Random Thoughts

Just some random thoughts on a Thursday:

I always lose track of time when I'm out in the garden, my fingers down in the soil pulling weeds out by their little roots, counting them sadistically,  if not for the sun baking my back I'd be out there still.

Swimming in our pool has been a cold, cold experience so far, do you suppose Christ walked on  water because the Sea of Galilee  was so cold?   I've come close to walking on the water in our pool a couple of times.

This is the year of poison ivy and centipedes, creepy things both of them, too many to count, too  icky to touch.

The turtles from the lagoon follow Mac around as if they were imprinted on him, think Konrad Lorenz and his ducks.  He calls them his armored division.

Once the temperatures hit the 80's my cat turns into a puddle of cat butter flowing down the sides of whatever she's laying on.

Playing the piano when you're not really in the mood is an act of impending frustration, my apologies to Beethoven for this mornings "deconstruction" of some of his  Ecossaises.

Reading one of the Jane Whitefield novels always makes me very nervous, I'm constantly looking over my shoulder to see if anyone's following me,  yet I keep on reading them.

I changed my aerobic workout music from music from Sense and Sensibility to Dire Straits and I really picked up the pace, the rolls of blubber were definitely moving to a different beat.

Air Conditioning

When does your air conditioner go out?  When temperatures are consistently in the upper 80's that's when, of course.  We're lucky, I think, in that we have two units, one for the upstairs and one for downstairs, and even luckier, really lucky, that our best friend just finished a tech school course in heating and air conditioning repair.  He couldn't get the part on Saturday because everyone was closed for the holiday weekend, but he was here this morning to put the part in, it was a capacitor, don't ask, I have no idea, a relatively inexpensive part.
So thank you Mike, you're worth your weight in 7 Layer Mexican Bean Dip----I always fix it for him when he comes over.

Memorial Day

A day to say thanks for all who've served and to remember those who've died.  It was called Decoration Day when I was growing up, that changed in 1967 I believe.  No one is quite sure how it began, though some say it was ladies in the South decorating the graves of Confederate soldiers was its earliest beginning. We also decorate the graves of family members on this day.  My family (Mother, Father, Grandparents, Great Grandparents,Aunts and Uncles) are buried in Oklahoma so I can't take flowers and Mac's family is buried in California.  If I were better organized I could have had flowers sent, but I'm not, so I didn't, but they're all on my mind and in my heart.
As for us, it's the unofficial kick-off to summer so I'm making potato salad and Mac is barbequing ribs.
To all who are on the road today BE SAFE!

It's Ready

Holy sheep dip Batman that water was cold!!!!  Mac had things ready so I went in the pool yesterday  and finished up the vacuuming.  After the first initial shock it wasn't too bad, particularly because it was nearly 90 here yesterday.  I threw on a pair of old shorts and a tank top to do the job because I have no idea where my swim suit is or if I can even fit into this year.  As warm as it is today I'm pretty sure both of us will be in it today.

Vet Visit

Miss Kitty has been hack, hack hacking for a couple of weeks, we assumed it was a hairball as this is the time of year she sheds (read licks) out her winter coat and ingests more hair than she needs.  We started giving her Petromalt which is basically colored Vaseline for kitties to help her pass it.  Mac became concerned that though she seemed to be doing better she was still hacking so we decided to take her to the Vet.
Last year she had a similar problem, but when we took her to the Vet, one she'd been seeing since we got her 7 years ago, decided that she had an upper respiratory infection.  So they gave her all her routine shots (rabies, distemper), an antibiotic shot and put her on steroids.  She did not do at all well, the steroids drove her crazy.  We took her back to the Vet, but their only reaction was that they'd keep her over night and observe her, we took her home and watched her instead.  Slowly she got better.
Until this spring when the same symptoms returned, but I told Mac I wanted a new Vet so he found one and we went this morning.  Miss Kitty was not happy about the car trip and was still yowling when we got to the Vet.  They weighed her (she's gained a little weight in the last year---she won't let me tell you how much), checked her out thoroughly and said they thought it was just hairball, with some possible allergies thrown in.  So she's taking allergy pills for the next 10 days and has to keep taking her Petromalt.
She was very glad to get home.  We've always taken good care of our cats (my Mother-in-law use to say she wanted to come back as one of our cats), but Miss Kitty is something special to us.  Can't say exactly why, maybe it's because she's the kitty we'll grow old with.  But we're sure glad she's ok.

Oklahoma Tornadoes

I hate the rough spring-time weather that's been tearing up the country, particularly the midwest.  I lived in Oklahoma City as a child and I can remember visiting my Grandmother in eastern Oklahoma and huddling in her root cellar when there was danger of tornado.

My sisters, numerous cousins and an uncle still live in eastern Oklahoma.  They came through the recent storms unscathed, but it's scary.  My younger sister said there were numerous trees and branches down, but other than that all was ok.  She said she has really worried about a couple of dead trees in her yard, but so far they've withstood the winds.

Oklahoma is in the middle of what's known as Tornado Alley, it begins in Texas and goes up to Oklahoma, Kansas and beyond.
The map show tornado activity in the US and you can see that anywhere from the midwest to the east coast is in danger of a tornado, I guess the west just deals with blizzards and earthquakes.
Viewing the scenes from Morris, OK has been horrific.  Reading about past tornadoes I saw that Moore had been leveled by one in 1999 and since rebuilt.  I think I'd be looking for somewhere else to rebuild.  

Clumsy

Two Down and Four to Go

I've always been clumsy and it hasn't gotten any better as I've gotten older.  It was so bad when I was a kid it was said I was so clumsy I would trip over the electric light beam in automatic doors.  I was always running into things, the back of a car once breaking my glasses.
Don't even get me started on the number of things I've dropped and broken through the years, the inventory would take forever.
The last couple of years I seem to have specialized in breaking juice glasses, harmless looking little things.  A year ago Mac got me a vintage set of 4 juice glasses with oranges on them, a lot of sentimental value, we had a set like them when we first got married.   They didn't last the year.  So last Christmas he got me a larger set of six.  In the last 2 weeks I've broken 2 of them plus a plain juice glass.  I think I need to crochet some koozies for all them to wear for protection before I do the set in.

Mailman Beware!

Our mailbox is covered in Jasmine, a bee's delight.  And though Mac trims it back regularly it grows right back.  If I were the mailman/person (whatever) I think I'd poke the mail in with a stick.  You can see the front of our mailbox, some of our neighbor's boxes are so covered you can't even see the door.  Mac usually picks up the mail because our box sounds so buzzy you'd think it was getting ready to fly off.

Wild Magnolia

The magnolias are starting to bloom and they are spectacular!  It's no good cutting them and bringing them in the house, they just turn brown.
The Gardenias have also started blooming and thought they make me sneeze my head off they're among my favorite flowers.
I put in some new Gladiola bulbs this year too and the first has bloomed, though my picture is a little fuzzy you can see that the color is spectacular.
Mac has been busy cleaning the pool and has all the leaves out of the bottom and he says it's time for me to go in and vacuum up the rest.  If you hear a loud scream tomorrow don't be alarmed it will just be my very white body, wish I had a wet suit, going in the pool for the first time this year.

Gardenia

Gladiola



Update on the Polter-mouse, no sign of  him/her anywhere and we suspect the attic got too hot and he left the house for a cooler spot, sure hope so.

Perhaps It Wasn't a Poltergeist After All

From time to time since we moved into this house I've complained that I thought there was a poltergeist living upstairs.  China cups sitting on shelves would be knocked off, doors moved, things left on tables were found on the floor.  Miss Kitty swore it wasn't her and though she can be an enterprising feline she really doesn't act like a disturbed adolesence--isn't that supposed to be what causes poltergeist activity?
Well the other night sitting upstairs watching tv I saw something scurry across the hall rug running towards my craft room, reversing course and heading towards the bathroom.  Mac checked it out, couldn't find anything, but we were pretty sure it was a mouse.
There is a door in the bathroom that leads to some attic space and Mac puts his paintings in there to dry when he's working on them, it's nice and warm there.
When he went to pick up his painting the next morning guess what he found on it----teeny, tiny mouse tracks.  So a humane mouse trap was acquired. peanut butter gotten today and the trap is set.
I read some where that mice are rather territorial and will travel up to a mile to return to their home, so Mac says once we get him we'll drive him down to the park and let him go.
What does Miss Kitty think of all this?  During the 2 sightings we've had of the mouse she lay in the tv room sleeping, definitely not a mouser.

Getting Older

I've been reading Nora Ephron's (she wrote Sleepless in Seattle, When Harry Met Sally, Heartburn, Julie/Julia and sadly died last year)  I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections, and having a good giggle on aging and memory.  I've said before I have little long term memory and now I'm wondering about my short term.  Ephron tells how when she can't remember the name of something she starts working her way through the alphabet hoping that will jog her memory or thinking about how many syllables the word has or if all else fails she Googles it because having a Google moment is so much better than having a senior moment.  Oh dear, oh dear, been there, done that.
She writes that at 69 she likes to think of herself as older, but not old, well I'm not that old, but I sure know what she's talking about.
When I got up this morning I decided that instead of giving in to my aging body's aches and pains (and Lord knows there's more than a few of them) that I'd get busy.  So we did our 2 mile walk before breakfast, wrapped another painting for shipping (Mac sold another one), did a load of laundry and hung it out, mowed the front and back lawn, Swiffered all the downstair's floors and sat down to blog.  Now I have to do my aerobics.
I maybe getting older, but I'm not giving in.

Happy Mother's Day

This is the 17th Hole, I "borrowed" the pic from the Net

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms out there, you have the hardest and most rewarding job in the world.  I wish my Mom and Mother-in-Law were still here so I could  say it to them.   I could thank my Mom for all she did for me, how she encouraged me and wanted me to do better than she had.
I'd like to thank my Mother-in-Law for raising such a wonderful son, I don't think I ever told her that and I should have.  Some Mother-in-Laws make their daughter-in-law's lives miserable, she didn't, she was wonderful and though she's been gone 24 years I miss her still.
Mac asked what I wanted for Mother's Day and I told him that I wanted to go to the Player's Golf Tournament in Florida, I'd watched it on tv and I loved that one of the holes was an island and I wanted to see it played.
Yesterday we drove down and it was a beautiful day, the course was gorgeous and a bit of a surprise.  All the golf courses we'd seen were flat, not Sawgrass where the tournament was being played.  In addition to there being water hazards every where there were moguls, small hills around many of the greens.  It made for some very interesting shots.
Overlooking many of the Fairways there were many private pavillions for corporations and other special people, but best of all there was one for the military, including retirees.  Lovely shaded porch, free water and soft drinks, with lunch served at 11.
We stayed till it got too hot and then headed home.  Enjoyed it so much we'll be going back next year.
This morning while talking to my daughter I opened the presents she'd sent and found 2 books I'm looking forward to reading:  Queen Victoria's Book of Spells (An anthology of gaslight fantasy) and The Map of Time.  She knows my taste well.
Miss Kitty, working with Mac, gave me a Godzilla candleholder, it's sitting on my piano now.
We'll finish the day with bar-b-qued ribs and potato salad.

Missing in Action This Week

Not wounded, just miserable, it's spring allergy time and I'm enjoying it so much.  The weather has turned warm and beautiful, but when I'm outside for any length of time I pay the price.  Some years it's the sneezing, some years it's the coughing, this year it's the eyes.  Not just red, burning and itching, but aching, as are my sinus.
When Mac has trouble with his allergies he takes medication, I can't.  Anything I take dries my eyes out so bad I'm beyond miserable.  The medication I take for my glaucoma makes my eyes dry anyway so allergy medication just exacerbates the situation.  So I've mainly stayed inside.  Lots of reading, a bit of crocheting, piano playing.  Then I run outside and pull a few weeds just so they won't think I've forgotten them.
Outside it's gorgeous!  The Bee Bushes are in full bloom and the bees, both the honey bees and the bumble bees are a bit drunken, as are the wasps.
Mac has been busy putting our new bar-b-que together, we use them a lot and seem to go through them at the rate of one a year.  He's also been cleaning the pool too, we can see the bottom again, and if this weather keeps up we'll be in it before too long.

Electricity

Our electricity went out about 7pm last night, not the first time it's done that lately.  Even though we have underground utility lines it seems like whenever we have a bit of rain we have power outages.
What can you do without the electricity?  Well Mac sat and played his acoustic guitar.  He has loads of music stashed in his head and can sit and strum forever.  His playing made me want to play the piano, but I have next to no music stashed in my head, I mean how many times can you play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb"?  The music I like to play is rather complicated and I need the music in front of me as I play.
Mac suggested that Beethoven played by candlelight and I ought to give it a try.  Well Beethoven  might have done it and I've certainly seen Schroeder doing it in Peanuts for years, but even with my nose pressed up to the page it was hard to read, I would have needed a half dozen candelabras set around me in order to see my music.
Thankfully the electricity came back on and I could see again.  Mac suggests I learn some music by heart, but I'm too old (can't memorize anything any more) and too lazy.

While looking for candelabra pictures I found this one with Godzilla, my hero!  He would definitely light up my piano.

We Went Out Last Night

For the first time in forever we went out last night and did a little dancing.  When we first moved here we were going out 3 and 4 nights a week, but we've definitely slowed down.  Too much traffic, too many folks  texting while they drive, not as much energy and the cat complains when we leave her alone at night.
But last night some friends were playing at a local Tapas Bar (not that the people running it have a clue as to what tapas are) and because it was so close to home we decided to go see them.
The food was ok, we had calamari, shrimp and lobster ravioli.  In Spanish tapas bars these would have been small plates just right for sharing.  These were huge and mostly came home with us.
The music was great, the guys playing actually have a full-sized band, but also play as a duo, calling themselves The Twinz, as unlikely a set of twins as you'll ever see.  They played such a variety of music:  Sweet Melissa (originally by the Allman Brothers Band and a real favorite of ours), Jet ( a Paul McCartney song), Guitar Man (Bread), a song by Lady Antebellum, It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr), Domino (Van Morrison), Smooth (Santana)
It was definitely a trip down memory lane.  Seeing as our knees are not complaining too much, just a squeak here and there, I guess we'll have to do it again before our joints lock up like the Tin Man's.

Sold it Right Off My Wall

He did, he sold it right off my wall, but he promised to paint me a new one and it's almost done.  So I guess I can't complain.  Love the colors in it.  One of our bathrooms has all beachy paintings in it and that's where it was and will be again.

One of My Paintings, an Oil

One of My Watercolors

Mac's "The Great Escape"