Edible boletus

My entire family, as I may have mentioned, is a bit nuts and quirky. One of the reasons I know this for a tired fact is that every year, rain or shine or highwater, they make a mass exodus to the Michigan North Woods in search of these:

Like lemmings to the sea, there is no stopping them. The Annual 'roonie' trip is scheduled, planned, and discussed for about 2 months before the event. Nothing must be allowed to get in the way. People have been known to reroute emergency surgeries if it looked like they would interfere with the holiday.

This year, two of the male members of the family are down with slight complications. Uncle Ejay* (*not his real name but cleverly disguised facsimile nonetheless) had to have every tooth in his head extracted on Wednesday, but still took the time to arrange with Cousin Deet's* husband Stilts* (*not their real names) to drive up with him on Saturday. Stilts has a double sinus infection and is mortally ill, but he has assured Ejay that come hell or Halifax he will be well enough to drive up to the campsite for the weekend.

I think I've mentioned before that I grew up in a structured Matriarchal Society that more closely resembles a Mind Control Cult than a family. It's true! Various members of my family will regularly 'pronounce a truth' and if that 'truth' is not universally adopted on the spot, weeks of agonized emailing will ensue until all the players are on board. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.

The Two-Headed Ruler of the Baker Family Cult

It is one of the tenets of the Baker Family Cult that you must never lie. If, however, a story can be made more dramatical by exaggerating it to the nth degree, then So Be It. Let it be done. Therefore, a hangnail that has festered can quickly turn into a full gangreneous amputation situation merely from the telling.

This year, there was a slight power struggle over some barbecue ribs that my Mom is especially good at fixing, and her sister, Deet's Mom Ignacia, decided that since one member of the family cannot eat ribs due to health problems, then nobody else should be able to eat them ever again. She was therefore forbidden to bring them along on the camping trip.

My Mom, being senior in rank and Cult Leader Stature, simply chose to ignore this edict.

Deet, expecting fireworks or at the very least, her mother's head blowing up when she realizes that my Mom brought those ribs anyway, decided to forgo the annual roonie trip for just this year.

She called me yesterday with an update. It seems that Aunt Flambe`, otherwise known as Aunt Frostie had a full scale gall bladder attack while in the deep North Woods looking for edible fungi. Deet didn't have all the facts, because for some reason, the person who was contacted with this rather alarming news was Aunt Pittypat. Who is otherwise known as the Boo-hoo Queen because she cries at the drop of a hat, but the gist of the story seems to be that Aunt Frostie needed a ride to the hospital so she could get her gall bladder removed real quick like so she could get back to the camp spot and not miss out on all the mushroom hunting.

Deet declined to drive the 5 hours up there to help her out, since she was for certain sure that by the time she got there it would have all been sorted out.

"I know how it will be!" said Deet with a sad shake of her head near the phone, "Whatever happens, it will be done with a lot of drama and will involve the entire camping trip being cancelled because no one can handle the strain and no one should be allowed to have any fun if Aunt Frostie is in the hospital, and my Mom will exit in triumph because she will have been proven to be right about those barbecue ribs being the cause of it all!"

Late last night, the phone rang and it was cousin TiVo Jane, daughter of Aunt Frostie. She was understandably hysterical because her Mom is in the hospital and is refusing to come home afterwards because she says there is no earthly reason she can't just go back to the campsite and sit in her lawn chair for the rest of her post-surgery recuperation period. TiVo Jane said, "I know how it will be! Mom will move that chair out into the deep woods and just keep moving it further and further out and she will be looking for mushrooms the entire time!"

I tried to comfort her by saying that gall bladder surgery was done with a small incision and a laser and it wasn't that bad. But she informed me that actually, her Mom had a gall stone the size of a boiled ostrich egg obstructing her pancreatic duct, and they were going to have to go in with a pair of pliers on a string, down her throat, and pull the stone out that way.

I know how it will be, too. I'll have to listen to each and every detail from each and every person's perspective, and this will go down in the annals of the family as the year my Mom killed Sandrine with her barbecue ribs, before she was saved my a miracle and a pair of pliers on a string.

beautiful people

My darling niece is graduating from high school as I may have mentioned. She just got 'scouted' by Barbizon (modeling agency) and even though she isn't tall enough they wanted her anyway and she said, "NO WAY!" She doesn't need to be pulled, pummelled, criticized and treated like an object! She can get that at home! Anyway, she is determined to be a speech pathologist and here is her pretty face:

Then, my cousin Billie Jean* (*not her real name) finally sent the pictures of when my ex-bf met she and her husband in Texas. Check out the Boat they are standing on! How cool is that? I do know some awesome people. Semi-famous in every way!

am/pm

What people do around here in the am:

What people do around here in the pm:

Home

Well, I made my arrangements to go home for my niece's graduation in June. This should be fun, in a tortured, scary kind of way. Because I don't really belong to a family, per se; it's more like a Mind Control Cult. My cousin Deet (not her real name) just told me that she is laying low because at 52 she has decided she is tired of our two Mom's telling her how she is supposed to THINK about things. I didn't know how to break it to her that my Mom already decided she was the proper person to pick me up at the airport. Without consulting her or her work schedule.

My Cousin Deet (not her real name) who is famous for such utterances as "That is HIGH-larious" and "He's 83 but you'd swear he wasn't a day over 75" told me that her mother in law was "in a tizzy and thrown for a loop" over a day in which she had too many phone calls or something. I started laughing, I don't know how funny that sounds in print, but it's about the equivalent of saying, "I'll be Goll-Danged AND Gosh-Darned!" NOT BOTH AT ONCE! Good Gracious! Nevertheless, I am thrown for a loop and in a tizzy, as well as fit to be tied at trying to manage all those travel arrangement things. As Head of the Cult of Spinsterhood, this is where I am put on my meddle to figure out things like: How does one get to the airport when there is no one to do it? And, Who will take care of my beloved cat who bites you if he feels you need a lesson in manners.

Fortunately, Eliza at the end of the building has been long wanting to forge a relationship with Mackie, even if she can't ever remember his name, and she has agreed to do it as long as my trip doesn't coincide with her trip to Jamaica.

That just leaves navigating the rocky shoals of flight times, with arrivals and departures taking into account that there is only one connecting flight a day out of O'Hare to the city where my family has to drive for an hour to pick me up. If not careful, I can find myself with an 8 hour layover in Chicago. An Amish buggy would be faster! And then of course I have to make sure that my departure FROM home back to Sacramento also takes into account the fact that nobody in Indiana will do anything that cuts into a potential MEAL time. You know, we'd like to take you to the emergency room to treat that severed head problem, but we were just sitting down to supper.

Because this upcoming visit was part of a Royal Edict (yes, we know you've had a stroke, are blind in one eye, can't remember your own name and could get lost in baggage claim with no one there to rescue you, it's still UP TO YOU to find your way home) I have to knuckle under and work out all these kinks.

But I am Spinster, here me snore, and I will get it all figured out eventually. ESPECIALLY because, upon realizing I have no luggage, no luggage at all, I ran to Ross really quickly and found this:

Yes, it is PINK! PINK LUGGAGE! I think that's a good sign, don't you?

Happy Mother's Day!

In an act of unbefore unknownst unselfishness, I got my Mom this cup and saucer floral arrangement for Mother's Day. She collects cups and saucers. I just thought she would love it and I was right. She called me to rave about it and said, "Thank God! For once something that doesn't look like a funeral pall!"

See, my Mom has a similar sense of humor to mine.

I would really rather have begotten her this teapot instead:

But that would have been selfish and she would have spotted it right away that really what I was doing was buying MYSELF a teapot under the guise of making it look like I was getting her some pretty rosebuds for Mother's Day. So I opted for the teacup arrangement instead and just sort of MENTIONED that it was part of a set if she was interested, you know, in having a SET.

Since Time Immemorial this is how children manipulate their parents! What can I say? Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

Get OFF MY STREET!

Okay, you all know by now that I am nothing if not a curmudgeon. I like to grouse about things if I can because it gets it out of my nervous system.

Well, I want to wedge a complaint about the endless array of marathons and 5K and 10K races that clog up our city streets all summer long.

The person who invented the traffic circle was rumoured to have been KILLED in a traffic circle, and I cherish the hope that the person who decided it was groovy cool to RACE FOR A CURE will be pounded into a gelatinous goo beneath the rhythmical feet of 7000 joggers.

Because whoever it was should DIE! What is the connection between running and charity? It drives me NUTS! Why couldn't someone invent a READ-A-THON or a SLEEP-A-THON and then everyone can just stay HOME and there won't be any more human traffic jams.

Well! Today is the annual Susan G. Komen Race for Breast Cancer and although I am sure it is a wonderful cause, I think they need to come up with a NEW CONCEPT for raising money and STAY OFF MY STREET!!! Every year it is the same thing. I am holed up at home for the entire day, cannot get out, cannot get to the store, cannot cross the street, cannot proceed on with life, because thousands of sweating heaving bodies are making their stunned and half-dead way to the finish line near the Capitol. This is an all day process and so I am just besieged, marooned, entrapped. I hate it!

Here is the view out my window on a normal day:
(artists mock-up)

Here is the view today:
(artists mock-up)

Them Red Sneaks Gotta Go!

Taking a break for a whole day from posting so that I might actually glean some LIFE in order to write about it later didn't really turn out as planned.

I did however manage to: buy water at the co-op, still sitting in the trunk of my car because it's too heavy to lift once it's full; go through an entire years worth of utility bills and put them into some kind of order; run to the local Rite Aid and make copies of odds and ends of paperwork I needed copied; drop by my Landlords Office/Hotel to get a signature I needed; (which means driving around the block and around the block and around the block, because it's all one-way streets with blocked alleys and NO PARKING ANYWHERE); pop into the K Street Plaza Mall to pick up my new glasses at Lenscrafters; AND spend 30 minutes on the treadmill down at the 24 Hour Fitness since I was already parked in the mall parking and could just stroll over from there.

Wow! After that, it was just slug-like lolling for the rest of the day.

When I was a young girl, a friend of mine from the Mohawk/Iroquois Indian Reservation in Canada met her husband to be when she walked up to him and said in her nasally Upper New York Twang: "Them Red Sneaks Gotta Go!"

I felt the same way about my slip-on walking shoes which for some inexplicable reason I purchased in the jarring and rather demeaning color of NEON RED!

Which I fixed pronto by spray-painting them pink.

So darn cute!

I guess you have to be one of those cat lovers or maybe it's a function of being a Spinster Auntie with no one else to love, but I can sit and watch my cat for ages. He just delights me with his many facial expressions. His moods, not so much. I have the moodiest cat for a male. Ask any of my friends with shredded hands who were petting merrily away while he purred when suddenly! Sliced Human!

Mackie has never been afraid of mechanical devices. He ruined my old IBM Selectric typewriter by shoving his paws into the opening and forcing the ball to stop moving and rotating across the platen. He also trashed my old printer by burying his paws deep inside to stop the paper from coming out. My new printer (I say 'new' but I mean 5 years old) still attracts him like flies to butter. I do believe if there was a bird flapping around my apartment and he heard the printer start, he would abandon the bird and come attack the printer.

I even have to time my printer jobs for when I think he is fast asleep or better yet, outdoors.
Here he is just now, sitting on the printer, waiting patiently for me to print something else so he can jam it up some more.

Exercise

"I am a good walker! Now why is everyone always assuming I am not a good walker?"

~Jane Austen's Persuasion

Now here is a non-epiphany for you! I hate exercise! I have always hated exercise. I think people who like to exercise and rave about it and are addicted to it and can't live without it are the same kind of alien/human hybrid implants that were frequently shown on X-Files sucking the bone marrow out of living victims or stealing their brains or suddenly turning into black oil slicks and oozing out of eyeballs in search of fresher prey.

In other words, I may know them, but I don't often invite them to tea.

Myself, being on DEATH WATCH the way I am, should be incorporating a little exercise into my life. I belong to a gym. I don't go. It's too much work to bother! I don't mind it once I am there, but it's the getting there that is just too insurmountable.

You have to put on ugly shoes.

You have to sweat and get sticky.

You have to shower before and after.

You have to suck wind, count reps, and heave ho.

I hate all that stuff. Especially the ugly shoes and the heave-hoeing.

I have been known, though, to take long walks. I am awfully fond of a long walk. As long as it doesn't turn into a clothing and footgear production before hand. What I mean is, if I can just get the urge to take a walk and then stand up and head out the door grabbing only my sunglasses and my keys, then I am all for a long walk!

Today, I felt like a long walk. Never mind that it is about 90 degrees outside and just blazing, brutal, grass-frying hot out. I felt like walking, so I did.

It turned into a very short walk. I am awfully fond of a very short walk!

I did get to see thousands of roses in bloom, just in the 10 block radius that I covered around my midtown neighborhood before I realized that my feet were stinging and I had potential blisters forming that might fester, superate, go septic and end in amputation if I did not skedaddle back home as soon as possible and get off my feet and out of my strappy sandals.

I also saw the new construction on the old Victorian that burned two years ago. The man had been slowly remodeling it and he had no insurance. It must have been bought by some new fellas, because there were 5 of them standing around outside in the shade while a crew of about 5 more fellas were busy framing the upstairs anew! AND! They appear to have gone up an extra story, so that now the Old Gingerbread 2-story Victorian will be a 3-story Victorian. Hopefully they will put an attractive siding on it. Most of the buildings around town are registered historically, so you aren't allowed to tart them up with aluminum siding or anything too modern like that.

I am happy to see it rising from it's own ashes, but very sorry to think I won't be able to go over there and glean the roses from the neglected yard. I feel that I personally and single-handedly kept those rose bushes pruned and alive for the last 2-3 years. Now they are all fenced in. I hope the new owners appreciate the beautiful old blush rambler they have in their front yard. It is succulently fragrant.

Mackie is in full-exercise mode as well. He just does it all in the night-hours. He has enough sense to nap during the heat of the day.

And by the way, this post is just FULL of new paragraphs, but I've fiddled with it and reposted it and it's just not accepting my breaks or paragraphs or divisions. Blogspot does that sometimes. I uploaded Mackies picture 3 times before it showed up. It just dissapears stuff! I find that incredibly annoying. Does it do that for anybody else? I feel like the Ghost Blogger.

Go Figure

As a girl named Pink whose lucky number is 8, I just have to wonder why I didn't bet on this horse to win the Run for the Roses today...

What a beauty in his pink saddlecloth! I don't know what it is about horse racing, but it always makes me cry!

Invitation Regret Form

Warm weather is upon us and it is time once again for the endless round of summer gaieties!

Invitations to fetes', balls, soirees, and teas fill your platter and you are faced with the daunting task of weeding out the less pleasurable parties to which you must, regrettably, send your regrets.

Here is a template to help you send the most simple and proper R.S.V.P. to a party that you have no intention of attending:

Miss Pink Ponsonby

225 Silverthaw Way

Aspen, CA
958256


Miss Pink Ponsonby

Regrets that she is unable to accept
The very kind invitation
Of Blather Jane Snobbishbutter
To the Naked Old Romans Hot Tub Party

in honor of her sister
Biddy Joy
For Saturday, the 10th of May
At 2:00 O'Clock

Texas Whore House PBS

Well! I must say I am appalled! These girls look nice in this photo, and that is the last time you see them dressed for the entire series of Texas Ranch House on PBS! I don't know why I should be appalled or even surprised. I have yet to see a single "Travel Back in Time and Live the Life of a Victorian, Pioneer, Rancher, WWII Blitz, Colonial Family" where the ladies kept their CLOTHING ON.

What is WRONG with the producers/writers/historians of these otherwise entertaining and interesting television spectacles? They obviously choose the participants carefully. They obviously train them well in all things historical: appropriate bathroom techniques, how to boil water and fix a fire from scratch, how to plant a garden and cook decent meals from meager supplies. And yet they leave out the entire subject of how to dress correctly without being mistaken for a prostitute!

The Cooke Family, very nice and likeable for the most part, would probably prefer to be nibbled to death by ducks than stand around on their front porch in 2006 in the Bras and panties with their hair disheveled. I can no doubt guarantee they would never sit down to dinner in their underpants! And yet they travel back to 1867 when there was a stricter code of conduct for gentlemen and ladies and proceed to run around in their skivvies!

Mrs. Cooke manages to keep her clothes on, but she can only be bothered to put her hair into a chignon when the wild Comanche Indians show up! Which would have been the one time you could perhaps be excused for flying around with your hair down as you ran for your life! Otherwise--even when it is the 4th of July Party or the United States Army Patrol shows up-- she just stands on the porch with her hair sloppily braided and tied with a rag.

And she doesn't have the sense to tell her daughters, "We've got company coming, girls, run inside and button yourself into your basques!" Let's just suppose that this slack and slovenly attitude towards appearance and decorum is observed when the ladies are alone at home, but even in the most rude establishment, when a gentleman arrived, they would have gotten dressed pronto! Even in today's world, don't most people put on nice clothing for company, or to sit down to dinner?

There is no way they would sit down to dinner with fully dressed, spur-wearing, chap-wearing, kerchief-wearing cowhands in their Chemise and CORSETS!

YES I AM SCREAMING! CORSETS ARE NOT OUTER APPAREL!

I just cannot get over this glaring oversight when you are showcasing a period correct piece like this. They won't even let these people have access to FRUIT, mind you! Fruit was rare and expensive and not a part of the every day diet of Texans in 1867. They can go on and on about that detail of historical trivia, use up 10 minutes of air time showing these folks smelling a bucket of apples as their ricket ridden gums salivate from depravity, but just completely ignore the fact that the Rancher's Daughters line up in their underpinnings for the entire unit of Buffalo Soldiers to ogle and leer at, and then sit down to dinner with them in the same state of undress.

I won't even go into the fact that these people long to go back in time for this experience, have to be interviewed, processed and selected for the opportunity. But the moment they get the job, they throw all that away and spend the rest of the time doing exactly as they please for their own comfort and history be damned!

Much of the plot for the later part of this series is about the feminist mindset of the female participants, and the demands of the maid-of-all-work to become a ranch hand like the boys. The wife of the Rancher thinks she is running a factory and she is the executive director of her husband, and cannot seem to grasp the idea that she could be having a different experience entirely if she'd just mind her own business! It's no wonder they despise her down at the bunk house.

It's rather sad, really. I mean, she could be spending the time with her daughters, attending to their grooming. (snark snark) I really miss the opportunity to see this 1867 experience done well and done with interest. I miss seeing it done without all the whining and sniveling. Cannot they pick people who want to throw themselves into the experience whole-heartedly and leave their 21st century idiosyncrasies at home?

Well, thank you for letting me vent! As a person who dresses in 1860's period clothing on a regular basis and finds it both comfortable and not unsuitable for most work and most weather, I fail to see the need to throw propriety to the winds and run around mostly undressed. I could stay home and just wear a crop-top and jeans if I wanted to do that.

My point is: Why sign up for the experience if you don't intend to have the experience?

Appropriate Attire

This is proper 1860's Scottish style attire:

This is not:

Smash Bands

Hmmm, I don't know how I managed to skip taking a single picture of anyone playing bagpipes all this weekend! That does seem odd since I love the look and sound of them when they are far off. Far away and Far off. Upon the craggy heights. In Old Scotland.

At a Scottish Event it is another kettle of haggis entirely! They are everywhere! Like rats in a granary! And they are all the time tuning their pipes! And according to my friends, (who play pipes very well and should know!) they very rarely succeed!

There is a lovely ending to each day at the Scottish Games, though, and we call it "Smash Bands" I think it is actually really called Mixed Bands or Mass Bands or Maxed Out Bands. It is when all the bands that competed get together and play at once on the competition field. It is VERY pretty! One pipe alone is rather awesome, but a hundred or more of them together! It is no wonder these blowbags of sticks and sheeps guts full of air were used to rouse men and call them to fierce battle!

And who could not love a man in a kilt? There is something extremely masculine about them; at these Scottish Events, the men are in their element. (Element: Beer and Bragging). Often a kilted male will be seen swaggering around bragging about his ancestry and lineage. Scots really like to impress each other, I've noticed!

It is quite fun to be sitting in the shade of a tree and having people approach and tell you a bit of their life story as they ask questions about hoop skirts, hair styles, fabric selections for period garments. It always takes a few days to get over an event and get back into the swing of things in the modern age. About as long as it takes to do all that laundry and put all the gear away! And I can't help thinking about that tune:

"Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen, and down the mountain side

The summer's gone, and all the flowers are dying

'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide"

Burn Her!

Well, I had a ball this weekend! Finally, I got out of the house and did some fun things for a change! This was the weekend of the Woodland Scottish Games. For those who don't know, the Scots and people of Scottish decent like to get together and wear their plaids and tartans and show off their brute strength, dancing skills, clan history and how good they look in a kilt. It is always great fun! There is also a very nice pipe band competition, although for me who knows nothing about music and has no 'ear' it all sounds alike to me!

I belong to a Civil War Reenacting group, who portray a Scottish Regiment, so we go to this kind of Scottish Gathering, as well, and do living history and demonstrations. The area where they park us is off the beaten path, and in a long row of other reenactors from all periods. Some of the reenactors are from some kind of 'fantasy' era! They depict the Renaissance Barbarian. They always draw the biggest crowd! The females walk solemnly around ringing bells with their breasts mostly exposed. You can imagine! Very Jolly!

They pretend to know Old English very well, and can be heard to say "Prithee" and "Anon" and other garbled speech which is fun to misinterpret. One of the demos they gave was a "How to Practice Your Battle Death Technique" display. All their soldiers lined up with their pikestaffs and the head pikestaffer would point at one and say BANG! I kid you not! BANG! And the doomed soldier would totter forward and practice a loud and verbal and thrashing death! This was done in all seriousness and you can imagine the throws of mirth and peals of laughter that this put me through. The dying soldiers usually chose their last words upon this earth to be: "Mother of God!" or it could have been "Son of a Gun!" you couldn't tell because the sound was muffled as their faces would usually be buried in the dirt and hidden by their chain mail.

These soldiers would take turns getting shot BANG! and then dying and then they would all line up and practice their attack maneuvers. As they advanced for the final kill they would shout in unison something that sounded like: IDLE FRUIT! IDLE FRUIT! This was screamingly funny. I have no idea what they were really saying, but that was what it sounded like!

I had fun wandering around and taking some photographs of some of the very stunning garments. Say what you will about the dubious authenticity of some of their habits, these folks really do know how to dress in gaudy plumage! The men look so dashing!

As I was preparing to take a picture of a well-looking couple, I was flanked by two men.

"Is that one of those boxes that captures the image of a man?" I was asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"BURN HER!" he screamed.

Civil War Hair

To Pomade or Not to Pomade? That is the question! I'm going on a little Civil War Reenactment Jaunt tomorrow, the first one in ages that I've felt well enough to attend and is close enough to home not to have exhausted myself with the drive before I even get there, and I am quite excited about it.

I've had to modify my garments quite a bit, and there is always a lot of ironing to do, buttons to be anchored, seams checked for signs of weakness. And of course my beloved corset refitted properly as I've gained and lost weight since last wearing it.

My hair is actually a great length for a really good Civil War hair look, and one of the reasons I don't wear bangs, layers or short flippy doos is because they look so crummy when it comes time to don the garb and head into the past. But I've never really gotten that authentic look. It is quite hard to do! We just don't see ourselves as attractive with hair that is designed to widen our faces and make us look plump! And we definitely do not find it appealing to grease our hair down flat and shiny! Yet, that is the look that was desired and sought after and worked for, back in the day!

This morning I was practicing with different pinning configurations, and I finally hit upon one that does not weigh my head down, look tacky with too many combs and hair pins sticking all over the place, and yet will stay in place for a rigorous day of walking demurely around under a sun hat sipping sasparilla through a paper straw. Now I worry that it will never look this good again!

Let yourself Go!

Yesterday, along with finding that Little Red Cosco chair and dooming myself to sing "Little Red Corvette" by Prince for the rest of the day and night, I also had a fun conversation with Whatsername* , my cute neighbor from the end of the building. *not her real name

I had not been home long from Target when there was a knock on the door and she was standing there needing to use my powder room and phone. That newly arrived-from-school-in-Uganda boyfriend of hers had her keys and her cell phone and had taken off to a sports bar to watch the World Cup Race.

Poor Whatsername! Living in the same zip code with this guy is going to be a challenge, but I hope they make it. I told her I'd rather have a Brazilian Wax than ever share my abode with a man again. So naturally we got on the subject of body maintenance. She told me she always gets a Brazilian Wax because anything else is just cruel and unsanitary. Since I can barely bring myself to shave my legs these days and think the next time I wax something will be when my mustache starts to grow in, which at this rate will be very soon since it's been 2 months since my last period but only 2 minutes since my last hot flash, I can only shake my head in wonder at this metrosexual generation before me. They all appear to be anti-pube for some reason.

She and Eliza * ** *not her real name **my other hip young neighbor both spend a good deal of their spare time and spare income at various spas and salons. They get their eyebrows waxed, facials, honey dips (WHAT is a honey dip?) mud scrubs and of course hair cuts and color.

And I feel bad about myself.These girls look like they are fresh, well-maintained and pretty all the time. There is no doubt that I've just let myself go, and not in a Freedom kind of way. I just look like someone who sloughs off a skin layer once a year by way of flaking during the dry season.

But there is no use crying over spilled wax. I couldn't afford that salon lifestyle! I can barely afford the "Keep a roof over your head and food on the table" lifestyle.

And besides, if it comes down to buying things like a red reproduction retro kitchen step stool by Cosco or having my body hair yanked out by the roots, I will glady remain one of the Great Unwaxed.

Little Red Cosco

Little Red Cosco
Baby, you are much too fast!
Little Red Cosco
I need a chair that’s gonna last!

I guess I should have closed my eyes when I drove past the aisle
Where Target features new stuff
Cuz I felt a little ill when I saw the perfect replica
Of the chair that was there before me
Believe it or not, I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough cash
But I was shopping all night, I guess that makes it all right
And you say, “take me home because I won’t last!”

Oh Yeah!
Little Red Cosco
Baby, you are much too fast!
Little Red Cosco
I need a chair that’s gonna last!

A design like yours oughta be in jail
Cos it’s on the verge of being obsolete
Move over, baby, gimme the deal
I’m gonna have to own your little red love machine!

Oh Yeah!

Little Red Cosco
Baby, you are much too fast!
Little Red Cosco
I need a chair that’s gonna last!

*******

You don't know how long I've wanted one of these old Cosco Kitchen step-stools of my very own! Just like the one that dear old Mom had. When I saw them for sale at Target today, well...I just had to buy one and set it to music.

Thank You Notes

Very few people realize the importance of a properly written 'Thank You' note these days. Especially since emails make it so quick and easy to keep in contact without all the bother of finding a stamp and a mailbox somewhere out in the real world.

Nevertheless, I always send a hard-copy thank you note anytime I recieve a tangible, material-world gift. I would like to include a template or two here for general knowledge and enjoyment. Thank you!

*********

Miss Pink Ponsonby
225 Garden Haven Place Sacramento, CA 95816

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

My Dear Herb Border:

Just a quick note to acknowledge
the wonderful time I had at your delightful, impromptu Tea Gathering
yesterday.

You bring together a lovely mix of people
and provide
such a warm environment with
incredible food!

I was especially delighted

to be called upon to cletter all the dishes

for your 299 other guests.

Please get a serviceable hot water heater A.S.A.P.

With

Many Warm Thanks

Kindly,

Miss Pink Ponsonby

******

Please notice that a proper Thank You note is center-spaced and includes both a 'thank you' and acknowledgements of the event or treats offered. Such a note is sure to get you invited back again!

And yes, Gentle Reader, I actually DID send this note to my host after his party. He has one of those 'hot water saver' hot water heaters that saves the hot water rather than lets you use any of it, ever.

Cemetery Stroll

Today I bought two new tires for my car. The last time I had gone to BigO tires to get a slow leak fixed, the guy told me I needed new ones, and soon, and he could fix me right up for $149 apiece. I told him I thought tires were around 75 dollars each. He said, Not anymore! At the time I didn't have the money so I told him no thanks. But it's been preying on my mind that those tires were ready to blow so I got the new ones today. However, this time I told the guy that I wasn't going to be keeping the car forever so I didn't need top of the line tires that would last 10 years. So he very reasonably priced some at $85 each. Much better!

While they were assembling the tires, or installing them or whatever jargon you use with tires, I walked over to the drug store and the grocery and even treated myself at Taco Bell. I picked up the car and headed out for my real excursion of the day: The Sacramento Cemetery.

I happen to love old cemeteries. My home town has the most beautiful one I've ever seen. Lots of shade trees, meandering paths and old stone benches. The Victorians thought that a person's final resting place should be like a pleasure garden, and they built them accordingly. New cemeteries are so drab and cold! Flat stones for easy mowing, no shade anywhere in sight, and strict guidelines about what kinds of flower containers you can use for memorials. Not really the kind of place you would want to visit more than once, if you know what I mean.

I'm not really interested in how many famous people or old politicians and founding fathers are buried in these places. I like the lesser folk. The women who died in their early 20's buried next to the baby they died giving birth to. Entire families laid to rest around large stones marked Mother and Father. I love the mausoleums, too. So grandiose to erect a stone house for the dead!

And of course the statues of cherubs holding lambs, giant urns with stone draperies, I love those.

Today I saw an inscription I had never seen before. It said, "William who was knit to the soul of David."

How odd! I assume the stonecarver was referring to 1 Samual 18:1 (the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David.) but there is no one left alive to ask! The person buried there was not named William. I think I'll ask one of the docent's when I go back.

The Sacramento cemetery is rather famous for it's old rose garden. Alas, most of the roses were done for, that I saw. But there were plenty of other very beautiful garden plots full of color to enjoy. This place is maintained almost entirely by volunteers. You can even 'adopt a plot' and plant what you think is beautiful. What a neat idea!

As soon as I parked and started to meander and take photos, I realized I should have changed the batteries in my camera! On a whim I popped into the docent house where they sell tee-shirts and have the pamphlets for the self-guided tours. There were 3 elderly ladies in there, awash in paperwork. They told me they had batteries on hand if they could just find them. They weren't at all sure how much to charge for them, so they decided on one dollar for two of them. What a bargain! Alas, I had only 60 cents in my pocket because I'd locked my purse in the car so I didn't have to bother with it, but they said that was fine and to drop it into the donation box.

As I left with my new batteries, one of the ladies quipped, "We expect great things of you, now!"

The Death Sofa

In honor of reaching the 1000 visitors mark on my blog, I've decided to treat you all with a picture of the Sofa of Death. It may look innocent and comfy, kind of like the sofa your Gramma has, but I assure you it wields an awesome power to torture, maim and even kill anyone who dares to sit upon it. Don't mess with the cushions!

This little love seat was originally part of a pretty floral duo that I found in one of the local estate liquidator stores. It cost more than a brand new Ethan Allen Furniture Gallery Custom sofa and loveseat, but I was blinded by love of the floral upholstery. I knew nothing, then, about quality construction and the tensile strength of sofa springs.

When the sofas were first delivered and arranged in my living room, I began to notice an odd smell emanating from them. After a weekend of puffs of pork wafting up as I passed by, I did a thorough upholstery shampoo and vacuum. It was then that the cockroaches came out.

I fought hard and eventually won the cockroach battle, but the sofas had a "Burned Bacon ala DDT" scent to them forever after.

A few years passed. The full sized sofa died a saggy and threadbare death and had to be removed without a funeral. This may have triggered the love seat to take it's revenge on me for splitting them up, because one day...

One day I was lounging on the love seat talking on the phone when from the back of the sofa I heard a sharp, metallic Ping rather like a projectile bullet or the twang of an arrow as it flies, followed by a gush of blood and my own terrible screams. The sofa had sprung a spring!

Yes, gentle readers, it actually pierced my ankle with the end of the shattered spring. From then until this day, I have lived in awesome fear of the Sofa of Death. I know of what it is capable. I keep it shrouded in a quilt and extra pillows, the spring mended and battened with thick cotton padding, but I know that one false move and someone--myself or a friend--could meet their doom should that sofa decide to pierce their heart with another broken spring.

Nausicaa

Last night my friend Jeff called around 9:00 to come over with popcorn, a movie and the new Parcheesi game board he got at a yard sale for only a buck. Since this was a rare treat for me, I decided to say a resounding YES! rather than my usual "Are you kidding me? I go to bed at 9:30 on Saturday nights!" and I'm so glad I did!

Parcheesi is a game I never played before in my life! It looked complicated and adult. It reminds me of ancient Moraccan tea tents and flea-bitten nomads lounging on hassocks and playing board games in the Casbah. I shouldn't avoid a game that reminds me of those things, because backgammon reminds me of those things and it's my favorite game, ever! Except for maybe Aggravation, which was invented by a friend of my family. I remember when he brought over a wooden prototype, carefully drilled and painted, and gave it to us. We played that game for decades, using REAL glass marbles and old, heavy dice. The precise clickety-clack of the marbles counting their way around the board was such a pleasant sound! I wonder if my Mom still has that old board tucked away somewhere?

A few years ago, I ran across a game of Aggravation and was just sickened to find that the marbles were light-weight plastic and the board was merely cardboard. It was such a dissapointment!

But I love board games in general and so Jeff and I set up the board and I read through the instructions on the lid. It was really easy and a lot of fun! But then Mackie decided that it was also fun....more fun than we should be having by ourselves! He pounced on the open box that held the rest of the game pieces and the dice, and proceeded to fish them out of their slot, dancing gleefully on all fours on the box as he did so. Then, just because it felt so good, he decided to add a little claw action to the play, and the next thing we knew, he had SHREDDED that box to Kingdom Come. It happened so fast that Jeff and I barely had time to have a conversation about it. Fortunately, Jeff thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever seen so he didn't mind a bit about the box being ruined! When Mackie decided to jump up onto the table to mess with our game pieces, though, that was the end of it.

I wish I had taken a picture! Sorry! I've just got to pin him down one of these days soon and trim those claws. They are beyond deadly!


The movie Jeff brought was: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, or something like that. It was the best movie I've seen in ages and I can't wait to get my hands on more anime! Wow! How did this movie genre escape me all this time? Granted, I hate the way the big bug-eyed characters are drawn, but the backgrounds! And the plot lines! And the dialogue! And the complexities of the personalities! I cannot believe that a CARTOON character can have more dimensions, scope, motives, depths and emotions than a real live human actor! What is WRONG with Hollywood these days? Formula film after formula film. And all so one-dimensional. This film was so colorful and had so many unexpected surprises, it was anything but one-dimensional!

Jeff was soon snoring in my only comfortable chair, and I was left with the Danger Sofa, but I didn't mind! I was riveted by the movie and I highly reccomend it to anyone who is bored and wants to be really entertained by a film.

Oh, I forgot to mention that right before Jeff called, I had painstakingly wound my hair into pin-curls to sleep for the night. I thought I had to do something since the guy who did my hair at some local Vietnamese nail chop-shop slightly over-processed my color. I am now slightly pink around the scalp. It's okay, because I have so much gray it will turn ashy in about 5 days anyway, but in the meantime....meet Mopsy.

Handshake

Yesterday, I moseyed down to the end of the building to see if my neighbor, Whatsername*, had gotten the little goodie-bag I left her from the Easter Bunny. She is a pharmacist, and about, oh, 32-ish, and she is just hanging out in this dump apartment complex while her fiance finishes his year of school in Africa. He is coming home this week but he contracted Malaria right at the last minute while on safari, so her plans of meeting him halfway in London for a vacation had to be curtailed and downright cancelled. Everyone leads such interesting lives! Everyone but me, that is!
*not her real name. I can never remember her real name!

Anyway, Whatsername is brilliant and brilliantly funny, and she reminds me of me at that age only thinner, better educated, and more likely to succeed at life. In other words, absolutely nothing like me at any age whatsoever!

I had put together a little selection of cosmetics -- stuff my brother sends me, and put it all into a cute purse and hung it on her doorknob. She was quite delighted with it and shared some of it with Eliza* who is the other girl at the end of the building who is also young, hip, pretty, well-maintained and brilliant. Eliza is a school teacher. *Not her real name.

Anyway, as we were yakking away, Eliza went by and saw us in the window so she popped in and for about 30 minutes we all had a fun time with girl talk. Eliza was saying that during one of her classes, a student had received a text message that a relative had died, so she had to excuse him from the class. She said she felt so bad for him and he looked so forlorn, she gave him a spontaneous hug. Then she had to go and report herself to the Politically Correct Officer. It is absolutely forbidden these days to hug a student. She was told she wouldn't be written up for it this time but never to do it again.

Naturally we got onto the subject of teachers hugging students, and I told them that in my day, it would have been unheard of to hug a teacher! They were all sorry that kids cannot hug their teachers anymore, because of the way the world has turned, but I told them that I like the idea of a handshake to convey concern and welcome and friendliness and all that. They stared at me as if I had said we should go back to bowing and curtseying to our elders. Kowtowing and scraping.

But we had a fun and interesting talk about it. I mean, think back! You would no more hug a teacher than hug the principal! You didn't hug a total stranger just because they were standing in a group of your acquaintances. You didn't hug the lifeguard, the nurse, your doctor, most if not all of your great-aunts and other elders--they would have been offended to the core--and you would absolutely positively never have hugged the preacher or the preacher's wife! Now, at the end of the service, people line up in front of the hugging machines and cannot leave the sanctuary until they have been given the obligatory hug.

I do not know when we became this 'hug-first, get acquainted later' society, but it hasn't done us any real good! It's not like we are a friendlier, warmer nation because we run around hugging people all over the place. I prefer to wait until it MEANS something before I hug the world or a chance met stranger.

Oh, and before I forget, what is up with kids having text messaging while in class? Isn't that just bizarre? In my day we weren't even allowed to pass notes in study hall!

Tiny little Suri with the Fringe on Top

Oh, PLEASE! If I see one more annoying press release about little baby Suri I'm going to barf all over my surrey. FIRST of all, people, it's Suri HOLMES, not Suri Cruise. Unless of course Cruise is the baby's middle name. In which case when the baby-daddy marries the baby-momma and stops all the drama, then the illegitimate babe will be named Suri Cruise Cruise...AFTER he adopts her. Or do I have my parenting/paternity laws mixed up? I feel sorry for those poor, conservative Catholic parents of Katie Holmes, that is for sure. All this time they thought they raised her better than that.

If only Katie and Tom had popped into a wedding chapel at any point between 12 months ago and now instead of doing all that pregnant shoe shopping and sailing around the Caribbean on yachts. The only thing more nauseating than this stupid hoopla over the birth of a baby between two unwed adults is the fact that NEXT we will be required to make a big fuss over their wedding nuptials. How much does anyone want to bet that the bride will wear white?

Still dizzy after...what? 5 days? So I didn't have a lot of energy to plan a new kitchen table centerpiece. I just knew it was time to take down the Easter Egg Tree.

Oh, and frabjous joy! They Aced Ace on American Idolatry! I was worried for little Kelly Pickler! But she made it to another round. By next week I'll have to stop watching entirely because when it gets this close to the finish, everyone that is left is REALLY good!

Here's Mackie, hogging my chair for his nap. It was the only warm place in the house, the last couple of days.

what ails me

Is anybody sick of hearing about the avian bird flu yet? I promise I'll quit it! But I did want to mention that I've been 4 days now with the most severe dizzy spells of my life. The last I heard, the bird flu had not jumped into humans yet and was still just killing chickens and the odd Cornish Hen. Now however I see that there are about 300 dead people from several different countries, all diagnosed with Avian Bird Flu. We don't KNOW that this will be a pandemic. Humans usually mutate right out of those deadly flu's after they kill off a few dozen foreigners. I just hope it doesn't mutate into killing off other bird or animal life. I hope it doesn't kill off the crows. I'm awfully fond of crows.

I went to Thai Basil for lunch with my friend Robin yesterday. I actually hate it when reality breaks into my fog like that. Naturally, with my case of the spinsy-whopsies, I didn't want to drive, so she picked me up. Does anybody remember me mentioning that for Christmas this same person gave me a small bag of rotting vegetables as a gift? Well, yesterday she brought me another one. A head of leaf lettuce with about 5 leaves left on it. 5 or so Roma tomatoes with black mold. One slimy purple onion. A loaf of half-grain bread.* And some tofu. Yum!

*half grain bread as opposed to 5 grain bread.

After Lunch, we walked over to the Tree of Life store, which is right behind the restaurant, but it was closed. In fact I think the lady that runs it was sitting next to us having her lunch on theThai Basil patio! Anyway, we went into her little side garden, and was it ever funky! People sure do decorate funny! Every conceivable nook and cranny was crammed full of little animal statuettes! Mostly monkeys. She had monkey's carved out of coconut hulls all over the place; running up the trees, peeking out of the date palm fronds. All along the fencing cross-beams she had lined hundreds of little frogs, monkeys, chickens...and in a tub by the back door, there were half a dozen reclining porcelain pig figurines. It was this totally quirky and amusing little corner of the world, totally unexpected for midtown Sacramento. Robin said, "I think I better get another look at this woman!" when we walked past the restaurant again.

Somebody, PLEASE stop voting for Ace McGreaseball so he can be eliminated as a choice for American Idol. I want my Idols to have a personality other than 'blushing stoner'.

Ayn Stein's Pandemic

The thing is, I think we could use a really good pandemic. Like Ebineezer Scrooge, I'd like to see a decrease in the surplus population.

Imagine being able to go to the mall and get what you want because there is nobody left to fight you for the last tacky designer-brand object! Think what it would be like to just move on up to the big mansion on the hill without the bother and expense of paying for it or finding a good realtor!

There will be no shortage of gas, clean air or pecans when there is a shortage of people!

Alas, we've learned from the natural disasters--the big ones--like Katrina and the Asian Tsunami of 2004, that nature is no respecter of persons. A really big wave wipes out the deserving and the undeserving alike. And leaves behind a terrible mess.

So all this talk of Avian bird flu pandemics has me thinking that what we chiefly need is a designer pandemic! One that specifically targets the stupid and cruel, for instance. And anyone with a drop of Fundamentalist Muslimism combined with a need to kill anyone who isn't. And perhaps it could clear out anyone who continues to breed after having two or three children when they clearly cannot feed or provide for their offspring. I'd like a wholesale wiping-out of people who drive recklessly with a latte in one hand and a cell phone in the other using their elbows to steer. Anyone exhibiting tendencies towards violence while lacking compassion. People who breed pit bulls. Pit bulls themselves, they can go.

This pandemic will need to be very organized. It can self-dissolve within 24 hours of the death of the bodies it inhabits. You know, like Poof! No messy clean up and no after-odor! Just miles of real estate and no traffic jams.

If we don't learn to self-regulate, I fear that nature will do it for us. So far she has just twitched a few times, like a dog with a flea. But if nature really decides that the Human Population is the one variable which is constant in the destruction of the ecosystem...then Hello Avian Bird Flu! Hello Pandemic! Goodbye ME!

Dizzy and broad

Ho-hum! I went to bed dizzy with total vertigo last night and thought I would wake up all better but instead I am even dizzier. Is it the avian flu?

Skyrocketing cholesterol and triglyceride levels?

I had big plans to run out and get a new pair of blue jeans in a smaller size because the ones I've been wearing this winter are starting to sag in odd places. Which is a good thing! But now I think I will stick close to home in case I keel over, I don't want to do it in public!


By the way, why do they call it the Avian Bird Flu? Is that not an oxymoron? Are not all birds Avian? Isn't that like saying "Arachnid Spider bite"? Or...."Leavened Yeast Bread". Or..."Dizzy Vertigo Head?"

Post Passover

I had a little private Passover Seder for myself on Thursday evening. I gathered up the things I needed: the lamb shank, the horseradish and parsley and saltwater and the roasted egg and the matzo, of course, the 'mortar' made of apples and cinnamon and almonds into a paste, the candles and the wine.

Since I'm not Jewish, I was thinking of this as more of a quiet, personal "Last Supper" with my own personal meanings attached to the ceremonial questions, etc. It was really neat and all was going well when suddenly I realized I had charred the Sacramental Lamb to the point where the smoke it created caused my fire alarm to go off! Now, my smoke detector is a cheapy one, and the only way to get it to shut off is to knock the battery out of it. But of course it's piercing shrieks make it REALLY hard to approach it, so over the years I've gotten good at throwing my shoe at the thing and knocking the cover off.

Alas, the first thing that came to hand was the box of Matzo. Hurling unleavened bread which is significant of the hasty departure out of Egypt by the Israelites at a claxon designed to train me like Pavlov's Dogs not to burn the Paschal Lamb under the broiler somehow made it all seem silly, if you know what I mean.

Fortunately the 4 glasses of wine required for the seder made it all a dim memory, and the feast portion, --lamb chops and potatoes and matzo ball soup--was so delicious I was happy to be a well-fed, safe, and non-enslaved child of G_d.

Tsunami Tstory

This is the second half of the letter from my friend Kirsten from Denmark:

I heard some strange water sounds and turned around and saw the water flooding, coming against us taking trees, cars, people with it and rising very quickly. Shock came up in me and a question: What is that? Nobody told me about such things could happen here. So I shouted, “What the hell is that?” No answer! My next thought, “What can we do in case the building floods or breaks and when will the water stop?” Hundreds of questions rushed through, but there was nothing to do, just stay. Wait and help the coming people. The surviving people. And receive the dying people and cry and shake together.

Pray to God and find the inner peace. No panic! A lot of the locals panicked but I knew I could only lose my personal suitcase stuff and then go home again. Well, that thought would come later. First to save my life.

Find and stay in the center of the wave and find peace. I was in shock, shaking, but I never panicked. The water stopped as tall as me on the first floor and the house stayed stable. I waited until the water became low again to go down to the ground floor with the German in my hand to help me.

We could only guess what the hell was going on. No electricity and gossip started about a new, even taller wave will come and warnings to escape to the mountains. Was this a world wide catastrophe or what? My mind was asking, asking. Very busy mind. Keep me alive. How could I escape? My body became so weak, but my mind was very strong, listening very carefully to myself. I didn’t really trust all the people who panicked and their voices about more waves.
I suffered by all the victims who were looking for their beloved and I had to keep my own mind strong about my friends who lived on the beach. I hooked up with 3 tall strong American surfers and we went to a safe house. In the evening I got the message: my friends were alive and would sleep in the mountains this night.

I could not sleep. We were the only people back in the village and I was sharp listening to the sound of the ocean, the tide, etc. I never slept until I came back to Denmark, 4 days later. It took 3 days to get rescued. We had plenty of food including drinking water but no washing water, no electricity. It was a 9 hours drive through the jungle. The first two hours were like a war-zone. Damaged, endless shock. Dead people. People in the streets, standing in line for food or news.
Arriving in the airport in the middle of the night, chaos. I could not handle anymore now. I could get no help no emergency place to sleep, except the floor with a traumatized 10 year old Anders. He had survived by hanging in a tree during the first wave. The second wave he had lost the power to hang on and Lisbeth pulled him back by his long black hair.

At the airport, I could not control myself anymore, and so Anders and I went ‘creative dreaming’ around—dirty, smelling, ugly looking. And suddenly my brain started working again. Italian Embassy people stood there in front of me and I started talking with them and got the message: EVERYBODY could go NOW to Rome for free. 2 seconds after, Anders and I signed up time would show us to get from Rome to Denmark. We also got a shower each for $2.00 and went clean on the plane. But Anders was not easy for me (shock reactions on the plane.) His mum stayed in Sri Lanka.

I was going home to my ‘exclusive’ and ‘organized’ life in Denmark.

Moses throws some tantrums

Well, I watched Part Two of the Ten Commandments and it was worse than the first, if that is even possible.

Somehow watching those people struggle out across the desert without a pillar of dust or fire to guide them was just sad. I guess that was a special effect that would be too hard to create so they just left it out.

And the creepy little rings of sawdust? THOSE were the manna from heaven? Of course we don't have a description of the manna, but somehow I didn't ever picture it as being like shallow piles of couscous scattered all over the ground.

Maybe they were over budget? For the entire film?

The Bible does tell us that Joshua, although reluctant at first, after much instruction and learning became a GREAT leader of men; in fact he is the one who led the People into the Promised Land. But in the "New and Improved" Ten Commandments, he arrives at being a great leader by way of a severe beating from Moses and having a knife held to his throat. Way to go Moses!

And although I know that Miriam was a doubter and a scoffer at times, did she really shag that man in the jacuzzi? I looked for reference to that last night in my Bible but couldn't find it. In fact I'm not sure who that big hulking guy is supposed to be. I thought Aaron was Moses brother and right hand man.

But the real deal killer for me was when Moses had his hissy fit and just threw his staff away. Watching it bounce and roll away on the desert was so comical I just had to turn the tv off and go to bed.

Moses, Moses, Moses!

Well, did anybody else besides me think the New Ten Commandments was the lamest production to come out of tvland since the gamut of Reality Show TV began? I thought this 'updated' version of the old classic was so paltry and pathetic!

Moses came across as some kind of sulky and verbally repressed psychopath who hears voices in his head and thinks it's God! He had no command of presence whatsoever! Never once did I think he was Divinely Inspired. I got the impression they didn't want to take liberties and put words in his mouth that he never really said, but then why did they constantly put him in situations where he was asked questions and he had to stand there like a brooding bumpkin? Like when his brother asked him Why God had killed his son, too. And when Moses was approached by that Princess person just trying to get a little closure on her love. None of that was Biblical to begin with, so why bother if you aren't going to make it help further the plot line along?

The special effects were SAD! In this new age of amazing technology, you'd think they could have done better on the Passover scene than that silly puff of smoke in the alleyways! I thought someone was standing off-camera toking on a Lucky Strike!

And the plague of frogs? Hello? I think I counted 3 of them sitting on a windowsill! Kermit has more fear-power than those cute little critters. And the locusts? A close up of some grasshoppers is what it looked like to me!

And Pharoah! Did he have alopecia AND vitiligo? And what was with him dragging his 4 year old son Seti around in his arms like he was a baby mummy? That kid could walk. Set him down!

Okay, they made the crossing of the Red Sea (or was it the Dead Sea? I forget) seem really intense and cool, but when they cut to the top of the ridge where Moses was standing there waving his staff in the air, waving like he just didn't care...well, that was when I started to laugh so hard.

Since there were so many commercial breaks I couldn't keep my attention span on the story, I simply went to bed while everyone was stumbling over rocks and getting their legs all bloody on the seabed. I'm guessing they made it okay.

I'm sorry they gave The Ten Commandments such short shrift. I'm sorry they left out the part where Aaron threw down the staff and ate the snakes of the Pharoah's gods.

Who can forget the imposing and grey haired Charlton Heston standing before Ramses and proclaiming, "Let My People Go!" ? So much of the majesty and power of the original movie was just dwindled down to "Moses has the Vapors"

Kirsten's Tale

I met a lovely lady from Denmark through the local co-op in Sacramento about 10 years ago. She was visiting here taking a chef's class and we spent a lot of time together palling around before she had to go back to Denmark. We lost touch for about 10 years, and at the first of this year I sent a letter to her old address hoping to find out what had become of her.

I wanted to transcribe the contents of her letter to me, here for you all to read. I did not change her use of English or alter her story in any way. I thought it would be more powerful. Here is part one of Kirsten's Tale:

************

I send you my last US dollars from my trip to Sri Lanka Christmas of 2004. I have never been in the far east before and some years before I got to know a woman who had 2 adopted children and a house in Sri Lanka. She got divorced and started up a business there, building a house by the beach with her young lover 20 years younger than her.

So at the time my housing situation had collapsed and I ended up staying with my Dad for a while.. I had gone through a strong depression and 1 ½ years before had a strange dream about a huge tall killer wave freezing right in front of my house. I got through my depression and since my work situation is stable I decided to take a vacation far away to Sri Lanka.

I had strange thoughts about death before the trip, doing crazy things like giving away my clothes, organizing life for my cat in case my Dad died, copying my passport, drawing exactly where I was, and thoughts about my own death.

I left Denmark on 6th of December with my friend’s adopted son, Anders, who was ten years old. The monsoon rains had not stopped and I was stressed from that because Denmark had been so rainy. It influenced my mood so much. A very new, strange continent and culture for me.

I had lived in a hotel at the beach very cheap and Lisbeth I visited was not an easy person. Very charismatic and dramatic. Anders was a lovely, intelligent boy. Vipolas her boyfriend was rarely able to talk to me unless he got drunk. A young immature boy/man, so, I was by myself again. I planned a trip up to the mountains where I had strange dreams and started to feel so uncomfortable for many days. Like a snake that had to change it’s skin. It was a feeling in my spine. I forgot about that again and life and holiday went on. We experienced scrubbing elephants, bathing in a river, 2 hours riding in a jungle on an elephants’ back and watching wild elephants from a jeep. Fantastic! It was so great! I was like the most happy kid on the planet. At this moment I was not thinking about killer waves or death I was so much alive with the elephants and the wilderness. Past times, and future, money, a place to live were so much out of my mind.

We came back from the mountains a couple of days before Christmas and Anders and I were set to fly back on the 29th. I was happy. Skinny, sunburned, with the spirit of elephants in me. I was feeling safe, even in this strange country and in spite of my disturbing dreams. I could not change my dreams. I experienced later that I could in fact influence how I reacted to them. Which became life-important for me! It saved my life! I know how to live on the edge of: “Do I want to Live or Die?” And you do, too! It is not easy to be that kind of person.

On Christmas I went with Lisbeth and Anders to a big house owned by a British man. We spent time on the beach until 11:00pm. It was beautiful with fire, lights, candles and relaxed, happy people. I went to bed and woke up early on the 26th and took an early swim as the only one in the beautiful Indian Ocean. I stayed on the beach for a long time, watching nature and life, and had major discussions with myself about that morning, that day, my future. I decided that going along the beach to Lisbeth’s house was not what I wanted; always some drama there. I needed my space so I went along to the room and took a shower, neatly packing my bag before I left to go have lunch at a vegetarian restaurant. I was on the ground floor, and had several impulses to move up but was too lazy to organize it. To speak with one man you need 3 men, nothing is rational there! I left with my handbag and the blue dress I had on.

This restaurant was in a little laguna with jungle all around. I met a man there from Germany who had been at the Christmas party. We sat outside and had just ordered breakfast on the first floor. It was the closest I should come to paradise. Not so many tourists and a private beach where Anders and I had played in the wonderful waves for hours until he just wore me out!

I still get to cry from it even though the memories and deep fear finally left me in the last two months, one and a half years after the tsunami arrived.

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Almost Heaven

I overheard some folks talking about free concerts and the best gig they ever saw, and my mind flashed on a memory from 1976, before you were born.

I was spending the summer in Aspen, Colorado, attending a Tai Chi summer camp at the same time there was a summer session of Opera Singers in town. Everywhere I went, I heard lovely voices singing warm-up scales and arias, or whatever it is that beautiful singers sing to stretch their cords. It was so magical.

You know, Aspen is a winter town, made for skiing. But in the summer it has it's own draw. Rocky Mountain High with columbines and aspen trees and a light rain shower every day once the clouds had crossed over the mountains. Everyone there was so cool. They seemed so bright and healthy and rugged and rustic and wealthy all the same time. I was punctured with the need to live there forever and die in some ghost town grave. I loved it.

That morning, I was standing in a parking lot up on some ridge. It was the parking lot of a little strip mall with things like Realtor's headquarters and Business Solutions, Inc. type offices. I was watching the clouds reel past and some hawks, way up high, when I heard this singing. Some guy was singing in pure joy, at the top of his lungs, as he walked out of a travel agent's office and crossed my path and climbed into his jeep. When he saw me he stopped, braced himself for attack, and then kind of shrugged it off and kept on walking. And singing.

I had this slowed-time feeling, and the same kind of excited thrill you feel when you realize you are mere feet away from a very wild deer. I had a sense that I didn't want to startle him, along with the giant desire to run right up and try to pet him.

It was this guy:

Vomit Blog!

I once said this would not be a weight loss blog, nor would it be a poopy diaper blog, but now I must mention that I never said it wouldn't be a VOMIT blog!

Yesterday, when I found out that I was looking at more money than I EARN just to pay for the two meds that I need to keep myself ALIVE on this planet, I remember clenching my jaw. Normally I'm not one of those teeth-grinder people. I hold my stress in my neck and between my shoulder blades where it is easier for it to jump up into my occipital lobe for an easy-access major migraine.

So I just thought it was really odd that my whole left side of my face was aching and sore all day long. But I didn't make the connection that I should batten down the hatches and load up on migraine meds because I was in for a doozy.

Well, anyway, I woke up sometime in the night feeling extremely nauseous and I spent the rest of the night and most of this morning finding creative ways to toss my cookies without letting my head move.

Duties of a Migraine:
puke up guts.
purge bowels.
puke and purge in harmony.
quiver like a blancmange and attempt to get the body comfortable upon the bed
attempt to get the head comfortable without actually MOVING the head because the head is separate from the body at this point and anything that is a comfortable position for the body is screamingly painful for the head.

stir.
repeat.
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Sacramento, meanwhile, is in the midst of some levee breaks and we are brewing up a storm! I just heard from a friend in Kentucky who spent the day barracaded in the closet of a model home with sofa pillows all around her while tornadoes touched down all around the area! April showers, indeed!

The heart of the matter

Well! I went to get my prescriptions filled this morning because I realized I have less than a week left on all the free samples....and guess what? I was told that the zetia, which lowers the cholesterol, is $95.00 for 30 pills...that's a one-month supply. WHEW! Then he told me to brace myself because the Triglide is even MORE...$159.00 for a 30 day supply. That means that every month I need to come up with another $254.00 just for two prescriptions. Every month! No matter what! Since I don't have that kind of money, and don't make that kind of money, I will have to see about some kind of patient assistant program. Of course these take weeks and weeks to apply and get approved for. Guess I just get to hang on for dear life until all this gets figured out and settled.

In the meantime I bought my heart some roses. Here they are:

Mullets in Arkansas

My cousin and her husband are traveling the US on a fishing tournament circuit. They get to go to backwater lakes and stay in a variety of backwater towns with sometimes 'iffy' accommodations and eating establishments. Sometimes, they get to stay in wonderful places and have a variety of eating options, but apparently in Arkansas, that is not the case.

They recently checked into their tournament quarters for the week, and were told that the town had only two restaurants...there was a pause and the deskclerk added, "One of them is non-smoking." My cousin said it was said in an ominous tone, as if the guy had announced, "One of them is a leprosy-lice-maggot-bubonic plague-disease vector." It's true. The rest of the US doesn't see having a smoke-free environment as anything but suspiciously foreign.

When it came time to eat, much to their dismay, they discovered that the non-smoking restaurant was closed, and were forced to eat in a place that quickly filled their pores and lungs with deadly second hand smoke. The food was grease-on-a-plate, but they were served the best grits they ever had in their lives.

As they looked around, it dawned on them that every single person in the restaurant was wearing a mullet. I've been complaining about that haircut still being in existance and the preferred choice for rednecks everywhere since the 80's! And here it is, 20 years later and people are STILL lining up in droves at "Hack a Mullet" discount haircut stores everywhere! Eventually, it must die out! I don't think they still teach that haircut in beauty schools, so eventually, the people who know how to do it will pass on, right? Leaving a world full of hair dressers who only know how to cut the Jennifer Aniston haircut, right? And this is how we progress and evolve in history. Via a slow progression of ever-changing 20 year old haircuts.

Anyway, as they were sitting there enjoying the ambiance, a nice fellow came in and sat behind them and was hailed by his neighbors in the other booth with cries of joy! Apparently, they hadn't seen him around in a coon's age. Someone asked him, "Hey, there, Bubba! Do you still live in that trailer out on that dirt road?"

Bubba leaned back, stroked his chin and thought for a minute before replying, "Nope, I believed I've moved since then. I live on the paved road, now."

Who SAYS that?

Okay, I saw on television some talking head guy say, "And so on and so forth" and I thought...who really TALKS like that? In the course of a normal conversation, who really speaks that way? "Yes, Ma'am, the yellow bell peppers are right over here, next to the green ones, and so on and so forth..."

Saving Daylight

Well, has anybody saved any daylight yet? I am pretty sure I lost a couple of hours of it, somewhere along the way. I overslept AND I lost an hour in the night. I just wish I knew one person that benefited from all this clock-swapping and I'd send that person a BILL. For my inconvenience and...well, something. I'd think of something.

Since I didn't get up early enough to snag a position at the washing machine, I decided to work on one little table runner I've had in the 'to do' bin of quilt projects for about 7 years. Back when ebay was fun and quilts were something not very many people wanted, I used to buy up cool cutter quilts or unfinished quilt tops for dirt cheap. Most of them got turned into neat things like sewing machine covers, pillows, baby blankets, tea clothes, tea cozies, tablecloths or table runners, etc. I just had this one left, that is really neat but had been in a fire and so it has holes throughout it and although it is a big quilt top, very little of it was useable. I finally figured out that I could make several small table runners and a table cloth out of it if I cut it very carefully. This is the small runner I made today.




Then for fun and not for profit, I finally bought myself a meat masher. I'm sure that's not the official name, but it's one of those meat hammer things. No, that's not what they are called either. Now that I am home all the time I get to watch the New Martha Stewart show, and although I don't like it nearly as much as her old one, I do find that there are plenty of things that interest me in the show. This week they showed how to pound chicken out dead flat with a meat masher so you could then grill it or roll stuff up in it like for making chicken cordon bleu.

So here it is! Meet the Meat Mallet!

Quiltings

While waiting around to drop dead of a heart attack, I decided to finish up some projects. Here is a good start on a baby quilt for my new cousin Dawson. The parents wanted non-traditional colors for their baby. This has a flannel back so will be very cozy! And of course Mackie has to help.

Orange Blossom Perfume

So, remember how I was wishing I had designer liquid soap with a matching lavender sponge the way the Enchanted Couple do? WELL!

When I was a pre-teen, I had a friend who got to go to Florida in a big RV for Easter Vacation (not called Spring Break in those days!) one year and it was quite the hoopla over who she chose to take along. She got to take 3 friends. I was in the running, but I lost out. Just not QUITE popular enough. But Panda (not her real name) promised that she would bring us losers a present from Florida. In fact she told us she would bring us each our own tiny bottle of Orange Blossom perfume.

Now the thing about Panda is, she was the top of the heap. The Head Pecker in the pecking order of 'who's Whom' of small town Indiana life. And I so DEEPLY wanted to be her. If I couldn't BE her, then at least I wanted to spend gigantic amounts of time in her company, preferably in her house. But anytime I went over to play, she always wanted to hang out on the sidewalk and play kickball, or go over to the McClurry's where she had a crush on their boy Matt. I thought she was totally nuts. Not the Matt crush part, but the fact that she didn't want to stay indoors and just loll around the stately pleasure dome she called her home.

See, Panda had not one, but TWO bedrooms. One fully decked out in mint green silk with a giant 4 poster bed and two humungous walk in closets crammed with incredible matching outfits and shoes and little girl purses, but a bedroom that was just for show. In it, she had all white wicker furniture, and her doll collection. She had thousands of dolls. She had at least ten sets of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. She had glass cases filled with dolls from exotic lands, in their native costumes. She had baby dolls and 3 year old dolls, and a doll that was designed to look just like Panda. She had an entire TRUNK, and I do mean a steamer trunk, full of discarded Barbie's. They were all naked, and jumbled up together, and I, who owned one perfectly adored and preserved Barbie (and I STILL have her, to this day in her original case, as well cherished as the first day I laid eyes on her beneath the Christmas tree all decked out in her wedding gown), was just yearning to straighten them all up and dress them in their finery and set them in rows around the perimeter of her room. My only concern was that there might be so many of them, they might have to sit two-deep. I never solved that knotty problem because I was never given the opportunity. We had to play outdoors. She thought those dolls and all that abundance was just ordinary. Not fun.

Panda's house had a butlers pantry. I had never heard of such a thing. It had black and white tile floors and white glass-pained cabinets and an entire bank of refrigerators with those black cast-iron door fixtures, the antique kind. Inside were gourmet things. Special things. Olives stuffed with teensy bits of lime or jars of jellied rose petals.

Panda's house had two living rooms. Everything matched. Everything was done by designers. Drapes matched upholstery and pillows matched rugs and it was glorious! Her house had a jungle room, complete with tiki bar and a real live boa constrictor. There was a creepy TIKI God with a huge belly and an M&M belly button. We would regularly pry that M&M out of his stomach and eat it.

I longed to be her best friend and somehow get to metamorphose into her twin sister so I could live there. Even then, I was showing full-fledged Interior Decorator Leanings! Considering how we both turned out, as adults, I'm awfully glad I didn't have my wish come true. But then, way back then, Panda and her world were the Apex of All that was Perfect in the world!

All week long, that Easter Break, I was excited about my longed-for treat of Orange Blossom perfume. I had smelled some once that my glamorous Aunt Patty had gotten from a trip to Florida. To me, it was as exotic as coconuts and lichi blossoms. And best of all, it was deemed an appropriate fragrance for a little girl to wear. Yeah, back in the day when little girls could only have plastic pearls and hankies as gifts, with the occasional Tussy Toilet Water and Bath Powder for special occasions like church. Orange Blossom Perfume was the ultimate.

The first day back at school, there was Panda and her gang, all smelling to high heaven of sticky sweet Orange Blossoms and chewing 900 chews per second on big wads of Orange Bubble Gum. When I approached Panda, ready for my bottle of the goods, she hung her head in shame and announced that she hadn't gotten anybody the perfume, she had decided to get everyone Orange Flavored Bubble Gum instead.

"What?" I was stunned.

"Yeah," she said through sugary orange lips, "And we actually chewed all yours on the way home in the RV. Sorry!"

I never forgave her for that, never. I would like to say, other than my lapse of good manners at thinking I could walk up to someone and DEMAND a gift, I haven't turned out all that badly. And Panda...well, she happened to win the dubious distinction of being the first ever person to be required by law to go to Alcohol Awareness classes in order to keep her driver's license in Indiana. She had a bit of a problem with substance abuse. Her perfectly decorated world of abundance was a showy front to a rather dark, dysfunctional family life.

And me, poverty be damned, I can match my linens with my china and be the happiest girl in the world! Life really is that simple for me.

But then I'm almost forgetting the point of my post, now! This morning, at Trader Joes, I noticed they had some designer bottles of Lavender liquid soap. There were some other scents there, too, so I just smelled them all. Lo and behold! What should waft into my brain but the heavenly fragrance of Orange Blossoms? Trader Joes French Liquid Soap, and the scent is called Orange Blossom Honey. I couldn't believe my nose! I had to buy it, it was so exciting! It's sitting on my sink right now and as soon as I'm finished typing I'm going to wash my hands again, just for the fun of it!

But offer me orange flavored bubble gum? NO THANKS!

The Headless Headboard

I'm on a mission to find a really cool headboard at a thrift store or used furniture place. I would love an upholstered one, but those are hard to find and after watching that tv show the other night about bedbugs I am terrified of bringing some into the house. But I can assure you, gentle readers, that whatever I find, it will look NOTHING like this:







Also, there is a 99.9% chance that it will not resemble this:









Because Twigs and I do not get along unless I'm starting a campfire.


But what I would really like would look something like this:







Hopefully, I will find just the perfect thing today, and acomplish it without once getting into a brawl with a salesclerk.