Nekkid as a Jailbird

WARNING: This post contains graphic depictions of nudity, indecent exposure, a glimpse into the seamy underbelly of the criminal mind and one count of lewd and lascivious behavior. Not for the squeamish, prudish, or humorless!


Now that I've scared you all to death or else made you salivate...Let me introduce you to one of my many, many prisoner pen pals:

As you can see, I am dressed as conservatively and as seemly as befits a visit to a prison. They have rather strict dress codes and codes of conduct, and it's always best to err on the side of caution or you can get turned away at the door.

Not so at the county jail! My friend, Tracy was recently OTC* and housed at the Sacramento County Jail just up the street from me. *prison lingo for Out To Court* While registering there for my visit, I noticed that any and all street attire was allowed. Young wives and girlfriends were scantily, even provocatively clad.

The rare occurrence of my friend being transported to the city for a court appearance afforded me the opportunity to pop down and visit him without quite so much hoopla and preparation as when I go to the Prison.

The way it works is that you drag yourself out of bed and heave off to the jail by 7am so you can get in line for the first available appointment. The first time I visited, the appointment was set for 8:45PM and it was eerie and dark and solitary downtown that time of night. It did, however, have the upside of offering tons of free parking and no worries about feeding the meter or driving around for ages finding a spot. Which for some reason served to short circuit my common sense when it came to my next visit which was scheduled for 8:45 AM. As in: peak traffic time and serious parking mayhem.

Excuse me for now talking about my undergarments. I know it's simply not done in polite company, but it's important to this story. For if I had not yielded to vanity and worn my 18 hour Playtex Granny Bra, none of this would have happened. Instead, I opted for my superior quality and superior comfort Victoria's Secret Under wire Push-Up Bra.

Just like this only with more fat.

I threw on Capri's, a tank top and a nice blue sweater. And I drove downtown and in a frantic muddle had to drive around for 20 minutes looking for parking. I ended up blocks and blocks from the jailhouse and with moments to spare, I had to race like the wind. Of course when you are 50 and 50lbs overweight that translates more into a lumbering sweaty jog of heaving and huffing and puffing to make it to the jail on time.

I whisked through the security portal, past the busy administration kiosk and up the elevator to the visitation area. I was buzzed into the glass booth and sat down, hair askew and dripping with perspiration.

Dear Tracy came into the dayroom and I saw with satisfaction that he broke into a big grin when he saw me. As he was seated and reaching for the phone I noticed that his eyes fell to my chest area and remained glued there for the duration of our greeting. Since he is normally a polite and gentleman like fellow, I thought this was a bit out of character. I let it go, though. After all, I am only a feminine human, and it's flattering to be thought still worth a glance!

Except that Tracy was doing more than glancing. His eyebrows were decidedly rococo and his normally pleasant smile had something of the salacious about it.

I decided to look down and see what all the fuss was about, and as you have already guessed, what I was staring at was a completely exposed, fully-flopped out left breast! Swinging in the breeze! Au naturel! Starkers!

You've never seen anyone move so fast in your life. I'm sure I was a blur of Super Woman Speed as I adjusted my clothing and covered my shameful nudity.

Tracy was at this point falling off his seat with laughter, and I was falling off mine with mortification. I cringe at the thought of what would have happened if one of the guards had seen this display! NO WAY would anyone believe this was an accident!

"But officer, I was nowhere near it when it happened! It jiggled out of it's own accord!"

And THIS, dear ladies, is why we must never run. Why we must not perspire or jog or jounce around. Unfortunate clothing mishaps can occur and the consequences could be dire. One could end up Nekkid as a Jailbird and serving time of one's own!

E-lated to be Di-lated

Okay, I'm typing this blind and isn't that the greatest excuse ever for typos? I FINALLY got to see the Opthamalogist today, about my cataract in my right eye. It has gotten so much worse than a year ago and at that time it wasn't ready to be removed. My Big Fear was that he was going to tell me it needed to go a little longer before it could be removed.



But after all the preliminaries like checking for glaucoma and dilating my pupils and all that, when he shone the light in my eye he muttered, "SHEESH!"

Did you just say Sheesh? I asked.


Yes, he said. I cannot even get the light to shine through the membrane! Needless to say I got the 'cataract surgery is safe but you've got a 2 percent chance of blindness and dementia, etc; lecture, along with a strong recommendation that I take the chance and have the surgery. I told him I'd take that chance and how soon could we do it?


I should back up for a moment here and mention that I've worn contact lenses since I was about 14 years old. My eyesight is so poor that normal glasses just don't work for me. For one thing, pop-bottle bottom lenses are nothing compared to the -9 power myopia I have. So when I go in for an exam and they have me take my contacts out, I am literally in a blind fog. I have no idea what the room looks like, where any objects are located, and I can only figure out what is what because I am not color blind and can discern gradiations and shapes.


It's an odd truth that humans do most of their listening with their eyes. No kidding, we need to read lips in order to get full comprehension of most things, especially new information. So when Dr. Peabody started to explain the surgery options to me, I excused myself and put my contact lenses back in so I could hear what the hell he was saying.

And, Lo to my wandering eyes should appear but the spitting image of Steven Colbert!

Right down to the quirked eyebrow and the sarcastical turn of his lip. I was enchanted, of course!

With every good there must first be a whole lot of bad that precedes it, that is what I'm coming to believe about life, and the bad that comes before the good of having my eyesight restored in at least my right eye is that for the next 3 weeks I must be blind entirely. I need to take my contacts out to let the cornea resolve itself into it's natural shape in order for the surgery to get the best measurment and best eyesight possible for my future vision.

And believe me, you don't know vulnerable until you've wandered around blind. It's a freaky experience.

One thing is for certain sure...now would not be a good time to hop in the car with a plastic baggie full of white flour and another of green tea up on the dashboard.

Nacho, Nacho Man!

Even with all that is going on and going wrong with me, I still manage to EAT well and cook up the odd feast here and there. This weekend I was in the mood for good broiled nachos so I made these:

While preparing my Passover Sedar I caught myself singing "Matzoh, Matzoh Man! I'd like to be a Matzoh Man!" to the tune of the old Macho Man song...and so of course that's what I was singing when I devoured these nachos.

Finger Puppet

Lately, I've come to the conclusion that if I went to the doctor and said I had a brain tumor and some athletes foot, he'd fix me right up with antifungal foot cream right away. Brain tumor? Let's take care of that natty little foot fungus first, shall we? Take two aspirin and call me next year and we'll look into that tumor thingee.

Although I had an MRI weeks ago, I have yet to find out the results (because the results were lost, or at least they never reached any of the clinics that needed a copy) and in the meantime I guess they want to keep me happy with little amusements.

Like this electronic finger puppet!

Now, this little gadget is supposed to measure how much oxygen I'm being deprived of in my sleep. I suspect it has a hidden agenda: to deprive me of sleep ENTIRELY. It has bright red lights and a flashing green and yellow light. VERY bright. So bright that I had to bury it under the pillow last night or I was afraid I'd get hypnotized like a chicken and slowly starve to death because I'd be unable to break the trance.

At least Mackie loved it. I wish I could have gotten a picture of him staring at it. He just could not figure out what those flashing Christmas lights were doing in our bed! He sniffed at it and stared at it and finally figured out that if he lay down on it, he could make the lights go away. So he tried to lay on the thing every chance he got.

I'm waiting for the lady to come and pick up this gadget and take it away. It was just a one night stand! Supposedly inside the meter is a recording device that will tell my neurologist the astounding and amazing fact that I don't sleep well.

The Secret Meaning of Hot Flashes

As I was marching across the tundra, mile after mile this morning, taking my garbage to the dumpster in the rain, I noticed that the rain was not actually penetrating the heat shield barrier around my body. The water was, in fact, sizzling into vapor the moment before it reached my actual flesh.

And this is when it dawned on me! In order to assure the survival of the species, Nature devised this amazing thing called Hot Flashes. Imagine generations of arboreal and mud-dawber clans dying out because they did not have any old women around to impart knowledge and demand accountability of the young. They did not have any old women around because as we know, most tribal cultures drive their elderly into the swamps or the snow once they are no longer of use to the clan and thus become a gaggle of useless mouths to feed.

And thus it became that our feminine DNA decided to morph itself into a midlife Heat Radiation Source, so that all the tribal peoples could gather round and get warm and stay dry in bad weather. Not only did this keep the People from freezing to death in the long winters, it insured that they were a captive audience for the storytelling, scolding and law enforcement of the Wise Old Crones of the Clan.

The fact that we have evolved away from being jungle creatures in igloos and yurts squatting over a toasty Matron in order to cook our strips of yak meat has not yet sunk into our DNA. And that is why we have millions of women wandering around emitting nuclear heat with no one to whom it might benefit.

I don't know about you, but if I can find a noble reason for the sudden 100° rise in body temperature resulting in the swamp sweats and brain fog of a hot flash, I can better put up with them. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

An Arboreal People

You know how you have that favorite item that just hangs in your closet because you are saving it for special? Actually, I have a few pieces like that. I wore one yesterday; my turquoise blue tee-shirt. I wore it with khaki capri's because it was a fine spring day: just right for that shade of blue.

I went to the Blood Source yesterday and gave blood, finally. Wearing that lovely blue shirt. Nobody told me I could end up with my favorit shirt looking like this:

Apparently the nurse had the cuff too tight and when he stuck the needle in my vein it sprayed out all over everything. I don't know because I had my eyes closed. I can't abide the sight of a needle penetrating my flesh so I can't look.

Nobody told me I could get all blood splattered from donating blood! It's just another one of those things I'm not so keen on doing, now that I know more about it.

Like when I found out that I didn't reallly want to belong to an arboreal people after all. I thought it meant living in one of these lovely conservatories:

Table Tale

I've always loved my South American Hardwood table ever since I bought it back in the Pleistocene Era. I've served many a dinner party, potluck, buffet and brunch on it's surface. I've used it for Christmas parties, Easter parties, and for Passover Seders. Entire quilts have been pinned on it, holiday cards have been mass-constructed on it, and more recently it has acted as a paperwork organizer as I wend my way through this medical miasma I am currently experiencing.

Last night I said goodbye to this old friend! I sold it to a lovely couple, just starting out, who were looking for good pieces to start their lives with. I told them I was so glad they were not dirtbags! They liked that.

How awful that floor looks! Of course it's not from lack of scrubbing. It's just old and stained and discolored and 'all woe out'. In the meantime, I've set up my little folding end table to act as a pretend table. It's not right but it's the way it has to be for now.

My cousin recently told me that she hated the old adage 'there is no use crying over spilled milk' because it seems to her that is EXACTLY the thing to be crying over. Whats' the use of crying over a glass that is sitting perfectly full on a safe table? Spilled milk must be cried over in buckets. All the regrets and and 'woulda-shoulda-coulda's' must be sobbed out in gallons and gallons of spilled milk.

And then you wipe up the mayhem and face forward again.

All I Need is a Cat and a Sink!

One of the things I've been doing lately is exploring dirtbag-cheap options for living while I wait for a decision on whether I am eligible for disability. This has entailed driving into the swamps and hollers of North and West Sacramento, navigating the teensy narrow twisty-turny lanes in old defunct trailer courts and even prying open rusty gates on razor-wired abandoned storage containers.

The old adage that 'if it's too good to be true, it probably is' applies in spades when you are chasing down the rumor of a neat free place to live. Good old Patrick's idea of a 'clean, easy, safe and reliable storage container at NO CHARGE' turned out to be a filthy, hard to access, boarded up and easily impregnated back end of an old semi that he's parked on an abandoned lot and surrounded with fences and razor wire.

Upon opening this trailer, I saw that it was half full of car batteries, all hooked up to store energy from a couple of solar panels on the roof. Patrick proudly switched on the solar-power-activator, and pulling a small light bulp out of his pocket, he inserted it into a socket on the outside of the trailer and Viola! Instant Light!

"Of course," he demured, "This won't power up a microwave oven or a hair dryer but you could have light!" I refrained from pointing out that it would be on the OUTSIDE of the trailer and therefore of absolutely no use whatsoever.

On the other side of the lot, tucked up under the trees, was an amazing old Airstream camper. I could see that Patrick had made his mark on it, as well. In the little living room area he had installed a big honkin' wood burning stove, effectively rendering the seating area null and void.

Patrick doesn't like to mess with the government so he rigged up the solar panels and 50 car batteries to avoid getting the necessary permits to just run electricity onto this property. And water? Who needs water? I asked him how he planned on managing the plumbing issues and he just figured he'd haul in a chemical toilet. Patrick's take on things is that he's 65 now and doesn't want to take on any more projects. I agree with his philosophy and by the same token I'm 50 now and don't want to live without a bath. Or even water so I could scrub the place up!

Shame on me for not taking my camera along because you'd have to see it to believe it. Patrick said his plan had been to run an extension cord across the lot so he could plug in a light in the Airstream using his fantastic Solar Energy Plant!

One of the other places I got wind of involved a small, 8x25 trailer that a woman was just GIVING away because she didn't want to mess with it. Of course after talking to her I realized there was more to it than that. She was behind several months in her lot rent and the management company wanted first and last deposits, etc; It was a cute trailer but I looked it over and saw that someone had taken a wrench to the faucet handles and removed them doing some serious thread stripping in the process. I'm handy but not so handy I can re-plumb an old trailer, so I had to pass on that opportunity.

But all this searching for a poverty dwelling has led me to think about what I want, and what I need. Electricity, running hot and cold water, someplace safe and non-leaking to rest my weary head, and somewhere Mackie will be happy and safe as well.

Roses in April

Well, there is nothing like spending 15 minutes of pissed-off frustration each time I want to log on and make a simple post, to sour me on the entire idea of blogging. Although I am fully signed up for the 'new blogger' and have done all that is necessary, I am still stopped at the dashboard and refused entry until I type in 47,000 times my weight in excess acidic remarks. Then it makes me log in under my old blogger identity and go from there. So why won't it let me do that to begin with? I dont know. I feel stuck in blogger/google-blogger purgatory.

And all I wanted was to show these incredible roses that I gleaned from an obliging bush out behind my apartment. That's all! Happy Easter and Happy Spring, y'all!

Blogger, Blogger, who's got the blogger?

Well, really! I finally caved in to coercion and pressure and switched over to the NEW blogger that is powered by Google instead of whatever powered it before; Wheaties, methane, cyber nano-bots.

And then I could not access my account for many days! Many days in the desert with things to say, and all the while thirsting for my blog of old! As the sands of thought slowly sifted away on the parched wind.

How the hell am I supposed to remember what name I registered under? It's not like I use my REAL name! This is why I have an anonymous blog! So I can use one of the many fun identities that I made up! Miss Pinks! Miss Pink Butler! Miss Pink Ponsonby!

I suppose I could write all this stuff DOWN, but with the new Google-managed Blogger, I have to register at Google under a gmail account and in a fit of hurry-up-and-get-this-done-ness, I signed up under an entirely different name which I've now forgotten.

Which leads me to the conclusion that whoever runs Blogger and Google are in the under-30 crowd. Where memories line up like little soldiers with sabers drawn, ready to throw themselves into the battle fray of serious cognitive achievements.

But I'm 50! My thoughts list about in drunken fashion, their sabers left behind at the dinner table stuck into day-old moldy bread. None of my thoughts line up because they are on Furlough, dammit! Drunken and Disorderly Conduct Detention! Dishonorably discharged for sloth and no longer considered fit for active duty.

And now I've misplaced all of the thoughts that were earmarked for the blog posts I wished to write. So I'll just have to make up something.

Which leads me to a rant about PHONES. And phone construction. What idiot-savant decided it was a good thing to put all the dial buttons and the hang-up button and the flash button on the inside of the handset portion of the phone?

Don't they know I need to lean my FACE on that part? I can't tell you how many times I've hung up on someone or worse yet caused sudden deafness and toothache when I hit some number button with my cheekbone, causing a loud piercing BEEP!

Whoever thought up the design for most modern phones obviously never rested the phone between face and shoulder while they fixed tea, opened their bills, cut up day old moldy bread with their sabers.

I would like a removable dial-pad on my phone. Or some bulby protruberance on the top of the handset that would contain the buttons and keep them far removed from my cheek and chin. I don't know! Hopefully my friends are not aware of just how much of their scintillating conversation I miss entirely because I've accidentally pressed the 'flash' button and switched over to an empty phone line for a moment. Oops.

Another Sofa Done Gone

Another one bites the dust!

Another one bites the dust!

And another one gone, another one gone, another one bites the
dust!

~~irritating hard rock lyric

Well, it's true. My short lived rapture over my new-used sofa a few months ago quickly dissolved in a pool of damp nicotine. Whoever owned that sofa before smoked it like a Hormel Turkey, and the stench was unbearable.

So yesterday I went from this:

To This:

And I couldn't be happier. Yes, it's my old twin bed from my second bedroom, now full of boxes. So why not bring it out and make it into sort of a daybed for me? I spend most of my time reclining anyway, these days.

fibromiasma

Well, I had all kinds of clever things to say today but when I logged into my account I was forced into an upgrade. That took all my energy and wiped out my memory banks so that I lost all my data. That's not unusual these days, actually.

I'm sorry I haven't written much. Last night a pack of frightened, rioting villagers bearing lit torches and various sharp pointy farm implements stormed my keep and said that if I didn't write a blog update soon they were going to Parole me to Jesus, and right now, too. So I promised to at least post a small update, with or without photos.

As I've been saying for some time now, my health sucks and my memory vacuums, and it's taken nearly 4 months just to get in to see a neurologist. Although my MD thinks I have multiple sclerosis, the neurologist says fibromyalgia. Although the two are radically different as to treatment and even the mode of diagnosis, so far nobody has convinced me which is which and which is the which that I have.

But this is why I can barely shuffle through my days, much less sit and be witty on a blog. But I miss it, and I miss all of you, so I am going to try posting, even if it is about awful medical things for a while. Soon, soon, I hope to be in new digs, with a new diagnosis, and new meds to fix me right up, and then I can write about decorating and how Mackie likes or dislikes his new surroundings and all that. So hang in there with me, if you DARE.

Kindly,
Miss Pink Ponsonby

IKEA-Breakfast of Hip, Trendy, Cutting Edge Death

I had the dubious treat of eating breakfast at IKEA yesterday. Now, those of you who have heard of IKEA will think, "What? IKEA is a hip, trendy, cutting edge, contemporary Swedish Conceptual Full-Immersion Furniture Shopping Experience. Where does breakfast enter into that scenario?"

All I can tell you is that it does. Somehow. The Sacramento IKEA has a full-immersion, cutting edge, hip, trendy, conceptual restaurant, along the lines of the old automats from the 50's. Think School Cafeteria meets George Jetson and you've just about got the design concept.

Think McDonalds meets B&S Truck Stop on Old Route 3 and you've got the food quality concept.

Except that the B&S Truck Stop would have scorned using reconstituted yolk powder. They used those old fashioned things called EGGS instead.

Oh, Sure, The IKEA restaurant is neat and upscale with space-age doctor's office waiting room tables and chairs, and a lovely view of the Huge Parking Lot and the Mega-Wal-Mart being built next door, but somehow that just doesn't compensate for the fact that you are eating steam table food that was first soaked for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long time in bacon-tinted axle grease and then left to cool and coagulate until the molecular structure of the food has somehow taken on a new, hip, trendy, cutting edge level of rancidity.

It was either that or the high octane sludge with the little gritty bits of grounds floating in it that passed for coffee that sent my stomach into a very cutting edge case of Delhi Belly for the rest of the day.

Breakfast should never be eaten at room temperature no matter how climate-controlled the room!

As we were leaving the food area, one of the nice waitress ladies reminded us that tomorrow the breakfast is free. Not even for free would I again subject myself to that kind of lard laced lanquidity.

But it wasn't all bad! IKEA itself is an amazing maze of very fun, cool and hip stuff that you really think you can't live without. Just a few moments stroll through the pathway in the showroom and you are determined to throw out every stick of antique, mission style, Victorian, Shaker, Ethan Allen furniture you own and replace it with sleek laminate and leather sofas with no backs on them. You will want to yank out your kitchen and remodel it with stainless steel from wall to wall, and have your utensils stored on a giant industrial metal cart on oversized roller wheels.

You will even want to run out and join the resistance movement to smuggle deprived Swedish War Orphans into the country so you can adopt some and have an excuse to buy a room full of IKEA KIDS furniture. Those miniature beds! Those wee little play kitchens all made of stainless steel ! With industrial kitchen carts on roller wheels! Filled with darling IKEA KIDS pots and pans! The fully conceptualized Tot-to-Teen convertable furniture! I want it ALL.

But the kicker for me, the one thing that totally sold me forever on being in love with IKEA in spite of the food, was the little area called 592 SQUARE FEET. You pop your head into this little showroom to find yourself in a completely furnished, perfect little 2 bedroom one bathroom home with a full kitchen, dining room, living room and entertainment center, all of it taking up no more than 592 square feet!

Barely an imprint in the sand! It was the most wonderful space I've ever seen and Patrick and I sat down on the sofas a while just to enjoy it. Until of course the fact that IKEA sofas are more like Freudian Analysis couches made of tufted dark brown leather on stainless steel legs rather than traditional sofas that have a BACK on them, and we got tired of sitting upright and/or lounging on one elbow and moved on.

I don't know how IKEA can make 592 square feet feel like a spacious, desirable, must-have, full-immersion, hip, trendy living environment, but they do. And seeing such a small amount of space made so liveable helped reconcile me to moving back to Indiana where they are no stranger to the concept of living in 592 square feet of total living space. It's just that back there, they call it a HOUSE TRAILER.

For further amusement, and more insight into the world of IKEA, check out this archived link from the NonExpert. He writes a 'gamer's walkthrough' of the IKEA experience that tickles me each time I read it.

The Non-Expert IKEA

Tea and Memory

Ah, Good morning. I think today is Wednesday. (actually, it's Thursday!) What a morning I've had already. I tell you. Memory loss is a fearsome thing but did you know it could also be time consuming? I got up this morning bright and early and fixed my usual pot of tea. But I could not find my morning coffee beaker. I looked and looked. I know I had it yesterday, but I couldn't remember at what point I saw it last.

Then an awful fear crept in. What if I packed it into one of the boxes I've been packing up? Although carefully marked, they are not in total precision detail as to each item. I've been packing in categories so I figured it might be in with the coffee mugs and stemware box...but I could have sworn I packed that box 2 days ago and have had tea since then so how COULD it be in there?

But after a thorough and fruitless search (I even looked in the shower. I don't usually drink my tea while shampooing my hair but anything is possible, really, these days) I dug in and started slicing the tape off boxes and going through, one by one, each wrapped bundle of china and crystal and pottery, to see if I could find my tea beaker.

But to no avail.

I gave up and drank tea out of a different vessel and went on with my morning.
By this time my tea was cold so I decided to pop the pot into the microwave for a quick re-heat. And guess what I found?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I love her little yellow spats! And after she delivers her bouquet and billet-doux, she will no doubt head to the nearest chocolaterie` for tea.A Checkerboard Heart!
Ah, a Valentine not rife with nekkid cherubim! With Yellow Roses! And a Wedding Cake Frosting trim on her pretty white dress!

And a simple sentiment: With love, Love.

Happy Valentine's Day, Gentle Readers!

From

Miss Pink Ponsonby

Cake Wars

Yeah. It's been like that lately. Just like that.

sock Wars

Am I the only person who cannot keep socks on her feet? No matter what I do, no matter what kind of shoes I am wearing, no matter what kind of sock, my feet have a way of rejecting the socks.

This takes the form of the sock spinning around on my foot like Linda Blair's Head. Sometimes I will be out in public and realize that the heel portion of my sock has spun around and is now facing the top of my foot.

Here are 3 separate examples taken Just Today.

Mackie seems to be smirking at me.

You know I couldn't care less about this being Super Bowl Sunday. I forgot to stock up on good snacks and some movies to tide me over, so I guess I'm just stuck rearranging my socks all day long.

Smell the Burning Flesh...er I mean Rice.

Last night while trying to fill out forms and cook rice, I managed to burn up one of my stainless steel glass-top pans. I simply forgot to turn the burner down once the rice water started to boil. Pretty soon the black smoke was rolling and I had an awful mess of blue smoke rolling through my apartment. I'm suprised my smoke detector didn't go mad, it usually does with less smoke than this.

It rather makes the issue of the stinky sofa a moot point. Now my entire apartment smells like the aftermath of a bombed out rice patty in 'Nam. Napalm and charred flesh.

I had to cover the sofa just so I would consent to sit and loll on it. I just had this vision of rubbing tar and nicotine into my skin every time I moved. Hopefully this doesn't look too tacky:

Before I covered the sofa, Mackie wouldn't sit on it. He kept sniffing around and then moving to another spot and sniffing some more. I guess he felt like I did about napping in the bottom of a wet ashtray. Now he loves it: more places to nap! Here he is deciding which of his toys to play with.

New Arrival

After months and months of searching for a used sofa that was: comfy, clean, cheap and not butt ugly, I finally found something at the new Salvation Army Thriftstore that just opened up in Antelope. It wasn't until I got the cushions in my car on the way home that I realized it was not from a smoke free environment. Ugh! So here it is, delivered by Men in a Truck with a Dolly, reposing in the only spot in my living room that will fit a sofa.

Neck Tie

My Great-Aunt Julia Hass-Muesing, all tied up in a bow!

Cousin Fantine at the Harvest Festival

I'm sure that my Great-cousin Fantine did not intend to look like she was wearing a heavily-adorned-with upholstery-tacks rendition of a tomato stem around her neck; in fact I am fairly certain she was pleased as punch with her fancy rig!

A Yeast Roll of Beauty is a Joy Forever...

Or at least until they are all devoured! Ta-DA! I just made my very first batch of Yeast Rolls! I know, I know, you are all hanging on the edges of your computer chairs waiting to discover how a bread-baking 50 year old has managed to get this far without having made any! But it's true! And the reason is because there are in my family, several really EXCELLANT yeast roll bakers who vie for attention as to who will bring the yeast rolls to any family event.

My Mom openly declares that Aunt Iney's are the best, and she bribes her every year to make the rolls for Christmas Dinner at our house.

I do not DARE to declare any yeast rolls better than the other for fear of offending 8 other aunties, so my lips are sealed! I only know that mine, even after one attempt, may well fit in with the others as a tasty edition to any bread basket. Now I just need to remember how I made them, because I just threw the ingredients together without a recipe! Oops!

Candy Dishes

I have a real love for candy dishes. My Gramma had an old 'refrigerator glass' square dish with a lid that was quite clanky, and she had it loaded with candy. We were free to help ourselves when we went to her house, and if we didn't she would remind us: Did you look in the candy dish today? It was such a delightful and magic-y thing to have that dish of candy. Because it was the fluted glass (is that the right word?) you couldn't see exactly what was in there, but you could definitely see that it was loaded.

So when I went Plastic Container shopping at Walmart and saw this little glass candy jar I Had to have it!

And then of course I had to go back and get the other two sizes that it came in so I could have a candy-counter display of my very own.

The trick is to buy candy that you cannot stand to eat, otherwise you can't keep the jars full!

Making the bed

You can change the linens but you cannot change the cat!

~~Ancient Sufi-Derbyshire Proverb

As witnessed here by Mackie being adorable. How can I shove him off onto the floor when he's looking so cute and being so obstructive?

No, I cannot be such a heartless beast! The sheets will have to wait for another time to be changed.

Smug Age-ism

When I turned 50 I decided I was no longer going to stand for being diminished or disrespected or trivialized. I know to some of you ladies it will come as a shock that I waited until I was 50 before declaring myself an adult, but that's how long it took.

See, the thing is, when you are 18, everyone who is 21 tells you that you are just a baby. So you can't wait to turn 21 so you will get some respect but at 21 there are those smug 30 year olds telling you that you are a mere pipsqueak. So you reach 30 and think, Aha! I've Arrived! All those older folks will now begin to realize that I am a fully mature adult who makes sensible decisions and has a place of honor in society.

Not so! Because at 40 you get the 47 year olds. And at 47 you get the 60 year olds telling you that you are somehow LESS as a person because you are NOT YET OLD ENOUGH.

Well, Fiddle-dee-DEE! I am 50. I am a grown-ass woman. I AM old enough, and I'm not going to put up with being diminished because of ageism anymore.

The other day while doing yardwork at my client's house, her son-in-law and I were having a chat. He was discussing his health problems, I was discussing mine. (that's a blog for another day: Why do we talk about our health problems with such relish?!) I said that I never thought that at 50 I would be so decrepit and he responded with a rather demeaning, "Oh, 50! You are just a baby!"

I looked him square in the eye and said, "Excuse me, but no, I am not a baby. When I turned 50 I determined that I was no longer going to be put down by older people telling me that somehow I hadn't experienced enough or learned enough to qualify for anything. When you were 50, would you have put up with it?"

He got it. We laughed about it. I said, "I can just see it now. I'll be 97 years old in an institution and some darn 100 year old will be telling me that I haven't seen Nothing Yet and wait until I turn 100, THEN I'll know something!"

Of course now I have to wonder how often I tell people they are just too young to know what they know? I do see young parents and my college age nieces and nephews as frighteningly young, vulnerable and mere babes in the woods. But I think that I will try to be aware of my words around them. It's fine to give spinsterly advice, but I want to try and do it in a way that doesn't make them feel that whatever their age is, it's not good enough for the world.

Because we are, each of us, good enough for the world.

More about Plastic Bins

After yesterday's mayhem and foolishness with Plastic Bins I had to recline and sniff sal volatile and sip tea with a nip of brandy in it, Gentle Readers! I was done-in, as they say! Because wouldn't you know it, not only did NONE Of the plastic bins fit the objects for which they were purchased, I almost had an attack of the "GIT-MORES". You know what I mean! It's that little ailment that quickly escalates into the dreaded "HOARDING DISEASE".

In this case the 'Git-Mores' was brought on by a sudden urge to race back to Walmart and buy LOTS more plastic storage bins of all shapes and sizes, regardless of cost or need and with complete indifference as to necessity!

But I used restraint. I tied myself to the newel post and diverted myself with snacks until the attack passed.

My organization needs have not been met, but now I must focus on selling some of the items of which I wish to rid myself, and better utilizing the things that won't sell.

This lovely old pie safe, for instance. I've been trying to sell it for a couple weeks now, and no one wants it. Well, actually, somebody offered me 100 dollars for it but I think that's just silly. It's an antique Pie Safe, people! In it's exact condition in a swanky antique mall it would have a $700 dollar price tag on it. I was asking $250 or best offer. Anyway, I decided to turn This:

into This:

And now I must get rid of This:

I can't believe all my quilts fit into that pie safe! Hopefully my efforts at downsizing will pay off and I will have a clean, crisp, airy feeling. Uncluttered and unfettered, and unspoiled by Plastic Storage Bins!

P.S.

P.S: The underbed plastic chest designed specifically for the purpose of fitting under the bed?

Doesn't.

I've Succombed to the Lure of Plastic!

Yes, I've done it. I've succombed to the Lure of Plastic Storage Bins. For years, I have loudly proclaimed my Utter Loathing for having a house filled with Plastic Thingees. I like glass, wood, cardboard, wire baskets, vintage tins. None of that utilitarian nonsense for me! It must be decorative as well as functional, and preferably downright pretty to look at.

A while ago I had the brilliant idea to put my cookie cutters in a cookie jar. I thought it was a darling idea! They currently reside in a jumble in the bottom drawer of my kitchen cabinets with all the canning jars, rolling pins, parafin wax, etc; But, Lo! and Behold! I never did find a cookie jar that was the right size and had a big enough mouth. Some of my cookie cutters are quite large. No matter how often I looked, nothing ever worked, nothing was ever the right thing.

This morning when I was digging around for a tea cozy it just hit me that what I chiefly needed was one of those rectangle shoe-box keeper boxes in clear plastic. It would fit perfectly at the back of the drawer and solve my cookie cutter storage dilemna! Because frankly, I really don't have the counter space to accomodate a cute cookie jar full of cookie cutters.

An hour later, I came home from Walmart with these:

I don't know what got into me! Did the plastic secrete addictive fumes? Was I subliminally programmed to purchase Rubbermaid Items as a child when holding my first rubber spatula and stirring up a batch of chocolate chip cookies?

I don't know, gentle readers. I only know that now I must put all my videotapes in the big one for underbed storage, my cassette tapes in the beige one, the cookie cutters in the smaller rectangle one and...the one with the pink lid? Don't tell me you actually expected me to RESIST buying THAT one? No way! It's PINK! I HAD TO HAVE IT. So what if I have no use for it? It's PINK!

The little candy jar is actually glass and I needed it to put my cherry gummy hearts in for Valentines. After loading my cart with all that plastic, I didn't even blink an eye about the glass candy jar.

Any and all suggestions for what to use the pink lidded Rubbermaid tub will be greatly appreciated!

Yours,

Miss Pink

A Series of Unpleasant Emissions.

Oh my Goodness! What a Title! What could Miss Pink be about to tell us, Gentle Readers? Is an Indelicate Subject about to Rear It's Unseemly Head?

I started a new medication for nerve pain just a few days ago. Now, some of you know this, that nerve pain cannot really be managed with the plethora of pain medicines out there. Aspirin, Vicodan, Oxycontin, Morphine, Stun Gun...none of those are really effective in managing constant, long-term, permanent nerve pain. So they come up with new things, and not all of them effective. And some of them with really awful side effects. I was on Neurontin once, and got so bombed and spaced out that I found myself standing by the dumpster with my laundry basket. I caught myself in time, but I was just about to throw the dirty laundry in the trash!

But this new stuff, Lyrica I believe it is called, has little or no side effects. It is fast acting, it doesn't need to build up in your body in slow increments like Neurontin did, and it's just two pills a day, once in the morning, once in the evening. It did stress that WEIGHT GAIN is one of the side effects, something I'm not thrilled about; but at this point I wanted to go ahead and give it a try.

What they did NOT list as a side effect is that about 2 hours after taking the first pill, your body will turn into a Highly Toxic Controlled Substance Manufacturing Plant for Methane Gas. Explosive, Dangerous, Rocket Fuel Flatulence. It was unbelievable! I was highly pressurized and deadly.

All I could think was, "There goes my social life."

Even Mackie was keeping his distance. By the second day it had subsided somewhat and by the third day my body seemed to adjust and all was back to normal. Do you suppose that if they listed "Rocket Fuel Flatulence" as a side effect, they'd never be able to peddle their medicine?

Whew, I'm glad that's over. What's next? Oh yes...The uncontrollable weight gain. Rats!

Baaaad Bundt! Baaaaad!

I recieved those floppy silicone baking pans for Christmas and have had much fun playing with them every since. However. They don't always work like magic, the way they say they will...

For one thing, they make things VERY dark, almost burned, and the center will sometimes come out slightly raw. I haven't learned how to adjust the oven for these new pans, yet. And the other thing is...they don't exactly pop out like greased lightening, either. Stuff STICKS in these pans, even though they say they don't. But I shall keep going. I shall persevere. I know everyone thinks I am a perfect chef (ha ha NOT!) so this will encourage those who also have failures.

Oh, and here is the picture that goes with the Breakfast of Champions post. Blogger simply will not let me load a picture for that day!

Breakfast of Champions

I'm so glad I have my own identity! Several of them, in fact! But they all belong to me and are not a product of having lived my entire life defining myself for a man.

My most recent client is 79 years old, and her husband has been gone for 5 years. She lives in an entirely new house that she picked out herself and could have decorated any way she wanted. But as I sit there day after day and look around, I cannot find a single trace of WHO SHE IS. It's all about Dead Bill. The wall over the fireplace mantel has Dead Bill's deer antlers on it. The large 'brag wall' behind the main sofa has pictures of where Dead Bill spent his camping, hunting, fishing trips: without her. Dead Bill's airplane, Dead Bill's oil refineries, Dead Bill's automobiles.

When sorting through her photos, for the project we are working on, she pours over pictures of him and his life like he was a movie star she barely got to touch, just once. Pictures of her own family, her own self and her own life are dismissed as not interesting, trivial, hardly worth saving.

I understand the myth of being madly in love your entire life and forever mourning your dead spouse, after all Queen Victoria did that and carried it off quite well, but according to my client's daughter, Dead Bill spent almost zero time with his wife in the last 40 years and when he was there they didn't get along all that well. So it's all just some elaborate self-trickery on the part of Dead Bill's Still Living Wife. And Old habit that will never die.

What a shame! What a shame that she has no identity of her own. What in the world did she do with herself for the decades and decades after her children were grown and had moved to other states and she was left sitting alone in Bill's House polishing his elk antlers?

I try to spark her interest but everything bores her. She can't make me into a Dead Bill Replacement so I am basically of no use to her. It's sad, but it's not going to change. All I can do is observe it and thank my lucky stars that such a dismal mind set will not be my outcome!

No, no! I am free, regardless of how crappy I feel most of the time, to forge my own identity. Make my own choices, decorate my own space with my own things. I don't have to live vicariously through an overactive and indifferent spouse! I just get to be ME!

And if that means having delicious shiny slivers of smoked salmon on a rosemary and olive oil Triscuit for breakfast, then I am VERY fond of myself! No Dead Bill for Me!

(insert photo of scrumptious breakfast here when/if blogspot lets me.)

Also, I've added a new link under the 'sweet' catagory. It is my new baby cousin Dawson who seems to actually enjoy smiling, laughing, and being giddy regardless of the circumstances. It's really quite adorable. So pop over there and leave a comment about her beautiful baby boy and you will thrill her to the bone!! Smilin's" my Favorite

SHARE THE ROAD

Yesterday, while out running errands, I managed to get stuck in midtown traffic on Capitol Avenue where they are doing a lot of construction. I was just patiently waiting behind a string of cars for the light to change, because I was just a few blocks from home and not in any hurry anyway.

Suddenly, up on my right, came a speeding little car, boring it's way through the BIKE LANE and trying to force passage so he could get to the intersection and make a right hand turn. I must have been further to the right than the rest of the cars because he honked at me and GLARED at me when he pulled up along side. I just glared at him back and then I grinned. I thought he looked completely silly.

But my grin turned to giddy glee when he pulled ahead of me and I saw that his bumper sticker said: SHARE THE ROAD.

That calls for a cup of tea!

And I finally recieved a replacement saucer for my Petit Point cup that I broke so long ago! One of my clients had a stack of them because she had broken the cups, instead. So she gave me one as my Christmas Present.

Happy New Year!

Almost New Years

Greetings, everybody. I hope everyone had the most spiritual, beautiful, meaningful, heart-filled Christmas EVER. My friend Sharon flew from Tennessee to Wisconsin via Denver, CO. BIG MISTAKE. She ended up taking almost 6 days to reach her destination of what should have been a 4 hour trip. She actually ended up on a Greyhound bus without any luggage because the airlines would not release anyone's bags for security reasons, and she even had to WALK the last leg of her journey to her parent's house because it is uphill and the road was clogged with abandoned vehicles that had gotten stuck in the ice and snow.

So I was thankful just to be home, relaxed and quiet all day watching endless episodes of "Clean This House" on the style network.

In order to keep afloat while I figure out my health problems, I've started to sell off some of the royal family treasures: Like this massage table which was sold, paid for and out the door within 2 hours of my having posted it for sale:

And this set of Thomas Ivory Mayfair which I think is so pretty, I just have to share the images:

Oops, you'll have to click on the image to see it bigger.

I hope that 2007 is better than 2006 for Everybody!

Christmas Dinner

Yum! I had Christmas Dinner on Sunday with my favorite family the "Q's". We had spiral-sliced honey glazed ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet corn, green bean casserole and pink champagne. Oh, and devilled eggs and lots of crackers, chips, cheeses and dips for snacks. I got to use my 'good' Christmas china and drink lots of tea. It was so much fun!

We watched old movies, talked about our various pursuits, and for the last hour or so, we played hip-hop, rap and pop videos on Youtube and boogied around the living room! Quite festive, quite fun, and quite Frivolous!

God Bless Us, Everyone.

Like a Felled Log

Patrick dropped by today with "Trawler" the cute Golden Lab puppy that he has now. This dog gives new meaning to the words: Let sleeping dogs Lie...because he is the most ADD dog I've ever seen, EVER! He is practically a spaz he is so hyper and all over the place! I've never seen a golden lab be so hyper! Aren't they the ones that make mellow seeing-eye dogs?

All I know is, after 20 minutes in my apartment there wasn't a single item left in any of my trash cans, all paper things had been shredded, the cat food bowl had been emptied of it's contents (and eaten) and I'd had to remove my shoes and slippers from the floor or they would have been mangled into rawhide pulp within moments.

Finally he dropped like he'd been shot with a tranquilizer dart (I swear I didn't do it!) and Patrick and I had a few moments of peace in which to hold a conversation. Anyone who wants a puppy for a companion is just NUTS in my book, or else delusional. Pat's last dog was full-grown from the pound and so mannerly! This little guy is in dire need of training and taming, and I don't think he will get it from the indulgent and in-denial Patrick.

Honestly, I don't think I'll be inviting the puppy back anytime soon! But he is cute, isn't he?

(No full-frontal photos of this dog exist. He won't stand still long enough.)

Greetings from the Christmas Pig

Happy Holidays everybody! Here is my Christmas Pig Piggy Bank looking particularly piggish today. It looks like he emptied the candy dishes, anyway, but left the fruit.

Not much news on this end from me. I am still alive, still afloat but barely, and attempting to wend my way through the swampy quagmire of the County Social System for my medical coverage. Bleck!

I also found out last night I lost a client. He hasn't been eating the foods I was hired to prepare and so they don't need me. I'm sorry but also a bit relieved. How that translates into lost of income I hate to imagine! Ugh!

Even though I barely manage to update anymore I still try to read everyone's blogs because they are so cheerful and fun! Merry Christmas, Everybody!

Attack of the Alien Nano-bots

Sigh.

I've been having a sudden and intense resurgance of my original stroke symptoms, leading me to believe I've had another stroke that I didn't know I had or else terrifying me with the fear that I have sudden onslaught and a rare rapid-progressive strain of Alzheimer's.

My doctor seems to think I have MS.

I have to go to a neuroligist but they don't have any appointments available until mid-February. You know, because this is URGENT.

And in order to apply for Medi-Cal (the California version of Medicaid) you have to be disabled, over 65, pregnant or an illegal alien of Hispanic speakage. I'm not kidding. I'm white, a taxpayer and just the working poor so I cannot qualify for my own taxpaying program of Medi-Cal.

So which is faster? Marry a man named Jose Guitterez, get knocked up or fake my age as being over 65?

All I know is, I must be disabled in order to apply for Medi-cal. The technical definition of disabled is that you've had a proper diagnosis by an expert physician. I can't get into see an expert because I can't pay for it. When I call these places they say, "Just apply for Medi-Cal." I tell them, I can't apply for Medi-cal unless I've been declared disabled FIRST. And they always say, "Oh, that's right. I forgot about that. Sorry, can't help you."

But fear not, gentle readers. I'm taking my medical well being into my own hands. I will heal myself with prayer and the use of a tin foil hat. Wish me Luck!