Register Cat

When it's cold outside, this is Nesta's favorite place in the house---sitting atop the heat register. 

Spidey,
I just watched The Office from last night. What a great episode. The poor big guy getting hoisted up on the table. Michael, "I don't know what I have a hold of."
The exchange between Andy Bernard and Dwight in the elevator reminded me of myself and blu. haha!

Meth Lab/Braces

Yesterday when LP and I were taking back videos to the video place we saw cop cars cordoning off a whole street block. It was about three blocks from here. The police were there the whole day. It seems that an unidentified man went into this guy's apartment and shot him dead. The police theorize that it was about a drug sale gone wrong.

I know this cop from work. He's said that meth labs are just rampant in the Midwest. If they close one down, ten more spring up. Evidently it's cheap to make. You can probably get the formula off the Internet. He told me a tell tale sign you have one in your neighborhood is that there is usually a very, very strong smell of ammonia in the area, since that's one of he components. A co-worker looked horrified and said in the summer when she was walking her dog, she got a whiff of a strong ammonia smell. She thought it was cat pee. "You mean there could be a meth lab in my neighborhood??" Chances are . . .


----------

I took LP to his orthodontist last week. He gets his braces off in a few weeks and he's excited! They've been on for 2 1/2 years.

DWTS - Dancing With The Stars Finale Emmitt Smith

This just in . . Emmitt & Cheryl win!! YAY. Schell's jealous of his Hammer pants)

Tree, I think you will enjoy this

Lou Dobbs, Populist

Films I’ll watch over and over:

All That Heaven Allows--My favorite

Hannah & Her Sisters--Woody Allen at his best, before he turned perv. Michael Caine is lovely

East of Eden--Julie Harris is almost as fun to watch as James Dean

Maltese Falcon--Bogie. 'nuff said.

Young Frankenstein--it's Fraankenstein

Waiting for Guffman--Makes me smile just thinking about it

Best in Show--Ditto. I like the way Christopher Guest looks like his bloodhound

The Ghost & Mrs Muir--Escapism

Hud--Paul Newman shirtless. Oh my

12 Angry Men--Just great

Double Indemnity--Barbara Stanwyck is such a ballsy dame

Amelie--Audrey Tatou is just adorable

Broadcast News--Albert Brooks' flop sweat

To Sir With Love--Sidney Portier personifies elegance

The King of Comedy--Only Jerry Lewis film I'll watch. Rupert Pupkin's basement talk shows are genius

Murphy’s Romance--I really really like Sally Field in this one, and who wouldn't fall in love with James Garner?

Lost in America--Albert Brooks again.

Local Hero--This is such a wonderful fantasy film. Love the locations.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid--"The fall alone will kill you!"

Defending Your Life--Another Albert Brooks, this time with the wonderful Meryl Streep

Pillow Talk--Rock and Doris, but Tony Randall steals the show

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner--I like Katharine and Spencer together onscreen.

Autumn Leaves--It's so bad that's it's good. Joan Crawford in a swimsuit and it still looks like she is wearing shoulder pads

Mildred Pierce--Joan Crawford again

White Christmas--I love Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen together. I'm always amazed by Vera Ellen's waist size. It's got to be less than 12 inches!

Moonstruck--I love Cher. I love Nicolas Cage, but watch it for Olympia Dukakis

North By Northwest--Cary Grant being in danger but still debonair. What actor today is debonair? Name one!

On the Town--Love the songs.

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast--One of my top two all time favorite animated movies, plus Angela Lansbury plays a teapot!

Pixar’s Toy Story--The other of my favorite top two all time favorite animated movies.

Funny Girl--It's all about Barbra. Swoon.

Annie Hall--It made me love Diane Keaton, and I still do.

A Place in the Sun--Everyone is beautiful in Black and White--even Shelley Winters

Giant--Rock. James Dean. Elizabeth Taylor.

The Quiet Man--Schmaltzy but fun.

The Player--My favorite Robert Altman film, and Tim Robbins is just so good.

The Sound of Music--Christopher Plummer is wonderful in this, plus I love the opening shot1

Electric Horseman--Jane Fonda and Robert Redford,throw in some Willie Nelson and go.

Coming Home--Is this the only war film I love? Yeah.

To Kill a Mockingbird--Peck as Atticus Finch. That's all.

The African Queen--Bogie with leeches, looking dirty and druck. What's not to love?

A Star is Born--Babs and the yummy looking Kris Kristofferson. "The black black widow is sitting in the middle of the web it's the fly she seeks..'

The Way We Were--"Hubble? Hubble Gardener?" It's the final scene that does it for me...the way Babs smoothes Redford's hair. I like second banana actor Herb Edelman in this too.

Films I’ve never seen, and don’t want to:

Titanic

Fried Green Tomatoes

Any James Bond movie with Roger Moore

Beaches

Schlindler’s List

Any slasher movie with teenaged victims

Fight Club

Das Boot

A Clockwork Orange

Million Dollar Baby

Crash

Trainspotting

Dead Man Walking

The Last Temptation of Christ

Any Oliver Stone film

Saving Private Ryan

Taxi Driver

Boys Don’t Cry

Full Metal Jacket

Tomorrow: Films I'll watch over and over

Christmas season is officially here!

I bought a big bag of Christmas peppermint chewy nougats! Yum-O!

Blowhard Cop

I actually rooted against someone on Deal or No Deal tonight. The contestant was a blowhard cop who called the models "honey," and kept saying over and over, "That's what I'm talking about." He was trying to gain audience sympathy by saying he was shot at, that he wanted to win money for his family in case something should happen to him. Very manipulative. He was offered over a quarter of a million dollars and turned it down saying "I'm greedy." He ended up with $100,000, not too shabby but he could have left with more. That's what I'm talking about.

I saw Michael Chiarello make this the other day--maybe this is what I'll take to my sister's on Thanksgiving. It looked really good.

Autumn Panzanella

-----

Also, good luck to Spidey and Big Joe today. I'll be thinking about you.

After the laundry and other assorted housework I was too tired to go to a movie. LP stayed the night with Jordan, he’s supposed to be home soon but I doubt he’ll want to go see Stranger than Fiction with me. BP’s out in California until the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. I gave him Bert and Verbie’s addresses, so expect him for dinner you two. Ha.

The week after Christmas I think my oldest sister, her husband, and BP and I are going to French Lick for a few days. Here’s the link: French Lick. They have revitalized this small quaint town (hometown of basketball great Larry Bird) and renovated the mineral spas and added a casino. It will be a fun two days.

Saturday

It was raining and thundering and lightning last night with more rain on the way today, so that shoots my “Work Outside” Day today. I think I may see a movie today—either Borat or Stranger Than Fiction. I saw Dustin Hoffman the other night on The Daily Show (he’s in STF). What a funny man he is. He has five kids and the youngest left the house last year and so he said it was his Martin Luther King Day—“Free at last free at last thank God Almighty I’m free at last.” lol. Jon axed him which was worse: Having his teeth drilled on by a Nazi (in Marathon Man) or being groped by Charles Durning (in Tootsie). He picked the groped one.

We’re going to my youngest sister’s family house for Thanksgiving and she wants me to bring a “fun green salad.” OK. BORING. I’ll wing it.

LP’s 16th birthday is a week from today! I think Jilly mentioned in Tree’s blog that Maryland has raised the age limit on driving to 18. They’re thinking about doing that here, and I’ve told LP. I’ve pestered him three times to give me his choice about driver’s education (he can pick 2 weeks after school, or Sunday afternoons for ten weeks,) and he hasn’t decided. I’m not asking again. If he wants to drive then he’ll have to take some responsibility and decide some things.

Mostly for Tree

For Your Consideration


watch the trailer

Besides the wonderful election results there’s not too much new in Hoosierland.

In televisionland there’s:


Emmitt vs Mario. I’m rooting for an Emmitt upset.

Lost is so freaky boring. At this point I don’t care if Sawyer lives or if Jack lets Ben die. Yawn. Tree, your Ben Crush was looking really spooky in a few of the scenes last night—especially that one close up shot of him in those funky wire rim glasses. “Lift up your eyes and look north” indeed.

Those promos for Daybreak with Taye Diggs are only slightly less annoying than the dearly departed negative political ads. Argh. Within the Lost episode last night alone, there were about 20 commercials for that show. With ABC pushing it so much it’s got to be horrible. I’m not going to watch it. It’s Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day with murder. Blech.

The Davinci Code comes out on DVD on Tuesday.

Like corpses in a Chicagoland cemetery, vote early and often

One Breath

One more day until Election Day, Republicans

Yesterday LP and I went over to my Lexus sister’s to help her out. She had foot surgery four weeks ago and is still in a cast. She said it was hard to keep a positive attitude because she’s never had to depend on others for help. I told her that she’s always doing for people and she should just shut up and enjoy being waited on hand and foot, so to speak.

I did her laundry (as you know, I’m a pro at laundry), went to Marsh grocery shopping, and straighten up around her house, and gathered up her trash. Then we loaded her up into the car (wheelchair and all) and took her to lunch and to do a little shopping. LP scored big with clothes. He still loves The Foot Locker and Man Alive (when will he outgrow that “I was born a poor black child” sense of style—I don’t want him to be another PapaZao KFed). Lexus’ credit card was smoking.

Then she wanted to go to a bookstore so we went. We had tea and cinnamon scones. She bought some magazines and books and told us to get some stuff. She bought me that Alan Alda book I mentioned when it first came out in hardcover, so now Never Have Your Dog Stuffed is out in paperback so I got that. Plus she had read John Grisham’s The Innocent Man and wanted me to read it. She really liked it. I also got this intriguing book by Ted Bishop called Riding with Rilke. “A motorcycle odyssey that combines the sensory seduction of the road with the intellectual rewards of archival research.” Hmm. One of my all time favorite books is Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and this Bishop book sounds reminiscent of it. I think I’ll read this one first.

Also magazines: the Rolling Stone magazine with Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert on the cover;National Geographic Traveler highlighting New York City on foot, the Caribbean, Ireland and passages thru India; and two Paula Deen cooking magazines: December issue and a special on holiday cooking. LP selected two hip hop magazines and a James Cagney boxed DVD set. Lexus kept thanking us over and over for helping her out yesterday, but LP and I walked away with some good stuff.

Oh, Also I’m making LP into a Bob Dylan fan. I was listening to one of his CDs when the song “Hurricane” (I love the violins on the song) came on. LP asked me about it, and I told him it was the story of black boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter who was falsely tried and found guilty of a triple murder. Corrupt cops, an all-white jury, etc. I think it appealed to LP’s sense of being a black child trapped in a white boy’s body. : )

I told him that it was really ‘shocking” at the time--to use the words “shit” “nigger” “sonofabitch” and the like in a 1975 song.


Hurricane, by Bob Dylan and Jacques Levy

Pistol shots ring out in the barroom night
Enter Patty Valentine from the upper hall.
She sees the bartender in a pool of blood,
Cries out, "My God, they killed them all!"
Here comes the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Three bodies lyin' there does Patty see
And another man named Bello, movin' around mysteriously.
"I didn't do it," he says, and he throws up his hands
"I was only robbin' the register, I hope you understand.
I saw them leavin'," he says, and he stops
"One of us had better call up the cops."
And so Patty calls the cops
And they arrive on the scene with their red lights flashin'
In the hot New Jersey night.

Meanwhile, far away in another part of town
Rubin Carter and a couple of friends are drivin' around.
Number one contender for the middleweight crown
Had no idea what kinda shit was about to go down
When a cop pulled him over to the side of the road
Just like the time before and the time before that.
In Paterson that's just the way things go.
If you're black you might as well not show up on the street
'Less you wanna draw the heat.

Alfred Bello had a partner and he had a rap for the cops.
Him and Arthur Dexter Bradley were just out prowlin' around
He said, "I saw two men runnin' out, they looked like middleweights
They jumped into a white car with out-of-state plates."
And Miss Patty Valentine just nodded her head.
Cop said, "Wait a minute, boys, this one's not dead"
So they took him to the infirmary
And though this man could hardly see
They told him that he could identify the guilty men.

Four in the mornin' and they haul Rubin in,
Take him to the hospital and they bring him upstairs.
The wounded man looks up through his one dyin' eye
Says, "Wha'd you bring him in here for? He ain't the guy!"
Yes, here's the story of the Hurricane,
The man the authorities came to blame
For somethin' that he never done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.

Four months later, the ghettos are in flame,
Rubin's in South America, fightin' for his name
While Arthur Dexter Bradley's still in the robbery game
And the cops are puttin' the screws to him, lookin' for somebody to blame.
"Remember that murder that happened in a bar?"
"Remember you said you saw the getaway car?"
"You think you'd like to play ball with the law?"
"Think it might-a been that fighter that you saw runnin' that night?"
"Don't forget that you are white."

Arthur Dexter Bradley said, "I'm really not sure."
Cops said, "A poor boy like you could use a break
We got you for the motel job and we're talkin' to your friend Bello
Now you don't wanta have to go back to jail, be a nice fellow.
You'll be doin' society a favor.
That sonofabitch is brave and gettin' braver.
We want to put his ass in stir
We want to pin this triple murder on him
He ain't no Gentleman Jim."

Rubin could take a man out with just one punch
But he never did like to talk about it all that much.
It's my work, he'd say, and I do it for pay
And when it's over I'd just as soon go on my way
Up to some paradise
Where the trout streams flow and the air is nice
And ride a horse along a trail.
But then they took him to the jailhouse
Where they try to turn a man into a mouse.

All of Rubin's cards were marked in advance
The trial was a pig-circus, he never had a chance.
The judge made Rubin's witnesses drunkards from the slums
To the white folks who watched he was a revolutionary bum
And to the black folks he was just a crazy nigger.
No one doubted that he pulled the trigger.
And though they could not produce the gun,
The D.A. said he was the one who did the deed
And the all-white jury agreed.

Rubin Carter was falsely tried.
The crime was murder "one," guess who testified?
Bello and Bradley and they both baldly lied
And the newspapers, they all went along for the ride.
How can the life of such a man
Be in the palm of some fool's hand?
To see him obviously framed
Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land
Where justice is a game.

Now all the criminals in their coats and their ties
Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise
While Rubin sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell
An innocent man in a living hell.
That's the story of the Hurricane,
But it won't be over till they clear his name
And give him back the time he's done.
Put in a prison cell, but one time he could-a been
The champion of the world.


Here's the Wikipedia dope on Carter

Blue in a Red

Last night I sent an email to this dude who is running for my State representative. Last time he ran I gave money to his campaign and supported him. Some upstart dude beat him because he (Upstart Dude) ran a very vicious negative campaign.

I was all set to vote for My Guy this Tuesday, until I heard his new radio commercial. In it he tells about his background and qualifications which was good but then at the end he spouts off about being “Pro Life” and that he shares “Hoosier Values.” Excuse me? He doesn’t bother to add that although he’s pro life he’ll vote, if necessary, Pro Choice so a woman can keep her reproductive rights. So if he didn’t add that I must assume he won’t. That’s what I emailed him about.

That’s a deal breaker for me. I won’t vote for Upstart Dude, but I’m not voting for My Guy cause he isn’t my guy no ‘mo. It’s hard being Blue in a Red State.

Mambo

Karina & Mario Lopez

DwtS Week 7: Emmitt & Cheryl Mambo

If this doesn't get your blood going--you're dead

Emmitt's Hips

It's November 2nd.

Mr. Eko died. Killed by a cloud of black smoke.
Who's the Eye Patch Guy? Another character we neither want nor need.

I watched Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday and I must admit kinda liked it. I now have a semi crush on Emmitt Smith. I don't know two shits about his football career, but his hip action when dancing is awesome. He seems to enjoy the dance floor. Joey Lawrence, of the Blossom "Whoa" fame is now bald and a lip-licker, but he does an excellent job. His partner, that Polish chick, is beautiful. She seems to be that unusual mix of niceness and beauty. Like me, I guess. (har) And Mario Lopez has dimples deep enough to take a spit bath in, he'll probably win. I loved his samba (now there's a sentence I never thought I'd type "I loved his samba.") and he's a crowd favorite.


I have a headache.

Happy Hallow Weenie

I hate the fact that so many schools and communities have distorted the true meaning of Halloween and negated its existence with "Fall Celebrations." Sheesh.

Some begging of free candy . . . witches, vampires, goblins and black cats and people go all Christian-y on you.

Give a vampire kiss to someone you love. Remember Carou Vamp? Didn't she make bats in the Book Shelf?

The good thing about having a teenager is that he’s more independent; he’s spreading his wings, stays out with his friends and tries to find his own way in life. The bad thing about having a teenager is that he’s more independent; he’s spreading his wings, stays out with his friends and tries to find his own way in life. On the weekends he’s rarely home except to sleep and shower and occasionally eat. I miss him.

Do Not Buy His Book

The Evil Bill O’Reilly was on Oprah yesterday trying to sell his new book. Don’t buy this book. He divides up people into Social Progressives (evil) and Traditional Warriors (good)

SPs want everything to be allowed: rap music, hiphop, abortion, “disgusting” movies, pornography, drugs, gay marriage, and, the Biggie, LIBERALISM. :::shudder::::
“DO YOU WANT AMERICA TO BE DENMARK OR HOLLAND???????”

Traditional Warriors want everything good for America: pro life, winning the war on terror, the “bad” guys in prison, torture’s ok if “it saves American lives”, motherhood, apple pie, and CONSERVATISM. According to Billy Boy, Martin Luther King was a T WARRIOR. JFK? T-Warrior! RFK? T-WARRIOR! As was FDR. ALL T WARRIORS! (lol)

Tree, can you just imagine Stephen Colbert coming up with the phrase “T Warrior”? Colbert would do it tongue-in-cheek. O’Reilly is dead serious.

“THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND!! PICK A SIDE!! THERE’S A WAR GOING ON! DEMOCRACY MUST PREVAIL!”

An audience woman called him on being divisive, and polarizing the nation. “You’re here talking calmly with Oprah, but on your show you do nothing but yell and say everyone but you is wrong. You make a lot of money polarizing this country.” She went on to say, “I work with gay youth, and . . .”

“SIT DOWN MADAM. YOU ARE AN SP! SP SP SP!”

And, of course, all the media (except him and FoxNews) is liberal. They’re bottom feeders. “Did you know my book is on the New York Times bestseller list and YET THE NEW YORK TIMES WON’T REVIEW IT?????????????”

When O’Reilly wails against BIG BUSINESS, and a man in the audience points out that FoxNews is a part of one of the biggest corporations, O’Reilly dismisses him as a “FOX HATER. YOU, SIR, ARE A FOX HATER!!”

To everyone who disagrees with him he yells, “DO YOU HATE AMERICA? DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN HOLLAND?” wtf??

What a fucking loon.

Oprah wimped out. She didn’t call him on nary a thing.

Letterman's Important Message About February for George Bush

haha!

Look what I found

A slug that Jackie's daughter might like :)

One of Satan’s minions--goes by the name of Bill O’Reilly-- is on Oprah today. She won’t have hip hop/rappers on, but she’ll have that turd on her show? C’mon, Ops…….which one of your segment producers is a closet Nazi freak? I don’t know if I’ll get home in time to watch it, but I hope she asks him about his masturbatory fantasies of showering his sexually harassed employee with a loofah.

I want coffee.

One Vote

back to work

Ugh. The frost is on the proverbial pumpkin today.
I worked outside yesterday and I'm sore today. I thinned out the coneflowers, worked some amendments into the soil, and planted the daffodils. Then I mulched. I also moved some big decorative rocks that were hidden with some overgrown perennials to a place where I could enjoy them. I like rocks, I do. I still have a bigass wheelbarrow full of hacked down stuff, in the front yard. If I have the energy after work, I'll haul it around the back and pitch it in the overgrown compost pile.

I saw Sharon Lovejoy (big in the gardening world) on PBS' The Victory Garden Saturday and she was making a "salamander house" from logs and wood screws. They're just stacked like Lincoln Logs and they look cool and rustic. Salamanders supposedly are a good thing to invite into the garden. They eat pill bugs and motherfucking slugs. I hate motherfucking slugs almost as much as I hate motherfucking Japanese beetles. So, I might have BP make a few salamander houses for me. I don't know if they're even around these here parts. I'll have to research, unless one of you know about salamanders and could impart some wisdom.

I finally started Chris Elliott's The Shroud of the Thwacker last night in bed. I actually LOLd a few times. It' s funny and I can imagine his voice as I read it. You know Chris Elliott? For years and years he wrote for the David Letterman Show, and bit part acted in sketches on the show. He recently played Amy's whacked out brother in Everybody Loves Raymond. You either love Chris Elliott or you think he's a no talent dimwitted balding hound-dog looking guy. Chris, if you're reading this, I meant that only in the most loving way. I appreciate you!

The three of us are going to get flu shots after LP gets out of school today.

I was across town last night and saw a house with a Christmas tree up already. At first I thought it was a "Halloween tree", but no...it was framed in their picture window . . . a freaking Christmas tree, decorated and lit. In October. If if were QUEEN OF THE UNIVERSE, those homeowners would be dead.

Monday

Nothing new at Mom’s. She wanted to go to Applebee’s for lunch (It was nasty.) I took her shopping. Then home, where she insisted on watching the Notre Dame game until she wanted me to drop her off at church for Saturday mass. The church is two minutes from her house—you can literally see it out the front door and across a meadow, and mass on Saturday begins at 5:30, so when did she want to leave? 4:00. That’s right 4:00, partly because UCLA scored a touchdown and she can’t stand to watch when Notre Dame’s losing. I think they eventually won, but who knows. So I took her over there at 4, and went home to make chili for dinner. My oldest sister and her daughter and friend joined us at 7 for din-din.

So, I’m taking off of work today and tomorrow and want to get a few things accomplished, mainly plant a bag of 50 daffodils, and get my desk cleaned off and in order. That should take the entire two days.

If you’ve a mind to Christmas shop: Here’s want I want: Portrait

LP & I are going to visit my mother today and stay the night with her. Before we leave I’ll leave explicit instructions to Nesta not to have any stray toms over to party.

Spidey, Uncle Allen is back in California for the time being. Thank God. But he’s only there to put up his condo for sale and then the first of the year he’ll be back permanently. He’s got a choice of three houses that would be suitable for him (not ours). Before BP drove him to the airport do you think he offered thanks of any kind to us for putting up with his wrinkled old butt for weeks on end? I’ll leave you to figure that out for yourself.Thanks for bringing him up. I can feel my blood pressure going up.

Oh, and I hope some of the rest of you are privileged enough to be the recipients of Respighi’s jazzy emails! The woman is so witty! On the subject line was “Fart” and then I opened it and she had written “tee hee.” Thanks Respighi, you made my day!! ; )

364 more days until Pretzel Day

What a good The Office episode.
We saw:
Stanley excited about Pretzel Day.
Ryan the Temp's initiation by Dwight K. Schrute.
Dwight's cousin and best friend, Mose.
Interaction (by phone, at least) between Jim & Pam. How sweet was that?
That Michael is a good salesman despite his shortcomings as a human being.
Phyllis giving Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration a little sugar in the pretzel line.

Prairie Home Companion

I bought Prairie Home Companion last week on DVD and watched it on Sunday. I really enjoyed it. It's not my favorite Altman movie (that distinction goes to The Player,) but it was good. Is there anything that Meryl Streep can't do? Her singing is absolutely wonderful. And Lily Tomlin? Woot. Love me some Lily. I'd like to have Lily over for some chili and cornbread. I love Lily's face with its age lines. No Botox for Lily. She's over 60 and it shows but that's a good thing. I hate expressionless actor-Botoxed faces.

Remember that god awful movie she was in with John Travolta years and years ago? I can't remember the name of it and I'm too lazy to Google it, but it was enough to leave a bad taste in your mouth. she was wooden. He was wooden, and the script sucked. NO CHEMISTRY.

PHC is not for everyone. There's not a single M16 firing or car chase or bank explosion in the entire movie. It's slow and steady and satisfying. Garrison Keillor is a surprisely good actor--even though he was playing a character named "Garrison Keillor." What a stretch.

Sometimes I don't like Kevin Kline. In some movies he comes off as being too "actor-y" but he was okay in this. Guy Noir was his character's name. What a great name.

SNL's Maya Rudolph was in it and was surprisingly okay.

Who sucked in the movie, you ask. Okay I'll tell you who sucked in the movie. Lindsay Lohan sucked, that's who. She's such a cartoon in the media with her antics that I couldn't get passed the buzz and see her as this dark teen obsessed with suicide and bad poetry. She needs to go away for about ten years and come back and "ACT."

Another pot smoking loony actor I don't like is Woody Herrelson. Blech. But John C Reilly, who was in Chicago, was a-okay as Woody's singing cowboy partner.


Oh, and on that gossipy website that Mems got me hooked on, someone says Meryl is addicted to pornos. Eh. That's ok. She sings like an angel and she should be nominated again for an Oscar for her role in The Devil Wears Prada. The woman is mesmerizing.

Trying to help out a Sister

Here Schell, here's a pillow you can use to replace the one you lost


 

Drinking cat

Yesterday I was making dinner and glanced out the window and saw this huge cat drinking from the birdbath. I took this picture through the front screen door--that's why it sucks. I opened the door hoping to get a better shot , the cat saw me and hightailed it over across the yard.
That was pretty much the highlight on my Sunday. That, and of course admiring my object dee art left to me by my dead Aunt Dorothy.

 

Another angle

Perhaps it's beautiful from
this angle.

 

Another view

Perhaps another view would help. The built-in caddy, I assume,
would hold either loose cigarettes or matches perhaps.
Do you love it yet? Tell me it's not ugly (although I did LOL
for three straight minutes at Mems' previous comment.)
Thanks, Porks, for seeing the beauty.



 

Pretty Ugly

It’s Sunday. BP’s away, LP’s asleep on the couch, and Nesta’s been put on the back porch because she was climbing and almost knocked over a priceless relic I inherited from my dead Aunt Dorothy. It’s actually a huge, old, strange coffee table ashtray from the 60’s or 70’s. It’s one of those things that I can’t decide if it’s pretty or ugly. Of course we don’t use it as an ashtray. BP smokes, but he’s nice enough to only do it on the porch or in the basement. It’s an “object dee art,” as Roseann once called something on her TV show.













That's the lighter in the top left corner. 

Friday Night

I’m reading a book entitled Some Nerve by Jane Heller. She’s writes beach-read books that are fun to read. This one is about a celebrity writer for a People-type magazine who has to get the Big Get celebrity interview or else her tyrannical boss will fire her. So far, so good.

I’m listening to "The Nail File: The Best of Jimmy Nail" who I fell in love with on Meme’s blog. I loved his "Ain’t No Doubt" song so much I bought a CD. Man, does this guy ever write/sing songs with happy lyrics? I’m half way through the CD and nearly bawling. Haha. I love "Aint No Doubt" (duh) and like "Big River" too. If you listen to "Love Don’t Live Here Anymore"—bring a hankie. Right now he’s singing Andrew Lloyd Webber’s "On This Night of a Thousand Stars." After seeing one of his videos, I keep picturing his big, huge, enormous nose. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Anyway, anyone catch CSI Thursday night? PapaZao aka KFed aka Mr. Britney Spears guest starred as a maniac whose gang went around Vegas beating the shit out of people. What a stretch. One of the Beatees was Greg- the- Lab- Guy- who- advanced- to- a- CSI. Weird episode.

I’m going off to read. Tata To paraphrase Ryan Seacrest: “Emma out.”

Guess the Object

 

How's this Tree? Does it look too poopy?

It's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra today. 34 degrees. BP is working on a project in the garage so I had to park the car outside. There was frost on the windshield. Grrrrr.

Last night we went to high school open house. Would someone mind sending a clue to my teenaged son about the importance of education in this society? Grrrr.

Headline News

Killer Denied Parole

Women Screwed Again: Big Surprise


10 Year Old takes on City Hall

First Spinach, Now Carrot Juice

Didn't Make the Cut

I’m rereading the Constitution and came across this. The following is a partial list of actual proposed amendments that did not get ratified:

1876 An attempt to abolish the United States Senate

1876 The forbidding of religious leaders from occupying a governmental office or receiving federal funding (This one doesn’t sound so bad!)

1878 An Executive Council of Three to replace the Office of the President (doesn’t sound so bad, unless those three were Dubya, Cheney & Rumsfeld)

1893 Renaming this nation The United States of the Earth (catchy!)

1893 Abolishing the United States Army & Navy

1894 Acknowledging that the Constitution recognize God and Jesus Christ as the supreme authority in human affairs (with Moses and Mohammad coming in a distant third and fourth)

1912 Making marriage between the races illegal

1914 Finding divorce to be illegal

1916 All acts of war should be put to a national vote. Anyone voting yes had to register as a volunteer for service in the US Army (this one is hysterical)

1933 An attempt to limit personal wealth to $1 million

1936 An attempt to allow the American people to vote on whether or not the United States should go to war.

1947 The income tax maximum for an individual should be exceed 25%

1948 The right of citizens to segregate themselves from others

1971 American citizens should have the alienable right to an environment free of pollution (sounds good to me)

elections

I was reading about Keith Olbermann and happened upon this site. Scroll down and watch
"Tom Kean Jr turns his back on a Soldier's mother"

PerfectlyWrong

I got up early today and went to Panera Bread for a small coffee and an Asiago cheese bagel, sliced and toasted, and had to contend with an uppity counter girl named “Heather.” It was obvious that Heather did not want to have to work on Saturday morning and made sure everyone knew it, but too damned bad. Is it too much to ask for butter, plastic knife and a napkin for a to-go order? And have them put in a bag without a sneer?

So then I went to Meijer’s and bought: liquid hand soap, Dawn detergent, milk, bread, a gold pineapple which smell divine, toilet paper, (the big honkin’ package of Charmin mega) an Enquirer which shows a collapsed Oprah on the cover, a head of garlic, potato sticks, Liquid Plumber for my slow bathroom sink drain, eggs, and some Glad plastic wrap.

A pineapple, Enquirer, and Liquid Plumber in the same store. Aint America grand??

I came home and filled the birdfeeders. Today’s weather is glorious. After my inside chores I think I’ll go outside and putter around.

I taped 20/20 last night. I’ll have to watch that later. They had a special on the Seven Deadly Sins and were highlighting SLOTH. One segment was supposed to be about lazy teenagers and how you can get them to straighten up their bedrooms. We’ll see about that. Speaking of taping shows, I was soooooo pissed. I had taped The Office and CSI on Thursday, watched the Office Friday morning before work and rewound it because I wanted to watch it again later. When I got home yesterday I HAD TAPED SOMETHING ON BRAVO OVER THE OFFICE AND MOST OF CSI! To make matters WORSE, it was a James Lipton interview with Mr Couch-Hopper Himself: Tom Cruise. Life is sometimes very cruel.

In trouble? Blame it on BIll

Our team raised $5000 for the JDRF on Saturday.
After the run we went back to my sister's house and had lunch.
Then some went shopping and I stayed with Mom.
She was watching a Notre Dame football game, so I
sat in the sun room and read magazines.
This is one of my favorite areas in her house, it faces south
and looks out on a small garden.

 

Stuffed Green Peppers


Four green (or other color) peppers
½ to ¾ pound of ground sirloin
1 cup cooked rice
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
1 clove minced garlic
1 small onion grated with the juice (grate it with a box grater right over the mixing bowl, the onion juice will help keep the meat moist)
1 egg, whisked
½ T salt
1 t black pepper
1 t red pepper flakes
1 jalapeno, finely minced (you can omit this if you don’t like things too spicy)
1 small can tomato sauce

Preheat oven to 375


Whisk all ingredients except the beef and rice in a mixing bowl. Add beef and combine just until blended (too much meat handling and your meat will be tough—just ask Bert)

Grease a baking dish with olive oil.

De-stem and cut the tops (about 1/3) off of each green pepper. Reserve the tops! If you have a wobbly pepper you can take a little slice off the bottom to make it stand up.

Put some rice into each green pepper, then add the meat mixture, packing each pepper tightly. Put a few tablespoons of the tomato sauce over the top, and then put the pepper top back on top of each pepper.

If you have any meat mixture, rice and/or tomato sauce leftover, you can add it to the bottom of the baking dish to cook.

Lightly cover with foil and bake for an hour or until thoroughly cooked. Take the foil off for the last 10 minutes or so.

NOTES:

1. Some people combine the meat and the rice into the peppers but I like to layer them.
---It’s a great meal with just a salad or dinner rolls. Leftovers are good for lunch.

2. You can divide this recipe by half if you want to.

3. Some people like to cut the peppers in half lengthwise instead of cutting them “tall-ways.” They might cook a little faster this way.

Back from a Meeting

I need to go away more often. When I was away for my two day meeting, BP & LP replaced a splintered window in the bedroom, fixed my clothes dryer, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned LP’s bedroom, and vacuumed the living room. The only thing that LP forgot was to clean Nesta’s litter box.
I had a good meeting, the catering was phenomenal, I had two martinis with dinner last night, we had a funny comedian as an after dinner speaker, and the hotel room was nice—it even came with a sleep kit including a relation/mediation CD, lavender linen spray, and earplugs.
When I go into work tomorrow I’ll have to fill out expense report/travel papers which I hate to do.

Note to Tree,
We had door prizes—one of which was a $25 Chili’s gift certificate. When they announced it I started singing, ala Michael Scott, the Chili’s commercial song, “Chiliiiii’s baby back ribs, Chiliiiii’s baby back ribs.” From across the room another woman chimed in with “I’ want my baby back baby back, I want my baby back baby back…” She came over to the table I was sitting at and asked me if I was a nut, or if I just liked The Office. Haha. A friendship was born. But, no, I didn’t win that door prize or anything else.

Monday. Blech

1. Uncle Allen is back staying with us for another four days. But the good news is that I'm going on a two day business trip and leaving this evening.



2. Among LP's school announcements:
Homecoming is this week. Dress up days are the following: Tuesday-1960s (peace, love, and the hippie movement), Wednesday-1970s (groovy disco baby!), Thursday-1980s (retro, big hair, stone washed, leg warmers), Fridays-spirit day (red and blue).


80's=retro? okay.


3. I made kickass stuffed green peppers last night for dinner. Marsh had green peppers on sale yesterday--25 cents apiece. I was giddy, almost Biddy-like, seeing the sale sign--and I didn't even have a coupon!
blu, did you made my hot Italian sausage concoction?

About 6:00 it rained like hell here and there was a
magnificent rainbow that lasted for well over twenty
minutes, and at one point turned into a double rainbow!

 

JDRF

Today most of the Writes clan . . sisters, brother, mother, aunt, cousins are participating in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation walk in Indianapolis. I contributed money in my brother’s name and in my cyber friend Urban’s name (even though she’s a looong way away from being a juvenile) : )

You may remember my nutso religious sister who couldn’t cut it as a nun and the convent kicked her out with instructions to go and get psychiatric help. Well if you don’t then you’re not a loyal reader of Emmerica so go play with yourself. If you do remember “The Nun”, here’s the latest tidbit. For years she’s also participated in this fundraiser and walk, but this year she left a message on Lexus sister’s voicemail (we’re all meeting at Lexus’house.) Her message:

“I went online and researched the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and discovered that they give 5% of contributions to stem cell research! I cannot in good conscience participate in any way to an organization like that!”

She doesn't even know what a fucking stem cell is. This good Christian, moral person loves stem cells and zygotes and embryos and fetuses but shows distain for most living breathing people. She told a story once of two migrant workers coming to the backdoor of the Catholic Church office she works for. The church had had a luncheon that day and these workers had the temerity to ask for leftovers because they were hungry. Miss Christian told them to go away because “this wasn’t a soup kitchen.” I suppose if they had been two zygotes requesting assistance she would have welcomed them with open arms.

Anyway, I hope the rain holds off until after the Walk. Bye.

Making good music into crappy television commercials

In the eighties I was a fan of the music group Big Country. I saw them in concert once in St. Petersburg. Good stuff. Here are the lyrics of their big hit

“In a Big Country”

I've never seen you look like this without a reason,
Another promise fallen through, another season passes by you.
I never took the smile away from anybody's face,
And that's a desperate way to look for someone who is still a child.

CHORUS:
In a big country, dreams stay with you,
Like a lover's voice, fires the mountainside..
Stay alive..

(I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered)


I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

CHORUS [x2]

So take that look out of here, it doesn't fit you.
Because it's happened doesn't mean you've been discarded.
Pull up your head off the floor, come up screaming.
Cry out for everything you ever might have wanted.
I thought that pain and truth were things that really mattered
But you can't stay here with every single hope you had shattered.

I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime..

CHORUS [x3]




The bio on their lead singer, Stuart Adamson:

Rock musician. Although born in Manchester, Adamson grew up in Crossgates (near Dunfermline). Initially a member of the punk-rock group The Skids in the late 1970s, Adamson went on to form the band Big Country (1981) with whom he made his most noted contribution through his distinctive style of guitar playing. Their albums include The Crossing (1983), Steeltown (1984), The Seer (1986), Peace In Our Time (1988), No Place like Home (1991), The Buffalo Skinners (1993), Why the Long Face (1995) and Driving to Damascus (1999).
Having suffered from alcohol-related depression, Adamson disappeared from his home in Nashville (USA), to be found dead some weeks later in a hotel in Hawaii.

What got me thinking of them is a commercial for Kohl’s department store that’s been on the past few weeks. I don’t know about you, but I hate it when popular songs get bastardized into commercials. I don’t like musicians selling out their music to be background music to sell soap, restaurants, tampons, computers, underwear, or whatever. Whether it’s Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Go-Gos, The Who, the Rolling Stones, or Big Country. It’s their right, I suppose. And it’s my right to bitch about it.

My morning walk

I took the camera on my morning walk
around the 'hood.

Don't do this. Some idiot planted spruce trees
on either side of the sidewalk leading up to the house.
Now they are so huge the house is hidden.

 

Park ballpark. Very deserted on a Wednesday

 

Cute house over by the park

 

Bridge in the park

 

The park a few blocks away from me.
I like the weeping willow

 

Cool pinecones 

Don't do this. This is a house a few blocks over.
The window boxes are filled with plastic flowers. 

BP's ugly van, parked in its makeshift space by the carport.
It hasn't been moved in six months. There's usually a squirrel
and/or bird poop on it. You saw it on a good day.

I have an Oowie

I’m taking a few days off of work. I replanted some sedum out back by the shed where the Messy Area used to be. I love this area now. The ornamental grasses have grown and filled in and it’s beautiful, especially when it’s windy. I pulled some weeds and mulched the area too. I cleaned and Cloroxed the bird bath and rinsed it well, filled up the yellow finch feeder, and hung out on the porch awhile with a magazine.

I made some hot Italian sausage and pasta for an early Linner (combo lunch and dinner). Onions, garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, crushed tomatoes, oregano, S & P. It smelled heavenly and tasted just as good. I got a knife out of the drawer to slice the onion, and slammed the drawer shut . . . with my finger inside. You know when something hurts so badly that it just knocks the breath out of you? That’s what happened. I sat down. LP heard me yell and came and got some ice and put it in a baggie for me. That helped. He was very attentive and wanted to know if I wanted a Tylenol. I said, “No, but will you check to see if the dryer’s off and if it is will you take out the towels and fold them?” He said, “You’re stretching it, Mom.” But he did it anyway. LOL.

The ice helped and I’m glad my finger isn’t broken.

Win a $50,000 Dream Vacation

Enter

Republican strategy

Typical Republican strategy: blame the Democrats. Or more specifically, Bill Clinton. Clinrton’s been out of office for years and years but the right wingers still blame him for “not getting bin Laden.” Sheesh. And evidently he got testy with Chris Wallace and his smirkiness on a Fox News interview. Bill said that he tried and failed in getting bin Laden. He admitted failure. When’s the last time Dubya admitted a mistake?
The Republicans are running scared with mid term elections looming. They’re practically crapping their collective pants, and still blaming Clinton.

Roses aren't my favorite, but my mother-in-law gave
me this miniature rose a few years ago. It's only about a
foot and a half high, but it's blooming like crazy.

 

Tidbits on Two TV premieres

The Office.

Hated the episode. It was all about Michael outing Oscar. That would have been a good subplot, but as the main story line? No. A Gaydar detector? Isn’t that like five years old? Jim’s left the Scranton Branch? Noooo. Pam looked so forlorn and lost not having anyone else who “gets it.” The writing was superb though. There were some pearls:
1. Creed realizing that he could have had sex with a man. He’s done some wild things in the 60’s . . in the mud. A man “could have slipped in.”
2. Phyllis stating that she’s not a lesbian. She’s engaged to Bob Vance of Vance Refrigeration.
3. The woman in Jim’s new office imitating his “looks to the camera.” Priceless.
4. Jim’s head shake and look to the camera when the guy whose calculator he embedded in Jello went ballistic.
5. Dwight’s smirk when Michael asked him why he didn’t think Angela was a lesbian.

This episode: C, Overall A +


CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

It was a good episode (Part one of two). The back stage of a Cirque show was interesting to see. I loved when Grissom got Sara Sidle lunch. “I got you a veggie burger.” That was very sweet and probably the most romantic thing Grissom could have done for Sara. I love that these two are having an affair. I love the character of Sara Sidle, and I like Grissom, and these two are just perfect for one another. (I know that these characters are fictional so shut the hell up)
Now for the bad news. I was incensed when they ended with Catherine Willows being the apparent victim of a rape by roofies. That's so cliche and it's been done by other shows. They had better bring this to an end to my satisfaction, boy! She went out for a drink and dancing with Nick Stokes (as just friends) Nick scoped out a hottie and asked her to dance. Catherine was enjoying a drink and turned down a drink offered by a guy. As she was getting woozy and disoriented we see Nick, (leaving with said hottie) waving goodbye to her from across the room. Nick Stokes is the compassionate CSI! He feels for the victims and comforts them—that’s his calling card. He would never have left Catherine there without going and talking to her to see if she was alright with him leaving her behind!
On the other hand it was totaling in character that Jim Brass felt uncomfortable with getting a Medal of Valor for being shot. I thought it was cute when he got the date tatttoed on his skin—right beneath the bullet scar.

This episode: B, Overall A +
This is the original CSI. Accept no substitutes

It's Autumn

A sign that summer's over?

A few nights ago it got down to 40 degrees overnight and now my basil's black. I hate when that happens. Basil doesn't like cold temperatures. I guess I'll have to start buying it from the supermarket--$2.99 for one ounce of fresh herbs. Tragic.

Shoutout

Damn, but I have cute hair. Kasey cut and highlighted my hair yesterday. It was very much long overdue for a 'do. Layered and kind of "stacked" in the back. Have I ever told you that I love Kasey? She's in her 20's and cuts a mean head of hair. She just got married last week too. A big shoutout to my girl. Thanks for giving me cute hair.

What We Can't Do

This bit of nostalgia is not for you young whippersnappers who read this blog, but for my older, more seasoned, readers.

What We Can't Do in Parking Lots Anymore
Remember when you saw someone walk away from their car and they had left their headlights on? Being the pleasant people we are, we'd call out to them, "Hey! You left your lights on!" They'd smile , kind of smack their heads in a Gee-I-Coulda-Had-a-V8-Moment, and say "Thanks!" and go and flip off their headlights.
You felt good because you had done a Good Deed. The other person felt good because another human being had saved them from a dead battery.
NO MORE!
You say "Hey! You left your lights on," and they turn and snarl "THEY GO OFF AUTOMATICALLY!" and look at you like you were from Outer Space.
Well, Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse the fuck out of me.

My yellow finches.
Say hello.
 

This spent coneflower started out purplish-pink,
and now it's faded to an orangy color. I like it.  

Here you go, Mems

This past Spring BP’s 85 year old Uncle Allen who lives in California announced to his four adult daughters that he wanted to move because, while he has a great pension and is richer than God, his “monthly output was more than his income.” They finally agreed than he could move “somewhere where he has relatives.” Goody. That left either Detroit Michigan where BP’s brother lives, or Indiana where Allen’s sister (BP’s mother) and we live.
A few weeks ago he called BP and asked if we had a car he could borrow (because he’s too cheap to rent one) during his stay while he’s looking for a house to buy, and if he could stay a few days at our house. I don’t mind an overnight guest and told BP this. But we do not have an extra guest bedroom. We have a small house--but a day or two would be fine.
BP picked him up at the airport on September 12, and when they got home and we were talking in the living room, BP offhandedly mentions that Uncle Allen will be here in Indiana a month. I turn slowly in BP’s direction, eyes bugged, (Uncle Al was sitting on the couch where he couldn’t see my face) and mouthed “A MONTH???!!!!!”
Well it turns out that he “only” stayed with us FIVE nights instead of one and he’s staying with his sister most of the rest of the time.
BUT he has allergies which meant our cat had to practically live on the backporch for the entire time, which LP decried as “unfair.”
When we went out to eat, did Uncle Allen take out his wallet and pay even once? Just once??? No, he did not. Did I have to fix his meals? I did for the first two days, then in a phone conversation I told BP “I’m not feeding that old man anymore—either you can fix his meals or he can fend for himself.” Am I a bitch? Hell ,yes I am.
When he took out the Honda, it was “It needs gasoline.”
When we went grocery shopping at Meijer’s he put “a few things” in the cart. We paid, of course. We went by the bottled water aisle and he said, “That’s the biggest con on mankind.” I thought of Verbie!
I thought of Tree too when, after he went out walking around the area one afternoon, he commented, “There are too many churches around here.” He’s an atheist and I told him that if he wants to move to Indiana he’d better get used to it.
Anyway, fish and guests stink after three days. I’m pissed at his daughters too. All four of them are wealthy and have fabulous jobs and ONE of them could have accompanied him here to see that he’s set up and has everything he needs.
To top it off, when he left for my mother-in-law’s he never said “Thank You” “Kiss My ass” or anything.
It rolled off of BP’s back “He’s old,” “He comes from the cheapskate part of the family.” Etc. BP said that I got “Good wifely points.” BFD

Richer beyond my wildest dreams

Last year I bought one share of Martha Stewart Omnimedia stock from oneshare.com.
Well today I got my first dividend check in the mail and who-eeeeeee doggie my ship came in!
The total dividend was a whopping fifty cents. They took out fourteen cents for federal taxes so the check was for thirty-six cents. I'm going to frame it and mess up their bookkeeping.

small annoyances

I'm just not up to posting about the Uncle Allen ordeal. It's a long story, but I will tell you about it at a later date. With her cell phone post, blu got me thinking about other things that annoy me, so here's my list.

Small annoyances

Cheap people.

People who don’t flush public toilets.

Cashiers who don’t say “thank you” at the end of a transaction. A “Have a good day (like that’s sincere,) or handing you the bag with a “There you go” don’t cut it.

People who put the milk carton back in the fridge when there’s only a drop left in the carton.

People who emit a hand-covered cough right before they go to shake your hand.

That glob of gunk that forms on the pump end of hand lotion when it sits too long.

People who walk their dogs and let them poop on your lawn or the sidewalk but don’t clean it up.

When I go to use a flashlight and the batteries are dead.

Men who shake your hand and start pumping and your whole arm shakes.

People who spit when they talk.

The fact that DVDs have that tight wrapping and that security strip and you have to go and find a knife to cut it opened.

Pens that run out of ink in mid sentence.

Junk mail.

People who call and say “Guess who this is.”

Coming soon . . . the Uncle Allen ordeal.

Communicator/Reading List

Of course I'm not going to take Sparky's advice(so you can stop reading now Sparks and save yourself aggrevation) about psychiatry (hasn't the dumbass figured out I'm a Scientologist after all?) but since my Big 5-0 is going to come before the year's end, I've been making a list of things I want to accomplish over the next five years. Those of you who are in my age-range--remember the Soviet Union's infamous Five Year Plans? They'd have Five Year Plans, and more Five Year Plans, but I don't think anything was ever accomplished until the Great Communicator Ronald Wilson Reagan brought down Communism! YAY R.W.R!! What a Communicator he was:

RWR: Mommy, remember my heyday in movies?
Nancy:(adoringly) Yes, Dear.
RWR: I was quite the actor wasn't I?
Nancy:(adoringly) Yes, Dear.
RWR: I was handsome and debonair. Right?
Nancy:(adoringly) Yes, Dear.
RWR: Did I ever win an Oscar, Mommy.
Nancy: (sadly, yet adoringly) No, Dear.
RWR: Was I married to you or Jane Wyman when I was in Bonzo?
Nancy: (gritting teeth) It's time for dinner, Dear. Dessert is your favorite! Applesauce!

Anyway, I digress. As part as my 5-0, on my LIST OF THINGS TO DO OVER A FIVE YEAR PERIOD, I'm making a list of books I want to read and/or reread. So if you will, please list four or five of your favorites (or ones that you've been meaning to read, even.) List them here or email me at EmmaWrites@aol.com . I am thanking you.

I’m getting to be more and more like Barbara. Barbara is a woman who works at the same company as I do. A friend, Marcella, gave Barbara some old jigsaw puzzles because she’d heard that B loved them. Right there in the corridor B started crying about how kind Marcella was. I once told B that BP had gotten 6 bags of mulch and potting soil for me from Menard’s and hauled it all over the garden for me. She teared up and said it was a sweet thing for a husband to do. Someone else complimented her on her recent weight loss and again her eyes welled up. Hormones? Maybe.

Anyway, that’s me lately. I teared up after reading that Maira Kalman NY Times stuff that Tree sent. I well up when I see butterflies and hummingbirds, and when LP brings home a good school paper (maybe because that’s so rare!) I get misty when I see an old couple holding hands at the mall, or when that goddamn Prego commercial is on TV—the one with the melancholy violin music. Even when I read Spidey’s account of her recent weekend in the woods.

It seems that this happens when I see/read about GOOD things, not about the bad stuff. Maybe I need some stimulants! Just call me Babs. Arghh.

My Hummer!

 

 

Bucky, Bobby and Albuquerquerequereeeeeeee

1. A man named “Bucky” on the FBI’s most wanted list just strikes me as funny.
They caught him yesterday. Apparently he has quite a loyal following.

2. I am listening to Bob Dylan’s Modern Times. Can you say “GENIUS”? I dare anyone to listen to "Spirit on the Water" and not a) tap her foot, and b) well up with tears. Maybe it’s my hormones. I looked on His website (I capitalize “his” because Dylan is God) trying to find the printed lyrics to Modern Times and they’re not up yet. I want Congress to pass a law making lyrics in CDs mandatory. I bought the “LIMITED EDITION” version with a bonus CD. I’m special don’t you know.
His voice is so powerful and melodic (shaddup Kath, I don’t need you saying “I like Dylan’s music but his voice sux.”) Keep your mean anti-Dylan comments off my blog. OR ELSE! ; )

3. Not much happening in the Writes household: BP’s in Albuquerquerequereeeeeeee, and LP stayed the night with Eric. They supposedly went to a football game. He should be home at noon and then he gets to mow the lawn and clean his room. We’ll see how that goes. Me? I’m doing errands today and washing clothes.

The moon looked absolutely gorgeous this morning!

I have been cheating on BP.
For the last three evenings around 7pm I sit out on my front porch and wait for Mister Hummingbird to come by. Again, last night, he did not disappoint. There is a butterfly bush right near my front porch and hummers must love them too because this guy flew from long flower to long flower sucking nectar. Insatiable. At one point, it got about three inches away from my face and just hovered. I love looking at hummingbirds.
Although my garden looks pretty tired, it’s really alive with butterflies, moths, hummers and yellow finches. Yesterday evening a huge ass raven—it was as big as a cat!-- was bathing in the bird bath.
Oh, and the one-eared black cat that my neighbor Bill feeds and waters left me a present on my back porch. A dead mouse. I asked LP to get a shovel out of the shed so I could scoop it up. I saw Bill out on his deck so I told him that his cat accidentally left a gift for him on my porch. He laughed and said, “That’s okay….you can have it!”

Kath sent me a wonderful interview with Angela Kinsey who plays Angela on The Office. It's terrific so I thought I'd share. Thanks Kath!
Uptight Angela