Where Does the Cat Sleep?

In answer to that I'd have to say anywhere she wants.  In order to get her 20 hours of shut eye each day she has to vary her routine.  She sleeps in windows, on boxes, on the music books by the piano, on the tv satellite box, under the bed, on the bed, on the end table with her head on the couch, on the kitchen table, the entryway tables and any other table that takes her fancy, on my puzzle, in any cupboard she can open, under the sink, on the newel post, on her window seats, in her tunnel and on her scratching post.  Where doesn't she sleep?  In any cat bed we've ever been foolish enough to buy here.
Lately her favorite place is on Mac's printer.  And just to be truly weird we found her this morning on the bathmat that was wet and laying on the tub faucets.  Cats!

Sunday

Where does the week go?  It has finally cooled off a bit here, if you can call high 80's and low 90's cooler.  Each day starts with a walk and a swim, absolutely can't walk later in the day and if our housing area wasn't full of tall shady trees we wouldn't be able to walk even in the morning.
I finally made it out into the garden this morning, pulled up about 700 weeds and the rest just laughed at me.
Mac dug potatoes up, brought tomatoes into ripen and a few green beans that I'm going to use in a green bean salad.
 Planning on seeing Jurassic World this week, first time we've been to the movies in years, usually wait for them to come out on Netflix.  But we decided the dinos need to be on the big screen.
I leave you with my favorite pair.

Five on Friday

Though I'm starting this on Friday, I'll bet it's Saturday before I get this done.  Somebody, and woe betide my memory, mentioned that I seldomly show my paintings so I thought I'd show 5 of mine.  The photography is really bad, but I was hot and tired so we'll just have to go with it.

Mary Cassatt is one of my favorite painters and I like painting children so I did a water color copy of her paintings, it's called Children on the Beach.
Here is her painting:

Here is my water color:  

The second is  a water color I did of an ocean scene, I can't remember where I found the original.

The next is  an oil painting I did of a beached boat.  I love to paint boats, no idea why.  The original was a photograph I found on the internet.

The fourth is a simple still life, no idea where I found the original.  Again it's a water color.

The last painting is a copy of a Rembrandt, boy don't I think I'm good that I'm copying his work, LOL.  Actually the reason I did it is because in ways it looks like our daughter, though she's much better looking.  Mac had to help me with the nose.  It's an oil painting.

Well I'm surprised, I'm about done and it's still Friday.  I'm joining in with Amy at Love Made My Home and others for this Five on Friday, click on the icon to visit.

Osiyo

Osiyo is Cherokee for hello.  A few days ago I got a magazine from the Cherokee tribe called Anadisgoi.  This is a new venture for the Tribe and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I am a member of the Cherokee tribe, finally got my tribal enrollment card a couple of years ago.  In order to get one you must prove direct descent from one of the people on the Dawes Roll that was established in the early 1900's.
In order to break the power of the tribal chiefs the federal government decided to give the reservation lands to individuals instead of the tribe holding it as a whole.  So a census was done to find all the Cherokees in what was then eastern Oklahoma, before it became a state.
My Grandmother Pearl Anderson Kennedy is on that roll as is my Great Grandmother Elizabeth Finn Anderson.  So all of my Mother's family was eligible for tribal enrollment.
The Cherokees have been a very successful  tribe having oil and gas on their lands long before casinos came along.  When they moved into casinos it was decided to not give the money from this venture directly back to tribal members as some tribes have done but rather to invest it in health services (hospitals and clinics), education (scholarships and schools) infrastructure (roads, sewers, water and electricity) and housing ( rehabilitating some houses, building new ones for the poor and elderly).
My sisters live in Oklahoma and receive free medical care, monthly commodities, help with utiility payments and in the case of my younger sister a brand new 3 bedroom home.
From the magazine I learned of other ventures the tribe is involved in, job assistance, substance abuse treatment centers and
donations to prevent domestic violence.
They're also bringing back bison to Oklahoma.

I'm rather proud to be a Cherokee.

Herb Garden

Mac planted some herbs for me in my laundry room window---basil, mint, sage, and some hen and chicks.  I have all of these out in the garden, but it's nice to have them a little closer so I can snip fresh bits off.
They were just in regular pots until I saw what Sue over at Our New Life in the Country had done with her herbs, she's planted them in pewter.  Well we've collected pewter for years so Mac went around the house and collected a few pieces and replanted the plants.  Don't they look great.

Lollygagging

One of me favorite words, it so describes me.  I lollygag a lot.  Which means I waste time, fiddle about, flit from one thing to another, but hardly ever get anything done.
I looked the origin of the word up and it's wrapped in a bit of mystery.  It is believed to have shown up here in the States in the 1860's, I betting  here in the South.  I can remember my Mom saying it too, she meant it to be lazy.
I'm not lazy, just conserving my energy.  I did mow the lawn today, there's almost an acre of it.  Note to self, should have put on sun screen (Melisandre my dermatologist will get me) and I should have worn a mask, I'm wheezing now.
Time to exercise and then a bit more lollygagging.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to my husband Mac.  Bless his heart he's out in the awful heat we're having watering all the plants.  If they depended on me they'd be dead.
I'm cooking him one of his favorite meals today lamb chops with roasted potatoes, a little heavy for the weather, but he loves lamb.
Miss Kitty and I found him a P.G.Wodehouse book he hadn't read and our daughter April sent him a load of food goodies from Japan.  We Skyped this morning so she got to watch him open the box.
Both of our Dads are gone now, but live on in our hearts and memories.

Book Time

As any regular reader of this Blog knows I read, a lot.  Read some good ones lately and a few clunkers too.

This week I read Julian Barnes Man Booker Prize winner The Sense of an Ending and I liked it very much.  Reading reviews of it I discovered that people were very divided about this book, they either liked it very much or didn't like it at all.
It's the story of Tony, told in the present tense and of his teenage years, the friends he had and his girlfriend Veronica.  His friendship with Adrian and his romance with Veronica are central to the story.  The author asks what is memory, what is true and what is only what we want to remember.  And is history the  lies told by the victors or the self-delusions of the losers?
Remarkable book.

Another one I quite enjoyed was A Nasty Piece of Work by Robert Littell.  I've read a number of Littell's books, most of them about spies (The Company about the CIA was excellent).  This one was a bit different, Lemual Gunn--that's Gunn with 2 n's--- is living in the New Mexico desert inan old airstream trailer built for Douglas Fairbanks when he was making a movie.  He's a former cop who also worked with the CIA until they parted company,  acrimoniously.
Onella Neppi, who he calls Friday---that's the day he met her--has been working as a bail bondsman for her uncle and she's afraid that the $125,000 bond she put up for a client, one Emilio Gava, may be forfeited, that he has done a runner.
The book is the story of their search for him and about finding each other.  The ending definitely caught me off guard.

Another I really enjoyed lately was Trigger Warning by Neil Gaimen.  Trigger warnings are those things that put us on edge, maybe even frighten us.  This collection of short stories is one that will stick with me for quite a while.  I particularly liked "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury".  The premise being, dothose we forget cease to exist?



Right now I'm rereading  Rebecca by Daphne Du Muarier (it's even better than I remember)  , High Rising by Angela Thirkell and Minding Frankie by Maeve Bunchy, one of her last books.


What have you been reading lately?

Five on Friday

I'm joining in with Amy at Love Made My Home  and others (click on the icon at the bottom of the blog) for our weekly Five on Friday.  This week's five are a mixed bag.

The first is my favorite invention:  Air conditioning.
The temperature here yesterday was 98º, it is supposed to be that again today and then 100º on Saturday and 101º on Sunday (Happy Father's Day Mac).  So of course what happened yesterday afternoon?  Our air conditioner went out.  ARGHHH!!!!  You can't, or at least I wouldn't want to, live in the south without air conditioning.  Thank goodness we'd just added a window air conditioner to our bedroom window or we could not have slept here last night.  We would have had to stay in a motel.  It was 87º (that was the temperature in the house ) when we went to bed at 11 pm.


My second is the blessing of good friends.  Our friend Mike, who in addition to being a great piano player and bass player, is a jack of all trades who has just finished 2 years at a Tech School updating all his home repair skills including heating and air conditioning.  Mac called him last night and he was here by 9 am this morning, fixed the problem, a bad capacitor  (he says the parts coming in from China are very poorly made and don't last), and charges us---and only because we insist on paying---a nominal fee.  You're a life saver Mike.

The third is food for a hot day.  I'm making a Spanish tortilla, with lots of onions, potatoes and chorizo.  Paired with a salad that's dinner.

The fourth is orange sherbet ice cream, so fresh and tangy. What a treat on a hot summer night.

And my fifth is a picture I saw on-line this week and it made me giggle.  I think that if I were to try and hitchhike I'd find a better traveling companion than the raccoon did.

How to Fold a Fitted Sheet

II don't know how to fold fitted sheets.  I've tried and tried and they always look like I rolled them up in a ball and stuck them in my linen closet.  It's embarrassing. I swear the sheets that people are folding in the videos are toy sheets, I could fold them.  My sheets are King-sized and they're a monster to fold.
 I found this Martha Stewart video on Youtube and she is the head domestic goddess around here, so the next time I fold my sheets I'm going to try this method.  If that doesn't work I'm going to follow the tip Martha gives at the end of the video.

Summertime, Serious Summertime

All housework has been suspended until further notice.  The temperatures have been hovering in the upper 90's for days now with no end in sight.  We've had no rain either which would have been nice.  At least the humidity isn't too bad.  So it's air conditioning broken by breaks in the pool, followed by cool meals.