Happy Mother's Day: Ode to Ma.

So this is Helen, my mother.  She was a character and a half.  It's hard to imagine that she has been gone over five years.  Just doesn't seem possible, plain and simple.  Was it yesterday when I held her hand, gently told her that it was okay to say goodbye to me?  I squeezed her fingers and held on for my dear life as I listened to her take her last breath.  Most of the time, though, it seems like an eternity since she's been gone.  This woman could drive me sheer off the berserk-o scale, but the bottom line is that I would give just about anything to have one more day with this woman.  Heck, I'd settle for anything I could get, one more minute, one more opportunity to say the words "I love you."

As a kid growing up, Ma was my best friend.  She was CRAZY and above all, liked to have fun. I used to think that my girlfriends wanted to come over and spend the night at my house so that they could hang with HER.  Decades of bad health would take some of that fun-loving spirit away from her but not all of it.  Even at the nursing home where she spent her final four years of her life, she was Belle of the Ball and she was loved there by everyone. 

I haven't been writing my blog very much these days.  My father arrived home from Florida last week and my time is better spent with this aging man instead of sitting at the computer.  Right now, he's off running errands and I thought that I would take the time to pay tribute to my mom on Mother's Day.

The following are excepts from words that I spoke at her funeral.  Only six people were able to attend the service as there was a MASSIVE snowstorm.  I called everyone I could think of that morning, asking them to please stay safe at home rather than risk an accident or worse.  Too bad, as they missed a pretty good time, as much as one can say that about a funeral.  Ma would have wanted us to smile rather than to wail and cry, and that's exactly what we tried to do as we watched the inches of snow pile up into feet. These words will help you to get to know my mother.  As I said, she was a character.

                                                     SOME HELEN DESCRIPTORS

• The neighborhood party planner.  I still don't know everything that took place at these events and it's probably a good thing.
• One tough cookie.  She held very high expectations for everyone around her.
• A lover of cigarettes, a three-pack-a-day woman, who later substituted three bags a day of candy and popcorn.   
• The most stubborn German ever born.  But under it all, she really had a wonderful sense of humor.  We had great fun, most of it being legal.  Oh, there was that one time.  I remember we found ourselves out in the country in the middle of the night.  I was standing on my cousin's shoulders, dismantling a Cattle Crossing sign, with my dear sweet mother crouched down in the trunk of the car, playing lookout.  
• A Mitch Miller Affecianato.  She'd go downstairs with a can or two of Genesee Mule Swill and belt out The Whippenpoof Song on our cranky old player piano.  A self-taught musician, I'd lay in bed in the middle of the night and listen to "We are poor little lambs who have lost our way, baa, baa, baa, blah, blah, blah," wafting through the hot air registers.  To this day, I  personally hold her responsible for our entire family being chronic insomniacs.
• A lover of reading and the educational process.  She may have been short on money, her family being dirt poor.  But she wasn't short on brains.  She was the valedictorian of her class at a large suburban high school.  I will always remember with great affection our weekly trips to the grocery store, where she would stuff me like a little pork sausage into the kiddy chair in the grocery cart.  No matter how tight the grocery money was on any given week, I was allowed to pick out a new Little Golden Book.  She read to me every evening, sometimes even when I was a teenager. 
• A lover of game shows.  Summers at noon, my mother, my brother and I would eat lunch to Jeopardy.  She'd sit there in the living room, wearing her napkin as a bib, suckling on her pickled pigs feet and nibbling on liverwurst.  Sometimes, I think she revolved her three marriages based on the show Let's Make A Deal.  She didn't like what she got behind curtain one (my father) and two (a REAL disaster), so she wheeled and dealed and finally got it right when she selected the man behind curtain number three, who ended up being the keeper.  Ed really loved her and treated her like royalty.  Speaking of which, she was:
• Queen.  Helen and I invented a place called Queenie Land.  Here was a place where there was no pain, where she didn't have to waitress with her back in a sling, where there was no vacuuming; a place where men fed us grapes and waited on us hand and foot.   

Enjoy your Queenie Land, Ma.  And know that on Mother's Day and every day, I love and miss you.

Zoom Zoom

Didn't I just mention this crazy world of ours and how it just ZOOMS by, zoom, zoom, zoom.  Blink, lookie here, already it's the merry, merry month of May, and that means it's time for the snowbird to come home to roost.  Cock-a-doodle-doo. 

Yesterday, I drove my hubby to the airport.  Destination: Tampa and points north to New Port Richie. His job is to fly down and then drive my father back home to the prairie.  My husband won't let me do this for him, although I have offered many times.  I think that (a) he really likes to fly; (b) he is a kind, considerate man and knows that he has more stamina than I; and (c) he has told me pretty much that if I were to spend that amount of time cooped up in a vehicle with my father, the end result wouldn't be pretty.  So every October, Hubby drives Pops to Florida and then flies home, and in May, the process is reversed.  For this, I am thankful.  I'm thankful that at the ripe old age of 86, my dad is still well enough to make this journey, to take care of and enjoy himself in the Sunshine State.  I am fortunate indeed.

They have been on the road already for two hours this morning, and they will arrive home tomorrow in time to hear the dinner bell, barring anything unforeseen. This means that I have been and will be alone, unattended and unchaperoned, for many hours.  Yesterday, I made the decision that as long as I had to take hubby to the airport, I might as well have my own adventure.  I made plans to stay in the big city and hook up with a friend of mine who lives close to the airport.

I spent the morning yacking it up with my friend, taking time off momentarily to take breaths and to suck down coffee.  Eventually, off we went on a shopping spree.

First stop, a restaurant supply company, where I purchased a case of XTRA Hot Sauce for hubby's pizza business.  Taking advantage of the situation, I bought some grocery items, too, at rock-bottom prices.  I LOVE this store, especially their produce and dairy, where prices seem to be especially low. Mother's Day is quickly approaching and my mother-in-law adores their frozen pecan pie so that made its way into my cart also.

Gee, look at that.  Right next door is the Rescue Mission.  There, I found a nice pair of dress slacks and a pair of shorts to see me through the next few pounds of weight loss, provided that I'm able to shut my mouth long enough to shed another ten pounds. Both looked great and the price tag came to ten bucks. More important, they were purchased in the ladies rather than in the plus size section.  Sixty pounds gone will do that. 

Down the road we went to Michael's, an arts/craft store.  I needed three round watercolor brushes and I just happened to have a 25% off coupon.  Across the parking lot from there stands a Christmas Tree Shop, where I bought art mats and other assorted stuff.  That store is good for stuff.

Eventually, down the road I had to go, back to the prairie.  I was on a little bit of a time frame.  The Fed Ex man was scheduled to drop off a delivery: ten thousand mealworms.  I kid you not.  Those baby bluebirds out in that nest are plenty hungry.  And I very well couldn't have ten thousand mealworms sitting out there, baking in the sun.  They needed to get to our cool basement, into their nice bedding of wheat bran.  Sure enough, when I pulled into the driveway, there sat the carton by the front of the house.  My grand adventure was officially over.

Maybe to you, the day didn't seem like much.  But for me, a person who doesn't get off the farm very much or who rarely travels much beyond a ten or fifteen mile radius, this was a real treat.  It really takes little to make me happy.  Today, it's back to business as usual: feeding those baby birds, the laundry basket is overflowing, there's a house to clean.  If time, there's onions to plant that really should get into the ground today.  Hopefully, I'll get that last bulb planted in the ground and it's time for yet another friend and another adventure: a local fire department is having their annual chicken barbeque and in my opinion, it's the best in the land.  I just go WILD when my husband's not home.  Zoom.

Hotel Sex

It's the final days of April here on the prairie and before I know it, I'll be turning the page over to a new month on the calendar.  Remember how slowly time seemed to pass when we were all kids?  December especially used to be this giant death march, each minute tick-tock-tick-tocking slowly until Santa finally arrived.  But as I age, it seems that each year swirls by faster and faster.  Right now I've been hurled into the eye of a hurricane that's called Spring.  The pea and the spinach seeds were planted two weeks ago and the forecast is looking warm enough for me to consider adding beets, onions and leaf lettuce to the mix.  Oh, I can taste them already.    

Here's the blue sky and that gorgeous sunset which I snapped yesterday.   You can't HELP but feel good when Mother Nature is knocking at your door with such beauty.  There's so much to love during this time of year.  There's the garden, getting my hands in the dirt and watching things grow.  I love watching the spring weather swirl around me and feeling hope for days where I can go outside in my shirtsleeves.  I love all of the birds that show up here.  Naturally, this includes the eternal font of geese. 

Here on the prairie, we have thirty-five acres and two ponds.  When a Canada goose and his mate fly overhead, I'm convinced that he sees a giant flashing "Ramada Inn" sign.  He is, after all, FRENCH-Canadian and right below him lies the possibility for some great hotel sex.  With one eye glued to the pond, Pierre looks over at Monique and before you can say, "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi ce soir?", he honks out the suggestion, "Oh, LOOK, Sweetheart, they have water beds!!!"   And down they swoop down into the pond and here they stay.  
  

Yup, sex is pretty much rampant here on the prairie in April.  To your left is Exhibit #1: four of the cutest little yellow puffballs that you shall ever see.  And to the right, four beautiful bluebird eggs that hopefully will hatch, any day now.  If we're really, really lucky, in a few short weeks, we will have trained those baby bluebirds to come up to our front porch and feast on mealworms, which we raise in our basement.  We set the worms out in a little terra cotta dish and from our living room, we watch Mommy and Daddy bluebird feed their young.  It's a sight to behold here, all unfolding as another month of the calendar is about to embark upon us, swirling at the speed of light.  From the looks of things around here, it's time to switch on the sign that says "No Vacancy." We're full up at the inn.

Fairy Tale Friend

I am a passionate person.  There is so much in my life that has the ability to make my heart feel as if it's going to literally burst out of its cavity from within my chest.  It can be something that seems so simple, like the flower that I studied last Tuesday in watercolor class.  The picture was of an iris, my mother's favorite flower, and I was so taken aback by its absolute loveliness.  That flower didn't have a clue of the beauty it possessed, the power which it held over me.  Before the brush even touched the paper, my painting didn't stand a chance; it was doomed.  I was too busy thinking of my mother, of the unblemished miracle in each petal of the flower.

Oh, and the music!!!!!  Music, with melodies so gorgeous that tears can come to my eyes.  Truth be known, there have been times when one solitary note can choke me up.  My passion can lie within the wonder of watching a clutch of bird eggs, or the sight of a baby as he turns his lips up to smile. And there's my favorite heart-swell, the sound of my husband telling me that he loves me.  Yes, that is the best.

One of my most cherished passions is friendship.  I know so very many people, hundreds and probably even thousands. As a retired teacher, each school year opened its door to allow even more people to enter my life.  Every student that I taught had siblings and parents and even grandparents who came to concerts and watched their child as I waved my baton up on stage, more people to recognize me on the streets or in the grocery store.  My husband used to joke that we couldn't go anywhere, out of town or out of state, without someone calling out my name.  Add to that the neighbors past and present, other multitudes of community members, all of the groups and organizations to which I belong.  It adds up.  Still, out of those throngs of people that I know as acquaintances, there are few that are considered close, trusted friends. The value that I place upon them is immeasurable, as precious and miraculous to me as the petals of that iris.   

I've lost friends before.  One of my dearest died after a short bout with cancer.  Enough time has passed that whenever I think of my Evelyn, it can bring a smile to my face because I realize that I was and am blessed to have had her in my life at all.  Not everyone was fortunate enough to have known her.  Another friend is not lost; our friendship has simply transformed.  Kim lives clear across the country now but our hearts remain bonded and we never have to search for that unity that joins us.  We may have lost that day-to-day contact but our love for each other is still easily found.

No, this isn't about either of those people.  The loss of this particular friendship is confusing and has me befuddled, in a center stage funk.  It's the reason why I'm not sleeping very well, why I've been prone over the past few weeks to fluctuating moods.  You certainly don't need to worry about me, it's nothing at all like that.  But it all just leaves me feeling hurt.  Hurt and sad and tired.  Losing a friend is like having your hormones being thrown back into a time warp machine, back to the roller coaster ride of being thirteen.  High, low, forward, back, friend, gone.

My husband and close friends tell me to accept the parting, to let the bottle that contains the message, "I don't value you anymore" to go over the waves and out to the sea of blue.  After a couple of months of anguishing over the loss, I will take the advice of those people who care for me the most; I will try harder to let go.  I need to look at this through different eyes, to dust off the fairy tale that began so long ago, Once Upon A Time, and to finally allow myself to reach the last page where it says The End.  Close the book gently.  Friendships come and friendships go, but this one; this was a really, really good story.  

     

 

Washing Windows: Ode to Lil

   So earlier this week I was washing the windows of our home, a semi-annual event here on the prairie that brings about as much excitement to me as does flossing my teeth.  And while on a break from the drudgery, I received a dare from one of my Facebook pals: to write a blog about window washing.  I thinked and I thanked and I thunked and the only thing that I could sputter out of this feeble little brain of mine was to write about my grandmother, Lillian, Her Royal Highness of Vinegar.

I loved my grandmother very, very much.  My childhood years were turbulent and there were periods of time while I was growing up when I temporarily lived with her, my grandfather and my aunt.  My other aunt, uncle and cousin lived downstairs.  There are so many things that remind me of Grandma to this day, besides seeing a bottle of vinegar: 

• The Lawrence Welk Show.  I believe that she must have carried a secret torch for one of the performers, or maybe even for Larry himself, because heaven help the person or event that kept her from watching this show.  
• Thunderstorms.  Oh, how Lil hated thunder and lightning.  At the very first rumble, she would grab her purse and then wait it out in the stairwell of her home.  This wasn't a one-shot deal.  This occurred every single time.  If she was going to become a crispy critter in any electrical storm, she wanted to have her identification handy.     
• Bat Wings.  Gosh, when I think about what I put that poor woman through.  As a child, I would sneak up behind her, grab her bat wings and flap them.  I would then run away as fast as my pudgy little legs could go, screaming "Pudding arms!" at the top of my lungs.       
• Hair Nets.  As essential to the total ensemble package as her pair of shoes. 
• Doilies.  Lordie, that woman LOVED to tat.  I still have my mother's pillowcases with the tatted edges that Grandma made for her as a wedding present. 
• The Dupa.  I don't even know if this is a real word; I couldn't find it in the dictionary, but this is what the family called it.  I DO know that come Thanksgiving Day, no one dared to touch the turkey until after the dupa was ceremonially placed on the dinner plate in front of Lil.  The dupa is that little fatty triangular-shaped thing that's down there.  You know where- down THERE, at the end of the tailbone.

See those deep set eyes and that devilish little smirk?  Meet Lillian, on her wedding day.  Many people have told me that I look like her.  Ya think?  In the way I act, in my expressions, in my work ethic which just doesn't seem to want to quit, the deadpan sense of humor; it would seem that I scream of her.  God knows I have her ultra-thick naturally-wavy hair, the same bone structure that resembles a football linebacker, and yes, I was given her bat wings as payback for when I traumatized her with my childhood antics. When connections are made between my grandmother and me, I take that as a huge compliment.  She was, and still is, sky-high up there on my most sacred of pedestals. 

Lil's folks were fresh off the boat from Germany, and if there's one country that appreciates a good bottle of vinegar, it's Deutschland.  My grandmother's house smelled of the stuff, but in a good way. Her place oozed clean.  I still don't understand how she could take a bottle of vinegar and make her sinks and toilet sparkle like diamonds, and then turn around and with the same bottle, cook the most FANTASTIC sauerbraten and red cabbage that I have ever tasted.  I have tried many a time to replicate that recipe. I even inherited the bowl that she used for serving up her sauerbraten, but my gravy just never comes out quite as good as hers.  No, let's be honest; it's not even close.  I can't imagine why, what with her recipe calling for a 'chunk of beef or venison', 'some peppercorns' and to make the gravy, you take 'not too much flour'.  To this day, she remains the most fantastic cook that I have known.     

I would find little pudding cups, filled to the brim with vinegar, hidden in nooks and crannies throughout her house.   She said that the vinegar kept the place from smelling like smoke from my grandpa's cigarettes.  Ha, did my grandmother think I was born yesterday?  She was a closet smoker.  I saw the pack once, inside of her purse.  My aunt later told me that she allowed herself one cigarette a day.

She threw a cup of vinegar in with the laundry (always done on Mondays because duh, Tuesday was ironing day).  She said that it helped everything come out cleaner and kept Pa's socks smelling fresh as a daisy rather than the cow poop that was out in the garden. Grandma was a stickler for schedules.  You could set your watch to her meal times: the main meal of the day was served as the noon whistle blew, and your butt had better be at the table at 5:00 for supper.  Don't be late. 

Grandma also used vinegar to promote good health.  She would dole out spoonfuls whenever I had hiccups. I think a spoonful of sugar would have tasted better, personally.  Nothing beat the feeling of one of her homemade tatted washcloths rubbing my back down with vinegar after I found myself with a bad sunburn from the beach. Plus, she kept a bottle on the shelf in her tub, next to the Prell shampoo and the Zest soap.  She used it as a hair rinse to make her hair shine.


Pa, her husband, was a farmer and thus my grandmother became a master at the art of canning.  She taught everything that she knew about food preservation to my aunt, and in turn, my aunt taught me.  Grandma's root cellar was full of pickled beets, bread and butter pickles, dill pickles, chili sauce, sweet dilly beans, pickled relish, pickled watermelon rind and other jars of things swimming in vinegar.  She had four huge canners, a stove in the kitchen and one in the basement for those years when the crops were especially generous.  Crocks of homemade sauerkraut were down there, too.  To this day, I carry on her tradition. I  do the canning of our garden bounty, and I always think of my grandmother whenever I hear the little "ping" when the lid on the jar tells me that it has sealed properly.

Oh, and in case you haven't guessed by now: Lil also washed her windows with vinegar.  Her recipe: "Just pour some vinegar in some water.  NO, I don't know how much.  Just some.  That's how you do it.  No streaks."  And that's just how I did it, Grandma, that's just how I did it.    





   

The Price of Gas

This is getting exciting.  I just looked at my Super Man blog that I posted yesterday and I see that I've had 996 visitors.  Gosh, I wish, I wish, I wish (insert red ruby slippers, heels madly clicking), I wish I had something great that I could give away to the one-thousandth person, like a brand new car that has a giant pink ribbon on the top of the hood.  Or an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii.  Plus have a whole bunch of confetti fall down from the sky.  I like confetti.  But alas, if you are the lucky one who looks at this blog as counter trips over into Four Digit Land, you'll have to find your rewards from deep within yourself.  I suppose if I could find out who you were, I could send you a five dollar gift certificate to McDonald's and you could buy a Happy Meal. Maybe the toy in the meal box would be a really, really good one.   

Speaking of McDonald's, I've been trying to lose weight, lots of it.  And last week, I hit the sixty pound loss column.  I was ecstatic!!!!  So imagine my dismay when I stood on the scale this morning and saw that the number that popped up on the screen was THREE pounds higher than last week's scale reading.  Uh-ohhhhhhhh.

Let's discuss a calorie, shall we?   A calorie is the amount of heat that it takes to raise the temperature of one gram of water one degree Celsius.  I gotta say, for the average Joe America, this is a pretty worthless piece of information.  Gram?  Celsius?  I stunk in science when I was a kid, and besides, I didn't gain a kilogram; I gained a pound.  So it takes roughly 3,500 calories to make one pound.  That, I can understand.  And that means that somehow or another, I consumed an extra 10,500 calories this week, and THAT, my friends,  means that during the past six days, I somehow or another ate an extra SEVENTY-FIVE pieces of bread.

Maybe what I need to do is go to the bathroom.

Right now, my friend Ginnie is howling, "TMI! TMI! TMI!"  If you listen closely, you can hear her.  She lives on top of a hill and her voice is echoing through the entire countryside.  The last time I got constipated and wrote about it, she emailed me back these three little alphabet letters (complete with smiley face), and I had to look it up on Google.  I didn't know what it stood for.  Out here on the prairie, it's easy to get out of the loop.  But I found out that it stands for Too Much Information.  I don't want to upset Ginnie, so I won't type the word 'poop' today.

I don't have a stinking clue how I get this constipated.  Since dieting, I eat a barrel full of fiber each and every day- oatmeal, fruit, high fiber breads, salads.  Plus, I drink buckets of coffee, and not that foo-foo stuff, either. Black coffee.  But it seems as if, once again, I shall have to depend upon my trusty Fiber One Bars that I keep stashed in the back of my pantry.  Or, as one of my facebook friends calls them, Fart Bars.  I wonder if Ginnie gets upset if I say the word 'fart'?  

All I know is that by the time I officially weigh in tomorrow at Fat Ass Club, I need to dump ten thousand five hundred calories and then let the Tidy Bowl Man deal with the consequences of my actions.

So today, Chocolate Mocha gets the nod.  Stand back.

   

 

Super Man

Have you ever taken the time to REALLY contemplate men?  No, I'm not talking about anatomy or anything like that.  I'm talking about thoughts on men in general: what they value, what they think about and how in the blue blazes do they think that way?  Are all of those grunts from different planets?  Why does a man break out into hives when he is forced to answer the sentence, "I feel ______", especially when told 'horny' is not an acceptable response?  Have you ever noticed?  Immediately after a baby boy gushes out the words Mama and Dada, it's only a matter of time before BAM! and POW! overtake his vocabulary.  Along those same lines, why, when men get together and form a bevy of manhood, WHY do they like to blow things up?  Observe:

These are grown men.  I didn't hear any high heels clicking their way across the concrete, did you?  Why would anyone even LOOK at a pumpkin and say to the guy next to him, "Gee, Gomer, let's blow this thing up?"  Where does that idea COME from?!?  Thinking about blowing up a car engine?  I just watched the video; it's already been done. I know that if I ever DID blow up a pumpkin, my husband would think that I was the coolest wife ever on this planet Earth. 

I get dizzy when I blow up a beach ball.  


They have shows on the Discovery Channel that are solely about making things implode and explode, all in the name of science.  I've caught my husband mesmerized by the television screen, watching some five hundred pound squash that looks like Buddha with giant warts being catapulted across some poor farmer's field. One would think that he is above all of this nonsense, being a specimen with abundant intelligence.  But he is Man, and proudly waves his membership card high in the air, HUZZAH!  Wait...... that's TWO syllables.

Our absolute favorite television series of all-time is "Northern Exposure."  That show ran for seven, count 'em, SEVEN seasons.  We own all of the DVDs and regularly watch them throughout the winter months to help us get through the blahs and the doldrums.  They are incredibly funny, and often thought-provoking, artistic, and sensitive.  From the entire series, would you like to glean the two to three minutes that define Hubby's absolute favorite "Northern Exposure" moment?  

You would think that by now, men would have figured out that women are NOT attracted by things that blow up or explode.  Do you know what attracts me?  Pink.  I like a man who is secure enough with himself and his ego to put on a pink shirt and wear it as if it has WWE emblazoned across the front of it.

Birds have it all figured out.  Women not only like pink, we like to dance.  Women like men who dance, and birds know it:

My husband has danced twice with me in my entire life.  Both time were at weddings and both times it was to the same Elvis song.  I'm not fond of Elvis, but at least it was to "Can't Help Falling In Love" rather than  "Hound Dog."  Don't get me wrong: I am ever so grateful for those two dances, and I treasure their memories.  If I am supremely lucky, maybe there will be more dances yet to come.  But please, dear Lord, make it to someone else other than Elvis.  And Lord, by the way, if you're still dialed in, not to Weird Al Yankovic, either. That would probably appeal to my husband.

The other day, I thought that my husband was working on stuff for the IRS, but I couldn't find him.  He wasn't in the living room in front of the mounds of paperwork, and I figured that he was finished with his task. I found him out in the sunroom.

             "Are you done doing the taxes?"
            "Nope, been watchin' the birds.  Turkey vultures come and go, but taxes are forever."

And so we too shall be forever.  He's been watching things go boom and he's been watching the birds.  It seems as if he's learned a thing or two along the way and so have I.  Maybe it's not in the blowing up or in the strut; maybe it's the flight that everything takes in this life that is the ultimate attraction.  My husband might not wear pink or like to dance, but he speaks my language, even if it is primarily monosyllables.  When he smiles at me, my heart flies higher than any ol' piano, and when he says my name, my heart literally explodes. He is my Superman.

    

The Big Six-Zero

Good morning,

Today's blurb will have to be short, and in fact, it will just be all newsy and such, no morals or stories or whatever.  I have a bunch of things to get done here if I'm going to make it to the pool on time.  And I know what you're thinking:  "Right, like THAT'S gonna happen; Prairie Woman is going to write something SHORT."  I know, I know.  But I can't be crossing stuff off from a list if my fingers are occupied, flying across a keyboard.

So it's 26 degrees here this morning and there's tons of frost on the ground and two deer just romped playfully through the backyard.  They're not fooling me; I knew what THEY were thinking, too.  Must be I'm clairvoyant this morning, knowing what's going through everyone's mind.


       Marv:  "Wish those Prairie People could get off their big butts and plant something in this garden so that we could have a nice breakfast.  Some fresh, tender pod peas would be kinda nice."
      Harriet:  "I know.  These rose bushes are getting kinda stale."

They will have to wait until this weekend.  The horse poopie is all tilled under and the only thing left to do is to put the fence around the garden.  We shall be planting peas and spinach on Saturday.

So yesterday was a busy one.  I spent the vast majority of the day at the nursing home where I volunteer.  I was kind of a frustrating day for me but we won't get into that.  Let's just say that when an employee wants me to do something, I wish that the proper materials were accurate and ready for me.  Otherwise, my time is wasted, and I seem to waste a lot of time there lately.  Waiting and waiting and waiting..... and I don't like that.     

The BIG news is that I went to Fat Ass Class (what I affectionately call my weight loss club), where I stood on that stinking scale and lost yet another pound and a half.  That makes for SIXTY and three-quarters  pounds lost.  I can hardly believe it.  No surgeries or whatever, just plain ol' shutting my mouth, saying "No, thank you, I don't think that I would like any of that molten lava chocolate cream fudge pie today," and exercising.  It has taken me almost nineteen months to accomplish and I won't kid you, it's been tough.  But I'm not in any race, and in fact, I think that the way I'm approaching this is going to work for me for the rest of my life this time.  I have just about anything that I want; I just have a lot less of it than what I used to cram into my pie hole.  I can do this.  Seventeen more pounds to go and I reach my goal.  I don't care how long it takes as long as it's reached.  I repeat, I can do this.

So I'd better get at it.  I need to get the Fat Ass banking ready (I'm treasurer for the group.).  Cleaning the bathroom is always a treat.  I still have my Easter bunny theme going on in the kitchen and I know that I need to disassemble it all and get things back to normal.  Going to the pool to swim off a few calories.  Then my friend Lynnie is coming over and we're going to go grab a salad somewhere and then go for a walk in the local park.  Sounds like a good one, doesn't it?  All except that bathroom part. 

Have a great day.

Decision Making 101

Good morning,
It's a drizzly start to the day out there on the prairie.  This is okay with me, as we are WAY behind the magic eight ball in our precipitation so far this year.  We are almost a hundred inches less in our season snowfall this year.  We are also a third of the way through April and that's what we have so far for a monthly rainfall total- a third of an inch.  Such a paltry little amount.  Mother Nature can't seem to make up her mind on how she wants to rule the world.  Trust me, she's not alone.

Over the past couple or three months, I have become the Queen of Wafflers.  I seem to be unable to make a decision about a very personal dilemma that's going on in my life right now.  Back and forth, forth and back.  The waffling is at least providing me with entertainment, although I'm a bit dizzy most of the time.  I'm never bored because each day provides a fresh approach, a new attitude.  Yes, I will.  No, I won't.  I need to do this.  I need to do that.  Doing nothing obviously is doing nothing to solve the problem, but hey, it's an option.  And it's the road that I'm chosen to take, at least up to today.  I COULD change my mind.  All of this is driving me bonkers.

This morning, I decided that enough was enough.  Pretty good, huh? Did you notice?  I made a decision that I need to make a decision.  I got online and  googled "Decision Making."  Holy Mother of Ouija Boards.  There are like THOUSANDS of sites about decision making.  How in the heck am I supposed to decide which one to choose?  It's so complicated.

I sat down this morning and made a list of how I could reach a decision, based upon my history, and this is what I came up with.  At the very least, each idea spawned some action from me in the past:

• Spin the Bottle:  Wow, this is a GREAT one.  How come I haven't thought about this earlier?  This certainly used to spawn LOTS of action.

• Rabbit's Foot:  Hold on just a minute.  There's no way that I could ever do this.  No, my mind is made up on this.  I'm surprised these things ever made it past the PETA people.    

• Make a List:  This might work, one side of the paper being FOR a particular stance, the other AGAINST, with a line drawn down the middle of the paper.  Heck, I'm making a list right now.  But it is way too thought provoking.  Plus it doesn't go with the latest flow of "Decision Making by Consensus." It seems in the decision making world that reaching consensus is a real biggie. 

• Rock Paper Scissors:  After all of these years, I STILL don't get this game.  

 As you can see, I'm not very good at this, am I?  So as a last resort, I talked about my current dilemma with a trusty old friend this morning, and this is what I got as a response:

Sigh.  It's going to be yet another fun day in Eggo Land.

  

A Bunny Tale

It's a sunny day to revel in the Easter holiday weekend across the prairie.  The temps aren't that far from the norm, although the wind makes it feel chillier.  There are hyacinths and daffodils galore outside.  I made a nice arrangement and will use the flowers as part of a centerpiece for Easter dinner. I'll put them smack dab in the middle of the table, nestled in among my bunny collection.  And now, a warning:  Today's entry is going to be serious and personal in nature.  Heartfelt, yes.  Funny, no.  A bit of drama to boot.

So what's up with them bunnies?  My kitchen table has on it two Jim Shore rabbits and also a cheap felt bunny that I found this year at the Christmas Tree Shop for $2.99.  What a deal!  The tablecloth is full of bunnies.  My kitchen towels are adorned with bunnies, along with the potholders. Even my profile pic on Facebook smacks of Bunny Land.  If you were to come to our house and knock on the front door right now, these bunnies would greet you.  Take a good look at them, because this floppy- eared trio is responsible for quite The Bunny Tail  Tale. 


It was discovered quite by accident, six years ago.  As are many band directors who have been at the job for decades, I had started to develop hearing problems.  And by the way, it seems that the odds of hearing impairment greatly increase if a teacher gives drum instruction in a room that used to be a public school lavatory.  The proof was provided not only by the garish yellow tiles, but also in that large cylinder that jutted out from the wall.  I was thankful for the custodians who removed the toilet that once was connected to the pipe.       

Anyway, all I could hear out of my left ear was my heartbeat so I went to the ear/nose/throat guy in town. He wanted to make sure that the problem wasn't caused by the carotid artery so he ordered an MRI.  Half-way through the test, I was brought out of the machine and injected with dye.  "We might see something," was all that was said.  A few minutes later, I was standing in front of the director of the imaging center, who showed me the images.  I didn't say anything.  Didn't move.  Just stood there and listened as he told me I had a brain tumor.  

I numbly walked out to my car and sat in Fabio (the name of my ultra sharp-looking navy blue Taurus at the time) and had myself a good cry.  Called my husband at work and shared what I knew, which really wasn't much but which seemed to me at the time to be more than I could handle.  Then I pulled myself together because I knew I had to go across the street to the nursing home where my mom lived and pretend that everything was peachy-keen. I was able to pull it off without my mother suspecting a thing.       

The next day, I was back in the ENT's office, where he told me that he was good buddies with the head of the neurology department at an area teaching hospital.  He added that although his friend was booked solid, the guy had agreed to see me as a favor.  So at 7:30 on a Monday morning, I was sitting in the office of a Dr. Hodge, who confirmed what we already knew.  I had a brain tumor.  And due to its size, surgery was really the only option.  I was told that the prognosis looked good but to get my affairs in order, just in case. 

Not being an emergency, I had to wait three weeks for the operation.  Talk about misery and stress.  I continued to work and found that school became my savior, a place where I could temporarily forget how terrified I was feeling.  The music faculty and students became my crutch.  On my final day at school, every member of the middle and high school bands formed a line and gave me hugs and kisses as I got prepared to leave the building.  I will never, ever forget the love and sensitivity that those kids showed me on that day.  So very scared, I felt so very blessed.

I was standing on the front porch of our home on April 2nd,  one day prior to my surgery.  Fabio was primping himself for the big trip into the city, and my husband was standing beside me.  We had to leave.  I reached out for him and looked out at the beautiful countryside that surrounds our home and I told him that I would be back to see those three bunnies hanging on our front door.  I would come back home.

I remember very little about my time in the hospital, but I remember as Fabio entered our driveway, I saw those bunnies and I cried and cried.  And it was during my recovery that I discovered more than I ever thought possible, mostly of the pureness of life that once was perhaps taken for granted.  There's my husband, who answered the "in sickness and in health" bit with "I do" and as it turns out, he really meant it.  Forever it will be him and me.  There's the incredible community in which I live.  The middle school teachers who kept a caravan of hot dinners coming to the house for a solid month, including an Easter ham dinner with all of the trimmings, topped off with a cake shaped in the form of a bunny.  Every church in the area had me on a prayer list, irregardless of denomination.  Flowers, books, puzzles and other get-well thoughts and kind gestures.  Two huge grocery bags full of cards, many from people who didn't know me but ".... heard about you from a neighbor."  Friends came to my house to keep an eye on me, to clean and to do laundry so that my husband could keep his business afloat.  Small town stuff, but tremendously rich in so many ways.  This is why I hold bunnies so dear.  Bunnies represent the goodness that is offered to us without being asked, the love and hugs that our hearts are capable of holding and sharing.

The bunnies hang, heralding in the springtime and the hope eternal that flows with the season.  Happy Easter.  

The Survivor

Good morning,

It's 26 degrees here on the prairie, clear skies prevail,  and there's a bit of frost on the ground.  The humidity is high at 90 degrees, which wasn't the case last night.  A weak disturbance was pushing through our area at dinnertime, but the ultra-low humidity kept the sprinkles at bay, with just a few drops making it to the ground.  A mere trace of rain was reported this morning as a result.

Speaking of weather, did you see the video that came in of the tornado that swept through the Dallas/Fort Worth area yesterday?  Scary stuff.  I've said it before and I'll say it again: We may have the occasional blizzard or flooding situation here, but it's squat compared to the devastation that occurs in other portions of this country.  We are very fortunate here on the prairie.

So I just got back from the gulf coast of Florida, visiting the father for the past week. I had an excellent time, most of it spent either at the pool or preferably on the beach.  I read "The Hunger Games" with my toes sticking in the warm sand.  The weather was fantastic for my entire stay.  Pops splurged with tickets to the Jays/Twins game at their spring training camp in Dunedin and that, too, was lots of fun.   

When my dad isn't in Florida, he's living here on the prairie with my husband and me.  I think that Dad's take on the world stems from the fact that he was orphaned at a very early age, raised in a series of foster homes and running away from most.  Being born a few years before the Great Depression, he was seen by his foster 'families' as cheap farm labor and wasn't treated very well in most cases.  It's almost an obsession with him, this desire to please others and yet to be wary of ulterior motives at the same time.  He is a survivor in the toughest of situations, which would include being a snowbird in the Sunshine State.  

 My father was outside, sitting in a lawn chair when I arrived at his condo last week.  I told him to stay seated and I would put my suitcase inside and be right back to begin our week-long visit.  I walked into the living room and there, on the floor, sat a paper clip.  I really didn't think anything of it.  I put my bag onto the bed and on the way back through, I picked up the paper clip and took it outside to my father.

"Here, Pops," I said, handing it to him.  "I found this on the floor."

"Oh, let me show you the idea I came up with," he replied.

Uh-ohhhhhhh.

Back inside we went. Strategically sitting on the floor were OTHER paper clips, placed just so in the grooves of the ceramic tiles. 

"A GREAT idea of mine," he explains.  "This way, if one of my paper clips is disturbed, I can tell if someone's been in here."

Trust me.  The only thing that's going to go wandering through my dad's condo is one of those stupid, pesky chameleons.  There are millions of them scurrying about, everywhere you look.  It would seem that their troops are well fortified.    

Okay, back to the paper clips.  But let's not call them paper clips.  They are highly technically-engineered tracking devices and land mines, rolled up into one.  Yessir, it's downright dangerous in that Over-55 Condo Association and it would seem that my dad's unit is particularly at risk.  Maybe it's because it sits around the corner from that perilous shuffleboard court.  And who knows what lurks behind that palm tree?

Next he shows me this long curly-Q wire that he has sticking out from under the television cart.

"Same idea.  That's the wire that holds a spiral notebook together.  You really wouldn't notice it, would you?  But if someone's in here, his shoe is going to brush against it and the wire will move.  Clever, huh?"  I begin to wonder if there are other devices in the house that could detonate.  Maybe I will fall into a deep pit when I sit on the john, my butt being impaled by a giant spear.  And here I am, silly me: I forgot to pack my camouflage.

 Yup, he's a survivor, that one.  Eighty-six years young, Pops is still slicing his way through this dog-eat-dog world with a paper clip.  Really, I'm so glad that I went down to check up on him.  I had been concerned about him a little bit, but I can easily see that everything is normal.

At the same time, I have decided that it would be best that I keep my copy of "The Hunger Games" out of his hands.  He doesn't need any more ideas floating around in that head of his.




 

I've Got the Music in Me

Good morning,

It's 36° here on the prairie at 7am, and a blustery breeze is producing a wind chill of 27°, which had me out of bed very early.  It's coming at us straight up from the north and it feels like quite the slap in the face after last week's remarkable temperatures in the 70's and 80's.  Tonight's temps (ALERT!) are supposed to dip well into the teens, and I just am going to have to keep my fingers crossed that our many daffodils and hyacinths that are in bloom will survive.  There's no way that I can cover them all, as they dot many areas on the property.  I'll throw some tarps over the rock garden and at least I know that those flowers will all be safe and sound. But I wonder about the honeysuckles and lilacs and forsythias, all of which are blossoming to beat the band.  There isn't a thing I can do about it, as Mother Nature rules the roost. 

Tomorrow morning at this time, I'll be on my way to the airport, where I will embark on a week-long journey to the Tampa area.  It's time to go check up on the Pops.  Hubby is staying behind because, as he puts it, "Someone's gotta feed the world."  In other words, he has to work.  Once I'm in Florida, Pops and his girlfriend will take me to their club several times, I'm sure, where I will listen to more polkas than I ever thought imaginable.  And mind you, it's not just ANY polka music, it's honky polka music.  Did you know that they come in different flavors?  I didn't.   

I might not enjoy polkas, but I DO like to watch my father enjoying his music.  He spent his life, from the time he was a teenager until he was ripe into his seventies, playing the drums professionally.  By day he slaved in the factory, but every single weekend night would find him keeping the beat in some club or hotel. He doesn't play anymore, but that doesn't mean he still isn't carrying that drum kit around inside of him.  Even if a single note isn't audible to anyone else, his brain is constantly cranking out imaginary song after song.  His body sways in motion, his feet and fingers continually tap the beat to whatever melody happens to be spinning in his brain.  When he actually has a live band to listen to, it's virtually impossible for him to sit still.  Up he and his sweetie go, twirling 'round and 'round the dance floor.  Music pulsates through his veins  and as a result, he handed me my future occupation of band director on a silver platter.

I didn't grow up with my dad.  He and my mother were divorced when I was very young, but I did go visit him on Sundays.  It took several years, but eventually my dad and stepmother were able to save enough money to put a down payment on a very small house in the 'burbs.  That tinderbox was his absolute pride and joy.  When my brother and I would make our weekly visits, he would sometimes have his drum kit set up for me in the basement.  I would take the transistor radio down there in the dungeon, crank up the tunes  and wail away. And I remember that it was while I was in that musty cellar that on one Sunday afternoon, I decided I wanted to join the school band.

My mom signed the permission slip for me to start music lessons, and as I was halfway through the fifth grade, I was already behind the eight ball.  Most of my class had already begun their musical careers during the previous year.  But hey, it wasn't my fault that I wasn't thinking about band instruments in the fourth grade.  I was busy imagining being kissed by Mr. Blake, one of the teachers in my elementary school and by Paul McCartney.  My mind was already fully engaged and occupied.

I proudly clutched that slip of paper and trotted down to the dark recesses of the backstage in the auditorium.  One could find Mr. Benware sitting behind the curtains, smoking cigarettes and teaching his students to vibrate reeds, bang on drums and pucker lips into metal mouthpieces.  He was a very short, stout man and he had just a few wisps of incredibly long hair, which he combed over the top of his very bald head.   

"I wanna play the drums."

These words have been uttered by more school children than you could ever imagine.  You really have NO idea.

"You can't play the drums.  I have more than enough of them."

"I wanna play the French horn."

To this day, I still don't understand where THAT one came from.  What fifth grade kid even knows that this instrument is in existence?  It must have been one of those Ralph moments.  Remember the movie "The Christmas Story", where Ralphie is sitting on Santa's lap and he goes blank and asks for a football instead of his beloved Red Rider Air Rifle?  That was me, deer in the headlights.

"Nope, you can't play that, either.  Have enough of those, too."

"Well, what DO you have?"

And he pulled off the shelf this beat-up old case that looked like it had gone through the Civil War.  Inside was the most disfigured cornet imaginable.  It really did appear as if someone had set it down on the ground, bell to the floor, and an elephant had come along and sat on the thing.  But from that moment on, I was smitten.  Now I REALLY understood the definition of love.  Silly Mr. Blake could go trotting off into the sunset.  I had found music.

So thanks, Pops.  I'll go to your club tomorrow night and will smile and listen to your music that's really not my cup of kielbasa and watch your feet swirl around the floor.  I will be grateful for your gift, that blood of yours that pulses through my veins. But just so you know.  I always felt that my brother got the short end of the stick.  It's no wonder that he has still has issues, being forced to play the stupid accordion.      

Undulating Waves of Brain

Good morning,

It's 43 degrees here on the prairie at 7am on a Sunday morning.  I'm getting a late start today, as I was up until 4:30am, but that's another story.  Yesterday was a dark eerie day, what with those undulating asperatus clouds hovering over the house all day.  My friend Sandy was right- they looked just like something out of a science fiction movie.  I could easily picture a spaceship falling out of the sky, landing in the backyard, and scaring the absolute hell out of the thirty-seven geese who spent their day playing in the puddles and marking their territory.  I still say that they look like breasts.

Aren't these clouds just the coolest thing?  Julia and Mike, two local meteorologists, helped to crack the code on the classification of the things.  I knew in my heart that they weren't mammatus clouds; they were just too dang wavy.  I ended up taking lots of pictures, which showed up on just about all of the television stations on the evening news.  The earth is just a beautiful place to me, full of astonishing things that make my brain cells crash around in absolute amazement. 

When I wasn't taking pictures of the sky, I was going spastic.  I had so many things on my mind, so many things to do.  I was zinging from place to place and chore to chore and really not completing anything in the process.  This is the modus operandi of my husband and I gotta tell you, I would jump off of a cliff if this was the normal way that my brain processed information.  It all felt very foreign to me, as alien as those clouds,  and I finally decided that I needed to take a deep breath, plunk my butt, and make up some lists.

I am a list person from WAY back, and now I have four of them sitting on my country kitchen table.  My to-do list helped me pay the bills, clean the house, do the laundry, make hail boards, and a host of other things that needed to get done.  There's the list of seeds that I need to start looking for- I'm VERY picky about which varieties end up in our garden.  I have my packing list because in two days, I take to the friendly skies to visit my father in Florida and make sure he's staying out of trouble.  And because I shall be gone for a spell, there's that honey-do list, the bare-bones minimum stuff that hubby needs to do in order to keep this place merrily rolling along in my absence.

After the supper dishes were done, I sat down to watch S.U. be defeated by Ohio State in the Elite Eight.  The boys just were a tad off their offensive game last night, and I guess in retrospect, they really didn't deserve to win.  But gosh, those refs were hard to take with their biased slant in favor of the Buckeyes and going on and on over this Craft guy.  The Orange still gave me lots of excitement throughout the season and now I can focus full attention to my Yankees.  

Now as to the reason why I was up until the wee-wee hours of the morning.  The problem was  doo-doo, ka-ka, or whatever else you want to call it.  Last year it was diagnosed, many dollars later, that one of our aging cats Lily has an acute problem with constipation.  I guess as some cats age and get sluggish, so too do their colons.  Things got so bad last summer that she landed in the vets for two days, having enemas.  Anyway, last night, Lily was in distress.  I decided to stay up with her to make sure that she remained okay as she went from litter box to litter box, attempting to do her duty.  Her poor little anus was stretched right out to the max, looking just like a pointed missile.  She finally managed to drop her bombs at 4:30, and which point I collapsed into bed next to my well-rested, snoring husband.  As a special treat, I allowed Lily into bed with us, something I rarely do, and covered her up with a shirt.  She's still on the bed, still cuddled up, and feeling much better now, thank you very much.  I feel like a train wreck.

Today will be continuing on with my to-do list, hopefully crossing things off, one by one.  I think I'll pack my suitcase today and unpack my new dishes and get them into the cupboard. And after going to Chinese buffet with the hubby, I'd like to shoot over to a store and look at their Ferry Morse seeds.  Tonight will find me watching Harry's Law and then going to bed, leveling out those undulating waves of brain activity and snoring some major zzzzzzzzzzs.  Sounds like a plan.

Have a great day.

I Have a Dream

Good morning,

It's 55 degrees at 8am on the prairie and shezam, it's dark  and depressing out there.  Cloudy, cloudy skies and it just seems in such stark contrast to all of that bright sunshine that beamed onto our little blip on Planet Earth throughout the entire week.  The wind is from the east and so it appears that the clouds will stick around and already we are seeing light sprinkles of rain.  

Those of you that know us are aware of the fact that we are gaga over nature.  We do lots of activities that revolve around birds.  We belong to the Audubon Society and have great fun doing the Great Backyard Bird Count.  Another program we are involved in is one called Project Feederwatch, which is offered through the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.   Every weekend from November through April, we keep track of the largest number of each species of birds that we count in our yard and then report those figures to Cornell.  And.......

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

I looked in the back this morning to begin the first count of the day.  The only bird to note was a snow goose, standing there all by himself.  I just figured that it was our Moses, who adopted us earlier in the week.  I gotta tell you, having only one goose out there at any one time is very, very rare indeed.  Usually, we are a beehive of bird activity and poop.   It's a proverbial mine field out there.  But the goose looked hungry and lonely so out I went, to say good morning and to fling out a scoop of corn.  The snow goose promptly flew away.

"Well, now, BE that way," I muttered, and continued about with my business of filling up the bird feeders.

Off in the distance, I heard the sounds of the familiar honks and squawks and soon, landing in our yard were thirty of our nearest and dearest Canada geese friends, looking for their breakfast.  With them was Moses PLUS our new little snow goose friend.  We now have TWO snow geese.  I repeat, OH MY GOD!  Moses has found his little Zipporiah!!!  That was Moses' wife in the Bible, only I will NEVER remember that name, not in a million years and thus she shall be called Zippy.

Moses and Zippy, pooping in a tree, K-I-S-S........

My husband immediately put a damper on my unbridled enthusiasm, which centered around little baby snow geese, waddling around and cooing and being cute.  I've never in my life seen a baby snow goose.  He told me that they will not mate here and they might not even recognize that they are the same species, given the fact that Moses has already demonstrated his utter stupidity by hanging out with Canada geese.  He's such a killjoy.  Still, a girl can dream.  Love and baby-making, happening right under my nose in the backyard pond, which happens to be the region's red light district for geese around these parts.

I'm going to go throw some rose petals out on that pond.  Set a chilled bottle of champagne along its banks, toss in raw oysters and some strawberries dipped in dark chocolate.  Put up a satellite dish and offer adult programming.  I know I can make this happen.  To heck with my husband's pragmatism.  He can just K-I-S-S my grits.  I shall continue to shake my snow globe and click my ruby red heels together.  I can still see them a-waddling.  I still have a dream. 
 

  

The Air That I Breath

Good morning,

49 degrees here on the prairie, and we have ourselves an issue with fog this morning. 

Yesterday was yet another gorgeous day.  As the pheasant sang his plaintive squawks of desire, I slathered on the sunblock, raked rocks and hummed spirituals.  I finished the entire project, I'm happy to say, and have the blister on my thumb to prove it.  But it didn't matter to me in the least that my hand (and my shoulder) were a bit sore.  My paltry boo-boos were far better than being tethered to a desk, either inside of a school or in the nursing home where I volunteer on such a wonderful day.  I was on the good end in the bargain basement, if you ask me.  

I spent the majority of  my day outside, listening to the peepers and smelling the aromas of springtime, better dubbed here as "Lo, Fair Maiden of Country Air, Thine Name is Sweet Pooh."  It became particularly rank as I peddled my bike closer to the neighboring barn to feed the horses their carrots.  Sitting by the barn, right next to the smelly pile of fresh manure, there sits a mountain of wonderfully rich compost, the Doo-Doo Daddy of them all.  In another month, this will be loaded by our Elmo the Tractor onto the trailer and will lovingly be tilled into the soil of our gardens.

With all of this incredible weather, it's tempting- to till in compost, to plant some veggies and to put in the beds of flowers.  Gosh, I even saw this CRAZY man mowing his lawn.  But I shall show restraint.  Although the weather would speak otherwise, the calendar reminds us that this is still March and we need to remember that this isn't the Sun Belt.  At the very least, we shall have frost.  

Besides working the chain gang on rock patrol, I went for a long walk at the state park.  Lots of people were there bob-bob-bobbin' along, jogging, pushing strollers, being yanked down the tarred path by their mutt.  After, I took care of the riff-raff in our perennial garden that runs along the length of the house. 

Last night was spent on the phone, working the jaw with my best friend, followed by a call to my brother and all the while watching SU push themselves into the Elite Eight against Ohio State.  My brother drives me berserk, but you already know that.  I will be calling him again this weekend, when he is more lucid, and we will have a serious Fireside Chat.  When I taught, that's what I termed these little episodes where I sat kids down in my office and had private little discussions about the need for change.  Obviously, I didn't get as good at them as I thought, as this must be about the thousandth one I've had with the bro.    

Oh, in between all of this, I trotted off to Fat Ass Club, where I lost one pound.  I'm back to a loss of fifty-eight pounds, with nineteen left to go.  Two steps forward, one step back, slow and steady wins the race, blah, blah, blah.  My life has become a reflection of silly platitudes, but that's okay by me.  It's how I've been whittling away at the pounds and it seems to be working.  I've been knocking away at my own personal pooh-pile of lard.  Watching my portions, trying to eat healthier, exercising.   Silly me.  I saw in my email yesterday that Groupon was offering 63% off a pair of Weight Loss Hot Pants.  It was tempting, but they don't come in my favorite color, which at the moment appears to be prison-issue orange.   

Today begins with chores, followed by swimming at the pool.  The entire rest of the day shall be spent in retribution of my playing hooky yesterday.  I shall belong to the nursing home, where I volunteer my time in the business office.  By the time I finish up there, the hubby will be home waiting for me, belly up to the trough, wondering what's for dinner.  I'll set my GPS on Rue de Sweet Pooh and it shall lead me home to the air I breathe, the man I adore and to some leftover chicken. 

Have a great day.

The Songs of Spring

Good morning,

It's 50 degrees here this morning and there are low thin lines of ground fog, everywhere you look.  Up above the fog, there are clear skies, which spells another beauty of a day.  Yesterday, we broke yet another record, with the mercury hitting an incredible 81 degrees here on the prairie.

As I sit here typing, I hear that stupid ring-necked pheasant, making a huge racket.  Lately he's been in the ditch across the road, and he just sits in there by the mailbox and makes endless noise.  Yup, it's that time of year as he tries relentlessly to find a mate.  He's crooning for all of those ring-necked babes of the female persuasion, "Come see what I have here just for you, Hot Mama."   We women are fools for a man that croons and struts his stuff.  Thank God, my husband never resorted into believing that he had to sit in a ditch in order to fill his dance card.

So yesterday I was gone for much of the day.  Pool in the morning, and all afternoon I sat and played bridge with my friends.  The cards were nasty for everyone for most of the day.  It was a mighty struggle, there were precious few easy games, and the lead went back and forth.  Finally, we just raised our hands up in surrender, waved the white flag and called it quits.  My partner and I eked out the win, but really, we don't pay much attention to that stuff.  We just play and talk.  Or in yesterday's case, talk and then think about playing.

I came home and changed into my bright orange jump suit.

During the winter, my husband straps himself into Elmo the Tractor after most snowstorms, blows the snow from the driveway.  Sometimes I do it, but I have learned from experience that this yet another fine example of a man strutting his stuff.  There's something about a tractor (or any other big machine, for that matter) that makes a man get all full of himself.  Anyway, that stupid snowblower attachment takes stones and rocks and hurls them halfway across the yard, much like a catapult.  Zing, the chunks of granite fly gracefully through the air and disappear into mounds of freshly-fallen snow.  Every year, I plead with my husband to please, PLEASE raise the attachment up so that it doesn't scrap the stones from the driveway.  And each year, I receive the same grunt in return.  "If I don't get close, the snow left in the driveway will freeze and then we'll have ourselves an ice skating rink.  Is THAT what you want?"  And thus it becomes my job each and every spring to transform myself into the chain gang.    

I HATE raking rocks, and that is how I spent my late afternoon and early evening yesterday.  Thank God I had my IPod in my pocket and was able to be interrupted, playing Words With Friends with Carol.  I suppose prisoners aren't allowed to do this.  Anyway, raking rocks is REALLY hard work and I would much rather be gardening or mowing or even sitting in a ditch, doing just about anything else except raking rocks. 

Today, the heat continues and I just can't make myself go to my volunteer job at the nursing home.  That shall wait until tomorrow, when temperatures are supposed to dip to a mere 70 degrees.  Today, I shall find myself back outside, raking even more rocks, crooning "Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child" and listening to that stupid pheasant as he also wails his song, waiting in hope of hearing a response to his springtime pleas.   

Deja Vu

Good morning,

48 degrees here this morning and tons of stars twinkling in the sky as the sun prepares to rise in another hour or so.  Isn't this string of weather just fantastic???  Do you know that LAST year when the first day of spring arrived, one hundred and fifty-four inches of snow had fallen on the prairie?  This year, a total of a mere fifty-two inches of fluff has been tabulated.  It appears as if we are done, gone, kaput with snow for the season. 

These eighty+ degree days have everything and everybody just bustin' out all over.  Spirits are raised and smiles abound.  Joy is in the air, along with pollen and mosquitoes.  I not only turned off the heat in the house but I have been sleeping for the past three nights with the window in the bedroom cranked open.  Hubby has discovered that he will not freeze to death as long as he (a) wears his thermal long johns and (b) pulls his flannel sheet and his three blankies up over his head and points beyond.  He also has my menopausal body laying next to him, generating enough heat to spark a forest fire.  He will survive.

Speaking of the husband, I forgot to tell you- he went to the doctors.  I didn't have to cajole him or make idle threats or offer up my body.  He went willingly, all by himself.  This is a landmark event.  He has been diagnosed with a bad sinus infection and is now on an antibiotic.  It's not getting him down, though, and he says he sounds far worse than he feels.  He's been busy during this beautiful stretch of weather, getting some walls up on the pole barn.  It looks great; he does amazingly good work.  

So yesterday morning was quite a busy one.  I ended up doing a mish-mash of chores.  I started off on the porch, which is where I wanted to be.  I could jaw with the hubby, commune with nature, swat bugs, watch Moses the Snow Goose and sand away on my birdhouse gourd.  Alas, my shoulder started to bark almost immediately, telling me it needed a break, what with the weekend's kayaking and sanding.  Instead, I was driven inside, forced into slave labor, mopping the kitchen floor and doing up the laundry along with this and that.  And all the while that I was toiling away, the stock pot was brewing away on the stove.  We finally were home for a long enough stretch that I could get around to making our corned beef and cabbage.  It was super-duper delicious, probably one of the best chunks o' beast that I have had in quite a few years.

Off I trotted to art class.  I guess my rainbow trout that I painted wasn't as bad as I thought, although I still wasn't thrilled with the thing.  It shall be tucked away upstairs in this big folder that I keep for my spiritual rejects.  I started a picture of a sunset, but that too wasn't speaking my language.  It was just way too nice outside for me to focus on painting.  My heart tried; really, it did.  But it longed to be out on the other side of the paned glass window.

I also want it to be noted that I nor anyone else in the room suffered any ill effects from me eating cabbage immediately before attending art class.  I thought of that AFTER Hubby and I had eaten our dinner.  You'll have to take me at my word, as no matches were lit during art class.

Speaking of art, if you have a chance, our entire class is involved in an art show for the next couple or three weeks.  Five watercolors of mine are on display at the Sherrill Public Library, along with many wonderful pieces of artwork from other members of the class. Go grab a look if you have the chance.  I am amazed at the watercolors and pen & ink produced by the gang.  They constantly raise my bar and I find myself wanting to aspire to their level.  Check it out.

So today I shall start out at the pool, where hopefully I won't suffer hypothermia while trying to get in some exercise.  And this afternoon, I reluctantly will shuffle off to play bridge with the girls.  Don't get me wrong.  I enjoy playing the game and I enjoy my mates.  But it will be a repeat of yesterday, deja vu.  Just like Groundhog's Day on television.  I can tell you right now that the sun and beautiful day will scream my name loudly as I sit indoors, sipping my coffee and staring at a bunch of cards. 

Have a BEAUTIFUL day.  I hope you have an opportunity to be outside and enjoy at least a shred of it.

HAPPY SPRING!

HAPPY SPRING!!
It's a balmy 54 degrees outside at 6:30 in the morning here on the prairie, and already we've surpassed the  high average temperature by ten degrees.  We have been on a string of extremely warm weather, due in part to one funky-looking jet stream.  Places that are supposed to be cold are hot, and Arizona just got hammered with a huge snowstorm.  Bizarre.  Still, it's nice to see and feel such a beautiful stretch of sunshine. 

I love springtime as well as autumn.  I like the temperatures that they both offer up, which typically fall nice and comfortable between the other two seasons of extremes.  I love the fall because of the colors of the leaves on the trees and the crispness that is in the air.  But I think I especially love spring, with everything being reborn and starting afresh.  To the plant world, it must seem like returning to the first day of school for the year, with the unblemished record, that clean blackboard that sparkles, where everything is perfect and you haven't screwed up yet.

So many signs of spring abound.  Yesterday, I showed you pictures of daffodils in bloom and the buds on the lilac bush.  And now we can add tree swallows to our list, swooping and darting around in the backyard, catching bugs.  There's a sparrow and a starling that are attempting to build nests in the rafters of the pole barn that my husband is building.  And then there's that other sure sign of spring, one which took place last night in my bathroom. 

I shaved my legs.  

It's really getting to the point where I ask myself why I bother shaving my legs anymore.  It certainly doesn't bother me.  My husband has told me repeatedly that he could care less.  Really, it's senseless, as each and every year seems to bring less and less hair to shave, at least on my legs.  All of the energy that my body used to put impart, growing dark clumps of curly leg hair has suddenly shifted decidedly north to the regions above my upper lip.  But it's spring, and that's part of the ritual. 

Yesterday I went to the pool.  The water was absolutely freezing, and there were several of the gang that turned right around after dipping their big toe into the pool and went back to the locker room to abandon ship.  It was THAT cold.  Big Bob was in the pool, tethered to his oxygen tank, but he got out after a few minutes.  All that was left was us foolhardy souls, who had to keep moving quickly in order to generate enough heat to stay reasonably warm.  I know I burned a LOT of calories yesterday in that water.

I came home and spent the afternoon working on this birdhouse gourd.  Last year, for the first (and last) time, I grew these things in my garden.  I saved out five of the best ones, hardened them off over the winter months.  And now begins the task of using steel wool to get rid of the unsightly mold that covers them.  It's very difficult and tons of work to remove the unsightly spores.  I tried sandpaper, but that left marks.  So it's steel scrubbies and steel wool that are doing the trick.   I spoke to some guy at the Philadelphia Flower Show who had a booth of finished gourds, and he said that it was a tough, laborious process.  He wasn't just whistling Dixie.  Anyway, the neck of my gourd is now smooth as a baby's bottom.  Plucked from a pile of horse manure, covered in mold and mildew and left for dead, I hope that it will experience a springtime of its own, turning into a beautiful home to some peeping baby birds.  Happy Spring, everyone!

It's Just a Name

 So yesterday was the day after St. Patrick's Day.  Technically, if you look on your trusty calendar, that means it's still winter.  Look at what I found in our yard yesterday: daffodils in full bloom.  The buds are out on our lilac bushes.  Crocuses galore!!  Our region broke all KINDS of records for temperature, 80 degrees in mid-March.  Can you believe that???  Tell me again why I'm going to Florida next week.  Oh, right.  To see my dad.  Even though it's very warm here, I really AM looking forward to seeing him. 

 So yesterday played out exactly as I thought it would.  I did a bunch of chores. My hubby, even though he was and is sick, was outside commiserating with his pole barn.  Eventually, though, the glorious streak of amazing weather that I just told you about called our names, HEY YOU, and we both put our work aside and strapped the bicycles onto the back end of the Beernut Mobile.  We drove to the lake and then biked ten miles along the roads that ran parallel to the shore.  It was a grand ride!

Next up was Chinese Buffet.  And after we ate, I asked the husband if we could take a quick jaunt over to Aldi's so I could pick up a few groceries that were on sale.  After making my selections, I was standing in line with the groceries, patiently waiting my turn to check out.  Standing behind me was an elderly woman.  And in the lane next to us was a mother who had her little let's-say-five-year-old kid sitting cross-legged in the cart among some pineapples.

"Hey, Mom.  That's one old lady over there!" he exclaimed, pointing at the woman standing in back of me.

"You say you're sorry to her right now, young man!" the mother screeched.

So the kid, with his mournful eyes pointing at the ground, contritely mumbled, "Excuse me.  I'm sorry."  And he repeated this three times. That gave it away.  I knew right then and there that he was well-versed in making apologies for opening up his little big mouth and letting foul things spew forth like a geyser.  And it took only a few moments before he let 'er rip once again. 

"Hey, Mom.  Look at the woman standing in front of the old lady!.  She's a LOT bigger than the old lady!" he bellowed loud enough for everyone in the store to overhear.

I looked at the mother and said, "Gee, your kid's mouth is on a roll, isn't it?"

After I checked out, I sat in the car and told my husband about what took place in the store.  I told him that the words still hurt, even though they came from small lips.  What would the kid have said if he had seen me inside of that store a year ago when I was fifty-seven pounds heavier?  Gee.

I said to the husband, "You know, SOME day, people are going to look at me and the first thing that ISN'T going to come to mind is how freaking FAT I am."  I then gave some suggestions as to what people could think as an alternative.

• "Wow, look at that genius brain just sitting there under that mop of gray hair."

• "Gee, that is one high-powered gas engine if I ever saw one."  Or my last idea, which created a chuckle from the husband:

• Golly, the husband of that sex goddess is ONE lucky fella."

You can call me Fat.  My husband can call me Sugar Plum.  I prefer to call myself  Work in Progress.  You can say it's spring or summer, but really, it's still winter, no matter what the thermometer says.  Really, it's just a name.

Moses The Snow Goose

 It's 48 degrees here on the prairie with partly cloudy skies.  A very quiet start to a very beautiful day. 

On Thursday, I looked out in the back yard and there was a gaggle of fifty snow geese, mixing it up and gettin' jiggy with our regular herd of Canada geese. The next morning, all that remained was our usual bunch of Canadas with one exception.  Hanging out with them was a lone snow goose.  And he was here again yesterday and he just appeared again this morning.  I like snow geese.

I always find myself wondering about that one solitary goose that I see every now and then.  There it will be, all by itself in the pond.  Or sometimes, you'll see one in a group and it's trying so freaking hard to be cool and to fit in, but the others won't let him play their reindeer games.  And they'll chase him and peck at him relentlessly, necks stretched out all horizonal.  Just like kids at the playground, there's always that one goose that everyone picks on.  This poor little goosey has a bull's eye taped onto its behind which invites others to terrorize him.  And I wonder why this occurs?  Geese in general are born with siblings, which usually signals automatic acceptance.  They look the same, act the same, poop the same and honk the same.  What made this goose resort to hanging out with a gang unlike his own?

I had a student once who was always getting suspended for something or another.  He really was a troubled soul, and he tried so hard to adopt the colloquialisms of the inner-city black kid.  Please remember that our high school was planted in the middle of a country bumpkin corn field.  The boy told me that he shopped for clothes in the 'hood shops'.  He wore tons of chains, the waistband of his pants hung down at his knees and he wore his cap sideways long before any of this was considered 'in'.  He spoke in inner-city dialect (I aks you sum'n?" aka "May I please ask you a question, Teacher?") and he listened to gansta rap.  Maybe that's how it is for my little snow goose.  Maybe he longs for life on the other side of the tracks.

Maybe this goose was sent down the creek early on in his life, stuffed into a woven wicker basket by his mommy.  She wanted a life for him, a better life that she thought the Canada geese could provide.  Let him be named Moses.  Moses is in da hood.