Is it Just Me?

I can't quite put my finger on it.

I don't know what the attraction is.

But there is something about these Cavemen that reminds me of somebody...

I May Be Dead But My Hair looks Fantastic!

Something that always slays me is the way people insist on living in deadly conditions even when they should know better. Like folks who build beachfront houses in known Tsunami zones. Or live astraddle the San Andreas Fault. Or anywhere in Florida, for that matter. (If the Cubano Criminals don't get you the next Tropical Storm will!)

Or, Indiana in one of THESE:

In spite of the negative survival odds when confronted with an F2 or F3 Tornado, thousands of people every year move into trailer parks in Indiana! And then they die. But, hey, it's the mind-set! Never mind that trailers are impossible to heat and exhorbitantly expensive to keep cool in the summer: think Paul Newman in a sweat box in Cool Hand Luke and you've got the general idea.-- Hoosiers love them some Trailer Parks! It's practically a GOAL to retire into one, after giving up housekeeping.

And that's what happened to cousin Spanky Gizelle when faced with the option to buy the adorable 2 bedroom bungaloo style home in a pretty and quiet neighborhood that she'd been renting, or go out and buy a used trailer in a seedy trailer park on the outskirts of town next to a dive motel. She opted for the trailer.

And now, every time I call her, if there is a storm brewing, she is chomping at the bit because she has to evacuate or risk being blown to Kingdom Come. You know, my idea of Safe and Sound is being at HOME; I can't imagine living in a place that is as unsafe as running across 6 lanes of Los Angeles Freeway during rush hour.

Poor Spanky has to be glued to the tv or radio to listen to the storm warning reports: back there in Indiana they tell you what counties the storm is heading for so you have time to grab your survival gear and head for the basement. But of course, Trailers are on Slabs: no basement. So Spanky has to head for the public library or the Big Walmart or even McDonalds. I can't bring myself to tell her those places are not safe in a real tornado, because she really thinks she is saving her own life. Well, maybe she is: A Walmart will survive a 75 mph wind. But a house trailer? Probably not.

This last week when there were huge storms a-brewing all across the land, I happened to call her just as she was getting ready to head for the hills.

"I can't talk long!" She said in a panic, "I've got to get ready to go!" I imagined her scurrying around getting her warm blankets, flashlight and some K-Rations stuffed into a duffel bag. "Just let me run in here a minute and plug in my curling iron!"

After all, a girl's got to look pretty if she's going to die in a Tornado!

Bacilli Baby

I had to get gasoline this morning and instead of the usual place which was taped off and under construction, I wound up at a little Stop-n-Stop run by foreigners. Not the stinky kind that wear polyester shirts because they are cheap and don't wrinkle no matter HOW many months in a row you wear them without a bath, but the helpful, friendly, English-speaking kind who burn incense to keep the stench at bay.

Ah, America. Land of the Soap and Water-based cultural expectations.

When I walked in to plunk down my hard earned cash to buy a gallon or two of gas, I could see the storeclerk liked what he saw. I may have lost it to the world of Caucasian men because I no longer look like Kate Moss or Katherine Zetta-Jones-Douglas, but to the Eurasian eye, I am one Hot Mamma.

Load-bearing hips to ensure multiple male offsprings: Check!
Excess adipose tissue for body heat and longer years of labor before starving to death: Check!
Wide back for hauling faggots of sticks from the forests of Russia: Check!
Potential for quick sale in the white slave market once legs are broken: Check!

I asked this fella if he knew where a Thai food take-out restaurant could be in the vicinity. He said, yes, he DID, if he could just think of it. So I waited. While he dilly-dallied around and asked me multiple questions that had nothing to do with Thai food! He was so OBVIOUSLY trying to score with me.

I finally got fed up and told him, "ENOUGH! Our goals are working against each other! Yours is to Hit on Me until I cave in to your charms, and Mine is to grab some inexpensive Thai-food Lunch! GoodBYE!!!!"

Even then he wouldn't let go! "But we could eat this Thai Food TOGETHER!" he screamed at me as I fled the premises.

Sigh.

But that's not what I came here to blog about! I came here to blog about the smell of the world.
Not the awful smells, but the way it smelled when you were young and you could detect the change of seasons with your nose. Remember? My cousin Skeeter-Jean was just telling me how she caught the smell of wild roses in the air and it took her back to every lazy day of summer she ever spent as a carefree lass. I realized I had recently had a similar moment. I had accidentally got water in my nose in the shower when just like magic I was transported back to a host of long-ago summer days at the lake when you could swim all day long and lay in the sun and have nary a care in the world. The smell of lake water--just that accidental snortful--would contain enough bacilli to inoculate you for the rest of your life if it didn't kill you with an ear infection first.

I told Skeeter that heaven for me might not be a Pearly Gate. It might be rising out of living lake water into the bright sun and grabbing a towel and heading to the concession stand, all the summer smells in my nose and dripping off my skin forever.

Inclusions

When I was about 16, my brother went to Australia to seek fame, fun and fortune. When he returned he brought me an opal cabochon that he had purchased directly from the opal mine. It was a blue-green opal, and so bright and fiery! He told me that it had a tiny flaw in it, and that was to remind me that I wasn't perfect, either.

Well, I wore that ring every day of my life until my fingers got too fat to wear it. And I got a lot of mileage out of telling that story. I loved the humbling aspect of a daily reminder that I wasn't perfect either, no matter how shiny and fiery I looked.

Until one day I was telling that story to a jeweler. And he said something awesome to me that forever changed my definition of a flaw. He said, "But gems are never flawed. We call those things 'inclusions.'"

"Do you mean as in "it's included in the price?"

"Yes, it's included in the value of the gem. It's part of it's intrinsic make-up, not a flaw at all."

WOW. So all these years I was happily flawed, and now I've morphed into having inclusions of value in my character!?! I love it.

This came up for me recently, when I was discussing with someone a particular thing that had annoyed him about me. I thought about it and had to tell him the truth: This thing that bothers you isn't really the kind of thing I can change. I'm stuck with it. I can work around it, but it's hard-wired into me and I've reached a stage where I won't willingly morph my DNA to please a man....or anyone else for that matter. I told him if he could just count that thing that bothered him as amongst the inclusions in my character that made me a real person and not a fantasy, then we were good to go.

Like my opal ring, I have value JUST AS I AM, and also like my opal ring, I get more valuable as time goes on. Neat, huh?

Dilys

One of the little mini-dilemmas about blogging is what to keep private and what to blog about.
I know that some people write about every personal thing including their mood swings, but that's just not me. That is what I have a diary for! Which I can burn when I'm through with it.

Consequently, there are things I don't blog about that are more dear to me. For instance, my prisoner pen pal activities. Too many people don't understand it one way or the other. It either scares them or it makes them think I am incredibly charitable and Godly. Ha! Quite the opposite! I have friends in prison because I'm selfish and egotistical. After all, they are a captive audience and are FORCED to read my long, blathering, meandering letters all about me, me, me!

Truly, though, it's just one of the few remaining things I have that makes me feel good about myself. I've had to give up so many of my hobbies and activities and fun since becoming so sick. I'd rather not define myself as a person who can't make a difference in anyones life. That's just sad, to me.

One of my prisoner Pen Pals mentioned that he hadn't seen his mother in about 10 years. She's just too uncertain to make the trip up here from Los Angeles at 80 years of age. California prison's are not in the hub of major metropolis's's. (what is the plural for metropolis?) They are down some dirt road in the boonies and I find it daunting; I can imagine an elderly person would be too afraid to try. I offered to help his Mom come see him. It won't be that troublesome to pick her up at the bus depot and drive her up to Ione. I'm glad to do it.

When the phone rang at 8 in the morning I was not expecting this little firecracker of a woman to be on the line! It was Dilys (rhymes with Phyllis) and she was calling to introduce herself to me and to make plans for her trip up here. All my preconceived notions of a frail elderly woman afraid to venture out on her own went right out the window after a few minutes conversation!

"Girl! I'm sorry I haven't called you sooner!" she said gleefully, "I just got back from Texas visiting old friends!" Apparently, she hops on a greyhound at the drop of a hat! The only reason she hasn't come to see her son before now is that buses don't go to prisons!

When she asked me how long we'd be staying, I told her the visiting hours and she interrupted: "NO! That's too long! I can't go more than 3 hours without a cigarette!"

After we discussed what week she could come and synchronized our watches she said, "I won't be in touch for a while! Girl, I'm going to Las Vegas!"

I had visions of a chain-smoking, bus-hopping bundle of spirit and energy tearing off in a cloud of dust with the neon lights of Vegas shining in the distance before her. THIS is going to be interesting! I'll keep you posted.

Sputterscotch

I just got off the phone with my second cousin Spanky Grizelle. She's a shut in, suffering from that rare and possibly imaginary condition known as "Environmental Illness." She is on disability because she can't stand to be around anything even remotely chemical smelling. Even food smells disturb her, so her life is an endless mess of trying to find a helpful friend to cook for her at their house so her own place never smells like food.

When Grizelle calls, we talk about our childhood times together; the memories we share when we were wild young things chasing inappropriate boys, and our favorite TV shows. We dissect every aspect of what's on TV, and it's very satisfying.

Lately, our fixation has been "America's Got Talent". We like it because we can pick a favorite or two and make fun of the rest. We are both just mad about the ventriloquist and not mad at all about the Beat Boxer Chick known as Butterscotch. In a slip of the tongue, ole Spanky called her "Sputterscotch" and the name stuck. We just aren't fans of beat boxing!

Television just seems so dismal lately. So many quasi-reality shows, and so many things posing as reality shows which really turn out to be game shows in disguise. I am particularly annoyed with the new concept of "The Caveman" show. It just seems like a weird way to sneak around and exploit a group of people who can't complain. Like shows that made fun of blacks, or Asians, or Hillbillies were such big hits, and they can't bear to let that potential revenue-producing idea die out. I just wonder what kind of stereotypes they are going to 'invent' for these cavemen. We were chatting away when suddenly Grizelle said, almost in a panic, "Those aren't REAL cavemen, are they?" You know, because just for a moment there she thought they might be.

Grizelle, Grizelle. I told her in all seriousness that, indeed, these were REAL Cavemen, an entire Tribe/Family Unit of them that were discovered frozen in a cave and carefully thawed out and revitalized and brought to life and now are going to be featured on a Reality TV show. Because, that's the kind of society we've become! No more studying these rare finds in a carefully protected lab or facility. No more Area 51 and secret government/alien compounds. We just trot them out and film them, to see what kind of ratings they can achieve.

Follow the Crazy Antics of these Hairy Human-opods as they navigate the upscale world of Los Angeles. They howl, they scratch their pits, they barely stand upright! Sometimes they get in their cars and drive around not wearing underwear! Often drunk and mostly incoherent, they breed indiscriminately and don't buckle their kids into their car seats! Because they're Primitive, Y'all!

Oh, wait, that's the Britney Spears show. Sorry, all television looks alike to me.

What I Know For Sure!

Oops! I just noticed there is a scheduled outage in about 20 minutes...not NEARLY enough time for me to formulate, type and edit a proper post...so I'm going to do one I've wanted to do for a while but kept putting off because I don't know anything for sure.

On Oprah, and around and about, I always see people asking the question: What do you Know for Sure? In earlier years, I would have been able to come up with at least 25 things instantly off the top of my head that I knew for certain sure. Now, I can honestly say I am not even certain-sure I have a top of the head. All bets are off when it comes to being certain of anything whatsoever in this life.

But that doesn't stop me from being curious about all of YOU. So I am asking the question of all my readers, (Yes, you LURKERS) who never post comments, but how can you resist when I am asking this vital, fascinating and important question?

What do you Know for Sure?

Beet Eggs

Well, it's the weekend and I'm only able to access 3 or 4 of my brain cells. See, the thing is, you've only got so much storage in your brain, and after 50 years or so, what with the inevitable death of many brain cells do to blunt force trauma, champagne consumption, stress and menopause, I figure that at any given time, I've only got small bank of about 13 or 14 brain cells at my disposal that are not being used for vital life sustaining tasks like breathing, napping, and awareness. Lately, the awareness category is the one getting the short-shrift!


So, due to the lack of functioning brain cells, I'm going to post a recipe for one of my favorite 'old-timey' homestyle foods. This dish was originally an old German one, but over the years it's gotten the reputation as being from the Amish or Pennsylvania Dutch. But they got it from the Germans. I picked this recipe because I was in the mood to make them and because as I was gazing at my fridge and looking at my home-made egg basket, I thought it would be fun to post about it.

Cousin Deets made this basket for me with her own hands! I love it! It is just amazing to me that she took up basketweaving and got really quite good at it! She brought this to me while she was on vacation one time and I've used it as my egg basket every since. It stays in the fridge and every time I see it, I always say, "Don't keep all your eggs in one basket!" Or, as I'm putting a new carton of eggs into the basket, I will say, "Here I go again, putting ALL my eggs into ONE basket! Tsk! Tsk!" This is the kind of thing I choose to use my dwindling brain cells for! Useless sayings and comforting old adages that give me a little bit of giddy glee to repeat.

When I saw that I had more eggs than space in my egg basket, I decided it was time to get out the canned beets, the vinegar, and the sugar.

First, you are going to Hard boil some eggs. I did about 8 eggs this time. On another burner, put One Cup of vinegar (white or cider, it makes no difference) and one Half Cup of sugar. I also add a good heaping tablespoon of salt. Bring that vinegar/sugar mix to a quick boil, just enough to melt the sugar, and remove it from the heat. .

Add a can or two of beets, with the juice. I prefer the sliced ones because they take up less room, but some people like the whole ones. For this batch I only had one can of beets on hand and I can see that it wasn't enough to cover the tops of the eggs.

Today, because of the aforementioned brain cell deficit, I forgot to PEEL the boiled eggs, and I put them right into the beet juice with the shells on. But you aren't going to do that! You are going to drain and cool your boiled eggs and peel the shells off before you put them into the pan with the eggs/sugar/salt/beets and beet juice!

Pour the whole mixture into a deep bowl or you can put them into your canning jars. Into the fridge and let them marinate for a week or so. the longer they marinate, the deeper the beet color and flavor will penetrate into the egg. I don't like to let mine go for more than a week because I don't want that strong sugary beet flavor, I like it to be just a hint of it.

Enjoy!

Crack

I've got a Crack problem. I've had it since I was a teen, and the older I get, the worse it shows.

My Crack

Some people think that showing a little crack is sexy. Some cultures, like Mexico (is Mexico a culture?) actually EXPECT a crack habit in their females. Even respected women journalists are encouraged to display their crack habit for all to see. I know this because I watch Univision! And Crack is EVERYWHERE on that channel.

In India, however, displaying a little crack is considered downright filthy. They show their bellies in a sari, no problem, but you won't see them showing any crack in public! They keep their crack usage under wraps! A woman admitting to having crack would actually be ostracized and no one would introduce her to their sons and husbands.

For years I was tortured by the social implications of having so much crack. Flaunt it like every Jezebel in Hollywood and on TV? Wear clothing designed to hide the tell-tale signs of too much crack? Turtle Neck sweaters are a little impractical in the California summers. Should I sneak around and only show my crack at night, under the guise of 'evening wear'? Every day was fraught with worry: endlessly checking the mirror to see if my crack use was showing. If I went out in public, would men stare? Would women hiss? Would nursing babies try to grab a handful?What if I caused a traffic jam?

And then I discovered the greatest crack-intervention tool ever designed by modern dressmakers! It's called: The Wife Beater. With the Wife Beater (which comes in an array of colors) I can at last safely and securely hide my crack habit from the casual eye.

Post-Intervention Crack

Once I discovered the healing properties of the Wife Beater Undershirt, I was suddenly awakened to a whole new world of possibilities. Styles that had previously been forbidden to me, were suddenly wearable and downright cute!

I am so thankful that I had this discovery, rebirth and recovery in time. What started out as a small bit of toe-cleavage in the elegant shoe soon progressed upwards towards the crack you see pictured at the top of this post.

I shudder to think what might have come next. With the rise in popularity of the 'low rise' jeans, it is quite possible that I might have ended up wearing a THONG.

Farsighted????

I was such a biddable child! Always affable! Willing to please! Yes, Uncle Augie! I'm delighted to hold these two fresh-kill pheasant carcasses up by their feet for a photo op! Let me just park my convertible under this tree over here and then I'll pose! Smile Pretty!!!!

I think my early childhood programming has snapped like a brittle twig and is no longer in effect. Or at least it's bent like a stalk of limp celery soaked in gin. I still perceive that others have expectations of me they would like me to fill, but the will to comply is missing.

Yesterday, I had yet another social security medical review, this time I got to take the same arithmetic tests I took before. All over again. And answer problematical questions such as:

You are in a movie theatre and you are the first one to notice smoke and fire. What do you do?

My answer did not please the psychologist: " I would get the hell out of there!"

She frowned at me, No! "You are in a crowded movie theatre. You are the FIRST one to notice smoke and fire. What do you do?"

I tried and tried to figure out what she wanted me to say. Did she want me to say I'd stay and be trampled by a crowd? Or perhaps duck and cover? Or lay low and crawl to the nearest exit? Or was I supposed to sit there and die of smoke inhalation while waiting to be rescued?

"I would get the hell out of the theatre. That's what I'd do. Final Answer."

Later, I realized she wanted me to say I'd yell FIRE! Oops. Thousands of burning women and children with cell phones will perish now because I wasn't quick enough to do the altruistic thing! I just chose to save myself! Sorry, humanity! Can I get a refund on my movie ticket?

The next question was even tougher: You are stranded in the Denver Airport with only one dollar. What do you do?

I told her there would be nothing I could do. Nothing. She didn't like THAT answer, either. So I told her, "Look. What would I be doing in Denver anyway? I don't know anybody there. There would be nobody to call. Do I have a plane ticket? If I do, I'll just wait for my connecting flight and board it. " I was so frustrated. She didn't give me any back-story. Was I on my way to Paris, perhaps?Did I have a good book with me? Was it winter or summer? Because if it was winter in Denver, I'd probably freeze to death in the airport lobby right away and that would be the end of my need to problem solve. Can we change the airport? Couldn't I be stranded in the Mexico City Airport instead? Because in Mexico that dollar could be converted to pesos and I could buy a 3rd class bus ticket to Oaxaca and still have money left over for a hot chocolate in the zocolo.

Later, I realized she wanted me to say I'd use the dollar to make a phone call. As If! Is that supposed to be a test of my common sense? Because frankly, a person hanging out for too long at the Denver Airport is going to have more to worry about than only having a dollar in her pocket. After a few hours, she'd have all kinds of airport and Homeland Security all over her ass! She'd probably spend the night in an FBI detention Facility and be shipped to Guantanamo Bay where she would receive free medical, dental and therapy and probably horseback riding lessons as well.

(And yes, I saw Sicko and I loved it! It was BRILLIANT!)

Then, she showed me a picture of a door on a blank wall and asked me what was missing. I told her some pictures on the wall, maybe a shelf and some quilted wall-hangings. She interrupted me and said, NO! Look at the picture and tell me what's missing!

Really, there was no pleasing this woman! She wants my answers, but all my answers are wrong! So why have me there at all? If she wanted the correct answers she could have just filled them in herself and I could have stayed home in bed. It turns out the door was missing a doorknob. I would have spotted it eventually, but who notices a doorknob when there is a WALL, a completely blank WALL in need of some clutter and chatchkes and geegaw's?

Well, if she thought I did badly on the common sense interpretive skills, she was really sorry when she started giving me math tests and sequences of numbers to repeat back to her. I couldn't do math even before my stroke, so forget about it, now! I told her, "I guess you won't be hiring me to balance your checkbook."

Finally, she gave me pairs of words and told me how they were similar. I did okay with pen/pencil because they are writing implements. And banana/apple because they are both fruit. But she stumped me with mosquito/tree. I told her I couldn't see any similarity at all. Of course, she didn't like that answer. I finally told her they are from the earth. THE EARTH? She practically YELLED at me.

"Well, one is a BUG and the other is a VEGETATIONAL LIFE FORM, so the only thing they have in common is they are both LIVING ON THIS EARTH" Really, that woman was so stupid, didn't she see the connection? What other connection could there be?

Then, as if that was not enough torture for one day, I had my 1 month exam for my post-surgery cataract eye. I was fully expecting to be given the go-ahead to get a contact lens so I could SEE again! But NOooooo!

After the girl did all the tests, the opthamalogist came into the room looking at my chart and saying, "hhhmmmmm." I asked him, "Are you hmmmmming at me?" He said, "Yes, it appears your eyes have taken an odd turn. When before you were nearsighted with astigmatism, now you are FARSIGHTED. I wasn't expecting this! But, this will correct itself in about a month, but it means your eyesight isn't stable enough to bother fitting you with a lens right now."

Okay. Still Blind. And stuck in the Denver Airport. With a tree, a bug, and all the wrong answers. But at least I'm not on fire.

Happy 10th Birthday, Mackie Manns!

Mazel Toffee!!!!

Apparently my mind has nothing better to do than to think up exciting new names for things! Like, yesterday I decided it would be just darling to have a kosher candy company and you could name it Mazel Toffee! It's probably been done already, sigh!

Anyway, one of the little old men I work for eats a half an ear of corn on the cob and a lamb chop every supper. I don't know why he eats this, but his daily caregiver buys lamb chops by the dozen and keeps them in the freezer, along with packaged frozen corn on the cob. This is the same gentleman who has a strawberry-jelly sandwich and one radish EVERY SINGLE DAY OF HIS LIFE for lunch. Because that is what his mom packed in his lunchbox every day that he went to school and every day for 40 years when he worked in a factory. So that's the habit pattern, and he's sticking with it.

I'll tell you, when I'm 97 I'm eating lobster one day and king crab legs the next. At that point do I really care if my cholesterol is skyrocketing? I don't THINK so!

But the last time I was there, I served him his dinner and he looked at me with utter contempt. Because I had forgotten to put these on the ends of his corn!

Because, really, what kind of moron eats corn on the cob without nifty corn-cob holders? So this little incident caused me to have an ah-ha moment: I don't own any corn on the cob holders! I don't know how this has happened! After all, I have ever kitchen gadget ever invented included TWO different kinds of carrot peeler! A horizontal one and a vertical one! If there was a perpendicular one, I'd buy it FOR SURE.

And since I just bought a bag of sweet corn while I was up on Slough house Road this last weekend, I decided there was no better time to go out and find me a 98 Cent store and purchase some corn-on-the-cob holders!

But first I had to go pick up my reading glasses from Miss Kitty's house where I left them. When she learned that I was going to buy corn on the cob holders, she proceeded to give me in-depth, detailed instructions about what kind to buy and what kind to avoid.

Apparently these little wooden handle ones are 'cheapy' and the prongs are poorly designed.

To illustrate her points about corn-cob holders, she went into the kitchen, pulled open the bottom drawer and Lo! and Behold! I saw TWO SHOE BOXES full of corn on the cob holders. I'm not even exaggerating! She had dozens and dozens of them, heaped up high and overflowing. She had silver ones and decorative ones and the ubiquitous corn-shaped ones. And she had a bazillion of the ones that she hates the most: the wooden handled ones.

I was pretty stunned. She's not really a hoarder, but for some reason she is clinging onto every single corn on the cob holder she's ever acquired. Since I know for a fact that she isn't going to be giving any large shrimp-and-corn boil parties anytime ever for the rest of her life, I was rather expecting her to say, "Pick out a pair and you can have them. In fact, take ALL the ones that have the wooden handles, they are useless!" But no! Sarcastic humor flows in her veins, but never let it be said that she has any generosity in there. After looking lovingly at the warehoused corn implements, we closed up the shoeboxes, shut the drawer and tip-toed out of the kitchen.

Something about that incident made me realize I don't need corn on the cob holders, after all.

Ivy

Time for a Trip down Memory Lane! An Ivy-covered Lane, to be exact!

As I was digging through old photos, I happened to notice the reoccurring theme of Ivy Wallpaper in my Mom's house! I thought it would be fun to post all the shots through the ages featuring the wallpaper.

Taken about 1956, this is my brother Paul and the first of many male Siamese cats named "Cougar" I love the rugs on the floor: those are braided wool made by my Grandma. But check out that ivy wallpaper and the utterly non-matching floral curtains. It's obviously Christmas time, because of the Christmas Cards thumb-tacked to the door. Remember when everyone sent Christmas cards, even if they lived right next door? And yes, those are gun cases propped up behind the sofa. Pappy was a gunsmith. There were guns in almost every corner of the house. And no one ever got shot. Although we did stub our toes on them quite often.

Fast forward about 8 years. Same brother, same room, different couch, and All New Wallpaper! Ivy wallpaper, of course. Poor Paul! He had the mumps something awful! I remember that darn sofa, that metal frame was brutal. The cushions were down-filled and held no shape whatsoever, so I was always bonking my head on the frame.

Times change, people grow up and move away, but the Ivy Wallpaper must remain! This picture is from 2006, I believe. In today's modern decor, it seems downright quirky to plaster the walls with artistic renderings of an outdoor plant, but that was the Wallpaper-world!

At least she's graduated to a smaller-scale ivy print!

Pony Brown

Every since I was a youngster listening to the radio, sitting in the backseat of my parent's Plymouth with the tail fins reading street signs and road markers, I have felt the call of the road not taken. I fell in love with the song Seven Bridges Road by the Eagles:

Sometimes there's a part of me
Has to turn from here and go...
Running like a child from these warm stars
Down the Seven Bridges Road.

And I've always been intrigued by roads with secretive or enticing names. Which is why I love going up to Ione so much, taking the old Jackson Highway out of Sacramento. I get to go past places like Sloughhouse Road. Eagles Nest Road. Stone House Road. I swear I'm going to turn down Stone House Road someday and see if I can find the Stone House itself: This is the California Central Valley, there's nary a stone in sight, much less a House built from them!

It's a slow meander past gravel pits, industrial-sized marble and tile storage yards and huge back-lots for the local large nursery: Mini forests of potted palms dotting a field. Once past the populated areas, and finally beyond the upscale snooty golf course and gated living of Murietta Springs, the land opens up into the beginnings of the Sierra Foothills.

It's then that I turn down Ione Road, and it's then that I turn off the radio and spend the next 30 minutes just thinking and observing.

Those gorgeous California Oaks dot the gold hills, and for as far as the eye can see is nothing but rolling prairie and the occasional cow. It's lovely. I think you might go mad living out in that much wide-open-space, but it's so pretty to drive through on my way somewhere else.

Halfway down Ione Road is an intriguing sign at a dirt road: Brown Ranches. I always think, Wow! Those Browns don't just have ONE humungous Ranch, they have Several! More than One! A Couple! A Few! Enough to make it PLURAL on their sign. So then I just figure that all their offspring got their own ranch, but they all share property lines and therefore they became the Brown Ranches. Since Brown is a family name, I often imagine they are long-lost cousins who came West when the rest of my kin was arming with Kentucky Long Rifles and preparing to fight the War of Northern Aggression.

And my favorite road of all, is the one named Pony Brown Road. Not "Brown Pony Road" Which would of course make perfect sense and have been named after a brown pony. No, this is Pony Brown, which then makes me imagine that Pony, one of the siblings of the Ranches Brown, got his/her own road named after him/her for being such a character. Or a good sport. Or something unique.

I always dream that I'll just turn down Pony Brown Road and go meet him/her. If he's a guy, then he'll be grizzled, old, with a pump in his front yard and a tin can propped on it so that anyone passing through can stop and drink from his well. Chickens will be free-ranging all over the place and at night they will roost in the bed of a rusted old 1937 Ford Pick-Up truck with the engine missing and the tires shot out by other Young Browns. He'll have a big pickle jar stuffed with horehound drops that he shares liberally, and another one stuffed with loose change which he intends to turn into the bank one day and buy a trip to Paris with the proceeds.

If it's a She-Pony, then she will have an herb garden behind little wrought iron gates, wear an apron and a housedress, and her screened in front porch will smell like the sugar cookies she's baking for company. I'll pull right up to the front door, and come and sit a spell on the porch swing, drining iced tea with a sprig of mint and swapping life stories. I'll be home, at least for that moment. Down Pony Brown Road.

Buff Orpingtons

Buff Orpingtons

Yesterday as I was sitting in the visitation room at the local hoosegow, the inmate I was playing scrabble with looked behind me and got a very soft smile on his face.

What are you looking at, I asked?

"Some adorable twin boys just came in!" he replied.

I turned around, gave a cursory glance to the babes and turned back to my scrabble letters. My mind registered two pairs of blue shorts, two white tee-shirts and then went "Blah."

"You really don't like kids, do you?" he asked.

"Oh, I like them," I said. "But they just aren't that interesting to me. I'd be really excited if I turned around and saw someone carrying two matching chickens under their arms."

My friend looked at me in total disbelief. "Girl, you are Straaaaange!" He laughed.

Well!!

Matching infant human beings: I just don't get it. I don't grasp God's Plan in making duplicates of things like people. Isn't it bad enough that we have to have One of Each? I REALLY don't get it when they start having litters of children, although to be fair that seems more the fault of Bad Fertility Drugs than God's Plan.

"I'd get REALLY excited if I turned around and someone had a pair of matching Barred Rocks with them. Or better yet, Buff Orpingtons!"

"You are totally weird, girlfriend! Who would bring chickens into a prison visitation room?"

"Well, they'd be quieter than children, now wouldn't they??" And then the sheer absurdity of the conversation struck us both and we laughed like hyenas. And then I beat his ass in Scrabble.

Barred Rock

No Clay Pot for YOU!

I just love it when Mackie naps in this chair. I feel like I have a color-coded cat. It's especially cute when he sprawls across the entire seat and uses the arm for a pillow/head rest. Which he refused to do for the entire hour I stood there waiting with the camera ready. So never mind, no picture for you! NO PICTURE FOR YOU!

Having said that I am reminded of the fact that no matter how many Bold, italic or UPPER CASE remarks I make, I still feel my blog is sometimes lacking in capturing the true nuances of expression. I really do talk with all that excitement and punctuation!!!! Why speak with one exclamation mark when you can elevate to 5 or 6 of them?! !!!!! After all, I can't use arm gestures. How else are you to know how strongly I feel about these things?I MUST PUNCTUATE!!!!

Ages ago, I was on the Atkins Diet for a year and I lost about a thousand pounds and I had a blast doing it. I never suffered, except for maybe the first few days when all that carb-deprivation and upsurge of raw, feral, bloody animal protein made me a tad aggressive. Or so my friends say, who groaned and ran like scared chickens when I told them I was going to start on the Atkins diet again. Some actually begged me not to do it. One even surreptitiously checked my closets for weapons like machetes and stabby ice picks.

Anyway, while I was on the Atkins Diet I ate dinner every night at the Mayflower Chinese Restaurant. I had it delivered, and I always had the broccoli beef, no rice. The owner/manager got to know me quite well and even started to abuse me like a member of his own family when I'd call to place my order. He couldn't handle the fact that I would not want steamed rice with my food. The idea was repulsive to him. He would argue with me about it and send the rice anyway, no charge.

Me: "Hi! This is Miss Pink. I'd like to order #14 Brocolli Beef to be delivered."
Chinese guy: "I know. I know. I know where you live. Steamed Rice or Fried?"
Me: "No, thanks. No rice. Just the brocolli beef."
Chinese guy: "You eat rice, Missy. I send anyway. Steamed rice, no charge.!"
Me: "Gosh, thanks, but I can't eat rice, it would just go to waste, just the broccoli beef, please."
Chinese guy, "STEAMED RICE. I send for YOU. YOU EAT WITH BROCCOLI BEEF. NO CHARGE."


In order to avoid further escalation and Chinese scolding I would hold my tongue and when the order arrived the delivery man would always make a point of showing me that there was indeed steamed rice by rootling around in the bottom of the bag and tapping on the rice carton. "STEAMED RICE NO CHARGE!" he would holler at me while standing on my door step.

Occasionally, just for a splurge, I ventured out into the world of shrimps in lobster sauce or Orange Chicken, but I would always get the same rice scolding treatment. It was really quite dear to my heart, if you want to know.

One time, I decided to go all-out and I ordered a clay pot dish. I could almost hear the steam shooting out of Chinese Man's Ears as he castigated me, "NO CLAY POT! DINE IN, ONLY! NO CLAY POT FOR YOU!"

Can I have it if I promise to eat my rice?

I suppose that forever after, anytime I have to use a phrase even remotely containing the idea that you can't have something, I will always bark it at the person I am denying: No canned food for you, Mackie! No toilet paper for YOU, guest in my home! No dollar for YOU, homeless person! No Right of Way for YOU, rude driver! No iced tea for YOU, thirsty person!

Isn't that just so much fun?

Global Chilling

This morning, smack-dab in the middle of summer in Sacramento, I was walking around shivering and grousing about how cold I was. My feet especially seemed ready to form into blocks of ice ready to be chipped off and put into a beverage. It's supposed to be in the triple digits in August in this corner of the holler, so I just could not get my mind around the temperature thing, even though it's been chilly like this for 2 or 3 days now. Then, *Whack*, a forehead smacking moment: Go put on SOCKS, you moron!

Then, I had another Light Bulb Moment (a dim wattage, to be sure, but still). Make HOT TEA. Even though it's August and I should be sweating like a pig at 9:30 in the morning.

Lately I've been checking out the links that some of my favorite bloggers have on their sites for blogs they read regularly. I am always looking for a good blog to read. I like to read blogs, it's just so wonderful to get that glimpse into someone's life and writing style. Of course I think some of those blogs out there are an aquired taste, and some of them are popular just because the same 18-20 people keep insisting they are a 'good read'. But those cursing, snark-spewing, vulgar women just annoy me and I can't appreciate their content when their language is so base. Do I really CARE that you like to fart? And tell people about it?

In my opinion, it takes something besides shock value to make your blog worthy of being read regularly and savored. So I thought I would talk about some of the blogs I have linked to my page, and why I like them so much. (I'll try to do a handful at a time, because I get so tired of fussing with the html: I always screw it up and have to redo it a dozen times.) Anyway: Feel free to drop by there if you don't already, and leave a comment. I know I LOVE to get comments, and I always wish I had more of them. Even if it's just to say hello and invite me over to your place. Where it's warmer. So I can put my sandals back on.

http://fuglyhorseoftheday.blogspot.com/
This is a site I ran across while reading a couple of horse-related blogs. This lady is snarky, to be sure, but it's for a good cause: she can't understand why people keep breeding bad horses that end up in a soup pot.

http://www.thepioneerwoman.com/confessions_of_a_pioneer_/ Ah, the Life Bovineic! This lady isn't a pioneer, she's a Rancher's Wife with a good grip on her camera. I'm not fond of all the kid pics, but her husband is smokin' hot on horseback, and her recipes are well-illustrated and look delicious!

http://dawsongregory.blogspot.com/ This is my cousin's blog. She's a new Mommy with a very cute, pudgy, stunningly-photogenic baby boy. Her latest blog is all about Poop, so I guess that puts her in the Ranks of "Official Mommy Blogger."

http://www.bitchypoo.com/ Why oh Why do I love Robyn Anderson so much with her motley band of chickens, cats, rescue kittens, and her loveable, affable husband Fred? She cusses like a salty sailor and has a sour disposition on life, but I'm addicted.

http://peascorner.blogspot.com/ Dear, Sweet Pea! She's the exact opposite of Miz Bitchypoo, but just as addicting. Always baking, canning, growing and socializing, she seems to effortlessly make someone's day brighter, every single day! She never fails to post a birthday, send a card, acknowledge a shut-in. (Let's go kill her!)

http://xmastree2.blogspot.com/ This sweet lady is from all the way across the world in Australia, so it's always fun to see that she is in an entirely different season than I am! I can be boiling hot and check her blog and it's snowing/raining over there Down Under. She has lots of yummy vintage collectibles to look at, too!

http://flipflopfloozie.blogspot.com/ You've got to love her logo! flip-flops all over the place! Sandy is always full of sweet thoughts and tales of her family and her day-to-day experiences as a Christian woman. She walks her talk, and it makes for good reading.

http://www.jkbees.blogspot.com/ Sadly, like so many of the blogs I've read and enjoyed, Janet is going to take a break for a while from regular posts. However, her site is worth visiting and browsing around in the archives because she is an AWESOME artist, with an unbelievable style and 'eye' all her own. Most of the things she does that she considers 'doodles' I would view as frameable masterpieces. Pop over and see her and encourage her to follow her heart so she doesn't get overwhelmed. I know too well the pressure of 'having' to blog to keep up: it stunts your growth, ha ha!

http://soulemama.typepad.com/ Last but far from least, it's Soule Mama. This woman lives in Maine or some other frozen place (wear socks when visiting!) and she is an amazing crafter, mother, home-schooler, etc; I just love her photography and the glimpse into the life of a happy, quirky, creative-based family. Lovely!

With a Wannion

Hello, Chicken!

Having decided to take it absolutely easy today and not lift a finger and rest and relax and eat bonbons while reclining in a state of dishabile, (sorry, can't spell it, but it's French), I promptly got up and did a load of laundry, dusted every surface in the apartment, cleaned the bathroom, mopped the kitchen floor and then rearranged the spare/storage bedroom, moving my old pie safe out of there and back into the kitchen again so that wall doesn't look so bleak.

Had I decided to heave-ho with a wannion, belike and be damned, I no doubt would not have been able to budge.

But the result of my frenzy was that I now get to see my old pie safe cabinet in it's rightful place in the kitchen again, with my Little Red Costco Stool by it's side! Along with my prized stone Chicken lawn ornament. Ah! Decor! How I have missed you!

With a Wannion!

I love pirates! Arrghh!

Spawn

Meet Spawn!

Spawn belongs to my less than savory neighbors: the ones with tidyness issues. (Or maybe it's me with the tidyness issues? You know, because I put my garbage IN the dumpster instead of BESIDE it. And because I choose not to leave rotting burger meat laying on a hibachi grill on my front steps for weeks and weeks at a time. I'm so fussy.)

Like most cats, Spawn is utterly delightful and not that much of a reflection on his owners. I wonder why that is? Dogs are always exactly like their owners. Cats are always exactly like themselves.

Spawn has been 'let out' a lot more lately. When I met the owners on the sidewalk yesterday they told me it was to encourage him to go outdoors instead of using the litter box. Since they only empty their litter box once every 3 weeks, I don't see the big deal. The reason I know how often they clean it is because they put the used litter into a plastic grocery bag and tie a knot in it and pile it next to the hibachi on the front steps. Every few weeks they add another bag of soiled litter to the ones already there. This is really unpleasant during the rainy season. Eventually what happens is that someone (who? Me? Naw!) calls the Landlord and complains and then Spawn's Parents clean up their mess and keep it tidy for a week or two.

Spawn, although in bad need of a good thorough brushing because he is still shedding his winter coat (It's AUGUST, people.) is the most biddable of cats! He has a cute little squeaky 'mew' like a kitten and he likes to flop down and show his belly in order to encourage petting and scratching. He's really a sweetheart.

Mackie hates him.
Spawn has taken to coming upstairs when they let him out, and 'mewing' once out of politeness to let me know he's on the stoop, and then settling down on the doormat and hanging out companionably for as long as he feels like indulging me.

I really hope they don't start leaving him out all day long while they go to work. I think that's a shame, he's always been an indoor cat: you can tell by the serious case of pudge he's got going. He must weight 15 lbs.

He's a little hyper. He won't sit still for more than 2 seconds together.

See ya later, Spawn!

Perpendicular

When you are a really, really good cook, (as all my friends say I am) you are also subject to some really, really big failures. Yesterday, for instance, I made two batches of no-bake cookies because the first one turned to gritty sugar and had to be disposed of promptly in the rubbish bin. As much as I hate throwing away perfectly good ingredients like butter and 2 cups of oatmeal, there was no salvaging them. Because I tried! When I saw the way they were going, due to the scorched cocoa in the bottom of the pan and the ominous way they were looking kind of sand papery, I scraped them into a cake pan and poured heavy cream all over them. Then I pressed the cream through them with wax paper and put them in the fridge to cool. I thought the cream might reconstitute the gravel and melt it, sort of. What I ended up with was a top layer of slime and a bottom layer of scorched, sugared, inedible rock-hard oatmeal lumps.

C'est Lavie! So I made another batch and the outcome was so good that you only see half a plate of them because I had most of them eaten before I could take the picture.

Growing up, my Dad was very fond of teaching us how to use the dictionary. He would often use a word we didn't know and when we asked what it meant, he would tell us to look it up in the dictionary.

*Groan*. Just tell us, Dad.

But Dad's way of teaching independence and building vocabulary skills was to have us get the big dictionary from the sideboard where he kept it right at his elbow when he sat in his spot at the kitchen table. And his ploy worked, too. None of his kids turned out to be pea-brains, and we are all quite well-spoken except for perhaps my baby brother who drops the first few consonants of words like 'think' and 'that' and substitutes them with the letter 'H'. It's a Hoosier thing. "I hink I'll go down to 'at there car wash today and tell 'at biddy what I hink of her!"

I, on the other hand, take great pride in my case of enlarged vocabulary and made it a practice early on to use the biggest, most expressive word I could find to describe anything I was talking about at the time. So that a hippity-hop to the drug-dealer became an extraordinary journey to the pharmaceutical entrepreneur. (Not that I ever had truck with a drug dealer, but I just wanted to find a way to use the appellation "pharmaceutical entrepreneur" in a sentence!)

So it really sucks that since getting fibromyalgia my vocabulary has gone to dust and ruin. Sometimes I am reduced to pointing and grunting the way men do, when I want something as simple as to ask for the remote control. "Hand me that thingee. You know, the thingee."

Yesterday I met my new neighbors in #4. They are a cute and exuberant couple fresh from Santa Barbara and when I apologized for the nasty golden-brown shag carpeting still in that particular unit, they waxed ecstatic about it! So they are totally into the retro look. Whereas I am so old that shag carpeting makes me think of cigarette ashes and tie-dye and harvest gold appliances. And smoked glass mirrored wall tiles with gold veins running through it. Ewww!

I was telling those kids where things are in the neighborhood, and at one point the guy asked, "Does that street run perpendicular to Folsom Blvd?" and I was absolutely stumped. I had no idea what perpendicular meant! I could drum up horizontal and vertical in my mind, but no definition for perpendicular would surface for me to grasp. He could see I was floundering so he made his arms into the universal symbol for a crossroads, the letter T. And I was able to grasp it and say that, yes indeed, Alhambra ran perpendicular to the entire midtown area. It's a perpendicular type of street. Utterly perpendicular. Almost at odds in a perpendicular way with the whole world! At that point they started to back away from my dementia and excused themselves to finish unloading their moving van.

Hissy Fit!

I like to think of myself as the NICEST WOMAN ALIVE. And although I never brag about myself and my accomplishments, I only know that all my friends thing I'm an even-keel, true-blue, kind, loving, caring, gentle, sweetheart of the first order.

I'd like to lay claim and say I was born this way, but actually, my tender traits are the direct result of deciding that I wanted to be as different as night and day from my Mother. And although for the most part I've taught myself to turn the kindly cheek wherever possible, every once in a while the veneer cracks and the dark, seething underbelly of my Hell-spawn character oozes through.

This morning, for instance. I like to get up, head out early and take care of chores because I don't like crowds and traffic and rushing around. This is doubly-so when the errands involve Walmart or Ross or the mall. I just don't want to stand in line for 30 minutes to buy a roll of toilet paper while 13,000 screaming children fly wetly through the aisles trying their best to knock my feet out from under me. I've never actually fallen, mind you, but I can just imagine what it would be like: Some electric current would sizzle and snap, triggering their pack mentality into a feeding frenzy and I'd be crushed and bitten and mauled and rendered limb from limb by Walmart Shopper Children.

I, who love the smell of roses and lilacs would find the last smell to enter my nostrils before death to be the pungent odor of lardy unwashed Mexican kids and watermelon bubble-gum.

Olay!

But not today. Today I made it out of Walmart unscathed completely and was able to go to Ross just as it opened. I need clothes badly, folks. I'm hanging rags off my back and it's not a pretty sight. I figured I could go in there and hit the severely reduced rack and see what I could find to put together an outfit or two.

Well, when you are a plus-size pudge carrying all your weight between your stomach and your kneecaps, you can't just grab a size 14-16 off the shelf and figure it will fit. You have to TRY STUFF ON. It's boring, it's tiring, it's futile, but it has to be done. Because in my world, NOTHING EVER FITS.

This means pawing through rack after rack, just to glean one item that might work. And doing this over and over again until I have 10 or more items that might work, knowing all the while that after all that hard work, I will be lucky to leave the store with one semi-ill-fitting bargain blouse.

Today, I managed to get almost 13 things that I thought might fit me and not make me look like a Hootchie Mama missing her crack pipe, and headed to the back of the store where the dressing rooms are. But wait! Instead of the surly Russian girls who usually work that counter, my eye (I've only got one) beheld a team of Mexican Construction Dudes on a break. They were behind a rope and hanging from the rope was a sign that said, "Dressing Rooms Closed."

Being the kindly, sweetheart lady whom everyone loves and adores, I thought to myself sweetly, "Oh, they must have an alternative dressing room somewhere. Perhaps the bathrooms or the stock room or the office has been cordoned off for the use of myself and the horde of 57,000 other shoppers heading this way on a Saturday Morn. This is easily fixed. No problem."

But no. On the contrary. After hoofing it all over the store to find a salesperson or any person who appeared to be a store employee, I finally spoke with a woman at check-out. She said, "No. There are no dressing rooms today."

Have you ever heard of such a thing? That's like going to a coffee shop and ordering coffee and being told that there will be no coffee beans today. We're still open, but you can't have any coffee.

And that was when I had my little hissy fit.

It wasn't pretty, it wasn't polite, it did not contain language that was fit for small children and the excessively religious. Phrases such as, "What type of business model...? Which moron in the corporate office...? You might at LEAST...!" were peppered with "This is ridiculous, it sucks, it's asinine, it's a waste of taxpayer dollars, who do you think you people ARE?" and it all ended in me throwing my armload of clothes over a rack and saying, "Then YOU put them away. I'm not going to!" and stomping out.

Later, on the way home, as I was coming down off my adrenalin high, I realized I forgot to say, "Do you people KNOW WHO I AM? Do you know who you are DEALING WITH?" I really wish I had been able to use the phrase, "KISS MY ASS, HONKY BITCHEZ!" and "HEADS WILL ROLL! I'LL HAVE YOUR JOB if it's the LAST THING I DO!"

I know that for the rest of the day until something else comes along to drive this incident out of my head, I will continually think of more Brilliant and Pithy and Attacking things to say that will just SHOW THEM WHOSE BOSS! And then I will laugh when I've exhausted them all because the final threat of force and destruction must always be, "I'm going to tell my MOM on YOU!"

And then you'll be very, very sorry you were ever born.

Olay!

I've got a few minutes while waiting for these enchiladas to cool, so I thought I'd write a quickie blog entry. I made a huge pan of enchiladas for Miss Kitty this morning. That's my client. She pays for the ingredients when we go grocery shopping and then I make her a big pan and put it into smaller, freezer containers and then she eats on these for a few weeks. She loves my enchiladas! I love my enchiladas! Olay! Or is that Ole? Well, no relation to Oil of Olay! Ha, ha! That would be funny! The Mexican marketing for Oil of Olay south of the border could be a hot chick in a sombrero rubbing Oil of Ole` on her skin.

Well, I had a weird night’s sleep last night, for sure! I dreamed I was back in high school and some old man teacher brought my essay into another teacher and pointed out how I had cheated on it. So both those teachers were grilling me and going over page by page all the little doodles in the margins. The one teacher had a book of symbols and runes and he was insisting that those doodles were code and I had cheated. He elaborately deciphered one of my doodles and it meant, “Whitefish”. I was really pissed, saying that what the hell did WHITEFISH have to do with my essay!!??, and I was adamant that I hadn’t cheated.

Then I had the realization that if they flunked me I’d have to take the whole year over again and then I thought, “I’m 50 years old! I am NOT taking a year of high school over again, no matter WHAT the consequences! I don’t care if I don’t graduate from high school at this point.” Well, it was kind of funny because I’ve had those high school flunking dreams my whole entire life, but it always turned out that I went back to school with a sinking feeling like I’d had to interrupt my life in order to finish school. But this time I felt like, “No effing way, dudes! See you later!”

At least this was a step up from those annoying high school dreams where I realized I'm naked.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. A good thing would be if I didn't dream about flunking high school anymore, frankly!

Olay!

Don't Look at Me!

I'm not looking at you!

I realize I could probably get written up and given a citation by the Internet Police for neglecting to post a blog for almost the entire month of July. Well, here I am on Aug. 1st, ready to make amends. My only excuse is sloth and illness. Is that one excuse or two?

I've got one eye on the TV right now, watching the coverage about the Minneapolis Bridge Collapse. I'm sure I've driven across that bridge a time or two on my cross-country treks. I think of all the times I've sat on a bridge or crossed it and thought about it collapsing. I think about the Bay Bridge collapsing all the time! I just pray that I'm not on the under layer when it happens. Being squished like a pancake is not my idea of a good death option.

What with laying around all the time because of an upsurge/recurrence of my fibromyalgia, I've had the benefit of the almost constant companionship of Mackie. He's just stuck to me like glue. If I move to the sofa, he moves there with me. If I move to my desk, he comes on over and plants himself at my feet. I always tell him, 'You could have stayed where you were, I'm going right back over there." but he just looks at me with scorn. As if to say, "Lady, I take my companionship duties seriously. I intend to be within a 2 foot radius of you at ALL TIMES until you get it that my food dish needs to be filled with that wet stuff. The dry stuff isn't cutting it."

So just for fun I point the camera at him and play the "Don't Look at Me!" game. I say 'Don't look at me! Mackie! Don't Look at me!" for as many times and in as many inflections as I can stand, and eventually, just to humor me, he will stop ignoring me and give me a peek.

I'm not looking at you.

This is how I amuse myself in the long, summer months.

Enough is Enough!

Even I couldn't stand looking at myself in an eye patch any longer, and I love my own face! I think it's time for a new blog entry.

After having all my most prized and precious possessions in boxes for over 6 months, I finally decided Enough is Enough and I pulled a few things to put back in my home so it doesn't look quite so stark and un-homey. Used to living with total shabby chic clutter, this sparseness and bleak-walled living has really taken it's toll. I want to be with my things. I need my things.

I was so happy to unwrap this TEPCO milk pitcher. It usually resides in my tea cupboard surrounded by it's fancier and more elegant friends. But somehow it seemed just right to put it with the Hall Pottery Jade Plant, and now every time I walk past it I smile.

Separated at Birth

It's Me and Number Two, separated at birth!

Here I am without the sleeping patch, why am I smiling?

This hurts worse than anything and I still can't see. It hurts to move my eyeball around. I should have gotten some books on tape or something! I was totally NOT PREPARED for this surgical aftermath. Everyone always told me that cataract surgery is just a piece of cake. I can't see to pour a glass of water because I can't get my left eye and my right eye to work together to do anything. Very weird! The surgical nurse told me it would be like my eyes thought I was riding in a boat, and that's just what it's like.

Love Sweet Love

Well, I don't give a fig for cataract surgery, let me just tell you that right now! A lot of hoopla for nothing. The surgeon did say that what with the fibromyalgia and health issues, I will heal slower than usual and everyone heals differently anyway. I was just expecting the patch to come off and then Bwa-La! But there was NO Bwa-LA! I can't see a thing, my eye throbs like a...hurty throbby thingee, and I look like I've got quite the shiner.

And I didn't even get it in a beer brawl!

A gentleman aquaintance called me to see how my surgery went and after chatting awhile about that subject, he told me some things about his various dates and girlfriends through the ages. He has a very upbeat attitude about romance, and when I asked him how this could be, he replied, "Because Love will Never be Without Me."

You know I thought that was such a sweet sentiment. I thought about it for a moment and then I said, "And Love will not touch me with a ten foot pole and a Latex Glove."

Surgery-Shmurgery

I had my cataract surgery in my right eye today, and boys and girls, I must say that I was in total denial about how much it was going to hurt and how intense it was going to be. When everyone tells you "Oh, it's not big deal! It's an easy surgery! I could see 5 minutes after the surgery!" they are LYING. Or else they have absolutely NO nerve endings in their eyeballs.

But I had so many people say it was such a piece of cake I skipped blithely to the gallows, all unawares!

Because I felt every single slice, dice, gouge, gash, pulverizing, pummel, punching, pushing, suction, tugging, pinching, squeezing, inserting, implanting, suturing, sewing and taping.