Wired Karisma

Weblog 313

2012-02-12T05:35:00.014-05:00

February 12, 2012~ 6:00 am
Completely missed my midnight uploading to Blogger. I was ASLEEP. (Snow this weekend. Snowbound and quiet)-- haven't been out since Friday afternoon; every tree and bush is laden with about 5 inches of white stuff.

Temperatures are in the teens and 20's with PLENTY of wind. I mostly slept and read and lazed about....ODD hours for sure... up during the night and asleep most of the day on Friday evening and Saturday. Today of course, I'm seeing my mum this afternoon, so I'll have to dig out, put gas in the car and buy her a newspaper. I didn't do any shopping, but I have provisions enough (and I think mum's even stocked up on her Entenmann's chocolate chip cookies- I usually bring a box on Sundays) so no worries there. Outside.... it's the PERFECT landscape for BIRDS.

Like that fat little stylized painting of a broad-chested robin, berries nearby. The cold and snow doesn't seem to affect our avian friends one bit, and man..... they sure look pretty posed against a backdrop of fluffy white!

Here's a Monet painting of a magpie perched atop a fence after a snowfall.

I love the buttery tints of sunlight in that one. Monet's colors are so subtle and layered... it adds an immediacy to his style that truly lends to the feeling of a caught, real moment. (Yes, I've browsed all manner of artwork this weekend. It's like one long solitary trip through a museum, and very relaxing.)

Tuesday is Valentine's Day. Wayne did show up on Friday after work for a quick meal at Calabria's, which is a stone's throw up the road. We didn't visit the grandkids, didn't shop... it had begun to spit flurries at 5 p.m. so I advised him to drive home BEFORE the roads got slick and nasty. But he brought a lovely, sparkly red Valentine's day bag covered in hearts and filled with chocolate, fudge, a lovely HUGE card, and yes.....

a wee stuffed animal. That round little guy is 'Tumbles' the cat, soft and squishy and adorable. He'll take his place propped on my bed pillows, next to the pink frog of last year. LOL!!! (No matter what you hear, no gal is EVER too old for stuffed animals!)

Wayne's fretting about my ancient furnace also prompted yet another gift..... a bag from Walmart containing two smoke detectors and two carbon monoxide sensors. His terror of my 70-year-old Sears furnace knows no bounds. I WILL install them.... just not during this lazy, snowbound weekend. (Once I find the power drill in that MESS of a pantry closet. I know it's in there, buried beneath a ton of old Christmas lights, vacuum cleaner attachments I'll never use, gardening tools I'll never touch again and all manner of things I keep because I'm too damn lazy to throw away. Of the seven deadly sins.... SLOTH is mine own.)

Oh, and I was so saddened this morning to read that Whitney Houston had passed away. Poor, poor girl. All that talent, all that early fame... then, as happens all too often, a slippery slope into drugs and addiction and a disasterous marriage that kept her there. She had a voice like a claxon, with power and beauty to spare. How tragic... yet how sadly predictable. Rest in peace, girl.

February 12, 2012~ 7:50 pm
Got to see mum today. The roads were clear- all except my back alley, but that's par for the course. The new car negotiated the slippery tracks very nicely indeed, and I had no problems returning- going back UP the alley driving home.

I did stop at the local supermarket to get a few things- not nearly what would be a full weekly shopping trip, but I think I'll be fine with what I have. There's a new lady at table six. Very thin, very hunched and has a smoky, cultured voice. I don't know her age, but I think she's been placed in assisted living due to emotional issues

We all had pleasant conversation during dinner, but when Joan asked me if I had children, I told her two, a boy and a girl. When I told her my son was in Afghanistan for 6 months, there was the strangest, IMMEDIATE reaction. She scrunched up her face, her eyes filled with tears and she began moaning and rubbing her eyes, saying, "Oh no.... oh nooooo. Get out, get out, get out! We need to get them OUT!" Some deep, hideous sorrow had gripped her- and I felt helpless to do anything. There was such pain written on her face. I kept telling her he'll be home soon, four months to go, that I understood-- and how I had been MUCH worse with his year's tour in Iraq, but she continued to shake her head, both fists mashed against her face.

That stunningly dark painting above is by Augustus Schenck, painted in 1878, and it's called "Anguish". Anguish is exactly what I saw in Joan's reaction. I knew there had to be a story behind the pain, but not knowing the details, I didn't know what to say... didn't know how to comfort her. I had become like one of those crows looking on, watching someone suffer. (Of course, the crows in the painting are doubtless waiting for a meal as well) but the impotence of the 'onlooker' is caught quite faithfully.

Who knows what horrors we each keep under wraps inside.... and who knows what triggers allow our nightmares to rise up and begin to dance. We're all such mysterious Chinese boxes, with one box fitted inside another, inside another, and sometimes the one with the pain nestled inside is accidently jostled into opening.

I feel bad that I unknowingly triggered Joan's to snap open. I hope she's calmed herself now.

People are such fragile creatures. It's always amazing to me to witness just how very fragile we are, and what little protection we have when something suddenly springs the locks.

February 15, 2012~ 7:00 pm
Where have I been?? What happened to Valentine's Day? LOL!! Well, believe it or not, it passed very quietly.... a workday week night..... but I did discover what ELSE was in the bag behind little Tumbles -(besides the fudge and solid chocolate hearts, that is.)

Tucked down in there was a fancier red box I thought was more fudge, but oh no... it contained CHOCOLATE COVERED CHERRIES! -16 of 'em, and I ate 6 at my first sitting. Wow! -they are fabulous! (I also got another card from Wayne in the mail on Monday and it's soooooo pretty! It's like lace.

Completely, cleanly and intricately cut with lasers to render its delicate openwork. Here it is folded out from its tri-fold state- a foil heart and a loving message written inside by my honey... I feel like the Queen of Hearts!)

I also did my yearly chore of online INCOME TAX filing. (Don't believe it when H&R Block tells you your browser won't work without a serious upgrade. Just click right on through as long as you have 128-bit encryption installed, and it'll work not only well, but BETTER. Yep. All the extra junk loaded in Chrome or Firefox- in whatever version it's up to now, or IE- in whatever version it's up to now, does nothing more than load their dumb flash ads and pop ups with 'suggestions' to use their investment services or tax specialist service, etc.) Hell... I have Internet Explorer 6.0 as my base OS, then browse through Firefox 1.507 with Netscape 7 loaded and I did very well indeed. :)

You know, if I built a tiny 'treehouse'..... I think I could manage this

made of a broccoli spear and toothpicks. I could see me doing that- without much of a stretch of imagination.

But never THIS. It's a collection of magical BONSAI TREE HOUSES, and they are something a fairy princess might live in. Stunning! Whimsical and sooooooo much fun to look at.

***

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Weblog 312

2012-02-04T23:19:00.015-05:00

February 5, 2012~ 12:00 am
Last week it was owls..... this week I've been thinking about dogs. LOL!! No, really! There's something so elemental in the relationship between a person and a dog. It touches my heart in all the softest places. It brings tears to the eyes.

That picture RIGHT THERE is what I mean. (Incidentally, I'd never heard of that late nineteenth century artist before, but now I'm over the moon with his paintings! His name is Antonio Rotta.) What exquisite sensitivity! It's in the details of their companionship and their daily lives...the hunting for food, the old man's religious devotion as shown by the little holy water font hanging above his bed... the fact that his hand has been hurt, while the dog looks on with such LOVE, as though he knows... I love it.

Of course I recently read the charming book 'Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend' by Susan Orlean. That's honestly what brings me to this HUGE awareness of the tie between man and dog, a tie that's extraordinarily deep and lasting. Makes me want a dog. A hound like the one in the picture.

There was an extremely tragic story in the news here about two elderly neighbors. A lady's 12 year old pet chilhuahua was killed by her neighbor's 18 year old pit bull, and both neighbors were crying in the interview. They were friends it seemed, yet the depth of their despair at such a horrifying turn of events had changed them forever.

They showed the 'killer' dog-- a white-muzzled old black and white on a leash, who was happily wagging his tail for the camera man. Why he killed the little chihuahua remains a mystery; most of all to the owner who was sobbing and saying he'd have to have his old friend put down. God, that KILLED me. Simply DEMOLISHED me, with the old fella saying what a friendly animal he'd always been while his heart was breaking for his neighbor's loss.

I dreamed of a horse this week. He kept nuzzling at my face with such affection, the muzzle downy soft.... following me around along a grassy hill, nuzzling, nuzzling. I must be lonely for an animal of some kind.

Here's a wonderful picture of 'loneliness'.....

Yes, it's Rotta again. I've been seeking him out. What a sad little guy. Looks to me like he was playing soldier then stopped when he realized playing alone wasn't really much fun after all. And back to dogs (which seemed to be of primary interest to Rotta....

my goodness! The way that poor animal is howling to heaven, my guess is that boy is not playing at all.) There appears to be smoke and troops in the background. Perhaps he was a boy-soldier for REAL in this picture. The American Civil War had many young lads as drummers, buglers.... who can say, but the dog is howling pitiably. Again..... that deep, deep bond. I'm envious of it.

Saturday was not a movie night because the weather seemed unpredictable with a mixture of rain and snow all day. Wayne and I had dinner at Eat'n Park and I floated with happiness while eating a Super Burger and loading up on a trip to the salad bar. After my bout with intestinal upsets a couple of days this past week, to be able to eat a large, varied meal was such a pleasure.

And Saturday was the day I finally gave in and bought myself a new cell phone. (At Wayne's prodding.) Thank goodness he suggested it! My old faithful Motorola flip phone would not hold its charge any longer. One call... sometimes EVEN a short call would have it going dead. The young salesman couldn't BELIEVE I've had that relic since 2004! LOL!! Eight years. Up to the past couple of months it worked fine, but traveling that nasty Route 28 is pretty scary without a reliable cell phone for emergencies...and it's a BEAUTY!

Another 'flip phone' but candy apple red -and so much fancier than what I'm used to, though it's not OVER-BURDENED with a mass of gadgets. (Yes, it takes photos, and yes, it connects to the internet, but with such a teenie screen it's not much use for that stuff. LOL!!!) Just for the heck of it, I did bring up this website, but reading it by scrolling an inch at a time, up and down and back and forth really isn't practical. It's nice to know I have it to check email now and then, but I won't be using it for that very often.

I'm just tickled with it! And there's no change to my affordable old T-Mobile plan: my existing account transferred to the new phone simply by inserting my SIM card. Man....the graphics are so much nicer than my black and white old one.....

and I'm brazenly proud of the thing. LOL!!! (I don't want or need an iPhone, but a nicely decorative little old 'flip phone' suits me to a tee.) As long as I can call triple A for a flat tire, or the office if I'm stuck in traffic.. or be available while my dial up computer is connected to the internet (yes, I still have dial-up, thank you very much)... then I'm happy. Now all I need is a dog.

(It's funny, when Wayne and I decided we'd be getting married this year, he said, "Can we get a dog?" LOL!!! He's lived in a co-op his whole life where pets aren't allowed.) I think so many of us long for that 'pet connection' and dogs just seem to connect right to the soul. A hound. A hound dog, short-haired and sturdy. That's what I'd like. :)

*(NOTE: I checked my T-Mobile bill online today, and yes, there WAS a sizable charge for those few, puny bytes I used. It was $3.98 for a one minute peek through an inch-wide window!

Oh! and with the 'cookies' I'd picked up by looking at the net with damn cookies enabled and script allowed, there were already two advertisers who found me and sent along two TEXT messages at 20 cents apiece.

I called T-Mobile and now have a LOCK on internet and TEXT messages...THAT won't happen again. Plus I'd already signed up at the govenment-sponsored 'Do Not Call' site for my cell phone number-- so I reported BOTH those bastards today. The times and their phone numbers were listed right on my statement online.

WORD TO THE WISE: if you have an old, grandfathered and affordable cell phone plan and you get a new phone and now have web access, BLOCK IT right away or you'll see your paycheck disappear by the byte.)

~THAT WAS A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT~

February 6, 2012~ 6:30p am
Ok.... it was a crap Monday. One of those days where nothing goes right at work, and there are interruptions aplenty. A day when past mistakes rise up in their humiliating fashion, and require immediate attention and resolution. (The bitch of it is..... it was a GLORIOUS day outside!) Dry, crisp... in the 40's...with sunshine by the bucketful. (I'm blaming it on the moon, which was on like a klieg light when I left this morning in the pre-dawn hours. I love it, of course.... but yes, it makes people nuts.)

I had intended to come right home, change into my robe, have a pot of coffee, browse the net a bit and curl up with a book. Then I got clobbered with a CANNONBALL to the stomach..... by ART. By the thrilling and touching and MAGNIFICENT paintings of the late William Utermohlen

born in 1933, died March of 2007 of Alzheimer's.

You may have heard of his self-portraits. He continued to paint himself as the disease progressed, showing quite viscerally how he was disappearing from view. (I believe I'd seen something on television at one time about those portraits and yes, they're quite emotionally striking) but I hadn't been familiar with his earlier work and I have to say... rarely has color and arrangement struck me with the kind of IMPACT found today by searching through his work via 'Google'.

Like that yellow bed above... the two cats, the catty-cornered arrangement of the picture... the man's back turned, but looking curled and protected....whatever I'm seeing, it's hooking itself deep down. You DO need to see a larger version of that one. I love it. Absolutely LOVE it.

Utermohlen started out as an extremely talented artist, but when the disease was becoming more emergent, his later paintings are likewise brilliant, and in the very same ways modern art often is. (Made me wonder if it might be a clue... how an artist must 'disconnect' completely from self-awareness in order to create these new interpretations of a world crashing onto totally unknown shores.. maybe his disease gives us a glimpse into just how brave modern art is, at its core.)

Please do dip into an wide array of Utermohlen's art, extending from the earlier, sublime nudes... to a kind of social commentary... to his own grapplings with a disappearing self. He's like a knife in the belly to me, so I'm curious as to how it'll affect you.

Go ahead. Start here, then keep hitting 'next'. (I wonder if others will find themselves close to tears at times. The man pries me open completely, and it's very moving.)

***

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Weblog 311

2012-01-28T22:48:00.017-05:00

January 29, 2012~ 12:00 am
Owls. Owls have fascinated me all week. They're such BEAUTIFUL, unknowable birds... they're godlike spirit animals, those glorious raptors.

And I LOVE that one! She's a Snowy Owl, and looks so smug. (Because of the dark markings, I refer to that owl as 'she' because the males are pure white.) They're creatures who live most of their lives above the arctic circle, but prefer to mate in southerly climes, often choosing United States prairie lands whose vistas, flat and expansive, remind them of the frozen tundra. (I'm certain it's much more condusive to laying and raising their clutches. They have as many as a 14 at a time!)

Whenever I want to feel peaceful and contemplative, I'll think about this wonderful capture of this owl resting.......just...... being... right there, right then.

This week, I also enjoyed a 30 second film of a 'transformer owl'. He's an astonishing creature who can puff himself out about 3 times his width by fanning his tail feathers like a turkey! Other 'threats' have him standing sideways, elongating and slimming himself from the rounded little thing he is naturally, then shooting up those feather tufts above the eyes like pointy devil horns and pinching his face in a way that makes him quite comically menacing. LOL!!! It's the damndest thing I've ever seen! (Just do a YouTube search on him. You'll be happily entertained.)

Saturday was momentous. Wayne decided to have his long locks shorn and I accompanied him, watching as foot-long PLUS,wavy clumpets of hair fell to the floor beneath the styling chair. (I did take some as a keepsake. Told him I could cast as spell with them.) Gone is the iconoclastic rock star in a ponytail look....hello 'GQ'. (He does look wonderfully handsome with his salt and pepper beard and mustasche to go with it.) Tall and distinguished... I'm one lucky lady.

After dinner out at our favorite Asian restaurant where our waiter remarked, "You got hair-cut! You look GOOD! Look like Kenny Rogers" (to which Wayne replied, "Yah. You look like Don Ho." LOL!!) --after the meal, we settled in to watch

Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law in 'Sherlock Holmes'. Bear in mind, I had NIXED seeing that when it first came out on DVD. I hated the idea of an 'action' version of one of my favorite characters, but I have to say.... I loved it. (Give me 5 minutes and I'll do a complete 180 degress turnaround on things.) It was plot-driven, FUN.... and had tremendous atmosphere. Seeing Watson and Holmes portrayed as younger men when I've been so used to seeing older men in those roles wasn't wrenching at all. Just different.

The two actors complement each other nicely, and the story was chock full of black magic, with secret-society Masonic/satanic(?) sort of underpinnings..... and it had a believable, hypnotic villian. A good recipe all round. Looking forward now to seeing the second one, "Game Of Shadows" when they release it to the home audience. Of course.......

NO ONE will ever replace whom I still consider to be the quintessential Holmes, the late Jeremy Brett in the long-running Masterpiece Theater series. Just LOOK at him!

Perfect in every way. (I've been reading how the actor had been not only bisexual AND bipolar, he had a damaged heart from suffering rheumatic fever as a child.) Poor fellow. Then the lithium he took for his bipolar disorder caused water retention and weight gain, and with an already damaged heart drowning in extra fluids which necessitated frequent oxygen-use on the set, he continued to soldier on during that last season of taping. From what I've read, Brett was so completely IMMERSED in the persona of Holmes, he had quite a difficult time trying to separate himself from the dark, gloomy, brooding side of the drug-addicted Victorian sleuth. (Doubtless it made an already complicated life even moreso) but he was determined to soak up and capture Holme's every nuance.

The man was MADE for that role.

Rest in peace, Jeremy. Calabash pipe, deer-stalker hat.. no doubt referring the angels to 'my latest monograph on cigar ash'. Ah... what a great character.

January 31, 2012~ 5:15 pm
I stayed put today. Had a GALLOPING case of stomach flu complete with pain, dystentary, and nausea. (Even did the one thing I HATE to do..... I threw up when I got up this afternoon after sleeping all day. Man.... that's the worst). Nothing in my stomach, so it was a sort of 'non-event', but the dry heaves are a torture device, let me tell you.

I have NO IDEA where I got this. No one was sick around me, and on Monday I felt fine.

I'll tell you who I do blame, the water and sewer authority in Pittsburgh. We had several days of hard rain and run-off and that results in the nasty stuff mixing in with drinking water. If extra cleansing addititves aren't mixed in, you can pick up a stomach bug from that. I can't find anything online about other folks suffering from this but it just 'feels right' to me.

I treated myself to a movie last evening before I knew I was falling under the weather, and from 6 p.m. till 8, I watched a remarkable film. (I'd found it in the dumpster at work. Unopened, unwatched..... someone was simply getting rid of it.) Yes, I'm a garbage picker and cannot understand why there's so many wonderful things people simply 'dump'. The movie was a 2007 release of 'Talk To Me', starring Don Cheadle and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

It's a biography of Petey Greene, an ex-con who becomes the raw, honest radio voice of black people in Washington D.C. in the tumultuous 60's and 70's. Petey starts as a DJ in prison and when he gets out, he looks up a successful brother of another inmate who works at WOL-AM. From his cocky self-assurance- pretended or not -and more than a little moxie, he wins over the Brooks Brothers wearing brother whom Petey describes as 'more white than black.'

"You know, most people hearin' your voice think you a WHITE MAN," Dewey tells him, laughing, grinning from ear to ear. "They call me.... Mr. Tibbs," he teases, referring to the famous Sidney Poitier role. But rough streets and Petey's punishing past make him a force to be reckoned with, a man who cannot, will not lie about what's going on either in the streets or in society as a whole. His listeners love his call-in show and ultimately he's the one they turn to during the D.C riots after the Martin Luther King assassination.

This was a marvelous film. I laughed, I cried, Cheadle and Ejiofor are so moving in their angers and their love for one another... but the making of the film was not without controversy. Petey died at 53 of liver cancer. At that point in time the rift between Petey and Dewey had become so deep that Dewey Hughes did not attend Petey's funeral. That part of the story was completely rewritten in the film, (a film by the way, produced by none other than..... Dewey Hughes.) They never reconciled, but there was magic in what they accomplished together. Here's the REAL Dewey and Petey.

I choose to think Mr. Hughes was crafting a work of love... an apology perhaps. It's a fine, fine film, and if you've never seen it, rent it. It's a journey into the this country's unruly years of social change and marked volatility. If you were alive then, this film is a time machine. If you weren't, and profanity offends you.... hey, dismiss the profanity, of which there is LOTS, and listen with your whole heart to a sliver of America's past that sat right atop a volcano. And watched it erupt.

***

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Weblog 310

2012-01-22T06:28:00.010-05:00

January 22, 2012~ 6:30 am
Bad weather, ice.... snow..... not a LOT, but enough to scare us into cancelling 'movie night' for Saturday. Late January freeze left us up a tree

so it's been verrrrrry quiet around these parts.

I mostly read. Finished a novel and started another one. Napped for hours at a time.... a good hibernation, all things considered: nothing to prepare for and nowhere to go.... looked out on the icy roads and occasional cars passing.

Actually, the weather didn't get as bad as predicted right around here, but some places a wee bit further south of the city had a half inch of ICE before the 4 or 5 inches of snow. Ugh! Nasty. We DID visit Holly and the grandkids on Friday evening before the storm hit. They capered about and danced and acted silly, and really buoyed my spirits. (It was a good shot in the arm to be with them. They always show such obvious delight in seeing us again.) We had the foresight to shop EARLY, before the visit, and yes.... the supermarket was a madhouse mess. Toilet paper, bread and milk flying off the shelves...LOL!! It wouldn't do to run out of that stuff during a winter storm, so I was well-stocked in my hidey hole.

I got up on Saturday, looked out, saw the icy nuisance I was happy to be avoiding..... and promptly made two hot dogs and took them up to bed with a big glass of milk and some buttery Entenmann's pound cake. Last night I heated up a Hormel turkey and stuffing quick meal. LOL!! More pound cake and 2 bananas. One thing you can say about solitude.....

it's the one light shining while the rest of the world stays dark. (Aaannnd, you can let your butt hang out all you please, it's just you and the furniture.)

(Like this new blog entry here. I usually put it up around midnight on Sunday morning, but heck.... I was already sleeping. That would have cut into my totally free-spirited non-schedule for this weekend.) My bladder finally woke me at quarter to six this morning so here I am, sipping coffee and typing away. Later I'll see mum and have dinner, do her laundry, but it's been a lazy old weekend up till now. Hope you had a cozy one as well.

January 23, 2012~ 6:45 pm

Happy

Chinese

New Year!

Yep. Midnight, January 23rd ushered in the 'Year Of The Dragon'. Though I'm hardly Chinese, I find this very exciting. I guess it has a lot to do with all the red and gold..... the lanterns, the parades and incense, ...the fireworks. Those BORN in the year of the dragon are said to be lucky-- as well as "strong, self-assured, eccentric, intellectual, and passionate." (Not a bad combination, right?) I've always loved dragons, their mythic size and fire and flight. With such bursts of imagery, how could this not be an exciting year? So......

for all the dragons out there (my year was last year... I'm a rabbit. lol) and all the little dragons-to-be... happy, HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR! (Wish I had some Chinese food tonight. I'd chomp it right down with gusto... maybe twirl a couple blazing batons.)

January 26, 2012~ 6:15 am
Disgusted with the patchy connections to the secure Scroogle Scraper (which I uses EXCLUSIVELY instead of the annoying, latched-on-like-a-burr Google)- the 'rolling blackouts' put in place, I'm certain, because the Google machine isn't garnering all the foisted-upon-us advertising revenues it's grown used to, I contributed handsomely to SCROOGLE last night. (Google reported a shocked 6 percent drop in income in the last quarter of 2011. The spoiled brats couldn't believe it. LOL!) I'm SICK of Google's GLOBAL hooks into people via location pinpointing, likes and dislikes, ISP addresses.... the whole 'profiling' of its users angers me to the boiling point.

As I've said before, I WON'T surf with cookies or javascript allowed, I've NEVER joined Google+ or Facebook, nor will I. It's a bunch of BIG BROTHER crap.

Hey.... it's not Google......... it's GOBBLE! (Greedy bastards.)

(Oh, and by the way... I MADE that little parody JPG. Loved every minute of it.)

***

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Weblog 309

2012-01-14T20:21:00.019-05:00

January 15, 2012~ 12:00 am
This has been a self-chosen long weekend for me. Listening to the weather report for Friday, I decided to take my first vacation day of the year. (We were supposed to have rain turning to ice, turning to snow overnight- with high winds and temperatures in the teens, and blowing snow on and off throughout the day.) I am ONE BIG CHICKEN with that kind of forecast.

Me on ice is about as dangerous as me on stiletto heels... either way, I'm gonna get hurt.

Naturally... (since I had the foresight to schedule the day off) the resulting weather wasn't nearly as bad as predicted, though I enjoyed my day inside- nice and snug, reading a good book and looking out on the blustery stuff. I'm sure I'll take some ribbing on Monday when I walk into work. "Here comes the canary".... LOL!! (For bad weather, I'm the office's equivalent of a canary in the mine- the first one to drop and warn the others there's 'bad stuff' ahead.)

Scary weather makes me feel like a little kid. As an older grown-up, there's just no one to ask. It'd be nice to have ...oh, God or someone to simply get the protective low-down.

Someone to walk up to and say, "Hey..... is it safe?" Without that, I have only my own inner sirens to warn me off the roads or to guide me in any way at all. Alas, my own judgment is often faulty; more often than not, I'll err on the safe side.

I was thinking about that as I peeked out the curtains, watching all the other cars travel past... thinking what an oddball I am. Practically a different creature than the people around me, ill-suited to sit at any table but my own.

(And in that picture, I can't tell you if I'm the lady in the white wig, or the dressed up animal beside her. LOL!!!) What I do know is...... there's a BIG difference between us.

Speaking of differences and animals behaving as humans, Wayne and I rented 'Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes' for Saturday evening. I'd heard Andy Serkis on the radio a while back, interviewed about playing the main chimp, Caesar, and it was a wonderful interview. Now having seen it, what I can say is that it's pure 'B film' fare-- the actors wasted. Even John Lithgow in his small part as James Franco's father who suffers from Alzheimer's, didn't have enough of a role to flesh out in any real way.

Franco plays a research scientist who's working on a cure for his dad by using.... yes... laboratory chimps. Things go awry very quickly and the chimps have to be destroyed- except for a baby male, just born

whom Franco takes to his home to raise. The baby chimp ends up inheriting some of the serum that was used on his mother and becomes quite intelligent- a joy to both Franco and his father, who DOES respond to the serum as well. But true to form in these kinds of films, the animal is finally 'betrayed' following a nasty neighborhood incident, and 'Caesar'- as the chimp's been named, gets shipped off to a primate sanctuary that's anything but.

When the serum Franco had been illegally injecting into his father becomes ineffective, the desperate scientist develops a stronger serum, not knowing it will prove to be a toxic virus to humans. However, the apes respond fantastically well: they communicate. They organize under the tutelege of Caesar, who manages to break into Franco's lab and steal more of the stuff for his cagemates.

Yes, yes..... mankind is doomed, but the apes rise up! (That part of the film is terrifically exciting and the computer-generated apes are wonderful to watch, but overall, the story is pat and nothing we've haven't seen over and over.) What amazed me is how shallow the characters are, shallow and stereotyped. There's the black, ambitious research director... with a British accent. What's THAT about? (Are we such morons that we need a phony British accent in order to believe that an upscale corporation would have an African-American as its CEO? Is that essential to cinch his 'uppity-ness' in the minds of the viewers? ) Then there's the beautiful Indian veterinarian who becomes Franco's girlfriend, who is a total piece of cardboard. The actress is so wooden we care nothing for her at all, and we're not asked to. (I believe she's the film's 'eye-candy'. I had to ask myself.... "Who did this girl SLEEP WITH to be in this movie?" LOL!!)

Of course there's the 'required' sadistic, abusive primate's custodian, bullying around with over-acted sneering and heckling. (We've all seen this character. There's one in every animal movie.)

So the casting and the storyline are pretty much pat and lazy film-making. It's the computer-animation that's the real star here, and it's the genius of Andy Serkis as Caesar who presents us with the film's only real emotion.

The realism of the animation makes the ape uprising as exciting as possible, but that's the only time the film really takes off. This isn't a 'bad' film, but it's a lazy one. It could have been much better had it allowed us to care more for its human characters, but stereotypes are impossible to love. Their roles were shallowly written.... and the movie's FILLED with them.

(At least now, I can retire to my bedroom lair and jump right back into an interesting novel.) I'm reading, "The Spies Of Warsaw" by Alan Furst, which brings pre-world WWII eastern Europe into such tight, true focus, THIS.... is the movie for this weekend. Furst is a revelation to me. A novelist I've just been introduced to, who brings that time and those characters to living, breathing life. Thank goodness there is life beyond cardboard roles and computer generated imagery. Thank goodness there's the written word.

January 15, 2012~ 2:20 pm
Getting ready here to go and visit mum, do her laundry and have dinner at Assisted Living. (Unfortunately.... I've forgotten to buy more dinner tickets. Therefore.....

like "Oliver!", I'll be standing, beggar's bowl in hand and asking "Please, sir. May I have some more?" LOL!!!) I just hate when I do that. Oh, the staff knows I'll slap down TWO tickets next week, but still..... it's humiliating. (Of course, MUM thinks it's silly of me. "We pay enough for this place! The HELL with them!") She's a woman with a criminal mind, I'll tell ya'.... a regular Fagin.

I'm no 'Artful Dodger', however, I'm 'the little Catholic girl' to the core. Yes, I'll be humiliated.

January 17, 2012~ 7:00 pm
Here's something to stir your imagination and fatten your brain. (Every day, I hope to learn just one new thing I never knew before, and today..... it's the word: "rhyton". Pronunced: RYE'-tawn) Know what that is?

~An ancient Greek drinking horn, made of pottery or metal, having a base in the form of the head of a woman or animal.

(If you do a Google image search, you'll find 22,000 varieties from various cultures) but the one that had me open-mouthed with wonder was THIS ONE....

That beauty is one of the Panagyurishte Treasures. It was unearthed in Bulgaria on December 18th, 1949 by the Deikov brothers, quite by accident, digging in local clay. Here's the trio, proudly displaying their find.

It was determined after examination by archaeological experts that they dated back to the 3rd and 4th century....B.C. Amazing!!! Further, the wondrous artifacts were SOLID GOLD, and Thracian in origin.....

"The name of the population that inhabited the territory between the Carpathian Mountains and Aegean region, the islands, and also regions of Anatolia, the northern coast of the Black Sea, etc."

For a closer look at the Panagyurishte Treasures click on that link. For OTHER finds, also click on Rogozen Silver Treasures, as well as the Lukovit Silver Treasures.... you'll be astonished at the beauty of those ancient objects.

(After a gloomy, 'all-rain' day in Pittsburgh, challenging my already droopy mood, it was terrific to be whisked away by magic like that. Hope you enjoy it as well. :) AAAaand....I have to say...... IT MAKES ME FEEL GREEDY. LOL!!

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Weblog 308

2012-01-07T22:13:00.008-05:00

January 8, 2012~ 12:00 am
One week into the new year.... one day stuck in a 40 minute morning traffic jam due to a disabled vehicle making its way out Route 28, a non-functioning, 72 year old furnace on the coldest day of the year so far (I got it fixed... don't ask me how) ... and TREMENDOUS sadness as a co-worker's sister lost a 7 1/2 month old twin son who never made it home from the hospital since birth.

That's just in the first week. (I have a feeling this is going to be a complicated year.)

Wayne and I have made progress in cementing our plans for the future, meaning yes, we'll be getting married sometime this year.

Finally tying the knot after 29 years of loving one another... Wayne to move into this old house once we get things sorted out. (It's difficult to blend two households, in particular since I'm such a slob and a hoarder..... lol.... this space of mine is CHOCK FULL of STUFF) but it will happen. No fancy 'bridal thing', just a private 'justice of the peace' sort of affair, very low key and quick. The two of us just wanting closeness and support after sooooooooo many years of fairly rigid autonomy leaving apart. (As mid-life creeps up and finally overtakes a person... pushing them on to what is jokingly referred to as 'the golden years', it's then, right then, that people are most in need of a 'partner' for emotional as well as practical reasons.) He's my absolute best friend, and I'm his. For each of us, there's no one else in the world we could envision wanting to live with. We're two odd ducks.... and within months, to share one pond. There you have it. Settled.

Saturday evening we watched a film that, for the life of me, cannot be catagorized. What I thought would be a 'comedy/farce' type fare, turned much darker, and even engaged me emotionally.

We watched 'Super'... the tale of a geeky-type loser, starring Rainn Wilson of 'The Office', who sews up a costume and by sheer determination, turns himself into a crime-fighting SUPER HERO. He becomes......

the CRIMSON BOLT-- armed with a wicked-looking pipe wrench. (He later moves on to various handmade bombs and such) but he starts out as a short-order fry cook who's just lost his wife- a trying-to-stay-clean, recovering Liv Tyler, to a sickening, drug-dealing Kevin Bacon, playing his usual 'Bacon-style' grinning creep. The movie takes a surprising turn when Wilson partners with a 22 year old psychopathic comic book store salesgirl, played BEAUTIFULLY by Ellen Page of 'Juno' fame. (I don't care HOW malicious and crazy she is

'Boltie', as she christens herself, is IRRESISTABLE. LOL!!!) Surprisingly, the film is as filled with grisly violence as, say, 'Straw Dogs' -or even 'Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer' (... and that actor is ALSO in this film, by the way) -and the over-the-top graphic violence shocked the hell out of me, but the film, by virtue of these fascinating actors, completely overrides the stomach-turning aspects to leave the viewer glued to the screen, watching.... watching what improbability will happen next.

What an ODD film, indeed! It left my head spinning, and yet the ending is so philosophically and emotionally satisfying, I felt sated. Felt I'd learned some secret truth... maybe it's just that, well... bad-guy scum of the earth perhaps DO deserve their just desserts, and maybe being a hero goes beyond physical daring and toughness. Perhaps... just perhaps it's the triumph of selflessness and emotional bravery that makes a hero out of someone... and probably it's the hardest kind of 'daring do'. Anyway, it's a film not for everyone, but it's a strange gem of a thing. Entirely offbeat.

(Oh.... and as much as I despise new technology, bluetooth gadgets, Kindles and almost any 'app' that is talked up out there) I have to say my boss has a phone application he downloaded that had all of us in STITCHES at the office on Friday. Using his iphone, he can take and distort pictures at will, resulting in some of the most BIZARRE-looking photos ever! Here's three of me. LOL!!!

Here I am, cross eyed and bloat-faced. (Hey, at least the NOSE is small. That's sumpthin', right?) And here

I'm sporting a JAY LENO lantern jaw. As well as PLENTY of old-lady creases around my mouth and jowls. LOL!!! Finally...... my FAVORITE....

Karen as LAUGHING FAT FACE! (But goodness.......... LOOK AT THOSE WHITE TEETH!!! I LOVE MY TEETH. LOVE THEM LIKE CRAZY!) Oh, Lord.... it's GOOD to have absolutely no vanity at all. It frees the soul, it does. And right now??? I'm free as a bird! Plus...... I look just like URSULA - evil and heavily made-up villainess from 'The Little Mermaid'. {{{{Grin}}}}

January 9, 2012~ 6:30 pm
I happened upon a WONDROUS artist! She's simply amazing... all her paintings have the look of a Flemish master, the golden light... the luminescence. What is most extraordinary about her work is the fact that she uses one model and one only: her 12 year old son.....

who appears as a young girl in each of her paintings, dripping in velvets, lace and whimsy. As she states, her son has been cross-dressing since the age of 7.... so she's captured him in surrealistic splendor in one gorgeous painting after another, and they are STUNNING! (Beside the fact that these are luxurious paintings, I wondered why they struck me so viscerally. It's because her paintings also so closely resemble my granddaughter Kay. It's incredible!)

She has a current show at the Glass Garage Gallery and they've fashioned a rich display of the mouth-dropping art of

Margo Selski

Go browse, and prepare to be amazed. Her painting are orchids, velvet and chocolate... and the soft down of feathered doves fanning their wings.

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Weblog 307

2011-12-31T23:45:00.012-05:00

January 1, 2012~ 12:00 am
Actually, it's 15 minutes till midnight. I am here, happily composing this entry for the brand new ....

No horns yet, no confetti, just the breath-held silence that precedes some new event about to pop open. Gingerly... because the Mayans, after all, have labeled this the last 365 we'll ever have.

Like Pandora of Greek Myth, we approach the unopened box and begin to lift the lid

our curiosity killing us. What exactly will fly out this year? Each and every December 31st, the world goes wild. Holds hands across seven seas and seven continents and SCREAMS and whoops in delight- as though we've somehow cheated death. As though the horns and the fireworks usher in some victory of having survived the last 300+ days, and sleepless...happy... we intend to dance into the next.

Here's hoping that's true..... for me, for you.... keeping my fingers crossed. (Breaking off here to listen to the sound of a new year being born. Be right back.)

Ok.

2012 made its way in a rather feeble fashion. LOL!!! I did hear a few gunshots, some yelling.... (of course, that may simply be a robbery happening down the street.) Nevertheless, 2011 is no more. How did we celebrate, Wayne and I? We had a very nice dinner out - (I had the pork roast and saurkraut, Wayne the Pasta ala Grec) and a complimentary, personal sized New Year's pretzel. That's a nice touch Calabria's offers every year. Each table gets one. Makes me happy.

We then watched Steve Coogan in 'Hamlet II', a 2008 comedy that (let me just say.....it's a TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE film) that nevertheless made us laugh. It's CORNY in the extreme, the acting WAY over the top (to the point where it's toe-curling 'ouch' at times) but still...

there's something about Coogan I find irresistable. The plot was like a goofy 'Glee' episode with a failed actor reduced to teaching high school drama, who pulls off a blockbuster self-written musical called, yes.... "Hamlet 2". I found the subplots excruciatingly unnecessary (and so much of the film was just plain silly and improbable... superfluous, yet despite that- despite the 'curled toes' of embarrassment for the film itself) by the end, with Coogan as Jesus Christ as the kids sing

"Rock Me, Rock Me, Rock Me Sexy Jesus"....Coogan 'moon-walking' on the water, I was howling. Some things happen like a tidal wave after a day of perfect calm at the beach and the fact that I ended up enjoying the film is still a mystery to me, but there you have it.

I hope all of you have a year just opened, a box that, right before, was closed and mysterious....

-wonderous in its own mystery, but about to release some magic for you. I sincerely hope now that the Christmas holidays have past, the presents played with.... branches beginning to droop

you take a black and white snapshot of that memory that lasts just as this Victorian image has. For all time, a caught and splendid moment before the startling wallop of the New Year breaking through with all its gala and its goblins... its happy times and horrors. Each year, you get a bit of both. (Let's hope the scales tip more toward happiness this time 'round) -hope this for all of us. Happy HAPPY NEW YEAR!

January 2, 2012~ 12:15 pm
It's so NICE to be home from work!! I slept 8 hours, then got up this morning and occupied myself by engaging in one of my favorite pasttimes..... looking at online art. I'm always so TICKLED to find something that captures my imagination in ways that delight me. That being said.... have a look at this WEIRD, wee New Year's Baby

...THAT is from the world of Swedish artist

Mia Mäkilä

that strange little guy is from her 'mixed media' section, but each section is sooooooo much fun to look at. (Glad to know there are people in the world with as demented a view of things as I have. LOL!!) Go check her out. Creepy and enjoyable both. (And sometimes scary.)

Now I'm going back to bed and read and sleep till sometime this evening. It's the LIFE OF RILEY, I'll tell 'ya! Hot damn.

January 3, 2012~ 6:15 pm
First day back after the long holiday weekend and wouldn't 'ya know it?? THIS GAL made an appearance....

The SNOW QUEEN!

And honest to Pete, it looked just like THAT when she'd breeze through! What a ROUGH day on the roads! All told, I guess I got about 4" total, but it's the way the snow came through that made is so difficult to navigate. Great masses of snow-filled clouds would suddenly take over the sunny skies and in minutes.... an inch at once (which made the roads slick instantly, visibility next to nil.) Add freezing temperatures of 20 degrees with gusting winds and... oh my.... what a recipe.

Luckily driving into work, things were calm, and the roads salted. But watching those bands come through all afternoon was nerve-wracking. I called my mother from the road going home and told her things were too slick, that I wouldn't be driving over to stop in and see her-- the bad weather watch was being extended till 7 this evening. (This, after I'd just seen a car facing in MY directions, half up on a hillside on 28, broken windshield, flares lit everywhere. Very sobering.)

Most folks did keep just below the speed limit and a nice, safe distance between.... but there's always those assh*les who BELIEVE the stupid car commercials, who come barreling along, passing everyone, and all I could think is, "DON'T SPIN OUT DON'T SPIN OUT..." (Why are drivers such morons?)

Anyway..... I'm home and safe and sound. The day WAS pretty, but that Snow Queen, man..... she can be such a headstrong bitch LOL!

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Weblog 306

2011-12-29T17:52:00.001-05:00

December 25, 2011~ 12:00 am
Here was the scene on the eve itself.....

Holly and Gary's front yard with movable reindeer-- nodding heads and munching grass. No snow, just a bright, CLEAR, CLEAR night. Simply lovely. We had a GRAND OLD TIME! The house was decked in Christmas cheer, the kiddoes rapt in happy anticipation. Here they are by the tree.

(Too bad I repeatedly caught only the BACK of Kay's head in all these shots. I would have taken more, but Bill informed me my flash was beginning to make him go blind. LOL!) Actually, what he said was, "Gram..... that flash," rubbing his eyes and looking miserable, "it's really starting to affect my eyes." Here's a shot of his face BEFORE the flash blinded him.....

When I downloaded that Saturday evening, all I could think is, "Man! He's getting so much older looking!" All the rounded, cherubic curves are gone...even here I can see the planes of the growing boy's face and the eventual full-grown young man he'll become. Wow. Time sure does fly.

I bought him a set of 'Boxcar Mystery' books

since he's SUCH an intense reader. Bill (honest fella that he is) promptly told me he'd tried reading one of them once but he didn't care for it much... "But I was younger Gram," the eight-year old said. "I might like it better this time." (Here's hoping. LOL!!!) I have to say the hit gift of the evening appears to have been the very last one I picked up for both of them while grocery shopping on Friday evening. A microphone that plays Christmas karaoke songs, complete with its own little songbook that, with the press of a button, makes your voice sound just like an elf. (Oh, I think the parents are gonna want to brain me over that one. lol) It did seem to make them quite 'lively'.... (to say nothing of the irritating high-pitched squeaks and squeals of elves in full Christmas MANIA.)

Gifts are always exciting when still mysteries.

That's true of all things, I think. The mind creates its own Sistine Chapels out of coloring books, doesn't it? Kay and Bill quite HAPPILY performed their 'Conrad Murray' Christmas play, and it was a HUGE HIT. The best they've ever done it, and quite pleased about having another new face in the audience.... their Grandpap Dabkowski, who chuckled and beamed through the whole thing. (We all agreed that, while not 'suitable' for mass consumption....lol.... for those with more esoteric tastes and big, broad minds.... it's quite remarkable theater.) After their many deep bows to the audience, Bill presented 'Best Actor', 'Best Actress (-to Kay of course) 'Best Director' and 'Best Producer' awards. (A bowling trophy was his 'stand-in' for the Oscar) and we cheered and whistled.

It was a terrific Christmas Eve. Yes, Wayne had his 'seven fishes' finally- and loved them. I had crab cakes -and loved them. We had all the fun at Holly's house, then back home to exchange gifts between the 2 of us. Wayne loved his sweatshirt with 'National Sarcasm Society' emblazoned on it. (And in small letters underneath, 'Like we need your support'- his 5 Chinese soapstone buddhas and his silver necklace.) I received fudge, chocolate... books and CD's, and love all of them like crazy!

Christmas afternoon.... it'll be my nephew's house to celebrate some more. I'm picking up mum at 3:00 pm ... and I hope she remembers it's Christmas. LOL!! She's been 'a bit confused' lately, to say the least. Not seeing my sister Kathy since her knee replacement surgery has disoriented her very structured, reified world. Most days, whatEVER day it is, she begins our conversation the same way... "You just get home from work?"

I think tomorrow I'll just say, "Yes, and my goodness mum, it's CHRISTMAS. How about that?" and off we'll go with her blinking and blinking and saying, "What?" --to just about everything. MERRY TIMES to you guys out there. Hope your holiday is bright and full of fun.....

and yes, that too: LOVE, LIGHT AND LAUGHTER. (Heavy emphasis on that last one. It'll get you through the bleakest times. It opens the pipes and lets the bats out for a while. LOL!!)

December 26, 2011~ 5:15 pm
The BEST kind of 'day after Christmas' ever......

SNOOZING the entire day. LOL!!! (Actually, I was up for a few hours this morning, then went back to bed with a book.) Soooooooo peaceful. Tomorrow it's back to work, but a short week, and another one to follow. (I love when the holidays fall on a weekend. Gives us TWO long weekends, plus plenty of time to relax.)

The food at nephew Michael's house on Christmas day was TOP NOTCH. It was a smaller group, a bit less mayhem, and I appreciated the relaxing atmosphere. Mum was ready to go when I picked her up... the roads were dry and clear... just a lovely 'no fuss' holiday. I hope you've enjoyed yours.... I know my own just spun out like a lovely bolt of satin for a change. 2012 coming up. Seems UNBELIEVABLE to me another year's been gobbled up by old Father Time. He's A RAPACIOUS fellow, scarfing down days and months and minutes. (But at least he left me alone today. I paid him no mind. Floated along as I pleased, no deadlines or commitments.) Very nice indeed!

December 26, 2011~ 8:40 pm
I'm about to go to bed now, since the 4:00 am 'get up' time is MIGHTLY early.... but I wanted to share a most BIZARRE confection that made me howl with delight.

Click on the pig to see what has to be one of the WEIRDEST, most remarkable marizipan creatures you'll ever find. (And it was made for a 5 and a 7 year old. LOL!!!!) Night, now. :)

December 28, 2011~ 5:30 pm
We dodged a bullet... didn't get the '1 to 3' inches of snow and black ice they were predicting for this morning. Though it was cold and windy, just a few flurries came through, which made these days of catching up on desk work less odious for me. (I'm actually making pretty good progress after my week of stay-at-home-sloth the first week of December.:)

When not hammering the keys at work, I've occupied myself with alternately looking at the abstract art of Helen Frankenthaler- who died yesterday, and becoming immersed in the photos of E.J. Bellocq, the famous early twentieth century photographer of Storyville- the notorious New Orleans red-light district, and his strange photos of smiling, often masked ladies of the night he managed to capture in collodian on glass plates.

I've read essays on his motivations... looked at examples of his work... heard descriptions of him being a 'Toulouse-Lautrec' sort of character with stunted limbs and a misshapen large head... but that seems to be just 'another story' from Storyville. He was actually a nice-looking man, who, (I believe) actually LOVED those ladies and I think they trusted him. (His records of the 4-square miles of legalized pleasure palaces that finally closed down in 1917, show relaxed, happy females- often posing with their pets.) It's a collection found after his death and locked away in a trunk at his home.... therefore... a mystery. I can't resist such things!

For instance..... THIS picture

makes me very, very

HAPPY.

Just that. Happy to my toes. Heck, even the dog is smiling. LOL!! It's a wonderful photo. (How could this man NOT care for these women? You can see in their faces they feel comfortable with him.) Nay-sayers, begone. Case closed. {{{{Gavel rap!}}}} If nudity doesn't offend you, do a search on Bellocq. It's a fascinating journey.

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Weblog 305

2011-12-17T20:56:00.027-05:00

December 18, 2011~ 12:00 am
Exactly one week from the event itself.... the yearly holiday of glitz and giving. The beauty (the almost forgotten religious significance)........... the main event.

It's always pretty, always hectic, always memorable, and filled with all our Christmases past. I love to think of old-fashioned Christmases... the ones before my time with actual candles on the trees and popcorn strung, real boughs of holly and fir, the smell of the Christmas goose simmering in its own juices within a cast iron stove. All I need do is close my eyes and imagine

and I can feel the prickly pines chaffing at my legs as some hard-working father pulls his little ones home across the snow on a great felled pine that will soon be ablaze with cheer, dangling its homemade ornaments.

So yes, I guess I am in the Christmas spirit at last. All my packages have arrived, and tonight I'll write out the cards and fix up some little treats for the ladies at mum's table at Assisted Living. I'll be having dinner with them Sunday evening, and they're always so cute and appreciative. I have chubby little bluebird figurines for each of them, an assortment of home-baked cookies and some foil wrapped chocolate Santas and bells. (Wayne and I decided to forego a movie Saturday evening because the roads turned 'iffy' with a thin coating of snow, leaving me lots of time to wrap and write.)

Our Friday evening was a joy, celebrating Holly's birthday at her house. I'm so tickled with how happy Kay and Bill are when we arrive. (They wanted to practice a bizarre skit we cooked up-- very avant-garde for a 6 and an 8 year old --and steeped in 'current events': it's called, "The Lamentable Tale of Doctor Conrad Murray." LOL!!! It started out as a lark a few weeks back, with Kay declaring, "Oooooo I hate drugs. They're bad," and Bill rejoining, "ESPECIALLY, don't take drugs from Conrad Murray!!" - which made all of us HOWL. That led to my own impersonation of his face at trial, and Kay quickly copied it. Wayne said, "Alright, let's act this out. Let's have a play" -- and so we did.

It starts with Bill as Michael Jackson, calling Dr. Murray to say he needs to sleep-- he's been practicing too hard on the 'This Is It' tour. What follows is a scene showing Dr. Murray talking on the phone to a girlfriend, when he suddenly realizes Michael's in a bad way. "OH no! He's dead! HIDE THE PROPOFOL!" The next scene is Wayne as judge, banging his gavel and telling Dr. Murray (i.e.-Kay) to rise, and she gets to do her mournful Murray face, which is what started this whole thing in the first place - and she's sentenced, then led off by the bailif Bill, with much giggling going on in trying to pronounce 'propofol' and Kay cracking up while trying to keep her mournful face intact.

You know, kids pick up MORE than you'd ever imagine from hearing snippets of the news or hearing grown-ups talk about current events. The last time we rehearsed it, the name 'SANDUSKY' had come up in conversation earlier in the evening, so we added a last act to our play. Dr. Conrad Murray is dismally staring at his empty, cold fireplace in his jail cell. "Guess there'll be no gifts THIS year... I've been a baaaaaaaaad boy." At that, a red-suited 'Santa' (Bill) bounds out of the chimney chirping gleefully, "It's...... Saaaaaaaan-TUSKY!" -grinning and putting his arm around Murray. "We bad guys have to stick together. C'mon! Let's have some HORSEPLAY in the shower!" --as Murray and Sandusky exit stage right, grinning wildly. LOL!!!

How much do they understand? I have no idea. But they simply LOVE doing that thing..... over and over.... and of course we adults (being the offbeat sort we are) laugh our old butts off. I've been told if we'd tape that for YouTube, it'd go viral. LOL!!!

You know, it's amazing to see those two kiddoes bloom and develop personalities of their own. I'm constantly taken aback by their intelligence and exuberance.... and I love being around them. They lift me up on the tiredst days and they inject a magic into life just being who they are and so often, by making me laugh.

As we look around at the glitter and beauty of the holiday trappings....

what we don't see is what the magic is all about.... and it's PEOPLE. It's those old folks at the home with mum, joking and joining in the carols and Christmas events. It's grandkids capering about, wondering what will be under the tree... and lovers... it's husbands and wives in a private world for two made more magical at this time of the year. It's friends and family....and co-workers..... it's PEOPLE who are at the heart of Christmas joy and Christmas giving, and whether you're a Christian or not, the love is loud and clear and at THIS time of year.

It behooves us to reflect on where all the sparkle comes from because it's from the inside out. At this time of year there's so MUCH OF IT we have to hang it on trees, wrap it around lampposts, create swags of garland out of it because we're here to LOVE and to celebrate that fact. It's that simple. I hope the good feeling lasts longer than midnight on the 31st... I deeply wish it all year though. From me to you.... merry MERRY Christmas!

December 19, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Today I've got something to make you laugh......

......and..... something to make you think.

How often I've wondered, "HOW MUCH INTERNET IS TOO MUCH?" .... then I quickly realize how our electronic connection is so embedded into the culture now, it makes the question a nearly negligible one....there's no going back.

However... this thought-provoking article is well worth reading. (Besides, I love David Lynch... and any reference to his movies makes me sit up and take notice. :) Enjoy.

December 23, 2011~ 11:00 pm
One day till gift-giving......

"Let The Wrapping

Commence!"

(which is what I am in the midst of right now. Christmas music on my new CD player, dining room table spread with ribbon and paper snippets, presents divided into piles... I am happy as a clam! -a MESSY one, for sure, but happy.....happy, oh YES indeed!)

Work is through for 3 days.... I pulled off another Christmas scramble to the finish line. I am getting ready to YULE!! hAppY eVe, folks! Hope your holiday is as bright as a new penny dropped in the sunlit snow. Go make memories. (They keep us warm through the years :)

Tomorrow Wayne and I will dine at Calabria's - Wayne to have the 'seven fishes' (finally! after YEARS of talking about it!) -then on to Holly and Gary's to dish out the Christmas booty and enjoy the high-spirits of the grandkids (who should be at 'launch level' by the 'eve' itself.) Much love to you and yours in whatever plans you've made for your own holiday. Peace to all of us. Everywhere. XOXOXO

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Weblog 304

2011-12-11T00:52:00.025-05:00

December 11, 2011~ 1:30 am
My vacation week is almost over. Monday it's back to the old grind, the 'iffy' weather and the constant bustling about.

And just how was my week to myself?

It was at best.... a 'mixed bag'. I know... I know... I said I'd do absolutely nothing except online shopping and christmas cards but saying that and allowing it without guilt or mixed feelings are two different things. I literally 'vegetated' Saturday through Tuesday, and felt anxious the whole time. LOL!! Wednesday I did manage to get the online stuff taken care of... and the JOY of my daughter's surprise early Christmas gift stashed in my door, those were a BOOST to be sure, but I'm an odd sort. I fret. It may not show, but I fret a LOT in my head.

And Saturday I received the very sad news from my sister (who's incidentally HOME already from her bilateral knee replacement surgery) that my godmother-- my much-loved Aunt Anna passed away on Friday in her nursing home in Ohio. She was in her mid-nineties- a ripe age to be sure, but to hear about the death of one so dear, especially since, as a child, I spent a LOT of time with her... is grievous.

I will tell my mother about her passing when I go to visit this afternoon, do her laundry, and have dinner. That will be tough. The three ladies- Anna, Bert and Catherine (two sisters and a sister-in-law) were called the 'ABC club' in the family. My mum, sister Bert, and Aunt Anna their sister-in-law, used to have lunch and go shopping every Tuesday for years. Aunt Bert passed away a year and a half ago... which was a great blow to mum, and now Ann. (I hope they're shopping and dining out together right now-- with Aunt Bert driving, as she always did.)

I've said this before and I'll say it again...Christmas is a time for both poles of emotion. Joy... and always always sorrow for those no longer here: it's a time for ghosts... a holy time for remembering the love, yet mourning the loss of those beloved souls' physical presence in our lives, and it affects me every year, some more than others. It also brings (at least for me) a cool hint of the breeze of my own grave one day, wondering what mourners will be left to remember the life I lived.

I did manage to watch a film Saturday evening. A very loooooooong film. Two hours and 40 minutes. (Yes, Wayne left 2 hours into it.) It was a 1999 adaptation of Shakespeare's bloodiest and least performed play, 'Titus Andronicus'.

I'd always wondered how they'd translate that particular story to film, and somehow (though I told Wayne we'd 'seen it', we hadn't, as became crystal clear as soon as the movie began) the only way I think it could have been done without achieving something like 'Saw' status, is surrealistically. It was a blending of ancient Rome and modern times. There were fierce gladiator foot soldiers.....

- striking and certainly riveting in the opening sequence with their puppetlike, frightening marching in low and blueish light, and the constant THOMP! THOMP! THOMP! of approaching warriors. But there were also guns..... and cars..... and arcade games. (There were a lot of Shakespearan interpretations put to film in the 90's. I'm thinking of Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio in their modern 'Romeo and Juliet'... and Ian McKellen in a brilliant version of 'Richard III', in a setting much like fascist Germany, complete with black uniforms and jackboots.) 'Titus', however, will not be pinned down to anything other than a kaleidoscope of Roman trappings.... late 20th century inventions and Dali-like dreams. And LOTS and LOTS of brutality. In a word, this film was

"WEIRD"

LOL!!! That's it... (but I happened to enjoy its strangeness.) Though not a 'great film', it's a thoroughly interesting one that surprised me constantly. First off, Titus is a fool. A pompous, doddering, self-delusional fool (played by Antony Hopkins) who brings all the subsequent horrors upon himself by his own initial barbarous act. He sacrifices the eldest son of Tamora, a captured Goth queen who, despite 'on her knees' pleading, must witness her son's slaughter- his saved entrails carried in a bowl and thrown to the flames before her own eyes. It's Tamora's vow for vengeance that sets in place a chain of brutality right to the end of the play, when Titus turns the tables, kills her remaining sons and FEEDS them to her at a banquet, baked in a pie he's tricked her into eating.

Villainy and horrific acts weave their way throughout this much-maligned play, and honestly, I think that it's only the film's surrealism that made it palatable and watchable... sometimes fascinating.

The costumes were amazing. The settings.... continually unexpected.... and just to watch Jessica Lange play the scheming, vengeful Tamora

was well worth it. She shines in roles like this one. So....... if you enjoy Shakespeare and have a taste for a truly different rendering of a dark, distasteful tale... give it a try. I can promise you, it will be like nothing else.

I believe it's the only movie in which Anthony Hopkins comes across as weak... or foolish... but he's supposed to. It's his genius that he can pull that off so beautifully. (And now, I'm taking my own well-thumbed copy of 'Shakespeare's Complete Plays' and paging through 'Titus Andronicus'. I want to read it as it was written. It's in my blood now....God help me. LOL!!)

December 12, 2011~ 6:30 pm
First day back.....

may I present.....my desk as it looked when I got into the office this morning. (I must be changing.....I didn't even MIND it. I dug right in, got things organized and started hacking away.) A peaceful day, honestly. Not too many phone calls, left alone to try and start to get caught up. I ENJOYED IT. lol

Oh! And LOOK at this incredibly LOVELY gingerbread house cake Donna made! I fell in love with it.

It tasted wonderful too. Like buttery bundt cake, powdered sugar snow on its rooftop. (Donna said it was really neat when it came out of the oven because the chimney was smoking from the heat.) It's made from a mold..... all one piece! What a terrific idea.... and easy to make. Heck.... even I could swing that.

All in all, this was probably my BEST day returning to work ever. I must have really been low last week, because being AT work was preferable, and that's never happened before. (Also, mum took the news of my aunt's passing very calmly. "We're OLD, Karen. What do you expect. If God takes us it's fine at this stage." (Of course, I was crying while I told her and I thought I would be so stoic about it. Guess not. She was trying to comfort me.) LOL!!! Typical.

I've also been thinking a lot about 'Titus'. (Yes, I did read the play through before I went to sleep on Saturday night, so I'm fairly immersed in the tale.) The one thing I forgot to mention was the knock-out performance by Harry Lennix in his role as Aaron, the moor. (And paramour of Queen Tamora.)

It's AARON who was the central villain, the driving force behind all the bloodshed. That actor became a burning pillar of absolute anger and evil.....and WHAT a performance. (It's true, Shakespeare wrote some of his most venomous words for that role, so an actor has to be able to throw them like daggers.... like swords..... and he did. He was perfection!)

I'd read online that Lennix had a role in 'E.R.' for a time. That sounds vaguely familiar, but THIS was the role he was born to play. Unrepentent, gleeful.... vicious to the core. ( I can't believe I didn't mention that before. Even Hopkins was outshone by that guy. Amazing.)

December 12, 2011~ 7:30 pm

Vocal Fry!

At last! There's a NAME for this sh*t!! LOL!!

(I just thought it was practiced boredom.)

It makes everyone sound like Mary-Louise Parker, who sets my teeth on edge... I want to shove an icicle up her butt just to get her to f*cking EMOTE. Remember her on West Wing, ordering Josh around? OOOOoooooo ..... if I'd have had a brick.....

December 13, 2011~ 4:50 am
Put a CAGANER in your Christmas creche!

That cute little guy is just observing nature's call. Such creche figures have been a tradition in Catalonia for centuries. Who knew? He symbolizes the common humanity in all of us... rich or poor...... every race, creed and type. I'd say 'the caganer' is everyman. And I love him.

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Weblog 303

2011-12-04T13:14:00.012-05:00

December 4, 2011~ 1:45 pm
Guess what? I'm OFF for the next 8 days. (It was one of those 'use it or lose it' situations, and the year is fast reaching a close. I had 10 vacation days left so I'm gonna at least use 5 of 'em... then see if I can manage any more.)

I intend to do absolutely nothing. Alone and quiet.....

except for visiting mum of course, and writing out Christmas cards....doing my online shopping. It'll be nice to back off of everything for a while... to get up when I want to and sleep when I feel like it.

It would be nice to have some Christmas music. (All my attempts to restore my computer's CD Rom drive this past week have failed. That's mostly what I've been doing compulsively, in every free moment. Obsessively fiddling and re-doing.) I've been without one since 2009 when I had to reinstall Windows, but I suddenly got an itch to see if I could wake it up and perhaps listen to some audio CD's and hear some Mannheim Steamroller for Christmas, but all attempts have failed. I'm afraid if I keep at it, I'll end up destroying my computer for good. LOL!!! (Had a close call last night when I dug up some old back-up and installed that, but my computer wouldn't boot afterward. I think it was a warning to stop mucking around in the system.) Sooooo......

So for now, I'll be the stoic lady, cut off...there's a sharp boundary in front of me beyond which I better not venture. (I'll heed the warnings for once and quit while I'm ahead.) There's enough color to go around without the music (though it's mostly in my head) --it'll have to be enough.

There's much to be grateful for. My sister came through her knee replacement surgery last week with flying colors. I was so relieved to hear her voice on the very evening of her surgery when she called. She's a tough one. Determined and upbeat. THAT'S the BIG ONE for right now.

And now I have time to hole up, read, relax for a whole week....

peering out at the world through a small opening in my cave, smiling.

(Strangely, I also feel a bit down... but that may be the disorientation of completely unstructured time.) I'm sure by week's end I'll be acclimated and hating to jump back in, but for now, it's a weird state of mind. We humans are terribly complex creatures. I've given up thinking I understand myself years ago... like this computer, our inner workings are mysterious and touchy, and the 'brights' and the 'darks' show up as they please. We seem to be reflecting pools with no say over the scenery, and the only given is it's changing all the time. Have a good week yourselves.

December 7, 2011~ 5:15 pm
Well..... I have to admit.... these days off have done nothing for me but to allow a pall of mild depression to settle in. LOL!!! What the heck is WRONG with me??? I get nine days off in a row and the inability to do anything descends like a cloud of superglue, trapping me in one spot, unable to move. It's suffocating.

(That's the poster for a 1974 movie with Olivia Hussey, Margot Kidder and Keir Dullea. I loved that I found it. Suits me to a 'tee'.)

Now that I've put a face on it, I feel better. Tonight..... I do the online shopping. Enough slumbering for most of the day, schlepping around in fuzzy slipper socks and a ratty old robe. (I did go visit mum yesterday, so that forced me into some clean-up, make-up and getting dressed, and tomorrow I'll do the same in the afternoon. I'm not a TOTAL zombie.)

I emailed my daughter-in-law Niki and suggested a Walmart gift card. There's a large Walmart right at Ft. Leavenworth and delightfully, today she wrote back that she LOVED the idea. (With grandkids so far away, growing up so fast..... it's hard to tell what might suit them or what they already have. That'll make that whole half of the family easy to fix up with gifts.) Tomorrow I'll write out my Christmas cards.... perhaps stop at the dollar store after I see mum and pick up some things for Kathy's grandkids.) There. See?..... a plan is all that's needed....a 'self-kick in the ass' to get me going. Holly's family is always fun to shop for online, so that'll occupy my evening.

I honestly don't know where this inertia comes from. It's like pathological procastination. At least this afternoon I found a wonderful, CREEPY, marvelous artist online.....

I think finding her somehow put a FACE to my depression and fears. She's incredible. Just pencil on paper, and look how nightmares come to life. Her name is

Laurie Lipton.

(And that 'be in art' is one of my favorite sites. Today, Laurie's work resonated enough to pop me right out of ennui. Thank goodness.) Her official page is her

GALLERY.

I'm sure you'll enjoy your visit. (My old browser had a hard time rendering it, but I'm certain you'll navigate just fine.) Now..... another pot of coffee, and off I go, shopping online. The dam has burst. Look out! LOL!!!

December 8, 2011~ 12:45 am
With all my b*tching and moaning in here this week....... yet, there is progress..... and gifts beyond measure. I am one lucky lady. While I was suffering here, trying over and over to get my order through online (and not succeeding due to this old computer, which I refuse to give up... it's some symbolic representation of 'self')I had a call on my cellphone from my granddaughter Kay.

(That's her on Thanksgiving. I finally uploaded the photos on the camera I'd left behind at Holly's on Thanksgiving.) Breathless and giggly, she had to tell me her front tooth was getting 'wobbly loose'.....aaaaaaand..... did I know there was a package in my door. "Front or back?" I asked. "Ummmmm.....the front. NO....the back. You should check it." I thanked her and said I'd do that right away.

And what did I find???

TA-DAAAAAAAH!!!! A brand-spanking-new CD PLAYER! LOL!!! Holly has been reading this blog and thought she'd cheer me up, so I got an early Christmas gift! I swear to God, I have the most THOUGHTFUL daughter in the world! I slapped my teeth in and made a call back to let her know (despite the clicking of my unsecured choppers) that it was wonderful.... and made me cry. So tonight...... (no, no Christmas music) ... I hooked the device right up and I carried my old printer (which I NEVER use) upstairs to the back bedroom. The little CD player is right next to me here on a little bench that used to hold the printer and I've been listening over and over to the poetry of David Whyte, who soothes my soul and keeps me sane. THANKS SO MUCH, HOLLY AND KAY!!!

With that as background, keeping me centered, I persisted and FOUR HOUR LATER, yes...... I FINALLY got my order to go through. LOL!!! I'm gonna try those same tubes of commerce now in this ungodly hour and see if perhaps less traffic will render things more accommodating to this old machine of mine. But first... 2 more Thanksgiving pictures. Here's Bill

in prayerful pose sitting next to his grandad, offering up the good words before we all dug in.

And here's a good portion of the whole group

his grandma Joan, and Frank, his other grandad... there's Gary... the back of Holly's head....LOL!!.... it's just me and Wayne who are missing. (I was snapping the photo and Wayne was way too far down the my side of the table to fit in the shot.) I loved that cozy meal in their downstairs gameroom. It was homey. Just like the feeling I have now... having been shown so remarkably how much I am thought of.... and cared about. I am one lucky gal. :)

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Weblog 302

2011-11-27T00:04:00.028-05:00

November 27, 2011~ 12:30 am
The "stuffed holiday" is done and gone. Sunk low in the sky and disappearing completely from the horizon until next year.

And guess what? I left my camera with the few photos I managed to take, sitting downstairs at my daughter's house. LOL!! I can't show even a glimpse of the day, but the food and the company were wonderful. A lovely feast, and for once- I didn't over-eat to the point of pain. (I yet remember the year when I could barely move in my chair without feeling like something would RUPTURE. Moderation must come with age.)

I worked Friday and got things nicely cleaned up. It was quiet in the office with so many choosing it as a personal day, so concentration was easier but it left me kind of disoriented on Friday evening (which felt like a MONDAY evening after being off) --and I stayed up too late, IMMERSING myself in luxurious free time, tweaking my computer, reading --and looking forward to a movie for Saturday.

Alas! The film I'd chosen, having heard great things about it ('award-winner, etc) --and having watched a very MISLEADING preview the week before, I can safely say that having watched it, it's possibly the WORST FILM I've ever seen. Truly dreadful. (In fact, if anybody tries to entice you into watching

..... RUN in the OPPOSITE DIRECTION as fast as you can. I don't believe I've ever suffered through so many minutes of people sitting around and not saying much, TONS of close-ups of faces.... everyone looking bored.

It is the slowest moving film EVER because it had no actual plot-- till the director decided to slap one in there with more loose ends than a plate of spaghetti. By the end-- 'something happened' alright-- but so implausibly, it was ridiculous: a movie in which NOTHING is ever explained-- the film simply 'stops'.

I was so shocked. (Wayne had already gone home... the damn DVD simply 'quit' about 40 minutes into the film) but I got it going again after he left and (sadly) watched the rest of it, and when 'the end' flashed up on the screen and the credits started rolling, I was sitting there open-mouthed and saying- "YOU HAVE TO BE F*CKING KIDDING ME!!!"

Which leads me to make this observation: not all 'quirky, indie films', even ones with good reviews, are worth watching. This 'stinker' had been billed as a dark sort of mystery about a young fellow at loose ends who drops out of his forensic studies at a university, and returns home to Portland to live with his sister. Shortly thereafter his ex-girlfriend turns up missing and he becomes a self-appointed sleuth. (The previews showed shadowy glimpses of what looks like white-slavery or something going on; perhaps underworld involvement in human trafficking, something along those lines.) I expected 'seedy edginess', tension and suspense, but it had NONE OF THOSE THINGS.

What it did have is plenty of wasted footage watching twenty-something, bored young people BORING THE HELL out of the audience. I'll tell you what I'D LIKE TO SEE....

The actors, the producer, the director, everyone involved with the film, 'best boy', everyone-- all strapped into movie seats- eyes pried open like Malcolm McDowell's were in 'A Clockwork Orange'

and be FORCED TO WATCH that turkey about 40 times straight till they're all stark raving insane. Believe me... one viewing, unstrapped, was punishment enough; I'd throw a rotten tomato but the film didn't even deserve that. Ashes... perhaps ashes heaped over it. Then salt.

That's my story.... a turkey on Thanksgiving and a turkey Saturday night. I'm off poultry for a while.

The one very sweet thing that happened however, is that I found another Nestle's Crunch bar tucked into my purse unbeknownst to me, by my granddaughter. Finding that... counts for a great deal indeed. It does much to balance the otherwise bullsh*t way most things turn out. It's the small things that make us happiest, of that I'm convinced.

November 29, 2011~ 9:00 pm
I took some Christmas decorations over to mum's today after work- (after tearing my way through a FOREST of cobwebs in my basement yesterday afternoon, digging through cartons of the stuff I haven't used in about six years now since I gave up decorating this place) and I picked out a light-up gingerbread house and a light-up porcelain tree, a Victorian baby doll, a big Christmas stocking and a few other small doodads. I hung them on her door, sat some atop her TV console, her end-table-- and all the while, watching her blink and scowl. LOL!!!

You see..... the trouble was..... it wasn't my sister Kathy doing it. Kathy is going to have both knees replaced on Thursday, and she'll be out of commission for several weeks, and mum is in knots worrying about it. She's getting feistier by the day. (That's her way or 'worrying'.... she carps.) She knows it..... I know it, so it's like water running off a duck's back when she turns picky and fretful. "I don't want that there..... I can't get at my cookie tin!"...."Don't you think that's a bit too much?"....."That doll is pretty, but she doesn't look Christmas-y, does she?" On and on. It's just not 'right' because it's not the way Kathy would do it... meaning: "I'M SCARED SH*TLESS ABOUT HER HAVING THIS SURGERY AND HERE YOU ARE PRATTLING ON ABOUT CHRISTMAS!"

I have to take her with a grain of salt. My position in her eyes is definitely 'the second stringer'. I realize that what I am... truly ...is a 'baby of the family with middle child syndrome'--that's the only way to describe it. Kathy was navigating streets at 4 years old (and probably making lists and maps as she did it) whereas I am a 'fly by the seat of the pants' personality, so mum doesn't feel as secure with me at the helm. (Hell.....I don't either!) LOL!!

When I got back home, I slipped into a robe and began net-cruising for relaxation, and I found a perfectly delightful site. A British version of 'The Onion'; so much of their satire resonates with my own opinions, so I loved it. Click on the bee

to visit 'THE DAILY MASH'... (I LOVE that title)... to read what they have to say about 'privitization'. (You know.... those institutions that should rightfully be funded out of the common coffers because they benefit ALL of us, but are instead given over to private enterprise because that's yet another way for capitalism to both FLOURISH, aaaaand.... they get to wear the good guys white hats to try and fool us.

The Mash's satiric take on the subject, using bees as their example, had me grinning great big appreciative grins. (And while you're there, have a look around. Mind you, the language is a 'bit salty' at times, but oh hell... salt adds to the flavor, sissypants.) Have fun!

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Weblog 301

2011-11-20T00:07:00.023-05:00

November 20, 2011~ 1:00 am
We're fast coming up on the

PILGRIM HOLIDAY

....so I wish to you and all of yours....

HAPPY EATING!

Daughter Holly will be hosting the festivities, opening her door and treating us to a delicious meal. All I need do is show up -pie and rolls in hand, and bring a big appetite. (I can't wait! She's become a very good cook- with no help from me, that's for sure.) I subsist on sandwiches and frozen pancakes, cheese popcorn and Little Debbies.

Saturday evening was 'movie night' and I finally got to watch a film I'd heard about originally on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. It's British fare-- a comedy that had me in stitches just listening to its sound bytes on the car radio. "The Trip" is a MARVELOUS film.

Billed as 'comedy'- it certainly is that, but it's far more. It's a study of the intricacy of male friendship when it's between two intelligent, witty and competitive men, who never (wonder of wonders!) discuss the usual male stuff like .....sports. It shows the way affection is peppered with insult, and laughing together can be as emotionally satisfying as .... say..... 'a hug'. "The Trip" stars Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon

- brilliant, brilliant comedians, whose nearly CONSTANT impressions of Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins had me in stitches....literally laughing till I cried. They egg one another on and challenge each other in nearly every scene. These actors play themselves on a road trip whose mission is to critique the fine cuisine in a selection of restaurants and inns thoughout northern England's gorgeous lake country. That's on the surface.

Beneath that feature assignment is Steve's fears of growing old in the film industry, of losing his edge, his looks.... his ability to attract women in the usual automatic fashion that's largely dependent upon his celebrity. He's in his mid-forties- and frightfully lonely: divorced, estranged from both his ex-wife and his son as well as his current American girlfriend.

Rob, on the other hand, is quite happily married to a wife he adores and a new baby daughter. There couldn't be two more dissimilar lifestyles, but what holds their friendship together is what they share.... a love of laughing and cracking each other up (which they do continually-- singing, doing riffs on iconic film scenes, nagging one another about irritating habits.)

And they're a joy to watch. There's a bit of a 'Monty Python-esque' quality to their interactions that's sheer comedic poetry. Steve, the one considered more attractive, is restless in his stagnant life/career situation. As I said to Wayne, "He's a deep person in a shallow life" -and Rob is so genuinely contented with his, all of Steve's smoke screens- the vain depth of knowledge he loves to trot out, his hound dog ways with women - these irritate Rob

who sees them for what they are: over-compensation for the things he doesn't have- and what Rob has in abundance. His life has a center, has real meaning for him, while Steve's does not. Given their differences, but coupled with a comedic common ground, makes for a fascinating study of their interactions.

'The Trip' is a wonderful film for anyone who's ever loved impressionists, but it's also a thought-provoking film about how very difficult it is for men to get close to one another when the usual props are stripped way. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys an offbeat, but splendid character study. (And if you DO rent it, empty your bladder first... it's not just the eyes that leak from laughing at that thing. LOL!!)

If you follow this blog, you know the past two weeks have not been the easiest at work: I've been over-tired and over-extended, and by Friday, I'm pretty much toast. So when we visited Holly and the kids on Friday evening, I had a lot less sparkle than usual. I tended to grouse a bit at Kay and Bill, then become apologetic about my lack of pep and good humor. (I hate when I get like that.)

But what a surprise was in store when I finally got home and got myself tucked into bed, propped up on the pillows and digging around in my purse for the nail-clipper I keep in there, for there inside was a Nestle Crunch bar that Kay had slipped in, unbeknownst to me.

Carefully printed in her six-year-old hand in black magic marker across the face the the candybar wrapper, she'd penned "From Kay To Gramma".

She's the keeper of my heart, that one. Made me grin like crazy, that little token of love, especially since I remember her breaking into the conversation between Wayne, Holly and myself to ask, "Gram... you know that candy with the blue wrapper?" Since we weren't talking about candy, we were discussing the news or family matters or something -- and because I was so frazzled by the end of the week, I said sharply, "Kay.... what are you talking about? Were we discussing candy here? Why are you asking about candy?" (I saw her face fall a little.) "Just because I wanted to know if you still like that candy in the blue wrapper."

(Since I do indeed like that candy very much) I smiled weakly, perked up and said, "Nestle's Crunch! Yes. I DO like that candy," and the adults went back to talking.

Looking at that autographed chocolate bar around midnight on Friday-- I felt both sheepish and warm, right down to my toes.

Aaaaaaaannd.....it was very tasty. THANK YOU, Kay.

You made a tired, cranky old grandmother grin.

November 20, 2011~ 8:30 pm
Thank GOODNESS I had a full, lonnnnnnng night's sleep last night. I slept 10 hours and woke up renewed. I spent the dinner hour with mum and the ladies at Assisted Living- and was shocked to hear mum say she didn't know I have dentures.....lol....(honestly, "You don't have dentures, do you?" -ah well, at 91, information must slip through like water through swiss cheese.)

When I got home I began to look at onine art, which is always interesting to me. It soothes something in my brain, and as per usual, I was attracted to the more surreal-- the 'dark art' that's out there. Just for the heck of it, I tried my own hand at photo manipulation, attempting to make something that I might find chilling. Bear in mind, I have no photoshop or any of the sophisticated programs folks use, but with a combination of a little free program I downloaded 10 years ago that can enhance images -nuthin' fancy, just basic stuff- and by using the online net.art.generator that can combine up to four images with layers of transparency by using random pictures from the net, (that, and a bit of free hand drawing) I turned this

into this

and I was pleased with the result. (I've always found clowns 'spooky' in the extreme.)

Now if you want to take a look at some FABULOUS artwork in the same vein, pop on over to Smash Magazine and look at the real deal. Terrific images, all of them nightmares of one kind or another. It's 'on the couch' art, as I like to think of it.... 'surrealism' just this side of Freudian dream therapy. Enjoy.

November 20, 2011~ 6:35 am
Want to calm down and relax a bit? Want to give yourself about two minutes of mediative bliss? Click on the flower

(A GOOD way to start the day.)

November 23, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Wellllllll....that was a close call. I've been 'at' my computer again.. fretting away, whittling things down, and yep..... I deleted some critical string values in my registry last night before I went to bed. This morning........ nuthin'. Windows would load, but every other program I tried, including my internet provider to get onto the web, caused a- 'not enough memory' error. LOL!!! I had Blue Screens of DEATH galore!...system freezes, lock-ups, did dirty shutdowns... you name it. This old beast was in rictus mode.

I left work at 1:30 today to give myself time to run to the grocery store BEFORE the mob-sized crowds of after work shoppers on the day before Thanksgiving, and I picked up my pumpkin pie, my dinner rolls and a nice poppyseed roll, a can of whipped cream and hustled home to begin another onslaught, trying to get Lazarus to arise. After an hour, it coughed back to life. (Don't ask me how.... I do all this stuff on instinct and nerve... it's what gets me into these messes to begin with.....computer RUSSIAN ROULETTE!)

I just can't stop picking at things. There's my trembling finger hovering over 'Delete?'....... and WHAM!...I've done it, no turning back.

Luckily, Betsy here is running better, faster than ever....... "who'd a thunk it?"

Happy EATING TOMORROW! xoox

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Weblog 300

2011-11-12T23:47:00.015-05:00

November 13, 2011~ 12:30 am
Hard to believe this is my 300th weekly blog entry! Time is like a greased pole we go sliding down, quicker by the year, and it's already the rear shank of this one.. but a wonderfully silent, bare-staged November

--its only color, the occasional flaming sunset. (That glorious painting is by John Atkinson Grimshaw- a favorite of mine.)

I like the quiet of this month- and I LOVE the anticipation of the good foods and coziness of Thanksgiving. (I even feel I'm writing in this blog a bit slower.... with more contemplation and no feeling of urgency whatsoever.) The world around me is muted.. getting prepared for the holing-up of winter with everyone in their separate, warmed hutch.

Soon there'll be the manic ramping up to the glitzy holiday of Christmas -with its tinsel and lights- and the barely tamped down frenzy that it creates... it's like we're all flappers, decking out for an evening at our favorite speakeasy.

(Oh, how this country loves its 'buying season'. LOL!!) Not me, but all the malls will be packed and the traffic horrendous, so I do enjoy this bit of a quiet lull. Always have.

This past week has gone by with one blurred day folding into another, my work stacking up because I'm training someone. (She's a lovely gal and a quick study)-- but lord knows, you can't accomplish the usual amount of work and be divided between two things.

I've also been experiencing nighttime leg cramps......(not conducive to a good night's sleep, let me tell you.) Tonight Wayne brought over some PICKLE JUICE for me to drink- it's supposed to help. And homeopathic leg cramp pills. And I bought some bananas while grocery shopping...they're supposed to give the body the amount of potassium it's missing, which leads to these annoying muscle cramps. Heck....I'll try anything to see if it works. Being roused a couple of times a night makes for pretty lousy rest.

At least there's the solace of calmly browsing the net, looking for things that interest me. (ANYTHING to get away from the shocking and angering Penn State scandal. It's everywhere on the news and in conversation, and too horrible to contemplate constantly... those poor boys.) I know of course, I'll drift back to reading the latest news... how can one help but keep staring at something that appalls that way? Infuriating.... ghastly. It draws one with its horror the way a traffic accident pulls the eyes to the very thing it fears it may see.

Thank god for beauty in the world. It doesn't take the pain away, but it soothes the eyes at least, and I did find a MARVELOUS artist. Allow me to introduce the MASKS of

Peggy Bjerkan

(Isn't she delightful?) One is more pleasing than the next- and her TITLES are inspired! I loved browsing through all of her work; she has a space on Etsy as well. Man O man, what terrific talent... so go have a gander. It'll take your mind off everything else for a while and we all need these little escape chutes...they keep us sane.

Have a good week. (I hope my own proves a bit more productive, and less CRAMPY. Plus..... I think I'm fighting a cold. Oh joy. Just what I need....LOL!)

November 14, 2011~ 7:00 pm
A day at work to myself..... and I certainly went at it whole hog, chiseling, chiseling away at my growing stack of files. (Happily, I have this cold stuck in a corner-- it snarls and snaps-- but I keep poking at it with my stick!) Honestly, a loooooooooong sleep last night- I was in bed at 5:30, asleep by six p.m. -helped a LOT. That... and Zicam. I think they took it off the market, but I still have a bottle, and it WORKS for me.

I spent the day just trying to keep my head above water.....

trying to breathe, trying to stay afloat. We all get days like this where you just make a sprint for home plate. Exhausting, but it pays off if you can keep the paddle wheel churning. (Needless to say, the BEST part of the day was the end: my ass to the door, walking to my car, big grin on my face.) I made a dent...... I truly did.

Of course, being HOME AGAIN was the greatest satisfaction of all...plop the purse down, turn the key to 'lock'... and voila!

IN the nest... luxuriating!

(Yah, right... if you could see me, teeth out, stained terrycloth robe, nose dripping Zicam gel, and blinking, blinking at the computer because my eyes are permanently damaged from staring at numbers all day long, day after day. LOL!!!) Oh well... one can dream. May as well make it a WHOPPER.

November 17, 2011~ 5:30 am
Life goes in and out of focus. Concentrate on one thing long enough, it becomes the only thing-- then everything else disappears. Do it. Go ahead and stare at the '+' below for just 30 seconds.... only the + remains... the rest of the square slowly becomes white.

That's called 'Troxler's fading.'

I have Troxler's fading about work this week.

Bummer.

November 17, 2011~ 11:45 pm
The WEEKEND! Finally. After a visit with Holly and the grandkids Bill and Kay (during which we discussed whether the HUGE BRIGHT STAR in the sky was Jupiter or not) and while Kay flounced about, showing me her first grade textbook with the delicious new ink smell I remember from days gone by... and while Bill explained the changing styles of soldier's uniforms through the centuries though many wars and mayhem, and all the while paging through a book he got from the library, trying to draw me into playing war with him (I was designated as 'THE AXIS' in WWII)-- well after all that, I'm settled in now and almost ready for bed.

Tucked out of sight, Wayne and me in our own cubby holes

and we're NOT COMIN'OUT FOR NUTHIN'!

Planets... spin and twirl, this girl's down for the count....it's SIESTA-VILLE for yours truly. Wayne too, I'm thinking.

***

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Weblog 299

2011-11-06T01:11:00.019-04:00

November 6th, 2011~ 12:30 am
On Saturday evening, my sister Kathy and husband Bob celebrated 50 years of marriage. Wow. What a landmark. They're best friends, too... and just two of the NICEST people you could ever meet.

As their treat, and to gather us all together for a lovely evening, we enjoyed an all expense paid dinner (kids included) at the grand old lady of Pittsburgh restaurants-- the 'LeMont'. It sits right atop Mt. Washington along Grandview avenue and overlooks the city. Here's Kath and Bob, with grandsons Jonathan and Jason looking on, as the happy couple open their anniversary gifts.

Still lookin' good, still best friends, and with quite a passel of offspring from their three sons, all of whom were born one year apart.

Kay and Bill were treated to an evening of 'SUPER fine dining', and Bill and Kay sat right at the floor-to-ceiling windows, mighty impressed with the whole thing. Here's Bill....

pretty much dazzled by the view (and the fact that Pitt was playing in the stadium right across the river.)

We enjoyed watching a ferry boat resplendent in lights, carrying folks from Station Square over to the game on the North Side as well as other boats in the river entertainment fleet. (And there were little boats with blue lights on 'em, which I told Bill were the River Patrol: the police on the water. He was very impressed with that. Kept saying, "River Patrol, River Patrol"....like he was savoring a fine sip of cognac, and I don't even know if that's what they were. LOL!!! But it sure peaked his interest.) Kay was a bit leary of the glass windows, wondering if they opened or not, asking me how safe were we sitting there like that.

But she was a winsome dreamboat to look at, that's for sure. Mostly, Kay LOVED the fancy bathroom, and made 3 trips just to hear her heels click on the marble floors, and adored the rococo look of the gilded mirrors and sink fixtures. She told me when I first took her back there, that she could "LIVE IN HERE, gram! I love it!" I think she felt like a princess. And.....

I think my daughter Holly looked unbelievably beautiful in her 'Louise Brooks' hairdo...there's my girls, side by side at a posh place with all the grand folks. (You won't believe it, but sitting at the table next to ours was none other than...... RUSH LIMBAUGH.... my rank nemesis!! And around the same table were Al Michaels and Bob Costas and Michele Tafoya, NBC's sideline reporter for Sunday Night Football. (Yep. I had to look that up. I was curious about the identity of the one woman at that table.) Holy crap! I'm sure they were in town to check out the Ravens/Steelers game Sunday evening, and I have to say that Limbaugh looks younger - and thinner in person. (Dang. He's SUCH a blowhard chowderhead, I was hoping he'd look as fat and ready to blow a gasket as he's looked all these years, seen through the eyes of the media.) In fact, if you check out my 'Bitch Blog', you'll find an older entry I did on the conservative windbag entitled.... "He's BAAAAACK!")

But life is full of surprises, I guess.... but why oh why does my one celebrity sighting have to be THAT guy??? LOL!!

Our own family celebrities were present, however... and they're the ones I was interested in. Here's son-in-law Gary, his cast removed from his right arm, recovering well and looking quite handsome ... and HAPPY (as always. He's the sweetest guy.)

My brother-in-law Bob is quite a tall fella who still makes an impressive appearance, as do two of his three sons shown in the picture here-- Bob and Jim. (Wish I'd caught Mike as well. Then we'd have all three, tall Magi.)

I can't quite get it through my head that my NEPHEWS are in their 40's now. That's amazing to me. That streak of time just shot past us, barely stirring any wind at all. (Sadly, there are no pictures of me and Wayne. Drat! I completely forgot to have someone snap our picture, and I even mentioned it to Wayne before we left on Saturday evening.) Oh well... I know Bob and Kath took plenty of pictures too, so maybe they'll share some of them--- I'd like to remember this occasion, and actually SEE ME in it. LOL!! Last, but never least here's the lady I picked up at 6:00 pm-- Wayne beside me.

Yep. It's MUM...... at ninety one years.

And I (as driver of the pumpkin coach) drove her home as well and set her clocks back an hour. (Thank GOODNESS this is the weekend for it. A bit of extra time. The gift of another hour... I love the 'fall back' business.)

And the poor soul had to put up with me not having a CLUE which lane I was to be in while trying to get to the restaurant. Wayne remained very calm in the back seat and quietly said, "Kay. Just turn here and then turn around and come back." (I could SEE the damn place I wanted to be, but could not get to it. They've changed the traffic patterns since the last time I drove to Mt. Washington from my home, years ago.) We were only three minutes late but Mum was saying beside me, "This is a lot of RIGAMAROLE to get there, isn't it?" LOL!! "Yah, mom. I was in the wrong lane so we have to sit through these long stupid lights again," I said, sighing and rolling my eyes. I could almost hear Wayne snicker in the back seat. No doubt he was remembering my 'short cut' from when we drove to Chalk Hill just last week.

Instead of a slight delay at a light, I told him I was taking a 'short cut'..... which lasted 45 minutes.

Just like last weekend though, short cuts notwithstanding..... we had a delightful time. (Even with the creeping down pantyhose and the too-tight shoes.) I haven't worn a dress in years. I now know why. But.... it was worth it.

November 6th, 2011~ 8:00 pm
I'm not quite used to the missing hour yet. Here it is, 8 pm and I feel like I'm dragging butt. All I'm good for at this point is aimless browsing, but oh, man... I found a great link!

Someone took the time to come up with a theory of MOVIE POSTER INTERPRETATION, and they are absolutely right on the money! LOL!! Click on the old theater picture and you'll find a work of humorous genius.

It's wonderfully, hysterically true ...right down to the ground. Enjoy.

(Oh! And one other tidbit from last night's festivities that I forgot to mention earlier. Grandson Bill heard me order the Caesar Salad when our waiter came around, and Bill looked stricken. "Oh no, gram!" he said, "Don't order the seizure salad..." as though it'd be something like Mezcal with a dead worm in it, that'd soon have me twitching and kicking.) LOL!! What a kid.

***

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Weblog 298

2011-10-31T16:05:00.010-04:00

October 31, 2011~ 5:00 pm
No. I didn't disappear. I was soooooo bushed when I got back from our extended weekend outing to Chalk Hill, PA, I simply downloaded the pictures from my camera and went to bed last evening. (But today is HALLOWEEN!!!)

BOO!

That cat belongs to my boss....and he's a RIOT! He's there in all his Halloween-iconic splendor..... but still looks pretty pissed off. (Perhaps because of a kind of cat 'racial profiling' that telegraphs to all the world that black cats are WICCAN.....or satanic or something. LOL!!) I just love him. He's the only cat I know will immediately JUMP ON A PERSON'S BACK the minute they bend over. Scares the PANTS off of you.... he enjoys it immensely.

Our trip, from Thursday morning through Sunday afternoon, saw TWO SEASONS pass before our eyes. On Saturday, strolling and tromping around the gorgeous scenery at Ohiopyle....

the air was redolent with the smells of fall. Pine and fallen leaves and mossy fragrances. The sun glinting off every burnished and russet color and strung out in the trees... the full majesty of the mountains in AUTUMN was right there at our fingertips.

By Friday evening, that changed to ..........SNOW!!! EIGHT INCHES OVER THE COURSE OF THE NIGHT, so Saturday had us waking up and blinking in disbelief. Heavy, wet snow clung to everything, magically changing the same scenery to a set from 'White Christmas'. It was startling. And wondrous.

I have a link here, if you'd like to see all 51 picture.... (LOL!)..... but it does use 'Flash'....(which, of course, I don't have, but I was able to upload these at work.) Enjoy!

Chalk Hill Fall Trip

(Wayne, who was OFF today, and will be still home tomorrow, lucky guy....just came in with a BOATLOAD of Halloween treats and cards and gifts!) I'll put some images in here later, but OFF we go to see the grandkids, and join in their trick-or-treating adventures!) BOO, again!! The scary day is here!

October 31, 2011~ 10:30 pm
We-e-e-eeere BAAAACk! We had a TERRIFIC Halloween evening, DESPITE the constant drizzle. (Weather has NOT been cooperating with plans this week.) However, I joyfully present....

and it was a DOOZY! This year was particularly atmospheric and creepy. (The kids are getting old enough now to leap into the scarier stuff with gusto! Even the DOGS!) Here's John decked out in his sequiny red devil get up.

And Abby, a house-guest canine who belongs to Holly's dad. He couldn't be with us= he had to work, but ABBY sure had fun as a bright little pumpkin!

(Greg Brady, the other standard poodle, HATES getting dressed up. He gnaws and pulls until his costume is in shreds..... so Holly shaved part of his head and gave him Frankenstein suctures with a Magic Marker. LOL!!!) It didn't come out well on film, however. His SIDE too! ROFL!!!

Then there was BILL, who's currently fixated on anything 'WRESTLING'. He has action figures galore, and went trick or treating his his favorite wrestler's outfit.

Rey Mysterio!

Holly and Kay were both creepy vampires. Here's Holly, putting on Kay's makeup in the bathroom. (Kay's under that black wig somewhere.)

(The shower curtain in the background is inspired by the movie 'Psycho'.) Here they are in the kitchen, Kay whispering something to her mum.

And it obviously made her laugh!

(She makes a great-looking 'wench-bloodsucker', doesn't she?) Now......to the TRULY SCARY ONE.........KAY!!!! Holy crap!!!

AND YIKES!! (Right out of an 'Anne Rice' novel, that one! There's something really really creepy about child vampires. It's always been one of those images gives me the TOTAL chills.)

Even going to the BATHROOM had its moments.

(I couldn't resist snapping a picture of the oozing bathroom mirror with a gory gelatinous something running down from the top edge-- it goes with the 'Psycho Decor' currently in the 'throne room'.)

Before we set out this evening, Wayne showed up at the door with a bag chock FULL of Halloween surprises for me....

Fudge, milk chocolate that was foil-wrapped in Jack O'Lantern papers, a small stuffed vampire bear with red satin cape, a Halloween totem pole with a crow sitting on an owl sitting on a black cat sitting on a a pumpkin.... black bat flying overhead on a wire. I LOVE IT! And........ not one..... not two.... but THREE greeting cards

one cuter than the next. Yep. Despite going back to a stack of work today with all the confusion and fuss being out of the office for a few days that creates, it was a MEMORABLE and TERRIFIC October 31st. November..... here we come! Down the short, swift slide to the next two holidays.

Ya know.... you get old and the years race faster and faster; that's surely the truth. At least the people I love make it a GOOD RACE. I hope that's true for you as well. ((((Yawn))))..... great Caesar's GHOST! It's almost eleven. I have to be back up in 5 hours. Nighty nite, all. And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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Weblog 297

2011-10-22T21:47:00.009-04:00

October 23, 2011~ 12:00 am
Just when I was having a lackluster week, lo and behold... I received a seasonal greeting from my gal pal in Los Angeles.

Boy! That picked my 'spirits' right up! I LOVE HALLOWEEN CARDS! I'm sure she's all decked out for the holiday, as she is every year. Me?...... (yep. That card.) LOL!!! But through the decades folks have sent spookable greetings, and I so enjoy looking through vintage cards online because they cheer me to no end!

Look at that adorable little 'Campbell's soup' sort of toddler, big-eyed scared. Usually it's a variety of pretty Floradora-type girls dressed as leggy old-fashioned witches astride brooms... or cute tikes like that one, scared out of their wits. Plenty of pumpkins and ghosts.... shadows and candle flames.

With one sweeter than the next, you can get lost looking, letting nostalgia sweep right over you. Despite what the Christian Right thinks of Halloween, I find a true innocence about the holiday. Unlike Christmas- which is known as the season for the child in each of us, I find it's Halloween that really brings the little kid out in everyone. We enjoy being creeped out and dressing up. We like sweets. We like a good scary story.

That being said...... you would think the movie we chose for the weekend before the holiday would have been of the scary variety. Wayne and I checked out the local movie rental place and honestly, the scary genre has been taken over by either gory murder movies with plenty of saws and cleavers and such, or they're 'end of the world' type pandemics that change people into flesh-eating zombies. I miss the old creepy hauntings. I miss being afraid of what you DON'T SEE.

So..... strangely enough, Wayne allowed me to choose a corny musical film, "Burlesque". The acting was stilted, the plot a rehash of any number of 1930's films of a country girl trying to get her big break, but I loved the glitz... and the way Christina Aguilera can really belt out a song. I think she's terrific. Visually, the movie is quite appealing

with an intended nod to the 'Caberet' type of Kit Kat Club in pre-war Germany... but one that is strictly rated PG. There's not a whiff of decadence in sight, just a slight tease in that direction.) Cher looked like she's made of 'plastique'... but the lady can still sing. The real treat was watching Aguilera camp it up.

Platinum wigs, eyeliner galore, she batted her lashes and danced like a trooper, all the while producing this HUGE voice from a small body. (And of course, there was Stanley Tucci, an actor who improves EVERY film he's in. He seemed to be enjoying himself... as always. A delightful man.)

Even though the film was weak and hobbling in the story department, the acting so-so (given the hackneyed plot)...... I still enjoyed the show.

That's because Christina Aguilera is dynamite to watch when she's performing. (I think even Liza Minelli would give a nod to that.) She entertains. And for Saturday evening, that's all I really wanted, to be swept up in some powerful musical numbers... and that's exactly what happened. It was enough to sit back and watch the 'spectacle'. (Although, come to think of it, watching Cher doing Morticia from the Addams Family... WAS kind of 'Halloween-y'. LOL!)

October 23, 2011~ 7:45 pm
Had a nice dinner with mum, and was DELIGHTED once again, to find such SPLENDID fall leaves scattered all over the sidewalks from the many, many old trees that line the walkways around her assisted living complex.

I couldn't resist. Just had to pluck up two more of them, and just to show you their SIZE, I snapped this shot.

There's my aging little paw beside the larger of the two. Those leaves are MAGNIFICENT this year!

Even inside the house, I've got them tucked around most of my downstairs pictures. LOL!! I'm an autumn lover for sure. Browns, reds and oranges and yellows..... they make me feel cozy.

October 24, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Wonder of wonders! My boss did the most extraordinary pumpkin carving! I just love it....

and it's of one of my favorite things.....AN OWL! (Besides crows, which I believe to be my 'spirit animal') I love owls to pieces. How's that for a lovely autumn porch ornament? Must have taken the patience of Job. GOOD JOB, JOYCE!

***

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Weblog 296

2011-10-15T23:10:00.001-04:00

October 16, 2011~ 12:00 am
The golden season is officially here! Looking out my front door on Thursday, this is the scene that greeted me as I stepped out to check the mailbox.....

So PRETTY! All the trees along the creek across the road are bathed in light and dappled in fall colors. (And I noticed MOUNTAINS of leaves had fallen from the oaks and maples outside of mum's assisted living buildings... they swirl about and carpet the walkways, looking delightful. (I gathered a few and brought them home because they were so HUGE! I wish when I'd snapped this picture, I'd put my hand beside that big one.

Honest to Pete, the thing was almost twice the length of my little monkey paws. LOL!!! And Holly's house is all decked out in Halloween decorations. On Friday when we visited, the dogs got dressed up, the grandkids put on their costumes as a preview for next Monday evening-- and Holly is such a sweetie, she made a quilted cloth Halloween pin for me to wear!

Cavorting cats! (Wayne liked it so much, she made one for him and slipped over here while I was still sleeping today and left it in a festive bag inside the screendoor. He was TICKLED to pieces. We both wore them when we went out for dinner on Saturday evening. We're in the seasonal mood.... at last. And going away for a long weekend at the end of the month. Gonna soak up all these colors in the mountains.

Not as BRIGHT, but certainly pretty, are the waves of goldenrod all in bloom on the hillside behind the house. I love how that looks, so I had to take a picture to remember it when the hillside turns brown again in winter.

And THERE'S the new car, parked in the carport. And if you look closely, that yellow 'ball' you see in the middle of the picture at the base of the carport wall.......that's Beethoven's grave. (A fella was throwing away a lovely marbelized BOWLING BALL at work, and stuck it in the dumpster. I snatched it out and now it's a decorative grave marker for my dear old, 21 year old cat-buddy. He'd be amused. Probably sniff at the thing, shake his paw and pad off, wondering what in the heck I was thinking. LOL!)

I wanted to share a picture taken at work, sent to me by my boss, who found a squirrel on the ledge outside her office window. He's the same little begger who's been consistently being fed unshelled peanuts by one of the owners. (Paul had been away, so the squirrel tried Joyce's window instead.)

Paul has the only windows that open and have screens in them. He slides the screen up when he sees the squirrel outside sitting up on his haunches, and tosses peanuts to him. It's so cute to watch. He sometimes calls me back to have a look. (He'd taken the funniest picture of this fella up close with his cellphone, and the squirrel's face is very distorted and looks ENORMOUS. If I can find that shot I'll post it here because he looks, for all the world, like a petitioner-- paws held up and drooped down at the wrist like a a hobo who's asking for a handout.) Here his in a closer view.....

(Not only squirrels, but our office is home to a troop of field mice, who love to raid the place during the night. One morning I'd come in a couple weeks ago to find a heap of broken peanut shells in the carpeted hallway behind me. I went back to his office to find the plastic bag of nuts had a hole chewed through the one corner. Yep. The thieve anything they can when no one's around.

On Saturday evening, Wayne and I watched a film called

- a long conversation with Alan Moore, 58 year old artist of gorgeous graphic novels, some of which have been made into movies: 'From Hell', 'The Watchmen' and 'V For Vendetta'. He's a fascinating, talented and very strange man. He speaks with a British working class accent in a voice that's deep and almost monotone, but extremely hypnotic. Moore considers himself a magician or a shaman.... a visonary, certainly; he's a 'self-made' man, and a powerhouse of creative genius.

If you've enjoyed the films mentioned, you certainly should rent it to find out where those visions came from. I guarantee the man's intelligence and metaphysical philosophy will wow you. (Plus, he's a guy with more rings and certainly stranger rings than even I have.

Makes me jealous. LOL!!!

Find me an offbeat, striking character, and I'm in heaven. Always been that way. The world is too stuffed with cardboard cut-out folks. Every now and then you may be lucky enough to find a magnificent weirdo. That's when things get interesting. (I think Mr. Moore would be the first to agree with me.)

***

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Weblog 295

2011-10-08T20:35:00.018-04:00

October 9, 2011~ 12:00 am
Did you ever watch a film that just sucked all the air from the the room and your soul out with it? I mean a really, really depressing, disappointing film that-- when it's finally over you think-- "Why in hell did I watch THAT?"

Something sufficiently heavy and ugly, so it looks a lot like this

(It's a twisty, dark tree but you also see the tortured face superimposed. You can't NOT see it.) Sadly, I made a bad choice for our movie night. Still high on seeing Ryan Gosling's performance in the 'Lars' film, I chose another of his that came with the highest recommendation.

BOY... was that wrong! Choosing a 2001 film that had done well at the Sundance Film Festival that year, I rented 'The Believer'- where Gosling plays a neo-Nazi who is also Jewish; while that sounded like a pretty provocative theme for a film, it's nothing but one violent ugliness after another. Gosling's part was well-acted (though I sure did get sick of seeing his sharp-featured sneering face after about 15 minutes into the story.)

There's not a redeeming moment in the entire movie and the other actors were 'hammy' in their roles-- at least to these eyes. In fact Wayne got up and left after about 35 minutes, but I stuck it out, determined to see what had brought the film the kind of critical acclaim it received back in 2001. Right up to the bitter (and ridiculous) ending, I kept wondering, and now....

now I'm left with a depression hangover. LOL!! No kidding. The rest of the evening stretched out in front of me like that bridge up there. Endless. Bare. Dispirited.

My advice is: stay away from this film. It's a vampire... it'll draw the life out of everything.

(And don't expect any 'breakthough' moments because there aren't any.) There's not one bright spot of insight, no glimmer of softness anywhere to be found: the characters are ugly, the sex is ugly, and the whole project smacks loudly of an Indie film trying to be darkly sensational. The film REEKS of over-arching ambition, and plays spuriously because of it.

Here's the way the world looks after viewing

Empty. Discarded. Thrown away.

What a waste of an evening. (Of course, after I wrote this, I did some web surfing to cheer myself, and it worked!)

I landed on some charming vintage sites and found what I think may be the scariest looking DUMMY I've ever seen.....

LOL!!! Isn't it great! Imagine hiring that for a children's birthday party? Those Victorians sure knew their kids. LOL!!!

October 10, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Strange mood persists.

It feels like I swallowed some slimy river stones: heavy and weighted-- perhaps it's the 'Halloween mood' creeping up on me, dragging the dying season along with it.)

I've been cruising around the net and finding things that give me chills.... like this.

By damned if those folks don't look like ghosts to me. (They're not. It's just what I found spookiest in part of an old photo, and the fact that both children's faces are absent any discernable features. Felt a little chill steal over me studying that.)

Here's another picture gives me the willies.

Landscape lost in a kind of fog... perhaps it's early pre-dawn or just before dark... and along comes this intruder. He's been introduced into whatever story comes drifting up from the subconscious. When I see something like that my scalp begins to tingle. I get a little buzz of 'DANGER...DANGER!' that pops up like a tin duck in a shooting gallery, a real toe-curler.

(This all may be coming from 'Monday Syndrome'. LOL!!!) The beautiful weather promised today did not happen. It was cloud-covered and cooler than predicted. Add that to a Monday... and you get gray, creepy thoughts, at least I do. (That image reminds me of so many slasher-movies over the years: it's that scene just before terror begins. Perhaps I need to rent another Texas Chainsaw sequel.)

Having gotten my boogiemen out of the way (the ventrioquist dummy, the cemetery folks and the 'shadow man') -I think it's time to change the mood and snag something happy.

How about 'The Owl and The Pussycat'? Not a nursery rhyme poem, but the 'real thing'.

Click on that cute illustration to read about a REAL love affair between two very different species. (It'll do you good. Go ahead. Click on it.) Come to think of it..... there is something creepy about love tokens in the form of dead bats. LOL! But it's meant from the heart. THAT'S the difference. :)

October 11, 2011~ 7:40 pm
Ok....ok....I ADMIT it.....

I'm now on a 'DUMMY KICK'... those often scary 'lap-sitters' that used to freak me out when I was a little kid. Every variety show seemed to have one featured and as we sat in the blue glow of our halo TV in the 50's, my dad would invariably criticize the ventriloquist. "There! Did you see that?"

"His LIPS are moving." LOL!!!

I think what scared me was the way their darned big eyeballs moved back and forth-- back and forth, expression never changing --watching everything. (I immediately saw their potential when in 1978 Anthony Hopkins starred in a horror film called "Magic" about a ventriloquist and his dummy. Made perfect sense to me.)

When not being scary, they can be hysterically funny. Take for instance, 'Geraldine and Ricky'. This photo is from their record album.

Say what you will, those are fine heads of HAIR!

And speaking of hair....how about some BEARDS as well?

(Can you believe that is Volume III? It's GOT to be the matching beards! And if it worked so well for those fellas, why not for Geraldine and Ricky???)

There we go. All dressed up and ready for the Lawrence Welk Show. Perfect. :)

(Yep, I'm feeling perkier today, and the dummies did it.) Never underestimate our little friends.

And DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM.... (some conditioning never dies.... you can't be too careful.)

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Weblog 294

2011-10-01T20:16:00.010-04:00

October 2, 2011~ 12:00 am
We're FINALLY into the 'real fall'! Leaves are burnishing nicely in every shade of orange, yellow and red, and the air is CRISP indeed. (I haven't turned my furnace on yet, even though the nights are in the low 40's. I just layer on more clothes, more blankets, keep the hot water bottle close, and enjoy it!)

It's interesting to me how something that is dying, feels more alive....autumn is like that. People become more vivid as well when the impermanence of life is truly accepted. With daily reminders that life is short

when the bones are right beneath the skin and the skeleton apparent, the flesh feels more precious. We're all of us just hearts beating inside of a death to come. We may try to masquerade that fact, or put on many masks in an effort to deny it; we may get wrapped up in 'stuff' or in obsessions of one kind or another trying to distract ourselves, but the truth is life is sweet BECAUSE it's not endless. (At least not the flesh and bone part of it, the part we walk around in.)

In contrast to the dark graphic above, I think most folks live in fairytale denial- wrapped in their protective shells like safe little thrones, while trying hard to keep things dreamily attractive.

Spas, fitness centers, plastic surgery, magazine articles on how to look younger, oodles of STUFF to buy, racing about collecting STUFF may keep fear at bay, but along with it, the very important realization that time is short. (Or, as Warren Zevon said when he knew for a fact he was dying, "Enjoy every sandwich.") Not... "try a NEW SANDWICH and you'll FORGET where you're headed" or "grab someone's ELSE'S sandwich and you'll feel more powerful" -or "don't stop eating till you have the BEST SANDWICH"- his answer was simply to appreciate. I'm convinced the key to a happy life is rooted in appreciation.

I took Friday off to drive Wayne to his endoscopy appointment, a procedure he has every three years to monitor his acid reflux and any changes in the mucosa of the esophagus itself. (Happily, there were no apparent changes) but we took the day to enjoy each other's company as well as keeping his medical appointment. We had a BIG lunch afterward --(with Wayne still a bit loopy from the propofol, the Michael Jackson drug.) While musical hits of the 80's were being piped in, Wayne kept asking for Thriller or Billy Jean. LOL!!! -- and when the nurse told him 'the doctor will be in shortly to talk to you, as soon as he's available"- Wayne heard, "The doctor is a vegetable" -and said so. LOL!!! He kept referring to the gastroenterologist as 'Dr. Conrad Murray' (who looks, according to Wayne, like a sadder Godrey Cambridge.)

(I believe he's right.)

After lunch, we stopped at Family Video to rent 'Thor', which Wayne has been itching to see, and it was pretty much standard fare for those superhero sagas -but perhaps in the case of Thor, it was really aimed at, say, a twelve year old boy. LOL!!! I'm not kidding! It was all glamorous special effects and demon-like, ugly frost giants and lots of fighting. The character of Thor grew on me, though. I like the way he laughed whenever danger poked its head out. That fella really loved to fight! So even though it was a doctor appointment/procedure day, we managed to enjoy it just the same.

Saturday we BOTH watched 'Lars And The Real Girl'. (Yep. Didn't send it back to Netflix yet. I wanted us BOTH to see it together)- so I've had a 3-day weekend. What a TREAT.

You know --from the time I saw 'The Shining' with it's scary scene of a demented Jack Nicholson chasing the boy through the topiary maze, I've found mazes both fascinating and threatening. If you're like me and you've picked up a crossword puzzle book and found a few mazes in there and couldn't stop yourself from trying to find your way out with a ballpoint pen, you're probably fairly intrigued by labyrinths yourself. (I guess in a certain sense, life itself is one of those things: one way in..... one way out.)

(That lovely woodcut is a 2001 piece by Maria Arango, and I really love it.) Life is all snaky and twists turning this way and that. We each, in our own way, find our own path through. If you'd enjoy looking at the various types of mazes found all over the world, pay a visit to Labyrinthos. What wonders they are! I get lost simply looking.

Never stop looking. We get one shot through here.... through this life. Keep your eyes peeled. LOL! (And stay away from the propofol- or anything that promises to take all pain away. Life ain't like that. It's a mixed bag of pain and beauty, ease and hardship. Tough it out.)

October 3, 2011~ 5:45 pm
I'm BUSHED! Played catch-up today at work and typed like a MANIAC! LOL!!! My day out of the office on Friday really piled it on, but...... SUCCESS!! (I'm a bit 'manic' as well. Blogger gave me FITS all day yesterday, from the time I turned on the computer in the early morning until I went to bed last night; then again this morning at home, I COULD NOT GET IN! Could not log on.)

I didn't realize how sad I'd become if I couldn't fiddle around in here, but..... (well, it's a long story which I'll shorten for you.) Since April of this year, I cannot log in normally by going to the Blogger home page: it won't load, times out constantly. Whatever updates that went into effect at that time, my old computer couldn't handle the flash or javascript version or intense graphics or whatever updates they put into their interface, and still.... the Blogger home page doesn't load for me.

I finally found a way around it by logging in via a variety of proxy sites which strip scripts and images- (and whatever else is loading there) and that's worked from April until yesterday. Yesterday I'd simply get a message that said:

"Blogger will no longer work with your outdated browser.
Upload to a modern browser such as Google Chrome/Dismiss."

Crap! I don't have a computer that will even LOAD those things, this 'Nellie' is OLD (but it functions just fine using the old Blogger template written only in HTML, which I know like a second language at this point.) No matter what I tried, that damn message would pop up in an I-frame across the top of the page and the underlined, 'Dismiss'..... didn't respond at all. Sooooooo frustrating.

Finally, first thing today at work I tried to log on to Blogger. Got the SAME DAMN MESSAGE..... (but when I clicked the 'Dismiss'.....TA-DAH!!!) it allowed me to switch back to the old tried and true, comfy Dashboard I've come to know so well after 6 years of constant use.

Here's my advice: if you have an OLD computer that can't handle most of the new stuff out there, STICK TO THE ORIGINAL BLOGGER INTERFACE.....

and you'll do just fine. (Somehow-- probably while the damn dashboard was loading, I accidentally CLICKED on the 'Try the new Blogger interface!' link. Man! I'm gonna be MUCH more careful in the future.

Here's my vote: DON'T WANT IT, DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T MAKE ME CHANGE A THING.... don't break what's not even broken, Blogger.

(I'm sure there are plenty of folks around the globe who either have old computers and can't switch, or simply don't want to... or don't like the new version.)

Me and folks from third world countries are getting along just fine using Internet Explorer 6 with Windows 98 and an older version of Firefox. (Laugh if you want to) but IT WORKS.

As long as it doesn't get broken by programmers out there, floating on the GOOGLE CLOUD, thinking up ways to turn water into wine. LOL!!! Leave us be. WE'RE HAPPY with what we have!

***

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Weblog 293

2011-09-24T22:13:00.010-04:00

September 25, 2011~ 12:00 am
Originally I'd wanted to watch a film on Saturday evening after Wayne had gone home. (I'd re-rented 'Lars And The Real Girl', which I had once before but the dang DVD stopped midway through the movie and refused to play.) Now.... well, it just feels like too much trouble. LOL!! I want nothing more than to fiddle around a bit on the net, get a post started for the new week, then crawl in bed with a book.

Who do I talk to when I write stuff in here? YOU. That's who. And I like not knowing who you are. I like the idea that my thoughts fall on new ears, allowing things to stream through with the merest hint of intimacy. I like thinking there is this LONG, WORLDWIDE, OPEN CONVERSATION going on

among disparate and unlikely folks that nevertheless works and continues freely, allowing ideas to bob and weave with listeners taking what they like, then moving on. That's how I remember the internet. 'OPEN'. Diverse. Completely eclectic. A free range with creatures of every type popping in, moving on, the images and ideas limitless.

That's all changed now with the advent of places like 'My Space' that was subsequently ousted by Facebook and most recently- Google -trying to enter what must be a very lucrative market. (Yes, those clicks are simply the 'clink clink clink' of advertizing profits with cookies and trackers attached to them.) Sadly (at least to me) the World Wide Web has been sliced and diced and cordoned off

into what amounts to gossip boxes....pools of connected closed-off cliques advertizing has rightly figured would play into human nature's desire to be chosen, to feel accepted..... to feel empowered in a way that's apparently grown addictive to the millions who've joined these social networks. To my mind, it's changed the entire character of the web, and I think that's sad. I like the one big free-for-all the way it used to be-- but I am in the minority, that's for sure. (Heck, even WORK has their own 'Facebook' page. It's downright embarrassing. LOL!!) It's like hearing your parents using street slang, trying to sound 'hip'.

I've said my piece. I'll shut up now.

Perhaps I might interest you in reading an essay.

By clicking on the 'book reader' picture above, you'll find yourself reading what made me cry when I read it early this morning, half awake. It's a beautifully written piece about Fred Rogers who was, I am convinced, a sort of angel in a sweater and sneakers. I'm glad that now and again, there are such people in the world possessed of the kind of gentleness that calms the 'wild/bitter' in everyone they meet. He was a one-of-a-kind, was Mr. Rogers. He showed us how to do it right.

(And now..... I think I'm going to watch that movie after all. It too tells a story of a gentle soul and the remarkable small town that accepts him and allows him to live as strangely as he likes, because they love him.) Off I go to spend some time with Lars. He does my heart good.

Like Lars.......

I'm a bit of a clown, so I understand him. (We're both sorta goofy, but sweet.) LOL!

September 25, 2011~ 7:15 pm
Finally!! I got to see the ENTIRE movie, "Lars And The Real Girl", and it was worth the wait. I can't say enough in praise of the cast, but Ryan Gosling's depiction of Lars, a delusional, emotionally straitjacketed soul, was simply phenomenal. (Remember Dustin Hoffman in 'Rainman'? Billy Bob Thornton in 'Slingblade'? It's a performance equal to those.)

On top of superior acting, there was comedy that had me laughing out loud

in addition to plenty of sensitive moments toe-curlingly touching to watch. 'Lars And The Real Girl' has a far-fetched plot, but magically unfolds in a mysteriously believable way: it's like an adult fairytale, and I'd recommend this film to anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

Lars and his brother hit all true notes, and the actress who plays the sister-in-law Karen is a charmingly good-hearted soul who seems like someone you've known all your life.

As brilliant as Gosling is, it's perhaps the more difficult role of the brother that is truly impressive. My own personal favorite is the 'flower lady' from church. (God, I loved that woman. Tough, loving and practical, with an honesty that can stare down any hypocrisy in those around her.)

The movie was a terrific ending to a weekend night. It left me feeling.... 'light'. It has a glow about it. Too few movies do.

September 28, 2011~ 5:15 pm
Well, after two more days with MOUNTAINS of charts on Monday and Tuesday, today gave me a bit of breathing room. I am now, yet again.....caught up. Not only that, we had our semi-annual all company meeting that featured fresh fruit (really sweet pinapples and strawberries, grapes, etc) muffins and danish, coffee and juice at a nearby motel conference room, and it was a nice break in routine. Then to return to work to find a wee pile for me to slog through, I was over the moon with gratitude!

The rest of the day zoomed by with me feeling very relaxed. So much so, driving home in the new car, I felt the kind of ease this old fella is feeling.....

when suddenly, as I was approaching the Liberty Bridge and quietly listening to Fresh Air... out of nowhere I heard ambulances screaming, lights were flashing, and I thought, "OH NO! Not another accident on the bridge...." which would tangle things for at least a half hour of sitting without moving, but no. First a police car flew up there, then a big armoured thing with "BOMB SQUAD" lettered on the rear doors. Holy crap!

The traffic, after parting like the Red Sea to let those guys through, continued to move slowly and normally. Let me tell you..... it's not a comfort to be following a BOMB SQUAD van, both of you approaching a TUNNEL up ahead. LOL!!! I couldn't see where they were headed, so I just prayed and followed the traffic like an obedient lemming.

There was nothing on local radio, so I checked the news online when I got in. It seems there was a 'suspicious object' found on Grandview Avenue, and those vehicles must have been zooming- NOT through the tunnel- but on their way to McArdle Roadway, a twisty road that snakes up the hillside just to the right of the tunnels themselves, then all the way up to Grandview-- THE lookout to get the best views of the city. (I've heard nothing further, but I have to say I spent some uncomfortable, squirmy minutes on the bridge following in the wake of that bomb squad. Cripes.)

And I got word that my son-in-law's arm surgery yesterday went well. (Though PAINFUL as hell.) It seems Gary has some rare condition called Kienboch's disease, that's a genetic thing among some folks of northern European background in which the lunate bone of the wrist develops osteomalacia. The lunate is a little 'arrowhead' of a bone, but when the bloodflow is cut off it creates all KINDS of problems and pain. So HERE'S TO GARY! Hoping you'll soon be

at your POPEYE, SPINACH ARM BEST before too long. (It was an out-patient procedure, but a tough one.) I'm sure Holly is being Florence Nightengale in earnest to help keep him comfortable.

Also, here's a photo I came across on the net the other night, and was so taken by the BEAUTY of this woman, I wanted to post it here and see if you can guess who it is.

(It's particularly stunning to me because, honest to pete, my mother looked a LOT like that at that age. Dark-haired beauty with a charming cleft in her chin.) I won't tell you who she is, but movie fans should be able to guess. I just love that shot.

Have a good evening. (Rest well, Gary).... and now, I'll do the same, 'suspicious objects'.... stay away! :) There's too MUCH of that malarky going on nowadays!

***

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Weblog 292

2011-09-17T21:45:00.014-04:00

September 18, 2011~ 12:00 am
Two good things-- the weather has become fall-like with chilly nights in the 40's and days in the 60's, and my heavy load at work, including a marathon this past week performing two job functions, has finally come to a close. I've reached the finish line. Yippie!!

I broke through the ribbon! And next week, though facing a pile of work still waiting, it'll only be my own stack, and therefore enjoyable to dig into with gusto. It sometimes happens that all the snarled-up business comes at the very same time. And..... we had a billing program computer update that shut down the system for a whole day, not the 2 to 3 hours promised, and an unusual situation at work which prompted a look at an entire year of appointments, all of this coinciding with our closing for the previous month. Then I filled in for a co-worker on vacation. (Chalk up 21 1/2 hours of overtime in the last 3 weeks. LOL!!) I'm glad that 3 week mad dash is OVER.

No movies Saturday evening. Wayne wasn't feeling well, and frankly, I'm still recuperating the constant barrage of extra assignments. What was really NEAT though, was having Holly and Gary and the grandkids bring my mother's vanity to my house on Friday. Kay had it in her bedroom after we moved mum to Assisted Living 2 years ago, but she needed the space for a new desk in her room. (Kay's very much the 'school girl' now!) So I now have a much beloved piece of my childhood home and memories.... but it's not in my bedroom. No. That would be too conventional. LOL!!! It's in my LIVING ROOM.

Wayne thinks it looks like a 'time portal' (and I keep wishing I'd see a glimpse of my dad, smiling and waving out at me.) Maybe I have. Did you notice the orb in the picture?

It's truly lovely. It's an early 1940's Art Deco solid walnut 'Waterfall' design, and I found a round brass seal inside the top drawer that says, "Tri-Bond III Furniture". I know mum worked as a salesgirl at the 'Joseph Hornes' department store and paid for it in installments so she could have a bedroom suite for her first apartment as a married lady. Here it is in a closer view.

That top right side drawer is where the I found the seal. (Can't believe I never saw that before) especially since it was my FAVORITE drawer as a little kid. We called it the 'glove drawer'. (Back then, women and girls all wore white cotton gloves when dressed-up or going to church.) It has two sliding panels, maybe to help keep dust out, I don't know, but I loved sliding those back and forth like abacus beads when I was little.

Isn't it funny the things you remember so VIVIDLY as the memories come shooting back when you're living with some inanimate object from your past?

Mum is still using the bed, as well as the standing wardrobe with 5 side drawers and a vertical closet on one side. I don't know whatever happened to the little bench that came with the vanity table. I remember it, but it's gone with the wind now-- no recollection of its disappearing at some point over the years.

Of course, when I told my mother I had the vanity, she said, "Where did you put it?" When I told her my living room, she was HORRIFIED. "Nooooooo, doll! That's not for the living room." "It is in this house," I told her, laughing. My place is anything but about 'rules', and I like it right where it is.

Topping off our evening after Gary and Holly carried the vanity down my rickety, uneven railroad tie steps, and after Gary re-attached the big round mirror to it, I'd made reservations at our favorite local restaurant for the six of us, so off we went. Yes, we ate at

and for Bill and Kay, it was a new experience. Kay seemed a bit cowed and subdued, but Bill was openly uncomfortable. Sitting next to me, he said, "I don't know about this fine dining. Dad said I have to sit up really straight." (Bill wanted to make it home for a wrestling show on TV he was going to watch at a friend's house, and therefore, was very concerned about the time.)

The children's menu featured root beer or Sprite. Bill ordered root beer but they were out of it. "I don't like Sprite," he said. Then, in a heartbeat, "Well, Ok then, Sprite," he said to the waitress. And wonder of wonders, he ended up loving it.

He told me he thought he'd have fish, "but they only have SCROD!" he said with dismay. "Their fish is really good here, Bill," I said. His mom chimed in, "Bill, they have shrimp and french fries." (Yes..... Bill ordered that) -and ATE EVERY BITE. And had a second cup of Sprite and suddenly was talking my ear off. Kay ate EVERY MORSEL of breaded chicken and french fries, her eyes dancing everytime I turned to her on my right and said, "HOLY MOLY! Kay's eating everything! I think she'll eat the plate!"

Conversation took some strange loops, as it always does with Bill. "Grandma, your voice sounds...... kind of......Indian to me." That made me howl. Then, very seriously, "I don't think I'm ever getting married because you never know if the person's a MURDERER." LOL!!! The topic switched (who knows how) to my aunt, who'd had her own wake while still alive because she wanted to enjoy it. "Is she alive now?" "No Bill. She died." "What did she die of?" he asked, worried. "A brain tumor, Bill." He looked at me with big-eyed horror-- "OH, DON'T TELL ME THAT! NOW I WON'T SLEEP TONIGHT!" he shrieked. God, that kid makes me laugh.

Even his 'witching hour' with wrestling was forgotten as Kay and Bill took turns 'posing' in the alcove archways in front of Calabria's. (I'd told them it was neat to stand in there and play statue once it gets dark, the light shining right down on your head.) So they did. And posed and giggled... giggled and posed.

I got two great goodnight kisses from each of them, then and off we went in our separate cars. A lovely evening on Friday. The grandkids first adventure...... in 'FINE DINING'. LOL!! Some days, it all makes beautiful sense.

September 19, 2011~ 5:15 pm
Yeah! One workday under my belt, and doing ONLY my own stuff! (Yes, I'm behind, but that'll straighten itself out.) Now I have the time and the energy to do dumb stuff.... (like Google my name and see what Russian polecats have nabbed it and inserted it into ridiculous link dumps that make no sense at all. LOL!!) I believe I've come across the silliest ones today; they made me laugh out loud. Ok... here goes.

Karen corcoran dabkowski, Decorative bottle with pickled vegetables Mancesa toilets

Karen corcoran dabkowski, Sociopath sonoma Legit celebi code

There 'ya go! Whatever the heck a 'Mancesca toilet' is..... I'm somehow represented. LOL!!! (Of course, 'sociopath' I completely understand.)

Now..... for all the gals who just LOVE seeing far-out costumes

CLICK on that adorable old-fashioned cutie, and you'll be dazzled (and at times amused) by the stunning get-ups worn by this year's MISS UNIVERSE contestants strutting their stuff in their national costumes. (I LOVE things like that!)

And next-- here's something to truly leave you dumbstruck. After 500 years, the first fully hand-illustrated version of the St. John's Bible

commissioned by the Benedictine Monastery, utilizing modern art concepts with the ancient art of illumination.) It's fabulous. Simply fabulous. Enjoy!

P.S.~I also got a peek at Kay's Halloween costume! (But I'll save that for closer to the spookable holiday itself, but oh my! --she looks grand!).

September 21, 2011~ 5:45 am
If you had to choose only one online article today, I'd say pick this one, a brilliant opinion piece by Maureen Dowd.

Every thought is a rapier, and each one hits its mark.

(Yes, I know, I know.... it's from the New York Times, and I have a problem with their setting limits on the number of clicks before you are forced to pay) but I'm able to read it from a local link in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which also features one of my favorite opinion writers, Tony Norman. (I have a feeling those two would like each other. A lot.)

September 23, 2011~ 4:22 pm

I'm caught up!!!!

~~~(SHE PASSES OUT)~~~

Work will now return to NORMAL..... and it's the WEEKEND..... (and fall crept in on tippy-toes a little after 4:00 a.m. this morning, and I was there to greet it.....arms held wide.)

***

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Weblog 291

2011-09-10T21:06:00.018-04:00

September 11, 2011~ 12:00 am
(Yesssss....that date is chilling. I've heard so many describe that morning 10 years ago as one of 'perfect blue skies'. I remember that too. It must have been a totally CLEAR morning across the USA... just before the crash of the national nightmare.)

I'll be chilled if tomorrow dawns blue and bright, but thankfully, the day in Pittsburgh is to be cloudy with a chance of rain, and for once, I am glad of it. Nationally, we'll mark the ten year anniversary by pulling the wound wider, then looking aghast inside a suppuration that will never heal.

Ashamedly, I confess I'm almost too tired to pay attention properly.

That could be me.... asleep at the table. Vermeer knew his down and out, tired ladies. I worked 17 hours overtime in the last 8 days, and will probably rack up another 4 at least in the week coming up. Too little staff, too little time.....(what else is new straight across America, right?) In this economy, all people think is: "Be grateful you have a job." I am. I am..... but I wouldn't mind a bit of a cushion for when staff grows 'lean'.

That's the new American worker.....(or workhorse, I should say.) Forget flesh and blood. With the blending of electronics and computerization, human beings must become more like a conglomeration of gears and metal. A little oil...... and we go on and on and on, like perfect Energizer bunnies. (Of course that isn't true, but it is expected.) I'm no exception. I'm just one of millions upon millions working harder and harder, the expectation is that there are no limits to what a worker can do. You simply find a way to get it done.

Thus, having worked another Saturday (and last Sunday as well) -I was too tired to rent a movie. Wayne and I had dinner at Calabria's, shopped, and called it a night. LOL!! Too pooped to wrap my brain around a plot or stare at the moving pictures.

Wayne's job is in serious jeopardy due to lack of funding and cuts in the public sector where he works. His stresses are different than mine, but we're BOTH pretty much fagged out, if for different reasons. I work too much and desire sleep. He can't sleep, but wants to. Stresses of two kinds, but both real and both debilitating in their own ways. (We honestly should get married for closer mutual support, a 'pulling the wagons into a circle' to stave off the rest of the blasted, insane, unstable world. And we may do it yet.) There has been talk. True. After over 25 years of loving and supporting one another, it may be time to do something permanent about it-- the weirder the world gets, the lonelier it is to go it alone.

Here's what I'd like for tonight......

Ain't he cute? So snug and relaxed. So comfortable and all cozied up. Ahhhhhh... such a peaceful little scene. (Yes....I actually did a search on 'peaceful sleeping', and that wee fella showed up.)

Until then, it's more and more crazy, tilting views of endless endeavor...

so that I find myself on something like Escher's stairs, not knowing which end is up, but realizing the climbing is all there is to do: no real destination, no direction certain... a gerbil on a wheel.

So there it is. Can't keep my eyes open here, so I'm gonna pretend it's already midnight and post this. Nite nite.

September 12, 2011~ 12:00 am
Yesterday I had dinner with mum. Since I hadn't shown her the new car last Wednesday on the day I bought it, I thought it might be nice to not only show her, but to go for a little spin. This was the idea: have dinner with the 'girls' at Table 6, then skip dessert, and drive instead to a Diary Queen that's perhaps 2 miles from the Assisted Living and really GORGE on some soft ice cream delicacy!

Know what happened? Anything 'out of the ordinary' throws her into a tailspin. I heard, "How FAR is that?" "Oh..... I don't even have any money" -etc. etc. - as though it wasn't going to be my treat anyway? LOL!!! I ask you, which would YOU prefer?

THAT GORGEOUS confection, mouth-watering and scrumptious.....

or the NOSE DROPS she'd run out of, and I'd forgotten to pick up on Saturday when I did my shopping? (You guessed it.) We drove approximately two blocks to the Shop 'n Save so I could run in and get her a bottle of saline and some fingernail polish remover she's been hankering for. And our dessert was what was on the menu from yesterday while eating with the girls. We dined on fruit cocktail. LOL!!!

Oh well, whatever makes her happy, I say. At least she got a taste of the new ride-- and about 10 minutes of sitting in the car, inhaling the smell of a new vehicle, while I ran aisle to aisle in an unfamiliar store, searching for those two items and worrying there might be something vaguely toxic in the overwhelming NEW CAR aroma (which DOES smell like a combination of paint thinner and melting polyethelene) and I feared I'd find her slumped over and BLUE!.

The important thing is, she saw it, that's what she wanted. (I'd heard nothing but, "When are you gonna show me that car?" "It must be pretty. Man.....I'd like to see it." She did... all 15 minutes, 2 blocks worth. Plus, I swear to God, by the time we'd gone down the elevator to the ground floor for her to wait inside the lobby while I hustled up the hill to bring the car around... there she was.....waiting OUTSIDE, standing with her walker, having completely FORGOTTEN we were GOING ANYWHERE in the thing!) "A ride? Oh...... I don't know, doll. It's kind of late, isn't it?" ROFLMAO! (The old neurons were misfiring a bit and making her eyes go all BIG and BLINKY.)

I love her. I do. She's a hoot.

Today I arrived at work at 6:30am and left at 5:30 PM. I am bushed. Totally. Brain dead. (But I think I've gotten past the worst of the work back-up.) I'll be trudging up the stairs now, into the arms of John Irving and his tale about the 'Widow For One Year'. WONDERFUL book!

***

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Weblog 290

2011-09-04T07:34:00.010-04:00

September 04, 2011~ 8:00 am
It was so blasted, insufferably HOT last night, I watched my movie with Wayne, then went straight to bed. The humidity was crushing.

The movie was 'Howl'-- the story of Allen Ginsberg's mid 1950's obscenity trial that came about after the triumphant first reading of his American anthem poem at the 'Six Gallery' in San Francisco. James Franco- with just a bit of putty behind his ears to make them stick out, curled black hair and dark-rimmed glasses, was able to transform his 'pretty boy' image into the sensitive, introspective Ginsberg quite remarkably. He had the poet's cadence and his voice down pat.

Jon Hamm from 'Mad Men' played a thoughful, intelligent, riveting defense lawyer. In fact, each part of the casting was perfection, though I'd rather have seen a straight out drama than an 'art film' dedicated to the iconic poem itself.

The director decided to intersperse the story with an animated version of the poem: this flipped back and forth between real action and adult 'cartoon animation'. It distracted. It limited the film and prevented it from truly grabbing hold dramatically. That's too bad. A flat out story, with more of the characters of that time and place in the mid-50's would have made a helluva movie. As is, it's a sort of homage- a patchwork quilt of words and images, jarringly bumping up against the actual story with living characters. Still.....

I think Allen Ginsberg would have LOVED IT. (Isn't that just the greatest image of the father of post-modern American poetry?) It's from a rally in 1967, and he looks about to levitate with joy.

(Unlike myself, who now must get ready and go into work on a Sunday. LOL!!!) Oh well, there's always Labor Day itself. Tomorrow I intend to wallow in absolute sloth. Sleep late. Do nuthin' but laze around, reading and poking into stuff on the internet. Enjoy your holiday. For all of us, it's well-deserved.

September 04, 2011~ 8:15 pm
Little did I know when I wrote the above this morning, that I was in for a miserable day. LOL!! Driving to the office, while still in Oakland, I began to hear a loud, 'PLAT! PLAT! PLAT!, and as I drove by the museum, I put my window down to listen, and yes......

.....a FLAT TIRE. Flat as a pancake. There was nothing to be done but to keep driving the half mile to the office, with cars honking and pointing and me nodding and mouthing, 'I know I know..."

When I got there, I immediately called triple A and asked to have my tire changed. (The weather here today was horribly hot and humid, and I got the call at the office when the fella was '5 minutes' away, but he was lost or confused and couldn't find the place, so I told him I'd meet him outside and gave directions from where I thought he was. Let me tell you, standing around in that heat and staring into traffic for 10 minutes was no fun at all!) He finally got there, snapped the little 'spare' from my trunk right on, and that's what I'm driving on now. (Of course tomorrow is a holiday, so nothing will be open to either get the old one repaired or buy a new tire.) It looks like Tuesday I'll be driving to work on the baby tire..... and very cautiously.

Another creepy thing happened while I was working. I ducked down into the parking garage smoking area for 2 smoke breaks, and the first time, it was deserted. (Believe me, that felt eerie enough in a 5 story building with two underground garage levels and different keys and swipe cards to get back in, etc...) but the second time was truly spooky. As I said, there was not a car in sight the first time, but when I popped down for my second smoke break, there in the far corner on that parking level, half in shadow, sat one of these

...a DAMN HEARSE! Black and shiny and deadly still. I half expected Rod Serling to step out, smoking himself, wearing a black suit with narrow black tie, and say-- "There's room for you, missy. In the BACK," then smile that rictus smile of his. Man, that was creepy! Going back inside the building proper, I managed to set off alarms even though I'd swiped the card properly, and my next fear was that the damn elevator would not work. (LOL!! I thought, "Just get me the hell out of this lower level garage!")

I remembered a scary 1980's movie with George C. Scott's then wife- Trish Van Devere, called 'The Hearse', where a woman is haunted by a hearse that keeps showing up... of course the implication is the ride is 'waiting for her' and she senses its implied menace. Seeing that gleaming, silent black Lincoln just sitting there, appearing where there'd not been one car an hour before, gave me a bad case of the heebie jeebies.

That was my Sunday. Oh, and I did drive straight over to see mum, tell her my travails and have dinner with the ladies. That lightened things.....a bit. I sure hope your day was better. (At least tomorrow I can sleep in and do absolutely nothing! Yippie!)

September 07, 2011~ 6:45 pm
I worked my butt off at the job on Sunday, then stayed late yesterday..... and today, I took the day off. Instead of 'remuneration', I chose time off so I could EITHER: get my 2007 Focus inspected and the tires fixed, or...........make a preemptive strike on what usually happens with cars after 4 years or so with no problems up to that point -watching it fall apart piece by piece- or GET A NEW ONE. Yep. I chose the NEW.

It's a charcoal grey, tinted window 2012 Ford Focus.

It looks like a catfish to me. Thus, I named it 'CATFISH'.

(Once you give a new car a nickname, it's no longer scary. LOL!!! I swear to God it's true!) I am honestly thinking about attaching some black rubber 'strands' to the front grill so it has droopy whiskers... maybe they can serve as those rubber 'static strips' that used to hang down off the back bumper to touch the road. (I actually HAD those on my first car: a 1971 Plymouth Scamp.) So here's to CATFISH! Long may she run. (Neil Young would understand that. :)

***

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Weblog 289

2011-08-27T20:54:00.011-04:00

August 28, 2011~ 12:00 am
It happened again. The movie I'd chosen to watch on Saturday evening played halfway through, then stuck-- would not advance beyond a certain glued spot. It's become so annoying with these films on DVD from the library, too many hands passing these along, I suppose. Wayne and I had really gotten into the story, a tale I was familiar with from listening to it as an audio book several years ago, and I'd enjoyed it immensely.

From what we did see, it's a visually stunning film. The beginning with the geisha-to-be as a young girl plays like 'Jane Eyre': an orphan girl who finds herself in inescapable harsh surroundings. She tugs at the heart --misery swimming in her strange, light liquid eyes like minnows.

But the rare moments of joy in her young life are thrilling to see.

The colors are vibrant throughout the film, which is a true joy to watch: deep deep reds and icy blues, saffron yellows, the Japanese countryside drooping in rain, blanketed by snow....

...alas, the rest of the story, from the young girl's 'debut' as a geisha, on... stopped dead in its tracks, my DVD player making a clicking sound. LOL!!! This is par for the course for me recently. I have no luck with these rented or borrowed discs. (When I'm through typing here, I'm gonna give 'Mrs. Harris' a shot. A 2005 HBO production starring Annette Bening and Ben Kingsley. Maybe that one will be fine.)

Everywhere else today, up and down the eastern coastline, Irene is playing havoc. I haven't turned on the tube to watch, but I've read plenty online. Even though Pittsburgh is spared, I'm jittery for the rest of the folks. (Just knowing this stuff is going on-- that a huge evacuation and hardship is playing out for so many of my fellow citizens brings a kind of 'survivor's guilt', so I'm making my own escape) hopefully into another story that will play on my machine, that I can get lost in. What a strange week! With the eastern earthquake (which I DID feel) and the flash floods last week, I have a feeling that if I looked into a crystal ball

I'd see a scary person in there warning everyone to RUN! (From what, TO what, I don't know) but things have been 'hairy' recently. I feel so isolated in the midst of world events that are threatening and killing others

it feels like I'm the only living person in a VAST cemetery. (I suppose my flagging mood persists. Gee, how'd you guess?) I'm definitely plopping the next disc into the machine, hoping to drift into some other story for a time. Then sleep.

(I've been sleeping A LOT, recently. LOL!!) Some nights when I get home from work, it's off to bed I go by 5:30pm, with book in hand, my own version of 'Calgon, take me away.' It's always best to just ride these things out; to give into the mixture of sloth and despair and let it have its way with you. It plays itself out in time. The seesaw comes down on the other side eventually. It always does.

And anyone from the 'wind, rain, tornado-blasted' eastern states...... I pray you'll be safe. This world and its climate has become a bucking bronco ride. NO WONDER I want to escape into a place like 'Geisha Land'. It's prettier. "Person as art"... each movement part of the dance. Practice and precision leading to grace (of which I have none... thus, the fascination.) Stay safe out there.

Well, I just finished watching 'Mrs. Harris'. It played straight through (and the acting was so wonderful, it more than made up for my 'filmus interruptus' from earlier in the evening.) Annette Bening is eerily perfect as the nearly psychotic, perfectionistic, jilted lover of the Scarsdale Diet doctor

played with relish by actor Ben Kingsley, complete with Bronx accent, insufferable hedonism, he was a man with no class whatsoever. Dr. Tarnower -with his gauche tastes, was a womanizer to the bone and probably the last person on earth you'd ever expect to hook up with the likes of a prim, private girl's school headmistress. Bening and Kingsley were completely engaging to watch

as was Cloris Leachman, who plays the 'good doctor's' doting, grieving sister. Much of the film is told through the eyes of the doomed couple's friends and family, with all lesser roles equally enjoyable in a movie filmed like a documentary --but with enough flashback scenes to make it present and real.

I'm so glad I got to watch something straight through for once! Every happy, unstuck minute of it, I was praying my luck would hold, and it did. And it was a humdinger of a movie.

August 29, 2011~ 5:15 pm
Still glorious autumn-like weather today. I have Monday under my belt, and got an email from my buddy Annette that the package she'd sent for my birthday was delivered today to my back porch --(so I had some lovely anticipation during my drive home.) I just LOVE to get packages in the mail, don't you?

When I pulled into the carport, there it was, sitting brown and mysterious, propped against the screen door. When I opened it, I was so DELIGHTED!

An oriental poster on stiffened board, with glittery touches and the sweet sentiment, "You Are A Rare Bird" written across the lower border. (My photo doesn't do it justice... not at all. It's the softest, tulip-y pink, and the wings GLITTER.) I'll hang it up here shortly, to remind myself that no matter how droopy my own wings feel, someone sees me as a glittery pastel, magical thing! LOL!!! Thank you, Netto! Your wonderful gift cheered me greatly.... and that's the best way to top off a Monday. With a grin and a warmed heart.

August 31, 2011~ 6:30 pm
Havin' a bad day? May I recommend a HEALTHY PORTION OF......

Cool Hand Luke?

It was just at the ass-end of a looooooong day at work and I'd about reached the edges of my endurance after dealing with a royal clusterF*CK (that now entails a mandatory 'all-day work day' on Saturday as well) and I went outside for a last smoke before wrapping things up. A co-worker came out too. Out of the blue, he started rattling off lines from 'Cool Hand Luke' and made me howl. (It's one of my favorite movies.)

Captain, Road Prison 36: Now, I can be a good guy, or I can be one real mean sum-bitch.

Boss: That ditch is Boss Kean's ditch. And I told him that dirt in it's your dirt. What's your dirt doin' in his ditch?
Luke: I don't know, Boss.
Boss: You better get in there and get it out, boy.

Boss: I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.
Luke: Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss.

Luke: I can eat fifty eggs.
Dragline: Nobody can eat fifty eggs.
Society Red: You just said he could eat anything.
Dragline: Did you ever eat fifty eggs?
Luke: Nobody ever eat fifty eggs.
Prisoner: Hey, Babalugats. We got a bet here.
Dragline: My boy says he can eat fifty eggs, he can eat fifty eggs.
Loudmouth Steve: Yeah, but in how long?
Luke: A hour.
Society Red: Well, I believe I'll take part of that wager.

LOL!!! Dan had the southern accent down and everything perfect. (I had to look those lines up, but he had 'em down.) I said, "What'd you do? Memorize that movie?" I just laughed and went back inside but it was just the boost I needed.

On the drive home I kept my eyes peeled for some parking meters, but found nary a one. (I'd have taken them out, too!)

It's absolutely TRUE..... laughter IS the best medicine. (And.....thank you, Dan.)

***

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Weblog 288

2011-08-20T21:24:00.009-04:00

August 21, 2011~ 12:00 am
It's official. As of midnight, I am most certainly

My 60th birthday has arrived. (There is no way I can consider myself 'middle-aged' at this point. Nope. This lady is OLD.) I've been in such a weird frame of mind recently... sort of numbed. Not even an appetite to speak of, except for specific cravings now and then, either for salty foods or sweet. Alas, my birthday dinner (at the Asian restaurant I chose) held no appeal for me. My favorite dish, the shrimp fried rice, featured shrimp that tasted like IODINE this time. (What the heck is that, anyway? You know what I mean?) I've noticed that 'medicinal' taste at other times in shrimp dishes, but never at my favorite place...... until Saturday. (I think the meal has jinxed me. It's a bad sign now that I've eaten iodine shrimp in one of the few places where we eat out.) The world of pleasures shrinks more and more by the day.

I did receive some lovely gifts from Wayne. Three books- one on the 'trees of Pennsylvania', a little hand guide to recognizing the leaf shapes and such- and two about hauntings in this state as well. (A good pre-Halloween set of shivers, I'm sure. Just my cup of tea.) He bought BOTH chocolate and fudge for me...lol. (The fella knows what I like) - as well as three Gillian Welch CD's that are new to me, and wonder of wonders..... a Timex alarm clock (because the cheap-assed one I just bought when my old one pooped out has proven to be unreliable.) It pleases me to have a back up once again. I'm a 'two alarm clock' sort of person. I don't trust just the one.

The movie I chose from Netflix was not a big help in feeling 'chipper'.... I picked

You want to feel sad? Watch that film. LOL!!! Riveting performances, it's a raw and emotionally ragged chronicle about a marriage going south very quickly, with flashbacks of how the couple got together in the first place. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams are devastatingly good in their roles, but if I had to give a thumbnail synopsis of the film, I'd say, "angry young woman, skirt getting pushed up". I'm not kidding. I think there are at least four scenes where this happens.

I may be in the minority but the scene most painful to watch was of William's parents at the dinner table, in a marriage LONG dead and full of rage. A short, but VERY effective glimpse into what the young woman's homelife was like growing up. A short scene, but it clapped like thunder.

Some days, you feel overwhelmed with the sad stuff. On Friday afternoon, we had a horrible flash flood here in Pittsburgh and four people drowned in their vehicles. It's something that's stuck with me... it's the route I used to drive home every day from work for 10 years, then switched routes two years ago. I remember that very stretch of road, and the ponding that would occur with every hard rain. I think how easily that could have been me. The flooding occurred at the time I would have been driving through there... I can't stop thinking about it.

When I heard it was a mother and her two children- but they hadn't released the names yet, I kept praying that Holly and the kids were safe and sound. It happened by the zoo, and I know she takes the kids there now and then.

Perhaps this is what it's like to age... to have one's fears magnified. I'm usually pretty upbeat, so my recent tendency to 'think the worst' is a new thing, and I don't like it. I'm not a worrier by nature... it knocks the hell out of me. On that same day, my conversation with my mum when I first got in the door after work and the storm had just hit, was solely about her bowel problems. She had nothing else to talk about, so wrapped up was she in fretting about being 'backed up' and how nothing was helping, and what should she do, and on and on. I hung up with visions of impactions and pain and every sort of 'what if' that was possible on the subject. Normally, I would just fling that right off after a couple minutes, but the fear continued.

Anyway...... that's my current mood. Uneasy. LOL!! Happy Birthday to me.... now blow out the candles and get to bed. Tomorrow is another day. HUZZAH!

August 23, 2011~ 6:15 pm
Ok.... I've moped long enough. LOL!!! (Besides, with all the warmth and love and surprises strewn on my path, a body just can't stay down for long.) On Sunday, on my birthday, when I opened the back door to leave and go visit mum, there was a package stuck between the screendoor and the main door. It was a homemade GIFT dropped there by my daughter (sometime in the wee hours of the morning) like a tiny elf brought it. Inside was one of her lovely handmade 'CUBES' in a box nestled in tissue. On a small note card, she'd written: "FALL CALMING CUBE" -(she knows how I await those turning leaves and pumpkins every year.) I was delighted!

And the two little chubby birds, sitting on a mossy blanket as well! It cheered me greatly.

There's a diagonal view with a nice shot of the plump orange pumpkin. Nice picket fence for some black cats to scamper across as well. I can almost feel the 'zing!' in the air.... that magic I feel each year beginning in September.

Yesterday there was yet another birthday card in my mailbox from the buddy of my longest friendship.... NETTO! She sent a card so lovely I'm gonna frame it. Reminds me of our closeness and our happy times growing up together. Almost sisters.

With my whitish-wheat-colored hair, I'm the fair one, she's the brunette. LOL!! Still two kids at heart... with long, looooooong memories.

Both things were unexpected, and both BOOSTED me UP again. Thanks, guys. You unraveled a snarled, knotted mood and smoothed things out for me.

And... we had an EARTHQUAKE in Pittsburgh today! 5.9 on the Richter scale. Epicenter in Virginia, but felt from Maine down into the Carolinas. Amazing. I thought somebody was shaking my chair on its wheels at work. I whipped around to see who it was, and the shaking started again. I whipped around, ready to catch whomever was teasing me, when the boss came flying up the hall...."THAT WAS AN EARTHQUAKE!" (Man o man..... flash floods one week, an earthquake the next...... if locusts arrive or the rivers turn to blood, I'm stayin' home). Maybe the Mayans were right. Maybe this is the rumblings of 2012. Ya never know.

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Weblog 287

2011-08-13T21:46:00.014-04:00

August 14, 2011~ 12:00 am
We've been blessed in these parts with some mighty fine weather and I'm grateful. Though what's extraordinary about the human condition is that once one primary issue is resolved (and for me, it's been the heat and humidity these past couple of weeks)-as soon as that central concern is out of the way, we tend to fasten on something else that bothers us. It's true!

I'm feeling morbid. Part of that is fall approaching, bringing on Halloween, and these cool nights and yes, the FULL MOON have ushered in 'autumn' in my mind, but it's also because on Saturday evening Wayne and I watched 'Paranormal Activity 2'.

If you saw the first one, it's more of the same, but what IS it about houses and menace that brings on chills? For me, any abandoned house looks plenty creepy.

It's the implied darkness inside. The absence of life. The way the windows, uncurtained and showing only black squares or rectangles, seem to be watching. Staring.

There was an empty house at the bottom of a very steep street where I lived growing up, where a classmate in first grade died in a sledding accident. The house was Victorian, clapboard and gray-- with empty windows and creepers growing all over it. Years before I was born, a woman had been murdered there-- a victim of mulitple stab wounds inflicted by an angry beau. I'd also heard there was three year old who drowned in the upstairs bathtub back in the 30's. (Of course, asking my mother never did any good because she 'forgets' unpleasant things. Always has.) We called the house 'Heartbreak Hotel', and I used to use a path through the woods that ran right alongside it as a short cut to get to my friend Annette's house when I was a little girl. I was always scared, but the shorter route was too much of a temptation to forego... and the streetlights helped somewhat, but since then, all abandoned houses remind me of that one. They watch. Their silence is chilling.

It's not too far a leap for my mind to jump from scary, sad houses, to mourning rituals. I believe I've found the spookiest daguerrotype of a woman in mourning I've ever seen! She's COMPLETELY covered up in widow's weeds, with full, face-covering veil.

How in the WORLD did she navigate in that thing? Had life become SO AWFUL without her departed, she choose not to see it? Amazing. No one mourns like those folks of the 19th century. The customs and the fashions, the jewelry and the protocols were very exacting. It was nothing to mourn a few years, or even- in the case of Queen Victoria herself, a lifetime, after her beloved husband Albert died.

I think formalized mourning was probably a healthier thing than the way we rush to 'get on with life' after losing someone. Pills are prescribed, grief counselors, new hobbies taken up.... when perhaps just allowing a long, slow time to openly GRIEVE may actually be the healthier route. Look at this wonderful painting by Edwin Elmer.

Feel the stilted strangeness of the scene.

He painted that AFTER his nine year old daughter had died of appendicitis, when he and his wife closed up the house, got rid of all her toys and pets and left, but not before he painted this picture of what truly looks like two realms to me. The parents are remote, stiff as pokers, and so is their home with its black, blank windows. In a world divided from theirs stands the child, out of reach, but hopefully in a haven where the things she loved surround her still. It's a very moving painting to me.

After all these ghoulish musings, I'm happy to share one of the most DELIGHTFUL images from an old daguerrotype. I call it: Young Love.

Isn't that just the most impulsive, joyful thing you've ever seen in one of these stiff, oldtime photos? The young lad is quite taken with the little lady, and is forcefully PULLING her face to meet his. It just tickled me to find that one online.

I've been like a weathervane recently, swinging this way and that. Perhaps in true lunatic fashion, this full moon has called out the more arcane things from deep inside me, the squiggly and the sad stuff. Nice to know there are yet some warm, human impulses (like those two old-fashioned kiddoes in the grip of one) who do the totally unexpected, and grab the moment. Yeah, kids! You made me smile.

August 15, 2011~ 4:45 pm
I have Monday under my belt...... and I have TWO WONDERFUL SITES to share with you, both of which made me HAPPY today!

If you're a fan of CHRISTOPHER WALKEN, you may or may not have seen his 'gardener's skit' on Saturday Night Live. He plays (hysterically, of course) a reluctant TV garderner who is very frightened of his plants. His solution is to give them EYES, so he can better relate to them and hopefully, trust them. I forwarded a link of that skit to my daughter Holly, who immediated shot back

"All of my plants are getting googly eyes now!"

When I got home from work, this is one of the photos she sent along......

LOL!!! Now, to truly enjoy what that is all about, if you have updated flash enabled, feast your eyes on Christopher Walken, as he explains the rationale behind plants with EYES.

At work today (where I do have flash) I watched a remarkable little film about an owl and a cat.....together.

Just click on that charming picture to see how the strangest pairing of creatures manage to get along. (As was suggested to me, they must have been raised together-- but it's the cutest, darndest thing imaginable!)

***

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Weblog 286

2011-08-06T23:22:00.025-04:00

August 7, 2011~ 12:00 am
The humidity has finally worn down my good humor. I am CRANKY. (I know it's nothing like the way Texas or Oklahoma has been hit with this summer's pounding heat, but Pittsburgh- as of Friday, has had 16 days over 90 thus far. All with dewpoints up around 70.) The one shining spot was Kay's sixth birthday dinner.

New hairdo, looking quite contemplative in that shot, Kay's a beauty, a soon-to-be-first-grader, and she took the time to READ all the birthday cards out loud. Here she is standing watch at the front door with sidekick, Greg Brady-- one of her two standard poodles.

Once all the grandparents were assembled, we feasted mightily on a lovely salad with homegrown vegetables, grilled hotdogs and hamburgers with all the fixin's.

Picture perfect food. (I'd only had peanutbutter crackers for lunch on Friday at work, and was hoping for a cook-out and GOT one!) New teeth chewing fine. LOL!! (There was no corn on the cob, but I think I would have dared it. These choppers WORK.)

A second party, just for Kay's little friends, will be held at Holly's local library. In casting about for a unique place for a small number of female six-year olds, Holly happened upon the idea for a 'story hour party' and asked the librarian if that could be done. Holly told them she'd rather give THEM a contribution, than have a party at one of the usual places and they were not only accommodating, they were thrilled with the idea and intend to publicize it as a service they offer.

I think it's a TERRIFIC idea! A calmer and unique setting is a great alternative to the usual noisy chaos of children's parties, and for the library itself, a new way to fund support.

Kay's 'grandparents' party featured a cake baked by her mom

decorated with a smiling, blue-eyed KAY right in the center. After the singing, the wish-making and cake cutting took place, with 8 year old brother Bill looking on.

I loved the fact that it was just a small number of celebraters. We had time to talk. And Holly's air-conditioned house was a welcome relief, that's for sure.

I'd picked up the two-part 'Elizabeth I' mini-series at my own library for viewing Saturday evening, but honestly, it was too hot to watch either that or 'Paranormal II', which had been sent by Netflix. After our dinner and shopping, Wayne went home and I headed straight up to the cool bedroom. I thought I'd sleep the whole night through but here it is, just about midnight and I'm back up again. It's not quite as hot downstairs, but not comfortable either.

I may just roll the 'personal air' portable unit into the living room and watch the Helen Mirren series by myself. I finished my John Irving 800 page novel and started a biography about Lady Caroline Blackwood called 'Dangerous Muse', but I have no desire to dive back into it at this point.

Yep. I'm gonna try the Mirren movie(s). BBC..... here I come.

(I had some news that upset me on Friday, and I'm still processing it; sleep will not come for a while, so I may as well disappear back into the 16th Century for a bit. This one is more than I can handle.)

August 7, 2011~ 2:45 pm
Typical for me.....the 2 part Mirren BBC mini-series refused to play on my DVD player. LOL!! Neither disc would budge beyond, 'LOADING LOADING LOADING'.

So what did I do? I dug out a movie I'd never watched, bought at Giant Eagle around Halloween last year, and for whatever reason, Wayne and I never viewed. It was a horror film called, 'Drag Me To Hell'- a Sam Raimi supernatural thriller about a gypsy curse. It reminded me of Stephen King's thriller, 'Thinner'- (with lots of special effect creepiness thrown in.) For a horror flick, the acting was good, and it DID make me jump a few times- and best of all, it got my mind off things.

I think that's the reason we watch horror movies. They blot out current worries and concerns and create a world of WORSE frights. I'd say that film did the trick for me. Glad I watched it. Slept like a baby. LOL!!!!

August 9, 2011~ 5:20 pm
Left work 15 minutes early to even out delays on a work area on my accustomed route driving home. Breezed through that...... then got stuck in the back up from a 4 car collision on the Liberty Bridge. Didn't move at one point for over an hour.

I was trying to get over to see mum on my usual Tuesday visit, with a little surprise gift that Holly had sewn for her grandmother, and I needed to return the unplayable Helen Mirren movie (which I'll now have to pay late fees on)and... I never made it to buy a small fan for my room. (Yes, in all the heat and humidity last night, my air-conditioner froze up-- and then I knocked over the little sumabitch and the rotary blades flew off the damn piece of shite from China.) By the time I made it to my house today after a 40 minute drive turned into 2 hours, mum was already queing up for her evening meal.

I am BEYOND FRUSTRATED!

(Just wanted to pop in here and sound off a bit...... then go to BED.) GAWD! I hate days like this!

August 10, 2011~ 6:15 pm
Today was a much better day! First off, the TEMPERATURE is moderate-- high 70's with a cool breeze and low humidity, thank GOODNESS!-- and secondly, I was able to make it over to see mum with no traffic tie-ups, and I happily gave her the hand-sewn 'walker pouch' that Holly made her.

It has four DEEP separate pockets -two in the front here, and two on the rear side, sewn in a black and white polka dot pattern, all pockets lined in yet ANOTHER wonderful design! The main body is a sturdy deep lavender nylon, and fastens securely to the walker-legs with strong black webbing via velcro. No more 'things falling out' constantly.

(Mum had an old one about a quarter that size, only five inches deep, and it had a zipper on top that she never zipped, so kleenexes, her rosary, her room key... everything would tumble to the floor.)

I caught her here in the 'Country Kitchen'. Each floor has its own little kitchen where there are snacks, tea and coffee, little cartons of milk or juice in the fridge. Although these pictures were taken at 4:00, and she goes down for SUPPER at quarter to five, there she was, indulging in a small carton of chocolate milk and some vanilla wafers. LOL!!! (She usually looks very startled and sheepish when I find her in there when I visit. "Oh... I'm getting too fat, " she'll say, and roll and blink her eyes. Personally......

I think for 91, the lady is quite attractive......just the way she is.) Mission Accomplished!

I also returned my one-day overdue DVD to the library, and whoopie! found that the Claire Bloom memoir about her stormy marriage to Philip Roth, "Leaving A Doll's House" was waiting for me! (Our library will order any of their books from another branch of Carnegie Library if the local doesn't carry it.) I was very pleased. (I'd stupidly had it sent originally to the Carrick Branch, and by Jove-- they simply did a swap over the computer and had it sent along to my local.) Very nice young women work at the Castle Shannon branch. I just love them. And...... after paying my 50 cent fine, I ALSO bought four Hershey bars they had on sale as part of a support drive. (Like Mother, like Daughter I suppose. LOL!!) We BOTH like our treats!

***

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Weblog 285

2011-07-30T21:54:00.010-04:00

July 31, 2011~ 12:00 am
Here's another month totally kicked in the butt. Amazing. How could it be that the year is already more used up than what's ahead? You blink...... and it's Christmas. (Or, as Arlene Francis, American game show panelist once said, "To grow old means every ten minutes, it's breakfast.")

There's been no let up to the heat around here. Saturday was 88 degrees, and though the humidity was lower, it was a blazing SUNNY day, so the house warmed up to an uncomfortable degree. Despite that, Wayne and I watched a BBC film I'd taken out of the library this past week. We settled in with fans running full blast, to watch

I'm a sucker for a good Holme's tale-- original Conan Doyle or not. Rupert Everett played a very convincing Holmes (even withOUT the deerstalker hat.) The period setting was 1902, and Holmes wore a jaunty black fedora... and even once, a Lincoln-esque stovepipe. (You could put a chamberpot on that guy and he'd still look distinguished, I swear.) The plot is that someone is abducting and murdering the upper-crust's young debutantes right out of their own stately homes, so Holmes, having already 'retired' from solving cases, is enlisted by his sidekick and friend, Dr. Watson, to bring the nasty string of murders to an end.

I have to say that I picked out the murderer within the first 10 minutes of the film. (I KNOW my 'creeps'...lol. Hey! Maybe I'll take to wearing a deerstalker hat and start to smoke a pipe.) There were fresh-faced, privileged young beauties aplenty.

All the actors and actresses were more than capable, the story held one's attention, and the atmosphere of foggy old London

the perfect setting for a an early twentieth century, Gilded Age serial killer. I'm thinking back on how many movies I've loved over the years with a 'London Fog' and nefarious deeds theme, or a Jack the Ripper come to call. 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde' with Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman, 'The Lodger' starring George Sanders, 'Gaslight' (Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman again... love all of them.)

One weird thing is the DVD did the strangest things when we were watching the movie. First, the pause button stopped working. I thought it was the batteries, so I changed the double AA's in the remote. No dice. Then, after I'd screwed around and started the damn thing back at the beginning by accident by fiddling around with the buttons on the DVD player itself, it would periodically go backwards to scenes we'd already watched, and this was without us trying to do that, or pushing any buttons at all. LOL!!!

The weirdest one was putting it on pause for a bathroom break-- I'd gone into the kitchen only to hear the movie start up again. Wayne was just coming down the stairs and I called out to him, "I didn't do that. It started up on its own." (Well, I've either got a spook in this house-- a misbehaving, oft-played DVD, or it's the heat and humidity. Who knows?) At one point I called out, "Beethoven!"- who's my deceased cat, 21 years old when he died a couple of years ago. It would be just like him to be playing pranks.

Perhaps..... nah...... (But lemme tell ya', my TV still DOES look JUST like that, no fancy LED flat-screen, wall-mounted for me.) It's because I'm always about a decade behind any trend- as this 1999 computer running Windows 98 will attest to. My motto is: if it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT, because Lord knows, whatever is coming down the pike is chintzier, probably made in China and has a warranty with about 50 clauses in it. (Wayne, for instance... still has a rotary phone.) You can see why we bonded so well.

July 31, 2011~ 8:00 pm
I believe I've written in this blog before about the dreaded 'Sunday feeling'... that end of the weekend despondency that settles in on Sunday evenings, with only the prospect of five days of pushing paperwork to look forward to. It originated with me back in grade school and has remained with me since. I can't shrug it off. It's there. And it looks like this

and it's never altered in all these years. Even the years when my children were very young and I stayed home, the Sunday Feeling persisted. It's like a doppelganger... me, yet not-me. It's like a malformed twin nobody talks about and who lurks at the curb and walks the streets when everyone is inside. It never rests. Never disappears. It feels like my own shadow. Darker. Cooler. Always alone.

August 3, 2011~ 6:00 pm
My day was brightened considerably by an ENTHUSIASTIC email from daughter Holly. She takes mortality in stride. (As long as there's some re-birth mixed in there too.)Yes..... she's acquired a new exotic pet.

"(Sadly, Ziggy passed on Monday. He is with Buddha)....when I woke up on Monday, he was on his back, which indicates a molt. Male spiders have difficulty surviving their postultimate molt. He was in a weakened state due to his mite infestation, and expired sometime Monday afternoon. I can remember from the start with him, the restlessness which never abated, always searching for a mate. I, of course, had to run right out and acquire a new exotic companion, and so...STREUSSENBERG! Streussenberg is settled into a tunnel already and looks quite cozy. She is a Cobalt Blue Tarantula. (Haplopelma lividum) She hails from the tropical forests of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Goob and Streussenberg are new neighbors, but they simply sit, taking no notice of the other, waiting for the next cricket to fall from the sky."

Poor Ziggy. Knocked himself out looking for a mate, lost 2 legs, got mites.....died. (Male tarantulas don't have but 1 year in captivity, tops. Even with Holly's exquisite care, she couldn't surmount the averages for those fellas.) I'm glad GOOB has company, however! Two little lady arachnids, gossiping, dozing, scarfing down bugs.... Heaven! LOL!!

And how about MILDRED?

Click on that photo and find out about Mildred's Meltdown Ring, the newest piece in Holly's Etsy shop...'Battygirl Enterprises'. (The lovely young model is granddaughter Kay-- who is SIX YEARS OLD TODAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!!!) She's modeling various buggy hairclips and headpieces, proud as all get-out. (By the way, I am now the proud owner of the purble spider bag, which no longer appears, but it's much like the lime green one. I could no longer resist it.) And wonder of wonders.....my mother, who hates anything 'unconventional', happens to LOVE my new purse, and was miffed I didn't keep it on my arm when we went down to the dining room for dinner on Sunday. I have to remember to do so this Sunday coming or she'll begin to grump around. LOL!!! VIVA LA CREATIVE TOUCH! I love handmade anything, especially when it shows wit... and a touch of the absurd. Made my day.

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2011-07-23T21:25:00.011-04:00

July 24, 2011~ 12:00 am
Intense heat for days at a time feels like a prison. It has walls. There is a sentence. You have nothing to say about the length of your stay.....

you're LOCKED IN. Your personality changes into something darker. You seethe.

This has been a heat run of over a week now where it doesn't cool at night, so the houses remain ovens, getting hotter and hotter. I've taken to going up to bed earlier and earlier to be in the air-conditioning, but my little window unit is laboring mightily to offset the ooze of humid July, and my room doesn't seem nearly as cool as I'm used to. No matter what is happening or the occasion, I'm a bit pissed off underneath. (Looking through old photos online, I came across this one that stopped me. Made me study it.

Can you feel any tug of something not quite right?) That reminds me of me in this weather: all dressed up at times, but hand clenched, posture stiff, expression tightly blank. I think it's a vintage wedding photo, but it's not a bride and groom.

I believe this is an unhappily paired couple in the wedding party, not too pleased to be thrust together. Look at their poses in relation to one another. The gal is facing front for the picture as though she's saying, "Ok. We have to do this, so here's the pose. Snap!" LOL!! And the guy is three-quarters turned away from her. He looks like a 'dandy'. Probably thinking, "The gal is a looker, but man, what a pill!" (Being irritable myself allows me to recognized it easily in others....even in old photos.)

Due to the oppressive heat, Wayne decided to forego the movie for Saturday evening, but it's the second time I'd taken it out from the library, so I decided to watch it alone. (I've just discovered the joys of the local library again.... even DVD's, loaned for a week at a time!) I saw LOTS of titles I need to check out, but I'm particularly pleased with what I watched on Saturday, albeit solo. It was

The Reader, starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. Marvelous film! Kate won a well-deserved Oscar for that one. She's one of those actresses who acts primarily with her face. It's a musical instrument, I swear. "The Reader" is a film that examines initial sexual awakenings and first love, the weight of secrets-- and the frightening power of truth. It's a story about not being able to forgive, others or self. Fiennes very capably played his part (and goodness, he's a fine looking man!)

but he was blown right off the screen by the young male actor who plays Fiennes as a fifteen year old boy. David Kross is an actor I've never seen before, but his portrayal was so wounded and real, he stole my heart. Amazing performance.

Just like Garbo, just like Ingrid Bergman, the cameras LOVES Kate Winslet.

She glows. There's a luminosity about her pale skin and liquid eyes. She seems to have swallowed light.

Since the story begins in post-war Germany in the 50's, the viewer is drawn back into the war years, the Holocaust and those who participated in the SS in the Jewish camps. The wonder of this film is that the conclusions are not neat. The emotional complexity of human entanglements are never easily unraveled, nor are answers obvious. Guilt and forgiveness have as many shades as the changing sky, and those who watch this movie will find themselves conflicted..... trying to place themselves inside the principal players, and it's only then you see that nothing is without painful dichotomy, everything has a price-- that mostly we decide things on what we're willing to pay.

In other words, in this story, the white knight has a few dark spots-- and the villain has more humanity than we may be comfortable in admitting we see. It's a film that's remained with me after I placed it back in its container. I think my own responses to it will preoccupy me for a long time. Nothing is simple. Least of all...... love. When I picture myself in the storyline, in the actors' shoes, I really can't say for certain what I would have done, yet part of me cries out for a simple black and white response. It hasn't come. It's a fine film.

July 25, 2011~ 5:30 pm
I'm saying 'UNCLE!' right now, and packing it in for the day. Headed upstairs to re-enter John Irving's 'Until I Find You', which is a strange combination of humor, the human circus.... a precocious young boy and (yep. no other way to say it)... extreme childhood sexual molestation. (Don't ask.) It's one of his stranger novels. Almost 900 pages, with 'Garp-ian' characters and lunatics aplenty.

The heat has won and I give up. I'm sayin' 'UNCLE!' and retreating upstairs. My brain has been rendered down and is now a sodden lump of gelatin due to TORRID temperatures that even today's rain but chased a mere inch. For those of you in like circumstances, broiling in your own skin, brainless...... how's 'bout we amuse ourselves with this

(Honestly, it's all I'm fit for a this point.) Remembering my way home was a stretch. (And just about everything has begun to make me cry.) LOL!!

July 27, 2011~ 12:00 am
19 F*cking Innings?? Yep. The Pittsburgh Pirates 'lost' the game in the last inning. And why? (I'll let this snippet of an article from newswriter, Paul Zeise, of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tell the story.)

"ATLANTA -- The Braves and Pirates produced a classic as the two teams battled into the 19th inning Tuesday night (and Wednesday morning) before a crowd of 22,036 at Turner Field.

But in the end, few people will likely remember all of the great defensive plays and clutch pitches both teams made because of the controversial way it ended and the fact that, by most accounts -- and backed by video evidence -- home plate umpire Jerry Meals blew the most important call he had to make.

"The game deserved better," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle shortly after the Pirates, 4-3, 19-inning loss to the Braves. "You'd like to see the game finished by the players, win or lose, and for it to end that way, is as disappointing as it gets in a game. You had every player in the game and for it to end that way ... the game deserves better than that. The game tonight deserved way better than that."

Can you believe that?? Makes me want to cry, it's so low. (I can't help but think of Roberto Clemente looking down, shaking his head.)

*(By the way, that jewel of the Pirates- both as a man and a player from 2 World Series wins in 1960 and 1971 -the man who died in a plane crash on a mercy mission he'd organized for the victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua in 1972......that call? Would have broken his heart.)

P.S.- A bit of trivia: that glorious but gone right fielder is remembered in the our PNC ballpark....the right field wall is precisely 21 feet high in honor of his uniform number and playing position.) That loss last night knocked us out of first position down to third in the league. It's a cryin' shame.

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Weblog 283

2011-07-16T22:41:00.017-04:00

July 17, 2011~ 12:00 am
Here we are, deep in the dog days of summer. Everything.............. droops. Humid wet air sticks to the skin like cotton candy, the air one breathes is in chunks. There is a torpor over all.

There's a golden buttery toffee look to things..... I imagine everything covered in damp pollen, yellow and fecund. Folks LOVE summer but for the life of me, I cannot see the draw. (Even Wayne, when we spoke on Saturday, said how he'd loved running that afternoon. How he loves the hot sun and the good sweat.) You'd have to hold a gun to my head to even make me consider it....different strokes I suppose. But I've never gotten what the luster is that folks attach to summer days (or EXERCISE, for that matter. Hate it too.) I don't feel invigorated, I feel oppressed. Heavy-limbed.

No, on days such as the one just past (and, oh lord) --the ones coming up next week, all clarity leaves me. I live in a state of 'muddlement'-- (probably not a word, but should be.)

Where others find bright days and excitement, contentment, I am lost in webs of slightly depressive clouds. I am 'not me'. I am prisoner of the season and the climate, severely out of step with those around me. I wake in dread and I go to sleep in exhausted surrender, knowing that the added noise of summer folk cavorting and cranking up, the too bright light and too hot, wet air will envelope me and I'll stay that way with no escape for weeks.

We did have a pleasant meal with Holly on Saturday evening. Husband Gary and both grandkids were camping-- but Holly had been scheduled to work both days this weekend and still wanted to visit with us. It was nice to have adult conversation and to sample her simmered, home grown vegetables, sip coffee and relax. (And.......her house now has AIR-CONDITIONING!!) Even the big standard poodles were lazing about, flopped on the cool hardwood floor and enjoying the lowered temperatures. (I envy them. LOL!!)

But back home again, sweating and slightly headachy, I stew in my own juices and long only for my cooled down bedroom and a book. Sunday afternoon will bring mum's celebration of her 91st birthday as we gather at my sister's house. I'll be picking her up at the usual time for my Sunday visit, then driving her to Kathy's house... and dang!, the chunk chocolate I bought for her is the DARK variety, not the milk chocolate she prefers. So there'll be a side trip first for me to return it, sales slip in hand, and get the kind she likes. I HATE when I shop too fast and don't pay attention!! (See?? The heat has rendered me simple.)

Soon I'll be forgetting directions in the car, putting my pants on backwards and brushing my hair with the toilet scrubber. I just KNOW IT. Summer is the season of being addled for me. It's begun........ it's not even August yet.

July 17, 2011~ 2:30 pm
Swimming up from the coolness of my room, and the long night's sleep

all I want to do is linger there-- surrounded by blue, and dreams like jellies rising quietly in their silent pool..... but.....no. It's out into the day I go-- sweat starting. (I hope I don't turn cross. First stop, the grocery store to exchange the blasted candy. LOL!!) Wish me luck.

July 19, 2011~ 8:15 pm
So today was the ACTUAL DAY....'the' birthday. Mum's 91st.

(Instead of a cake, we had what the ladies at Table 6 like even BETTER...APPLE PIE. Cinnamon and sugar filled, and very, very deep dish tasty.) My sister picked it up at King's and brought along birthday plates and napkins. The kitchen must have misunderstood, because they set a table for just the three of us next to the beloved gals of Table 6......(but we snuck back over at dessert time, and had a grand old time.)

Elizabeth, who's in a wheelchair, had Kay, who's in her 90's and all but blind, push her back to her room before dinner so she could snag a birthday card for mum....and a DISPOSABLE CAMERA. After we'd feasted and had our pie, Elizabeth whipped the camera out and we took pose after pose of the group- first my sister Kathy snapping, then me -as Elizabeth kept insisting, "MORE! MORE! USE THEM ALL!" We were laughing so hard as I snapped pictures of the staff, pictures of the table, the ceiling, the rug.....LOL!!...and still the blasted LIGHT was LIT on the camera. I'd try to give it back to her, but... "No. LIGHT IS LIT. MORE! MORE!" (MY sister had to make a beeline for the ladies room, laughing so hard after so many cups of decaffinated coffee, she was ready to BURST!)

A FUN TIME WAS HAD BY ALL. WE'VE GOT PICTURES TO PROVE IT! Everyone showing their dentures.... eyes shiny with laughter and tears. That was the 91st, at Assisted Living. Wouldn't have missed it for the world.

July 20, 2011~ 5:00 pm
I read something today that made me LAUGH MY ASS OFF!!!

"Pittsburgh Steelers jersey, size XXXL, preferably black; facial hair, preferably goatee or chin strappy beard; baseball cap, preferably something in a florescent shade of camouflage or a piece that reflects a strong allegiance to a NASCAR driver......there is no city on Earth that can equal the utter sloppiness of Pittsburgh."

CLICK on the big black and gold 3 to read 'GQ's' assessment. We didn't beat out NUMBER 1...Boston, or NUMBER 2, Los Angeles, but there's always next year. We'll keep tryin'.... just like the Pirates baseball team this year... we'll get there, just you wait!

(The thing that delights me about this GQ article, is thinking about all the snobby, rich Pittsburghers this is gonna piss off BIG TIME! LOL!) They'll BRISTLE in the toney suburbs, I have no doubt... but we're slobs. And we know it! Aaaaaaaand......we're COMFORTABLE.

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Weblog 282

2011-07-09T21:48:00.014-04:00

July 10, 2011~ 12:00 am
I hate July and August. I was just thinking that as I'm sitting here typing, the sun's gone down long ago and it's still very hot and humid. My brain sort of 'shuts off' when the temperatures rise. I hate that.

Luckily I got to watch an enjoyable movie on Saturday evening.... Wayne and I rented 'Me And Orson Wells'. The role of Orson

is played quite remarkably by Christian McKay- an actor I'd never heard of before this film, and his Orson is impeccable! When I closed my eyes, his voice and its every tone and nuance captured the braggadocio, the theatrical bluster and the talent of Wells packed inside it. It's uncanny. Just remarkable to hear that transformation.

The film starts with 30's music. It uses Art Deco font for the credits and title-- and getting a feel for what we were about to watch, I turned to Wayne and said, "This is like a Woody Allen movie!" and he agreed, given Allen's love of that genre and the many times he's featured it over the years.

But once the atmosphere was established, the opening scene featured acting that came across as terribly corny. Much too overdone, even hammy. We both thought we'd end up hating it and filing it under 'just another over-rated piece of fluff' but as the movie progressed, we both saw that it very much captured the feel, not just the look, of an actual 1930's film, so I think the ham-handedness was intentional: so many movies of that era come across the same way. As soon as we grew used to it, we fell in love with the tale of a young man in his late teens, having the glorious experience of working with an actual genius. 'Me And Orson Wells' chronicles the ground-breaking Wells' adaptation of the play, Julius Caesar when it was performed by his own Mercury Theater players in 1937, and that was the first time Shakespeare had been offered a modern look and a new interpretation. It was wildly successful at the time, and universally acclaimed.

However the love story of the young man and an unabashedly ambitious female secretary of Wells (played by Claire Danes) was simply a distraction for us-- the screen only crackled with life when Wells was on the scene.

I truly can't decide if Ms. Danes was simply miscast, or unduly doted upon by the camera-- which spent far too much time on her face and her every expression. Though billed as a 'coming of age' story, that was the least interesting part of the plot. McKay's portrayal of Wells stole the show. The real highlight was watching the theater scenes from 'Julius Caesar' itself--- they were terrific! Gave me goose bumps.

Though McKay is more handsome than the actual young Wells

both are wonderful looking men.... piercing eyes, high, patrician brows..... intelligence. (How fortunate the makers of 'Me And Orson Wells' were able to find someone so well-suited to play that role... the picture depended on it.) So much so, that even given the silly love story woven through it, by the end we both felt charmed by a period piece that succeeded in the most important ways: it told a story, it gave us a memorable performance, and it made the past, present, right down to the joyous Benny Goodman's 'Sing Sing Sing' (which never fails to lift me high and make me want to dance.) LOL!! Orson.....

would have liked it, I think. It's good Hollywood.

As to the rest of this past week, I've been fretting about my mother, who's had 3 weeks of nosebleeds now, and a DECIDEDLY loss of hearing. (She sees the doctor on Monday, to flush her ears and check on the bleeding) but being treated with drops in both ears to loosen wax for a good flushing, they've now put cotton in her ears, which means what little ability she had before to hear the phone in her room, has disappeared completely! I'm used to letting it ring about 20 times to give her a chance to get up out of her recliner and make her way over to it, but the past two days I've tried repeatedly to call, and it's never picked up. She simply can't hear it.

I don't know if her 'isolation' due to silence has made her fragile mental skills even more shaky than usual, but her short term memory is awful. She truly doesn't recall things that happened hours before, or last week certainly. She'll be ninety one in less than 2 weeks, so I'm painfully aware there's bound to be a decline, but it seems to be happening so fast now.

That's left me on edge and feeling fretful under the surface of things. I'm unable to get her off my mind.....so..... movies.... yes, movies DO give us a place to go. It's a magical place.

We can climb up to the moon if we want to. We can feel the wind whip through our hair and the soft grass tickling our ankles as we race to the ladder, seeking just a few hours of escape to something wonderful. (I love that picture... I'd love to credit its creator, but I simply don't know their name.) But whoever you are, 'thank you'. You've made a lovely image. One I treasure.

July 11, 2011~ 5:50 pm
Well.....mum finally saw the doctor today for her ear flush..... thank God! (My sister, bless her heart, accompanied her for her appointment and said the doctor got TONS of wax out of her ears!) I hope that fixes it. I was having visions of this.....

on my next visits. Me, trying desperately to be understood and mum, disgruntled, irritable, saying..."What? What? I can't hear you! What??" (She told me she won't put up with a hearing aid, no way, no how!) She's had this problem in the past, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she won't need any sort of contraption to amplify whatever golden nuggets I'm trying to sling inside there. LOL!!!

Her nosebleeds seem to be coming from dryness and the small scabs she incessantly picks at, like a kid! So a nice saline spray and self-control-- (or MITTENS!) --hopefully will take care of that. (I know she was very diligent about it yesterday, and every time I saw those hands going toward her nose I'd say, "MA!", and she listened.) Maybe I should make a recording of me saying 'Ma! Ma!' and have it set off periodically when I'm not there. Yes..... they do become children, the aged. They surely do.

Oh! and I've been luxuriating in pictures of TREES. MYTHICALLY MAGICAL TREES over at one of my favorite sites. (This is the fantastical 'Dragon Blood Tree'-

and yes, it's REAL.) Prepare for enchantment (if you're a 'tree-lover' yourself... I think they DO have 'souls') and visit one of my FAVORITE places on the net, Dark Roasted Blend. (And browse around in there. They have some marvelous stuff. I get lost in it.)

July 14, 2011~ 8:00 pm
A good day is one in which I find something that makes me actually LAUGH OUT LOUD... and I found today's over in the archives of the 'WEBURBANIST' site, in their stash of HILARIOUS PHOTOSHOP mistakes. (They have a dozen pages of these.)

This one has a ghastly picture that's funny as is......

...but the EXPLANATION under it, is priceless. LOL!!!

"These thermals just aren’t selling, and I can't imagine why. I mean, it can't possibly have anything to do with the giant child molester heads we pasted onto the models' bodies."

(Made my day, lemme tell 'ya!)

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2011-07-02T21:24:00.023-04:00

July 3, 2011~ 12:00 am
My God! It's the fourth of July weekend already; this year is motoring past at a hundred miles an hour. Usually my extended family on my mother's side has a reunion picnic, but I haven't attended in about 20 years, so this weekend, two full days- Sunday and Monday both, are mine to indulge in extreme sloth.

(That may look austere and kinda creepy to you, but to ME, silence with its comforts and privacy are things to be enjoyed utterly.) I will read, snooze, keep my earplugs in place and simply disappear for 48 hours. Ahhhh... heaven.

Saturday evening Wayne and I watched 'The Last Station', which is a movie about the last days of Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, played by Christopher Plummer, with Helen Mirren playing his wife, Countess Sofya.

The Russian writer had introduced a whole new philosophy to late nineteeth century sensibilities which involved a total sharing of the wealth, vegetarianism, as well as celibacy. (Much to Mirren's chagrin. Doubtless this 'closing of the tap' happened much later in their lives.) The two of them had THIRTEEN CHILDREN before his conversion to celibacy. Something tells me 'age' had as much to do with his change of attitude as his new-found lack of carnality.

My favorite scene of the film is the one pictured above, as Tolstoy's wife tempts him to her bed by reminding him of their old pet names and games with the two of them cackling like rooster and hen, laughing uproariously, and rolling about. It was the most human, as well as the most touching scene in the film.

The movie itself is awkwardly told. (I'd love to get my hands on the script to see how it was written and what had been cut.) For the life of me I could not figure out its lack of impact despite two veteran and hugely talented actors. If I had to pin it down, I suppose I'd say it lacked focus. The whole question of Tolstoy's 'movement' and his 'legacy' meant nothing to this viewer.... I was interested in plumbing the depths of the PEOPLE involved, yet the simultaneously running storyline of the 'Tolstoyan movement' with his rabid followers using their machinations and craftiness to get him to sign a new will thereby giving rights to his works to the Russian people rather than as a bequest to his own family, I found distracting and rather tiresome. (Perhaps it was the job of the writers to make us care, but they certainly didn't succeed.)

The other subplot, the two young people in love-- Tolstoy's own male secretary and a young woman who introduces him to the joys of love and the flesh, was a pleasant diversion, but that too stole some focus from Plummer and Mirren who, let's be honest, should have carried that movie home in a basket given half a chance.

I'm now interested in finding out just how wide a swath of influence Tolstoy cut in his time. According to the movie, he was the most famous and the most beloved author of his day, and his death, a large event of late 19th century. I love the way Plummer was able to capture the physicality of the man....

and his charm. (At least the beard is correct, if you look at photos of the author himself, a sort of Whitmanesque presence.)

I'm glad we watched the 'extras' at the end of the DVD. It featured an interview with Christopher Plummer discussing his career and his new autobiography (which I do very much want to read) that profiles his drinking with Jason Robards, being a part of New York City theater in the fifties, as well as 'swinging London' in the sixties. He's a fellow has lived a colorful life to be sure, and he oozes charm.

The other extra was 'out-takes' from the making of the film that were hilarious and SO entertaining to watch. I just love to see actors flubbing their lines, then laughing or monkeyshining or cursing angrily, breaking up when they do that. The film had an awesome cast, but still... it didn't quite reach its potential. Focus. It needed ONE point of focus, not three.

At the end of that 'lion of letters' life, given his ENORMOUS impact on the world and the people around him (and with a hellfire, spirited wife) this film should have ended up more of a 'Lion In Winter' sparks and fur-flying character study and less of a Ken Burns documentary.

Though as I told Wayne, I'd watch Plummer and Mirren doing vaudeville and find satisfaction in it. Those are two wonderful performers, and though the movie wasn't all I'd hoped for, they were.

July 3, 2011~ 8:15 pm
This has been my 'schedule' thus far... (she said, laughingly) ... the most slothful of days. Sleep four hours, up four to read, eat, browse the internet, back to sleep. In that order. Since last evening. LOL!!

I did a lot of art and photography site-browsing, and though it's yet way too early for Halloween- (but never for nightmares) I found a a site that makes me cringe from its brilliant, gothic creepiness.

It's the work of Norwegian photographer, Erlend Mørk who will disquiet you with digitally manipulated and enhanced dark photo studies. He's without question, a thrilling young artist. Art should 'disrupt' something inside and shake it awake, and his does. (If only to draw the covers over your head, he WILL raise the shivers. I guarantee it.)

July 7, 2011~ 7:15 pm
Whatever shall America do with itself now that the Casey Anthony Murder Trial Is Over?

I have to say I've had only peripheral exposure, and most of it in the last two days of this 3 year long ordeal, and I suppose the media hype will not only NOT slow down, it will become even MORE ravenous and MORE inappropriate.

(Given the young woman's proclivities before her child went missing, and in particular, DURING the month long interval until the toddler was actually reported missing) and given this society's HUNGER for all things gauche and its LOVE of 'reality entertainment' (irregardless of its untastefulness) -- and given the HUGE BILLS the accused and pronounced not-guilty will see ballooning what with law suits and restitution for the $112,000.00 spent on wasted search efforts, I'd say there's a book in the offing. Maybe a reality TV show or at the very least- a 'mini-series'.

We are living in Caligula's ROME, folks, no doubt about it, and Casey is smack in the middle of a three-ring Circus Maximus. Perhaps there's a new career in the offing for the 'shot girl'-

Oh, I can picture a PLAYBOY spread for sure because we love our scandals and our tweets. This country adores a bad girl if she's pretty...... and the truth? We'll never know the truth in this awful case. I tend to think it was immaturity combined with alcohol and/or drugs and bad company, and the way the young feel immortal (and the people around them should be immortal too) and they don't think things through, or they pretend a thing never happened.... and however it played out, there was a ghastly attempt at a cover-up (or a cover story.) It's a tragedy of something gone horribly, horribly wrong, and we'll never know the facts. Never.

The thing I do know is that in this society, sometimes...... crime does indeed pay. Very very handsomely-- and that's the worst truth of all.

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2011-06-25T23:13:00.010-04:00

June 26, 2011~ 12:00 am
Halleluiah, today is finally cool enough to think straight. Rains all around the area (though little here, just clouds) have finally flushed out the insufferable heat. Saturday afternoon, I attended a high school graduation party for my great niece, Julia.

What a stunner she is. She's a gymnast, a student of karate (yes, that little thing can break a board in two)....aaaaaand, she's a model. That's quite a varied set of skills, let me tell you. She's going to study jounalism and broadcasting in college in the fall and seeing her now, taller than myself, just reminds me how time DOES FLY!! I'm like Alice being reminded my the white rabbit, "I'M LATE, I'M LATE, I'M LATE!"

Sometimes life does seem to be one long race, flying past- each event becoming a blur in the rear view mirror. I remember Julia's DAD running around like a chubby Winston Churchill of two years old, banging his hard head into every corner he passed, and only getting sort of 'creases' in his skin, but never bleeding. lol! Another family photo has him propped in his highchair, chubby face looking covetously at a HUGE drumstick someone had placed in his hand for a snapshot at Thanksgiving. Jim and his two brothers, all wearing hand-sewn camel hair overcoats with matching caps, looking terribly British and cute as the dickens.

These dizzying rites of passage.... births, deaths, graduations, marriages...... they all fly up and smack you in the face as the years race on. You want to call their bluff... you want to-- just like Alice, say

"Why, you're nothing but a pack of cards!" but of course, that's not true. They are life's days carreening past, often messy and mixed up, with events coming at once, and come they do, right at you.

Most sobering on Saturday evening, Wayne and I took Mum back to the Assisted Living and knew something was amiss as we walked down the hall to her room. There were aides and a nurse, green-gloved, looking subdued and pinch-faced, and as we passed the open doorway to the apartment next to mum's, I glanced in to see a woman lying on the floor. Perfectly still. I didn't want my mother to know what was going on, so I kept up a line of patter, trying to convince her to close her door as I bustled about, drawing her blinds and kissing her, telling her I'd be back the next day for dinner with the girls.

As Wayne and I let ourselves out downstairs, got in the car and started down the driveway, there was the ambulance screaming toward the place, lights flashing.

Oh, so many deaths that place has seen.... I wonder how it affects the residents, how disturbed are they seeing the same actions played out time and again?

Life is very precious. Life is very fast. Savor everything of light, because the shadows aren't far behind... that's what I took from my Saturday. I mean to treasure what I can.

Things like.. seeing little Kay and Bill, and my daughter and her husband there, and watching the kids rejoicing in having a big hall to run around in, squealing in delight. Watching Bill enjoy himself with his second cousins, and so PLEASED to have found boys close to his age to caper about with- and Kay the same. And I loved seeing her new hairdo! (That came about after an unfortunate accident with GUM. My daughter told the hilarious version of things when the gummy tangle had to be cut out, thence... her 'new look') so Kay has a 'bob'. A sort of Dutchboy cut, and she looks cute as can be. I savored watching the slide show of Julia and her family through all their years... 3 girls, 2 boys on seaside vacations and cutting down their own Christmas trees.... learning to ride bicycles, and all of it......all of it..... a kind of magic lantern show flashed up on a screen there in the hall. And for each of us... inside the eyelids where the memories are, the scenes played out.

So precious....all of it, each event, so very dear.

June 27, 2011~ 7:15 pm
TWO GOOD THINGS......Monday's in.....(always my LEAST favorite day of the week, like most folks) and.......... the little lady in the room next to mum's had taken a fall, but she was propped in her recliner, arm bandaged and sleeping when I went to see mum yesterday! Thank GOODNESS!! (I'd feared the worst.)

I felt lighter than air once I'd seen that, and it really added to my enjoyment sitting and eating dinner with the ladies at Table 6. (I also treated them to a novelty I'd picked up at Giant Eagle while shopping on Friday. It's a clear plastic gadget, much like a football mouth guard that the players wear, and it LIGHTS UP in primary colors and the lights race. LOL!!!) I jammed those in my mouth at the table and told them I was celebrating my NEW SMILE......yes..... I finally got my final dentures, and I LOVE THEM!

The dentist had taken pity on me with the way my immediate dentures were fitting so loosely, so they relined them, but OH MY GOSH! The extra 'bulk' gave me a definite 'simian appearance' for 10 days, with my upper lip and philtrum area pushed out. lol (Yes, I could have gone back and had them shave it down and re-shape, but what the heck. They were comfortable..... I could eat, and it was, after all, for only 10 days, so I just waited. Looking a bit 'chimp like' for the interim.

Here's the NEW AND FINAL ME

smiling, happy..... (lip and under nose area definitely normal again) and I'm pleased as punch. So haaaaaaappy this 6 months has passed from the extractions to this point, and I'm truly satisfied. Well-fitting, WHITE, happy teeth. I'm smilin'....oh, you'd better believe it. Never been happier with the look of those pearly whites. Aspen Dental did a TERRIFIC job.

June 29, 2011~ 6:00 pm
One thing I've always wanted to do is sculpt. I remember taking a 'jewelry class' with my daughter at one point, and we had to sculpt something to make into a ring or a brooch. I chose the brooch, and carefully drew, then crafted a wax oval with a cameo-like Art-Nouveau lady on it. (Yep. Never finished the classes.....lol.... so I never got to see what it would have looked like when cast) but every now and then I take it out and study it. I admire those who can put their hands to clay, or wield a sculptor's knife and render something new. But....... you think this is sculpting?

This is SCULPTING... in the most imaginative way possible! Judith G. Klausner does the most REMARKABLE things with OREO COOKIES! Not only that, just click on those other links and you'll find a praying mantis dressed up like a queen and sheltered under a bell jar... you'll find real insect wings used to make the most gossamer of art pieces. The lady's got imagination, creativity and PATIENCE galore, and her work is WONDERFUL! Go have a peek. You'll be as flabbergasted as I was.

***

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Weblog 279

2011-06-18T21:42:00.017-04:00

June 19, 2011~ 12:00 am
My sister and her husband have taken a ten day trip to Alaska. What an adventure!! She called me to say it's the most beautiful place she's ever been. (Man...... that kind of odyssey sounds like heaven to me.) Kath and Bob went to see the national parks in Utah last year, this year Alaska....and before that, up and down the pacific northwest coast seeing mountains and bears and redwoods. What great times they've had!

I've been keeping my little cell phone nearby in case Mum needs something, or the Assisted Living facility should need to get in touch with me. Tomorrow I get to do the chore that always falls to my sister... 'mum's laundry'. I'll be visiting earlier than usual so I can complete a couple loads, and we'll probably watch the Golf Channel (don't ask me why, but she LOVES that thing.) "Theeere's Bubba!" (Bubba Watson) she'll say, as though he's a nephew or something. And no one comes CLOSE to her affection for Phil Mickleson. (She likes his smile.) So it'll be laundry, golf..... and dinner with the ladies at table six.

On Friday we visited the grandkids and took some fish sandwiches with us. We dined as Bill quizzed me about predator animals. (I failed pretty dismally trying to ascertain 'who'd get the best of whom' in a stand-off between a mongoose and a wolverine.... that sort of thing. I guessed wrong about 70 percent of the time) while Kay did cartwheels and whispered about what they'd gotten their father for Father's day, both of them talking a mile a minute. (Kay lost her first bottom front tooth last week and the second one is 'wiggly': that's the Kay tooth update.)

Saturday evening, Wayne and I thoroughly enjoyed a viewing of the remake of 'True Grit'. It's a lovely film with a fine cast. It's more somber, more realistic than the original movie with John Wayne and Kim Darby, and I love both versions, but I do lean toward the original being my favorite.

As I watched it, I kept seeing parallels with the 'Wizard of Oz'. Afterall, it's a story about a young girl just on the cusp of womanhood, with big doe-like eyes... (Judy Garland eyes)

on a mission away from home, with grown men as her protectors

facing an evil force. Dorothy has her witch....

and in "True Grit", Matty has her Tom Chaney

(menacing as any old green-skinned witch could be) and in both stories, at one point they are both held captive by their respective nememis.

In the movie "True Grit" we have another young girl every bit as doe-eyed and vulnerable-looking (and played MAGNIFICENTLY by Hailee Steinfeld)

who steals your heart. She's brave and forthright; exhibits wisdom, compassion and strength far beyond her years.

Young Matty has her male protecters as well, and off they go

not to see a wizard, but to face down evil and lay claim to justice. Whereas Dorothy is just trying to get back home, Matty needs to set things right before she allows herself to return home again, but they're both 'quest' movies.

In place of Dorothy's Toto, Matty has 'Little Blackie' the pony, who accompanies her. (And let me tell you, the scene where Rooster Cogburn is riding hellbent for leather on Blackie, carrying the snake-bitten Matty to get medical care and rides till the poor animal just collapses, made me cry.) I remember tearing up at the end of the original version of 'True Grit' in that wonderful scene where John Wayne's stops in mid-air, the camera frozen as his horse leaps..... but in this one it was the pony-death scene that did it.

The biggest flaw for me (and I know my Wayne would disagree, because he loved it) is the narration at the end by the grown-up Matty. Ending the story with the voice-over of the main character as a middle-aged spinster-- even though it started with her narration-- by the end of the film I'd forgotten it entirely. I'd become totally engrossed in the unfolding of the story itself, so the cranky, spinsterish voice at the end was off-putting to me. Jolting. Kind of like the ending was 'tacked on' almost as an afterthought. Perhaps if there'd been other points in the film where we heard her reflections, it would have seemed smoother to end it that way.

In the original, from the line, "FILL YOUR HANDS YOU SON OF A BITCH!" - with Rooster firing two pistols with his horse reins in his teeth, right up to the very touching and then SUPERB shot of Wayne frozen in mid-air, are absolute perfection. I had no like feelings at the end of this one and that's too bad.

The denouement showing the middle-aged Matty was a complete anti-climax for me, and by damn, I do like ending things on a crescendo moment... always have loved movies like that.

But overall, it's still a great (if different) film. Jeff Bridges is funny and captivating in his version of the Wayne role and Matt Damon does a bang-up job in the Glen Campbell role of La Boeuf, the Texas ranger. (Though I did miss the line where Matty tells him he 'cultivates his hair like lettuce'...lol)

Hearing the repeated strains of 'Leaning On The Everlasting Arms' suited the film, but I can't help but forever associate that song with Robert Mitchum's impeccably creepy preacher in "Night Of The Hunter", so bits of that softly heard hymn kept nudging me away from the storyline and pushing me into remembered scenes from another much-loved classic. (Oh Lord! I hope they don't REMAKE that one! That'd be plain sacrilege.) Coen Brothers...... leave that one alone. Please. There are certain movies that are inviolate. 'Night Of The Hunter' is one of them.... like 'Casablanca'.... or 'The Bell's Of St. Mary's'. Do NOT redo. Ever.

June 20, 2011~ 7:00 pm
Today was just another crappy Monday. (Aren't they all?) So when I got home and got settled and comfortable, I was so pleased to find SOMETHING ON THE WEB that made me laugh out loud.... right out loud (and that's balm to the soul, believe me.)

Click on the picture

to read the FUNNIEST Author On Author Harsh Criticisms you're ever likely to come across. Good LORD, they made me laugh! (Centuries come and go, but writers' opinions of one another never change. Fanged to the end. LOL)

June 22, 2011~ 5:00 pm
It's been SO HOT these last 2 days, yesterday after visiting mum and picking up two more James Lee Burke books at the library, I came home and went straight up to bed. The only air-conditioned room in the house is my bedroom.

I settled in with a couple peanut-butter sandwiches and tried to rush through the last couple chapters of a paperback I was reading so I could get to the first Burke, but I got too comfortable and sleepy. lol (There's always tonight. I believe I'll be starting 'Rain Gods' this evening.)

But TODAY at WORK..... WHAT A SIGHT!

A RED-TAILED HAWK! Sitting no more than 15 ft. away from me diagonally from the ground where I stood, perched on a thick electrical wire. First I'd heard crows going NUTS all around: they were cawing and shrieking, circling overhead above the corner of the building. I couldn't see what the to-do was about till I walked over and man! that thing's head revolved around toward me and gave me the stinkeye but good! I stood there open-mouthed, motioning some other folks who were gathered outside to come see what I was looking at. (The boss' son had an iphone with camera capabilities, so he snapped the creature's picture and sent me a copy in an email after I got back to my desk. Thanks, Nate!)

Mostly I was concerned because a small squirrel was nonchalantly sitting upright, nibbling an acorn under the tree whose leaves you see here in the picture, so I stomped, I shooed.... I did everything I could to get that goofball to 'git!', but he just continued eating. (But the hawk didn't like the warnings one bit!) He kept swiveling that head around, eyeballing me in a chilling way, and if you've ever looked RIGHT INTO a hawk's eye, it'll out and out freeze your blood. It's 'other'.... that's the only way to describe it. (This picture is from the net, but it's a dead ringer for the fella I saw today.)

His eyes were a jewel-YELLOW in the sun. It's certainly not anything like looking into say.... a rabbit's eyes or a horse's or a dog's. Most of those creatures have a warmth deep down in there that a person can latch onto and connect with.... not a hawk. They are RAPTORS... they're what's left of dinosaurs and to look at them is to look at absolute death. INTELLIGENT death. Patient. Truly frightening.

Anyway... our little squirrel did finally get off into the bushes and I was much relieved. It wasn't long after that Mr. Hawk took off too. (No doubt good and pissed that we'd ruined his lunch.)

They are MAGNIFICENT creatures..... amazing to see. But I can't say I like them much. Nope. Not those soul-chillers. Not one bit.

***

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Weblog 278

2011-06-11T21:08:00.024-04:00

June 12, 2011~ 12:00 am
As I've shared in here, I've had to circumvent the usual way to get into Blogger since the middle of April, so I've been hanging around and sometimes participating in the help section that was set up by Google, and I've been studying how frantically folks there are clamoring for fixes to their various roadblocks to signing in or seeing their followers-- being able to post (or all of the above) -- and it's apparent how very dependent we've become on media in our everyday lives. We watch.

I would imagine that many of those same folks in the forum also have other social media accounts set up and carry iphones and are texting regularly; then settle down to watch television, choosing what the networks have found to be a very lucrative and easy way to program: 'reality shows'. No paid actors with contracts, no expensive sets or writers for each episode.... just gravy for the producers of these series showing people often behaving badly or ludicrously while the at-home viewer sits glued to their TV, perhaps texting a friend when something particularly outrageous happens on their flat screen.

We've become a world of watchers. It's troubling.

I ask myself if Blogger was working so well for so long for so many people, WHY are there so many problems in connecting now? I can only speak for myself when I say when I connect I allow only Google cookies (which is a must to get in) --but I don't use javascript, I DON'T remain logged in and by blocking third party cookies, I deny all other tidbits that advertizers would LOVE to gather up about me. In other words, I refuse to be marketed to.

I think a lot of people have various ad-blocking, cookie-blocking features or add-on's they employ, and I truly believe that the powers-that-be, in the guise of BETTER MORE EXCITING FEATURES, have just found iframe and coding ways to prevent entrance unless these features are permitted to function.

GOOGLE IS INDEED THE COOKIE MONSTER.

What we are participating in is one long interconnected commercial. That's the simple truth.

What we used to deem 'time for a bathroom trip, time to let the dog out' while those annoying ads blared from our TV sets, we now allow to co-exist in everything we do online. We've allowed this invasion of our privacy and have grown used to being wholly engaged in being panderers for products pushed on every web page, all day long.

Maybe other people don't think about it or maybe they simply don't care about being tracked, but 'new features' come at a price. Blogger can pinpoint where on the globe you are visiting from, what blogs you like and therefore what kind of 'stuff' you'd probably consider buying, and by providing folks who are 'followers', we give them a FATTER, BIGGER POOL of potential customers. More clicks... more friends..... more revenue and more knowledge about you as a consumer... and yes, EVEN FOR THE SPANKING NEW COMPUTERS AND OPERATING SYSTEMS, slower loading time while all the junk stacks up behind the scenes. Don't believe me? Do a right click and view source on any page you visit. You'll be appalled at how much extra JUNK has been piggy-backed and scripted onto that one click.

(I'll stick to proxies that scrape all script away. I like the clean, quick way it renders.) My own blog is a place to share links and neat stuff I've come across, with a bit of personal sharing, but not too much, and that's it. I don't blurt every moment of every day and I like my disconnection from the big machine: I like using the internet on my OWN terms and not letting it use ME. It's as simple as that. (Speech over. Soapbox put away.)

It's been a HOT HOT week, sticky and uncomfortable in these parts and I look forward to the cooling trend that's supposed to ride in by Sunday. (I almost didn't post an entry this evening because it was too stifling here and I was longing for my cool bedroom and a book.) Wayne and I did manage a movie (with electric fans going) --and though I'd looked forward to seeing 'The Kids Are All Right', it was, in my opinion, a 'so-so' film.

Annette Bening was a tiresome control freak. (That lady's eyes SCARE ME. lol) --they're a bit glassy, a bit too much white showing all round the irises making her look rabid at times. She plays a good role, but oh my, how terribly unlikeable.

Julianne Moore's role was a lot more sympathetic, and parts of the film with Mark Ruffalo (always such a sweetie) were nearly comic farce. (I think I enjoyed those most.) But it's precisely those 'farce vs. drama' components at war with one another, that made the film terribly uneven: a film that couldn't decide once and for all on its own thrust.

The lesbian parents come across as cloying in their manner toward one another; I found that a HUGE distraction. Very irksome.

I just didn't buy Moore's jumping into bed with Ruffalo (unless it was because she'd been plucked up by Bening when she was still an unformed young thing who then finds herself firmly under the thumb of a controlling same-sex partner, and one who never gives her enough leash to discover herself sexually.. or in any other way.) But that's left hanging. It bothers the viewer, but doesn't seem to bother the characters one bit.

The real joys of the film were the two children.

The casting was excellent. They portrayed the fruit of that unconvential union with a perfect-pitch mixture of strained loyalty- with love despite it -as they grapple desperately for some definition of where they fit in: both in the world and with their two female 'moms'. The actress Mia Wasikowska was marvelous.

Looking very much like a young Gwyneth Paltrow, her face showed every subtle emotion that moved across it. I think that young lady has quite a career in front of her. I'm sure we'll be hearing much about Ms. Wasikowska.

Overall the film disappointed me.

The lesbian mothers were too smarmily unctuous toward one another and toward their offspring-- and the pat way the 'adultery problem' was patched up so quickly and neatly was the plot point hardest to swallow. (If Bening didn't see that interlude as a HUGE symptom of a marriage having gone very, very wrong, her character must have been even crazier than what she portrayed.) It was a story too neatly sewn-up at the end and too 'I wonder what the heck this film is about' throughout the rest of it.

I found nothing truly exceptional in Bening's performance, and can't really understand why she was nominated for best actress for that particular role. Ah... the mysteries of Hollywood. (I suppose, like Google, like Blogger, it's a question of what sells and what is marketable. Maybe they thought they had an enlightened, urbane, and 'with it' storyline, but all they really had were bits and pieces of a thing that never truly came together with any veracity whatsoever.) Still.... I'm glad I finally saw it. I'd been wondering.

June 13, 2011~ 7:30 pm

See that fun chair above?? Do you hate to sit in them (regardless of how delightfully MOBILE they are?) LOL!! Yep. That's a dental chair... and I spent an hour and a half today after work, lazing about in one of those. Was I afraid? NOT ANY MORE... because there's nuthin' to drill, nuthin' to poke at, just smooth gums. (At this point, 5 1/2 months now since my extractions, my pink gums have pruned up like little Amazonian shrunken heads, and are now ready for the permanent set.)

I went back to Brentwood Aspen Dental again today (first trip since January) to have the blue goo slathered inside my mouth again to take new impressions for tighter fitting dentures. (I've been stubborn, as per usual ...and didn't have any follow up trips for relining or adjustments: no......... I just kept PACKING ON the POLIDENT adhesive.... TUBES at a time, and today was no exception. lol) I thought I was being careful and clever, so I stopped at home to remove and scrub them off, then put 'just a daub of the stuff' to hold them in place for my appointment. Little did I know that 'just a daub' creates a sticky, stubborn MESS trying to get the gunk off the gum tissue and mouth cavity to render a good impression for the second set of choppers. Every speck had to be out, and I have to say it's comparable to trying to get gum off your sneaker sole on a hot day. Those patient folks had to do the impression twice to get a usable mold.

But they were good-humored and pleasant; they even allowed me to stay in that wonderful chair (which ISN'T SCARY AT ALL if there's no drilling going on, no needles, and I have to tell you, those things are COMFORTABLE when you're not shaking in your boots while sitting in them) and I was allowed to remain 'privately toothless' in that chair while they did their work. (That was very sweet of them not to make me sit outside in the waiting room like Moms Mabley

smacking my lips and looking puckered.) I read my library book, I played my little hand-held poker game and was close to nodding off when they came back in with my current dentures COMFORTABLY RELINED with soft, rubbery pink stuff, and THEY FIT!!! LOL!!! What is wrong with me that I didn't avail myself of this sooner? (Yep. Hard-headed is what.)

I'll go back in two days to try on the wax set and critique the look, the fit...... and when everything is just right, they'll go ahead with making my final pair.

So THANK YOU Dr. Christine Smith and thank you Lori, the technician-- (and the sweet lady who patiently cleaned that old Polident out of my gob hole, but I never got your name)..... you GUYS ARE GREAT!!

***

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Weblog 277

2011-06-04T21:44:00.021-04:00

June 5, 2011~ 12:00 am
Fairer, finer weather. I have rarely seen its like. What we've had here in Pittsburgh the latter part of this past week has been such a respite... and I'm grateful.

On Friday afternoon, Wayne stepped through the door holding a light green bud vase sporting two of the most beautiful pale pink roses from the bush outside his door. I was delighted -and squealed appropriately. I had to snap a photo, because I know how quickly wild roses fade.

Such a delicate color. So fragile looking. Absolute perfection.

And here they are standing proudly in their soft green milk glass vase. You can see the many buds there too, but they never seem to open once the stems are cut from the bush. I hope these do. That's only happened once for me.

Holly and family took off camping for the weekend, so Wayne and I watched an hour-long stand-up Comedy Central DVD I'd rented from Netflix. My folly was in choosing it strictly for the cover, which made me laugh out loud when I saw it......

LOOK at that expression! LOL!!! And the retro-looking aqua highlights... the tux.... reminds of of an old playbill from a supper club from the late 50's. (I WOULD like to own a t-shirt with that on the front. I'd LOVE it!) The material (sadly) was typical frat boy humor-- mostly jokes about getting drunk or high, as well as a tiresome repetition of the term 'dude'. LOL!!! (Oh well, you win some, you lose some. So much for mistakenly judging a book by its cover. ) It's a mistake I've made before, and probably will again. I never learn.

Luckily, we also had a DVD loaned to Wayne by Bob, who's a co-worker and friend. It featured Bob's favorite movie "To Kill A Mockingbird" (which we both love as well) though we mostly wanted to see the extras that came with it. There was an hour and a half bonus called, "Fearful Symmetry: The Making of To Kill A Mockingbird" and I loved every second.

The movie is one of my all time favorites as well, and I'm so pleased it hasn't been 'colorized' they way they've done so many of the old classics, and it's simply wrong. This film SHOULD ALWAYS remain black and white because it suits it: it's starker, more reflective of the black and white racial issues in the film, as well as being symbolic of the very struggle between good and evil that is at the center of the film's utterly real feeling of growing up in a small southern town in the late 30's.

To my mind, there is no one else who could ever be Atticus Finch but Gregory Peck. What a performance that was! I wrote the following Saturday evening after watching it.

Mockingbird

The eyebrows
strike straight lines 
over
the eyes
themselves, then 
do a dance
that tells the truth.  Atticus is a tree trunk 
strong 
and tall. We climb into
his cool and green 
serenity, his
sure as compass
conscience, his white suit 
symbol
like the
white hat
cowboy, 
doing right.  He knows the way
through 
any thicket, prickly 
dark with doubt, his light can find a way 
to make
things right,  his arms, the arms 
of  loving
father; voice, the controlled rumble 
of tethered
thunder, reined by faith.  Oh Gregory, there 
will never be 
another one like you  in that one role, you are 
our best
selves, main 
mast, 
cast
as though
by God
himself
to play 
the lawyer, 
Atticus Finch
as Harper wrote you, 
from her heart:  its flowers
bud 
you.

I've always been a bit in love with Mr. Peck. I hope he sees this, wherever he is now, I hope he smiles.

Thursday of this past week is the last day I hung out my suet cage for the birds. On Wednesday it was in the 90's here, and terribly humid. The birds were panting with their beaks hanging open, so when I got home from work I put out a fresh cold suet cake from the fridge, and got out a pyrex pan and filled it with cold water. I stood just inside the door and snapped their pictures..... the rowdy grackles, the food marauders, and yes.... the splashers!

These two guys were the first to spy it, nice and fresh. They went right to their pecking, little pieces of suet and berries and seed flying everywhere. They were soon joined by some of their buddies.

All of them squawking, greedy, wings flapping and bullying others out of the way..... until one guy spied the water.

Pure joy! I was tickled to death to watch his vigorous, loud libations which splashed all over the place as he flapped and flapped, then shook himself dry. I will miss it

When I left for work Thursday morning, the chain was broken off the cage, and laying at the foot of my back door as if to demand, "Refill this please!" I came home, repaired the chain and placed another cake inside. Friday morning, it was creepy. The chain AGAIN broken from its hook, the cage door PRIED OPEN despite twisty ties to keep it securely closed, again at my backdoor, but in addition..... the outdoor carpeting was completely clawed up off the top step, and looking closely, there were greasy dark footprints of some 'three-toed' animal leading away from the mess and across the porch. WhatEVER is raiding at night-- raccoon, groundhog, large rat (LOL!) --I am no longer supplying the grub.

(Sorry birds, that evidence is just too violent looking and too disturbing to keep putting things out there.) I don't know what it is.... but I sure don't want it hanging around my back door at night. So I wanted to put up these last pictures of the intended recipients of backyard treats having a blast on the next to last day I shared stuff with them. Sayonara, little friends. Hope you find lots of sunflower seed and thistle and goodies in the yards nearby, but this cantina is closed.

June 8, 2011~ 5:15 pm
(I believe I had mentioned above..."fairer, finer weather"? Well ~~scratch that.~~ We have now entered the TORRID ZONE

and I am ill-prepared... (but that's not unusual.) Breathing is like taking a good, long drag from a blast furnace; this comes as quite a shock-- though it shouldn't --yet it always does. Summer weather sneaks up behind me with a sledge-hammer and CLOBBERS me every year.

No humidity to speak of.......yet. THAT'S coming overnight to develop into thunderstorms tomorrow. I always feel like maybe I can just 'blink'.... or wake myself up and it'll all disappear... must be a bad dream, but it's the real stuff here, at last.

Work was grueling today as well. My one bright spot was a self-portrait drawn by 5 year old Kay, sent in an email from her Mom. (I think that Kay is staring out at the prospect of 3 months of this stuff in the same way as her grandmother, teeth clenched.)

(Note the teeth) .... objects of intense interest right now for Kay, who never misses the opportunity to tell me, "There are OTHER ONES BEHIND the wiggly ones! The dentist can see them...." (Kay is waiting patiently for that next crop of pearly-whites to push their brothers and sisters out of the way, then collect from the Tooth Fairy and be DONE with it.) LOL!!

Man, I LOVE that picture. Very artistic for a 5 year old... yellow yarn hair, bright periwinkle blue eyes and all! Old Mr. Sun is not the ONLY thing to shine this day... Kay DID TOO! And much more gently.

***

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Weblog 276

2011-05-28T23:55:00.013-04:00

May 29, 2011~ 12:00 am
My honey and I finally got to watch a movie rental from Netflix. This past month has not worked for movie-viewing due to Wayne's bout with SHINGLES (poor thing) but he's got them on the run at this point, so we settled down Saturday evening to watch

and it was wonderful. I know I've read some reviews of this film on other folks' blogs and they didn't much care for the film, but it was so surprising to me ...(don't really know what I expected) but I'm sure I thought it was a film primarily about psychics ... and boy I was wrong.

This is a love story through and through and not just about a man and a woman, but love on many levels, in various human relationships, and how death creates such a rend in our psyches we want to reach through that curtain and hold a hand one last time. I found the film very moving.

Matt Damon broke my heart playing one of the loneliest young men I've ever watched, isolated by a psychic gift he neither wanted nor pursued.

The most refreshing surprise was his leading lady, an absolute joy - a lady who reminds me a bit of Audrey Hepburn

Cecile De France... a beauty as well as a terrific actress. The opening scenes are of a terrifying tsunami that provide her with own near death experience: how horrifying it is to watch that LOUD inexorable WALL OF WATER come crashing toward her as she shops for souvenirs in the village market.

Clint Eastwood did a marvelous job of making that disaster as chillingly real as possible.

The movie is actually three very different stories... Damon's, De France's, and a young child actor whose face holds all the pathos in the world.

Just LOOK at him! He's reeling from his own personal loss and eventually... (and even as you're watching) you think it's impossible their stories could entwine, but they do. 'Hereafter' is a movie that made me feel good all over by the end. I was more than pleased, I was simply delighted we'd chosen it for Saturday evening. It brims with longing and it folds us up in hope like the softest, comforting blanket. I give it 5 stars.

Friday evening we stopped for pizza night with the grandkids. Bill was FULL of quesions once again about horror movies, and he was doing his ZOMBIE WALK (which is so 'spot on', it's hysterical.) Where he learned to do that I'll never know, but it's uncanny. (I thought perhaps for his next birthday, I should purchase THIS)

a REMOTE CONTROLLED ZOMBIE!! LOL!!! Kay spent a good deal of the evening wiggling her loose front tooth. She's excited about having something for the TOOTH FAIRY to claim for cash. "See it? It's moving," as she pushed and poked at it with her tongue. (I do think I saw a wee bit of anxiety there as well.) Ah, this family and TEETH! .... I could write a book.

This lovely, looooooooong Memorial Day weekend is also the 60th birthday of my oldest (not in age, but in years) friend, Annette. My dearest 'Netto', who's known me forever. Here she is about a year and a half ago, posed with a cinnamonsugar-colored horse way out there in California.

I'm sure she can ride, too. She's the athlete, I'm the klutz.Happy Birthday, Dear Friend! She got to sixty ahead of me but I'm right on her heels, ready to cross that line in August. Time is a bandit. Pure and simple. The twinking of an eye, and you progress from youth to late middle age (or as Wayne says, "were old. None of that 'middle-aged stuff." ) He's probably right but dang it, I don't feel it. (Maybe my knees, but that's only about 5 percent of me.) Have a GREAT, LONG WEEKEND EVERYONE!

May 29, 2011~ 12:00 am
The season is heating up. For the first time this year I placed my double-fan in the kitchen window and allowed it to run all night. Today is heating up to 88 and tomorrow 92! (Yep, we sorta skipped over spring and went straight to swelter) -and that 65 degree breeze felt GOOD downstairs last night while I was on the computer before bed.

I vowed to NOT buy any more suet cakes for the birds. The gluttons go through one in less than a DAY now, so it's not this lovely-looking picture of polite small nibbles....

it's like a SWARM ... mostly loud grackles with their pointy long beaks, shrieking at one another in a blur of flapping wings and aggression. (Then 'someone' learned to open the cage door, to allow the cake to flop down on the steps.) I outwitted that by using twistie-ties to secure the door.

Oh, I know I said 'no more'.... but I bought six cakes last night and immediately put one out. I just looked out the backdoor and it's gone. LOL!! The greedy marauders.

May 30, 2011~ 10:15 pm
Sitting here for HOURS on end (on Friday, last night and today) trying like crazy to make Blogger behave, but "THAT DOG WON'T HUNT!"

Looking for an alternative to Blogger, I fastened upon Bravenet and set up a delightfully easy-to-use blog over there. That was on Friday.

On SATURDAY EVENING, I tried making a second entry and IMMEDIATELY I had a pop up redirect to tell me I had violated their terms of service and they'd removed my blog. LOL!!!! God, I was pissed. All that work just to see it go up in smoke. Then came the most miserable task of all......

I tried on Sunday evening to set up ANOTHER blog in Blogger, using (yes.... what else?) a proxy server... and though it showed up fine through that, my account showed (even though I was looking at it), it 'did not exist.' LOL!!!

I tried all day Sunday and Monday to hack away at that pitiful thing, until I thought to check my Gmail account. Whaddya KNOW! Bravenet had RESTORED my blog and apologized for a false positive for objectionable content (or spam or spurious links, or whatever it was made them pull the plug to begin with) -therefore, for your entertainment, a blog PRIMARILY about 'stuff my fella says' gleaned from emails and conversations over the years, here it is. Click below.

the NEW PLACE! Enjoy! )(Ugh! Work tomorrow and it's already after 10:00)

June 2, 2011~ 9:00 pm
Ok. Here's a FEEL GOOD STORY FOR YA......

If you haven't caught this story in the media yet, reward yourself for a hard day and go visit The HOME DEPOT DUCK; your day will turn suddenly SUNNY! What a cutie.... just look at that face.....

She reminds me of the mallards we had at work for one, fun, glorious day when they decided to float on a mud puddle about 6 ft. wide that formed after some heavy rains. (I guess they went somewhere else to nest, but I miss them.) Oh! And guess what I did this afternoon after visiting my mum? I renewed my library card. (I got it 2 years ago and it was set to expire in 2 weeks and I'd never used it. LOL!! This dumb ass just keeps buying books.) But tonight.....

a JAMES LEE BURKE I didn't even know existed. "White Doves At Morning" - came out in 2002: "Drawing on his personal family history, James Lee Burke crafts a story of enormous scope about three best friends from Louisiana who -- despite their own misgivings about the "Cause" -- enlist in the Confederate Army and set off to war." Yippieee!! Taking a BIG BOWL of Rainbow Berry sherbert up to bed with me now... propping it in my lap, and digging into BOTH the book and the sherbert. Ah....... heaven. :)

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Weblog 275

2011-05-21T19:42:00.022-04:00

May 22, 2011~ 12:00 am
Though it rained and soaked us in this region all week long, we had one GORGEOUS day on Saturday when the sun came out and stayed there.

Yes, that's my house behind the big green bushes on a day just like Saturday. (Yellow too. A 'sun house'!) I grabbed a small window of time on a day with no rain and vacuumed the back porch indoor/outdoor carpeting while it wasn't sodden, and probably picked up a POUND of cast-off sunflower seed shells from the feeder I keep on the railing. That went 'bye-byes'... it's simply too sloppy to keep out there. (Besides, the pigeons found it late last week, and the prospect of a back porch knee deep in pigeon-poop was just too unsavory to comtemplate.) Instead, I bought five suet cakes for this week. The little cheepers will just have to be satisfied with that.

Due to my honey's ongoing bout of shingles, we shelved the movie for this week. It's too hard to lay on the couch on TOP of those blisters and pain, and be anywhere near comfortable.

On Friday at work, we had a DELIGHTFUL all-day encounter with mallard ducks! Since the relentless, day-in, day-out downpours, a rather large area of our grassy section beneath the oak trees has filled up, grass poking out, looking for all the world like a small pond, and gliding on it on Friday morning, was a pair of ducks, paddling happily, male and female.

(I didn't have my camera with me- darn!-but they looked just like that.) The male, with an iridescent blue-green neck, and his mate, a speckled brown female. They'd loll on the grass, beaks tucked under a wing and sleep, or they'd sally forth casually-- walking slowly on the grass, then plop back down in their 'pool' and dig into the mud for critters to eat. We loved watching them!

I hope they're back on Monday, because it sure adds color and enjoyment to the workday. I even wrote a poem about them.

Unexpected


The flatiron
of
hard morning fog

fails
to sever me from joy. I saw

a mallard and his mate

floating in a puddle
from the recent rains, deep as my soul
can jubilate. The world constructs
such
wonders

out of mist.

Browsing around, I found an intriguing site that I want to share that opens a portal into the past. It seems a fella bought a Kodachrome slide viewer at a flea market, and it came complete with a bunch of old family slide photos from the '50's. Looking through these 'found pictures' I felt a sweep of warm nostalgia in the styles, the look of the automobiles, the fashions of the time-- and it took me back to life in that decade, a place locked inside my memories. Click on the rabbit-earred television below

and pay a visit to a wonderful blog. It tugs at my heartstrings and opens doors that had been gently shut though easily opened again.

When you're through looking through that, cast your eye on the The World BEARD Championships and be amazed. LOL!!!

Man!! What zany styles and shapes!I I love it! (I think if I were a male I'd most definitely have a mustache and beard. It would be like being a magician, or some silent film star, with so many ways to disguise and decorate the face.) All it takes is daring.... and plenty of mustache wax.

Back to rain now for all of this week. I'm getting used to the smell of mildew..... (but at least there are flowers coming along out there.) Have a good week, all.

May 25, 2011~ 7:00 pm
Blogger is f*cked again! LOL!!! I've been trying to post in here for 2 days and could not log in. Not even with a proxy. Found another way, but man o man...... it's so damn exhausting to work this way. I wish those programmers would leave 'well enough', alone.

So..... with the vacillation of 'on/off' nonsense, combined with the weather crap, I find my

have been rather piebald as well. (Moods are funny things. They are oceans inside of us, with their own tides.) BTW, that wonderful graphic was a Hasbro game from 2000. Never got to play it, but I'll bet it was fun.

Mood is influenced by health, by events outside of us and events close to us, what we eat and hear and read. (Ah! There's the rub!)

Currently I'm reading a dark, dark but brilliant book..... possibly the most brutally honest, perfectly crafted I've ever read, yet it takes its toll. It's a 2005 novel that was just made into a movie- (and yes, I'm SO GLAD I read the book first) staring Tilda Swinton, of 'Orlando' and 'Michael Clayton' fame, who will be PERFECT as the lead

in "We Need To Talk About Kevin". If there is such a thing as 'perfect casting'-- this is surely it. The main character is a self-made career woman of Armenian/American descent who marries the fella of her dreams, only to finally give birth to a nightmare. Let me tell you, 'Kevin' is the stuff of true horror. He's an opaque, calculating, almost demon child who grows into a teenage cypher who finally murders some hand-picked classmates and the only teacher who was 'on to him', but saw promise nevertheless, in an (all too common) high school massacre.

To read this is to be inside his head--- and inside the head of his uncommonly astute, self-analyzing mother who, after the tragedy, spends all her days trying to solve the puzzle of what happened. What went wrong? Who's 'fault' is Kevin anyway? She spares no one-- flays herself alive, and to read this book is to roll naked over broken glass. It casts a dark spell, this one, and I am totally inside of it. I am in awe of its author, Lionel Shriver. (Oh, yes, 'Lionel' is a woman. Born Margaret Ann, but renamed herself.) Somehow, that all fits.

I have only 20 pages to go and torturous as it was, I am loathe to finish it and call it quits-- that's how entirely I have been absorbed by the story.

If you're brave enough, if you're a person can look at the truth of this country, this culture... the myth of parenthood and what it supposedly brings us.... the nature of motherhood and the old nature/nuture conundrum, I encourage you to brave it. It's one hell of a read.

May 26, 2011~ 4:15 am
For the past 3 days I've had difficulties with my alarm clock(s). Tuesday I slept in a half hour, yesterday, an hour....(no worries. I always get up an hour BEFORE I absolutely have to start getting ready for work) ...but that meant no coffee, no re-entry decompression, etc, so I stumbled into work like- (in the words of Abraham Lincoln) -'a duck that's been struck on the head'.

Figuring it was my alarm clock that wasn't working properly, last evening I replaced the battery and tried setting my 'Pirates of the Caribbean' clock as a back-up. Then I dug out an old travel alarm clock and rustled up a battery for that one by going through junk drawers in the house, so with THREE clocks set (my main one with the face turned away from me on the nightstand so the alarm area was unobstructed) -I relied on the Pirate clock and the travel alarm to see the time as I continued reading before lights out.

Well at some point I rolled over in the dark and pressed the 'PROJECT TIME' button on the Pirate clock, and saw a red digital '4:30 AM' on the wall. (Half hour later again!)

I scrambled up, checked all clocks, wondering why the main one hadn't sounded since I checked it so well before I turned its face away the night before, and discovered THAT ONE read not 4:30, but 3:30 am! (And IT was the correct time!. Yes, I'd mis-programmed the two digital ones.) LOL!!! Up an hour EARLIER today, but it's better than late and groggy.

I see that BLOGGER still has serious, serious problems....

and is 'broken'. I've been a frequent checker in their 'Something Is Broken' forum, reading the latest disasters for folks trying to get in and stay in, but it's UNBELIEVABLY up to over 300 comments in that one thread alone. (It was 160 something as I was leaving work yesterday, so it doubled over-night and continues to have nearly nil support or input from Blogger/Google staff.)

How'd I get in? you may ask.......having an almost 13 year old original computer, old operating system, old Firefox browser..... let's just say I've learned to be 'creative'. I tunnel in via North Dakota, the dark side of the moon and work dangerous voodoo to be here. Have to. Humpty's crashing, and all the king's horses and all the king's men seem to be clueless.

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Weblog 274

2011-05-14T23:38:00.001-04:00

May 15, 2011~ 12:15 am
It was a GLORIOUS week starting out! We had 3 consecutive days of sunshine, low humidity and a light breeze, and I finally got a hint of just what spring can be. It was fabulous. Then of course......

the inevitable clouds rolled in, the rains started again, and from Thursday on we've had thunder-boomers and occasional downpours. (At least my grasscutters got to complete the lawn on Thursday in the morning, before the dark clouds rolled in.) It's been a week... (two weeks really) of pain for my honey, Wayne. The poor guy ended up with shingles and feels like hot wires are shimmying and stabbing him underneath his skin. Pain is relentless. It makes us prisoners of its whims.

With something like shingles you can say 'Uncle' all you want... the pain doesn't care, it just keeps stabbing and chuckling, lighting the nerves up with constant fire. I sure hope he's one of the lucky ones, and it finishes up with him in a couple weeks. He's taking an anti-viral medication that's supposed to minimize the effects of the disease, and popping ibuprophen every 4 hours. He's soldiered on, making it into work on and off, leaving when the pain gets the best of him.

It's one thing to suffer yourself, but something else entirely when it's someone you love.... that's tough. You feel so helpless.

My daughter's father-in-law is still recuperating from heart surgery, so on Saturday evening I watched the grandkids for a few hours while Holly and Gary visited at the hospital. (Wayne, needless to say, didn't join us.) Bill has a new LOVE....and it's WRESTLING! LOL!! He borrowed his friend Lucas' Wii wrestling game, and danced around saying 'POW!' and 'WHAM!' all evening. I was amazed at the graphics. It's so REAL......just astonishing. Their big flat screen TV in the living room was filled with images like this

and this

so lifelike! That 3D stuff is something to behold. Kay felt a bit left out, so we did 'girl stuff' while Bill bounced off walls and manipulated that little control box with the speed of a Gatling gun. (We DID see some GIRL wrestlers that would periodically pop up on the screen before the bouts-- when you choose the wrestlers you want to square off against eachother.) "Bill!" I said. "Let's see some GIRL WRESTLERS." "Noooooooooo!!" he said. "Never. Lucas NEVER picks the girls."

But we kept at him till he finally chose a tag team foursome, glittery and Amazon-like. Kay and I chose. "Oh NOOOOOOOOO!" he said--"not the Bella Sisters!" (Twins. Very hot stuff, and to Bill's mind, just the worst thing to have to watch.) That match went on and on.... and Bill complained the whole time. LOL!!!

So after that, I introduced 5 year old Kay to paper dolls.

She'd never heard of such a thing, and was fascinated. I drew a figure on cardboard, cut it out and filled in features and details on a separate piece of thinner paper-- colored it in, gave her blue underwear and pasted the fleshed-out figure on top. Then I scribbled a couple of outfits, choosing bright reds and oranges, greens and blue, and showed Kay how the little paper tabs are bent down to keep the clothes on the standing dolly cut-out. "You're FUN, grandma," she said, her eyes dancing. I told her if the doll didn't get lost or damaged, that I'd draw another dress or two for her the next time I visited-- and her mommy is a good designer and would doubtless add a few spiffy ensembles to the collection. Kay called the paperdoll..... (what else?).....'Kay'.... and tucked her into a red folder: the doll in one pocket, her clothes in the other. "See?" I said. "That's her bed, and THIS SIDE is her closet." Kay seemed to like that idea.

It was a VERY humid evening with yes, eventual storms, so we made paper fans. Kay became quite an expert at folding them in nice, crisp creases and we fanned ourselves and eachother, and Kay said she had a notion to sell them. "People would really LIKE THEM, gram. Don't you think? When it's all hot out and everything?"

I told her that was a splendid idea. Maybe set up a lemonade stand in the summer and offer a small lemonade for a nickel, and a paper fan for another nickel. "People could feel nice and comfortable for only a DIME, Kay!" I told her. Her eyes danced again. It was... (other than feeling bad for Wayne while he's going through his miseries).. a very lovely evening. I sure hope the week measures up to it.

May 16, 2011~ 7:15 pm
Guess what I did yesterday? I went to a LUAU!!

It was a regular Sunday- (meaning, visit and dinner with Mum) -but there was something else on the agenda. Mom had a colorful flyer on her stand jampacked with flowers and the word, "LUAU!" in the middle. "Are you going to this?" I asked her. (It was for 6:30 till 7:45pm yesterday evening, right after dinner.) "Are YOU going?" she said. "No, it's for YOU, mum," I told her. "Well if YOU'RE not going, then I'M not going," she announced. LOL!!!

Then I remembered that the same group of high school kids from the neighboring parish had put on 'Oscar Night' last year. In fact EVERY year they have a spring theme with a disc jockey and dancing for the old folks, and I did indeed attend last year (invited or not, it was fun.) I looked down at my shirt and realized......it was pre-ordained. I had on my Tony Soprano, bright blue and white floral Hawaiian shirt. "We're GOING!" I said.

Oh Lord, I danced..... in spite of myself, I did the Macarena and jumped right into a CONGA LINE! lol!!! I swiveled my hips and shimmied and made a COMPLETE ASS OUT OF MYSELF, but OH MY! what a blast. (When they played "Shout!"...I had no control whatsoever. I go into some sort of St. Vitus dance. Always have. Can't help it.)

(How I'll ever hold my head up when I go to visit, I don't know) but truly, "a good time was had by all" and MUM WENT. Yes she did!

Another thing I wanted to share is a few snapshots of my charming Mother's Day gift from Holly. (I had to bop some of the pictures off my memory card in order to get these, and boy, are they cute!)

GNOMES!

They're small, painted darlings that come with dotted mushrooms and can be placed in potted plants, or some special spot in the dirt outside. They're about 4" tall......(just like real gnomes I'll bet.)

Here's my favorite, holding a bird and grinning. Here's his helper-gnome, standing next to him, ready with the sprinkling can....

I don't have a single potted plant in my house (because I KILL everything) but I stuck the whole array in an upended straw basket, their spikes sticking through the spaces in the weave.

So brightly colored and whimsical! (When you're grown up and still love 'toys', such gifts are true delights)- thanks, Holl!

(Now I think I'll make my way up to bed with a book. These HIPS are sore. LOL!!!) Too much SHAKIN' was goin' on yesterday, and I feel every minute of my nearly 60 years..... but it was worth it.

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Weblog 273

2011-05-07T23:49:00.000-04:00

May 8, 2011~ 12:15 am
'Tis the time to salute the MOMS out there, each every single one of 'em!

All I have to do is think back to my own childhood, thinking of my mother who is now nearly ninety-one years old, and I remember what it felt like to walk home from school for lunch and catch the smell of french toast wafting out of the kitchen vent on the side of the house and tantalizing me totally. (Or grilled cheese. Or a hot gravy sandwich from the pot roast the night before. Then to enter and find someone who was REALLY INTERESTED in me, who fed and clothed and taught me each and every day, and what a wonderful feeling of security that was!) It was being loved. Being.. special to someone.

I remember 'good smells' that I connect with my mother quite vividly. Clorox bleach and laundry soap. Bacon frying. The sweet heat-smell of the iron on clean clothes, and the ever-present 'Wrigley's Spearmint Gum', the sticks always torn in half --and the Avon 'Skin So Soft' she poured into my bathwater. How vivid, how 'lump-in-the-throat-making' it is for me.

Mom was the last person in the bedroom at night to sprinkle me with 'holy water' from an old glass pop bottle painted silver with a kind of 'salt shaker' top, with her head in pin curls, checking to see that everyone was tucked in tight-- then the lights flicked off, the sheets she'd hung on the outdoor line making love to my little girl nose. I remember.

For all the 'Mother Night Angels' out there.....thank you. Thanks for all the hugs and the checking and fretting, the cooking and cleaning, the praying and scolding. Thanks Moms. You do a helluva job.

This past week has been monopolized with catching up at work and then coming home and still trying to find out why it is I cannot get into Blogger by the ordinary means. It's a computer puzzle so naturally I'm obsessed. I can make any sort of promise to myself to just STOP IT!--- but I won't. I'll tinker until it's solved or I break something completely, that's just me. After nearly 60 years, I do understand that about myself.

This was also a week of heart surgeries. Both for my daughter's father-in-law Jim, and a newly-retired co-worker's husband. BOTH (thank God!) turned out well, and the two fellas are recuperating nicely.

Hearts are the body's main engine and sometimes they take some pretty tricky fine-tuning. (Mine flutters and flops and skips and shivers..... lord knows what might be going on in there, but I'm the sort stays MILES away from doctors and the only thing that drives me there is out and out pain) --but preventive stuff, never. I'll probably pay for that eventually, but as much as I love life, I also realize the how diminished physically and mentally most folks become in old age, so when I'm tempted to think I should fine tune and maintain, I remember that and God help me, I say- "Why?" LOL. (That's 'me' too.)

So 'Happy Mother's Day' you ladies out there. Prop your feet up. Let the little ones 'suck up' like mad and grab every picked posie and accolade you can. You deserve it. A hundredfold and more.

I'll be picking my mother up at 3:30 and driving to my sister's for dinner. A nice intimate meal with mum, Kathy, and my brother in law Bob. I look forward to it because, man-- she's a really good cook and the company will be intimate and welcome. Hope your Sunday is half as pleasant.

We're into May now and maybe some flowers (if they don't out and out drown from all this rain) -spring is here but pretty pale so far. My buttercups are up and my azalea bush is trying to push out buds, but it's duel with the occasional frost. (Yes.....still.) What crazy seasons we've had! (And summer is sure to crush me, I just know it.)

May 13, 2011~ 6:15 pm
OOPS!

It seems that Blogger had some MAJOR PROBLEMS this week, culminating in a total blackout for 20+ hours on May 12th due to some code corruption during a big-assed update. The blogging community went nuts.

(Think: babies without their bottles.) LOL!!!

Since this old gal hasn't been able to access Blogger except through a proxy these past couple of weeks, it was no skin off my butt, merely a hint of things to come.

(Oh lord...... I do predict Blogger's trying to morph into one of those 'constant-contact social sites' in fear they're missing out on the traffic and the big buck revenues from visitors' clicks and advertizing. That's really too bad.)

I may at some point have to migrate to Wordpress if the fancy code and javascript becomes inpenetrable with my machine, and I'd hoped that wouldn't happen, but guess what? It's already happening.

I'll continue soldiering on here for as long as I can until that day arrives when I can't get in--- no way, no how.

One thing I know for sure-- I'll not allow technology to FORCE me into upgrading anything. I'll find a way around it until I have no choice but to pull the plug. It's served as a fine way to share things that interest me and to diarize a bit, but I can live without it. (I'm not a kid born into this computer age: it will always be a pleasant 'gadget' to me, but not my right arm.) And not who I am, and hey, there's always pen and paper.... and books to read. Yes! Remember those?

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Weblog 272

2011-05-01T14:17:00.001-04:00

May 1, 2011~ 1:30 pm
I CRACKED IT! It's not perfect, but I found a way to access the Blogger sign-in page from home. It appears my ISP (CompuServe, aka AOL) is blocking it for whatever nefarious, competitive reasons they may have, so the world is green once again, sprouting exuberant SKUNK CABBAGE amid the detritis that is the current world wide web.

(That's actually one of my photos from our trip the week before. On a drizzly, grayish day, walking along with dead leaves from last fall crunching underfoot, they appeared GLORIOUS green, shooting out and whooping about spring.) I love them!

I didn't say nearly enough about our trip and the beauty of the Laurel Highlands at this time of year. Cucumber Falls at Ohiopyle is a sight to see....

It was a bit warmer the day we tromped there, and the place is aptly named. The coolness of the limestone walls in that gorge drops the temperature by 10 degrees at least-- that must be heavenly for visitors in the sticky-hot summer months. Wayne actually went down under them and stood behind. I wanted him to yell, "Stay alive, no matter what occurs. I will find you!" from 'The Last Of The Mohicans'. LOL!!! (His hair is quite long now, and I braided it for him while we were up there. He looked very Mohican-ish.)

Here he is standing near the original burial site of General Braddock, deeper in the woods from where his monument is placed along Route 40. You can't see the braids though, and I wish I had taken a clearer picture of them at some point. He looked fabulous and fit right in with the ambiance of the place.

Here I am on the same day, wearing a 'Red Riding Hood' rain slicker I'd picked up at Goodwill years ago, and never wore it till this trip. I'm standing the National Park information kiosk at the same site. Man, I was HAPPY that day, rain, skunk cabbage... braids and everything!

After many trips up to Ft. Necessity, we finally had the opportunity to actually go inside Mt. Washington Tavern, which is part of the park service. It was open for self guided tours.

The inside was filled with natural low light and when Wayne and I entered, we were the only folks in there. We had the place to ourselves. This is just inside the front hallway foyer

with the lovely colonial double doors. When we went upstairs to see the bedrooms, both of us heard a sound like a low mumble for an instant. Wayne said, "Did you fart?" looking at me big-eyed. "No. And I heard that too." When I snapped this picture in the same hallway

there was a floating circle. (I don't know if you believe in 'orbs' being spirits of the dead, but had you been there, you would have felt a presence.) The same circle of light showed in other pictures of this hallway, though never in the same position and never this clearly. I believe we had company, I truly do.

That's a shot of one of the guest rooms with some children's period furniture and toys. I loved how that cloth doll looked on the tiny chair. Creepy...... sad somehow, like it was waiting for the child to come back and play again. Every room had tall 4-poster or sleigh beds, chamber pots and nightgowns in yellowish linen laid out on the quilts and bedcovers, and all looked waiting to receive guests. It was terrific to finally see the inside of that building, which we'd driven past probably a hundred times over the years.

I know one thing: that area is only an hour away, and we'll be taking short weekend trips up there whenever life gets.... oh.....too modern and hectic. I'm afraid Gettysburg has lost its draw for me since its popularity as a tourist site has increased over the last decade, so we're very pleased to have this getaway so close to home.

On Saturday evening we watched 'Get Low'- a movie with Robert Duvall, who plays a hermit in his 70's, living on the outskirts of a small southern town in the early 1930's, whom the townspeople whisper about; mostly stories of his unsavory past. He'd lived that way for 40 years with only a string of dogs and a mule, whom he loves. He wants to arrange for his own funeral and have a 'party' ahead of time with one stipulation: everyone has to tell a story about him.

Bill Murray plays the undertaker who agrees to pull this together and as the story unfolds, it becomes the tale of a man with a secret so terrible, he makes his own prison and lives in it as a self-imposed life sentence. The film is offbeat, the casting excellent, and it was just the ticket for our entertainment last evening.

That's it for now, and I'm SO HAPPY TO HAVE ACCESS again (albeit through a back door to Blogger) --and I promise to keep up entries in here as long as my solution works for me. I did miss it so! It's one of my few relaxations, and I tend to get snarly when it's taken away. LOL!!!

May 4, 2011~ 7:30 pm
Wow. With everything that's happening on the international front, it's interesting that as I was browsing the net this evening, I came across a marvelous quiz that takes a person's political bent, and analyzes the results. (I can't say I'm surprised by my own evaluation but I AM SURPRISED by the small minority into which I fit.)

Lookie here!

If you're interested in just what KIND of political animal YOU are, go to this Typology site, and take the short test.

It's good to reflect on what resides in your deepest beliefs (especially at a time when the din of the crowd is so very LOUD.) I'm aghast at the political climate right now, and appalled at the way Bin Laden's execution has enflamed all the ugliest, most jingoist elements in this society. Make no mistake: I believe the man was a criminal. I believe he ordered horrific acts in the name of a vengeful, extreme fringe of Islam, but I do NOT agree with the way his death has been turned into a media event.

Blood sows more blood. That's the simple truth. We define ourselves.. and our nation.. by our ACTS. Period. We're allowing the cannibals to turn us into themselves, and that's nothing to be proud of.

On a much lighter note, after days and days and hours and hours spent tinkering with this machine of mine-- now with the last problem solved ---IT'S BACK! Old Betsy is back and bucking like a youngster! LOL!!! I am fearless when it comes to the Windows Registry, and therein the final answer resided. Viva la surf!! Once again, lean and clean, and (thank goodness) -working. :)

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Weblog 271

2011-04-28T06:24:00.000-04:00

April 28, 2011~ 6:15 am
Computer is UP AND RUNNING! (Although.......... I can't access or log in at BLOGGER from home. LOL!) So..... till I get that problem fixed, I'll be making 'spare' entries from here at work.

The VIRTUAL WORLD blooms again!

I'm quite happy seeing that my 12 year old, original computer is still cranking it out.

This has been a 'catch up' week at work. Wow. It's incredible how much STUFF accumulates when you're gone for 3 days. It's daunting, but I'm like a little tugboat and it's gettin' done.

Our trip to the Laurel Highlands and Ohiopyle last week was GLORIOUS!!! Just LOOK at the view....

The river and the rapids were breathtakingly fast, high and unruly as hell. It was a magnificent site to walk along what they call the 'nature slide', where the brave and foolhardly plop right in with kayak or raft. (No way was this non-swimmer gonna do it, but we saw plenty of folks toting their boats and in gear for shooting the rapids.)

This charming little church with the ancient tree outside is right in the center of the town of Ohiopyle itself. I simply had to stop and snap its picture. Honestly, I could have snapped a thousand pictures, that's how scenic that area of Pennsylvania is.... it's a photographer's dream.

(Since I am posting this from work, and time is limited..... lol... here's one more shot of the deck outside our motel room, right on a small lake with a weeping willow tree.

The rain was like a lullabye on an off while we were there, the small lake changing from deep blue to green to gray....... it was a giant MOOD RING. (Oh, and one family of geese claimed the lake as their own. We'd check on the mother ('mother goose', yes...lol) who sat on her nest constantly, her mate, patrolling the lake, gliding along like a swan, and then there was the goslings. Teeny little guys who would suddenly shoot out on the water, paddle about, then DUNK themselves, disappearing completely under the surface. LOL!!! The vacation was perfect. Simply perfect.

More later (I hope) - but right now I have to start my day here. If I can crack my 'Blogger' problem from home, there'll be more posts this week, otherwise, 'this is it folks'- for now. :)
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Weblog 270

2011-04-16T23:49:00.000-04:00

April 17, 2011~ 12:00 am
SUCCESS!!! (I've been having real issues with my old computer for the past 2 days. Some 'denial of service' agonies whereby I can connect ONLY to Google-related sites... and nothing else.) I think this poor old machine has worms... my world has pretty much looked like this....

It appears to be the Conficker variety, but tonight I DID manage get online for a couple of hours (beautifully) -and had enough time to actually SEE other sites and connect to my image host. TA-DAH!! Colors again. Images!!

So even though right now, typing this, I'm in the same old GOOGLE-dependent holding pattern, I DID manage to upload some images for this week's blog. (Actually, things were going along swimmingly until this machine said, "That's enough!" -and bopped me right out and into a blue screen of death. When I reconnected.....same old stuff. Sometimes life has these nasty little pointy-hat fellas trooping right through it, spoiling the view. Cutting scary black shadows into the landscape.

Anyway, Saturday evening Wayne and I visited at my daughter's house for BILL'S EIGHTH BIRTHDAY!

And there he is, playing with his current BIG INTEREST.....WRESTLEMANIA. Action figures.

After scoring somewhere up in the ether on his advanced placement test at school, the teacher asked him what he thought he might want to be when he grows up. Without a moment's hesitation, "A wrestler," he told her. (Scratch the Jonas Salk idea) the boy is totally into pile-driving... and breaking metal chairs over the backs of his opponents.

(After wrangling for 2 solid days with his 'hell machine', believe me, I can identify.) Here's Bill being told to stop playing, the food is served.

His royal highness is not pleased. Bill didn't want to stop playing, and didn't think much of the crunchy, broasted chicken his mom and dad served up, but it was certainly to the delight of all non-birthday people in attendance. We LOVED it! Delicious meal, good coffee and small talk, watching the grandkids-- Kay and Bill, run around and exude that wonderful ENERGY kids have! Whirling, spinning, laughing, ornery or giggly-happy, at eight years old.....

joy is a big dog...... (and small wrestler action-figures.)

Only four days till I start my 'getaway to the woods.' Till then I'll be trying to pin this damn computer virus to the mat, hoping for those lovely blue skies again..... not like this hell and hailstone tarnation I've been hacking my way through.

(That's actually a picture of the hail that pelted us mightily on the day the tornado hit just north of Pittsburgh in Hempfield Township recently.) I had two episodes of nickel-sized frozen stuff banging off everything that evening. (To tell you the truth, this computer on-again, off-again bouts of denial of service feels pretty much like being pelted with frozen ice balls. It's that sudden and that annoying. I'll solve it, though. I always do. Eventually.)

April 17, 2011~ 9:30 pm
Whew! I'm finally ON here again! (This is after four hours of tinkering!) As I type this I am also DOWNLOADING 'Malabytes' anti-malware program (up to 84 percent downloaded right now) and THEN I'M GONNA RUN IT!!

This is so exhausting. Even now-- at this moment --an 'Explorer illegal operation box' has popped up on my screen (which I am ignoring-- I simply 'slid it out of my typing path up to the top of the screen, knowing full well to click on it would bop me right off the internet. lol) and I deleted some 'suspicious entries' in my registry, took a look at my 'HOST SAM' files and made a change, ran a registry check, a scan disc (which DID find errors in my JAVA program and I fixed them)..... who knows what this is. OH! Malabytes is finished! Hasta La Vista, baby. Gonna try and run it! (LOL!!! No Go-o-o-o. My system is too old to accept this program. LOL!)

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Weblog 269

2011-04-09T19:53:00.000-04:00

April 10, 2011~ 12:00 am
First grass-cutting of the year this week. (Oh, not me behind the mower... my faithful lawn guy Gary.) So at least I know that spring is definitely on the horizon, though it's been rainy and gloomy for the most part this past week.

I still have a sense of foreboding.

It's like that picture.... the WONDER of children staring at Japanese lanterns, but there's a face, barely seen, lurking in the background. That's my 'shadow'. Or my ghost... or something like that. She's been hanging around quite a bit, nails dug in. I haven't had such a gray cloud just continue to linger over my head unremittingly for quite some time..... I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I keep expecting to wake up without that weight but it doesn't seem to be working.

That doesn't mean some nice things haven't happened. Saturday evening Wayne and I had a lovely dinner out with his niece, Alisa...it was a belated birthday celebration. We talked and laughed and looked at her pictures from her trip to California and Las Vegas. (Alisa's due to move out there soon, so the dinner was bittersweet.) It's great to be young and pick up and take off, and start over somewhere, and I'm very happy for her.

(Maybe just thinking about the flexibility of others makes me more aware of how very 'fixed' my circumstances are: how what I have and who I am are pretty much the way things will be-- even though the future is in shadow.)

I really do feel that I've reached the peak and am starting down the other side of the mountain. I'm beginning to feel that in a real and permanent way. Other people seem to have the knack for transforming and always believing there's a revelatory corner yet to be turned, but I honestly don't. At times I can pretend that's so... but it's really not. Not for me. I'm simply not an adventurer. I'm like the sleeper in the picture here.

There's two fellas playing their hearts out, and then there's me...... I'm the third one, head resting against the wall, sleeping....my guitar hung up on the wall. LOL!!!

It really didn't help my mood that the comedy from Netflix- 'Good Hair' by Chris Rock, would not play on my DVD player. After dinner and shopping, Wayne and I settled in for a night of laughs.... and then the damn DVD player just said, 'Loading' in the corner of the blue screen ..... and never did. It clicked and spun, but would not play. Back it went into its envelope, and I fired an angry email off to Netflix to tell them to please check their discs more carefully before they send them out. (Truly, the play side of that one looked awfully smudged and scratched.)

So it was a night without the laughs I'd anticipated: cut short, with me here typing away and ready to throw this entry up WAAAAAAAAY before midnight because I'm going up to bed shortly to read the rest of my Stephen King novel.

You know...... you work all week to get to the weekend, you perform all sorts of secret, protective charms

(no one would understand the silly mental 'step on a crack' stuff I do to assure a lonnnnnng and enjoyable weekend) and then.......'fizzt!' It's gone. (Or gone bust or something). In my own way I feel like the character of Eleanor played by Julie Harris in the movie version of 'The Haunting'. She says she sleeps on her left side because she'd read it makes the heart wear out faster. I very much resonate with that (even though I don't believe it's true)..... yet I will try it. LOL!!!

April 10, 2011~ 6:00 am
Up early after a bout of intestinal upset, but it seems to have calmed down now. (Oh, joy! First extreme ennui, then sickness. I am blessed indeed.) Drinking coffee here and cruising about, I came upon the most UNBELIEVABLY unique and gorgeous display of intricate Elizabethan fashion......

made entirely of PAPER! Found this over at Tom and Lorenzo. Amazed the shit right outta me......(pun intended.) Get a gander at that and I'll bet your mouth hangs open. Enjoy.

April 14, 2011~ 6:45 pm
I've been keeping my nose to the grindstone and getting LOTS of sleep and really cleaning up the workload on the job. This time NEXT WEEK I'm be deep in the Laurel Highlands, breathing in mountain air, side-stepping the major holiday of Easter, and relaxing for five days.

I can't wait. Here's a photo of a lovely old tree I snapped when we took a day's outing there in the early fall last year....

right on the grounds of Ft. Necessity, where I'm sure we'll pop in again. They always have new exhibits, and the feeling of the place is just so haunting.

Speaking of 'haunting', Wayne keeps firing off emails to me about all the haunted places in the area where we'll be....lol... and oh yes, that's put me in the mood for some sight-seeing (or 'spook-seeing') as the case may be. I remember one Halloween day we spent in that area, visiting General Braddock's grave and walking in the desolate hollows of Jumonville Glen. We heard the voices of two men talking, and the snap and crunch of their approach. (The place is really isolated, so we were becoming uneasy. Felt like a flashback to the movie 'Deliverence') -then........nuthin'. No retreating footsteps or fading voices, just gone. It really creeped us out, especially since we were in the very spot below some huge rock outcroppings where an ambush and massacre of the French took place by Native American Indians who had joined up with George Washington, present at the time. It's an event that followed the Father of our Country all through his life, though he could hardly have controlled their extemporaneous fury in those bloody moments.

So yes. We'll be tromping through Jumonville again. And the Mount Washington Tavern at Fort Necessity. It seems every time we visit the place is closed, so I'm hoping we'll have better luck this time. There'll be a side trip to Fallingwater and Ohiopyle and other sites of natural interest, but I have to say- (and maybe it's because I become more 'Blavatsky-esque' when life fills with ho-hum-ness. I begin to become more fanciful and more interested in the paranormal than usual) but have a look through THESE LISTINGS, from Grave Addiction -you'll find Mount Washington Tavern, Friendship Hill (another place I'd like to visit again) which was the home of Albert Gallatin: built in 1784 at Point Marion, close to Uniontown. (Yes, it's supposed to be haunted... it's certainly full of 'atmosphere'.)

At night, we'll be holed up in out little lodge....

and SCARING ONE ANOTHER. LOL!!! To all of you, it may be spring and the remembrance of the Resurrection.....

but we'll be 'halloweening', as we are wont to do, at any old time. Off the beaten path, listening, listening, listening..... and taking pictures, comparing notes. (We'd better pack some warm clothes. Wayne called me laughing today to say there are snow flurries predicted for our trip and nights in the low 30's. So much for 'spring' break.)

If your 'estoteric interests' have now been whetted, you might consider also visiting this page and scrolling down. Three Rivers Haunts & History. You'll find plenty to keep you interested. Happy reading.

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Weblog 268

2011-04-02T22:36:00.001-04:00

April 3, 2011~ 12:00 am
Another week gone by and honestly, not much is new. (I was supposed to babysit Saturday evening, but my son-in-law came down with some nasty stuff, so 'dinner out' was shelved and the baby-sitting unnecessary.) Wayne and I did have a lovely repast at 'Silk Road'-- our favorite oriental restaurant, where the atmosphere is quiet, the decor classically spare, and the food is EXCELLENT. (Right now, I have one of those little cardboard 'take-out' boxes with the thin metal handle, nicely tucked inside my refrigerator.) I so enjoy left-overs! It's sitting in there right beside some linguini with Italian sausage I brought home from Calabria's on Friday. This is gonna be a good week for dinners!

(Live alone, and it's mostly sandwiches or peanut butter on bread with some Clementines, but his week I shall dine.) LOL!!

While browsing last week, I found a site with some interesting medical artifacts and saved an image (cropped and redone) of a anatomist's female figure complete with fetus, which is entirely removable. It reminded me of my 'Visible Woman' model I had when I was young. You could take out all the organs and see how things fit together and it also had a second 'pregnant front'- with a tiny pink fetus that fit inside. I remember how fascinated I was by that model when I was ten. The figure I saw online dates back a couple of centuries. I was immediately struck by how 'madonna-like' the woman looked.

That got me to thinking about how often women are depicted in one role or another.... madonna, whore, siren, femme-fatale, ditzy airhead..... on and on. All of them masks, all just stereotypes. Look at this wonderful mannequin head from the Art Deco era.

How would you characterize that? Aloof....remote... perhaps a bit snobbish? Certainly self-possessed and aware of her attractiveness, because she's done her face up quite a bit: she's complete with spit-curls, kewpie-doll lips and a beauty mark.

Compare that to the gussied-up, blue lace-draped face of a hauntingly formidable woman

which I found on a site that features hand-wrought masks of every sort by some very talented artists. How would you describe her? She's not the girl-next-door, that's for sure. She has more than a bit of self-assured hauteur and in that way, perhaps not too different from the Art Deco lady. Both are entirely....... unobtainable.

So what happens when something of beauty and desirability is also beyond reach? Right... that's when the anger begins to creep in, and that's when we begin to see women portrayed as either frightening, banshee-like GORGONS...

(that's another mask from the same site) colored in a kind of glowing RAGE, or just the opposite: a yucking simp...someone you'd see with a cell phone clapped to her ear, delighted by anything inane enough not to tax her brain with serious thought.

Here we have the most easily dismissed face of a 'silly woman'.... someone to crack jokes about. Someone who has no personal power and who only wants to have fun. Someone not a threat. Not a 'problem'. Dime a dozen.

Look around and you'll see them everywhere, mostly talking talking talking. Or flirting flirting flirting. About as exotic as potato chips.

Women and their masks. What's under there, anyway? (I think in a lot of cases.... nothing more than what you see.)

It's too bad. I prefer the older versions, but then, I love a mystery.

April 5, 2011~ 6:45 4m
It's dropped back a season again. Today we were in the midst of what looked (and felt) like early November, with temperatures in the low 30's, wind and rain on and off. Mostly gray, gray skies with skudding heavy clouds.

(Keeping in the 'lady images' theme) - I'd say it was a day like this....

pale face, austere. (Lovely painting, that. By Whistler.) Can't say I've ever viewed it before.

In casting about for some landscape to symbolize what this day and this weather's been like-- (70 yesterday, and I found myself throwing off all covers at 12 a.m. and turning on a fan-- only to plunge right down with the mercury again to freezing this morning!)--I instead found another compelling gray lady portrait.

She is indeed another embodiment of what this day felt like. I was curious about the picture since it's a Millais (painter of the Pre-Raphaelite 'Ophelia') and found that this was the young woman who would become his wife: Effie Gray. The portrait had been lost for years, then found covered in dust in an attic in 1972 in the home of a woman who'd been given it on her 8th birthday as a present from her mother. (Those amazing discoveries always thrill me. Why can't I find some priceless piece of art stacked in an attic? LOL!!) Anyway......back to Effie. This young lady had been the wife of Millais' mentor, John Ruskin, and they'd been married for nearly six years, the union had yet to be consummated. Needless to say... Effie and John Millais promptly fell in love and married (when she divorced her husband three years later) and went on to have EIGHT CHILDREN! (Wow! The girl was making up for lost time!)

I became even more curious about her prior marriage and did some online research. It seems Ruskin found her face beautiful but her body repellent. (Speculation has it that her 'maidenhair' or her 'monthlies' is what repelled Ruskin.) My money is on 'maidenhair' --since Ruskin went on to befriend Lewis Carroll and the two of them surrounded themselves with young girls and the rumor has it their attentions were less than 'kindly'. (So you see..... the weirdos have always been with us. They just dressed more fussily and cleaned up better once upon a time.) LOL!!

All that old gossip made for some very interesting digging this afternoon after I got home from work and stopping by to see Mum. I just love when some odd thing or another I find on the net leads me from one site to the next, reading and reading, learning new things. For all the nonsense on the internet, there is a great deal of beauty and information, so I forgive much of its silly indulgences when I balance it with that. Today's random search pointed the way to painting sites and biography sites--- images and bits of shocking information about folks who lived over a century ago and who made their mark in the arts. That's time well spent.

Also...... something I noticed about MYSELF when I was taking my teeth out earlier to soak. Sans teeth, I'll be darned if I don't look just like

Jack Klugman!
I'm not kidding, I'm the spittin' image! LOL!! (Oh Lord, I loved him in 'Quincy'...... and now......I AM HIM.)

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Weblog 267

2011-03-26T22:46:00.000-04:00

March 27, 2011~ 12:00 am
I'm still in a state of 'flux', parachuting down through clouds of moods. I have been seeing healthy green shoots of daffodils and tulips ready to burst free, so that's hopeful. Spring is right there, sitting on the lip of the horizon......

and there I stand, dark eyes staring straight ahead as though I don't quite trust it. (It's that unease I've been contending with......) and when I feel this way I drift from site to site, finding wonderful things to flood the senses like that painting by a Polish female artist who lived from 1865 to 1940, Olga Boznanska, whom I'd never heard of till cruising around the net. What a haunting little face.

Naturally, I then became interested in finding other Polish artists. I came upon a delightful collection of Polish surrealists, none of whom I'd been familiar with, but every one compelling. So many eerie and evocative visions....

like that one, painted by Zdzislaw Beksinski. It looks like a crucifix on the wall of that opened tomb, and there's Death itself, rocking a strange cradle. And how about this one? (It's my computer wallpaper now.)

Two fleshy praying mantis-like creatures sitting at a bistro table and having a meal. LOL!!! I LOVE THEM! It's the work of Jaroslaw Kukowski, who had another entirely of 'teletubbie' looking little guys with fleshy outcroppings on the top of their heads that seem to signify their religious persuasions. Wonderfully strange!

If you're interested in having a more in-depth look around at these and other Polish surrealists, pay a visit to Polscy-Malarze. You'll be fascinated, staring and staring at the sometimes nightmarish, often simply whimsical peeks at truly talented painters.

That's how I browse when I'm in flux. Art sites, and vintage jewelry. Oh my yes, I do love to window shop in those! (I've been trying to decide if I want to purchase a 1920's Czechoslovakian ring. It's pale green glass, emerald cut-- set in what they describe as base metal, which is often a mixture of zinc and brass with a bit of gold fill. I've found I've developed quite a fondness for Czechoslovakian Egyptian Revival style jewelry- though those pieces are a bit out of my price range, I keep looking. Trouble is rings are my favorite-- (then necklaces) but I'm always uncertain of the sizing. I've already transferred some funds into my Paypal account, but in checking my ring size once again, I can see that it will be too small. Drat! If you want to see my favorite site for vintage jewelry and ALL KINDS of vintage memorabilia, stop by Thanks For The Memories. I just get lost in there.

March 29, 2011~ 4:15 pm
I was so tickled to hear that one of my two favorite Steelers, Hines Ward

is tripping the light fantastic on 'Dancing With The Stars'. (No, I didn't catch it, but the story has been everywhere. Just LOOK at that smile!) That's a thousand watts of happiness for sure!! (I'm not in the least surprised that quick moves on a dance floor could quite easily translate from quick hips and feet on a football field. Besides his constant twinkle, he's now a 'twinkle toes'.) Good luck, buddy!

(And an update on my search for online jewelry).... alas, the link above-- though a wonderful place for me to browse, did not accommodate Paypal by way of payment, but I've got a necklace and a ring winging to me from another retailer, so all is well. Paypal. You can't beat it for safe transactions and no adding to credit card debt: you spend what you can afford, and right out of your own bank account transfer. That's smart shopping. All's well that ends well, so I'm smiling. Waiting on the postman. :)

March 30, 2011~ 12:00 am
So long to a friend....I'll miss his writing and his VAST, great heart.

There he is, Joe Bageant. Read what that link has to say, then begin casting about for everything, anything this man wrote in his all too short 64 years on this earth. He was a plain-spoken, big-hearted.... wise, wise human being. I will miss reading his essays (but there's plenty on the net to serve as food for the soul for quite some time.)

(And I understand the 'Nah'......I'll say the same one day) --but while he lived, a man with his background, his talent, his deceptive 'folksiness' when combined with absolute integrity and decency, you cannot beat that combination in a human being OR a writer.

Joe's own online photo album (from which I whisked away that cropped, wonderful picture) is right here - so pay a visit and aquaint yourself.

(He's lookin' on. I'm sure of it.) Goodbye, you prince of the heart. You made the world a better place and that's a laudable thing. (It may sound like the barest of epitaphs, but it's by far the hardest to come by, so thanks Joe.)

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Weblog 266

2011-03-19T22:16:00.000-04:00

March 20, 2011~ 12:00 am
So this is the night of the SUPERMOON..... the perigee. The moon of bad portent.

(I haven't been out to see it. Probably won't. I have my robe on and the damn neighbor next door has chosen tonight to keep her damn SPOTLIGHT on in their backyard.) I thought I could quietly sneak out there for a look, but fu*ckit.

I know I've been down and sort of agitated for over a week now. (Shall I blame it on the moon?) Who knows what it is... I just feel 'not myself' and vacillating between agitation and 'flatness'.

I did want to review 'The Fighter' (which I've finally watched) and in particular, wanted to pay close attention to Christian Bales' performance since it garnered him a Best Supporting actor award; the same for Melissa Leo. In my opinion this was a 'good' movie but not a great one. When I think of great boxing movies, immediately 'Rocky' and 'Raging Bull' come to mind. I have a feeling in the years to come I won't remember this one.

Even though it's based on a true story of boxing brothers from a lower-class family, and that seems like fertile fodder for a good story, it didn't pack --(no pun intended)-- a 'hard punch' and is, for the most part, fairly predictable. Christian Bales was twitchy and hyper as a stary-eyed crack addict, but his portrayal of Dicky Ecklund felt 'caricaturish' to me. Wahlburg as 'Irish' Mickey Ward is much more accessible and vulnerable as a real person in his role, and Melissa Leo also seemed to be doing formulaic stuff as the hard-nosed, street-smart and overly ambitious manager/mother. She walked away with best supporting actress but honestly, I would have given it to Amy Adams. In a heartbeat.

She's the one to watch in this film. Her performance is absolutely authentic, and shows a side of this young actress I never would have thought she was capable of bringing off, but she does it seamlessly. For me, she was the best part of the film.

At the very end as the credits are rolling, there's a wee bit of footage of the ACTUAL two former boxers, sitting at a diner counter and gabbing to the camera. I wish I could see more of them; I know I'd enjoy a documentary-style film about their life in the ring. The film version? Well.. it was just 'too Hollywood', too 'been there/saw that'... with no surprises other than Amy.

I'm halfway through a novel I'm enjoying a great deal. It's E.L. Doctorow's

'Homer And Langley'. It's beautifully written, told in the first person narration of Homer, one of two eccentric brothers (more brothers! lol) who lived in New York City in the earlier part of the 20th century, eventually becoming hoarders in a crammed world of their own making. Doctorow writes with a sensitivity that touches me deeply. It's a terrific read.

I guess I'll attempt a few more times to see this legendary full moon tonight (the neighbor's light is still on!) and I'm sure I'll be visiting the 'earthquake/psychic/sensitives' sites on the net tonight as well. I'll be there with the nuts-- as well as the legitimate scientists who are trying to determine if indeed the earth is going through some kind of crisis, not just of a nuclear kind, but political--- societal, geological --- (the 'tilt/tilt' I seem to be feeling) and it appears I'm not alone: lots of folks are edgy. I have a sense of heavy forboding.

(Somehow, the prediction about '2012, fade to black' doesn't seem very far-fetched at this point.) We seem to be melting down in more ways than one, with humans fast becoming a race of chronic, attention deficit disordered sensation junkies with no more depth than a puddle.

The shallowness and callousness I see around me is quite disheartening, I do know that. And oh Lord......... now the MOON.

March 23, 2011~ 5:00 pm
The most beautiful face in the world just passed on today......

and with her, winged away a great deal of my growing up memories. I watched Elizabeth Taylor all through my own awkward years, longing to have just a fraction of that beauty. She's mezmorized me. (I know she had a special place in the heart of my brother-in-law, who's adored her forever... and my writing partner Al Ferber.... he's been smitten his whole life with 'Elizabeth worship'.) I hope her passing was peaceful. 79 seems an awfully young age for a legend, but for all the physical ills she's endured over the years (and the gossip) she lived about as rich a life as anyone could ever imagine... and her warm heart and charity work superceded all the rest.

Except her talent. How many truly beautiful women are also so gifted in front of a camera, and how many others are mostly 'props'? Liz was the real deal, a one of a kind, once in a lifetime lady (and she got to marry my favorite actor......twice!) So here, Liz. This one's for you. You've given me so much joy.

Purple Smoke

I heard she was gone, and suddenly

all the 
violets
in the world
were weeping, no
longer in her eyes.  The velvet girl
with the 
sweeping, sooty lashes
and that
flash of life.  
The diamond
Queen 
of  hearts
departed
today, threw arms 
around old Richard, come
to greet her - hugged 

him close.
I think I could hear them 
laughing,

ghost
and guest.

(You know, I read today that she was born with two distinct lines of eyelashes....an anomaly certainly, but coupled with those unbelievably VIOLET eyes, she was magnificent. Wow.)

March 24, 2011~ 6:15 pm
Well, there was a tornado in the Pittsburgh area yesteday afternoon. (All I got was two bouts of the BIGGEST HAIL I've seen) but thank goodness no funnel clouds-- though it was black as night for a while. Luckily (blessedly) with over 30 homes completely destroyed and another 60 'uninhabitable' for the time being, having just gone through an F2 class tornado, its incredible there were no deaths and no serious injuries. (We had good warning, but I shudder to think what might have happened had this come through in the middle of the night.....sheesh.) We have no air sirens set up to warn us. With all these hills and mountains we rarely see such things happening here, so we were very, very lucky.

After work today, I stopped to see Mum. As I was getting off the elevator on the second floor, THERE SHE WAS, coming along with her walker and it startled both of us. LOL!!! "What are you doing down here? Did ya' come out to greet me?"

"I didn't know you were coming today" -(I visit each Thursday. lol)-"I was just going down for Romeo Hour. See what that's all about."

ROMEO HOUR???? (I have no idea what that's supposed to be, but it was listed there in her daily activities sheet they pass out every Sunday.) O, my goodness how I laughed. "Mum!! You have to ask what that is!"

"Oh I'm not gonna ask, " she said. "It's probably just something dumb. They can kiss my ass." And she rolled her remarkably blue eyes at me and blinked.

So my 'unexpected' but actually very predictable visit may have thwarted the JULIET in my mother. Who knows. (It's never too late to get lucky. LOL!) And if she were here right now, she'd be punching me in the arm. An endearment.

***

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Weblog 265

2011-03-12T20:56:00.000-05:00

March 13, 2011~ 12:00 am
This is the day we have one hour stolen from us, and I always resent it. It doesn't matter to me that we also gain an extra hour in the fall, this TIME-THEFT each March is very disorienting.

It's as though clocks look like that all of a sudden. What I do (and have already done) is turn them ahead in the early evening so that when bedtime rolls around, I'm already used to the idea. I don't much care for that sudden snatching-away of an hour at 2:00 am, so I make a pre-emptive strike and lop it off on my own.

I suppose this loss of an hour couldn't come at a better time..... I gave myself and extended weekend, having stayed home on Friday after hearing weather reports of '2 to 8 inches of snow.' (That did not happen. We barely had an inch) - so I'm sure to take some ribbing when I return on Monday. What I expected to be a blizzard, turned into this....

(but at least it helps soften the absconded hour this weekend.) I read......and napped..... and snacked.... and napped some more......I hibernated on Friday-

like that little dormouse there, curled into himself and snoozing. It's good to have that kind of 'throw-away' day now and then.

I've been reading a charming book that makes me laugh. I'm just barreling through it, turning pages with big grins on my face. It's light reading that reminds me of the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', but this is about an Italian unmarried woman, who wants to carry on her family's custom 'wedding shoe' business, and lives with her grandmother above the shop. The novel starts off with the nuptuals of her youngest sister, and honestly, those opening scenes made me laugh out loud. It's a boisterous, funny group....typical 'Italian-American' style. If you want to laugh, you may want to pick up "Very Valentine".

('Valentine' or 'Valentina' is the main character's name.)

It was a loaner from work, and I'm so pleased I had it this weekend. (I'd just finished 'Whip Smart', which is an autobiographical story about a professional dominatrix-- a beautiful, bright college student with an addiction problem, who earned her college money through inflicting paid-for pain.) I'd heard the author interviewed a couple of years ago on Fresh Air and I was intrigued at that time, but I have to say having read the book, it's a truly ugly and depressing account. There is no way to make those pathetic scenes with 'johns' read anything other than sleazy and nasty. The worst of it is its self-conceited tone, which constantly grated on my nerves. I've never read a first person account by anyone so stuck on herself, and I'm willing to bet the author hasn't a clue she comes across that way. It's as though she set out to shock the reader, and was having a smug old time of it too. Having just finished that one, the self-deprecating humor found in the Valentine book was a breath of fresh air.

My nightstand is PILED with books- most are gifts from Wayne from Christmas. I still have a VERY THICK Stephen King novel waiting, and a biographical account of two famous New York brothers who were legendary hoarders, and a Patricia Cornwell lined up, so I'm set for a while.

This week's weather looks like it's going to be MUCH MILDER.....so maybe, maybe......spring is actually on the way. I hope we burst GLORIOUSLY into bloom soon. I'm tired of all this brown and gray. It's time for color. Living color. (Short-changed of an hour or not, it's worth it. LOL!)

I found an absolutely fascinating artist who appears to have a fixation on women in water (or drowning) ... and her hyperrealistic style of painting is both breathtaking and frightening.

This obsession with depicting women partially submerged is astoundingly real, astonishingly sensual, and deeply disturbing. At times I'm seeing panic, anger... even surrender in these remarkable paintings, but one thing is for sure, Alyssa Monks is a genius. My Oh My, yes..

March 14, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Today I'm 'twitchy' as all get out. Even though the sun is shining, I feel restless and anxious. I attribute this not only to 'typical Monday mood' stuff, but watching small flash videos at work of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. How does one feel anything but helpless and horrified by images like that? My God.......those poor people!

Then driving home from work, the 40 minutes or so that I usually 'depressurize' by listening to Fresh Air on NPR, today's topic was a first person account of a son turning state's evidence against his father in bringing down a huge crime ring in Chicago. Frank Calabrese Jr. turned over information on his father, Calabrese Sr., by offering to wear a wire while they were both incarcerated. His book just came out, called "Operation Family Secrets". The fella was so mesmerizing (and yes, HORRIFYING in the stuff he told in the interview) I did something I normally would not do.....I came in the house at half past the hour, dialed up the station and listened to the rest of the show. Then I was curious about what these men looked like with their typical mafioso nicknames such as 'the ant', and 'the chin' and 'no nose', etc.

These past couple of hours I've spent reading right off the Chicago Department of Justice site's exhibits from the trial-- with taped conversations, photos of the crime scenes (they were convicted of 18 murders) --and it chilled me to the bone... and DANG! doesn't an early picture of Frank Sr. just put you in mind of Tony Soprano?

Look at those dead eyes. Man! That's Gandolfini doing his 'gonna kill ya' look. None of that has been good for my already weird mood. Then I paid a visit to the Kirkus Review site. Zeroed right in on a book due to come out they've given high praise to: 'Tiger, Tiger'... a memoir of one girl's 15 years of involvement with a pedophile who finally kills himself... how's that for more a more 'upbeat' focus. LOL!!! I'm getting off this damn computer now and curling up with a decidely 'calmer' book.... hoping to shrug off these layers of heaviness and disquiet. (Why do I pick and pick, making a jangled mood worse?) I need to disappear for a bit. I need to fashion an imaginary bed of lavender and plop right down in it, pull the fragrance up --and sleeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

March 17, 2011~ 6:45 pm
Ok.......NOW I'M ANGRY....
Everyone.......listen: if you patronize the online digital version of the NEW YORK TIMES, after March 28th only 20 *ARTICLES (read *cookies) will be allowed PER MONTH without paying 15.00 bucks every thirty days! You know what I say to that? SHOVE IT!!!

I've already removed my 'allow cookies' for the site and taken it off my favorites list. Join me in saying 'NO!' to clicking the Times....(as though that site isn't already overly-laden with ads and flash and crap of every kind... by which that BEHEMOTH organization collects REVENUE. Do they think the public is that stupid?) Yah..... I'd just like to see GOOGLE start charging after so many searches. They KNOW better. They get their money from 'ads, ads, ads' splashed everywhere--- just as the Times does. (First they lead us astray about WMD back before the start of the Iraq invasion with sloppy reporting, and now they crawl right in bed with the God of the 'Rich Right': Money.)

As Wayne said when I emailed him that scoop: "They can kiss my Hungarian ass!" We're BOTH dumping the greedy bastards.

Here's two TERRIFIC alternatives....BOOKMARK THEM. Neither demands you accept cookies of any kind, and BOTH are excellent sources of current events. (The MYWAY site has NO ADS WHATSOEVER....EVER.)

News/MyWay

BBC News

DO NOT PATRONIZE THE NEW YORK TIMES. (You know, Andrew Carnegie was a rich, union-busting pri*k, but he did one thing right. He set up free libraries.) DO NOT visit the Times. We'll see how long it takes them to figure out their ads really DID bring in the cash after all. Being greedy will do nothing but SINK an online enterprise. Let's SHOW them. JOIN US IN 'JUST SAY *NO* TO THE NEW YORK TIMES'.

***

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