What to wear?

Okay troops, Sorry about that last entry, it was on my mind, but sometimes, I should just keep it to myself.
This one is more all inclusive.

I have to go to a christening.
I have to find something to wear.  You can make the call
They are not necessarily in that order.  You will be able to identify and assess the outfits named.
1. Blue flowered April Cornell dress, white shoes.  It's one piece, but it gaps at the bust, makes my ass look gigantic, and maybe it's a little out of date or frumpy?

2. Black gaucho pants with a lively flower print,  (so cute) a sleeveless black knit top (gaps at the armpits) and black shoes.  2 pieces, the waist of the pants is 3" high and elastic.  I had to take some of the elastic out so I would not lose a kidney, they were bothering me there.  And the top is almost fine,which means not quite fine, and at least one sister will make a remark.

3. Linen pants, silk top, silk cardigan, all shades of beige.  This is my possible favorite?  But the pants have gotten quite thin, I don't know if you can see through them, the silk under top has really long armpits and my bra shows, so I have to keep the sweater on.
It's 95 degrees. None of that is going to look crisp for more than 6 minutes.  I am not a beige person but I thought it would be elegant?  I don't know who I'm trying to kid.

4. The black and white nylon knit dress.  Makes my rear look huge, and I have to suck in my gut the whole time.  The V neck is too low and I have to pin it shut.  The place where it is now pinned is good but shows maybe too much cleavage, so...

You be the judge.  Don't hold back, just tell me.  Okay, I gotta add pictures, but not with me in them, that just does not work.  P.S. Keep in mind, that the dummy is a size 4-6 and I am a very short waisted busty size 12, and that while I can see things may need more pressing, this it.

Thanking you in advance.  I know you'll do the right thing.

Traffic of the Dead

I was driving to the thrift store today when I was thrown off by constuction.  I had to go out to a major artery and make a left turn on a busy street where there was no light, and constant traffic was not stopping to let you in.

Anyway, there were 2 cars in front of me and a school bus in front of them. What is the holdup? I wondered.
It was a humongous funeral.  I know this is a touchy subject, so bear with me.  It was a long line of cars with those little flags on the fronts and placards in the window.  My view was though the gas station pumps to the left of me.  If there were a building there, there would have been nothing to see at all.

Who died?  Could have been a policeman?  That happens a lot lately in Philadelphia.  But then people die every day.  I knew it was not George Steinbrenner. He does not live anywhere near here.

 I often think that when I die, no one will attend.  Possibly one of my sisters,  but that's it.  There was no funeral for Mom, nobody was up for that. But that's my family.

A lot of the time when someone you know dies, or even when it's a relative of someone you know, you feel obligated to go to the funeral.  Not always, but you know which ones you just have to attend.  If you are powerful, well loved, or knew a lot of people, your funeral will be well attended, and like the funeral I saw this morning, tie up traffic for blocks.

Traffic is funny.  People get all bent out of shape if you are not going fast enough, or forget a turn signal (which is dangerous, and rude at the same time), but everyone stops and gives the right of way for a funeral.

It's as if you rate higher on the respect scale dead, than you did alive.  What's that about?

Where is the New Yorker when you need them?

I just went back and read the first year of this blog, and I have to say I was amused for several hours

Try it: just go to the end, or like February of 2005 and start there.  See if you don't have some fun.

Heat Wave

It's been so hot out, it was difficult to move.  For the first couple of days we acutally camped outside in relative luxury.  We put up my craft tent that the hub and I made to go to craft shows.  The bad thing: it is not waterproof.  The good thing: shade, beautiful shade.

Being unwilling to move, we sat there, getting up only to hose down once in a while and reading magazines and books.  This week's favorite has been Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Dawn of the Dreadfuls by Steve Hockensmith.  This is not the original sendup of Jane Austen's famous novel, but a prequel to it, and written by a different author.  I am told that the original is more violent and has more acutal Austen to it, but this was light reading (yes, I do heavy lifting but light reading) and pretty hilarious if you can get past the putrefying people.

Thanks a lot, Shakespeare

No one has ever asked me; let me compare thee to a Summer Day.

Learning Curve

Today I have been trying to learn something, anything that will help me with technical stuff online.
First, I found the New York Photography School site: http://digital-photography-school.com/learning-exposure-in-digital-photography which is complex but eventually I hope to make it work for me.

Next, I was directed from Etsy to another store site whose name I have not entirely mastered,, it's like Matsui, or something, that has a store AND a blog stuck right to it, and other bells and whistles.  Only thing is: I could not see any of the stores.  Maybe it's a closed system like a paramecium or something?

Next, I hooked up to tweetup? possibly, these things just swirl past my vision and create imaginary waste o' space in my brain.  I feel like I now have the brain power of a cat, or a pancake or any other inanimate object.  Anyway, after hours of trying to figure the RSS feed, (yes, I am that much of a dweeb), I hooked that up so that my twitter will lead you to my blog.

I am not that sure about twitter.  Evidently, the way to self promote on twitter, (and that, more than anything seems to be what it is about) is to connect to as many people as possible and have them connect back to you.  Right now, I have like 14 connections, and dumped a load of people/companies I was following, because they were not all that amusing, and they took up space that the people's posts that were interesting formerly occupied.

I guess it's not about what I want to read, it's about who I want to read me, and that's where the moral dilemma kicks in.

I would like my vintage shop to be a success and then maybe move on to a photography shop, but do I have to have giveaways, and tutorials?  It's just possible I do.

My best online friend is spreading herself very thin these days, joining other craft groups and making things for her blog and 5 others, and going to work AND having a life.  I asked her one time, how is it that you are able to produce so much?  Her answer was simple; she does not have a television.

I know there's nothing on, but mostly I like to read while I'm watching bad television, and therefore do not make a load of stuff because I am lazy.  I guess that's what it comes down to in the end. If I had paid more attention at school I would have a career that I was laid off from and collecting a large slice of unemployment, thank you President Obama, instead of blogging my life away and trying to sell used stuff online.

Hot time in the old town

I'ts been 90 degrees out for a couple of days now.  Yesterday, we had a very large storm, possibly a tornado by the looks of things.  On the next street there are 4 giant trees down, and on several streets after that.  Most of them missed houses, but completely blocked the roads.

We went out for a tour.  It had been cool last night after the storm and then again in the morning but it kept getting hotter.  It felt like Charleston S.C. in August, but it's still June, and we are about 13 hours north of there by car.

I kept changing clothing.  The wrap around skirt was comfy but nothing matched it.  The palazzo pants were cute but the elastic waist hurt my kidneys.  I tried to cut some of the elastic out, but it was not enough, and there was no electricity to sew through all the layers to put it back together.  None of my shoes matched anything, but if they did, my feet hurt in them.  It's as if hot weather makes me lose my sense of style completely.

I put on no makeup which makes me look tired, and wear a baseball hat to keep the sun out of my eyes.
I never in my life thought I would be with a man who wears clothing bearing sports insignia, but I have, and that's hardly unusual, but I could not have guessed after being a milliner for years, that I would adopt a baseball hat.  It's not attractive.  I am not some tall rangy girl with a tomboy wardrobe.
I am a short woman with big hair, and women's clothing and it's looks just awful.  I gotta say, it's practical.

A bit later I was in the kitchen and the refrigerator started making noise.  I yell this out to Lou in the yard.  He says open it up!  Yes!  Electric is back on.  I know they are going to turn it off again eventurally, but tonight I sleep in air conditioned bliss.

By the Sea

Nory went to the shore with her sister Lila.  They were dressing for the beach, and Nory was putting on an old t shirt like flashdance meets Hokusai, and a skirt she made from old t shirts.  It was her first attempt at cutting up shirts for skirts, and it was a success except that the design on the shirt ended up at her crotch.  She spun it to her hip, but the shirt covered it anyway.

Lila said I bought a bathing suit.  This was the one that did not make me cry.  Boy, is that ever true.  After a certain point in time, and with our mom's fatty gene pool, there's just no fighting off the distortion of the flesh. (see: legs of Dorian Gray)

Nory looked at her sister in the bathing suit and it was black and white polka dots.  She herself had never gone in much for the dots, but we do what we can.  It was not good, but if it was okay with Lila, then what the hell.

They trekked down to the ocean and the cool wind blew over them.  They flopped on towels, just as if they were not middle aged women and sighed, looked at the water for a while and picked up their respective reading.

Drug Trials

Here's the thing.  Well, two things.  I went online to make a new post, and got a message that my blog name was available to register.  What the hell???

So I came to blogger, and here I am.  Now I'm just confused.  And dizzy.
I went to a dozen docs, and particularly one of the "top docs" for dizziness in the city.  They did terrible things to me there, just to see IF I was actually dizzy.  Oh yeah.  I was sick for a week after those wonderful tests.  They did brain scans, cat scans, and every kind of expensive thing, but did not find anything broken.

Now, as a last ditch effort, they want me to take diuretics.  I remember my mother taking them to get rid of water on her ankles.  I don't remember how much she was in the bathroom, but it was not as often as I already am.

I have not felt like this for months.  Really bad.  So maybe I take just one more drug.  Or maybe I go on the all raw diet.  I am not sure about those people.  They claim it brings health and vitality if the most you heat anything is 118 degrees.  Why?  I just don't know.  It sounds totally arbitrary.  Obviously animal protein is out, as is sugar, although maple syrup is okay with them.

What you don't know about maple syrup: it's not a sweet as you thought.  It's the corn syrup pancake liquid that is sweet.  I like it.  I am used to my food tasting bright and delicious.  I can go without some things but the sugar thing: that's the killer.

I really should ditch any baked goods, and all sugar.  I should live on lettuce and water as a friend told me.

Then he put me on embargo, so I don't know how good a friend he really is.  Okay, that was something you don't need to read, but I'll leave it there anyway.

I gotta go out now.  I'll be walking so if I collapse someone will find me, covered with ants (the ants are really getting to me these days) and wrappers discarded from foods at the Wawa convenience store.

Okay I sound nuts, but I can delete this all later.

Beauty Therapy

Nory went to a therapist recommended by Lou's therapist. The new therapist was supposed to adress her propensity to anxiety and try to get Nory off some medicines she was taking.

First of all, Peggy (the therapist) decided Nory should take more EPA fish oil. Then she decided that Nory should see another more integrative doctor .

Then the therapist decided her vitamin D levels were low (from a copy of blood samples from her G.P.)

AND she sent Nory for even more blood samples and thought she might want to find out if she had yeast in her intestines. Well, thought Nory, between the bread and the yoghurt, I must have some yeast somewhere.

So to sum up: 2 added supplements, 2 added health professionals to see.

Nory went on Thursday because she could not read the invisible writing of the receptionist, and since it was not the correct day, and her hair was all gray in the fluorescent light of the bathroom, she went to the hairdresser next door. She had never gone there before, but it was pretty and the hairdressers seemed friendly and knowledgeable, so she decided to go in.

The first thing Nory annouced was: Do NOT dye my hair black!

Guess what? Black hair.

She asked her sister Lila what she thought. Lila said "I was not going to mention it, I thought you just had an accident with the dye".

The next day, after her acual appointment with Peggy, Nory went back and said "honey, (in the nicest tone)you dyed my hair black".

The Hairdresser looks like that Amazon from 3rd Rock, Kirsten somebody. She said well, you wanted dark brown. Nory said "I wanted brown". Greta said well, it will wear off a bit in a coupla weeks.

Well, thought Nory, not hideous. I just look like a goth girl in Talbots clothing.

12:45 Ironing

Generally when I creep upstairs at night, it is cold. I am wrapped in layers of flannel and fleece, socks and slippers, almost gloves if I could, but tonight is so balmy after a very hot day that I wear a slip of a nightgown to sit at the computer.

It's nice to find an order on the computer. I sell my odds and ends, not a business so much as lightening up my stuff stash. It's a national holiday, so I did not expect anything from my computer, and mainly left it alone today. When I came up, I found my order and went to work re-ironing some fancy tea napkins in the heat of the attic. I must be mad. It was near 90 degrees today, and we spent it all outside, lolling in the shade.

I am not getting so very much from these napkins, but on the other hand, I did find them literally on the side of the road, while I was walking one day. There was a load of vintage linens, and I picked up what I could and carried it a mile back home.

I should have gone back. I left lace table cloths, and who knows what else there, but I was in a very karmic dilemma, and decided to leave stuff for others. I hope someone took the rest, or my good will has gone wasted.

I probably should not write at night when I have not much to say.

Yup, officially at a loss for words.

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Girl Scout Cookies

I know I'm going to get a lot of flack if anyone ever reads this, but I have a rule about girl scout cookies; I don't buy them unless the girl scouts bake the cookies themselves, which they never do.

The girls (and mostly their parents) sell the cookies which have become increasingly smaller, with less cookies, and more artificial and unhealthy ingredients. Why don't the leaders teach the girls to make cookies, and have them sell fantastic cookies?

I saw a segment on SNL last night about this. The writer on TV wanted to buy the cookies all year in a store rather than be harrangued by small girls in berets and sashes only once a year.

He has a point, but I think if you had the cookies all year you would notice after a while, that they aren't as good as you might remember them being.

I went to a boy scout spaghetti dinner last night. I was ready for the worst and I got it. The food was like a school lunch. I was considering going to the kitchen and teaching them to cook, but they would not have had the ingredients, and frankly, they were not going to listen to me, a non christian in any case.

The scouts were sort of stunned like small cattle in an unfamiliar setting, but they followed directions, and tried to perform their duties to the best of their abilities. Some were better than others. Our waiter, not knowing us, was wary and seemed to have no sense of humor at all. He was unable to communicate further than what he had been told which did not include the fact that Spaghetti is also the plural for the word, and whether or not there was sugar in the iced tea.

I don't know how many diabetics went into shock after that carb and sugar loaded meal, but that is neither here nor there.

The kid at the next table called it paskettis, and even with some coaching by the men at his table, could not master the word. The pasketti kid, a small, white nerd type, while unable to pronounce the dish, was a lot more personable, and hung around the two large black men he was serving, making jokes, and having a great time.

What I wanted to point out here is that the boys were doing something more ambitious than the girls, and though it was for one night, the community was supporting them. Whether or not they made more money, I think the boys learned a little more real life experience than the girls.

I have gone up to a girl scout and taught her how to sell cookies. She was lackluster, and unwilling to speak to strangers. (probably from many years of indoctrination, and I cannot argue with the inntelligence of that).

She stood in front of me and wanly held a box of cookies with a limp wrist, and took no other action. I am not going to describe my lesson, but by the end of it, she was selling boatloads, and was also able to convince her parents to send her to Europe with a new wardrobe as a reward for being so enterprising. And no, I did not buy her cookies.

So, I really wish everyone would learn to cook decent food, and I wish the scouts of both sexes would find another way of making money. I know child labor has been abolished by law, but there's plenty of it going on. Perhaps they could become telephone solicitors.

Of Frogs and Men

I forgot to tell you. We had dinner at the London grill the other night, and there were frogs all over the place. Stickers on the wall and statuettes of every material known to man strewn over every surface.

Finally I asked someone. It has to do with a plague they said. Something about Passover. They have books by the cash register.

The Haggadah, I said.

Yes, he said, surprised.

So, I guess the locust theme would have been too much for L&I I mused.

Fat Again

Wow, am I fat. I took a photo for a hat that was not selling on my site. It is a flapper hat, and I think the main reason for it's not selling, it that it was not on a person. While it's true, I have been ill for 3 days, and eating almost nothing has lost about 5 pounds, the camera tells me I am gigantic.

I am wearing a large skirt which helps not a bit. Looks like an Army tent, sounds like a flag flapping in a strong wind.

Jeff suggests that I continue to not eat. Easy for him to say. It's 12 now, and I have not had anything, but I am going to have to have something. Yesterday it was 3 minute eggs, chicken soup, and jello, not much of any of that, and I gained a pound. I'm pretty sure it was just water that I lost.

Most of the time, I just forget about it, and then I see a photo. Of course, one year I lost 25 pounds and the pictures STILL made me look fat.

Bad Habit

Every night when I am too exhausted to read any more, and my wrists ache from holding the book up, I put it down, and turn off the light. Immediately I get too hot to be comfortable in bed, and outside of the bed, the heat has been turned down to nothing, which generally registers somewhere between 54 and 61 degrees Fahrenheit (just in case).

I try to drift off, but my mind starts dictating prose that it thinks I should write, and often, I get up, and those words are no longer available to me, so I write whatever comes to mind.

I should not get out of bed, but when you cannot sleep, it is hard to stay put.

Shopping

I could not stand being bound by the snow any longer. No, I was not buried under a mound of snow, but was just stuck inside because I don't think slogging about in 30 inches of snow is a lot of fun. Plenty of people do enjoy it, and when I put it that way, it sounds fun, but no thanks.

So, I went shopping. I am too big, I know it, you know it, every one is aware that I should not be buying clothes in this large size, but I've been good all winter. Not a thing. Not even from the Sal (salvation army). And I bought odd sale type items, and was fairly happy.

Then I went to Bloomingdale's. I saw stuff I loved alllll over the place, but even though I had mad money, I just could not spend 300 bucks on a blouse, jacket or anything else, for that matter. I am not a millionaire, and I tend to ruin my clothing almost immediately. It broke my heart, but I left all the flowery flirty, ruffled, chiffon peasant blouses in the store.

I came home and put on my new mud colored skirt that I would never have bought at regular price, or even on sale, but I had two different 5% offs, 50% on all sale items plus a $20.00 cupon, so the skirt was dirt cheap.

I went running up the stairs, and the skirt made the sound of a sail unloosed, luffing, as they call it, in the wind. Yeah, that's why they go on sale.

More about Brownies...

The Che sera Cook February 6, 2010

Here’s the thing. I used to go to this place in Philadelphia that had giant brownies. they were over 2″ tall and about 3×3 square. They were the best brownies I ever had, and I cannot for the life of me reproduce them. They were very moist but not fudgy,and also not cakey and they were consistent all the way through. Of course that place closed, but I did ask for the recipe and they acted like they did not know where the brownies came from. But I know, they came from heaven.

Appliance Mutiny

I don't know what's going on these days, but my kitchen seems to have a grudge against me.

I have had some trouble baking for about a year, and finally invested in an oven thermometer.It tells me what the actual temperature is, as opposed to what it says on the dial. Just as I suspected, it was at minimum 25 degrees lower than it should be and at max, 75 degrees lower.

The interesting part of that, is that it is not consistant, and coincidentally neither are my baked goods. I have tried adjusting the temp to match with spotty results.

The refrigerator has also started to act up. Suddenly the lettuce is frozen in two days. Ever see frozen lettuce? It does not stay frozen for long. It turns into green slime. Nice. BUT: when you turn the refrigerator to colder the freezer gets warmer. I think that's okay because the freezer was making things frostbitten. But this time, the freezer was too warm so I changed that, and then the refrigerator got too cold, and I am stuck in a circle, never having anything at the right temperature. On the other hand, and this is my go-to these days, I don't live in Haiti, so what's the problem?

The dish washer front fell off on my foot about a year ago. Turns out the crappy almond color that my husband made me buy all appliances to match, and which are going wonky, was actually just paint. The dishwasher (with the permanently stuck soap dispenser) is Harvest, Gold, a color which I presume was popular in the '70s. Swell.

The Water company has been doing a lot of work lately, and I caught one of them in the driveway with one of those wheel counters. I said: why don't you fix the pipes here?

WG: We have been fixing the pipes that are concrete from 1905, yours are cast iron from 1926, so it's going to take a while for us to get to it.

Our water is slowing down to a trickle, and guests won't stay because out of 3 showers, only one gets enough water to use. No baths, nohow.

Used to be I only had trouble with watches, and then with doorbells, two other stories. I don't know what's going on, but as long as they work marginally and stay rooted to the floor instead of roaming the house at night, I can probably deal with it.

I love the night lights..

I went to the dollar store where I loitered, goggling at brightly colored gee-gaws and mylar ballons, tube sox and amazing stacks of multi-colored plastic crap of all manner until Marilyn could extract herself from the long line in the Acme, and stalled in front of a Johnny Depp - Captain Jack Sparrow Pirate night light, realizing suddenly that I was listening to Gloria Gaynor singing "I like the night lights, I love to boogie, yeah...) and realized it was night life, but that it worked for me.

Etsy Blues

Sales have slowed down to a trickle though I have listed my heart out.

Okay, lame Valentine joke, but really, I gotta do more. They suggest the dreadded facebook or Tweeting, but I don't know about that.

So, I reduced the price of 3/4 of the shop to around five bucks. I may be taking a bath, but it might motivate all of you to spend your little pockets off. I sure hope so.

And speaking of Brownies

I decided to help my friend Lolly shorten her video time for her blog. She is a cute 30 something who is a great crafter, and web designer who I befriended. She does not have a TV. Good for her, and she gets a whole lot more than the rest of us mortals. But then I have to explain TV references, because she really isn't lying, she just does not know about what's on.

Find her blog at Lollychops.com and see if you can resist her.

I was telling her that to make her videos shorter would keep people watching instead of wandering to the kitchen for some fortifying brownies:

And speaking of brownies: Dr OZ (an Oprah TV doctor who, in real life is a brain surgeon, who incidentally, my sister caters affairs at his family's house and says he is real life cute)

Ok, he's a guy that people trust and who wrote a book: You, on a diet, (see local bookstore or Amazon) told everyone to dump the fridge of sugar, syrup, (he did not mention jams but I suppose...) fat, transfat, and saturated fat, white flour, etc. This is just not real life. I mean, okay, I switched to the whole grain bagels, but I have got to have butter, brown sugar or syrup in my oatmeal, or it would just be library paste!

I usually add some kinda fruit, and cinnamon. Mmmmmmm.

Aaannd, I like my pasta just the way the Chinese invented it. Plain semolina or wheat, no "good for you kind of stuff" I am sorry, I am just not getting used to it.

Something Fishy

When we were young, our grandfather came to visit every Saturday, or perhaps it was Sunday. He arrived with arms full of bags stuffed with smoked fish and bagels.

He brought lox, whitefish, smoked salmon, and my favorite at the time, smoked sable fish. I have no idea what fish that is actually called,unless it is sable, and I find it to be unbearably oily, but at the time, it was heaven.

He was a medium sized bald man, always in white dress shirt, and due to high arches, his shoes shined, were always untied in a very fastidious way. I can recall him laughing at some caper of my sister or myself, but mainly he appeared always to be calm silent and sober of mein.

Years later, I found out that he used to fish, go gambling and drinking with buddies, playing cards, and who knows what else, and having a lot of fun, but he never looked much like fun to me.

Because I was closer to my grandmother, he grew closer to my sister. Perhaps she feels differently than I about who he was.

He would come to our house and we would feast and then accompany him to the car wash where you could stay inside the car, watching the soap and water slosh against the windows. It was a perfect entertainment for small children, as it was cheap, we were contained in the vehicle, and it was of short duration ensuring that we were in as good a mood at the end as we were at the outset of the journey.

Today, eating an inferior smoked salmon, (which is not lox, but actual hunks of opaque salmon,) on a dehydrated unfrozen english muffin, I thought of my grandfather and his visits. I realize that I was never aware that those goods were expensive, not available in our suburb, and that he drove there from Philadelphia where he lived.

He never brought my grandmother with him. This was just a treat for his daughter (my mother) and his grandchildren, though my father also enjoyed the bounty of the delectable treats.

I was wondering where my grandmother thought he was. Surely, if she knew where he was, she would want to accompany him.

It's hard to find a good smoked fish these days.

Thrift

You know you may have taken the thrift thing too far when you look at the night stand, and realize you have bought the store brand seltzer instead of the generic seltzer you were buying before. It's called Zazz. Really that sounds like something a lot more excitng than seltzer, but it being lateish, I'm not sure what.

I've been trying to make a buck on etsy these days, (http://www.chandeluse.etsy.com) so I have been spending money to make money,like that makes sense, but the thing is, when you are going to make something, food, or crafts, or an arbor (or Ann Arbor, little joke thing there) you are always missing one thing that makes your project unstable, unusable, or just parts with nothing to hold it together.

Don't start me on the craft stores, I am prone to wander in any store I happen into, and come out hours later wondering where the time went, but that's another story. The craft stores are just full to busting with intrigueing looking everythings in little packages hanging on hooks looking desirable. Then there are videos on the net telling you how to use the stuff as if.. and sometimes you learn a thing. But generally I just walk by and only get what I came for, but lately, they have just broken my will and I have bought all manner off odd ink and stamping stuff, and really, it's harmless fun and pretty much needs neither talent nor esthetic judgement, because they take all the trouble out of these projects. I have been using the distress inks. They make it incredibly easy to do what I used to do with acrylic paint. Instant antique papers and documents, photos and all that. I also got some Alcohol inks, but have not gotten into them much yet.

If this sounds like the woozy rambling of a sonambulist, it is. I am wandering in the night kitchen again, but instead of eating, I'm just stream of thought right here.

Odoriferous

I was drinking my new favorite tea when Jeff walked in and asked "what stinks in here?" Since he is always asking that, I did not think much of it.

In fact, just moments before, I was wondering if my deodorant had given out, and smelled the inside of my shirt, and found no offense.

It was the tea! How can a harmless flavor like Black Currant, smell so much like human sweat? It's perfectly odd, and yet I like this tea so much...

Perhaps I should dash off a note to Twining's?

Watching the Feather

Alone on a Sunday on the weekend of Labor Day, I think about the possiblilies for the day.
No friends have called with invitations, and He is sailing, sailing away again, as if he might never return.

In lieu of going out in the car, I decide to breakfast at the Regency. I can walk there in no time at all, and perhaps I might meet one of the neighbors to talk with.

When I get there, Chris, the owner/baker is relaxing outside. I get a nice smile, his curly almond colored hair peeking out of his perpetual baseball cap, his eyes, bright in recognition of a semi-regular customer. Generally, I only go once a week, it being expensive to eat out every morning, and I have a date with my neighbor Mari on the next street. She is busy as a rule, and this is our one time together, though she admits to popping in several extra times a week for her daily au lait.

Having exchanged pleasantries with Chris, I go and order my treat for the day, orange plum scone and accidentally latte instead of au lait, with a bit of caramel syrup.

"I'll be outside" I inform the new girl at the register. In fact, everyone is new, and not knowing the facts of their disposition; school, fired, just left, I have to suspect a new regime with none of the colorful regulars to inspire mutiny among the ranks.

I retire with my scone to a black mesh table under the basically unnecessary awning, as it is on the shady side of the street, and pick up my book; interesting enough and well written, but the narrator is back, and I find nearly everything around me diverting and interesting. My internal companion, speaking in my head, will not stop talking, pointing out the interesting and mundane in no specific order.

Chris himself brings my drink, which is when I can tell, by the inscribed feather in the foam, that I have ordered the latte, with espresso, instead of the au lait, with regular coffee. Some days the latte is kind of bitter, but today, with the inclusion of a heavy dose of caramel, is maybe a bit too sweet, but the dark gritty flavor comes through making it totally indulgent.

As I read, I try to measure out the scone to last until I have finished my beverage, but that's just not going to happen. The two flavors, melded with the butter and flour make a soft crumbly pastry, and it is gone though thoroughly savored, before I have finished drinking.

I love it when I get the feather in my drink, and earlier, months before, I thought I was getting special treatment, a little picture just for me. It is a bad habit my sister chides me for, ascribing specialness to myself. In point of fact, I do not actually think it a bad habit, and also believe myself to be an outsider as I am treated as such by the general public.

With every sip, I expect the feather to disappear, and yet, it remains, long after I am convinced it should. The foam on the coffee is very fine and thick, and I can not drink it separately, but combined with the espresso below. Towards the bottom of the cup, the feather, barely changed, the sweetness becomes cloying, but I must finish to find out the end of my quest. Will it remain in the cup, sitting on the bottom, or will it be quaffed three quarters of the way down?

As it happens, the image does not dispel until the last sip, leaving the slightest tracing of white in a coating that looks like the fur on an elk's antlers, velvety and uncompromised. I wonder if there is someone who can read foam as they do tea leaves. Of course there is always someone who will take your money under false pretences, and I don't really know about the tea leaves, either.

Reluctantly, having met no one else I know, I bus my dishes, and head home with only the narrator chatting away, and my eyes pointing out every stray leaf, and patch of blue sky as a possible photograph.

Post Mortem

Let's face it. Both popcorn and french fries have a shelf life of say, plus or minus five minutes.

I came to work and decided that popcorn would have to be the breakfast of champions today.
As hot and steamy as popcorn comes from the microwave, it soon cools and only minutes after, becomes less fabulous, like a husband, or a diamond, or any other thing which is hard to obtain.

French fries are much the same, first you burn the inside of your mouth on the initial bite, then there is a minute or so where they are delicious, crisp hot oily ambrosia, and then, not.

We always keep eating them to the bottom though. We eat ever faster, trying to recapture the sensation of the first couple, but as the seconds tick by they become soggy, doughy, heavy, similes for the delight we craved when we started eating.

I got nothing else, I'm just calling the shots here.

Lost in Austen Again

I rushed off to the market this morning, tying my bonnet before I had even got in the carriage...
Actually, there was no bonnet involved, but something is afoot.

I was on my way to work at the chandelier restorator where I am employed, and saw a sign for a yard sale. There was nothing enticing about this sign, but follow it I did, to a sale of antiques on a driveway. I asked the guy in the tractor hat how he came to have so much not-junk.

It turned out that he was a clean out guy. In other words, an estate liquidator, or maybe it's the other way. In any case, there was a dazzling array of brass, finely polished, an old silver mirror and brush set, a good deal of depression glass and an impressive collection of black glass which is mysterious and wonderful in itself.

He had a bit of everything, and of course, I needed nothing, but still came away with a tin from his estimable display- Prince Albert, for my father who used to tell of his phone pranks; "well, if he's in a can, let him out!". I also, and for no known reason bought a set of Gumby and his pony Poky, a show from early TV, and what may have been a biker neclace of silver with a claw grasping a rather large chunk of quartz.

I left there to pick up a prescription, and going into the Acme (pinnacle of greatness) I was waylaid by the odor of cooking crab, that at 9 am, no less. Yes, just as in days of old, they were cooking crabs over an open fire, surely a code infraction in these fractious and litigious days. I tarried but for a moment, realizing that I could not take hot crabs, nor live ones to work with me, and sighing, moved into the building.

As I rushed past the aisles of artificial boxed foodstuffs, I came upon a tiny display at the side of an endcap that was comprised of English Foods. There was treacle, TREACLE, for God's sake, which foodstuff I had only read about in fairy tales. Also present was a sauce in an A-1 bottle bearing a name that was more like H-4 (the original) it said the original, that was not my addition. There were digestive bisquits, Devon cream custard, pickallili, Coleman't mustard, all antiquated and definitely English foods.

I mentioned it to the beautiful pharmacy girl whose name always escapes me though she knows my name, and she asked "So you feel like you are in another time period?"
Yes, I said, somehow, things are just a bit wonky this morning. She asked where the section was, and I said "somewhere around 6 I think, on the side. Or I could have made it up."

After that, we discussed yogurts, and I suppose the spell was broken, but it made me happy to have a little out of the normal experience. I was not, even after all that, late for work.

Dancing Machine

The other day a funny thing happened. I was at Frolic Wainright's, and we were leaving togther, me to fix my husband's dinner,he to a business meeting involving cowfolk, thus his attire of jeans, cowboy boots, a hat, and impenetrable shades.

As we passed through the parlor, a lively tune burst forth from the phonograph and Frolic, aptly named, began to gyrate, and to my surprise, took my hand in his.

It was Frolic who for years refused to take me dancing,. He hurt me by citing that our heights were too disparate, and worse, that I could probably not keep up on the floor because of his enormous grace and talent. He knew not at all, that petite as I was, we were equals on the dance floor.

So fifteen years later, you can imagine my shock when he dipped me deeply with infinite ease and grace, and in turn, he was surprised when I floated backward, following as if we were of one body, and lifting one leg high over his shoulder while my hair considered the floorboards.

He held me there for almost a minute when in an instant of inspiration I switched legs, kicking up my right leg, light as air, not at all affecting our balance, and as I rose from that position, pivoting away and laughing in pure joy of that short moment- he spun me and said "Not bad at all." and hastily added; "of course you'd have to wear heels, and I would have to wear flats if we danced." but knowing that all those years we could have been dancing together.

In fact, he never would take me dancing nor anywhere else, for that matter.

My broken heart ached as I started the car, turned on the radio, and going down the steeply turning drive, began to plan dinner.

The big Book of Aches and Pains

I woke up again with that headache that hurts so much my stomach hurts too. Instead of taking my thyroid meds, I took a Tylenol. I have not been taking them much, trying instead enteric aspirin, as it is an anti-inflammatory. I don’t know. It seems to have subsided. I have waked almost every night this week with the same headache. Of course, at the doctor’s today, I totally forgot to mention them.

The other thing I forgot to mention was the rash on my stomach. It seemed so slight that I put it out of my mind. Really, who am I, Oskar Levant? He was a great pianist and hypochondriac. I am a middling hypochondriac, and I never was really good at the piano. For one thing, I never could learn to read music. I also have trouble telling time, but that’s one you try not to tell people. That’s one that they have trouble understanding.
Also, it makes me sound stupid, and in my estimation, and that of others, I am just the opposite.

It is almost 4 AM, and as usual when I cannot sleep, I wake up and write or read.

Anyway, I am thinking about this stomach rash, and the fact that I thought it was just my normal weed rash which for reasons I have never been able to explain always manifests itself on my legs. I may be getting old and overweight, but the one thing I have (had) was perfect skin. My skin is silken, one man likened it to a velvet skirt I was wearing, and he told me that my skin was far softer. Men have always chosen to tell me how good my skin feels rather than how pretty I am. You should tell your lover she is lovely, or pretty or some such, even if she is not so to the general public. That should be a given. I have not had such luck. One young man, who thought I was asleep, told me I was beautiful. He never said such a thing when I was awake.

Wow, I am a giant digresser! So this rash, I am thinking, it could be heat rash, as I get warm and kind of sweaty when I walk too late in the morning. Or it could be the Black dog t-shirt I got from the Sal. The Sal is the Salvation Army, where I get a lot of stuff.

I was scared recently by a woman who was kept from flying with me. We lost the plane because it was infested with bugs.
That’s really all they said except that 3 different crews had refused to get on the plane.

The woman was a nurse, and told me a story where she and her family got on a plane from Ireland, and then several days later broke out in a rash which turned out after much medical research, to be scabies, small bugs which burrow under the skin. So I am thinking I have contracted scabies from this shirt, which, well, I don’t know who was wearing it before me, but generally people in Nantucket where the Black Dog is, do not have scabies, unless of course, they got them from an international flight, which at 4 am makes perfect sense.

I washed the shirt today, and all my walking garb, just in case.

Self Explanatory

So, I was tootling around the net and I found this great bakery, and I want to go but it's a good 3 hours away. Not justafiable.

Then, in the margins was an ad to recommend the best stuff, the best lipstick, (ok) and then the best bathing suit. BATHING SUIT??? Sir, I spit on you, and your advice!

Dress for Success

I need to burn all my clothes. My favorite jeans don't zip.

I bought some crop pants and they make noise when you walk, and ride down when you sit. They are going back, like most things I buy.

I gotta go to a shower, and it's raining. That's appropriate.

No one is going to care what I wear. That's a given, pretty much.

I'm putting a load of it on ebay, but I don't hold out much hope because none of it is juicy couture.

Waiting for the Sale

I put some things on Ebay. Like everyone else on Ebay, I expect to make a killing with my junk.
The thing is, often enough, it is someone else's junk. This time, specifically, it was shoes given to me by a customer at work. I took most of the stuff from her to clear out her front seat, and because I knew I would get to the Salvation Army before she would.

She had some semi pricey stuff, but unfortunately, not knowing my teenage swag, I gave it to the little girl upstairs whose feet are larger than mine. I know of at least two Ebayable items I gave to her, but I felt good about giving her something that cost me nothing but would have cost her mom and arm and a leg. No spilt milk there, really.

I kept the rest to sell or give away but first, I put them up for sale. I have been watching sporadically for a week now, and we are down to the last few minutes, and already two items have gone unsold.

I'm crushed. Brand new shoes listed cheap, and no one is biting. There were the Coach sneakers, but they were not the "cool" ones I guess, and someone paid dearly for them, but they are not turning the cash over to me.

One pair of man made sandals have a big name draw, and I was up to 21 watchers, and I was filled with glee at all the cash I was going to make from this one item, but bidding has been slow, and I may just be able to pay the fees on all of my listings.

So I am wasting your time while killing mine, waiting to see what this lousy pair of shoes brings.

I should just get another job.

Speak no Evil

At the gas station, I rolled down my window, and told the attendant fifteen dollars of regular. I don't know, maybe everyone goes to Jersey, says fill it up, and leaves it at that. I wanted to get the best price, but I was very low on fuel, so I decided to get just about half a tank. This didn't seem like a big deal to me, but the attendant asked, fifteen? Normally in New Jersey, the gas stations are run by some big Sihk organization, and most of the guys have turbans, full beards and heavy accents. The youngish man at my window, though he had dark hair and eyes, had none of those attributes, and so I figured he understood me, and yet he was asking me to repeat my request. Fifteen, I repeated.
Fifteen? He said again.
One, five, I answered him.
One, five? he said?
Wow, I was in the twilight zone again, I was thinking.
Fifteen. I went back to the normal numerical request.
Fifteen?, he aked once more.
Yes, I finally capitulated.
Easy, he said, and proceeded to pump the gas.
Yeah, easy for you to say, I was thinking.

Later, near home, I went to buy milk. The man behind the counter at the local convenience store was friendly enough. He went to put my milk in a plastic bag. I was holding my own shopping bag up on the counter for him to put my purchase. He started to use his own bag again, and I thrust my bag forward again. After the third time repeating this mime, I said "my bag".
He said "I just wanted to see if you would talk".
I laughed, and told him that often, I don't need to talk, and things work out just fine.

It's interesting though, maybe a lot of discussion is what these strangers want from me. It is obvious what I want, and what is going on, but not talking at all seems to them to be aberrant behavior, but for me, it seems okay, particularly early in the morning, when I have not yet spoken to anyone.

Once, on a bus, I almost got into trouble. A black man sat next to me on the almost completely empty bus. I was nervous about him, so I did not say anything. Then he said "What, are you skin struck?" a new phrase for me. I was surprised at that and not speaking, pointed at my hand. "He said, hey, you can't talk, can you?" I thought this might make me less attractive to him so I shook my head in the affirmative. Unfortunately, this was just adorable to him, and he continued to make a pass at me. I mimed that I was married, by pointing at my ring finger, and though there was in fact, no ring on my hand, he understood, but still did not seem to mind. He was musing over our future together, when I decided to get off the bus before my stop, hoping that he would not follow me. " Goodbye, my girlfriend", he yelled, at my retreating back, "see you soon!"I had to walk another twenty blocks, but it was worth it not to be a mute any longer than I had to.

Some days I just don't speak on purpose, and some days it happens by accident. It does not seem to matter, odd things just happen to me, and that's all I can figure.

Short Sleeves

It was a very rainy spring, and Nory was stuck inside. She could go out to hunt for the ever elusive cardigan sweater, but inertia and a stomach full of bagel impeded her progress.

She had been looking for suitable sweaters ever since fall when she took all the worn looking and ill fitting sweaters (mostly from the Salvation Army) back to the Salvation army, so they would not be clogging up her tiny closet.

It's a wonder, she thought, that no one seems to think I will need a sweater in Spring or Summer. They are selling shorts and halter tops which are no longer a staple since letting her short body go to wrack and ruin, but there seems to be no place where an open front sweater can be found. It is as if there was no sea air at the shore, or air conditioning chilling one to the bone in Summer. There is a certain age, it seems, where pulling a sweater over one's head just does not feel right, not to mention the ruination of a questionable hair style.

When it is hot outside, it is always cold inside, chilled to meat preserving temperatures in some places, while in others, there is no such provision at all. Once in a while, a girl can get away with a hooded sweatshirt, all too available, but why no cardigan sweaters heavier than tissue? There are tissue sweaters aplenty, but they are designed to wear over not one, but two or three tiny tank and t shirts, artfully disarrayed so as to show off all the different colors. This adds cost as well as bulk to one's outfit and one's person, which is not so much attractive in a postitve sense of the word.

The other mystery is the short sleeved sweater. Why wear a garment meant to keep one's arms warm, when there are no sleeves? Am I supposed to wear a long sleeved shirt under that? And if that is the case, what do I do when I go back outside and it is too steamy for that long sleeved under layer? Frankly, I am stumped, she thought.

In point of fact, Nory had such a short sleeved sweater, left over from college. In those days, she wore it in winter as a sort of vest over a long sleeve t-shirt, under a jumper. She was nice and warm, and enjoyed this outfit immensely. Unfortunately, with age came a thickening in the waistal and stomach areas that are crying out to be heavily disguised. The peasant shirts almost work, but she never quite feels completely comfortable in them.

It wouldn't hurt to lose a few pounds, she thinks for the twentieth time that week, but how? The answer: excersize and eating less food , is anethema to her, and she puts on the hated hoodie over the large and unflattering sweater from her sister, and sits down at the computer.

Rainy Day Women

It was brillig and rainy on the day Nory decided to garden. Oh, bother, this is not going to work at all, so she threw herself into picking enticing items for the town wide yard sale on the next week.
Lou was in the garage building a dirt sifter for the compost. He insisted on using two by four wood so that with the addition of the dirt, the sifter could not be lifted without the help of a superhero, but Nory left him to his own devices.

Since she lives on a private road, and the nature of yard sales is kind of hit-and-run, Nory decided to set up around the corner at her friend Mia's house, aka; the Castle. It is not going to be fun dragging all that stuff out of the house and around the corner to the other house, only to probably have to drag it back home, but that's the plan.

Now to decide what she can afford to part with. There is so much stuff in her house, it seems incredible, and yet, until they take her to the "home" it seems that almost anything might be needed just after getting rid of it.

Everyone has done this at one time or another, she thinks. Stuff you got rid of and went looking for later, was probably stuff that should have gone anyway. The memory of your old crap is always better than it is when you are looking at it clogging up your closet, she thinks.

Nory goes to root in the attic for possible items to unload.

Dizzy test #1

Lots of rain. Jeff is taking me (2:30) to get the dizzy tests. I hope I am not too sick like the last time. I think they have to try and make me sick to see what I have, but it's almost medieval, the way they go about this stuff even though it includes electrodes and machines hooked up to my head. Actually, maybe it's more Mary Shelley than anything else.

The worst part is waiting in that musty old hallway in that antique building. It's a fantastic old house on Pine street that has been virtually untouched except for the crappy wrinkling carpeting, since the 1800's. That's how long it has been an ENT office, and frankly, the woodwork could use some cleaning.

Anyway, the doctor is supposed to be the best in the country, but he is eccentric as hell.
If he's good enough for Julie Andrews , I suppose he's good enough for me.

The thing is, there is a lot of waiting. You might think that if they were running 3 hours late,they might tell you, but no, they would just as soon have you waiting in the hallway for 3 hours until you are all worked up.

The other thing is: the girl who gives the tests is this pretty red haired Russian woman who has incredible B.O.

It's bad enough being made dizzy, but to have to smell her in a small room in the basement with cold air coming in through the door to the outside is just hell.

You think I'm over sensitive?

Yes I am.

Still, I think I am entitled to my opinons.

Male Dilemma

I have to do a lot of mailing stuff at my job, I kind of enjoy wrapping unwieldy items that are larger than my whole body and getting them out in the world.

Last month I mailed 7 Murano chandeliers to Dubai and did not break one piece of glass which was totally amazing. It makes me even more suspicious of the woman on ebay who sent me a picture of a broken kitchen bowl I sent her. She would have had to hit it with a hammer to break that thing, but that's a different story.

I found out the hard way, that you cannot mail a floor lamp in one piece. I did it twice and they broke both of them beyond redemption. (especially the 1920's glass parts that were triple bubble wrapped and then tubed and then wrapped again.) How they broke that stuff is just crazy. I did notice the forklift holes in the sides of the box when it was returned to me. What that tells me is, if it is not square, don't try to mail, UPS, or FEDEX it.

You can go to USPS.com and make mailing labels and have your stuff picked up right at your house. Unfortunately, they do not include the cheaper mailing options as media mail, first class, or parcel post on that site. I asked at the post office and they all played dumb.

Imagine a bunch of butch guys in those bad uniforms with bad haircuts (really, I am going to have to do some serious investigation on why postal employees have bad haircuts. Maybe that's what makes them go "postal", they hate their hair!!) Anyway, imagine these guys shrugging and perhaps fooling with their name tags, and denying any knowledge of what is on their web pages.

There is something wrong with that, but I suppose those guys never have to mail anything that does not fit in an envelope.

Ear, nose and throat.

Went to the nose and thyroid guy and he says "didn't anyone tell you to have a needle aspiration?" And of course, I said no, even though the last time someone did a thryoid scan they stuck the needle in right there, without so much as a "by your leave".

Actually that guy did me a favor because now they want some more blood MORE BLOOD) from me and then the needle aspiration.

So then he sprays some decongestant/anesthtic up my nose and it goes down my throat and I start to panic because my throat is getting numb, and he is all "what's all the anxiety about"? as he opens my nose with a pair of pliers to a size just this side of a golf ball and says "put your head down and relax" as he is pulling up and out. OUCH OUCH OUCH. Let's see YOU relax with a numb throat and a nose full of pliers.

By that time, I am in full hysteria. OK, I'm a hypochondriac, but I really have a problem. Multiple problems, and this guy is so; ho-hum, I've seen a lot worse, like that matters to me.

So then he asks why I am so full of anxiety. You are just radiating anxiety there (in the chair that my feet don't touch the foot bar of). That's no way to live! He's telling me, and I already know this for a fact, that I do not care for the unbidden anxiety.

This sends me toward tears, but I don't bust out and cry, I just mumble some stuff about something.

Then he asks me if I exercise. Well, I spent the whole day digging in the yard, but perhaps that is not what he means, and as I do not spend every day lifting and hauling and digging I say no. He recommends that I walk a mile a day, which is not out of the question if my balance were not compromised as it so often is. I will do it, but not if the temperature is below 50. That's for someone healthy. No arguments here please.

I mention that I used to dance, and he actually says "tsk, tsk, it's even worse for someone who used to be active" Thanks, Doc. I said "You are tsk-ing me?" I cannot believe there is anyone left in the world who does that. He is India Indian but quite Americanized except for his lack of empathy and the tsking. I still cannot believe the tsk.

Another wonder recommendation is to use a neti pot 3 times a day. It is a small flower watering can or genie lamp that one pours salt water through one's sinuses with. It's not terribly pleasant for me, but it looks like that's a given. I mixed the solution up, (it has Karo syrup in it! who knew that a doctor would require me to stick corn syrup up my nose?) wishing I could warm it gently somehow without trudging downstairs to the kitchen, and yep, it still burns in my head. My whole head starts to tingle especially in the back of my brain section. It's like ice cream brain freeze with a kick. That's one thing about old age: way too much maintenance. I just did not need another routine to make it more difficult to get out of the house in the morning.

By the time I am 80, should I make it, I will have to stay up all night just to get in all the irrigation, brushing, flossing, slathering of extremities, grooming, makeup, wardrobe, inhalations and a million pills flushed down my throat.

Now it turns out that the tests they want have to be done at inconvenient hospitals and that for no reason I can fathom, they have to make the appointments for me. I can schedule an MRI for a brain tumor, but not anything on the thyroid. One more thing I must endure, only before, when they wanted 20 tests done, I wished they would schedule them for me. I managed that, and suddenly I am annoyed that they will do something for me. Obviously all this nose action has me in a tizzy.

Now I am typing while breaking in some new red shoes from Target. They are the only store that carries shoes in my size. They have some swell designer knock offs that are Palm Beach Tacky but the smallest size is one bigger than my feet. I may try them anyway. That will make me feel better.

I am also cooking a brisket. I was going off meat, but Martha had this recipe, and I do love some brisket. I put the wine in but I am used to a recipe with soy sauce. This had better not be a disaster.

The Kalishnikov Babes

I got this postcard today. It is obviously a send up, but still it seems a bit off. I'm not sure how I got on this mailing list.

Evidently, it is about an actor who takes a job to get into the "big time." It's another case of poor life choices meets bad taste is timeless. (the last a quote from the late Frank Zappa).

You just don't get enough bad art like this any more.

At least I don't.

It's kind of cold again. I was hoping for spring. Yesterday we had hail that varied form marble to golf ball size. It was quite surprising.

Over the weekend we went to a party with a 60's theme. Though most of us lived through it, few of us wore anything resembling our 60's wear. My clothes have not changed all that much. Jeans, boots, and a peasant blouse were pretty much the same. I even had a necklace left over from high school. I could never bring myself to get rid of it.

Harry wore his striped hipster bell bottoms. We were all amazed he could fit into them.

I fit into them standing up, he said. Driving over here was kind of tough, he admitted.

Driving Drunk

Last Night, I could not get to sleep. I came upstairs to the computer and viewed a couple of forwarded youtube movielets. One was of extreme sheep herding, the other was of a drunk girl. I am not completely sure she was kidding, but I thought it was stupid of her to post it anyway...
I finally fell asleep at about 4 AM. I had a long dream and this is what I remember:

I was at work, and there was a leak in the basement. The water was rising at an alarming rate, so we called the plumber, and when he arrived, we showed him the problem and left the building. I was with my boss, and we left Karen alone to watch the business.

We went downtown. It was not a town I know, but it was the downtown district never the less. We wandered around and my boss gave me some gaudy earring/hair things, and I clipped them still on their cardboard, to my turtleneck, and we continued our travels.

At one store he ran in the back door and quickly returned, giving me a pastel printed very large tote bag made of some kind of water proof material which had inside it, a matching umbrella. It looked sort of like a Monet scene but kind of loud as those reproductions sometimes are. I was not sure I liked it, or why he was buying me stuff, and as I was already carrying a large full, heavy tote, I was not sure of the need for it, but I took it and thanked him and we continued on.
I asked him if he had stolen it, as he was in and out in seconds, and he reassured me that it was all right without actually admitting to stealing it.

Eventually we ended up at a French restaurant that was running some kind of special promotion. I recall my boss speaking and waving expansively with his arm while holding a large glass of red wine in a proper if outsized red wine glass. He was standing, not sitting, and walking around the restaurant looking at the posters for music concerts.

I told him that we could leave, or he could order "off the menu", something not so pricey. He said it was ok, but next thing I knew, I was nearing the end of what seemed to be a liverwurst sandwich and the crusts were falling apart. I put the last bits down on the plate as it was getting messy.

The waiter gave us a cupon for a free ice cream. The picture was of a nutty Buddy ice cream cone that we used to get from the grocery store.
There was a giant Dairy Queen across the parking lot, and we went in.

At this point, my boss became Meredith Viera from TV. She used to do news, but now does a morning show and a quiz show. More money, less work. Good for her.

The inside of the building was nothing like the outside which was larger than a regular DQ but inside it was like a fancy gelato store. We were looking for the flavors on the wall, and though there were enough signs, we could not find any flavors listed. Meredith was getting cranky and loud.

Unfortunately, Meredith was very drunk from the red wine at the restaurant. She wanted an ice cream for each of us although we only had one cupon. I asked the counter person for an extra, but they said it would have to be a prescription, and promptly signed one with a prescription for an extra ice cream and handed it to me. We never found the flavors, and in fact I don't know if we ever got the ice cream. I think we left without it.

It gets a bit fuzzy here, but we got into a large black car to get back to work, but suddenly we were in Tucson, Arizona. I do not recognize where we were, but there was an empty lot with a person sitting like the little ceramic souvenirs; wearing a sombrero and a blanket, and sitting with knees up and head down, the man was sitting in an almost empty red dirt lot. Meredith drove off the sidewalk and onto the red dirt yard, and I hollered at her to stop so that I could drive.

I was surprised that she capitulated so easily. I was feeling tired and kind of drunk myself, but I thought maybe I could drive without hitting anything. When I looked up, the man in the yard had turned into a woman in native dress, frozen in a tableaux with one arm outflung behind her and the other cocked partially over her face. She was alarmed by the rogue car and was calling her children who were running around in the area.

I started driving back, and realized we were never getting there by closing time.

Finally, I woke up and was feeling pretty dizzy and tired. I decided it was best to get up and get on with things. The house is freezing. It is just Spring, but it is cold out today, and the heat in the house has not yet been turned on.

Cutesy

I have a new online friend. Maybe my only online friend and she talks cute. I have a bad habit, when I meet someone who speaks pidgin English, I imitate them thinking that they will understand me better. Sometimes it works. I used to go to cosmetology school (got my licence and all) (yeah, now you don't respect me any more) and there was an Italian lady. You really had to speaka likea dis for her to get it. I spent a year with her, and frankly, in the end she needed to take a translator to the test to get through it even though she could speak English, she did not always understand it unless things were mispronounced her way.

Don't tell me I'm talking down, I'm just trying to get my message across. This drives my relatives to distraction, but I am sort of convinced that it works.

Anyway, back to the online girl, I like her, and to be friendly. because sometimes my writing comes off a little too hard edged, I have started to be cutesy back. I can't tell anyone because then they would be nauseous and judgemental, but it's kind of fun masquerading as a nice person.

Really, I would rather confess to something worse, but that's all there is. For now, anyway.

Ex Post Moisture

"Your sister's on the phone!" comes the voice from upstairs.
"Tell her to call back later, I'm half slathered" Nory rumbles.
The thing about getting older, is there is so much maintenance one must do on the corpus delectus. First, you just have to shave legs and armpits, then just a light lotion on the legs, and by the time you pass twenty five, you have added 4 or 5 other things, and have to pay way more attention to flossing than you ever expected to. Anywhere after 50 and suddenly you are immersing yourself in potions, lotions, and anything to get rid of the jowls, wrinkles and dry extremities. You start to tell people things like: "a whole lot of stuff you are never going to want to see is going on under these clothes." Anyway:
"Get the phone!" again. "get the phone!!"
Ufff, Nory steps lightly across the wooden floor so as not to break a hip, sliding on heavily lotioned toes, and then hip hops across the thick carpeted hall, trying not to leave spots she would have to tend to later, and then skids onto the flooring of the library room where she snatches the reciever off the phone with slippery fingers.

"What??" she shouts.
"Well, if you're going to be that way, we can talk another time" barks the younger of her two sisters.
"It's just that he wouldn't listen to me, and I had to get the phone full of moisturizers" Nory says, "I'm too slippery to talk right now"falling onto the couch with and audible phhuff.
"Never mind, then." says Lili.
"Well, now I'm seated, I'm more receptive to comments"
"No, you put me off, I'm calling another day"Lili waxes imperiously.
It's always something, isn't it(to herself).
Nory hangs up the phone and flails limbs, willing the unguents to sink in.

I'm Tired

I have been surfing the web lately. Going to a lot of craft and cooking blogs. Wow these people are ambitious and busy! I do not know where they get the time, energy, knowledge to set up so many fancy do dads to their sites, and then still cook and photograph everything they eat or bake in every stage of production and still have time to check out hundreds of other blogs and read and list them. I read one clever site that seemed to be about liquor, so I went to the sites I saved and still could not find that one I wanted to check on. They were so clever and smart.

I rarely write any more, and when I do it is in my head just after setting it on the pillow and I come up with this breathless prose that I am sure will hold until tomorrow, and ... you know the story. It's just not there any more, is it? I tried keeping a writing pad and pen at the ready, but that just doesn't work. Obviously I need more pictures, more food and more crafts, and certainly more clever patter to guide others to my little lair here. I may even need to change blog spots (to make a pun). Some place like blog her or other might lead people to me. Possibly I need to write to them, but I have once or twice and maybe they thought I was trying to sell them something other than just my stories of mundane life. I need more adventure, more derring do or derring don't.

Cereal

I got a spam saying free- get your
100 boxes of cheerios. Ok, I like the cereal, maybe better than the next guy, but really, what do they want me to do with 100 boxes of cheerios?
If I had a big enough truck, I could take them to a food pantry or whatever it is that they call them, but I don't have a truck. I can just imagine walking around the house, putting a box or two on any given horizontal surface. Nice motif you have going here, Cherie, are you expecting a visit from Seinfeld? When I moved into the house, the realtor, who is my neighbor said we would have to go elsewhere to sign papers because she had no horizontal surfaces. Really, we thought, what the hell is she walking on?
Anyway, I'm kind of nervous about opening the message, but they really piqued my imagination.

It's been that kind of day. The cat has been going into the cat box and peeing outside the cat box. I found the ideal box on line but no one carries it, not even Rubbermaid, who makes it. I went to the hardware store to order it, and their server went down, and I came home with a small cement mixing trough. The hardware guys were pretty understanding. We hung around and talked cats for a while, and then I took a chance and bought the cement thing.
Now for the acid test....

Protest Attire

When I spoke to Steve, he told me about a gay demonstration in D.C. that he was considering attending. Our friend Ron had called him the night before to ask what to wear. I could not believe it; to me, this was hilarious, and I said, : "I'd say go right for the blue chiffon. What did you say?"

Steve said "I told him to wear a hat."
A hat? I make hats all day. It's barely a living, but it is what I do, and frankly that would be the last thing I would have said. I would have been thinking practially: dress in layers, be comfortable, use sunblock, wear something approriate for tear gas, or that would not come apart if you are dragged off by your feet. That's the way I am, hopelessly pragmatic.
What made you think of wearing a hat, I asked him.
"I just thought, it could rain, or it might be really hot and sunny and you would be more obvious, too."

I'm not sure that one would want to be noticed during a protest, but the rest made sense.

"Well, after the hat suggestion, Ron asked me how about a hood?" Steve went on, but before finishing I interjected "What?, Like a ski mask? That would be swell."

"No," Steve soldiered on despite my attempts to throw off the line of discourse, "No, like a parka or a windbreaker kind of thing?" Then Steve said "I told him absolutely not."
So then Ron asks "Well what then, a pith helmet?"
"And then Steve recalls" by that time, I was so disgusted by the conversation, that I said no, I meant something like Lady Di would wear."

"Now Yer talkin' ".

I just could not get over it; who asks what to wear to protest in? You just decide do I want comfort or do I want to project an image, such as: I'm gay and I want to look white collar, or military, or truck driver.

Come to think about it, the whole affair is starting to sound like the Village People, and maybe that's the point....

Motherhood

I was working a craft fair booth, trying to pry some cash out of a woman across my table. She was being mercilessly but methodically harrangued by a small boy of about 8 years. She was tough though, and in between words to me she would say stuff like: "Go away", "find your father", "play a game with someone,"; she had a millon retorts and I suppose it was her delivery, but I was laughing so hard that I had to apologise to her and explain that I just thought she was really funny.

People aways ask me why I don't want any kids.
My answer is that there is too much furniture involved.
Usually they are so taken aback, that they just shut up. It's a great defense.

The real answer is that kids are little bastards to each other and everyone else. They have constand demands, and they alway smell like spit.

My customer said "They should ask me about raising kids, I have four and I could write the book. I don't even have to look," she continued, "I just feel them behind me and I tell them to get lost. Just a minute ago I yelled at a kid and when I turned, I realized she wasn't even mine! The look of fear and horror on her face was so awful, I almost had to buy her something to make her feel better."

I really liked that the woman said almost.

Drugs in the Dark

My mind whirrs as soon as I go to bed. Often I fall asleep with the television on, and wake up later to find that my mind will not sleep for talking to me. I walk to the other bathroom, go to a certain shelf, find a bottle of antihistamines and take one, replacing the bottle where it came from. Generally I can fall back to sleep relatively soon after that.

It has occurred to me that someone could change the contents of that bottle, or that they could just change the bottle, but I would recognize the shape in my hand, and the way the bottle closes.

It's a crapshoot, but since it's not a high traffic area, I'm going to go with trust.
I'm already tired.

Screwy Degree

Dee's mother was pretty miffed. She didn't want to lend Dee any money for a trip to Europe.
"You have to go out and get a job you don't like, just as everyone else does," her mother told her.
"Yeah, or be happy the rest of your life; good choice" quipped Fred, Dee's lover, on receipt of the news.
"Ma, I don't even know what those jobs are: Dee countered. "I mean, those jobs I could do that would pay me decent money and "benefits"; I don't even know the name of those jobs."
"That's just what I mean", her mother says, "You're 33 and you've been enjoying yourself all along and you used your inheritance and you haven't made any money at it, so you have to get a job. I'm not picking at you dear, but just have to get a good job."
"Ma, all the people who have those jobs have some screwy degree in paper work".
Dee's mother hates this theory. "What the hell do you mean by that?"
"You know Ma, like my cousin Bitsy who works for the government counting heads on wheat in Africa. What kind of degree does she have?"
Dee's mother is stumped "well, I guess, well, it's like in statistics or the law of averages" mom says still secure in her argument.
"Right" Dee says, "Just like I told you,; a scrwy degree in paperwork." Dee feels justified and virtuous no matter how much of a sponge she is beginning to sound like.
"Look Dee, there is no reason for you to criticize her, she got a good job with good pay, and you don't need a degree to find a job like that just because it's stupid".
This is great, thinks Dee, she can hardly wait to call her starving artist friends; they will think this is hilarious.

Denny's Story

My friend Dennis got some guns a few years ago. I guess what made me nervous was how drunk he was when he showed them to me, and how he was so proud to own them. He was going to sail the Caribbean, and feared the pirates, (there really are pirates in the Caribbean) so he got himself a gun, and a little pearl handled one for his girlfriend. He treated them like fine art. I was hoping they were not as loaded as Denny.
I have not seen him in a couple of years so when I saw him at his mother’s house, I asked “are you packin?’” like some gun moll in an old movie, but he did not get the reference.
He had brought his cats along, as his trip to mom’s was far from home. The cats were found as kittens, and as adults, were puffy black elegant animals with white skunk stripes in their lustrous hair.
It turned out that the guns were left at home. “That’s good” I said, “It’s not nice to visit your mother with cats and guns.”
That could be the name of a band Den will never be in, because he’s tone deaf, but he loves music and has no inhibitions about singing anytime, anywhere. Sort of like; guns and roses or cats and roses, or cats and guns….see how easily this gets out of hand?
Once, after Denny broke up with a woman that I was friends with, I told her that when he slept with me, he would lie in bed afterwards crooning country and western ballads, and that, combined with his smoking was what put me off him. “He never sang to me” the woman said.
“Not once? I asked.
“Nope, not once.” She returned. That was awkward as he was with her for years and with me about a week.
At that point, I apologized to her, but neither of us knew what for.

Oil Shortage

I had made up a whole conspiracy theory about the oil and the government, and sure that it was so memorable, I did not write it down. I forgot it. Crap! It was hilarious.
It sort of reminded me of the time at Tyler (art school) that I had a test and proved that the French Revolution was the cause of overpopulation and air pollution in the world (1971ish) today.
I wish I had a copy of that one. It was such a beauty that I got a C+ even though it was total rubbish.

As the World goes by

Hey, howya doin? I know I haven't written in a while, and I'm really not a friend except by relation, but I was just wondering how the soap opera of your life is going...
OK, that was maybe not so kind, but we all live in our little soap opera kind of worlds, mine is a bit Ivory Soapish, but still, as the World Turns......

Grocery Talk

Nory had to go to out for groceries. She had a big cold, her head filled with wet newspaper, as far as she could tell, but it would take more than that for Lew to go to the store.
At the coldcut counter, she asked the girl working "What's the difference between the store brand and the other one?"
"The other one's more gooder." came the reply.
"OK, give me more gooder, Nory said, going along with it.

The Bobs

Nory was going to an afternoon taping of the Bobs at the World Cafe with her friend Marilyn.
Marilyn paid money to support their favorite radio station, and in return she got invited to these affairs during working hours when hardly anyone is available. "They only ask me to the dorky ones" she complained. "I guess you have to give at a different level to get the good stuff". Despite the 95 degree weather, Nory had to contemplate an acceptable outfit to wear. Used to be she would put on just about anything, snatch up her wooden staff with the plastic lilies wrapped around it, and be off, ribbons afloat. Now, in her late 50's she tries to fit in with seriously mixed results. What am I worried about she thinks, with these people, I will be lucky if they are wearing pants! She mulls that over for a while, and decides that pants are definitely on, but she can say to people later; "I was lucky they were wearing shirts!." She settles on that.
She wears something schleppy with too many bracelets. That works she said, going out the door.

The Boat Race

“It’s for you.” Nory’s boss Will handed the phone to her. It was Lew, her husband; “Hi, I went down to the river, and they were having dragon boat races”. Lew usually went sailing on Wednesday nights, and loved the water. “I asked if anyone needed a paddler, and they told me to ask around. I found a team that would take me, and we won the race!”
“That’s great!” Nory congratulated him. It was good to hear him so elated about anything.
Nory was amazed at Lew’s nerve to go and ask to join up just as the races were to begin. He was strong and healthy, but the regular racers get up at 5 am to practice every day before work. “It was grueling” he admitted. “I wonder if it would have been so hard if it were not 95 degrees out.” “There are 20 people in the boat just paddling their asses off.”
“I can’t believe they just let you in.” “You got off your bike and walk in and suddenly you are part of the action, eating their barbeques, getting team shirts and then, to win a race, well, that is amazing”.
Later, Nory tells the story about Lew to her sister Rita. “Yeah,” Rita quipped, “I was at the Olympic trials the other day, and I saw them running, and I said, huh, I could take that guy.” And then: “So I said to Emeril, hey, Emeril, you are puttin’ way too much fennel in that crap. You gotta lay off.”
Nory started laughing at her sister’s fast wit. “Exactly!” she said. “I can’t believe he does this stuff.”

New Age cleaning.

I came home and cleaned my relatively clean kitchen floor with 7th generation cleaner. The floor became sticky. What is in that crap? It certainly does not clean anything. Also, tried making home cleaner from vinegar, water and baking soda, as instructed by some celebrity on Oprah. No, nothing seemed cleaner that it would have been had I used water alone, and that woman is hard of smelling if she thinks that the vinegar smell does not linger. It was like living in a pickle barrel for 2 days.