Grammy Talk

My Half Century Mark

2011-03-08T07:45:00.001-08:00

When I wrote this blog (that I found buried in my purse recently), I was still enjoying a country weekend--house had been cleaned, plants watered, candles lit in every room, so good smells were wafting about and I took pen (keyboard) in hand to write.

Right before Christmas was my birthday. My 50th Birthday. I was the first in my Elder Group to turn 50. Expected to set a precident? I hoped not. I'm quite uncomfortable being the center of attention so I was hoping no big secret plans were made. I heard a phrase and ran with it--I wanted to elope with my birthday.

Papa turned 50 several years ago. He had worked himself into such a state that I had to plan a trip and we left town so he wouldn't have to endure any birthday festivities around home or work. We had a very nice trip to Sanibel Island, Florida laying on the beach in the daytime and going to spring training baseball games in the evening. By the time we came home, he was relaxed and had moved past his birthday.

I wasn't quite this bad. I wanted it to be a non-event though. Haven't enjoyed my birthday in several years, not connected to aging, that's never been the issue.

I suggested maybe a weekend away at a lodge in the Ozarks but Papa isn't the trip planner in our family. Unless I plan it, it doesn't happen. I guess I could have planned it but it was pre-Christmas and I was getting exhausted already and didn't have much initiative myself.

We had planned to drive to Phoenix over the holiday break from work (we get two weeks off), but then Papa cmae home one night telling me he may have to work during the break but wouldn't know until the last minute! GRRRR.

I was missing Fantastic Son something awful and told Papa if we couldn't drive to Phoenix, then I, at least, wanted to fly down myself for a short visit.

So as my birthday loomed closer, Papa started hounding me for a birthday gift idea from him. So I said buy me a ticket to Phoenix to I can go see my son. Done.

So even though it was another Christmas without having FS there, I knew I was at least going to get to see him and Serious Girlfriend and the Three Bonus Kids and that improved my mood terrifically.

So as the actual date of my 50th year arrived we were in the country. I was happy and it was a low key day. Papa wanted to go to dinner and a movie and kept pushing that all day but by dark the wind had picked up, it was drizzling and sleeting, biting cold and I had to play the "it's my birthday, let me do what I want to" card. What I didn't want to do was go outside at all. So I popped two Salisbury Steak tv dinners in the oven and we ate those in front of the tv and watched White Christmas two times that night and let my birthday pass on by. And that was that.

An Older Grammy

Long Time--No See(Read/Blog)

2011-02-23T07:30:00.000-08:00

Boy, so glad I didn't sign that contract with Blogher! That way I can have these four month vacations from blogging without repurcussions.

Let's see since October, when I last wrote, there has been: Halloween, Thanksgiving, snow, my half century birthday, a long overdue medical physical, snow, holiday stress, car issues, sock monkeys, more snow, Christmas, medical tests including a colonoscopy, tornadoes, New Year's Eve, a trip to Phoenix, more car problems, being sick, back to work, snow, snow, snow, ice, stuck in the ice and snow, more snow and continual car problems, the P's started a soccer career, Pollyanna's 50th, and now you are pretty much caught up with me!!!

So you want some more details? Let's condense--holidays. Ok Halloween with the P's.

Both Perfect and Precious were Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story. Precious so wants to emulate her big brother and no talk of being a princess or even Jessie, the cowgirl, from Toy Story would change her mind. Perfect was going to be Buzz so Precious woul be Buzz.

Thanksgiving was low key. DD had to work and had big Black Friday plans (spreadsheets and all!) and so SIL took the P's to Iowa for a long weekend with extended family on his side of the family. Papa, DD, and I had a low key Thanksgiving with the usual fixings, an afternoon movie, and some last minute help with DD's Black Friday planning.

I finished the weekend at a Stevie Ray Vaughn tribute show with a couple of my elders. Here's Tiny Sun.

Soon after Thanksgiving, the weather changed and winter set in. We had the usual pre-holiday stress, shopping, wrapping, shipping, work functions, holiday dinners, happy hours, decorating....just a lot of work. This year we again focused on the city house for the holiday and didn't put up a tree in the country.

We'd been busy during the Fall weekends with moving and unpacking things from #2 Massey Gardens back to #1 MG until the bad weather hit and the road between the two places got undriveable for the winter. So things slowed down on the weekends and I just didn't want to stress out during my small amount of weekend free time with putting up and then taking down decorations at a second house. That and I fell once again in early December on a Christmas walk in Augusta (the weekend I had planned to decorate) and was sore for some time afterward. Just a plain snow/ice mishap.

Now here I sit in February enjoying my country weekends once again. My books are all unpacked and we are spending weekends watching movies (and ID tv), reading, napping, going into town to eat at the diner pretty often, and over to the Walk for an occasional movie out.

The snow has finally melted but it's pretty much a muddy mess out here right now. It rained earlier today (this was written Saturday, 2/19 actually, just had some delay in proofing and publishing!) as well, so Snoopy and my walks don't look to be happening either any time soon. So guess I'll become one with the recliner and murders on tv--maybe a bowl of popcorn would be appropriate now.

Hope to talk to you......sooner.

Grammy

WHAT???

2010-10-06T05:36:00.000-07:00

So Aunt Cracker has been on a vacation at the beach, she's been sending me pictures through email and on my phone. Gorgeous place.....she can open the sliding door from her bedroom and there is the sand...ON THE BEACH....about 100 yards from the ocean....GORGEOUS I TELL YOU.....

She tells me, come down, you can make it happen, just do it. So I do. I scurry around doing lots and lots of laundry, working out details for work coverage. Don't have to stress about Snoopy, plants, or mail because Papa is not coming with me.

I'm going on a vacation and it's so nice because I'm really calm, unlike when I usually am planning on leaving for vacation. Other than all the massive amounts of laundry that I continue to do.

But then........

something happens.......

All of a sudden Cobie Calliat is blaring by my head.

WHAT?

Oh No,,,,,I open my eyes.....

It's 5 a.m.....that's the radio alarm telling me it's time to get up and go to work.

WHAT?

No vacation.....it was a dream? But it was so real. I was going to the beach. It was going to be big fun.

No beach? It was so real.

But it's just Wednesday.......time to get up.

Still stinging from the disappointment......Grammy

COURAGE

2010-10-04T12:45:00.000-07:00

I probably shouldn't be getting too cocky but I did it! I spent the night at the country house. Just one night, but it was A NIGHT. My first since the snake sighting.

We got out to the country house after dark Friday, which wasn't my idea but when traveling with Papa, one mustn't get in too big of a hurry.

We then went, with me carrying a flashlight, room to room searching for any evidence of the snake's return. Papa just wanted to overview all the rooms but not I. I pointed out this and that and shone the light for him to look closer--under beds and on top of shelves and in all sorts of hidey holes.

I believe this snake came in along the pipe under the vanity in the back bathroom. When Papa opened the door, it looked like everything had just been swiped over. I had just put the contents back in this cabinet not long ago and know everything was upright and stacked nicely; not anymore though. Convinced me this was the point of entry. There looked to be a small area around the pipe that a boneless being might slither through so we're going to have to come up with something to close this off completely before I'm relaxed. Papa kept assuring me that he thought it was too small but still.....

After a complete search turned up nothing, I placed cedar oil containers (recommended by the Home Depot guy as a snake repellant) under all the bathroom vanities and in the corners of the bathrooms. Then I started strategicly placing mothballs everywhere (recommended by Billy the Exterminator on A&E) inside and then saturating the perimeter of the house on the outside with the mothballs.

Feeling a bit safer, I then turned to cleaning. By midnight the house had been vaccuumed, mopped, wiped, scrubbed, and was sparkling. Only two incidents of coming out of my skin......the first when I was remaking the bed after washing all the sheets and blankets. I heard a loud rattle and a hiss and jumped and screamed waking up Snoopy who was snoozing in her dog bed. It turned out to be my Glade sensor air freshener that I had walked past, hidden behind a picture.

Finally, I was so exhausted that I thought I could sleep, so leaving both bathroom lights on and the tv on in the bedroom, I laid down. I did not sleep deeply by any means and every time I rolled over, I raised my head to take a gander in the bathroom to see if anything was moving there. So far so good.

Then I must have gone in a deeper sleep because it was 8:00 before Snoopy finally resorted to licking the palm of my hand to try to wake me up. Needless to say, this was the second incident of my flying in the air, screaming. Usually she wakes me up easily at 5:30 so not sure what caused this delay---she couldn't wake me up or she decided to sleep in.

Saturday was a routine busy work day out there. We power washed the outside of the house and hauled in all houseplants and then had to pack up to leave as Papa had an early morning Sunday baseball game in the city. Before we left though, I wanted to take a shower and with the thought that snakes can also come up the water lines, I make sure Papa was in the house and within screaming range and I positioned Snoopy right by the tub, where she shook the whole time just knowing she was going to get a bath as well. I then showered very fast, keeping an eye to drain almost the entire time. Next time, I may just plug the sucker just for peace of mind.

But the main thing was I got a night behind me and nothing adverse happened and with time, I may just relax and enjoy my country time once again.

Your Brave Grammy

I MAY NEVER RETURN

2010-09-20T11:11:00.000-07:00

So three weeks ago me and Papa were at the country house one evening. He was laying on the couch watching tv and I was in the recliner reading or whatever I do when he is watching tv. At one point he kind of jumped up and started fiddling with the cushions on the couch…..always one to blame the evil cigarette, I asked if he dropped an ember or something and was I going to die a fiery death later that night after it had smoldered for hours? No, no he said but wouldn't elaborate and so I tended to go back to ignoring his behavior and HE LAID BACK DOWN……so last week we were out there again....now in my normal nightly routines I get up in the dark in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom and I usually get up in the predawn, DARK hours and let Snoopy out as she wakes up at 5:30 Monday-Monday, just normal nightly behavior for me.

This past weekend I stayed in the city because of obligations and he went down to the country on Saturday night to get the mail and check on things. He spent the night and yesterday we met up at a friend's house for a BBQ party. While we were there, Papa makes a comment "not sure if I should tell you or not but..." He did this in front of others knowing I wouldn't go into full blown hysterics in front of a crowd.

Continuing he says "I found a 4 1/2 foot black snake in the back bathroom this morning when I went in to take a shower." Silence... He explained also that a few weeks ago when he jumped up from the couch and I had questioned what he was doing that he had seen a snakeskin by his foot. So he checked under the cushions for snake and seeing nothing laid back down to continue his tv viewing and contemplating whether to share this information with me or not. FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS. Continued silence but about this time I'm feeling physically sick.

Going back to Sunday's story. No, he didn't kill it, he caught it and took it outside and left it on the side of the road……STILL ALIVE where it's probably found it's way right back in my house, probably under the covers in the bed waiting for me as I type this…..No I don't think I can ever go back there…..

And being the empathic sort he is, Papa just keeps saying………"the black snake is your friend"….

I beg to differ. I consulted the internet this morning about said "black" snake.....if it's indeed that and not an "old cottonmouth---that IS posionious, who turns dark, almost black as it ages". It is non-poisionous but has excellent climbing ability (i.e., all the better for climbing into bed with me! When startled, they may freeze and wrinkle themselves into a series of kinks. If they feel further threatened, they may flee quickly or vibrate their tails in dead leaves (a form of mimicry, to make it sound like a rattlesnake). JUST WHAT I NEED TO HEAR NOW. They are also capable of producing a foul smelling musk which they will release onto a predator if picked up. PERFECT. The female lays about 12 to 20 eggs after five weeks and they hatch about 65 to 70 days later. SWEET, he couldn't tell if this was a male or female snake but it was an "adult" and so now there is the possibilty of 20 more of these in my house! These snakes eat anything they can catch that will fit down their throats, and are highly defensive. This does not mean they will chase you, it means if you corner them they will defend themselves, if you get between them and where they want to hide, they will run right under your feet to get to their hiding spot (making people think they're being chased). Once cornered black snakes put up a vigorous fight, biting hard and often.

Needless to say I had vivid nightmares last night (before I did the above research)and I believe I'll be consuming lots of wine just to sleep this week at the CITY HOUSE where we NEVER SEE SNAKES!

NEVER WILL I MAKE FRIENDS WITH A SNAKE.
Extremely Distressed GRAMMY

My Son

2010-08-13T08:22:00.000-07:00

My son has lived in Phoenix for about 7 years now...maybe...I've lost count. At least that long and from his house to mine is approximately 1508 miles....almost 22 hours by car and approximately 4 hours by plane. Definitely a long way but my worry for him and about him is constant. A mother never stops worrying.

He left for Phoenix when he was about 18 years old. Such a baby going off on such an adventure but it's something he had to do for himself. My first trip to Phoenix astounded me. How did this young boy drive down the mountain into this town and find his way around? Get himself to work every day or find his homes? Everything was so foreign to me and him as well or what he had known or done thus far during his life.

He came to see us in May of this year and visited the cemetary where his father is buried as he does on every visit home. I looked through the pictures his girlfriend took and noticed these two pictures next to each other.

I put them in a double frame on my desk at work and look at them quite often during the day. It is a good mantra for my son.

He has made a good life for himself. He has a very good job as a heavy equipment operator that he trained for for many years. He has a wide circle of very close friends, many acquaintances, and has a wonderful girlfriend with three small children that he's grown close to. But still I worry.

He is 25 years old now. This week he started a new work project in Yuma which is about 185 miles from Phoenix. He will drive there every Monday morning, work 4 11 hours days and then 8 hours on Friday and drive home to Phoenix---for approximately the next two years. A hard job; a hard life but he's young, I keep reminding myself.

He left for Yuma at 7:30 on Wednesday night (my time). I made him call me. He did. He's a good son. He arrived about 10:30 (my time) that night. I had asked that he text me that he was there safely. He did. So I got a good night's sleep on Wednesday knowing everyone I loved was safe.

He said it's a long, desolate drive from Phoenix to Yuma. There is nothing there. Thank God for cell phones, I thought. What would he do if his truck broke down out there in desert? Call for a tow truck, he answers. A simple answer but he has had learned lots and lots from this life he lives in the desert so far away from his family and his childhood.

But he's happy.

But still I will worry, every Friday afternoon and every Monday morning knowing he's on that deserted stretch of highway driving by himself. Until I get his safe calls....for at least the next two years.

Arizona is lucky to have him.

AND I AM SO PROUD OF HIM.

Grammy

On Writing

2010-08-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to write a blog entry but regardless of the fact that I keep a notebook where I jot ideas to write about, I just don't know what to say alot of the time.

I have always had numerous book ideas slam into me at odd hours, usually in the early morning, sleepless times. I can make outlines in my head laying out an entire novel and even including that elusive first sentence that I've always struggled with on college papers. But getting started in the daylight hours is really hard.

I tend to keep notes and have notebooks of this and that--daily journal, little journals for both the P's documenting their growing up, reading journal, blog ideas, book ideas but seem to do more collecting of things I want to write about than actually doing the writing. Why is that?

Is it that I have SOOOO much in my head that I'm overwhelmed? I feel like that somehow. I'm so backlogged with the notes and ideas that I'm collecting that I never can catch up with what I need to say. How to get organized? How to start?

I'll be working on these questions now and making more plans but doing the actual writing.....? Who knows.

Stay tuned.

Grammy, overwhelmed with words and thoughts.

Cruise Wrap-up----FINALLY!!

2010-07-21T06:28:00.000-07:00

So our last day of cruising was a Sea Day and a most uncomfortable Sea Day for me. Remember I was getting sunburned before we stopped in Costa Maya. I wore capris and one of Papa's oversized t-shirts---oh so glad I did.....because from the bottom of my capris to the top of my feet was a fire engine red when I woke up. Yes, I had on sun screen but my legs were also in the water alot of the time and so I'm guessing the sunscreen was just eventually washed off.

I had to get up in the middle of the night and I was in horrible pain. Not only were my legs on fire but they had swollen to about 3 times their size. BRIGHT RED ELEPHANT LEGS. Once I got up and walked a little, it wasn't so painful but still hurting.

Friday we spent the day just saying bye to our ship. We had breakfast in the dining room and went to the debarkation lecture with our cruise director. I definitely did not want to be in the sun whatsoever, so just kind of wandered around because like I said above, my legs were more tolerable when I was walking.

After lunch, Papa and I were watching tv in the room and starting to gather our stuff for packing and he mentioned my legs were sooo red that they looked blue and he wondered if maybe I was getting blood poison. So we decided to make our way to the doctor's area and have them take a look.

Our room was on Level 7 about mid-ship and the doctor's area was Level 0 at the front of the ship, so off we went, very slowly.

When we arrived, we found all sorts of information hanging on the wall just outside the offices and one sheet dealt with swollen legs/ankles----too much sun, alcohol, salty foods, soda, just about everything I had done. Their advice was elevate or walk (hum, kind of a contradiction but I had been doing both). We also read that for a consultation the doc charged $120. Well, it was Friday afternoon and we were leaving the ship first thing Saturday, so decided to save our money and if I were the same or worse on Saturday, we would just hit an urgent care on shore. For now I'd try walking and elevating the rest of the afternoon. Which I did.

That night at dinner it was time to say goodbye to Lim, Marco, and Klaudio.

Lim, the best waiter evah!

Marco, of the cokes and wine!!
Klaudio, our maitre d'.

We were sure going to miss them every night when we sat down to dinner. I thought, I would really miss sitting down to dinner with my family as well....

DD got quite attached to our "beverage boy", Marco.....

And we all adored Lim, our primary server.

There was more singing and dancing the last night and then before we knew it, it was all over. Some of our group went for last night partying. Papa and I went back to the room and finished packing up. We had to sit our bags in the hall before we went to sleep.

Where they would disappear during the night to be found the next morning on the luggage racks after we debarked.

The next morning debarkation was painless, another fabulous process by Carnival. We breezed through customs, claimed all our luggage and was back at the van loaded and ready to go by 8:00 a.m.

I was still in alot of pain from my sunburned, swollen legs, but decided I just wanted to get home and then I would deal with it.

The ride home was a bit uncomfortable...we had agreed to bring some of Cracker and the Weatherman's luggage back with us so they could avoid more extra luggage fees on their plane home so we were a wee bit more crowded and I really needed to elevate my legs but was unable to most of the time and everything hurt that touched my legs....I spent the trip home quite crabby and vocal but my co-travelers were pretty patient with me.

About midnight after driving all day long we were nearing our exit on the highway when we FINALLY got pulled over for speeding---I had wondered throughout the day if that would happen. SIL was in quite the hurry to get home. We were so exhausted from our day that we didn't put up much of an argument. We took our ticket and went that last mile to home sweet home.

All in all if that's the worst that happened to us on this trip---broken camera, sunburned legs, and a speeding ticket, I count this vacation as quite successful.

Thank you Dream for a wonderful time.

Grammy

Cruise-Costa Maya

2010-07-16T07:50:00.000-07:00

No, I haven't been cruising out there for the last two months. Just a litte blogcation. So much going on. Fodder for future reports.

Back to our cruise----and boy, I desparately need another one right now.

I left off just after our tour of Belize. Just read this week that a Carnival cruiser, 14 year old girl, was killed on an excursion in St. Thomas (I believe?). Caught in the middle of a gang war shootout. Wow. We believed we were so safe in all our ports of call but after discussing this yesterday with a co-worker, I could so imagine our school bus getting stopped in the middle of the Belize jungle and being hijacked by criminals of some sort. With just Mah-lisa and our busdriver to protect us. We were just a busload of naive tourists and quite lucky tourists at that. Never take your surroundings for granted.

So the day after our Belize experience, we floated on up to Mexico and stopped at what they call Costa Maya. I don't believe this is actually a town. More like a pier with quite alot of stores.

Notice in this first picture, the green by the shore and away from the shore is all gray destruction. Hurricane Dean hit this shore dead on several years ago. It was descimated. The gray are all the dead trees that still remain. You'll see this alot in the following pictures.

And I apologize for the quality of some these pictures from Costa Maya. I bought an underwater camera (to prepare ahead for the sinking of my kayak) and the quality of the film was very poor but it was all I had on this island.

So as I mentioned above, we were going a Clear Kayak excursion at this port. The night before I started getting a little anxious about it all and was sharing my fears at dinner. We were doing our floating in the ocean. I had never kayaked before and was concerned about the boats being closed top kayaks and I might turn over and not be able to exit from it successfully. I shouldn't have worried so much ABOUT THAT part. They were open kayaks, more like canoes.

So at the end of the pier we hooked up with our excursion leader who was glad to see us BUT explained the weather was kind of treacherous today with high waves, etc. and were we sure we wanted to do this? What kind of question was that? I was getting more terrified by the minute. I looked at Papa who threw it back to me and after asking "were we gonna die out there", our leader assured us we were going to be just fine but here sign an additional waiver that says "I informed you about the weather and ocean conditions releasing the tour from responsibility in the event of.......... "

Regardless of this gloomy outlook, we had quite a few people in our excursion group and so we all headed to our safari bus that would transport us to the fishing village of Mahahual.

See what I mean about the hurricane aftermath. So very sad. This was the one place that I really felt like my tourism dollars might do some good. That's all they seem to have.

After about a 20 minute bus road, we arrived at the village which is basically a long strip of stores, restaurants, bars and sections of the beach that have been cordoned off as "private beach areas". The rest of our cruise group had optioned for a private beach day at this port and so they found themselves in this area as well.

Anyway, we gathered at our "excursion bar" to lock up our valuables and went to the beach where we received our 5 minute kayak tuitorial, loaded up and started paddling.

More setting of the stage. I was getting a bit sunburned by this time in our vacation and so I opted to wear some capris and one of Papa's shirts versus a swimsuit trying to avoid an all out sun-scalding. SO VERY GLAD I DID.

So off we paddled:

and who did we pass by. The Weatherman and Cracker on their "private beach". When they spotted us paddling by, they started yelling and flailing about, amazed that I had gone through with it (after discussions from the night before at dinner when I admitted I was terrified of doing this). That's the Weatherman, front and to the right...Cracker is a little behind waving her arms.

So out to the open ocean we went. It was pretty wild. We were going out so far to a reef but as we would get closer, the water breaking over the reef was quite abit over our heads. One kayak got swamped and started sinking but it wasn't our's.....I should tell you now that there was a leader of our group who we were following and following all of us was a speedboat with our rescuers aboard. We were told that if anyone just wanted to quit, get their attention and they would pick you up or if anyone had a problem, again just get their attention and they would be rescued. By the end of our time, they had picked up 2 boats worth of folks but again wasn't US.

Now if you've been reading this blog long at all, you will realize that Papa and I sometimes see things differently and butt heads from time to time. Paddling a canoe, I found out, was something we should have done with different partners. Papa kept telling me I was paddling on the wrong side than him and not paddling fast enough, and just basically not doing it right. THIS WAS MY FIRST TIME. I was in the front, how do I know what side he is paddling? And I should be doing opposite? And this was not a race, I wanted to enjoy our little ocean voyage not come in first. And we were on the open ocean....a very wild, wavy ocean and the whole thing was just a tad bit FRIGHTENING to me. I barely had time to snap a photo here and there and no time whatsoever to apply EXTRA SUNSCREEN TO MY EXPOSED CALVES. I'm sure you can see where this heading.

So needless to say, the Bickerson's paddled along yelling at each other. It was so hard for me to refrain from knocking him out of the boat with my paddle to shut him up (only because I knew I needed him to help me get back to shore!) We ended up battling the ocean and wind and the waves and each other for about an hour but viewed no ocean life through our kayak bottoms. Our leader finally gathered us around and said we were heading back to shore, the conditions were a little bit dangerous. WHEW....and so we paddled back to shore. I was partly relieved and partly proud that I wasn't one of those in the rescue boat. I HAD DONE IT and SURVIVED.

We ended up receiving alot of free drink tickets from the bar since our excursion was cut short and were set loose on the beach, to eat, drink, or shop. Which is what we did.

We stopped by and visited Cracker and the Weatherman for a few minutes and received a serenade.

Then it was time to meet up with our group once again for the bus ride back to the the Costa Maya pier.

Those that didn't have a safari bus ride, had to use a taxi to get back to the pier. Quite the little traffic jam to get all the cruise boat (more than one at this port) passengers back to their ships on time. DD and SIL had a smashing time but it seemed to be exhausting for them as well.

That's SIL in the big straw hat toward the left.

That night was our final formal night for dinner. The winds and high waves on the ocean were a precusor to a bad storm at sea that evening, so after showering and getting dressed up, I slapped on my sea bands and took a Dramine and off we went to dinner.

Cracker and the Weatherman enjoyed their port time immensely...so much so, they called it an early night and went to bed, passing on dinner. Papa almost made it to the dining room but when he passed by the sushi bar, the seasickness had it's way with him and back to the room he went. I continued on, lurching down the boat until I made it to the dining room and met DD and SIL. DD was hunched over stating she was just going to eat some bread for dinner but we convinced her to pack it in and go back to the room if she felt so awful. So SIL and I had dinner together that night and participated in some more singing and dancing with Lim, our waiter.

Then I called it a night.

Next report will be our cruise wrapup.

For now....Grammy

Belize - PART 2

2010-05-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

So I left our story of Belize in the Altun Ha ruins. Very interesting, very hot, very bug infested...your typical jungle rain forest setting...felt very Lost-like there.

After viewing all there was to view, we boarded our bus for the trip farther inland to the "resort". Said loosely. At the Black Orchid resort, we ate, bought a souvenir or two and boarded our boat for our Rio Wallace tour. Again, Mah-lisa was our tour guide (below in the bright yellow shirt) and now we were in the blazing sun on the river instead of in a hot, shady jungle.

Leaving the Black Orchid "resort".

On our river jungle ride we saw Howler Monkeys (look closely in the tree branches).

Crocodiles of all sizes.

and Orange Iguanas.

And then we headed back out to the open sea,,,the Caribbean Sea that is

We were dropped off back at the tourist area in Belize City (again behind the gates away from the criminals) where we did a bit of shopping.

Then it was back to the ship for our usual night of dinner, shows, and bed. Papa seemed to enjoy his birthday day in Central America.

I aim to please.....Grammy.

CRUISE---Belize, CA (that's Central America)--PART 1

2010-05-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

So after our disappointment at Roatan, we sailed on to Belize for our next stop. But first since the next day was Papa's birthday, I had arranged a surprise celebration the night before at dinner.

It was a surprise, even to me--I thought they were bringing the cake to our room that night---but Papa enjoyed it. We had made arrangements for a special dinner the next night on his birthday at the Steakhouse restaurant on the ship.

So back to our story....We were quite apprehensive about this port of Belize. We had been scared about the crime. The CD (Cruise Director), John, said if you don't have an excursion planned, through Carnival,,,,,just don't get off the boat. There is a tourist area at the pier but once you walk through the back "gate", crime is rampant....supposedly.

Papa and I, however, enjoyed Belize to the fullest. We had signed up for the Altun Ha Mayan Ruins excursion and then a ride down the Rio (that's River in their "language"....aw, English, oh well) Wallace. We were to be gone ALL DAY and we were ready. DD and SIL were going cave tubing (DD asks "Wonder if there are 'things' in the water?"). Cracker and the Weatherman didn't really have plans but we were not to worry.

But first we had to get there. Belize has the second largest coral reef in the world around the island so we had to drop anchor about 5 miles out and were tendered in from the cruise ship. Again, Carnival has this process down pat. We had specific orders to meet at various places on the ship according to the plans you made. Deboarded with our excursion group, and then we went from the tender boat straight to our excursion bus....the criminals weren't even able to access us whatsoever. We were kept safe.

Here we are tendering to Belize City.

Where the criminals reside....just outside the tourist area.....although they weren't showing their faces to us!!

Our tour guide was Mah-lisa and since Belize used to be known as British Honduras, she spoke with (as well as all the country) a very pleasant English accent. And informative. For the next seven hours, she told us about the country, the people, families, school systems, the political system, roads, economy, animals, Mayans, ruins, rivers, the ocean, coral reef, even the children's love of Fruit Loops cereal. That girl knew some stuff and I'm sure she doesn't get paid at all what she is worth as a tour guide.

Here are some pictures of the Mayan ruins part of the tour.

and did I mention I'm a faller? I was completely terrified up here and notice this absolutely horrifying staircase. The Mayans were very small people but they have a huge step. It's a wonder I didn't experience a Belize hospital during this day!

AND you'll notice Belize is going to be in Parts---it was a long day....so I'll finish with the rest of tour a little later......

Kind of a tired Grammy....

Cruise Interlude--Part Two CON'T---The Gas Company

2010-05-07T08:11:00.000-07:00

So, as I was still struggling with this allergy crap, I had to wait one Friday afternoon for the gas company to come out and put a new meter in at the city house.....sometime between 12 and 6 p.m. So the guy shows up at 3:30, puts the new meter in and then informs me that he is detecting a gas leak somewhere....possibly in the ceiling in the basement....doesn't have time to look for it, because he is off at 4, shuts my gas off and tells me when I get it fixed to call and they'll come back and turn the gas on.....THIS IS ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON....I can't possibly get anyone to fix this over the weekend.

OH and he told me the connector for the gas stove was also not up to code.....I informed him that THEY (the gas company) put that on 5 years ago when we had the gas turned on....."well, that's what they used to use but not any more".....AGAIN, I CAN GO to Home Depot and get such and such a connector and have that reconnected when the guy turns the gas back on. This Gas guy was something. He went from "gotta tear out the entire basement ceiling" to "maybe gotta tear out the front yard to see if that's where the leak is"......GRRRRRRRR. I never smelled anything and he explained that the leak is so small, I probably wouldn't smell it, nevertheless it is a hazard and must be fixed.

Anyway, when Papa got home, he called the Toxic Avenger (Polly's husband ), who knows heating and cooling and plumbing and carpentry and all sorts of wonderful things and THANK GOD, he is certified in such things as gas work, who knew?! They talked things over and made plans to meet the next day.

So we went on down to the country house and then Saturday morning Papa drove back up to meet the Avenger. He didn't think we had a leak, but thought maybe the guy was in a hurry and didn't do this or that (sparing you all the details) and that caused gas to register. Avenger didn't have some sort of chemical required to check for leaks that day, his tank was empty and couldn't get filled until Monday....So Monday he was coming back out to see if he can figure out what was going on.....

So we were once again communting from the country house to work, 62 miles one way. Was up at 4 a.m. Monday morning to drive up and drop Snoopy off in the yard at the city house and hopefully the problem would be resolved that day.

HA, but ROUTINE laughs in my face.....so Avenger arrived on Monday with his special tank and did indeed find a minute leak in the basement ceiling in the laundry area that doesn't have the ceiling tiles and he easily repaired it without having to tear anything apart. He also procured a new stove connector to install but that ended up being the wrong size, so we agreed that he would exchange that on Tuesday and finish up and we would commute for another day.

Tuesday afternoon all was completed and I called the gas company to see if I could get an APPOINTMENT (HA) for after 4 that day when Papa would be home from work, to turn on the gas. They tell me I have to go on the emergency board for a "turn on" and it will be 20 minutes to 2 hours for an installer to show up and why don't I call them as soon as I get home and it would be taken care of.

Papa got home, verified that everything was done and calls to say he's coming to pick me up from work (we've been car pooling while commuting from the country) and to go ahead and call the gas company and we would be home before 20 minutes passed. Done.

WE WAIT....FOR THREE HOURS and at 8:00 p.m. I call them to find out what's up and "they've been busy, we are on the emergency board and the first available person will be there" I asked when that would be, she put me on hold and then returned to tell me ABOUT TWO HOURS--10:00 p.m. I was just speechless. Papa and I talked, we had to go back to country that night...his car was there....all our meds were there, my make-up bag, and all the groceries for the city house were still down there, so it wasn't like we could wing it one night and go down the next night, we needed too much stuff. Not to mention no gas, it was getting cold in the house, no hot water for showers and we couldn't cook anything.

So he calls them back about 15 minutes later to tell them forget it for that night, we would reschedule for the next day as we needed to leave as it was getting late. They tell him that someone was dispatched already and is on the way (15 minutes earlier they were telling me 2 hours!) but the guy won't be there for another 45 minutes. He told them OK, but if he's not here by 9:00, we're leaving.

So, of course, 3 minutes to 9 he arrives. Comes in put some sort of register on the meter, looks at the gas heater that is in the family room part of the basement (doesn't like the valve although Papa said it was checked and it's fine, no leaks).

Looks at Avenger's work, takes his sniffer thing around, no leaks....checks the stove and that's ok. Lights all the burners, lights the top and bottom ovens, all's well. Takes the next 20 minutes trying to light the pilot for the hot water heater. Turns the furnace on. Another round with his sniffer thing. Back to the basement heater...thinks it's leaking but can't get it to register that it's leaking (DUH, IT'S NOT LEAKING.....) Still doesn't like that turn on valve for it.

Papa has been standing by the cabinet where the meter is and it is ticking like an alarm clock. He asks if that's normal. No.....goes to the meter, starts taking pieces and parts off it if to make it stop ticking. Then announces we need a new meter--this one was just installed on Friday and hadn't been turned on before then!! We just gave each other horrified looks, like it was going to have to be another scheduled job.

THANK GOD, the man had one in his truck. He goes out and gets the new meter. Comes in, disconnects the stove, the hot water heater, and the furnance and the heater downstairs, switches out the meter and hooks up everything again but turns the gas valve off on the downstairs heater, because he's still convinced it's leaking although not registering......wrote that up and left at 10:30.......now we have to, I guess, get the valve on the heater replaced in case we ever have a fire, might be an insurance issue, but Papa can still turn the valve on and use the heater whenever he would like to.

We jumped in the car and headed to the country. In bed by 12, back up at 4:30 because I had to be at work at 7 for breakfast meeting....and just as I'm about to walk out the door....can't find my glasses. TORE THE HOUSE APART and finally found them under the corner of the bed,,,,who knows, my country home ghosts playing tricks I guess. BUT THE GAS CRISIS SEEMS TO BE OVER FOR NOW.

Then a funny......the next day,,,,a news alert came out "A three-alarm blaze at the Laclede Gas building in downtown St. Louis broke out about 8 a.m.".....I WAS TOTALLY INNOCENT.

Grinning Grammy

Cruise Interlude - Part Two -- The Fall

2010-05-05T06:57:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm a faller. I think we've established that, haven't we. And I think I've mentioned that this Spring my allergies have been on overdrive and I was sick for almost three solid weeks with them. Head, chest, ears, everything but that has finally settled down and I finally threw in the towel and started getting allergy shots about two weeks ago, which will continue for about the next year or so...once a week........

So in the middle of the allergy attack, we had an issue with our Gas Company (next blog!) and then I fell!

I'm painting on a Saturday night in the bathroom in the country. The front room of our two room bathroom which is easy enough. I just have solid walls, one window and then the wall with the light fixtures, mirrors, and vanity. I'm about 3/4's done and went and got a chair to do the tops and above the mirror and one minute was standing on the chair and the next minute, I swear, the chair just disinegrated under me into about 10 pieces and I hit the floor before I knew I was falling and landed on my back NATURALLY.

The same back where I cracked my pelvis last August and am still going to see the chiropractor regularly for adjustments, taking pain pills and muscle relaxers for, and Dr. Magic is going to start giving me nerve blocks for. He thinks 9 months of pain is entirely too much and he has these magic shots......

Papa comes running in when he heard me scream and proceeds to yell at me out about destroying the chair----from his mom and dad's kitchen set-----he's sentimental like that.....I couldn't move, he is screaming at me, I'm in tears, IN PAIN, and covered in paint as well. I was holding a roller and a brush when I fell.....I cleaned up the paint when I could stand again; he removed the chair pieces.

I took a hot shower, took the max of pain pills and muscle relaxers and couldn't find an ice bag, so laid with a bag of tator tots on my back and pretty much passed out by 8 p.m.

Before I passed out, Papa did ask if I needed to go to the ER....between gritted teeth, my response was "DON"T TALK TO ME" and then........(here's where you all can laugh).....he brings in the big, full size ladder from the garage "so I can finish painting when I feel better".....I turned off the light in his mid-sentence. The ladder disappeared from the bedroom the next day

The next morning, I was so afraid I wouldn't be able to get out of bed, but was surprised when I did and was just pretty sore, but not in pain like the last fall. I was sore for a couple of days and then went to my regular chiro appointment and told him this sorry tale of woe. He checked me out and determined I just did some soft tissue bruising and he didn't think I even needed an x-ray. Explained that because of our constant work, we might have saved me from alot of damage because I'm more flexible.

Whatever...I escaped the bullet it seems. A couple of days later, Papa and I were getting ready for work in the half-painted bathroom and I just mentioned "you know you are finishing this room, don't you?" Without a second of hesitation, he answered, "Yep, I'll take care of it this weekend." And he did.

Signing off for now,
Bendy, Flexible Grammy

CRUISE - Roatan, Honduras

2010-04-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

The port that wasn't. We were so looking forward to visiting Roatan as we had some friends that live there. For weeks, we've been emailing back and forth, planning our time on the island. That morning we were up early, had breakfast and then in the dining room, saw Roatan approaching.

We went up to the Promenade deck to watch and it seemed to be such a beautiful island, very green and hilly, unlike flat Cozumel.

But, wait,,,,,something seemed to be wrong.....we were circling around in the ocean as was another cruise ship.

Finally, the captain came on and said due to high winds and rough seas, we weren't able to sail into the port. It was somewhat dangerous.

So we circled around for about an hour and a half and then our captain came back on and said the harbor master had deemed it too dangerous for our big ships to enter the port and so us and the other circling ship were being turned away.

Papa and I photographed ourselves with the island the best we could.

And we proceeded to drown our sorrows in a Sea Day.

Tomorrow, we're going to Belize, CA (that's Central America campers, not California!)

Grammy

CRUISE--Cozumel, Mexico

2010-04-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

Monday, we woke up very excited - our first shore excursion. Papa and I had picked a sub tour that was to go 100 feet below the surface. I had my eye on that tour but right before I signed up, it disappeared and I had to sign up for the backup tour, another underwater tour that went only about 4 feet underwater and was much shorter in duration.

We were pleasantly surprised when we got on the ship and saw the Atlantis tour offered again but I had to wait to receive my tickets before I could go to the excursion desk and do the exchange for the ones we wanted.

Everyone laughed and made fun of me for the "tormenting" (their word not mine) of our travel agent and now I've moved on to tormenting the Excursion Desk and Guest Services with my constant barrage of questions. But hey, if you don't ask, how do you find out. And that are what those people get paid for, answering questions and helping out the passengers. You'll be happy to know, I got my money's worth from both areas!

So with submarine tour tickets in hand, we watched Cozumel approach from the sea. We were actually the one doing the approaching but semantics...

Of course, leaving the ship, my Sail and Sign card was invalid for some reason and it left off an dull bong when I scanned it. You have to scan your card when leaving the ship and then when returning. Since mine failed leaving the ship, they took a picture of me and let me know when I returned it wouldn't work but to let the "gatekeeper" know I was "in the book" with a new picture and I would be allowed back on the ship and would then have to the go to Guest Services (where they would be getting to know me) and be issued a new card. This was a little worrisome (like I needed something else to worry about---not falling off the boat, not MISSING the boat while on an island, not getting arrested, abducted or assaulted some other way while in a foreign country, not getting thrown in a Mexican jail, etc., etc., etc.). Now I'm told my card would not work to get back onboard but oh, have a nice tour of Cozumel.

But we proceeded on. Did a little window shopping and met our tour group for the boat ride out to sea where our sub was docked.

So I am faller, plain and simple. I was a little concerned after reading the description of the tour and that I would have to back down a long step ladder. I can climb up ladders without issue but going down ladders always make my hands sweat and with my bad ankle and back and neck, I was worried about this. I made Papa promise to go first in case I slipped. He could help me or at least break the fall. But like any rat leaving a sinking ship, he got on the ladder and climbed down as fast as he could and was nowhere to be seen by the time I mounted the top of the ladder. Paco though, pictured above, assured me that I could do it. "Just take that first step and it will be fine." And I did and it was.

First, I need to rewind a bit. I had bought a new camera with all sorts of wonderful bells and whistles for my trip. I had had it for three months and was learning light and appertures and speed and all. So excited to put all I'd learned into practice on this vacation and then.....du dum....and on our Sunday Sea Day, du du dum, it just wouldn't turn on again.

It had been starting to act up and I couldn't understand why. I hadn't dropped it or left it in the sun or heat but first it started eating batteries. Take 3 pictures and change batteries. Oh, take 2 pictures and batteries are dead again, huh? Take one picture and then just NOTHING. It stopped working by Sunday night. I was pretty distressed over this but thankfully had brought my old faithful along and that's what I started using in Cozumel and for the rest of the trip (except one foray with an underwater camera in Costa Maya). (I ended up exchanging the camera when I returned home and the new one is fabulous and makes me think the other one was a lemon from the get-go.)

So here I am underwater with an OK camera but it wasn't spectacular and didn't begin to record what our eyes were seeing. The vividness of the colors of the fish were unbelievable.

The top picture is Papa looking our our porthole and then the other 42 people (sans crew) that were on the sub with us.

We had a fabulous time. Although the pictues were subpar, what we experienced and saw with our eyes we will never forget (even the divers!)

And we went a bit below 100 feet underwater:

Papa deemed it the "coolest thing I've ever done in my life." And I beamed!

We made it back to the port area safely and did a little shopping. Then it was time to reboard the ship where my card not only "bonged" again and I was pulled out of line. But after they determined I was "in the book" and ok to come back on board, I beeped in the security scanner and had to be pulled out of line again and hand scanned. FINALLY, I was determined to be safe and let on board where I went immediately to the Guest Services desk and procured myself a new Sail and Sign card that worked without a hitch the rest of the week.

In Cozumel, Cracker and the Weatherman rented a car and took their own tour (no pictures) and said they had a nice time.

DD and SIL and their group hit a private beach and took advantage of the cheap- priced, high-quality tequila.

I'm sure that beach will never be the same?!

The main thing was that ALL our group had a marvelous time in Cozumel and made it back on the boat safely.

That night, Night 3 in the Dining Room, our little group suffered the "effects of tequila" with Cracker and the Weatherman passing on our group dinner. (Although, we didn't know that up front and checked with the Guest Services desk AGAIN to make sure they were back on the boat with us when our worrying got the better of us.)

Tomorrow Roatan, Honduras.
Grammy

CRUISE--PART 4

2010-04-14T10:52:00.000-07:00

OK, back to vacation. First,,,,,saw a really cute movie the other day, Julie and Julia. Just really enjoyed it. Also read a good book the other day, Making Toast. Both recommended.

OK, NOW back to the vacation.

With such a large group vacationing together AND our past family vacation history of too much togetherness, it was decided that yeah, we were all going together but it was a big boat and there were a wide range of activities, something to suit every personality, both on the boat and on the island excursions. So we weren't going to try to organize group activities during our vacation. Everyone go and do whatever and have fun and if a few people pick the same things, so be it. No plans. However, since Papa must be kept active, I had planned alot for the two of us. No winging it for us, we knew what we were going to do at least once a day (a planned activity).

But we all discussed about eating as a group. Well that seemed to fall through when DD's group of friend chose the early seating and our group (DD, SIL, Cracker, Weatherman, Papa and I) chose the later seating. Nevertheless, it was decided at least the six of us would meet for dinner at night and share our day's activities.

Here we all were on the first night's dinner--the "come as you are dinner."

The food was pretty marvelous in the dining rooms. Everyone always raves about cruise ship foods and the awesome 24 hour buffets. We had a pretty killer salad from the salad bar and a good burgers but other than that we had one lunch and one breakfast from the buffets and weren't too impressed. Especially when we discovered made to order breakfasts in a dining room on the third day! Now those were awesome.

So Sunday was a sea day and I won't bore you with details....we wandered about, ate, saw a show, sat in the sun and read, walked ALOT from one end to the other exploring, napped and then got dressed up for our first formal dinner--a Captain's Dinner. I really need to invest in a scanner because we got some nice photographer's pictures of all us that night but alas, no scanner, so you're left to come up with your own "sights".

Tomorrow, we're off to Cozumel
Your traveling Grammy

ANOTHER INTERLUDE

2010-04-11T11:56:00.000-07:00

I know, I will get back to the cruise....I'm buried ankle deep in pictures, so I'm not forgetting one thing about the trip.

We've ALL been sick. Since before Easter. DD had bad sinus's (how DO you pluraize sinus?) and went to the doc, or Walgreen's clinic actually, Easter morning because she felt so bad and has double ear infections. I've been sick since the Saturday night before Easter....allergies,,,,actually had been suffering since we entered Georgia and the tall pine area on the way home from vacation. Saw my allergist the Friday before Easter and he said double-up on all my allergy meds and added an antihistimine/decongestant to the mix.

Well by Saturday night before Easter, my head CRAP all flowed down into my chest and now I'm envisioning the cartoon mucis people on the Mucinex commercial. This is exactly what anti/decon's do to me ALL THE time. Yeah, they clear my head but it's gotta go somewhere.

So Easter Sunday, I'm sick, DD's sick, Papa had a headache (probably sinus), both P's are sick and SIL is the only one feeling halfway good. We had a very abbreviated day to say the least. We were all dreaming of nice, long afternoon naps.

Monday, I stayed home from work. Tuesday I went to work for three hours and after my seal barking was causing my workmates to glare at me ("Seriously, I'm not contagious."), I went home and back to bed. Worked a short day on Wednesday and had the P's and felt oh so bad because I had less than no patience, couldn't talk right, continued coughing, they both had runny noses but were overly energetic and the combination caused alot of Grammy's raised voice and the P's spent an inordinate amount of time in time-out.

Thursday, I went to work where my boss kept trying to send me home. Finally I called my primary doc and went in to see him. I also, have a double ear infection, who knew, my ears don't hurt. But the rest of my "issues" are all allergy based. I just cough and now the mucis people have risen back into my head. Long story shorter, I got alot of meds in addition to all I've been taking that I was told to keep taking.

Friday, DD took the P's in to see their doc, both have sinus infections and Perfect has pneuomina (the beginnings of) and Precious has a horrible rash all over her face and body caused by her virus. So the entire (MO)branch of the family is just chock full of snot and other assorted bacteria. I've turned my a/c on and it's only in the 70's because there is no chance of rain until Friday and the allergens are off the board according to the weather guy on tv.

No one seems to be getting better, I've been on meds for 8 days and have another workweek looming. We did have a birthday party for Precious yesterday (poor thing)...pictures and details coming later. And I'm going to start allergy shots late next week. I threw in the towel on Friday and sign the consent forms after some long (hack-filled, blowing, snorting, coughing) phone conversations with my allergist.

My what a negative post but that's this Grammy's life this week and last week and probably next week.

Until next time, here's hoping something I'm taking starts to work.......Grammy

CRUISE INTERLUDE

2010-04-07T08:09:00.000-07:00

I laugh when I see those pictures in a magazine or newspaper of people and their pets. You know, those contests where you send in pictures to see who looks the most like their pet.

My pet has taken on my personality, and I've noticed, my "illnesses" as well. We are both constantly trying to lose weight with no good results.

Last year when I fell down the stairs and cracked my pelvis, two weeks later, she "blew" her knee chasing something in the country so we both were on R&R most of the late summer and fall.

I have horrible allergies that seem to get worse every year. When we are driving to the country, Snoopy always wants the window all the way down the last couple of miles so she can hang her head out the window, ears flapping in the breeze. That is until we would hit the gravel road and she would start coughing---dust allergy? It can only be.

This week, my allerigies have picked up and settled in my chest and I've been pretty sick with bronchitis since the weekend. Last night, Snoopy was walking through the house repeatedly sneezing. Papa just says...."unbelievable".

At least we're not looking alike.....YET.

Now this little girl....yeah, I'll agree that we are related!!!

Stay tuned for more cruise story in the near future.

Grammy

CRUISE---Part 3

2010-04-02T06:19:00.001-07:00

Saturday dawned bright and sunny and we were raring to go. Papa broke a belt first off which necessitated a trip to the corner Walmart which took alot longer than expected (another story---Papa shopping!) Anyway, belt purchased and we loaded up again for the short drive to Port Canaveral.

And our first glimpse of The Dream.

It was huge, we were terrified and excited all at the same time. SIL dropped us off with all the luggage

LOL! He went and parked the car while we stood and tried to imagine how the four of us would transport all that just a short distance to the front doors.

Thankfully, there were luggage porters about two rows over and they took the majority of luggage off our hands and we entered the front doors to begin the embarkation process.

Got checked in, passed security, had our Sail and Sign cards issued (the most important belonging to any cruise passenger---it's the room key, method of payment, identification on and off the boat--something NOT to lose) and across the gangway we went---all at seemingly breakneck speed because before we knew it, we were on the ship where we dropped out carryon luggage and collapsed. Those cruise people know how to work a process.

We were here!!

Since we couldn't go to our staterooms until after 1:30, we all headed to the above pictured Lido Deck aka the party deck to grab some lunch from one of the buffets and start meeting our other cruisers.

Then it was finally time to find our rooms.

I didn't think to take a picture of our stateroom but the below is an example except for couples, those twin beds were "united" to make a king which is what we had.

We already had had a full day and it was only early afternoon. We unpacked and got a little acclimated with our room and then toured the ship.

That's enough for today,
Grammy

CRUISE--Part Two

2010-03-31T11:10:00.001-07:00

So we spent the night catnapping, talking, reading (with reading lights, silly), listening to our ipods and just looking at the dark countryside fly by.

Friday was DD's 30th birthday. Hard to believe that my little baby girl was that old. But she was and did it gracefully!

Yep, Graceful....that's my DD. Somewhere early morning Friday, we stopped at Waffle House to have breakfast. We still had half the journey ahead of us (15+ hours to Orlando where we were stopping for the night and Georgia and Florida are LONNNNGGGG states). We were tired and travelworn already from a long sleepless night and so we went in and sat down and ordered a good breakfast. DD, meanwhile, went over to the Jukebox and filled it up with "breakfast music"....So it's 7ish in some small Georgian town in a Waffle House filled with older folks having a quiet breakfast and here is Skynard blasting out of the jukebox and DD with her hooked horns flying, yelling Freebird. Yep, she's a shy, retiring peach, that one!

The trip otherwise was uneventful, just long. Thinking back I don't even remember stopping for lunch but we arrived at Orlando sometime late afternoon and checked into our hotel. This is where Papa and I were stepping off the family vacation train and hiding out in our room for next 12 hours. DD and SIL were meeting up with some of their friends, our fellow cruisers, to go out on the town and celebrate DD's 30th and another girl's 21st.

Nice new hotel, quiet, comfy beds, huge room, cable tv, everything we needed to R&R quietly before our 8 day vacation began. We popped out to grab some burgers for dinner but otherwise, uneventful and we were both snoozing early, trying to catch up from the night. We're not spring chickens, ya know, and staying up all night can be a bit taxing.

Until tomorrow....
Grammy

Continuing----CRUISE Part One

2010-03-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

OK, no more excuses about why I'm not writing. I will just start again. Thanks for hanging in there. Referred to my book of ideas...the Book of Ideas and figured to start with most recent and work my way back. Yeah, that's the plan.

THE CRUISE

Scary, Overwhelming, BIG, Exciting, Leery, Unbelievable, Once in a Lifetime, Optimistic, Pessimistic...just about every word I could think of entered my emotions before, during, and after.

And I haven't been the same since I returned. I'm not destined to live the life I've been living. I need to be independently wealthy, have numerous servants, and assorted people in my employ to take care of my every need. Travel the world, seeing all there is to see. Definitely not sitting here in middle America, toiling at a boring desk job, enduring crappy weather, and living a routine life.

Oh well. I'll try as I can to endure in between my vacations!

Darling Daughter had brought up this idea way back last summer. She was getting ready to turn 30 and wanted to do it up big. I was amused as I had my 30th in Cracker's first husband's basement and she had her 30th party at a VFW hall.

At first a cruise wasn't the idea. It was just going someplace tropical. For her friends and family to all get together and have fun. As she investigated, a cruise popped up as the ideal way to get tropical, travel, and do something most of us hadn't ever done before. So we scrimped and saved and talked to travel agents and started making reservations. The Carnival Dream, which at that time (last summer), wasn't even done being built yet, let alone sailing.....ah, The Titanic came to mind.

Then there were a rash of stories about people falling off of cruise boats (happens more than you know--just look out in the internet.....I did!) So I quickly crossed off a balcony stateroom and chose an inside cabin. If I had a do-over, I would have stuck with the balcony. But at the time, I could envision, me, early one morning, sitting on the balcony reading a book and enjoying my solitude while Papa slept in and the boat hitting a "bump" and over the rail I would go whereas Papa would be reporting, "she was just here, I have no idea where she went off to...."

I was equally afraid for my friends and family falling off the boat as well and thought, I'm just going to have to bring a long rope and start tying us together or I'll never be able to relax and enjoy this trip at all. Now after the fact, I see how hard it would be to actually fall off. Oh, it can be done on purpose or on accident, but it wouldn't be quite such a simple accident.

So by fall, we had our trip booked and paid for and spent the long, long, cold, snowy, miserable winter buying summer clothes and anxiously awaiting March and our departure.

Our group consisted of DD and SIL, Aunt Cracker and the Weatherman, Papa and I, and about 8 of DD and SIL's friends, many in that group were prior cruisers. We so wanted Fantastic Son and Serious Girlfriend to come along but they couldn't make it happen this time.

Everyone was flying on different days and times but DD, SIL, Papa, and I were driving down together. Now if you know our "family vacation" history, you might wonder if this was a good idea but we were determined to make this work and prove that we COULD enjoy a vacation as a family (regardless of what happened on all the past family vacations)...our history was NOT going to be the pattern for the future. Or at least this was my main objective.

So Thursday night at midnight, we all got in their van and off we went.....

Part 2 coming next.
Traveling Grammy

Try, Try Again

2010-02-27T05:53:00.000-08:00

SO we've been having some little medical issues around the house the last two weeks and for a change it's not my behind or neck. Although I am still see doctors routinely for both.

No, it's been Papa. Two weeks ago he told me his jaw was sore and he thought he felt a bump. Oh no! Really, I said, you'd better check in with the doctor. But as before with the "heart attack", come Monday when the doctor's office opened, he said he felt OK and wasn't calling. This time instead of calling those close to him and tattling, I started researching "things" on the internet (I know, bad, bad Grammy) and sending him what I was finding.

After only an hour or so, he calls me and said he had a doctor appointment the next day. Well on Tuesday his doc seemed very concerned and didn't see evidence of a "bump". He called it an assymetrical mass on one side and he could definitely see it. Of course, after relaying this information, Papa refused to let me see him head on for any length of time so I could investigate.

Doc sent him for a CT scan, the sooner the better, and so the appointment was made for Thursday morning. (I was just thanking God that I had bought travel insurance.)

CT Scan was accomplished and, of course, they don't tell Papa any diagnosis. Thankfully early Friday morning the doc called and said it was just a bacterial infection in his jaw and around the salivatory glands and gave him a heavy duty antibiotic to take 4x a day for a couple of weeks and a refill tacked on and TO FINISH ALL THE MEDICINE. "Oh, and how is your aspirin therapy going?" Well that was a new one. After Papa's last round of bloodwork, I noticed in addition to his cholesterol being high, that he was pre-hypertensive and wondered if they were going to put him on the aspirin a day plan but no mention of it. Obviously they did mention it and either Papa didn't pay attention or he "forgot."

Ok, fast forward to this week and Papa had a three year routine colonoscopy scheduled. His father had colon cancer and at Papa's first procedure, 10 polyps were found, five being pre-cancerous so "you must come back in three years." We checked and rechecked and the antibiotics mentioned above as well as the aspirin and cholesterol meds were all allowed to be continued while prepping for this procedure.

Papa was a little more relieved, a different prep was being used than what he had to ENDURE the last time. So long story short, no cheating on food (I was the supreme food nazi), his prep liquids were consumed and the pooping commensed and all was well, so the next day off to the doc's office we went for the procedure.

Afterward, while we were sitting in the recovery room, the doc came in with some "bad news"....could only view the bottom half of the colon because the top half was...well, you know...not empty. We discussed all this and it could be that Papa ate too heavily on Tuesday, his last day of solid food. Maybe the antibiotic caused a little stopping up. Maybe the new prep wasn't as effective as the last one. Of course, later on that evening, Papa blamed the doctor as being at fault (no details as of why this blame) but continuing on this thread my jello was also thrown in as being at fault. See what I'm dealing with!

Anyway, bottom line, we have to repeat this whole process again in SIX MONTHS and go back to using the original prep, and to limit food to soups only on his last solid food day.

Maybe I'll just stay in the tropics until September when this procedure is over and come home.

Collecting once again for a Grammy fund!
Until next time....

OBE

2010-02-21T12:19:00.000-08:00

Plain and simple--Overcome By Events! Sitting at Massey Gardens, yes we are back over here. Somewhat. We have beds, tvs and DISH satellite set up. Bathrooms and kitchen are coming along but the weather is really impeding our progress.

First, it snowed and snowed and snowed and we couldn't get up the road to Massey Ponds and now that the snow is pretty much gone, it's raining and the road is quite muddy. We did make it up yesterday for one truckload and one carload but that's all the progress this weekend. Oh well, we're not in a hurry and we are comfortable out here now and not trapped in one bedroom while trying to rehab the other house. That was all pretty miserable.

I've decided to do alot of deep cleaning over here as we move back and I'm getting ready to paint the front room of the back bathroom next weekend. We've had some roofwork and carpet cleaners in here to give the carpet a thorough cleaning after our "renters" left. Good riddance to that nightmare and I may write more of that story as time goes on but for now, just moving on.

We are getting ready for our big once-in-a-lifetime cruise to the Western Caribbean. We'll be there two weeks from today. Will be a whirlwind I'm sure.

I'm suffering another addiction which is contributing to my lack of writing. I've decided I enjoy reading more and from the looks of my blogroll, you'll see I have a ton more blogs that I'm enjoying. Having a hard time just trying to keep up with all that reading, let alone getting my blog written. But think I'm gonna switch around my priorities....I won't allow myself to read UNTIL I write a little bit.

All the cast of characters I've written about previously are all doing well and I'll get some updates written on everyone and some new pictures included.

But that's my short update for now.

Stay tuned....Grammy

Back to Writing

2009-11-24T05:31:00.000-08:00

What to say....LIFE!

Woke up very early, with the sunrise, on Sunday morning out in the country, Massey Ponds. Sat outside with Snoopy and watched the sun come up and light up the wild pampas grass that is growing in the front yard. Thought I should go in and grab the camera and try to capture that picture but knew I probably couldn't. So still and so beautiful and almost quiet with just the few winter birds left.

Watched some deer walking through the side woods heading down to the front to grab a drink and cross the road into the woods at Massey Gardens. For once, Snoopy didn't attempt to chase them....in the funny way she mimics them...the deer/kangaroo hop we call it. Another thing you'll just have to visualize.

Then the near silent, peaceful Sunday morning was shattered with Papa in the house talking to himself and gun shots in the distance (it is hunting season) and the sounds of a hunter walking in the side woods. But I think my deer are safe in the woods at Massey Gardens. No hunting there......more to come.

Contented Grammy

GUMBO

2009-10-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

OK, let's face it, I'm just not a prolific blogger on the screen that is. I'm always writing up things in my head naturally when no keyboard is available. I've just got entirely too much life going on ALL THE TIME to write routinely and I apologize,,,,but then again there's only three of you. But regardless of the amount of readers, I shouldn't disappoint those that are looking!

I do have topics in my handy, dandy notebook (I watch entirely too much Blues Clues!) but as usual, I have some catching of a myriad of things--hence the Gumbo title,,,,it's a little of everything, exactly what Gumbo is.

I haven't written about the P's lately.

They are growing and growing and growing.....Perfect is so dang cute and he so wants to be the special boy still. He loves Precious and thinks about and of her and includes her in what he's doing. But sometimes when I'm spending alot of time with her, he'll just come over and climb up in my lap and want some extra attention. I do try to divide my time equally but he's getting so independent and can just sit still and watch a movie whereas Precious needs constant attention all the time. So I do feel like she gets more of Grammy than he does.

But then again, he had me soley for almost two years. I think it's just kind of bittersweet for him realizing that he's not the only baby in town anymore. That first child syndrome, oh I know it so well.

Precious got a new bike recently.

Her look just says it all.

Then there's Papa who suffers greatly (in his own mind) on Wednesdays!! Oh, the ignoring he endures from me. But to get back at me, he ropes my P's into working for him and they love helping. Usually, it's just picking up sticks in the yard but a few Wednesdays ago, he handed out brooms to everyone and they started their acorn removal (those darn squirrels).

It's like herding cats he says. I thought it was hilarious and they were all so dang cute and working so hard--not working together, they each had their own agendas but it eventually got swept up.

Papa's been a little irritable of late. What with the moving and rehabbing and undue, excesses we've suffered all summer. A couple of months ago as we were driving to the hardware store in the country, he offhandedly said "I think I had a heart attack last night." Needless to say, my worrying went into overdrive. No, he didn't want to go to the hospital, yes, he felt fine now but did promise to contact his doctor on the following Monday. Well, Monday arrived and he was in denial that there was even an issue. I finally had to take matters into my own hands and called both his son AND his supervisor and told them what had taken place and how he was acting. He was furious with me but I could handle that as long as he called his doctor. He did, went right in for an examination and tests and had a stress test the following week and everything came up a big fat negative. Don't get me wrong, this was wonderful news BUT why did he experience the symptoms he did? That was never explained...to me....satisfactorily.

But back to the moving and rehabbing....SO we moved in three weekends in July into the house we were rehabbing across the road from the house we lived in so our "buyers" could move into our old house. HOWEVER, they had yet to procure their loan BUT had sold their house, so were in a predicament. We agreed (under my duress) that they could come in and rent for two weeks until their loan went through.

Well, two weeks turned into two months and one thing led to another, etc. etc., yadda, yadda, and bottom line, we believe they did NOT get their loan but wouldn't fess up. We heard a gamit of excuses of why they "didn't" want to go through with the deal now. "Too far to drive to work", "thinks property is worth less than the agreed upon (signed contract stated) price", "can't drive his show cars on the gravel road" (will mark up the tires), "there are mice in the garage where his show cars live" (hey, it's the country---the garage has seen feral cats, birds, possums, raccoons, and other unnamed wildlife in the nine years we've lived out there).

The excuses just went on and on and on. Papa was just boiling and finally gave an ultimatum that they had to be out by October 1, we were not landlords and were not renting that property, it was a purchase or nothing. Papa also contacted a lawyer and is still wavering back and forth whether to pursue legal action.

The month of September was quite unpleasant in Masseyville and relations were cold with our "renters" who by this time, had acquired a dog from the Humane Society that we later learned, destroyed several things in the house, i.e., the tile in the sun room was just shredded.

Rehabbing went on as usual at Massey Ponds. The painting of the ceilings in the hall, dining room, and kitchen was finished. The walls in the dining room were also painted. Some landscaping was also completed in the front using a pile a rocks that were nearby and we accumulated a huge bowl full of Indian arrowheads in the process which was kind of cool. All the time we were working, we were shooting glares across the road at people that seemed to hide out on the weekends when we were out there. It was quite uncomfortable. No wonder Papa thought he had a heart attack.

AND at this same time, Snoopy went running off into the fields one afternoon and came back limping. She limped around and stood with her leg in the air for about three weeks before I hauled her into see her vet who proclaimed a torn cruciate ligament (i.e., blown knee) in her left hind leg. Not a complete tear and she may recover without surgery if I keep her on "bedrest" for about four weeks and she takes an anti-inflammatory daily.

Bedrest, seriously! It's a dog! So complicating matters more, I decided to keep her at the city house, inside. For the next two weekends, I would drive down to the country during the day, driving back home every night to stay with Snoopy. I could not contain her in the country---the house is a construction site and the yard and woods and fields are wide open. In the city, she was more comfortable with a dog bed in each room and a fenced yard when she needed to go outside.

It's been three weeks since her vet appointment and she has improved considerably. So much so that last weekend, I did take her to the country for 24 hours and she did fine---for the most part---although she was limping a little on Saturday night when I brought her home.

Hopefully, we have avoided the surgery bullet but time will tell. She's been off her meds for a week now as well but the vet said she could resume taking them on an as needed basis if she starts limping frequently. So we hold our breath every time she flies off the back porch after a squirrel but other than that, bedrest is working out for her and she's healing.

OK, time to cover the Gumbo and let it percolate.....maybe I'll add more to it tomorrow.....

Chef Grammy

PARTY CENTRAL

2009-09-21T11:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, I promised to talk about this some months ago......We have lived in the country house full time and now part time for a total of over nine years. We live on a private road and we are the first house on this one lane gravel road and have five other neighbors that live past us. All the neighbors on our road have to drive past our house and one property behind us has a road easement that runs through the side of our property as well.

For nine years, we have all co-existed in our little rural neighborhood. Some of the kids, FS included, have acted up now and again with a little delinquency (stealing gas cans out of garages, shooting off 10,000 bottlerockets, etc.) but nothing too extreme....until this past spring.

The house behind us that has to drive through our property has been an issue (again this may be addressed in a future blog) now and again (can we say bad roommate, bomb making and meth lab and out of control canines). Anyway, they had resolved these issues and the couple and their two children have lived there quietly ever since...until this past spring.

One April Friday night, there were a substantial amount of cars heading to this house....all driving by our house and we figured they were having a party. Did I mention a substantial amount of cars? 100+ going down a one lane gravel road and not only going. Going and coming and meeting each other on this one lane gravel road with no shoulders with a considerable amount of backing up and down the road and into our driveway since we were the only driveway between the road they were going/coming from and the beginning of the road another 1/8 mile back. We also had our share of people pulling into our driveway looking for the party.

Papa and I figured this was possibly an end of the school year party that the kids behind us were having and we tried our best to be patient, until the wee hours of the morning when everyone had left and we had our quiet country night (early morning) back. Don't get me wrong, we were both pretty rowdy as teenagers and probably attended many parties such as these and we were giving these kids leeway by not complaining about this huge blow-out party. Kids will be kids and these parties were fun when we were young.

Then the next weekend, it happened again.....and the next weekend, AGAIN and the crowds seemed to be getting rowdier and rowdier. We could hear fights and lots of M-F this and that being yelled about. Music that was shaking our windows, etc. We got into the habit on the morning after the weekend party, walking up our main and side roads, collecting beer cans and kegger cups and making a nice pile at the beginning of their drive, trying to get the point across. HA.

We have tried over the years to talk to "MOM" about issues (her dogs running loose, attacking our's on our property and killing some feral cats in our barn). She is quite frankly a loose cannon...she is hostile, immature, and prone to risky behavior....driving as fast as possible up and down the road in front of our house when we are outside to stir up as much dust as she can. Tailgating when we are driving out or in, etc. We've shared stories with the other neighbors and everyone has their own tale of woe where she is concerned.

We heard through the grapevine that "DAD" had moved out because "she's crazy" and was living with another neighbor (single guy) farther up the road. We stopped both "DAD" and his roommate and complained about these parties and begged for them to talk to her about this before someone was forced to call the sheriff on them.

We found out something interesting......the son who was the host of the parties was just a freshman in high school. We were so frustrated hearing that, counting on 3 more years of this party behavior before he went away to college. But we were also told that he was extremely intelligent and is taking college courses along with his high school work. Good, we thought, we aren't dealing with a delinquent that doesn't care about anything, he has alot to lose.

We also found out the daughter is only 13 and this is concerning because of the things we were hearing, seeing, etc. during these parties. The kids seemed older than freshman age, there was alot of alcohol, and their mother seemed to be contributing to this. She drove around for several days after one party with MILF painted on her jeep windows with blue puffy paint until "DAD" insisted she remove that (he told us).

Anyhoo, we felt like our hands were tied. First, realize that we are 8 miles from the nearest town and not in their jurisdiction. We are the responsibily of the county sheriff's office. We have had dealings with them when FS was having some "issues" several years ago and they had problems finding our house. I'm not being dramatic, they would call during their trips out, sometimes more than once, asking for more specific directions on where we were.

When we were having issues with the above "bad roommate of the aforementioned neighbor", the DEA people asked why we didn't call before and our answer: "You all seem to have such a problem finding us, we were just trying to ignore what we were seeing because if we got involved and got into a situation, the calvary wouldn't get to us in time to help. We're on our own out here."

The other reason we felt like our hands were tied was by this time, we are living in the city through the week and only out there on the weekends...which meant we had two empty properties and we didn't want any revenge vandalism, retaliation etc. to happen while we were away through the week.

BUT after six weeks of parties, we were ready to scream or stab ourselves in the eyes with scissors. We worked hard all week and headed to the country on Fridays to rest and relax in the peaceful country but our weekends were far from peaceful. So six weeks of parties and then there was a gap of two weekends and just when we started to relax---here they come again---we had four more weekends of them....10 weekends of parties in all.

Then we heard, when school let out, that the parties started up through the week and the other neighbors called the sheriff finally and the parties stopped. ALL SUMMER LONG it was peaceful and quiet.

Then last Friday night, guess what. Yep, here they came, car after car after car and window rattling music and screaming and MFing. So we now live at Massey Ponds off the main road and could still hear and see all that was happening.

We had just gotten some bad medical news to do with Snoopy (I'll go into later), she was sick to her stomach from some medicine, it was late, we were tired, and we are living uncomfortably in a half-rehabbed house and Papa had reached the end of his patience. He picked up the phone to call the sheriff to finally put a stop to this weekend madness. His theory is now we need to have this house and this kid's parties known as the place where the cops are always called and discourage attendance. We had been patient all Spring but we could not endure every weekend, all Fall long, with these out of control parties going on. Enough was enough.

The first dispatcher he got ahold of accused him of having a feud with the kid's "MOM" and wasn't going to do anything about it. I was composing a letter in my head for the boss of the sheriff's office when Papa's cell phone died and he called back and got a second dispatcher. He finally got the message through that there is no feud, he was trying to relay that we have tried to talk to this kid's mom and got nowhere. Our main concern was the underage drinking and living on windy country roads that these kids were going to kill themselves or someone else driving home and wasn't there enough of these types of accidents in our county?

The second dispatcher was much more empathetic and said he would relay the information on and someone would call him back (see what I mean about we're on our own for an emergency). So about 15 minutes later, the first dispatcher called back and talked to Papa some more and said she would send someone out. Thirty minutes later (it's about 1 a.m. by this time and party is in full force), we see a sheriff's car drive down the road and right past their drive and on up the hill. Great, he doesn't know where he's going. He turned around and came back to our drive and sat there and we were telepathicly telling him to turn off his car and just listen and he could hear where he should be going. Finally he did this and then drove back up the road to Massey Gardens and backed in the driveway and sat there.

Unbelievable. What was he doing? Waiting for us to walk over and point him in the right direction. We couldn't believe he was just sitting there but about 10 minutes later, here come 2 more police cars----AW, waiting for back-up. Yeah, there were entirely too many party-goers for one officer, we agreed with him on that.

But wait, all three of them line up in the road in front of Massey Gardens and get out of the car and proceed to chat among themselves. Then we heard someone at the party yell, "There's cops out there on the road." Great, we thought, now they have plenty of time to hide their beer and get respectable. The element of surprise was completely gone.

Finally, the three cars started moving down the road to the party house and it got real quiet back there. For an hour Papa and I sat on the front porch with the sick Snoopy and heard nothing whatsoever. Except cars did continue coming down the road headed to the party not knowing what was awaiting them down the road. We giggled every time another one would turn in that direction.

Then we hear squealing tires and screeching around curves and someone tearing down the gravel road...It was "MOM". She must have have summoned from wherever she was at 2:30 a.m. to come home and deal with the situation and she was hot. Papa and I were so hoping her temper would get the best of her and she would get arrested for something. (NOTE: We had watched "DAD" leave about 6 p.m. with his fishing boat for an all night fishing trip---something he does quite often.)

We don't really know what happened after that. The police were there for about another 45 minutes and then they left. An hour later (close to 4 a.m.) "MOM" left but none of the kids' cars drove out---we suspected they were threatened not to be driving any more that evening.

"MOM" was pretty hot the rest of the weekend. She tore up the road and down the road going who knows where. Honking her horn as she passed houses (Massey Gardens and the drive to Massey Ponds), we think she's not sure who called the law but suspects it was us or the tenants in MG. Our theory is if that's the most she's gonna do, honk her horn and drive crazy, then we can deal with her and when the cars start driving in again, we'll just get on the phone earlier. Like we said, this house will become known as the place not to go for a big blow-out party from now on---the cops are always called.

Party-Pooper Grammy

Clearing My Head of Short Spurts

2009-09-18T06:44:00.000-07:00

Lots of short spurts to clear out of my head so I can get back to writing blogs of substance!!

First there is such a thing as Wine Ice Cream.

Who knew? Earlier this summer Tiny Sun and I had to go try some.

Delicious.

Also delicious.

My upside down tomato plants are producing fast and furiously. I'm getting handfuls of the sweet cherry's every day but so far only a couple of the Big Boy's...I'm having a competition with squirrels now and find myself picking them before they are all the way red and finishing their ripening in the kitchen window. If I wait too long, those long-tailed rats beat me to them. What's even worse, is that they take a bite out of them and leave them to lay and rot in the yard. GRRRRRRRR.

I met a celebrity last month. One of my favorite authors, J.A. Jance, came to town and I attended her "book reading", bought her new book and stood in line for the autograph. A thoroughly entertaining evening for me and I got a picture as a bonus surprise (although my eyes are closed!).

Among my elder group, we talk frequently about dreams, flying in dreams, and, of course, we love to party. With that said, I thought it was so amusing when Aunt Cracker bought the following books for Precious for her 1st birthday (yeah, I know that was way back in April, but I had it on my list to blog about!!).

Rehabbing Update: Things are rolling along. We have finished the kitchen cabinets and have moved along to painting the dining room and kitchen (on my list for this weekend). Last weekend we worked on a bit of landscaping until this Grammy's behind swelled up again (guess I'm not that healed after all). But rain is forecast for the weekend, so I think it will be a perfect time for getting that painting done.

Ok, that gives me a bit more space to fill with other things.

Have a wonderful weekend....Grammy

Do You Remember Where You Were?

2009-09-11T05:55:00.001-07:00

I sure do and will never forget. I was at work at the airplane factory. Large manufacuring complex that I work at. Papa works for the same company but at a different, mostly white collar, complex. This made a big difference later in the day.

Darling Daughter was at the restaurant she manages, opening up and watching tv and she made the first call to me, asking some odd questions. Then she explained what she was watching. I was stunned. Then the phones in my department started ringing off the hook. Family and friends calling into my co-workers, asking if we'd heard. Had we seen. We were pretty much in the dark with no television or radios but we were starting to hear plenty.

I stayed on the phone with DD this entire time, trying to explain to her what she was seeing and describing to me. I was trying to explain it to her because she had called me, her mother, wanting me to tell her what was happening. Wanting me to say, it wasn't as horrible as what she was seeing. Wanting some sort of reassurance that our world wasn't about to end. Trying to explain it somehow to ourselves.

Rumours started circulating around the office that we were about to "go dark". Did I mention we were a fighter jet/bomb manufacturing complex and a "target" on "bad people's radar". So I hurriedly explained to DD what may happen in this case and she was supposed to go to the country house and retrieve FS, who stilled lived at home at the time and was attending high school. She needed to get to her brother no matter what and they needed to stay together with SIL and the pets until Papa or I could get to them. Papa was in a different complex and would be free to leave but I would be locked down since I was in the manufacturing area.

A little bit later we were informed that we were locked down. No one was allowed to enter or exit our complex. The gates were locked and the security guards were increased on each gate. The Air Guard would have been ready on the adjoining complex. That was protocol.

And that's the way we remained until about 5 p.m. We still hadn't witnessed anything on television or heard radio reports. We just had the heresay from the calls we had received from our family and friends. We really couldn't imagine what was happening. It didn't seem real to us until we were able to witness it ourselves later that evening.

It was one of the most frightening days I've lived through. And I was sitting in the Midwest. I was not in New York, or Washington, or PA. I can't imagine the horror those people experienced.

Two years ago, Papa and I and DD and SIL all journeyed to New York and I remember while on Liberty Island, we looked toward Manhattan and wondered what people, tourists like ourselves, thought when witnessing what they did that day. I can't begin to entertain what the people who were closer experienced. Unimaginable.

I'll always remember where I was that day.

Grammy

PERFECT'S BIRTHDAY PART TWO

2009-09-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

<
You all didn't think the pancake breakfast was the extent of Perfect's birthday celebration did you?!

Well, the following weekend, Perfect and his best buddy, Sesame Street Girl had a joint MONKEY party.

Perfect and Sesame Street Girl are born one week apart and have been friends since the beginning.

Partners in crime all the way.

So it made perfect sense to combine their birthdays since they basically have the same friends that would attend both.

And a good time was had by all.

Later....Grammy

PERFECT's BIG 3!

2009-09-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late on this blog. Perfect turned 3 on August 15 and he's well on the way to being potty-trained. Wonderful milestones.

We started the morning off with a birthday pancake breakfast on our own CARS plates (he was insisting on a CARS party).

Then complete fascination over the idea that the servers at IHOP KNEW IT WAS HIS BIRTHDAY and came over to sing.

Then since DD and I had Perfect all pumped up, it was off to the photographer's studio for a professional record of the event.

You all will remember the last trip to the studio.

Well, a complete 180 this trip.

It's amazing what starting the morning with pancake faces does to one's mood.

Happy Birthday you Perfect Boy!

Your Lovin' Grammy

An Older Fall

2009-08-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

As I was writing my last blog, I mentioned an incident that happened at work that I still cringe at when remembering.

Two years ago April/Mayish timeframe, I was sitting at work and the fire alarm sounded. Not to be distressed, this was just a drill. I wonder about the point of these work disaster "drills" we have at the airplane factory. They announce them over the PA speaker days in advance. They post signs on all the doors so coming and going, you'll know a drill is planned and exactly what day and time it is to occur. We receive emails, etc. and if the weather should become inclement on drill day, so as not to confuse us any, they just cancel the drill. Who wants to go outside for a fire drill during the rain. And have a tornado drill when storms are in the area?---won't happen. My co-workers might confuse a drill for the real thing and chaos would ensue (or so the powers that be think).

Anyway, the fire drill alarm sounded so like the sheep we all are, we started heading out the door to our designated meeting spots in the parking lot. Looking forward to some time outside on a beautiful sunny morning, we all moved to the exit doors yelling to friends and just chatting away (reminescent of high school hallways between classes). No other time is our entire building on the move at the same time; about 2000 of us are in the building, so it is general pandemonium.

Our parking lot has been recently asphalted and is divided into various sections for reserved parking (upper management), handicapped spots in several areas by the various entrance doors, visitor parking, etc. For the most part, the lot is labeled and marked accordingly except for one particular area in the middle, right past the handicapped parking and before the visitor parking, there is an elevated area that resembles a sidewalk--a walkway between these two parking areas. What makes it different from a sidewalk is the lack of curbs. It gradually rises on one side and then sort of drops off on the the other side.

Visitors have complained about stumbling over this area coming from their lot and a co-worker of mine fell there a few years ago during bad weather, breaking his knee. But nothing was ever done about it. When walking from the parking lot to the building, the elevated area is painted a bright yellow to call attention to it. When walking from the building to the parking, there is no attention whatsoever called to the drop off.

Can you see where I'm going with this story. Yes, as I was walking out for my fire drill, chatting and visiting with my co-workers, not paying any attention whatsoever to where I'm walking--definitely not looking down. I walked right up on the elevated walk and walked right off where my ankle just turned completely sideways and down I went. In the middle of the morning, in front of about 2000 of my co-workers. Down on the ground. Of course, everyone hurries to my side. I was in horrible pain and just wanted to sit there a few minutes before trying to get up, thinking I would be OK with a short breather.

However, during our fire drills, we also have firemen, paramedics, ambulances, etc. on site and immediately two paramedics who had seen my stumble, came running with their black medical bags. I assured them I would be fine and should be able to stand in a minute or two when the pain subsided. They explained to me that I was on company property, during a company event, and my fall had been witnessed by untold number of people (yeah, I didn't need to be reminded about that!), and so they had no choice, nor did I, except to bring the stretcher, load me into the ambulance, and take me to the Medical building to get checked out. By this time my supervisor was on also on hand telling me not to argue, just go and get checked out.

So they loaded me onto a stretcher and like the Queen of Sheeba (I wasn't about to lay down on the stretcher, I sat up), I was toted across the parking lot to the ambulance (would they have thought about bringing the ambulance to me....NO).

Anyway, I was still in considerable pain and in addition, had skinned my knee when I fell and it was also bleeding. My handlers and I arrived at the ambulance. They had given me an ice bag for my ankle and another one for my knee so I was sitting up on the stretcher holding ice bags on the two injuries and being lifted into the back of the ambulance. I think there was an issue with me sitting up on the stretcher and them misjudging the space which resulted into them ramming my head into the top of the ambulance, just about knocking me off the stretcher STILL IN VIEW OF THE AUDIENCE OF MY PEERS IN THE PARKING LOT. They finally got me into the ambulance, gave me a third ice bag for my head and with me begging them to not use any lights and sirens, drove me to the Medical building.

To end this long story, I had a severe sprain (deep bone bruise), and had a cast of some sort on for several weeks, on crutches for six weeks, P.T. several times a week for six weeks but I finally healed.

Also, now in the parking lot between the visitor and handicapped area where the asphalt is elevated is a very decorative, metal, ornamental railway on both sides of the elevation. Resembles a bridge railing over a babbling brook in a garden somewhere. It definitely calls attention to the elevation now, prevents any stumbles over this area, and yes, EVERYONE knows the reason for the (Grammy) Memorial Walkway. I'm sure the story will be told and retold through the generations of workers at the airplane factory when someone asks, "hey, what's with that bridge-thing in the parking lot".

You can just call me Clutz!

Humpty Dumpty CRACKED

2009-08-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

Another long absence but this time I have a valid reason, I fell......down the stairs....and.....cracked my pelvis in the back near my tailbone (which I originally thought I broke).

Let me introduce myself. Hello, I am Grammy THE CLUTZ. Plain and simple. I fall alot. They built my own little fenced walkway at work after one fall---I'll go into that more later. But back to this incident.

We got some pretty heavy storms and sideways rain on Monday afternoon and after it was finished our back porch was pretty water covered and slippery. I know it gets real slippery when wet. We were oh so careful this past winter. Papa said it has to do with my sealing it and the water pools on top.

Anyway, as I've mentioned in a previous post about my Snoopy Diva refusing to walk on wet surfaces---it had rained, therefore, she was saying no thanks to going out and using the bathroom. So I usually walk out in the yard with her and sometimes that entices her to join me--you know how we women like to potty together.

So to kill two birds with one stone, I picked up a handful of newspapers and cardboard boxes to take the recycle can, slipped Papa's flip flops on (they were handy right there by the door--albeit about 3 sizes larger than I usually wear), and I stepped on the rain-slick porch. I took about two steps and thought to myself, boy it's slippery out here, I may need to dump these shoes and the next thing that happened I was going down the steps and not under the power of my legs AND was hitting HARD on those wooden steps and landed on the concrete sidewalk at the bottom. Since my arms were full with recycling, I had no way to brace myself or catch my fall. It was important, don't you know, to maintain my grip on that PAPER.

Immediately I realized, I broke both legs, my arm, my back and my butt because everything was screaming at once. I was yelling to Papa for help, not to mention the screaming that occurred during the fall but was having no luck rousing him. He had went to the basement to watch a movie and had the home theatre blasting, just like in a movie theatre, and, of course, could not hear a bomb drop in the yard let alone my cries for help.

During all this, Snoopy is still at the top of the stairs giving me looks that said, see I told you no good could come of walking on the wet. Yes, oh wise canine, I'll never pressure you again.

I managed to crawl back up the stairs and into the back door and finally Papa heard my yelling and came running. Immediately my butt swelled on one side and turned black but we determined that the rest of my limbs were unbroken. I was just going to be black and blue and sore the next day.

I made a few phone calls later when things calmed down and determined if it was my tailbone that I had broken, that I was SOL because they don't do anything for such a break. Since I had ample supply of pain pills and muscle relaxers on hand due to my neck (which was screaming as well), I figured, I'd take some of those and call it a day.

Tuesday, I could hardly move. Couldn't get out of bed and when I finally did that, could hardly walk and sitting in a chair was out of the question. Let alone a 9 1/2 hour day which are my Tuesdays at work. So I called into work to let my boss know the situation and I went and laid down. My entire left cheek continued to swell and blacken as the day progressed and I finally put a call into the doctor who couldn't see me until Wednesday afternoon but if the swelling got out of hand, head to the ER.

What, pray tell, was out of hand? Papa was laughing when I was upright because one side was twice the size of the other. He kept saying, I can't believe how obvious that is through your pants.

I made it through Wednesday with things mostly "in hand". When appointment time neared, I grabbed a few pillows and got into the car---excruciating pain just getting in the car. Made my nest as best as I could and started slowly down the street at about 10 mph. I knew I was in trouble and I hadn't gotten off our street.

SOMEHOW I made it onto the highway and to the doctor's office without dying in a fiery car accident. Endured the office visit, x-rays and blood work (all standing) and diagnosis was a crack in the pelvis area to the left of my tailbone. Healing time about 2-6 weeks, since it's in the back, we'll treat it the same as a tailbone break and DO NOTHING. He did give me a strong anti-inflamatory for about 3 weeks and a long Vicatin prescription for pain and "call if you need more." Said the stiller I was, the better/faster I would heal and maybe by Monday I could sit in a chair. HA...it's Saturday now and I'm up to about 45 minutes in a chair and I'm going to drive myself to the Taco Bell drivethrough for lunch......maybe.

So I hurt and I'M BORED. I've read, watched movies, caught up on some old VHS tapes, slept (alot), talked and texted on the phone but I'm ready to be out and about again. I was up and doing alot yesterday and just about couldn't get out of bed this morning. Think I did too much. But that won't stop me. NO siree. This Humpty will definity be put back together again AND SOON.

In closing, I was trying to photograph my "injury" last night so you couldn't tell it was a behind (did I mention I was bored) and it didn't work so well, so I'll leave you with this tiny tidbit of a view.

and to Lana and Mr. Fun, thanks for the pretties.

A cracked Grammy.

SUMMER THEATRE AND HORSES

2009-08-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

I didn't want you to think I wasn't having ANY fun this summer. It's not all been a summer of packing, moving, and rehabbing. Although that's been a big part of it. There has been some fun.

I started off the summer trying to attend every show of our outdoor theatre. Called the Muny, it is located in Forest Park within the STL city limits and where the 1904 World's Fair was held. Lots of history in this park and it is just beautiful and very, very big.

The Muny is unique in that besides the ticketed seats, they offer several thousand "free seats". You just have to get there early, stand in line, and grab your seat when the gates open. This works our quite nicely because if for some reason you can't go on a particular night or the weather turns bad, etc. you just blow off the night, no money lost on a ticket. Getting there early, you have to endure the last hour or so of hot sun beating down on you, but once the sun goes does, it cools off, and the show starts.

I orginally tried to organize my co-workers--the ladies--for the Muny shows but for the most part it was just me and one work friend---let's call her Mizzou Mom.

Our first hurdle was getting to Forest Park with the surrounding highway being closed (construction on it for two years and we're mid year two right now). But we armed ourselves with maps and found our way in and to the theatre. This was a two part process as this park is HUGE, so not only do you have to get TO the park, you have to manage to get to the theatre once INSIDE the park and I think the signage inside the park leaves alot to be desired.

Our first show in early June was 42nd Street---never before seen---thoroughly enjoyed although the temp was in the upper 90's (not including the STL humidity). I commented when I stood for the National Anthem while wearing light colored capris, that I hoped everyone behind me didn't think I had an accident because my clothes were soaked through and through. Mizzou Mom assured me that everyone looked the same, not to worry, and it would be dark soon.

Like I said, this show was very enjoyable. Lots of tap dancing, singing, and a good storyline to boot. Mizzou Mom and I had both came to the show different ways and left different ways but there were lessons learned that we were going to improve on for the next show. She was convinced her way rocked and I agreed to try it the next week. Another lesson learned---don't be afraid to SPEAK UP AND LOUDLY WHEN THE PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU OPENS AN UMBRELLA FOR SUN PROTECTION and blocks your view all around not to mention pokes you in the head---who brings a GOLF UMBRELLA for two for sun protection in a cramped area.

The following week, we saw Annie. Another never before seen (believe that or not) but for some reason, I know the words to "Tomorrow". This show used alot of extras (children) from the STL area, so the show was packed (and we attended all the shows on weeknights, can't imagine the weekend shows). Lots of family and friends of the extras. Weather was not quite as hot this night. And I did indeed enjoy the show. Annie lessons learned: they need more women's restrooms and Mizzou Mom's route does indeed rock and following her out was a piece of cake---making a left turn at the no left turn sign notwithstanding.

Next up was Meet Me In St. Louis. I think this was my favorite show of the season. Beautiful weather, beautiful night, good show---another very crowded show and an usher told us this was a favorite in STL. Of course it is. Also, being right after the 4th of July, there were fireworks at the end of the show. Since with all the packing and moving we did in July, Papa and I didn't get to see any fireworks display, this satisfied my fireworks viewing for the year. Lessons learned: via usher---the women's restoom on the sides of the theatre are much larger, hence the lines move faster AND Mizzou Mom found out where the programs were kept before the shows---free seat patrons don't receive programs, only the ticketed guests get these. But Mizzou Mom is such a rebel,,,,,first illegal left turns and now pilfering programs for us but why should they discriminate against free seaters and not offer them a program.

Negative lesson learned....DO NOT SEAT IN ROW ONE AGAINST THE FENCING between paid and free seats. Although, the view is much better, there is half the leg room as in the other rows and after we sat down for a few minutes, we started looking around for better options but the place was filling up fast and we couldn't move. We couldn't move pretty much the entire show. I had visions of not being able to use my legs when the show was over and I had to get up and walk. But someway, somehow, I was able to stand up and walk to the car after the show.

So it's mid-summer by this time and this leads me to my other summer fun activity that I've been participating in for some months now (actually several years overall, but the new season starts in April).

Horse Hookey. From April-September there is live horse racing at a nearby racetrack (Fairmount Park in Collinsville, IL) and several of my co-workers love to take off on Tuesday afternoons and spend time at the racetrack for Horse Hookey. We go about once a month.

They look so studious, don't they---these people take this seriously!! That's Tiny Sun there at the table. We, my co-workers and I, bring our "outside" friends along to these work events. The more the merrier is our motto or you can't have enough new friends.

So anyway our next Muny date also fell on a Horse Hookey date and MM and I thought why not. We started the day at work, rambled over to the racetrack by noon for the afternoon, and then Mizzou Mom and I headed to Forest Park for our next evening theatre performance. We met at the Boathouse restaurant, along the side of a lake and had an early dinner while watching others cruise around the lakes in paddleboats. Finally, we thought why not, let's rent a paddleboat for an hour before we head to the Muny show. We had plenty of time.

Because neither one of us are in the best physical shape and I've only paddleboated ONE time and her ZERO, it took alot out of us. Much harder than we had imagined watching others cruise languidly around the lake. First, we noticed that all the children were required to wear lifejackets BUT not the adults. When we inquired about this, the girl "loading" us on the boat, looked at us amused and said "the water's only about 4 ft. deep, if you fall out of the boat, just stand up."

Ok then, feeling much safer, we took off paddling, furiously and got about 100 feet out before our first break had to happen as we were both panting from our exertion. After a short rest, we took off again at a more moderate rate and immediately beached ourselves on a sandbar. Yeah, we needed to work a little more on our steering technique. And sure enough the water was quite shallow because in order to unbeach ourself, I had to drop my foot out of the boat and push us off the sandbar.

But we were learning by great leaps and bounds. We paddled around the various tributaries for about 30 minutes, turned around, and managed to get ourself back to the boat dock right on time without either of us having a heart attack OR falling out of the boat.

Then to the Muny for that night's show. Godspell, my least favorite of this season and that's about all I'll say about that. It might not have been the show. It was a sparse crowd though and we had good weather that evening. But for me, after a full day's activity (with the paddleboating pretty much zapping my last bit of energy), I really was ready for the day to come to an end. So I bugged out at the intermission and headed to my awaiting bed. Chatting later with Mizzou Mom, she agreed that she didn't care for that show as much either and the second half didn't improve much from the first half.

Next, we were scheduled for The Music Man. I was really looking forward to this show but alas, the night of the show, severe thunderstorms pounded the area right about the time we were supposed to be leaving for the park. After consulting with the Weather Station, it looked liked this was to be the situation for most of the evening so we bagged the show. See, utilizing the free seat system paid off for us.

Up next was Camelot and I'll rate this number two after Meet Me in St. Louis or maybe tied for second with 42nd Street. Very enjoyable show, very enjoyable night. We knew where to sit, how to utilize the intermission to the best of our ability, and how to leave the park in a very timely manner against the crowd. Perfect overall.

The last show of the season was Hairspray and neither me nor Mizzou Mom could find a good date to go to this. Both our schedules were crammed full this last week and since the shows only run 7 days, it limits us. So again, kudos for the free seat system!

So see, Grammy has been having a little bit of fun this summer and getting her some culture!!

Cultured Grammy signing off

THIS OLD HOUSE

2009-08-09T09:51:00.000-07:00

Ok, so we've moved over to Massey Ponds and now the real work begins. So far we've finished three bedrooms about 95%---that 5% though literally drives me crazy. I want to finish something 100% but it doesn't seem to bother Papa to leave things hanging----INDEFINITELY.

The bathroom is also running at about 90%. Showers can be taken (and it's all decorated with new carpets and curtains and accessories but there is an issue with the toilet and a leak and we're not sure how to fix this. Papa thinks he's cracked it somewhere but after a trip to Lowes's yesterday, we may have a solution. Cross those fingers.

Also, the cabinet. We had two full-size bathrooms at Massey Gardens and have had to downsize to one full-size bathroom. So I purchased a nice cabinet and additional floor shelves and after pitching alot of excess, we are seeming to fit into our one bathroom. Anyway, Papa was putting together the cabinet at the city house one day while DD was dropping off the P's and she said she called his attention to something and he subsequently blew her off.

On the following Friday, I was unloading the cabinet from the car and noticed something was off. The end cap was on the wrong end OR the door was installed upside down. When it stood right side up, the finished end cap was on the bottom but when the finished end cap was on the top, the door was upside down. I called Papa who insisted he followed the directions and all was well, "quit complaining." I mentioned this to DD on a phone call later, and she told me she brought this to his attention the previous Wednesday when he was building it and he "blew her off."

When Papa arrived at the house on Friday night, he went to look at the cabinet and kept assuring me this is what the directions told him to do....my response, "Seriously, the directions told you this is what it was supposed to look like?" He also went on to say, he didn't see anything wrong with the door. Again, "Seriously, the handle is at the bottom of the cabinet.?" (I will have to remember to take a picture of this cabinet next weekend.) As promised:

Since I'm of the "pick you battles" mindset these days (moving is hard on relationships), I told him to disregard it and I can live with how it looks. About an hour later, he found me and said "I think I see what you're talking about...why don't you empty the cabinet and I'll try to fix it." I'm also of the "Let's get this crap finished already" mindset these days and told him, I've moved on, we'll worry with it later on when we have spare time to fine-tune things. So until we "fix this", if ever you visit Massey Ponds, just be patient with him.

Yesterday we were heavily into staining the kitchen cabinets. Papa bought a new countertop and underneath cabinets in unfinished wood and was hoping I could stain to match the hanging cabinets. I worked on these for about 8 hours and got them quite beautiful in my opinion (shoot, I really do need to work on before and after pictures). I worked on Papa verbally for those 8 hours to let me paint the doors of the hanging cabinets a pretty glossy pine green because I really didn't think I could match them to the underneath cabinets. The underneath cabinets turned out much darker than the hanging cabinets in the end BUT. I grabbed my can of stain and brush and went to work staining the hanging cabinets and by george, they all match now!

Next weekend, I just need to apply the polyurethane to seal it all and Papa can attach the countertop and put the end cap on that (hopefully the correct way!), build the end "box" for the other end and we'll be in the business of filling the rest of the kitchen cabinets and emptying the kitchen of all those boxes finally.

Then it's on to painting.

So last night when I finally got back home to the city late in the evening. I'm warming up some cold pizza and looking forward to a shower and what do I find on PBS? This Old House with Bob Villa. I know how to pour concrete patios now----there's no stopping me.

Rehabbing Grammy

We're All Big Kids Now

2009-08-07T08:19:00.000-07:00

Perfect is nearing his big #3 and Precious just passed her #1. It seems like they have both been here for so long but it's really just been a drop in the bucket. They are still both so new. Yet it's hard to remember BP--Before the P's.

Precious graduated this week from her high chair to a booster chair and boy was she proud.

She couldn't wait until it was time for dinner and humored Grammy who was taking constant pictures while we were all sitting together for dinner.

We must be making great strides as even Perfect didn't grouse about the camera flashes going off while he was trying to eat. He was digging them mashed potatoes on Wednesday.

After dinner, Precious wasn't done with her chair.

She was just content to sit in her big chair and participate in what life popped her way----be it corn or crayons.

Yep, they're big kids now.

Nostaligic Grammy.

MY OWN SNOOPY DIVA

2009-08-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

Poor, poor Snoopy. She just gets herself in a twit over some things and then pays heavily and it crushes my heart watching her. She refuses to let anyone trim her nails. This normally docile doggy turns into a snarling, foaming at the mouth, stranger when someone tries to trim her nails---us, the groomers, her kennel lady, even the vet. So a few years ago, the vet suggested we bring her in, have her tranquilized, and they would trim her nails.

So we tried that a couple of times and believe it or not, she still fought the trimmers while under heavy sedation. But the vet's office was successful. After that the groomer was able to trim her nails a time or two.

Then last year when I took her in for her yearly shots and heartworm check, she fought tooth and nail against having blood taken out of her front leg----similar to how she fights nail trimming. The vet suggested that on her annual visit this year, why don't I bring her in, they'll tranq her, trim her nails, give her the required shots, and draw the blood for the heartworm test all at once.

So that was yesterday. She wasn't allowed food after midnight the night before and so at 5:30 a.m., I swear she is stomping her long-nailed feet on the kitchen floor trying to get my attention while she was standing in front of her food bowl. Repeatedly. Stomp, stomp, stomp.....long glare......stomp, stomp, stomp....long glare. Finally I tried to explain that she wasn't getting breakfast until later but hey, let's go on a car ride instead (oh the trickery).

Well, we were in the city and she sees the vet in the country, so we had a long drive first, stopping at Starbucks halfway to settle down my addictive cravings. Poor dog, was so hungry by this time, she was nosing around the hot coffee trying to get some sort of relief from her hunger.

Then arriving at the vet, she realized what was up and started to get her panic on but I was out the door. When I picked her up 3 hours later, the receptionist met me with, "My Lord, what a Drama Queen that dog is." They were successful in everything but they said she fought and cried vocally and with tears. She is a yellow lab mix and when she gets upset, she actually cries tears and so she has those brown tear tracks down her face (like you see on poodles).

She was ready to go, however, and usually likes to stop in the grass on the side of the building after her vet visits but was quite distressed that it was pouring rain (my fault, it seems). Another of her diva qualities is she refuses to get her feet wet. Hates, absolutely walking on anything wet. So she's shooting me these drug induced glares with tears running down her face and can't even use the bathroom because I'VE CAUSED THE GRASS TO BE WET, in addition to starving her, and making her come to the vet. How much more guilt could I endure.

Oh, it got better on the way home....an hour's drive, and she refused to lay down and sits in the front seat with me, hanging her head with her eyes shut and occasionally her feet starting to slide out from under her. By the time I got her home, I was promising never to make her go through anything like that ever again (but I probably will....next year) and let's just go into the house and have a long nap and some breakfast and all will be better.

I even went to dinner with an old friend, ordered steak (I'm usually the salad and pasta person), and brought home half of it to give to my own diva doggy to make amends again.

She seems fine this morning....Trotting through the house, having her breakfast on time, tail is wagging, all is forgiven.........until next year and she'll be calling me a liar on top of all the other.

Grammy with her own tail tucked in for now.

TIDBITS

2009-07-28T06:07:00.000-07:00

So we're finished moving and I haven't touched a box or heavy piece of furniture since Saturday night......so explain to me why I am still so sore EVERY morning that I've gotten up since. I could understand Sunday and maybe Monday but today is Tuesday and I still have issues when standing and taking those first steps. I quit screaming first thing, now it's just a low moan that carries me from the bedroom to the hallway.

This morning I think I've stumbled on one reason...I DREAMED I WAS MOVING ALL NIGHT LONG.....packing and lifting and carrying boxes. I have just gone insane, plain and simple.

But we're finished. I have renamed Massey Gardens #2 (since we've sold #1) Massey Ponds. I think we're going to like it over there, when we're finished unpacking and rehabbing.

I've "misplaced" one of my granddogs. Ginger H. The last dog that lived with DD and SIL. I was tasked to babysit her this past weekend and since it was a big moving weekend, I opted to leave her and Snoopy in the city house since I was coming back in the evening. Snoopy was quite anxious about a canine guest, so I put her in the house and gave Ginger H. the run of the yard. She had a nice bed on the back porch, fresh water, a rawhide chew bone and I fed her a good breakfast of Snoopy's food before I left. I had asked the neighbor to check on her in the evening because I might be coming in late and when she did, she discovered the gate was wide open and Ginger H. was gone. Who knew she could figure out how to open the gate. In four years, Snoopy has never even tried.

The neighbors drove around looking for her a bit and then called me in the country and I headed home. I looked all over for her and no luck. DD and SIL told me not to "stress" she runs away from everywhere and she'll be back. This happened on Friday and today is Tuesday and so far she hasn't came back. DD seems more upset over it now which makes me feel worse than I did initially. She is microchipped but didn't have her tags on her. So if she makes it to the Humane Society, she'll find her way back home but if a person has her, with no tags, that's pretty much impossible.

I did find it oddly comforting though on Saturday morning before I left for the country as I was driving around looking for her in the rain, I kept seeing rainbows. I really took those as a sign that she was fine....whereever she was. I'm superstitious like that.

I've been fighting poison ivy for two weeks now. Papa suggested maybe it was shingles instead and a neighbor seconded that suggestion. I've been using prescription cream and taking steriods but. it. just. won't. go. AWAY.

The P's spent last week (with their parent's) at the Lake and were reported to have had a fantastic time. Perfect reported he went fishing and caught corn (what they were using for bait). But now, both of them and DD are all sick with summer colds now. Poor P's.

So there are a few tidbits of life happening around me.

Until next time....Grammy

To-MA-to, TOM-a-TOE, TOE-MATER

2009-07-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here are some updates to our hanging upside down tomato plants.

Growing by leaps and bounds but nothing red....YET.

TOE-MATER GRAMMY

SUMMER AT THE POOL(S)

2009-07-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

We are always building pools at our house. I really think we should just get a pool built-in and be done with it all.

This is the first summer that Perfect needed a pool....(yes those are my legs, naturally I'm in there with him!)

Then last year we built this monstrosity.

Papa taking it for a test run.

and then Perfect.

Then this summer we decided to forgo the big pool monster and get something more manageable for tiny children.

Perfect seemed to really enjoy it...Precious, being the diva she is, didn't enjoy the spray in her face and passed.

So one country weekend, I found this and thought Precious would really enjoy it more.

She didn't.

Maybe next year will be a better pool year.

Persistent Pool-Purchaser Grammy

WALKING DEAD

2009-07-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

Can you be asleep (or actually unconscious) and still be walking around, somewhat functioning? That's exactly how I feel these days. We have suddenly sold Massey Gardens #1 and had three weekends to empty a house of nine years of living. Everything went to the rehabbable Massey Gardens #2.

No, of course it's not finished yet. We still have three rooms to do. Big rooms, like the kithen, dining room, and living room. But that didn't stop us from cramming a whole entire house into three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a storage room. We have yet to empty the garage or storage room in #1 but at least the new residents of #1 have the house empty for the most part, to move into.

And suddenly. Yessiree bub, that's exactly right. What went from "if so and so moves to #2, I think I'll buy #1 from you", into, "we have sold our house and need to move into #1 by 7/25".

I've been having difficulty with this suddenness and can't refrain from making snide comments about being "kicked out of my home" and pitching fits when Papa feels the need to spend a day mowing the grass.."it's not your's any more, let it grow". As well as the constant "you started the wheels rolling in this dog and pony show, so quit complaining".

Papa is, to put it plainly....lazy. He doesn't like packing, he doesn't like moving boxes around, he doesn't like going to town and begging for empty boxes, he doesn't like doing much whatsoever on the weekends but hey, this wasn't my idea (another of my often made comments the last few weekends).

I suppose I'll get over my negative attitude with regards to this and come to terms with it. #2, being the rehab, is going to be completely new and as we dismantle #1, we just see more and more that needed to be done (that we weren't getting to) to keep that house standing, so we're better off in that regard.

Also on the positive side, we're off the main road, so the teenage party boy behind us can do as he pleases, the hundred of cars passing by all night long won't be affecting us any more (ahem....we kept that tidbit to ourselves and didn't share this kid's new weekend activity with our new neighbors!)

What's so hard is that we are trying to accomplish this move only on weekends and still maintaining our normal life Monday-Friday,,,work, social obligations, summer fun, P Wednesdays, etc.

So far, we have managed, without counting the 24 hour asthma event I suffered from last week after spending a day cleaning out dusty cabinets with Mold registering 31,000 outside. My poor lungs can only take so much before they rebel and shut down. But 24 hours later (having slept 22 of those hours), I was back at the moving site!

Then we had Almost Step-Son's fit throwing Friday and leaving after 10 minutes because he felt we weren't organized to his specifications on his arrival to help move big furniture. I had a list of 17 pieces that were empty and ready to go but he fixated on the one room that wasn't packed up yet, threw a fit and left. Papa explained he just didn't want to help to begin with so "we don't need his stinkin' help."

So my neck screamed, my calves cramped up, and Papa and I started lifting and moving all we could. SIL came by and helped us out last Sunday with his arm wrapped up in an ace bandage with a pain patch (sprained wrist from doing laundry----that's an entire blog in itself for later). We just treated him as a mover with 100% capabilities and trod on.

Papa sold some old dirt bikes to a co-worker and when he arrived and they got all the bikes loaded up in his truck,,,,we sprung on him and his wife that we needed some help moving a piece of furniture. That was an understatement. It took him, his wife, Papa and I all to move a piano (no I don't play, I won it in a raffle).

Papa had suggested a couple of weekends ago that maybe I should sell it because it is so hard to move but all I could picture was the movie Cold Mountain and the piano going down the road in a horse-pulled wagon. If Ada Monroe can have her piano moved under those conditions, during a war to boot. I, at least, could have mine moved across the road with me! So my heels dug in and my beloved, unused piano moved to #2.

So in a nutshell, that is what I've been up to the last month, hence no blogs. Things are settling down, we see the light at the end of the moving tunnel (more rehabbing hasn't been set to schedule just yet) but I'll have a little more spare time for blogging and such now.

Your beat down, worn out Grammy.

MORE BOTANICALS

2009-06-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

I keep finding more pictures on my camera of things I've been growing here, there, and everywhere!

At Massey Gardens One, we have the routine, run of the mill daylilies.

They are growing at the house as well as growing wild everywhere I see as I drive around the countryside.

Then we have Massey Gardens Two, the property we are rehabbing and possibly moving to in the near future. The things over there are, for the most part, wild and untended. I see a lot work for this black-thumbed Grammy.

I'm not sure exactly what this is, but it was a pretty bloom the last time I was over.

I have tried to get Pampas Grass to grow over at Massey Gardens One with no success---actually I think Papa keeps mowing it down. But here at Massey Gardens Two it is growing wild and needs to be tamed a bit.

I'll put that on the list of things to do late fall!

Then back at the city house, I have these

I'm sensing a purple color scheme this year!! Everywhere I look, I have planted purple flowers!

Then lastly, Papa was visiting a friend and came home gushing about these upside down tomato plants his friend had planted. I looked around at some stores here and there and never noticed anything like that. One afternoon, we went out specifically looking for them and inquiring with salepeople. No luck.

Then I got on the internet and actually found the site https://www.topsyturvy.com/?cid=631718 and ordered us some hangers. Then I had to go out and procure some plants. I bought two Big Boys and two sweet cherry tomatoes for salads. Then we planted, filling each hanger with an entire bag of potting soil.

Then where to hang? These suckers were heavy. AH...the clothes line pole that never sees any other use!

So here are the "baby pictures"...Since we've planted about 3 weeks ago, they are growing by leaps and bounds. Amazing the amount they grow every day. I'll try to get an photo update on here in the next day or so. They have blooms and we are hoping by August 1, we might have our first fruit!!

Have you heard about my color change? The black-thumb seems to be lightening up and having some hints of green on it.

Planting Grammy

Return of the Attack Lilies!

2009-06-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

OK, I'm back continuing from last week. So three years ago, I bought these small colorful flowers for my front bed at the city house. Filled the whole thing up with colorful annuals, I thought but every time I receive a mum (for some reason, I receive these as gifts quite frequently), I also plant it in the same bed.

Then last year, these 'things' start growing out there. Who knew I had mistakenly planted a perennial, that wasn't a mum, something that would actually return for a second year, me of the black thumb.

But what were they. Daily, I watched these things in amazement grow and grow until about July, they started blooming. Lilies. And they were gorgeous.

So this year when the lily "trees" sprouted and started heading to the sky, I wasn't as surprised. Although they are more---have multiplied and are much bigger. Everyone that has seen them have commented they have never seen such big lilies. DD says they are a bit scary.

The P's were a little hesitant as well.

I can actually lay in bed with the window open (when it's not 100 degrees outside) and look eye to eye to lilies!

They are mine. I planted them. They grew. And now I want enlist in some sort of gardening club or plant show to show them off......well, maybe not. But I am so proud of my new babies, I have started helping them stay alive but watering them daily (it IS 100 degrees here EVERY DAY lately).

Green Thumb Granny!

WALKING....AFTER MIDNIGHT

2009-06-17T06:25:00.000-07:00

So I try, I really do. When it's not raining or if I'm not completely exhausted, I set my alarm for 5 a.m. and take Snoopy for a walk around the block. I rather enjoy these walks once I get out the door.

The problem is usually getting out the door. So many times after a middle of the night bathroom run, I reset the alarm for that extra 30 minutes of sleep. I have to reset before it goes off because if it should go off, I have no choice. Snoopy is right there with her cold, wet nose and wagging tail expecting at 5 a.m. to go on a walk and at 5:30 to go outside and get fed breakfast at the very least.

And I swear to God, the dog can tell time. Somehow she has figured out the big numbers on the alarm clock because if I should not set the alarm on the weekends for example (if I stay in the city), she is still there at 5:30 trying to be the responsible pet and make sure her person is up and taking care of things. You laugh, but I actually turn the clock away from her sight at the country house on the weekends so she won't know the time. This causes all sorts of confusion from her waking me at 3 a.m. demanding breakfast to me waking her up when I get up (those are the heavenly days)---we have more of the first kind, however.

Anyway, back to our walks....it's just getting light when I go out (summer starts on Sunday, so the days will begin to shorten on me soon), and it's quiet. There are a few lights on in the houses but for the most part, the neighborhood is still sound asleep and no cars are moving anywhere.

Occasionally, I'll see the neighborhood police car rounding the block with me. For some reason, this usually happens when Snoopy is happily using someone's yard as her toilet and I have to make a big show of removing my "responsible" plastic bag from my pocket. Our neighborhood newsletter harps every month about being a "responsible" dog walker and "clean up after your dogs."

We see alot of cats running around this time, going home from wherever their nightly travels have taken them and the occasional squirrel. No dogs barking though which is odd. When we walk in the evening, dogs bark constantly while walking the whole circle around the block. Guess our neighborhood dogs must be inside sleeping too.

My neighbor's light is usually on---the young boy that lives alone. His parents have seemed to have abandoned him for their own lives which is sad. He lives alone and has finished high school finally and is a pizza delivery driver now. His dad comes over every couple of days to check on him and I suppose get the mail but otherwise this kid is left to his own devices. For someone that young, we are very lucky, he doesn't seem to be a big partyer. He has friends over but they stay inside and are relatively quiet. I always wonder if he justs stays up all night and sleeps during the day or what, to explain his lights being on.

Halfway, around the block, there is a light on in a bedroom and every morning, a woman is sitting at a computer in her bedroom. Is she just surfing or actually working from home at this hour? Who knows.

Then I come to the house that puts a smile on my face every morning because it reminds me of Fantastic Son. He works very early hours so they can get off work before the high heat of afternoon occurs in the cactus state. He's also one for carpooling whenever he can work out his job site with where his current co-workers live.

Anyway, every morning, a young guy in a pick-up truck pulls into this driveway and sits there a minute. The lights are on at the house so the occupant(s) are/should be awake. The truck driver sits there about a minute and then he honks and sometimes honks a second time (I bet his neighbors love him!) before the guy in the house opens the door and waves or pulls aside the curtains and waves. Then a few minutes later he finally comes out of the house.

This is amusing to me because I am usually rounding the corner when this truck drives down the street and I witness all this as I'm walking up the street and pass the house and usually by the time I'm halfway down the street, I hear the truck backing out of the driveway and off they go to work. This scenario is the same EVERY day. I wonder why the guy at the house is never ready when his driver pulls in and for some reason FS comes to mind and I smile.

Everyone's just doing their best.

Until later....Grammy

Grammy's Botanical Garden

2009-06-15T11:29:00.001-07:00

OK, so I write once a week now! It's summer, I have houses to rehab and clean, shopping to do, P's activities once a week, books to try to read, and the list goes on and on.

Things are getting pretty out early summer---I'm still weeding and stuff is starting to bloom. Between you and me though, I have the blackest thumb there is and can keep very little alive. Vines are about the only thing that I water that stays alive (possibly because they need little water!!) But I am having a run on other colorful botanicals this summer.

First a few years ago, I was salivating for a mimosa tree and a friend from work came back from a Michigan vacation and gave me stick (that's about what it looked like). Actually, backing up the year before, she came back with some seed pods which I planted with no success. So here she comes with this stick, actually two sticks that she said were the beginnings of mimosa trees--my favorite.

Well, we had been saving the ashes of our dear, departed collie (sitting in a box in the front closet since 2000) to bury under something special, so I took a mimosa "stick" and the box of ashes and went and planted it on the side of the house where it is to this day...just a stick sticking out of the ground.

The second stick I planted on the side of the driveway and lo and behold,

It has yet to bloom those beautiful, fuzzy pink flowers but it is sure growing by leaps and bounds. Guess the soil there was a bit richer than dead collie ashes.

So the next project that just landed in my lap was cactus growing. It all started with a margarita a year ago.

I thought, this glass would be perfect to grow a cactus in---Senorita Cha-Cha is her name. She has a partner Senor Bob but as I was getting on a plane shortly after lunch, I figured one of these was all I needed at that time. But Fantastic Son was tasked to come again for dinner and procure my Cha-Cha's buddy.

So Cha-Cha waited until Bob could join her which he did this spring when we again journeyed out to the cactus state. I also bought a package of giant saguero seeds to plant in the palm/cactus soil (another search for far and wide---you just can't plant cactus in our run of the mill Missouri potting soil). So I had a matching set of "planters", cactus seeds, special soil and after putting it all together, it started raining and raining and raining until the cups fillled up and overflowed with water along with my giant saguero seeds.

But alas, while shopping at Lowe's last week, I ran across these

Which is what I wanted to do in the first place but couldn't find cactus at the time. And you see they are living inside currently in the window where they get ample sun when it's not raining---

So when the midwest drought starts up one of these days, they'll be moved outside where I'm sure they'll flourish as long as I can keep them alive until then.

Ok, so that's not such a colorful blog...more to come...

Grammy's tired today.

Squeaker and The Others

2009-06-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Yesterday afternoon I had to drive back into the city from the country for a funeral visitation (see earlier blog). Afterwards, I stopped in at the city house to drop off some things I had bought during some Saturday morning shopping, changed clothes, and headed back to the country as I promised Papa he would have me there on Sunday for some rehabbing work at Massey Gardens Two (our property across the road from Massey Gardens One, where we live).

I took a longer way back to the country, what we call the "western" route because it involves a longer drive through the country versus the main route which is mostly highway driving. An evening drive in the country is the best remedy for the blues or any melancholy that sets in. Smelling the "green" growing, fresh mown grass or hay, even dead skunks on the road, seem to make it seem that all's right with the world (except, of course, for the fate of the skunks).

So I was coming back a little later than I thought and after a call home that included a dinner order, I had to make another detour before heading to the house. About a mile from the house we have two camps--United Church of Christ camps. The front camp has a large pool, and barracks style lodging and then a little farther down the road is the second camp which are primitive cabins.

As I was driving past the first camp, there in the road was this tiny dog outfitted with a red bandana around her neck and red bows on top of her ears. She was obviously very upset about her predicament in the road and as I had just met two cars driving up the road, she had probably been a near-miss road kill and was scared to death. I stopped and opened the car door to check to see if she had a collar and she immediately jumped in the car and settled in under my feet and wasn't moving. She didn't have a collar on and I wasn't sure what to do with her.

I called Papa and told him to meet me in the driveway sans Snoopy who is notoriously jealous of any and all other animal these days and drove the last mile home. As soon as I got home, we both got a good look at the dog and determined, yes, she did belong to someone. She was well groomed and accessorized as mentioned above. Papa said she had to belong to someone and I needed to take her back where I found her. I was torn about this. I couldn't just drop her back out on the road, it was late and dark and I would feel horrible if I saw later that she had been killed on the road.

That has happened before. I was driving into town one afternoon and saw this beagle running in the road, obviously dumped. On the way back home, I saw the same beagle dead in the road having been hit by a car. I just felt awful.

OK, I'm going to burst another bubble about country living. The saddest thing we have discovered since moving out here are the people who dump their animals in the country versus taking them to the humane society or some other alternative if they find they can't keep their pet for some reason.

You can always tell the dumped animals. They just have confused behavior. They run up to cars or sometimes chase your car hoping you'll stop or maybe they think you are their owner coming back to retrieve them. Other animals are just scared to death. They'll be out in the road and if you stop, they run back into the woods afraid of everything.

I can't tell you how many animals we've seen like this. There was a rental house up the road and the people moved out and left their dog. Day after day, as we came home, we would see this poor dog sitting on the front porch waiting for his people to return. Papa and I went home and got some lunchmeat one evening and tried to coax him to follow us home but he just wouldn't leave that house. Then one day he was just gone. I wondered what happened to him and Papa being the realist he is, said one of the farmers living nearby probably just shot him or something. I really don't want to hear things like that.

One morning I was driving home from somewhere and again by the camps were two puppies. They were going to be big dogs because they were big puppies. They were covered with mud as it had been raining and I couldn't let them in the car. I managed to get an address and phone number from their collars (the difference between dumped dogs and lost dogs---lost dogs will have collars and tags, dumped dogs just have a worn spot around their neck where a collar once was, their owners do not want to be contacted).

Anyway, I called the number and no answer and as the address on their collar was the next road I was coming to, I just drove slow with the window down urging these lost puppies to follow me. Eventually we made it to the address on their collars which happened to be the last house on the road and newly built. No one was home but the puppies behavior indicated to me they knew they were home. The garage was open and there was a large kennel in the garage and so I got both puppies in the kennel and locked the door. I called the number once again and left a message that I had kenneled the puppies in their garage and left my phone number for their owners in case they had a question and wanted to contact me.

Late that night, I got a call from the owners thanking me for retrieving their puppies. They indicated that they let them run loose and until that day, the puppies had never left the yard but now they knew they would so would watch them closer in the future. It was funny because about a year later, I saw these same two dogs, fully grown and very large indeed, frolicking along the side of the road in about the same place I had found them the previous year. This time, I just shook my head and kept on driving.

And one final story....This is how Snoopy came to live with us. She was also a dumped dog. Papa's father had passed away and we were emptying his house which was also in the country not too far from our country home. It was raining outside and we were hurrying up securing our last load and this little dog came running up into the yard and jumped up on my leg and wrapped her paws around my leg and just held on. She was so little and so cute but Papa said she probably belonged to one of the neighbors, so I fixed her bowl of water that I left on the back porch and we left for the day.

Well, the next day when we returned, there she was again still sitting on the back porch as if waiting for us. She hung around us all day as we worked and everytime we left with a load, she was sitting on the porch and when we returned to get another load, she was still there waiting for us. Some neighbors stopped by and we asked them if they knew who she belonged to and they said they had never seen her before and was probably just another dog that was dumped in the country.

As the day came to a close and we were just about done with the moving, Papa finally said if she's there when we are done, we can take her home with us but 1) He wanted to name her, and 2) She had to stay outside.

Well we brought her home and I went up to Walmart and got some supplies for her and a large kennel for her to stay in on the front porch. We were pretty good about her staying outside but we were responsible as well. We didn't let her run loose for her own safety, so when we were gone, she had to stay in her kennel or on her tree trolley in the yard.

At the time, we still had our other dog who was an inside housedog so after an afternoon of playing out together, we would let one dog in the house while Snoopy would stand at the door as if to ask, "why can't I come in as well." So we slowly started to erase those lines of division between the two dogs and treat them more and more the same, letting Snoopy inside too.

So I do have a soft spot for these dumped dogs because Snoopy has become so much an integral part of our family and she started out as just another dumped dog (she was approximately 3 months old per the vet when she was dumped).

Anyway back to Saturday night. Since I had picked up this dog around the camps, I figured maybe she belonged to someone staying there and decided to start there in my quest. I drove up to the main camp and went up to the house where the caretaker lives, knocked, and asked him if he knew anything about this dog (who was refusing to leave my car). She was, in fact, his dog, Squeaker, and according to him, had never went all the way up to the road before. He was very surprised at that behavior. He called and called her but she was refusing to leave the car (I think it may have had something to do with the bags of McDonalds I picked up in town for our dinner) but finally I picked her up and brought her back to the owner who thanked me profusely. So Squeaker was back home safe and sound albeit deprived of a cheeseburger.

The common denominator of the stories about the "lost" dogs is that noone thinks their dog will ever deviate from previous known behavior (i.e., leave the yard). But they do, they are curious and they explore and they get lost and they get theirselves in dangerous situations.

The stories abut the dumped dogs are a little harder to take but know that dumping your dog in the country thinking that maybe a kind farmer will take them in is pure fiction. Most farmers will just as soon shoot a stray dog than try to assimilate them in their lives. The strays are of unknown temperment and disease and if they have farm dogs, they don't want to risk any unknowns around their pets.

We are the exception in that we took in a cute puppy and made her a part of our family and are so lucky that she turned out to be a wonderful pet.

So that ends today's PSA......

Signing off for now......Grammy

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

2009-06-05T09:06:00.001-07:00

Our country home is about 8 miles from the nearest town, off the main highway that runs east-west, and then off a secondary road that winds through the countryside for about 3 miles until our third turn-off which runs an additional 3 miles. This last road was paved for the first two miles and then the pavement runs out and the gravel was what you drove on the rest of the way. They have been working on our road, the gravel section, for several months now, widening it and installing new culverts.

Then two weeks ago I discovered when driving out to the country that it has been paved.

This is looking from our private road to where our trashcans sit at the end of our road. This junction is also where any school buses stop when we have school-age kids living on our road. Now I wonder if they'll feel like they are half-country, half-city kids? At least they won't be "eating dust" now while waiting in the morning.

Looking towards town.

Looking to the west.

It was a little strange, not hitting the gravel at a certain point. For 9 years, we hit gravel at that same spot and exhaled "we're in the country now."

It thoroughly confused Snoopy on our drive. She always gets a little more wiggly when she hears us hit the gravel---almost there!

I'm torn about this "improvement" on our country road. It's good in that it cuts down on the dust and in the winter, that road will get the snow plowed from it now. But that's my walking "route" as well. I've yet to take a walk down the new paved road.

Actually, I'm a little wary of walking on it now as the cars go flying down that road and without the gravel crunching under the tires, I won't be able to hear one coming my way.

Snoopy roams at will on our walks, off her leash, and when I would hear the tires crunching on the road from afar, I was able to yell to her to come to me and then keep her out of the road until the car passed. I surely won't hear a car coming now and the road is so windy, you don't get far vision of anything approaching, so it's gotten to be a dangerous endeavor.

So I'm not sure if we would even be safe walking on that road and definitely Snoopy will have to be leashed on it. To keep ourselves safe now, we walk repeatedly up and down our private road which is about 1/8th of a mile.

It's still gravel and we feel safe.

The scenery doesn't change much....going back and forth....but so far Snoopy hasn't noticed, she has plenty to check out along the road no matter how many times we walk it.

Still in the country.....Grammy

Sobering Events

2009-06-05T05:59:00.001-07:00

Well, as I've said before when I get OBE (overcome by events) my writing EVERYWHERE is what suffers the most. You know, sometimes you get too tired to even string a couple of words together and I haven't figured out how to spell grunts yet.

Had a rough week or so. A friend from work was killed in a car accident last week and I went to the funeral visitation earlier in the week. I usually do OK at funeral homes now versus my behavior a few years ago (better left untold). But right off the bat, as soon as I walked in the door. What did I see? Her dog, who had a bed next to the casket with a stuffed bunny on it and a pair of my deceased friend's shoes. Oh my lord. Now seeing as I cry at "touching" commercials these days, seeing that led to extreme weepiness all the way to the widower who was chatty and dry-eyed. How terrible if I had to explain, the tears weren't for the losing of his wife/my friend, but for the sad dog laying on the dog bed. (Not that I was unaffected by the loss of my friend and co-worker.)

Papa has commented that he doesn't understand how I can watch grisly true crime stuff on tv but if I'm watching a movie where an animal is molested in some way (let alone killed), I fall apart and usually end up leaving the room (a movie where in reality the animal is just another actor and is just fine). Yeah, I don't understand it either.

Then this week I learned that some good friends from high school lost their youngest son in a horrendous way. That threw me for another loop, so I've spent countless hours dwelling on life in general and am thankful that Fantastic Son especially (but all the other offspring of Papa and I as well) made it to adulthood and seem to be happy and living life. My heart goes out to the parents of Alex.

Otherwise the last weeks or so have been rather mundane in other areas.

Until later....Grammy

GENERAL "HOUSEKEEPING"

2009-05-15T16:57:00.000-07:00

Friday again, whew. Why am I exhausted always on Fridays? Today I spent the afternoon (after working all morning and spending 3 hours on the phone with the Help people because I got a virus on my computer at work--a nasty little leach but all's well) doing a little spring cleaning--washing windows, washing and ironing curtains, cleaning out a closet, etc. Maybe that's it.

So I figured I would do some blog "housekeeping" as well. No topics, just a bunch of things that the "morning breezes" filled my brain with at 1 a.m. this morning when I couldn't sleep.

First, I have to tell you I read the most interesting book, ERNIE http://www.amazon.com/Ernie-Autobiography-Ernest-Borgnine/dp/0806529415/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1242432562&sr=8-4 I had never read anything about Ernest Borgnine (why would I?) but as I read this book (that someone at work told me about), I was amazed at how many movies or tv shows over the years that I've watched that he was in. It was astounding. And now he's doing a voice on Sponge Bob Squarepants.

Anyway, if you are looking for a good read, you will enjoy this. I was very pleasantly surprised and even went out to find a website or someplace where I could send him a note. Technology is marvelous that way. That's how I stumbled onto JA's and Louise's blogs. I read their books and wanted to send them a note saying how much I enjoyed them and found their emails quite easily and was able to correspond with them. We're all just people, right? Not so with Ernie. Guess after 70 years of being a celebrity, he lives up in the unapproachable clouds somewhere. Didn't seem that way in his book, he sounded very approachable. Hey, Ernie, if you stumble across MY blog, send me a note, I'd like to chat.

Second, did you watch the Lost finale? I was shocked by the amount of blood on all these people. Jack, Sawyer, and Juliet were just covered. A little over the top IMO.

Third, seems Gulliver got bit by a brown recluse and let it go for three weeks and it turned into a nasty staph infection (all the way down to the bone according to the Professor). He finally was in so much pain, an ambulance was summoned, and he had emergency surgery the other night (I am surprised they didn't amputate the leg) to clean out the infection. He had a second "cleansing surgery" this morning and seems to be doing OK.

Gulliver is currently annoyed at and not talking to me. He asked my opinion on some plans he had made and I gave him a negative report. It is something he's done twice in the past with negative results. What does Papa say to me all the time "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." So on that note, we'll go on to

Fourth, Aunt Cracker and I seem to be on the same wavelength alot of time and thinking about each other at the same time. I guess that is normal for old friends.

She is on vacation right now in Florida and due back the middle of next week. I wish she would hurry and get home. She and The Weatherman are on a much needed vacation, they both work pretty hard BUT I feel all out of sorts when she is out of town. Yes, I know I can call her any time but she's on vacation and I won't.

It's just when she is "gone" I always feel nervous, like I'm on a tightrope. That's how I feel most of the time anyway but she's here in case I fall. I know I can call any of my other Elders at any time, but they're not quite Cracker. I've only had to call her one time when I fell but you never know when another trip, stumble, or plunge might happen. So Cracker hurry up and come home.

So I was thinking about this feeling all nervous aboout it all very early this morning and when the alarm FINALLY went off, I noticed I had a message on my cell phone. A text message from Cracker. She was at a dive bar and wished we were there. Not sure what a dive bar is....she is in Florida, so a dive bar as in scuba divers? Or a bar that is a real dive (as in MO slang)? I'll have to get a report when she returns. Anyway, guess we were both thinking of the other in the early morning hours.

Ok between cleaning windows and thinking deep thoughts, I'm pretty whipped for the day.

Waiting patiently for Ernie's email........Grammy

THE "THREE"

2009-05-13T06:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to write a little more about the "Three bonus kids". Papa and I so enjoyed being around them but not being used to little kids in such huge doses, sometimes it was a little trying.

The oldest, Chatty, was a typical oldest girl. She seemed responsible for the others and was a bit bossy like oldest siblings usually are.

Her and Papa hit it off though and by the 3rd day, I realized she'd stake out the bedroom we were staying in (as she was the first out of bed at the crack of dawn) and as soon as Papa opened the door--thinking he would be able to get out for an early smoke an some solitary tv time--there she was, ready for fun and games with a new "victim."

Both her and her brother love to play games and it wasn't unusual for them to involve Papa in an early game of Chutes and Ladders or some sort of card game BEFORE breakfast and getting ready for school. This Grammy was on vacation, however, and enjoyed just laying in bed listening and letting it all happen without her. And for the week we were there, every morning, Papa still thought he would get away with his morning plans....not so with a determined 7 year old.

Still, the brother, seemed a little bit more reserved. He enjoyed games but seemed to let his oldest sister run the show and make the plans. Serious Girlfriend said he seems to be the most affected about her divorce and not being around his father all the time. He craves male companionship and took to Papa and I can see he is very close to FS as well. I noticed this especially on the Grand Canyon trip, he wanted to hang with the other "boys" alot and daringly walk close to the edge (with Papa usually having hold of him somehow).

He was more quiet than the girls but it was touching when he told his father that the Grand Canyon trip was his "greatest adventure." That makes a person feel good that you provided a "great adventure" for someone.

Then there is the Wild Child.

Can't you just see it in her face. She is so tiny and innocent but after a few days Papa announced "she is the instigator"! SG agreed but says it's for survival purposes having an older brother and sister. Wild likes to play games (or just be involved) but rules---we don't need no stinkin' rules. We got used to playing games and letting her just participate in whatever way she wanted on her turn while the rest of us followed the game's rules. We learned real fast, trying to teach her, just went in one ear and out the other. But she was so darn cute and her eyes just twinkled and smiled without her mouth moving that you couldn't get upset with her.

And that in a nutshell are the "Three". Can't wait to see them again and hope they get to come and have Christmas with us this year.

Later....Grammy

Vacation--Part Tres

2009-05-11T12:24:00.000-07:00

I left off of this fascinating story on Thursday, Fantastic Son's birthday. For the most part, this vacation was really pretty dull. We took alot of naps but as for activities, we couldn't get motivated to do too much. We did have two activities that were....fun?!

Friday night, we went to Friday Night Franks at old Fort McDowell, somewhere north of Scottsdale. We really had a nice time there. It is an actual old Fort that is on the Yavapai reservation. The Yavapai run the nearby "Indian" casinos and they are trying to attract people over to the old fort for various other activites.

Friday Night Franks was all about hot dogs though, pretty simple. They sold raw dogs and brats that we cooked ourselves over the fire (also smores for dessert). They sold soft drinks and beer very cheap, had a live band, free wagon rides, and every hour a Yavapai would gather the crowd around and tell a story (mostly for the kids' benefit, but we enjoyed them as well).

It was really a beautiful place.

Saturday morning, after Friday Night Franks, we got up early to head for a day trip to the Grand Canyon, our other "activity". Serious Girlfriend and the kids have never been there and have lived in AZ for years and years and I've been three times already. (It's like STL people that have never went up to the top of the Arch!)

But our second activity started on a rough note. Seems FS didn't thoroughly cook his brats from the night before and we, diagnosed that after the fact, he had food poisoning. He woke up Saturday extremely ill but didn't want us to postpone the trip. The Three's had been looking forward to it and had even declined attending a birthday party in favor of a visit to the Big Hole.

So the 7 of us loaded up in the car and after a few stops for various refreshments, headed north, only having to pull over once for FS to throw up and he never used his puke bags, which was a plus. (DD, remember your airplane trips while pregnant and us collecting all the airsick bags for you!!) We left balmy 80 degree Phoenix and drove up the mountain and arrived at Grand Canyon just before noon to sunny, 42 degrees with 50 mph winds (you figure out that wind chill). Of course, the kids didn't have enough clothes on, hence their wearing adult sweatshirts in alot of this pictures! I swear that is the coldest place I go repeatedly but gorgeous all the same and Still told his dad that night on the phone it was his "greatest adventure".

Papa and Chatty

Grammy and FS (hard to smile, when your teeth are chattering)!

Greatest Adventure! The poor things look miserable!

He is such a great Papa!!

Me and The Three's.

It is a beautiful thing though.

Pondering the wonders of the world......Grammy

P.S. This ends our virtual vacation....the rest was alot of eating, napping, and shopping.

PARTIES

2009-05-11T08:08:00.000-07:00

Before I continue our "serial vacation blog", I need to report on the past two weekends. Papa and I had attended two parties at both ends of the spectrum and I found it very amusing.

The weekend before last, we were invited to New Melle for the 50th birthday party of one of Papa's good friends from the past, wife. (That is sure ugly sentence structure, but I'm sure you get what I'm saying.)

We drove over around dusk. They live in a very rural area on top of a mountain (and I am not exaggerating when I say mountain). We made it as far as we could, about 2/3's of the way up the mountain before we had to abandon our car and start walking. This was where "side of the road" parking ended or started, however, you look at it. We knew there would be no better parking farther up the mountain. So we walked on to the top and the house and the party which was inside (upstairs and down), outside around a huge bonfire, and all around the porch which was all around the house, and more people were found by the garage, a little farther up the road. ALOT OF PEOPLE and a party remnant of Papa's wilder days evidenced by the crowd of people and the size of the crowd--Denise is a much-loved woman.

Since I knew very few people there, I engaged in people watching which was quite interesting; visualizing what these people looked like in their younger days. Now it was alot of gray hair and balding heads and there were quite a few kids (and grandkids) in tow. But these party-goers were trying their best to recapture party days of their youth---liquid (and other) libations flowed freely and there was quite a bit of Skynard mixed in with the country music now playing on the stereo blasting out over the top of the mountain. A good time was being had by all.

It was touching a few days later to receive a thank you card from the birthday woman just saying thanks for coming to her party--WOW, wonder if every one got one of these? What a lady!

Then this past Saturday night we ventured out to Jonesburg for a daytime BBQ at another of Papa's friends. Actually, this person was a childhood friend of Papa's brother but grew, over the years, to be friends with Papa as well. He is a retired St. Louis City police officer who built his dream house in the country a few years ago.

It was a beautiful drive over on a sunny, warm Saturday afternoon. Beautiful country and beautiful house he lives in. This party consisted of several different groups that Bob is involved in. He is in a Car Club (they refurbish old hot rods) and he is also a musician, playing the guitar. The music is what sucked us in this afternoon surprisingly. I figured the car club people would be the main focus of Papa's interest since he just bought his own old hot rod to refurbish.

When we arrived, there were several people sitting around playing music. Just a very long impromtu jam session. There were guitars, mandolins, yukeleles, big bass instruments (that stood up), a fiddler (different than a violinist she told us), a drummer (who looked like he was straight out of the confederacy) and a banjo.

People came and went during the day but it seemed like every new person that walked up the driveway was carrying an instrument case of some sort. What was so amazing to us was that most of these people (the musicians) didn't know each other. It started as a few who knew each other and they brought a friend who told a friend and the people kept coming. Some left to go play at some bluegrass festival close by but there were plenty of folks there to take their place. We heard everything from bluegrass and gospel music to southern rock and current popular songs.

So talented of musicians these people were. They would play a song and in between introduce themselves to the others in the group and talk about this song or that and then one would start playing and the rest would join in and no one was shy about singing. Sometimes that left alot to be desired but I envied them just bursting out in song and music.

They would play and play and then in between songs, someone would get up to go visit or get some food and another person would walk up to the group and pick up an instrument and immediately be joining in.

It was just an unbelieveable afternoon and evening and Papa and I enjoyed ourselves spending the day this way.

Those were the fun parties......I'll have to write later about our neighborhood parties......that have been going on for TEN WEEKS......but maybe I'll wait until I have a conclusion as Grammy and Papa are about to introduce our 15 year old neighbor and his mother (the MILF or so it says on her car windows in blue puffy paint) to the Franklin County Sheriff in the very near future.

Signing off after an amazing round of social activity.....Grammy

Serial Vacation - Part Deux

2009-05-08T06:54:00.000-07:00

As our story continues, we have arrived in Phoenix, retrieved by Fantastic Son, and taken to his new house to settle in. House was very nice but we really missed Serious Girlfriend's built-in pool that was at the other house during our week.

FS lives here with SG and her three kids, three dogs, one cat, and a bird. Our dove, Chase, that I sent to live with him about 3 years ago---I found out that this sort of bird lives forever (or close to it) and he was driving us insane so it was a choice of him going to live in AZ or us "setting him free." Anyway, compared to Papa and I's calm, quiet, routine days with Snoopy, it was a wild, chaotic week.

The naming of the three: The four year old is easy---we'll now refer to her as Wild Child. Older sister is Chatty Cathy and the middle son will now be known as Still (as in Still Waters Run Deep). I've heard middle children have it rough but to be the boy between two sisters, I can imagine his pain.

"The Three" hit the door running at 3:30 and shyness occurred for all of about 30 seconds. If FS isn't working, The Three's dad drops them off from school about this time every day where FS helps them with their homework (I know, it kind of took me aback EVERY DAY when I watched this-love those skulls!) and starts dinner for the family.

I knew you wouldn't believe this without pictures!

So Wednesday night we sampled a little of their "family life".

Thursday was FS's 24th birthday and sometime while I napped that day, an unicycle was purchased by Papa for FS.

Papa owns one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaWrguizD1o (cut and paste this in your browser for another giggle)

and believes everyone should have one and learn to ride. This Grammy is too darn clumsy to even give it a whirl and I have no circus aspirations.

We capped off the evening with a birthday dinner out.

OK, a serial needs at least three parts!!!

Until our next installment....Grammy

THE CACTUS STATE OF AFFAIRS-SPRING 2009

2009-05-07T07:43:00.000-07:00

Oh vacations. Don't you just love them?! We used to take 2-3 vacations a year, going to different places and seeing new sights but after a few less than pleasant experiences, we've trimmed back considerably and this is the first vacation we've been on since last July (which actually was just a long weekend in Memphis with a side trip to Mississippi). So we've been long overdue for a getaway.

Going to Phoenix doesn't actually seem like a typical vacation since we've been there (and all over the state of AZ) several times already. It's become almost a second home for us, we're so comfortable there.

We started out as usual with Papa complaining about having to miss a baseball game on Sunday. Papa plays in an old guys baseball league that goes from April until October. Although I do try to schedule activities around the 7 months of the season, I inevitably schedule something where he has to miss a game here or there and his complaining knows no end.

Papa batting.....notice the large crowds! I use to go to his games quite frequently but once made a comment about their age (just jokingly) and Papa banned me from the stands for a year. When I was allowed to return, the allure had been tabled so I go only now and again.

Here is a father/son game.....Papa is in the Browns uniform and Almost Step-Son is front and center in white sleeveless t-shirt.

Earth to Grammy----boy, what a tangent I went off there----back to vacation.....

We were using some of Papa's frequent flyer miles and let me tell you what a pain those are. From our experience they are not the least bit pleasant to use as a way of travel. You don't get to fly when you want, you fly when they say, at horrible times in the morning or night, odd days (we left on a Wednesday), connecting flights with long layovers, and you are in boarding groups that board last. It's almost like they want you NOT to use the FFM or even fly (on American).

The only positive was we got to check bags for free on the outbound flight. For some reason, they didn't honor this arrangement on our way home and no amount of arguing worked to change their minds. I've noticed several times that airline personnel are passive/aggressive. They tell you how things are and when you argue about an injustice, they just turn off and ignore you. This infuriates me but how can you argue when the other person is ignoring you. And it's not just me, with all the time I've spent in airports the last two weeks, I've noticed this alot. Must be in the training manual or something.

So our flight was for 6 a.m. (read my Dark Morning blog) which meant we needed to leave for the airport before 5 and that was pushing it close. We thought a Wednesday at that time, the airport would be deserted but we were quite wrong. It was packed with long lines at security. We were starting to worry a bit about making our flight but we did with Starbucks in hand and headed out on leg one to Dallas.

Dallas/Fort Worth airport wasn't bad, just huge and they have these Skylinks to ride on from terminal to terminal. Papa had been there before, so he was familiar with everything, but I was acting like an astonished 3 year old and embarrassing him! We did have a relatively short wait between flights on this leg and were on the plane to Phoenix before we knew it.

Since Phoenix is like a second home, Sky Harbor is as familiar to us as Lambert Airport. We maneuvered our way around there getting our bags and directing Fantastic Son to where we were waiting for his pick-up with no problems.

FS has been working sporadically most of this year due to the economy and good for us--he wasn't working during our visit, but not so good for him. He has been told work should pick up this month when some large permits are obtained by the contractors. I hope so.

We lunched (although it was only 9:30 a.m.) at a cute diner (called "5 and Diner" http://www.5anddiner.com/history.html) and went to his and Serious Girlfriend's new house.

No, they do not have Christmas decorations up still...this was taken the week they moved in just before Christmas.

Ok, we are going to do a blog mini-series now......stay tuned for our continuing saga coming soon.

Grammy

Easter

2009-05-06T10:44:00.000-07:00

I think after Christmas that Easter is my favorite holiday. It might have something to do with the coming of spring. It was also one of my favorite holidays when I was a young girl. I remember getting all dressed up, usually at my Grandmother's house where we would travel to for that weekend. Then she would haul us all to church with her. Then we would come back for a huge Easter dinner (guess the cooking elves did that because Grandmother was with us all morning---another episode of magic from my youth!)

Perfect and Precious in their Easter finest (and woohoo Perfect posed for a picture--or maybe we got a face shot in passing.)

Anyway, after that we would (all the cousins and me) all go to the back yard (called the front yard by everyone (another odd ponderance to discuss at a later time) and hunt the Easter eggs that had been hidden by the Easter Bunny (who else? everyone was in the house eating the big Easter dinner together--or possibly more magic).

Precious...look in front of you, honey!

There you go!

Perfect's got this down pat!

Wait what's wrong with this one?

and before I end this blog, we have a running family joke about this face that I was accused of making all the time. Until I found the picture of DD and FS also making the "family face". Well, lo and behold....

It is all in the family.

Until I get another minute for more catching up.....Grammy

HEY STRANGERS--Catchup

2009-05-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

It's been ages since I've had any spare time to blog and I feel so bad for my two peeps! LOL. So here goes.

In a nutshell, we've had Easter and then Papa and I flew away to the cactus state to visit Fantastic Son, Serious Girlfriend, and to meet the bonus kids (I'll have to think up some names for those sweeties before too long.). And we thought we were in the throes of the Swine Flu the past few days but turns out Papa just has a nasty upper respiratory infection now. I'm not sure what the indicator is because he sure has all the flu symptoms and it worried him (and me) enough that he called the doc right away and went in Monday.

I have a neck update, pet catch-up, a retirement, and a hair incident also to discuss. And, of course, what have the P's been up to?! I'm gonna be writing for days.

First, Easter. The weekend started out with me and Perfect having some Grammy and Perfect one-on-one time to color and decorate our Easter eggs. We decided that since Precious puts EVERYTHING into her mouth, that trying to color eggs with her would be a nightmare. I could just visualize her face looking like an Easter egg, being an assortment of bright colors! Here's what dinnertime looks like on her now.

Myself, I was a bit concerned how much plastic it was going to take to cover the kitchen and Perfect before we started the egg decorating! But I decided my best bet was to put an old quilt down on the floor and we would work there. It took me considerable effort to get up and down and up and down....boy, I need some more exercise. We perserved though and got the eggs done.

So here we are getting ready to start--Perfect is covered also although not in plastic! I wanted to show that so you all don't call the child protective people on me.

After coloring, Perfect picked out the "perfect" stickers to apply.

So a successful activity for the two of us with minimal mess to clean up.

When we finished, Perfect and I capped off our evening (we had already had our Mighty Kids Meals from McD's) with a trip to the grocery store. I have always wanted to drive one of those racecar carts around and this was the perfect opportunity. Thankfully, the store wasn't that crowded because we did our share of knocking into things and people. Perfect has already learned to say "excuse me" so his tiny boy voice "excuse mes" probably kept us out of more trouble than intended.

Halfway through our shopping, DD called and said she would come to the store and pick Perfect up because they were done with their dinner out. I had to scramble after one look at my cart and say "No, we're almost done, we'll meet you at the house." I figured my choices were continuing to drive around with the racecar cart and NO child and endure nasty looks or move all the cart's contents into a regular cart so I could retain my guise as an ordinary shopper (on the outside). We were having too much fun though. (DD did advise me to watch Perfect's head as he likes to look over the side at the "wheels" and sometimes gets banged into things....we learned that the hard way before her call.)

So, who knew years ago that my current favorite Friday night activity would consist of decorating eggs with a tiny boy and then running around a grocery store driving a racecar shopping cart (sound effects and all).

And the favorite part was late in the night going to the refrigerator for a drink and seeing this.

More to come....Grammy

Colds, Earaches, Spider Bites, Birthday Parties, Easter

2009-04-17T06:50:00.000-07:00

OK, well, I might not write about ALL of that today but that's been our life lately.

The P's have been sick quite alot in the past couple of weeks; they've also been hanging out alot at the gym's nursery (the gym that DD and SIL attend). So 2+2 were put together and it was decided that the nursery may be the root cause of these various illnesses.

The last blog I mentioned that Precious had an earache and that was off and on around her birthday weekend.

Precious greeting some visitors. She was a beautiful birthday girl and her mama and daddy put on a nice first birthday party for her, her family, and her friends.

Perfect also had a grand time and was completely astounded that Precious was being allowed to stick her fingers in her birthday cake....

He must not remember his first birthday party.

Then when the partying was over, Precious went back down with another earache and temperature and another doctor's visit. During this week, I discovered that I had a spider bite....on my behind.....the second one I've had in close to the same spot. I think they get me while I'm asleep at the country house. The first time this happened, I went to the doctor and lost all my pride as I'm standing with my pants down around my ankles and doctor has a magnifying glass out examining my behind and saying "Yes, I see the fang marks of a spider."

Since I still had cream left over from the previous bite, I decided I would try to pass on another humiliating experience at the doc's unless I had no choice and needed an antibiotic. This has seemed to work although it's been a slower healing process without the use of an antibiotic, but I'm healing. And no, there are no pictures of this, sorry.

Then right before Easter weekend, Precious broke out in an all-over rash.

So another trip to the doctor was in order to diagnose this bumpy baby. Turns out she is allergic to penicillin now (just like her Grammy). A few doses of Benadryl and her rash was gone and as of Wednesday she seemed back to her old self. Perfect was a bit under the weather though with a stomach virus that he had earlier in the week.

Updates: my computer flies along at the speed of light now. D Computer Guru's suggestion of more memory cards has worked marvelously and the installation was a piece of cake. Now I'm trying to get my router for the laptop in tip-top shape and have a dial-up solution for the country house. It's slow but hey, that's all that's available out there for now...it is the country.

I've added some new blog friends for our entertainment. "My Blog" is J.A. Jance, another author who has about 4 series out now--love them all---three are set in Arizona and one in Seattle--check her out. Then there are a couple of others that looked interesting to me but I haven't delved in them too deeply. I'll file a report soon.

Ok, that's enough for today......I'll save my Easter report for next time.

Until then....Grammy

TGI FRIDAY!

2009-04-03T08:14:00.001-07:00

Friday, Friday, Friday, SOOO glad today is Friday. This has been a long week for me starting on Sunday when my computer problems struck. Even though that was worked out by Tuesday night......I'm still recooping from the stress of that.

I have noticed that the older I get, I ALWAYS need a day or two or more to recoop from anything/everything that happens that causes stress. I'm big on all that "take care of yourself", "give yourself some time" stuff and sometimes wonder if I give myself too much time or pamper myself just a bit much......NAW!!

Wednesday was P day and what a day. Papa had abandoned me in favor of the country and his search for old, derelict cars, so I was outnumbered from the get go. Precious was sick. Turns out she had an ear infection and went to the doctor on Thursday for medicine (she's feeling much better today). But Wednesday she was sick and running a fever most of the night.

Because of Precious's needy nature on Wednesday though, Perfect felt a bit overlooked and really hit all his Grammy boundaries hard!

Since Precious was under the weather, we scratched a walk off our list and scratched basement play off the list as well. It tends to get a little chilly down there without the stove on. Since Papa was gone and he has yet (we've lived in this house for 4 years) to show me how to turn on the gas for that stove, there was no way to heat up the downstairs. Need to put that on the top of my next list....1. Learn how to light the stove.

So we were restricted to upstairs activities.

See she doesn't feel good, thumb was a constant on Wednesday.

Aunt Cracker, notice my pack 'n play is gone.....really quite easy, pull the "string" in the middle of the bottom and it all folds up magically....even got everything into the handy carrying bag (except the mobile). But I digress...

Perfect started the afternoon just fine....watching Cars and having a "chip break."

And Precious had a conversation with Snoopy.

"take me away, doggy" Poor thing and this was how she spent the rest of the evening when she wasn't in my arms, standing with her arms up crying, demanding to be picked up. Droopy eyes, runny nose (made worse by crying) and a Grammy, who for the life of her, couldn't figure out how to work the ear thermometer. Who knew to leave the protective cap on---wasn't a protective cap at all but part of the thermometer's "workings".

In the other room, Perfect was constant motion--running from here to there and jumping and falling and yelling. I didn't have a chance to capture his photo but these pictures that his mother took earlier caught the mood.

Yes, I'm a stinker!

Did I do that??

Just let me kiss you and make it all better!

Let's do it AGAIN!

How can you be too angry at this tiny boy? But it took him back a minute when we heard the back door open and I announced 'Finally, the police have arrived to take you to the Bad Boy's Home' but that lasted only a second until his dad walked around the corner.

Hum...maybe it wasn't the computer stress that I needed recovering from.....

Have a magnificent weekend....Grammy

RUNNING WATER

2009-04-01T10:43:00.000-07:00

Hey you. I have been posting every day, have you noticed? Also, I went back and popped some more pictures in.

My computer is working fabulously now. It is virus protected, virus scanned, cleaned out and up, has a fancy new hard drive (where my Itunes library is going to go live soon) and I was able to download things off my camera. Next up is connecting the router for my laptop, but I put that on tomorrow's schedule.

Today is Wednesday and the P's will be awaiting me when I get home from work today. We have spaghetti and salad and banana pudding to eat. A new Animal Baby magazine to look at. And it's gorgeous outside today, so we may all go for a short walk if we can sneak out of the house without Snoopy. Two babies and a dog is a might much for one Grammy to handle. They tend to move in three separate directions.

Papa headed to the country for two days to take care of some business there. He has bought the new kitchen cabinets for our latest rehab project on the property across the road and since it wasn't raining, figured today was a good time to take them out to the house. He has also been searching for another old car to rehab so tomorrow he is headed to KC to look at one he's found in a farmer's barn. I cringe to think about this. Another story for another time.

Saturday before I fled the country in advance of a forecasted blizzard, I happened to walk toward the barn with Snoopy and noticed we had a little river. We have what is called a "wet weather" creek behind the house and this is the second time in 9 years that I've seen water in this creek.

This is where the "creek" begins...what one would call the head of the river! HAHA.

These pictures are looking down the creek (notice our "bridge") to cross the river.

We even had a little waterfall.

Like I mentioned before this is the second time that I've seen water in this "wet weather" creek. The first time was about 7 years ago. I was home alone with Sydney (my elderly dog that resides in doggy heaven now) and we were in the middle of some pretty bad storms. Since we are so far out from town, we don't hear tornado sirens. When the wind blows, the satellite goes down and our radio reception is crappy all the time inside the house. So when we have a bad storm, we were pretty uninformed (not any more though, Papa has since purchased a weather radio that has been sitting in it's box on the kitchen table for several months now!). But it's there waiting for the next storm to hit.

My telephone worked, however. DD, who was working in Illinois at the time, was calling me every few minutes to give me another weather warning "Union is purple on the weather map"---worse than green, yellow or red apparently and there had been tornados sighted in the area.

This particular storm started with wind and rain and I happened to be in the bathroom when the hail hit. Hit indeed...at first I thought a large tree had fallen on the roof it was so loud, but the noise became constant. I looked outside and saw not marble-sized hail or golf ball-sized hail but baseball-sized hail and since I figured Papa wouldn't believe this, I ran out to the edge of the covered porch and grabbed a piece and put it in the freezer for show and tell later. Come to find out later, this large hail busted out the window in Papa's truck that was sitting in the driveway. BIG HAIL.

So we're being assaulted by this large hail, wind, and rain and DD's telephone calls. She finally unnerved me when she said we needed to get to shelter fast. We have a storm cellar underneath our storage shed in the backyard but this meant going outside in the storm and around the back of the house and climbing down a series of steps to the cellar's door. (In the pictures above, the storm cellar is around the bend from the bridge that crosses this "creek".)

Since it was still hailing, I grabbed a heavy quilt to put over my head to prevent me from getting knocked unconscious by the baseball-sized hail and one of the neighbors finding me laying out in the yard later on. I put Sydney on her leash, another thing out of the ordinary, but I didn't want her to get spooked and run off from me in the storm. Then out of the door we went. Syd was pretty distressed that I was dragging her out in this mess and I was literally dragging her too.

We left the cover of the porch, went around the corner of house and got to the steps going down to the storm cellar. There was our "wet weather" creek that had actually turned in a roaring river and was rising pretty fast. It had already risen about half-way up the door to the storm cellar.

Syd and I looked at each other and made out way back to the safety of the house. I shut all the windows and closed all the drapes and curtains and started to make dinner, trying to ignore the chaos in nature that was occurring outside. DD called and asked why I wasn't in shelter and I said our shelter was about flooded and I chose to take my chances with a tornado rather than drown in my storm cellar. I told her I was making dinner and if I should be blown away, well then it was meant to be.

We all survived that night (except the windshield of the truck) and in all the years since, I have never seen ANY water in this creek until this past Saturday. It sure wasn't the roaring river it had been on that night many years ago, this time it was a calm, quiet little babbling brook. Photogenic and relaxing. Almost like one of those fountains you can now buy for the inside of your house that run on electricity.

Until next time.....Grammy

It's a Small World, After All

2009-03-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

I mentioned yesterday that I was having computer problems that were leading to more computer problems until I was almost ready to start banging my head against the wall or at the least...start crying.

So much for my smart co-workers and their bag of "tricks". Nothing I tried last night would work to trick my internet company into thinking I had more RAM memory than I did.

Sunday I called Aunt Cracker and asked for the phone number of another friend who is wise in the ways of the computer---we'll call him Computer Guru D....or D Computer Guru (I like that better!).

So I called D Computer Guru after seven hours of trying to install a new hard drive to increase my memory---this was what the Office Max guy sold me and said would work. After seven hours, I made a few other calls when D Computer Guru hadn't contacted me. I found out I had been sold the WRONG hard drive. So back to the store, exchanged my drive, and took the correct one home, installed it and did all the things the software told me to and got a "Congratulations, YOU ARE SUCCESSFUL" note which I kept on the screen for about an hour just to boost my self-esteem after 8 hours of working on it. Too bad, Perfect wasn't around to clap with me. He would have, you know. I couldn't get Papa to do much but glance at it, no clapping or high-fiving.

So discovering my new drive wasn't doing the trick, I consulted co-workers yesterday and got some ideas on what to try. That didn't work. So this morning, I sent an email to D Computer Guru. First, he gave me a very understandable lesson in Memory: RAM vs HARD 101. For the first time, I understand how it all worked and what I needed---understanding far more than the guy at Office Max did!

And then D Computer Guru simplified things even more.....rather than trying to load what my internet company was trying to make me, uninstall what I had from them that was out of date, and go with a new approach--another free approach with an comparable quality of product. In 1/2 hour at lunch, I had accomplished this--no head banging whatsoever.

Then continuing further, D Computer Guru solved my RAM memory issues for under $20 and a link to Amazon.com (my favorite online shopping site). What a marvel! I wished I would have called him first. I would have saved myself about a $100 for something I can't return, only exchange....STUPID Office Max guy!

But what was so funny was that as I was corresponding to D Computer Guru this afternoon, I realized that a co-worker of mine that sits close by had the same last name as D Computer Guru and I asked "could they be related"? And found out, yes, they are brothers. In fact, my co-worker knows several of my friends, Aunt Cracker, The Weatherman, and another friend or two. It's funny that we've never crossed paths before but we haven't. It just goes to show that it's a small world.

Humming to myself....Grammy.

BABBLING

2009-03-30T14:11:00.000-07:00

Well, no topic today. I have a bunch of pictures I took in the country this past weekend but my computer is being finicky the last few days and I haven't had a chance to download them. It's being worked on but as I'm the mechanic, it's a very slow process.

I've had to add an additional hard drive which took about 8 hours yesterday (seems I was sold the wrong hard drive to begin with and after 7 hours, made this discovery). Now I'm working on tricking the security suite of my internet company into believing I have much more memory than I have in order to download what they sent me. Helps that I work with some very, very smart "computer people" (software engineers) who are chock-full of tricks that they pass on to me when I go into computer "distress". It is about time to buy a whole new system but, but, but....that seems like such a lot of work backing up everything and reloading, so I'll limp along a little longer with this one.

I did manage to capture with the camera, some yellow forsythia bushes before they turned green entirely and before the snow did them in...Yes, SNOW.

(Sad Daffs,,,,they did look much happier a week or so ago!)

Supposedly, we got a dusting at the country home but I ran like a rat in a sinking ship Saturday afternoon when the forecast got the better of me. We got 3 inches in the city home (or actually outside the city home) but it was all melted by the early afternoon. Now that's the kind of snow I enjoy.

Friday night Papa and I met Tiny Sun and her husband, let's call him Tractor Man for dinner. We went to a restaurant in Washington, American Bounty. I've had some meals there with the Elders in the past and was telling Papa he would enjoy this place since he'd never been and that I'd only eaten on the patio, so I didn't even know what the inside looked like. Until we walked in and realized we had both been there last winter, again with Tiny Sun and Tractor Man. Six months ago. Eating inside. More crossword puzzles are in our future, I can see.

Sun took some pictures of us at dinner so they may possibly end up here if she remembers to send them to me.

OK, so enough blog babbling for today.

Until next time....Grammy

NIRVANA?

2009-03-27T07:37:00.000-07:00

For about a year now, Papa has been contemplating retiring. Alot of people are convinced that not working and having their entire day free to do whatever is the perfect life. But is it?

Papa has now made some comments about possibly being lonely after retirement not having the interaction he does at work with alot of different people every day. I can see his point. Being male, he does not have the constant interaction with his friends like most women do. He doesn't read, doesn't care for handywork around the house, no gardening aspirations, he enjoys watching movies and playing baseball in the summer months but otherwise no real hobbies. Playing baseball in the summer and watching movies all winter? Would that be it?

Sure we all get tired going to work day after day and we so look forward to our weekends, vacations, and any other time off work but I've noticed on our two week end of the year holiday break, I do start to get a little bored. Maybe it's because I'm usually also running out of money and need to get back to work and collecting those paychecks to continue my life as I've grown accustomed to it. But really, how much shopping can one do?

I also notice that when Papa and I spend a considerable amount of "quality" time together, we both start getting a little testy with each other. We sometimes need more interaction with others and less with each other and going to work usually satisfies this.

As I've been thinking about whether I would be happy not working, I discovered something in another little daily routine I have. Every morning, when I get up, as I'm trying to pry open my eyes and get all my parts working as they should, having breakfast, and taking my assortment of medications (pain and allergy) and vitamins for the day, I watch Andy Griffith. There are two episodes on every morning 5:00 and 5:30 a.m, Monday-Friday. I usually only catch the 5:30 episode and then watch just a few minutes of news before I'm finally awake and my body is functioning and I can then start getting ready for work.

I have discovered watching 30 minutes a day of the exploits of the Mayberry residents really improves my overall mood. I not only want to live in Mayberry but I want to hang out with Aunt Bea sometime. (In reality my time for that has passed as she has also.) Such a positive person she is and nothing ruffles her feathers and she's got a kickin' car as well. Papa explained to me what it was but it's a convertible and I love those.

OK, you are saying now, she has gone off on another tangent. No I've not, I'm setting the stage.

Recently, there was an episode of Andy Griffith where Howard Spray (he's some sort of accountant, I believe), had met someone who didn't work and lived a dream life....Howard believed. So Howard thought about it and decided he wanted this type of care-free life also. He sold his business, packed his bags, told everyone in Mayberry goodbye, and went to live in a hut on a tropical island.

No cares in the world right? Well, after a day or so, he got extremely bored. Nothing to do and no one to talk to. He went on to meet some other island inhabitants who had been on the island for years but had started off like him and they had gotten so they didn't even care about their looks any longer...your typical hermit-types; long, tangled hair and beards, and glazed eyes from just not doing anything or caring about doing anything.

The episode wrapped up with Howard having a dream (nightmare) that he turned into one of these island inhabitants and when he woke up, he packed his bags, and headed back to his old life in Mayberry.

The moral of the story was that Howard found out he was actually happy with his life back in Mayberry but it took a total change in lifestyle to make him realize this.

I think I've mentioned before about a co-worker of mine who retired and moved to the island of Roatan. I read their daily blog and it is a pretty exciting existence. BUT I saw a picture his wife had taken of him the other day and immediately thought of Howard Spray.

I must agree that this is a gorgeous picture but it seems so lonely to me at the same time. Don and Jeanette love their life on Roatan but.....they kept their house in St. Louis. They did not completely cut ties to start over. Who knows maybe they will sell it eventually but they have a safety net to their old life for now. (Ok, now I've gone off on the tangent!!)

So back to Papa and retiring (or retiring for any of the rest of us), maybe it's not the ideal existence for him or many of us, at this time, if there are doubts. Maybe we all just need a change. It seems so many people retire and then go back to work doing something else, but they go back to work. But that's for each of us to decide. For now I'll just sit back and keep dreaming of the perfect life in Mayberry as I sit at my desk at my job doing what I do everyday.

Grammy

YELLOW

2009-03-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

What a gorgeous color this time of the year. Although rain and (deep breath) snow is forecast for Saturday, last weekend in the country, everything was YELLOW.....Daffodils and Forsythia bushes were seen everywhere I went this past weekend. Yellow sun too.

But sadly I didn't have my camera with me and I'm sure by the time I go back out there tomorrow, the yellow will have turned green. But I still have the Dogwoods and Bradford Pear trees to enjoy with their sprouting blooms.

But what I do have is.......

Precious in her Easter dress. She is about to turn 1 in about 2 weeks and so DD took her to get her one year picture(s) taken.

This is her birthday party dress---theme is cupcakes. And, of course, Perfect went along in case he was in the mood for a photograph:

AND, of course, he wasn't. We don't know what's gotten into him lately but he just does not want his picture taken. He's only closing in on 3, surely we haven't worn him out with the camera! But just because he cries and is unhappy, we're not about to miss out on taking his picture, me and DD. We'll continue snapping and then have something to tease him about when he's older.

That reminds me....where are the naked baby pictures of Precious!! (Are you reading this, DD?) I have Perfect's all over my bathroom--where else would the naked pictures belong! These poor children...

They were both over last night and Precious is definitely walking and such a stinker she was. Into everything and she crawls very fast when she doesn't want to be caught, otherwise she tried to walk mostly.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed Perfect was showing a little jealously. I shouldn't really call it that, he was just acting more needy when his sister was getting more attention but he is so sweet with her. She enjoys walking from one person to another and when Papa got busy elsewhere, Perfect became the "catcher" of Precious. She walks about 7-10 steps and then enjoys falling into her "catcher's" arms.

And finally at our house, Elmo is getting dusty, Blues Clues DVDs sit on the shelf unwatched. We are all about CARS now. This Grammy had to go out and buy another CARS DVD (see older blog about the demise of our original CARS DVD) and we watch it about 2-3 times on Wednesday night but poor DD and SIL. They had to also purchase a CARS DVD and it runs non-stop at their house. Precious is hanging right there with her brother and the cars so much so that we are spreading the word that she needs some "girl" cars for her birthday!

Well, enough for today. Hope you still have some yellow in your life to enjoy this week, this Grammy has a tiny little girl in flowers and yellow to brighten up the days.

Until next time.....Grammy

PERFECT'S BIG DAY

2009-03-19T14:37:00.000-07:00

Perfect was born almost three years ago with a "bump" on the back of his neck. It was about the size of a small grape but since the pediatrician wasn't concerned with it, we didn't really worry either. Until he developed a second "bump" on the side of his neck. This caused a bit of concern and so the doc recently sent Darling Daughter and Perfect to another doctor for an investigation.

Turns out the new "bump" was just a lymph node that was swollen for some reason, but not to worry. However, the old "bump" that everyone had grown accustomed to seeing, was not identifiable and so a surgery date---March 11---was selected and this Grammy proceeded to rev up her worrying gene!

March 11 arrived and all were concerned about Perfect not being able to have his glass of chocolate milk as soon as he got out of bed. An every morning habit (for Perfect, Grammy, and Fantastic Son--must be a family thing). DD and SIL (son-in-law) managed to get past that morning habit and to the hospital they went where they proceeded to WAIT for Perfect's surgery to begin, which ended up to be about two hours past what it had been scheduled for.

With everyone praying and sending good thoughts his way, Perfect came through the surgery with flying colors and the "blob" was removed, still unidentifiable by the doctor who sent it the lab for testing.

Perfect entertained his family with his behavior after the "liquid sleeping potion" was given. "He acts drunk." And entertained the Recovery Room staff when he woke up crying because his hand was splinted...including his thumb. You must understand that Perfect comforts himself with his thumb. Any thumb will do but with one out of commission this proved too much for him. If he quit crying and drank some liquid and kept it down, they would remove the splint on his hand and he would be able to get to his thumb. But he continued crying because his thumb was splinted....a viscious circle all around!

What was so entertaining to everyone that didn't know Perfect, was when the nurse kept trying to give him liquid to drink, he would scream and cry and say "no thanks". Polite to the end, our Perfect. The circle was finally broken and Perfect was able to go home, recovered and "blob-free".

No lasting effects whatsoever, Perfect went home and started playing with his cars and watching his favorite television programs. He thought the hospital bracelets everyone had on (DD, SIL and him) were pretty cool but otherwise, he didn't mention his big day at the hospital or his "boo-boo". His parents and his Grammy, however, were exhausted from their day.

Now a week later the "blob" has finally been identified as a sack of excess skin cells, a birth defect, with no lasting problems forecast. THANK GOD. The incision is healing miraculously fast. Perfect has learned to say neck and doctor. And lastly this Grammy has gotten her heart rate and breathing back under control and is able to once again sleep carefree (until the next catastrophe). And life goes on for Perfect.

Until next time.....Grammy

SPRING IN THE COUNTRY and SOME FEARS

2009-03-18T06:24:00.000-07:00

Hello all and my one follower!! I've again been collecting snippets to write about in my handy dandy notebook (got that from Blues Clues---which I watch entirely too much of!!). First and foremost....Spring is coming. I know that is inevitable after winter but seeing and hearing the first sounds confirms it and a general lightening of mood begins.

The peepers showed up two weekends ago. They are the frogs in the ponds across the road. March 6 seemed to be a little early for them but the weather has been very nice. The forsythia bushes are blooming and my daffodils are popping up. I had to rake the leaves off them to give them a fighting chance but once they had space, up they went. This weekend is "Down with Storm Windows" weekend and we'll be able to hear the peepers all night long.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned in a previous blog about a former neighbor and his peeper story. Justin, the son of our neighbors, used to hang out around our house when Fantastic Son lived at home. The first spring we were out in the country, I was amazed at how loud the peepers were. One minute it's quiet winter and the next, frog music at high decibels. I commented on this one time when Justin was around and he said "Yeah, by August, it will be quiet again." I asked him why and he said "All the snakes in the ponds will have eaten all the frogs by them." I just didn't know what to say to that and being terrified of snakes, I vowed to avoid those ponds from here on out!.

So in the country, there are three things that I am terrified of and the snakes are #2....#3 are coyotes and I am not really afraid of them for me but for Snoopy. The first two winters we were in the country, they were all about. I used to love hearing their howling but now it borders on one of the most creepiest sounds around.

One winter they got so bad that Justin's father told us he was shooting a rifle, aiming above their heads when they came around their house because they were fighting with his dogs. During this same winter, I always made sure I escorted Snoopy and our other dog outside just in case the coyotes (always plural) were around. I figured it would take all three of us to get all three of us back safely in the house. But we never saw them in our yard.

A few months ago, I was standing on the porch and a few "coyotes" ran past me in the front yard and Snoopy gave chase for a few minutes but came right back. I later learned from my neighbor, Joe, that it was actually a pack of beagles who live with another neighbor. They went by so fast and it was very dark outside that I wasn't sure what they were but Joe set me straight because they had ran through his yard as well and he got a good look at them. Regardless of what they were, animals running fast past me in the dark give me the creeps.

OK, we've covered #2 and #3. What is #1 you ask? Skunks!

I feel sorry for them when I see them smashed on the highway---a pretty common occurance in the country. One morning I saw a mama skunk and some babies "running" down the road. That explained why I see so much skunk road kill. They don't run fast at all, in fact, I don't think I would even call it running. They resemble more of a rolling tumbleweed. These black puffs rolling along the road. Their faces are so small and the hair so thick, when on the move, they do look like puffs of hair rolling or blowing along in the wind.

I haven't actually seen them on our property but on several occasions when I've had the windows open, I'll get a whiff of one causing me to run about the house closing windows and refusing Snoopy's requests to go outside.

One night I was coming home late and got out of the car going to the front door and got a whiff of a skunk and swiftly got myself inside. Now when I come in after dark, I be sure and make alot of noise at the car for a few minutes before I go toward the house. Don't want to sneak up on some skunk snoozing in the bushes by the front porch and then spending the night bathing in tomato juice.

A BIG KNOCK ON WOOD---so far we have all survived without a skunk spraying---all people, dogs, and cats. One night, however, we came oh so close. We used to have a black dog (with white scattered here and there) named Sydney who went to doggie heaven about two years ago. Papa, I, Sydney, Snoopy, and Spooky the feral cat used to walk every evening on a 2 mile route down the road (gravel) and back. (Another ponderance---all my animals' names start with S---unintentional but interesting.) So one night as we all were walking along, Papa and I were talking all the way and not paying attention. All of a sudden we noticed at the bottom of the hill we were walking down, Sydney had walked right up to a mama skunk with babies all around her. They were nose to nose smelling each other. I believe the mama skunk might have thought Sydney was a skunk as she had the same coloring and wasn't that much bigger than a skunk. At this time Sydney was up in years and didn't see or hear very well, so she might not have been aware of what she was smelling up.

As for Papa and I, we were both in a panic. I grabbed Snoopy's collar before she realized another animal was around.....to chase (her favorite hobby) and as we were all within spraying distance if things turned bad, we started backing up the hill very slowly, all the time I was calling Sydney in a soft voice.

I really didn't see a positive escape from this situation but we kept moving backwards, calling Sydney and after a few minutes, she trotted up the hill where we were and the mama skunk turned around and disappeared into the brush with all her babies following. We were so thankful we had escaped and were amazed that Syd hadn't been sprayed either. I guess mama realized that blind, deaf, elderly Sydney didn't pose a threat to her, was actually rather friendly, and we had gotten far enough away that she didn't have any worries about us either.

So there you have it---my top three fears of living in the country, or actually anywhere for that matter.

Until later....Grammy

CATCHING UP WITH THE P's.

2009-03-06T11:29:00.000-08:00

I did it! I did it! I did it! This is what Perfect runs around saying when he has done something astounding and we are all to clap accordingly! I learned how to post a photo, no stopping me now (and you'll notice I went back to some older posts and added pictures too). Is that clapping I hear?

This is Precious about a week ago...isn't she though. She's had a rough month, caught pneumonia and had a bad earache but I'll say she's recovered remarkably. You'll also notice why she has garnered the nickname Petunia (from Papa). She wears flowers. Alot. Flowered headbands and barrettes, flowers on her clothes and I found this flowered hat and it spoke to me "You need this for Petunia!" So I bought it---but it doesn't take much for the wallet to open when I'm thinking of these two. Again, I did it! Here is Precious getting ready to take off. Yes, she's not yet one but is getting ready to go and there is more and more clapping around the house. And not to be forgotten Perfect himself---not sure what he is in this photo but it looks scary!
So there you have actual visions of my P's--Perfect and Precious. Now I'm off to the country for the weekend. It's in the upper 70's here today just gorgeous so a perfect country visit is in order. I'll take the camera!

Signing off for now....Grammy

The White Rose

2009-03-02T14:01:00.000-08:00

In a previous blog, I talked about me and Papa and our Saturday night habit of going to the movies at The Walt. We have another country routine, but it's kind of ad hoc. We go to the White Rose Diner and have dinner quite often. We have our share of fast food places and a sports bar and a Pasta House and another Italian restaurant and we had a real nice steakhouse that burned down last December but nothing that compares to The White Rose.

The White Rose is the only diner of it's kind in Union (our country town). When we moved out there almost nine years ago, we discovered it pretty early on and thought it was a new place but since then we've learned it's 73 years old. They must have just rennovated it prior to our first visit, hence the new wood floor look and smell.

It has booths and tables and bar stools; hardwood floors and a large jukebox in one room and in the larger dining room, there are individual jukeboxes on the tables. I guess so you don't have to walk to the other room, to select your music. You can do it from your own table and it connects to the main jukebox. But it seems that whatever music is playing seems to go with the mood of the night and it's never silent, there is always music. All golden oldies, need I say, what else would they play on a jukebox at a diner?

You couldn't ask for a better menu of comfort food. Breakfast is served all day; every Friday night is a catfish special and every Saturday night is the ribeye steak special. Actually, every night has it's own special, the same special, week after week. We see alot of families and some younger couples, but the main clientele of The White Rose are older folks, so I guess, being such creatures of habit, they appreciate the same menu for the most part. No surprises there.

I love The White Rose because when you walk in the door, it smells like fresh coffee and pie. I've never tried the pie (they usually have 3 or 4 to choose from each night), I'm usually too stuffed from dinner for dessert, but one of these days I think I'll just go up there for coffee and a piece of pie.

Like I mentioned above, the diner must have been rennovated just before we started going there because it has both an old and new feel about it.

Papa likes it because it has framed car prints on the walls and they have "car cruises" there a few times during the year. They also have an old time phone booth in the large dining room. An actual wooden booth with a bench inside. I've looked but never touched so don't know if the phone works or it's just for decoration.

And frogs. They have alot of frogs around there. Not real frogs but glass frogs, ceramic frogs, frog pictures, just alot of frog knick-knacks. Haven't asked about this....yet, but I will I'm sure. The curiousity will get the best of me over these frogs!

It's a come as you are place. I've seen women in dresses and pearls and men in overalls and dirty tractor hats sitting side by side. The people working there are all very friendly. From the owner who runs the cash register and wishes you a good night as you are leaving to the young waitresses, who always yell hello to you when you come in the door, whether they know you or not. It makes you feel like they know you well and that you are most welcome to come in and have a seat and order something tasty to fill your belly.

Almost makes me drool just thinking about those cheeseburgers, the best around our small town.

Signing off to wipe the drool off my chin and start my own dinner....Grammy

Spooky and Puff

2009-02-24T12:56:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to believe we have a ghost cat in the country or Papa has been seeing things or he has some sort of uncanny ability where felines are concerned....we've yet to decide. Many years ago when we lived in the city full time, there was a feral kitten that hung around the house. Coal black with the most beautiful gold eyes. He would slink here and there and startled me many times and we started calling him Spooky.

We had a housecat at the time and Spooky was sort of wild, so we never considered him to be more than a neighborhood cat but we did start leaving out bowls of food and water because he seemed to spend alot of time around our house.

After a bit, a neighbor threatened to "eliminate" Spooky who had started using their flower beds as his toilet. This distressed Fantastic Son greatly as he was pretty young at the time and had gotten attached to the wild Spooky, as much as is possible with a feral cat.

So after minimum discussion (this Grammy is a great animal lover), we decided we would try to catch Mr. Spook and domesticate him, thus saving him from any impending violence that the neighbor had planned. It didn't take long for Spooky to be robbed of his freedom (a 13 year old boy is quite adept at catching things). So Spooky started life as an indoor cat in our basement.

Since he had been living out in the wild we were concerned about disease and didn't want to infect our other indoor animals. I had spoken with the vet and he said when we could hold him for a short time and were able to get him in a carrier, to bring him in for shots and neutering. We worked with Spooky for a week or so and decided he was ready for his trip to the vet.

Our part was easy but the vet's assistant later told me that Spooky had gotten loose in the office and they had a very hard time recatching him---had to use a large butterfly net!

Anyway, Spooky received his shots, was neutered and declawed (I know some think this is inhumane but he was a big, wild boy and my small delicate girl kitty needed protection--she had her claws still.) And so we brought him home to recooperate and adjust to living inside. Needless to say he and my girl kitty, Minnie, had a few adjustment spats (Minnie got the worse one night when Spooky bit her leg to the bone---he had huge "canine" teeth for a cat.)

Then a few months later, we decided to take the circus to the country. Kids, dogs, cats, Papa and I moved to the country home where we would live full-time for the first five years before we purchased our weekday city home.

Spooky lasted one day inside the country house and escaped to live in the wild once again. We were upset that he had gotten out and no matter what we tried, we couldn't capture the elusive Spook this time. He would watch us from afar but when any of us got too close, he took off. It was a little concerning that he had no front claws but after seeing what his bite did to dear Minnie, I figured he would be fine outside. He reinforced this when we would find dead birds and small animals laying about, so we knew he was hunting for his food but we started leaving him bowls of food and water outside. We then started noticing him coming around regularly in the morning and evening for his meals.

Sometimes he brought friends....several. One time we had as many as 5 cats hanging around for the free food. But he eluded capture and made it known that he was perfectly happy being an outside cat once again.

FS would tell us of all the places that he spotted Spooky in his daily travels, some areas kind of far from the house, but mostly in the fields and woods right around the country house.

On two occasions, very, very cold nights, I did manage to catch Spooky to bring him in for the night but he loudly (and all night long) let us know how unhappy he was. So after that, I outfitted the old doghouse in the backyard with an old dog bed and hay and would put food and water in there on the really cold nights and he sought shelter there a time or two.

Spooky was still pretty wild but he got to where he would come and jump on my lap when I was sitting outside and just lay down and purr. He also went on walks with us. Papa and I and the dogs would wander around up and down the property and down the gravel/dirt roads around our house and we had to adjust our walking speed because Spooky couldn't keep up as much as he tried. Sometimes he would disappear in the woods along the way and pop back out and join us on the return route.

As he got older, he spent more and more time in the lawnchair on the front porch; his food bowl was on the table close at hand. Or he would sun himself on the hill beside the driveway where the wild irises grew in the Spring. That was always a pretty picture, coal black Spooky laying among the colorful flowers in the sun.

Then after five years, we bought the city house close to work to stay at during the workweek. Spooky was getting older and very set in his ways and we decided not to disrupt his life by moving him. The other animals learned to travel back and forth, from house to house with us, but we knew Spooky wouldn't tolerate this. So we bought large food and water containers so he would have plenty to eat and drink while we were gone. Actually we started off only leaving him alone for a couple of days at a time. We would come to the city on Sunday night and I usually went back down to spend the night on Tuesday or Wednesday (before the P's) to check the house, get the mail, and feed Spooky and any of his buddies that might be visiting.

Spooky always walked out to the driveway to meet me when I drove in, sometimes berating me for my absence (he got kind of vocal the older he got). But I would fill his food and water bowls, go for a short walk with him, and then sit on the porch with him in my lap and all was forgiven....until the next time I left.

Then one Thursday morning about two years ago, I left early for work and he was laying in the chair on the porch and when I returned on Friday afternoon, he was gone. We looked for him all weekend, searching all his favorite haunts, leaving bowls of food everywhere, asking the neighbors. But noone seemed to know where he went, he had just vanished. We never saw any evidence of a "struggle" which would have been hard to take. Thinking something had killed him. He was very road wise and avoided it at all costs (except when walking with us), so we weren't afraid that he had became roadkill. Spooky was just gone. For several weeks, every time we went to the country, we would repeat all this looking for him, but to no avail.

Puff: Papa told me a story about when he was a little boy, he had a cat named Puff. Puff was an inside/outside cat and did OK in the neighborhood they lived in but one day Puff vanished. Papa was very distraught but went on with his life the way little boys do. Then about five years after Puff had disappeared, his dad came home and announced that "your cat is outside".

Papa raced outside and saw Puff standing in the yard in a rainstorm. Puff just looked at him for a minute and turned around and walked away, never to be seen again. Papa is convinced that Puff came back just to say goodbye to him (before what he didn't know, just a goodbye in front of another disappearance).

And how, you ask, does this have anything to do with our wild Spooky story? Well, about three weeks ago, Papa pulled in the driveway at the country house and was walking to the front door and there between the house and garage, he swears to me, sat Spooky. It was dark but he said he was positive it was Spooky (mentioned some way Spooky moved or turned his head). Papa stopped and they looked at each other and then Spooky melted back into the darkness.

Of course, I was so excited. I ran outside looking around, calling his name, put out food and water on his table, everything, but I never saw as much as a glimpse. Papa is convinced Spooky dropped by to say "goodbye." Going off to wherever Puff went after his goodbye. (One wonders why these cats decide to say "goodbye" to only Papa---something to ponder later.)

Occasionally, Snoopy will take off to the barn or the back of the garage chasing something and I imagine she's chasing Spooky (that was her favorite pasttime) but I never see this ghost critter that Snoopy is chasing.

Snoopy and Spooky were quite fond of each other and Snoopy got into the habit of running full speed at Spooky and knocking into him rolling him through the yard. This scared us as Snoopy grew and got bigger and stronger and we would yell at Spooky to run when we would see Snoopy get revved up for her game but Spooky never ran and actually seemed to enjoy this playing with the dog.

Such an odd cat he was (or is, I have hope now). And think, wouldn't it would be marvelous to look out the kitchen window this Spring and see Spooky laying on the hill among the wild irises sunning himself once more.

I'll let you know what happens.

Signing off for now....Grammy

MY DAILY TRAVELS

2009-02-12T14:32:00.000-08:00

I am such a creature of habit. Every morning when I get to work, the first thing I do when I log onto my computer is get my IM up in case someone needs to talk to me immediately. Sometimes I also need to share something I saw on my ride in (all of 2 miles) with Papa before I forget or sometimes I'm supposed to remind him of something else. We go around telling each other to "remind me" of this or that and who knows how many times we have forgotten to do the reminding!

Anyway, after my IM goes up, I record in my work hours for the day--in advance lest I forget and not do it in the evening when I'm brain dead and, therefore, not get paid for the full day.

I then open my personal email and see if anything happened overnight that needs my attention. A lot of the time I have a note from Gulliver that needs to be returned.

Then I start my travels. First I go to Canada and visit Louise, then I head to Oklahoma and check in with Ree, and then I go to the island of Roatan and see what Jeanette and Don are doing. You know, of course, I don't really go to these places, they are actually blogs I have become addicted to and these people (all of whom are strangers except for Don in Roatan) seem to have become friends via the internet.

Louise Penny writes wonderful mystery books based in Canada and I swear, her blog is like reading an additional book. She leads such an interesting life and explains the writing/editing/all the processes of making a book. Plus she has interesting travels all her own with her husband, Michael. Shoot, she had me in stitches when she drove to Vermont to get gas and got in trouble with Customs going back home on one trip. And the best part, if you comment on her blog, she writes back to you right away so you get that added benefit of that personal touch. Always good for a continuing friendship.

Ree lives on a cattle ranch in northern Oklahoma. I've figured out which town she lives in (I'm from OK also) but she goes to extremes to protect her privacy, so I won't tell you either. She is married to a 4th generation cattle rancher and they also take in several hundred/thousand wild mustangs from the Government's Federal Wild Horse/Burro program. She is quite the photographer and her web site (http://www.pioneerwoman.com/ this doesn't show up on the profile you see, I guess it's my private profile that keeps track of her site) but it is chock full of pictures of her life on the ranch and her 4 kids she calls "the punks" and all the cowboys that work on the ranch and horses, my goodness, all the pictures of those beautys. Another very interesting life to view from the outside. She is also a good cook, posts receipes; and is writing a book "Black Heels and Tractor Wheels" or something like that about meeting her husband, Marlboro Man. Her's is the blog that tends to overwhelm me at times just because of her creativity and she's hiding away in Oklahoma....

Don (a former co-worker of mine) and his wife, Jeanette moved to the island of Roatan less than a year ago, after he retired. I had never even heard of this island (off the coast of Honduras) but I'm learning more and more about it every day. When Don first told me of this place, I asked how in the world did you find it. His response started with "Well, I met a guy in a bar in Belize one night.....!!!) Jeanette is another marvelous photographer and has a way with the words as well. (Blog is the The View from La Puetra Trasera....in my list) So while I am enduring snow and ice here in the Midwest, I can live vicariously through them in the sunshine on a tropical island!!

So these are my new internet friends (I've used all their real names because they do) and if you are interested in meeting them, they are found on my profile in the "Blogs I Follow" section. I really think you'll like them as much as I do once you get to know them.

Oh and before I forget....then I go to work on what they pay me to do!!!! (my poor boss)

Signing off....Traveling Grammy

The Buddy System--ALWAYS

2009-02-07T13:11:00.002-08:00

Well, we had our first Elder gathering of the new year last night at a local hotel to celebrate Christmas and exchange the home-made gifts we had each made for each other. What fun we had. Everyone was so creative. I made photo boards for everyone (with creative consulting and help from DD) full of great pictures and quotes applicable to each of the girls. Polly made us homemade candles with sand and seashells in little drinking glasses. Tiny Sun matted and frames cards we had collected at the art fair in October (that started this whole "let's make each other something" debacle), and Aunt Cracker painted each of us a painting (who knew she painted!) that was focused on our personality. Mine is red with a cleft note and signed Love, Elvis.

How creative all us girls were! Hopefully, we'll do something like this again. I think everyone really surprised theirselves with how creative they can be.

Our hotel was spectacular. Thanks to Polly for organizing that. We had lots of chatting, drinking, a delish meal at a local restaurant, and then headed to the casino. This was where our evening took a turn for the worst. Did I mention we were drinking? And a lot!

Well, we had pre-cocktail hour drinks in the room while opening gifts and catching up, then free drinks at the hotel cocktail hour, drinks while we were waiting an hour for a table at the restaurant, and drinks with dinner, and when we arrived at the casino, we found a marvelous martini bar and settled in for drinks.

Polly really enjoys gambling. That is the reason we were at the casino. The rest of us could care less about it and myself---I find casinos extremely depressing. Just people-watch at one some time and you'll see what I mean. That's me and my opinion and I don't think less of anyone who enjoys gambling. I'm probably the only one who's been to Las Vegas and didn't gamble (except two tries at the penny slots while I was waiting for Papa who was in the restroom), but I met Elvis (tee-hee). Don't get it, don't really want to get it. I guess I'm just more materialistic and want something concrete for my money.

Anyhoo, we are enjoying extremely delicious martinis right outside the casino itself and kept urging Polly to go ahead and get her gambling over with, we would just stay put because we had no interest in going in. But she kept hanging out with us until we discovered it was 11:30. Marty from the hotel shuttle service, who had been driving us to and fro all night, said the shuttle stopped at 12 and we needed to call before then to get our last ride back to the hotel.

So we told Polly she had about 15 minutes to go gamble, we were calling the shuttle for our pickup in a few minutes. So Polly left...ALONE...OUR FIRST MISTAKE. We know better than that. We always use the buddy system and never let one of us take off alone ANYWHERE. All I can do is blame our poor judgement on the many cocktails we had consumed.

The remaining three of us finished up our last drinks, had a restroom break, paid our tab and called the shuttle for our pickup. While Tiny Sun went to meet the shuttle, me and Aunt Cracker headed into the casino to retrieve Polly. There were thousands of people in this huge room and it was quite overwhelming but Cracker and I searched from one end to the other while she was calling Polly's cell phone every few minutes trying to reach her, with no luck.

We were starting to panic, couldn't find Polly and knew the shuttle was probably waiting for us. Our thought was that Tiny Sun was having her own issues so to speak after the last two martinis she had downed and we probably shouldn't have sent her off alone either. We really didn't know what to do but swiftly decided we needed to get on the shuttle to get back to the hotel, regroup, and if needed, we would have access to our cars and be able to drive back to the casino and look for Polly some more. (I know very poor judgement after our vast amounts of beverages, but we were starting to panic.)

So we made MISTAKE NUMBER TWO....we left an Elder behind! And we felt horrible about it. Both Cracker and Sun were calling Polly repeatedly and no answer. We were just sick about "misplacing her."

We got back to the hotel and up to our room and had a minor catostrophe when we realized that Sun, who had the other room key card, was totally looped, and couldn't find it. Cracker and I searched her purse and pockets and finally found it laying in the hallway by the elevators. We went into the room and to our astonishment found MISTAKE NUMBER THREE....Polly's cell phone on the table. We had no way to contact her and worse, she had no way to contact us.

So we did something we had never done before during an Elder gathering. We had to call a husband for advice. Cracker called The Toxic Avenger (formerly known as The Carpenter) to ask for advice. He was not pleased with us for one thing, reminding us of our buddy system and why did we not follow this. And he was worried about Polly but suggested we call the casino and have her paged. Good idea. We did that but were told they don't page but they checked her gambling card and said she was "not in play" on a machine.

Well, while this was happening, Tiny Sun and I had changed into our pajamas and were settling in for the night because we were thinking that Polly, who is very familiar with cabs, was just going to find us gone and get into a cab and would be there any minute. I believe, this just was a matter of trying to convince ourselves that all was going to be fine and Polly was going to walk in the door any minute. But we weren't very convincing and when Cracker got off the phone, we decided that we would leave Sun at the hotel to wait for Polly while Aunt Cracker and I would drive back over to the casino and look for her some more. We talked to the shuttle drivers at the hotel before we left and they suggested we contact the casino security if we couldn't find her.

So me in my pj's (with a jacket and boots) and Aunt Cracker headed back to the casino. Since I wasn't dressed, I was going to park by the door and wait rather than trying to park and go in (no one would have probably noticed how I was dressed anyway but I knew what I was wearing). Aunt Cracker went in to have another crack at the casino, check any bars that were still open, and talk to security. While she was on her mission, she was calling me every few minutes with updates and discussion of her next action and in between calls, I was calling Tiny Sun at the hotel---who failed to answer as she was down for the count unbeknownst to us!

Finally, after an hour and a half, Aunt Cracker, who was on the phone again with a worried Toxic Avenger, located Polly, snatched her by the arm and marched her to the front door and into the car. What a relief. I watch entirely too many true crime shows on tv and just knew the local serial killer had snatched her and we would never see her again. I believe Aunt Cracker was starting to think something bad had also happened to her because she had simply vanished. Polly said she had been at a roulette table (not using her gambling card) the whole time and didn't realize how much time had gone by since she left us in the martini bar. She thought it was only about 12 when it was actually closer to 1:30 a.m. by this time.

So we headed back to the hotel with Polly apologizing the whole way. But our night wasn't over...oh no! We got back to the room and it seemed to be empty. Tiny Sun was missing and we immediately went into another panic. We were calling her name and going from room to room---we had a suite, so had three rooms to check. We found her purse, wallet, cell phone, and one shoe so didn't think she had left but where was she? We did notice that the sheets and blankets on both beds were a wreck and piled up on each bed and we starting unraveling those and in the second bed we searched, there was Tiny Sun buried in a pile of blankets at the foot of the bed, passed out cold!

But all our Elders were now accounted for and we were very thankful. The rest of our time together was uneventful. We had a marvelous breakfast, swam, sat in the hot tub, had a mimosa, showered, and packed up about noon to head back to our regular lives. A nice time (excluding about 2 hours in the late night) was had. Project Martha was a great success. And we are already thinking about our next gathering.

Signing off....Grammy, headed to the bubble bath to try to recooperate from her visit with dear friends!

MISCELLANEOUS WRAP-UPS

2009-02-05T11:40:00.000-08:00

I decided some wrapping up of details needed to be written versus an actual topic for this blog.

Tiny Sun and I cashed in our gift certificate from the December Scavenger hunt we participated in on some Fleur de Lis key hooks for our purses and I got some delish Carmel Apple Butter from the same place. We also enjoyed a very nice lunch in the village of Augusta at Cafe Bella, a new restaurant. It was funny, halfway through our meal, we decided we had lunched there before when it was a different place, different decor, different menu, and different name. The meal was good on that day as it was good on the past day we lunched there.

I caught up with Polly, Mother Mary, and The Carpenter (Polly's husband) two weeks ago right after they returned from a trip to Washington D.C. Nice to visit and catch up with that side of the "family."

I hear The Weatherman has recooped very nicely from his hip surgery. I haven't seen Aunt Cracker in a while but......The Elders will be gathering on Friday afternoon for another infamous slumber party. This time we've rented a hotel room. We haven't met since before Christmas when I assigned them all homemade Christmas presents (of their own ideas and to be kept secret) to be exchanged at our next gathering which is this Friday. We've dubbed our activity Project Martha and I can't wait to see what everyone has made. Darling Daughter helped me with my craft selection and I think my Elders will enjoy their gift from me. Can't wait.

We've had a few snowstorms in the city and the country and sometimes in one place and not the other. Three weeks ago, it was "dry" in the city and we headed to the country for our weekend and it started snowing on us as we drove west. By the time we got home, everything was covered but the roads weren't bad at all, it was a dry blowing snow, the best kind to drive in.

Anyway, we enjoyed the snow all weekend and then came back to the city where it was still snow free. Then the next week, the entire state was dumped on--heavy wet snow on top of ice--not a good kind of snow for driving but another wonder----our gravel road in the country had been plowed when we journeyed out there at the end of the week. We called it a snow miracle.

Our renter, Joe, has left MO for TX to care for his ailing father. So Papa and I are back in the rehabbing business. The house Joe was working on for us was halfway finished, so we don't have a complete house to do but plenty enough before it's ready to sell.

Fantastic Son and Serious Girlfriend are doing well in their new house with all the bonus kids. Papa and I are traveling there the end of April for FS's 24th birthday. Can't wait to finally meet these bonus kids and my new grandpuppy, Deja. That's her real name but since she doesn't have a computer, I think keeping her identify secret is silly. Snoopy, on the other hand, tends to read over my shoulder at times, so she will remain anonymous.

My brother, Gulliver turned 46 last month and had an enjoyable birthday. I'm so proud of how he has been doing (another story that will be left untold). Actually, he was researching laptops for me (he just bought himself one) and I have one enroute to me at this time, maybe in my mailbox right now. Did I mention how proud I was of him? Here's to many more Happy Birthdays to you, Gulliver.

Papa has been in better spirits. Almost Step-Son has a regular VERY GOOD 9-5 job now (actually at the same company that Papa and I both work) and he is staying with us every Thursday night until he completes this last college course before graduation. So Papa gets more facetime with his first born.

Rumor has it that Almost Step-Daughter is no longer with child (nature stepped in). We are sorry for her if this is true but on the other hand she is not in a good place in her life at this time to welcome another child so maybe nature knew what she was doing.

And the P's are the P's---Perfect and Precious as usual. Perfect can really carry on a conversation with the best of us now....almost. A few nights ago, the P's and I were in the basement playing and it got chilly so I told Perfect to go to the bottom of the stairs and yell up to Papa to come down and light the stove for us that we were cold. Perfect went over to the stairs and yelled up "Papa, Papa, blah blah blah blah Grammy blah blah blah COLD." Guess I overloaded him with too many words to repeat. But hey, he got Papa's attention regardless of what came out.

Precious is crawling and so close to walking right now. And she's learning the word "No". Last night we were "fighting" about her desire to push all the framed pictures off the end table....repeatedly. I put the pictures back on the table a number of times---Perfect learned what he was not allowed to touch at Grammy's house so I was determined that Precious follow the same path. It took a while and I'm sure she'll have forgotten by next Wednesday but by the end of the night, she would stand at the table and look at me, I would say "NO" loudly. She would whimper a bit but move along to something else. She's so got her mother's temperment. She doesn't like to be told no but when she starts to whimper, I would ask her what's wrong and would receive a big smile.

So I said in my last blog that we have had a routine January and early February but I guess after writing about all the above, it's not been such a routine life after all, alot has happened and I think those black-eyed peas have worked so far. Life's been good.

Signing off....Grammy

THE WALT

2009-02-05T08:11:00.000-08:00

Hello readers, it's been some time since we talked. Routine life for January and early February. We have been enjoying some nice country weekends though which I'll report about in the next few blogs. A few weekends ago, we resumed a habit that we used to have some months ago.

In New Haven, two towns over from us, they have a tiny movie theatre that is a remnant from the 1940's. It's called The Walt and it is located downtown sandwiched between the Missouri river behind and train tracks that run along the front of the downtown area.

It has been renovated--new paint, carpeting, etc.--but it still looks similar to what it must have looked like in the 1940's. Very small box office, small concession stand. There is an upstairs balcony with hardwood floors, then the main floor with a small lobby, and the restrooms are located in the basement.

Some college kids run this theatre--we see the same two or three kids every time we've gone and when there is "something" going on, i.e., a local fair, holiday, or really any sort of festival, the theatre is not open. Otherwise, they show one movie per weekend. The same movie with one showing on Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday early evening.

We love going to the The Walt mostly for the ambiance, the old time feel of the theatre, and the train usually goes by twice per movie tooting its horn as it passes. They show first run movies for only $3.50 a person (this price was recently raised from $3). The popcorn is freshly popped and all the concessions are priced rather cheap. So Papa and I can see a good movie and have snacks for usually about $10. A cheap night of fun including a bit of nostalgia which Papa lives for.

In the lobby of the theatre, they have framed telegrams and pictures from the opening week of The Walt from celebrities of that era such as Bing Crosby and Bob Hope. We have since learned that many theatres were opened up along the train tracks such as the The Walt as this was the main source of long distance transportation for most people. And a theatre opening was a big thing. Celebrities would travel by train for theatre openings and then return for premieres of movies that they were in.

Anyway, this theatre doesn't open until 7:00 and the movie starts at 7:30 so we used to have a little logistics problem getting ourselves there. This was because The Walt no longer advertises what the weekend movie is. We used to be able to check the paper and decide if wanted to go or not. Then the advertisements stopped about 2 years ago. So since New Haven is a bit of a distance from our country home, we couldn't really wait until 7 to call and so we would just drive over and take our chances on what was showing--if there was something showing. I think we only walked out of one movie (that was too awful to sit through).

A few times we arrived in New Haven to find The Walt wasn't showing a movie for some reason we couldn't figure out, so we would have to turn around and go home. They had a phone number to call but in the beginning there was no answering machine, so if you called before 7, it would just ring. Then about a year ago, they got an answering machine but there was some sort of glitch in their system. The phone would ring about 10 times and then a Spanish speaking woman would answer and leave the message--in Spanish and hang up but there was no beep for us to leave a message. We also couldn't figure out what she was saying.

We even went as far as driving over one afternoon and checking in with the Chamber of Commerce/NewHaven Museum (and getting a short tour of the history of the town) only to find out the number we had was the number they also had for the theatre. The woman working at the Chamber of Commerce/New Haven Museum couldn't explain the weird message we received when we called but she assured us, they were still open and showing movies on weekends.

After a few "misses" we just got frustrated and quit driving over there. This was sometime last Spring. Then three weeks ago, Papa said "Wonder what's showing at The Walt?" and I picked up the phone and dialed the number and lo and behold an English speaking man answered with a coherent message about the movie showing that weekend. It was something we thought would be fun, so off we went and were so excited to find that nothing else had changed about The Walt experience. It was like we never had a large gap of non-attendance. And wonder of wonders, every week about Wednesday, I can call over and get the same nice message filling me in on the next weekend's movie.

So being creatures of habit, Papa and I can now be found at The Walt pretty much every Saturday night now. If you find yourself without anything to do, drive over to New Haven, MO. You'll see a good movie, had some tasty snacks, and experience a little of the 1940's as well.

Until next time....Grammy