-S-L-E-Y, but he said, "Nope. Rose Amoeba's." This is Jeff, who can trace his ancestry all the way back to Cleveland. But no further.

I thought I was offering myself such a treat today by taking in the Sunday Matinee over at the Geary Theater. I love live theater, but I do not love theater seating. Those narrow, teensy seats were designed for an earlier time, when the homo sapien theaterati only achieved the full adult stature of about 5'2" tall. My legs do NOT fit in between the end of my seat and the back of the seat in front of it, causing me to spend endless agonizing minutes squirming and crossing and uncrossing them and trying to find someplace to tuck them until they fall asleep on me and have to be shifted again.

I am about to confess a story the likes of which rivals only the true tale in which I turned to my boss' visiting brother, after having chatted with him for fully five minutes, and asked him if he spoke English. Because, Gentle Readers, I made a mistake in my choice of Plays. I THOUGHT I was going to see "Six Women With Brain Death," a ribald and silly comedy that has been highly recommended to me for years, but actually what I sat through for two grueling hours was "The *female-body-part* Monologues. With skits like "If your *female-body-part* could talk, what would it say? and "300 Slang Names for your *female-body-part*. I even had to sit through a 15 minute sketch of an actress dressed like a dominatrix imitating fourteen or fifteen different kinds of sexual moans that your *female-body-part* makes. But the lowlight was being required to SCREAM OUT *FEMALE-BODY-PART! FEMALE-BODY-PART!* over and over like a Rolffing Mantra before the end of the show. It was supposed to be liberating and enlightening, but it just felt cheap and tawdry.

And my friend Sharon spent the day at a Victorian Tea party and got to make paper dolls out of antique pink crepe paper.

Some Swell Soirees!

Wow! I've been having so much fun! This weekend I started soireeing early, as on Friday my friends the Q's came to celebrate Queen Q's birthday. I baked her a maple cake:

And I made mini-pizza's for everyone to eat and a salad and some dry kibble for Mrs. Q and myself, since we are on code Red for lowering our cholesterol levels. Actually, it wasn't really dry kibble, it was lean turkey patties, very tasty.

I met the Q's about 5 years ago when we all joined the same Civil War Reenacting Unit. We've been fast friends every since and it's a rare thing when you are friends with an Entire Family to find that you like everyone in the family. You know how if you are friends with the wife, you can't stand the husband, or if you like the couple, you think their kids are brats. So it is just a delight to have these folks come for a visit because each person is a treat all on their own! And of course they seem to love me unconditionally, and how cool is that? I don't even love myself unconditionally!

Even though it was Mrs. Q's birthday, she came bearing gifts, and I made a haul with some teacup socks, a cup and saucer set, a darling new teapot and a ton of stuff like canned salmon and canned chicken breasts. It was like Christmas all over again.

They had never seen Out of Africa so we sat and watched that rather long movie, and of course we all like the costumes, the time period, the rifles and general war paraphalia and we all decided that we'd really be quite all right if we had a major domo like Farah.

The really silly part is, that although I have a brand new digital camera that I am chomping at the bit to use, I did not remember to take a single picture!

HOWEVER, this evening, Soiree Number Two, I did take the camera along and I even had a good time. Tonight was 'Second Saturday' which is a monthly event in midtown Sacramento with an art walk and open galleries. In the summer it is quite the scene. It's a little early for it yet; but the moon was full and there were a lot of people about. I attended a buffet to benefit the homeless at the dance studio where I just started taking the belly dancing lessons. Everyone just gets up and dances and it was a lot of fun. I refrained from dancing because I don't know how, yet, but it was neat to watch. One of the teachers is a dead ringer for Marla Maples. She is quite thin to be a traditional belly dancer but she is so amazingly good at it, I forgive her!

I also had my picture taken with the teacher, who is like 70 something and just an amazingly smooth dancer.

NOT the most flattering picture of me; whither, whither has my waist gone? But look how cute Jodette is! I chowed down in Middle-Eastern food, focusing on the stuffed grape leaves and the hummus and the veggies and avoided the falafels and the stuffed meat pita breads. I talked to a bunch of new people.

For the most part the women who are taking this class are full figured, middle-aged and just wanting some exercise, with no intention of becoming performers. I did, of course, WOW my friends' the Q's with my one-step non-belly dance with the complete lack of foot-hand coordination that is my unique signature! I can work the finger cymbals, or I can take a step forward, but not both. Never both! That way lies danger!

Happy Valentine's Day!

This morning, contrary to my actual plan of writing a letter or two and heading out early for the gas pumps, Patrick called and said he wanted to deliver my Valentine’s Day Present early, because he had to put it into his truck since it wouldn’t fit into his car.

Now, Patrick is my ex-landlord, and still a great buddy of mine. I used to rent a shabby trailer from him and we were rather an item for about 2 years but he drove me nuts. He is the sweetest man in the world, but a total slob, and one of those clutter-collectors, and he is really stubborn about the way he thinks. Like, he refused to get the air conditioning fixed in his car because it would cost about a thousand dollars, but he was forever spending 5000 dollars on stuff like scrap metal that he could resell in 10 years or so if it didn’t rust to a pile of dust in the back 40, which is what always happened. I finally got so mad about the air conditioning thing that I went places in my own car and met him there. I also wouldn’t let him ride in MY car because I said I was not providing him with free air conditioning because it would take him even LONGER to get his fixed.

He even bought a newer car and it didn’t have air conditioning, and he installed this elaborate fan on the dashboard, it was totally asinine! ANYWAY, when Patrick say’s he’s bringing a present that will only fit in his truck, a fella gets a little worried. I kept thinking, what the HECK did he drag out of the back of some auction dumpster that he is bringing over here for me to deal with? It’s a guarantee it will be junk or rubbish. Like he brought me that bike that time with the 40 lbs of newspaper delivery boy baskets mounted all over it, I couldn’t even pedal it much less get it up the stairs to my apartment every time.

I love him dearly, he shows up here like clockwork every Friday morning for coffee and breakfast, when he chugs upriver in his scurvy houseboat. I kid you not, that boat was GORGEOUS when he first acquired it. It was factory-brand-new. It took him ten years to get it into the river, and by that time it was so loaded down with crap like a wood burning stove, a stationary bicycle, and several of those toxic propane heater things because he’s too cheap to hook up the electric heater in the thing, that it just looked like a junk trawler or one of those garbage barges on the Ohio.

So, imagine my surprise when, instead of a broken electric treadmill rewired to be a generator, or a used refrigerator casing retrofitted to be bookshelves, he showed up with a perfectly delightful, brand spanking new Security Screen Door!! I’ve wanted one forever, and I was so thrilled and excited.

Of course it weighs about 100 lbs and he doesn’t plan on installing it until mid-March. I have no idea what the hurry was in bringing it over here, but I’d better not look a gift door in the mouth!

I do have some issues with it. It means that the downstairs neighbor, the lurker, will have free access to all my conversations in the summer and the incessant second-hand smoke from his caregiver’s cigs will be wafting into my apartment through the windows AND door, now, but there may be a lovely summer night or two in which I can have the storm door open, the cross-breeze flowing, and feel like I am part of the Sacramento Summer Nights. Sounds like heaven to me…

I also felt better when I told my mailman all about how creepy my downstairs neighbor is getting to be, and he suggested I just drop a brick on his head. It was like having the 'insider' scoop on how to go Postal!!!

Bargain Brains?

I went to get my brains out of storage today, I decided it was time to take them out for a spin, and I realized I don't have the combination. I'm going to abandon them as flotsam and just start over with new ones, at rock bottom prices, maybe from Mervyn's or Ross or even Target. Anyone with spare, unused, servicable brains they aren't going to need or don't want anymore are welcome to contact me with an offer. I'd like to avoid an old crank-brain, since those are full of holes, and anything too rigid or ossified won't be a good fit for me.

Since taking myself off Zoloft (after only 5 days on it) 3 days ago, I feel like a new person! Or like my same, old self, without the vibration, headache, anxiety and distress. I think that is not the pill for me.

Today I had a dental appointment over at the dental college. That is such a cool place! Of course they take 2 hours to clean only one quarter of your mouth and you leave there feeling like perhaps you could have done it yourself a bit quicker with a pick-axe, a garden hose and a sledgehammer. But it's worth it for 18 dollars!

Now, around here, what with governmental offices opening at 8 or 9, 6 in the morning is still pretty early for anybody to be out and about, so that's when I like to shop. The stores are empty, the trip is quick and painless. This morning on the way to the dental thingee I stopped at the grocery. There was one woman at the cash register, then me, then two people behind me. The salesclerk was this PERKY, loud, jabbering little frizzy haired pudgy girl. She was really quite cute and nice, but she was just BLATHERING on and on with WAY too much energy. I said, just as a conversation opener, “Honey, you are WAY too perky for this time of the morning!” The woman who was having her purchases rung up turned around and in a bleary, tired voice, fervently said, “I AGREE!!!” I could see that this salesgirls manner had been getting on her last nerve. She was wearing a very lovely business suit, her hair was coiffed, and she had not got a stick of make-up on yet.

The guy behind me piped in and said, “Yeah, No KIDDING!” (so, I guess I wasn’t the only one who noticed). The salesgirl didn’t miss a beat, she told us that she had been at work since 4 in the morning and that along about five she had a SIX SHOT MOCHA to wake her up. Yes, six shots of espresso. The guy behind me shook his head and the lady at the counter turned right around and Raised her Eyebrows at me as she grabbed her bags and left. I paid for my purchase, with that girl jabbering 9000 miles per hour the entire time. My parting shot was, “I’m getting out of here before you crash!” The guy behind me laughed and I wished I’d asked for his phone number, if I could have gotten in a word edgewise.

The most shots I’ve ever had at once was Three, and that is just courting complete nerval breakdown! Of course this little chippy was all of 4 feet tall and 18 years old, and she could handle it. I wouldn't want her brains, either.

Fake Grill Marks on Food!

I don't know which of the many, many new meds I am on is giving me such fits but I feel like I'm revved up on about 20 espressos and my head is hurting so bad! Waaaa!

What I want to know is, why do they put fake grill marks on food? Is it to make you think it's been actually grilled over some fire on a fancy barbeque? And what are those fancy grill marks made out of? Discarded 10W40 from Jiffy Lube? Do little Keebler elves paint those stripes individually with a brush dipped in 'grill juice'? Or is it as I imagine, just some greasy-greasy conveyer belt down by the quay, leaving it's filthy footprint upon my food?

Here's Mackie having a rare snooze. He's cute, but don't touch the pads of his rhythmical feet. CHOMP!

Tartan Pants

I was taking a walk. It was twilight, and I was just going around a 3 block area in Midtown where I live, just to get some energy and some blood pumping. There was this scary Goth guy standing on a doorstep, he had on the knee high nail studded boots, every inch of his exposed body was pierced with something studded and metal, and he had on spiked mittens, a leather spiked jacket, you name it. He looked like a black metal cactus. I thought, well, I could run the other way or I could just say good evening, so I said good evening and “MY, aren’t you looking Goth this evening?” to which he replied, “Thanks, only I’m not Goth, I’m PUNK.” At that point I was walking right past him could see that he was fully 50 and not a day younger. And I thought, now, what in the heck has that man been doing for the last 35 years? Punk was 80’s! I think all their bands are dead by now! Did he just crawl out of a suspended animation tube? Does he live his life going to work in his ‘other’ persona every day? His normal one, I mean. Mr. Tax Accountant, Mr. Salesclerk at Petsmart, or whatever he is? And only comes out in his Punk Self at night or on weekends?

Anyway, we spoke briefly about his tartan pants, as I moved on and came on home.

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.***

Cheap Dates are Never Worth It!

That darling girl in the blue checked gingham flouncy dress turned out to be a drunken sot at the Christmas Party! My boss was NOT pleased!

So You Think You Can Dance...

Try Tyrolean Line Dancing with a guy in a poofy skirted pirate's vest!

The thing about me and dancing is that I am left handed. And Left Footed. And all dance under creation starts and ends with the right foot. This puts me at such a disadvantage for things like "step out on the right foot! Step Back!" because I will start with the left foot, hesitate, keel over, try to switch to my right foot while the left foot is in mid-air, turn pink with embarrassment, barely manage to cover my tracks in time to get that right foot out there the way it is supposed to be, only to look around and discover that the entire rest of the dance class has now graduated to waltzing, rhumba, and figure skating in sequined costumes.

No one will EVER say to me, "Oh Captain Butler you do dance divinely!" or anything like it.

But the thing is, I keep trying. I recently signed on for 10 weeks of belly dancing lessons. It's a required course in safely navigating a Mid-Life Renaissance 101 Survival and Reinvention Program, and I may as well get it over with now. And the class itself is cheap! What they don't tell you is that you have to have those little cymbal thingees for your fingers and a very expensive scarf with fake coins hanging off it so you jingle-jangle and make a happy sound. Oh, those cymbal thingees: right-right left. right-right left. That puts me into the category of 'beginning belly dancers who have no rhythm, no rhythm at all.' Because I try to do it left, left, right...left, left, right.

Plus I don't know about you folks but I don't often spend a solid hour on my own legs, hopping around and shaking my shimmy and throwing my right/left hip into dysplasia by imagining I am slamming a car door with a bag full of groceries in my hands. WHAM! (I could and should perfect this skill. Next time I am on a crowded conveyance and need to make a little elbow room, WHAM. I just get TIRED. I want to sit down and close my eyes. Everyone else in there is just bellying away and having so much fun doing it! They dance in perfect step with each other and their finger cymbals all sound alike. I paid good money to learn that a left handed belly dancer does not have a chance.