Weblog 222

May 09, 2010~ 3:00 am
Totally May and totally LOVELY! That's the look of things around here. THOSE happy-looking buttercups abut my house, back and front. It gives the place a welcome wash of bright colors and freshness. I just love them. What is really neat is that I don't even have to think about them- the simply show up with the robins.



Closer!


Cheerful perennials that shoot up and caress the foundations every spring. My azalea bush is in full bloom- bright pink blossoms in an abundance that makes me dizzy looking at 'em.



(I snapped these pictures on Monday of this past week, just after I'd gone out to replenish the bird feeding station.)



And there it is, on the stump that's all that's left of the pine tree that was cut down last year. It makes a handy table for their pyrex pie plate full of peanuts and cracked corn. My beloved gnome is the overseer, standing tall on his perch on the porch railing. The most stately of my visitors right now, is Mr. Pigeon (and off to the right, a group of house swallows.) He stolls in, strutting amiably, feigning only mild interest in the food



but he gradually works his way to the stump, circles it for a while and with slow and thoughtful step, he climbs the stump and begins pecking at the corn. Mr. Nonchalance! LOL!! It's been my great joy to see my buddies out in full force again. (So far, the pigeons haven't claimed the whole area- I stopped feeding last year when I'd attracted so many pigeons, I'd pull into the carport each day to find my roof and yard looking like Hitchcock's 'The Birds' and it creeped me out- and kept all my other little feeders away. Those suckers are GREEDY!)

So here I reside, in springtime splendor....



and feeling QUITE HAPPY this year on Mother's Day. I had a surprise waiting on my back porch- a styrofoam cube from the U.S. Postal Service, and inside was a mug from my son Matt and family. It's covered in pictures of Matt and Nicky and the five kiddos. There was a card in the mailbox with the same array of pictures. Here's my 'photography-challenged' capture of that card



Even the newest member, three month old Asher is featured. I'm very lucky to have such a rollicking, lively crew. Tonight I watched Bill and Kay while Holly and Gary went out to dinner. A pretty package was presented when I walked in the door and inside, I found BIRDSEED and the cutest ceramic feeder!



So tomorrow, it goes out on the stump, filled with goodies! I love those green, chubby birds lining the long green leaf. What a delightful thing! Kay and Bill were quite excited to present it to me.

I had gifts for them too-- a 'cast off' blue and yellow HUGE dump truck that someone at work had discarded into our dumpster, but a kindly co-worked jumped in to fish it out for me --and a Barbie limousine still at the house here, from when their mother lived with me. It's about 2 1/2 feet long, pink and white, and decaled all over with the luxury accoutrements that such a thing would have---- and Bill and Kay loved both of them.

Kay has a boatload of Barbies- most with wild, thick hair. We played on the living room floor with them, and they laughed till they nearly cried as I made one wild-looking Barbie play a sort of 'Kill Bill' Quentin Tarantino SUPER ASS-KICKER who took on Bill's Star War characters, and various plastic aliens and army men. Every time she'd huff and puff, talking in a gutteral voice and shaking her wild mop of tangled hair around, her long legs kick-boxing and shooting her challengers across the floor or under the couch- then making a lightning get away in her limousine, they EXPLODED with LAUGHTER. We had a grand old time. They stayed up till 10:30 because 'Superman II' was on TV. (Gosh, it gave me a lump in my throat to see how young and fit and handsome Christopher Reeve looked. Only a year younger than me-- and with that awful accident still ahead of him. Gave me goosebumps, like I could feel someone walking over his grave.)

Lesson here: life is terribly short. Enjoy the really good stuff as it's happening. Like spring. Like flowers and birds... and grandchildren. And breath itself, and the blessing of each and every day. Appreciate it. It flies. Nothing is guaranteed, so take not a thing for granted. Hug all of it.

And HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY, all you dear ladies out there. You deserve a great day.




May 09, 2010~ 12:50pm
Sipping coffee and browsing here, preparing to get dressed and go over to the Home and pick up mum to drive her to my sister's for a yummy homecooked Mother's Day meal. I came across a beaut of a site. Thrillingly visual and imaginative. LOTS of interesting links in the righthand sidebar, but one picture caught my eye right off.



Do you know what that is? It's a BOOKCASE! And you'll find many others just as quirky on a great site called Weburbanist. Go take a peek. You'll be fascinated!




May 11, 2010~ 7:30 am
I've had to uninstall and reinstall my Firefox browser. (Yes.....I use an older version- I HATE the crap they've thrown into it now.) Finally got it working the way I want it to (this has been going on for TWO WEEKS)- and guess what?

As you all know, GOOGLE is deeply embedded in Firefox and Firefox 3 point SOMETHING or other just came out and yes, it's made it more proprietary, blocking and breaking things that aren't broken but are bringing in less revenue via ads, cookie tracking, etc, and disguising it as 'new, EXCITING! user-friendly' toolbarred to death bait for morons who don't think about these things, just apply new 'APPS' (God, I despise that word)-- well May 10th, and sometime after I had things finally running smoothly and fast --they murdered my FAVORITE secure search utility. I AM PISSED! They took down 'Scroogle'. Made it useless! (Who? you say?) Why Microsoft IE8 and FIREFOX 3 point something or other, that's who.



And this old broad is DAMN SICK AND TIRED OF RIDING THAT SNEAKY 'GOOGLE ASS' EVERYWHERE!

(Between you and me and the bedpost---) I found my own solution, but I won't talk about it here. (Talk about it, it gets zapped) - but I guarantee I will not allow cookie-tracking or search histories of any kind...yes, I'm still riding lean and mean, but OH do I hate those King Midas f*ckers!

So I've been fiddling and struggling with my browser, finding a way around this new wrinkle, and it's all I've been doing. (Even decided to take time off from my DOODLE SITE. It's been time-consuming and exhausting so there'll be nothing new there till I'm used to this altered way of doing things, and until I'm sure it's stable, and I trust it. Just look at poor Scroogle-- go on. Type in a search term and see what comes up.

I could just cry. That thing was lickety-split fast, retained NOTHING of my browsing, and now it's history.

(I sure do wish that mule could kick.
I know an ass that badly needs it.)




May 12, 2010~ 7:15 am
OMG!Scroogle's BACK!! I just clicked on my own link above here, and sure enough, there it is. Thank you, thank you, thank you! (And for those who've never used it as their default search, see how CLEAN it is....no ads? I love it like a favorite relative! (I still can't wait to go home tonight and try this other browser on my flash drive, though. Have to keep ahead of bastards at Microsoft and Google.)





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