In the name of pretty

When I read Helen's post about late-night TV commercials, I was reminded of another commercial I saw recently. Over time we’ve all become familiar with TV ads for a well-known brand of undergarments for people who, shall we say, have bladder control issues.

The older I get, the faster I need to move after that first little urge hits me, so let me state up front that it’s reassuring to know that this type of undergarment is available. I hope I never need this product, but I won’t make fun of anybody who does. (Unless, of course, it’s the occasional astronaut who wears adult diapers to save time when she travels to kidnap her boyfriend’s other girlfriend.)

What caught my attention about the new commercial is the statement that their product is now available in prints and colors. Heh. Heh-heh-heh. Bwahahahahaha! Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!

Do you think the new colors and prints were requested by consumers? If not, can you imagine the sales genius of the ad man who managed to sell this idea to the product manufacturer? He must have been some VIP’s son or brother-in-law.

Now, I’m sure there are sexy, vibrant women in all parts of the world who use this product and whose partners understand the reality of the situation and find the women as desirable as ever. But I’m willing to bet the diapers, plain, colored or printed, disappear before any lovemaking gets too steamy.

I’ve been trying to imagine all sorts of scenarios involving candles, wine, batting eyelashes, and a healthy adult male’s reaction to the sight of fancy-printed diaper-panties. So far, every scenario I’ve come up with makes me laugh.

Do you think this is as funny as I do, or is my sense of humor just way too twisted? Am I the only one who thinks that even if she might be grateful to have these absorbent panties someday in the (hopefully distant) future, she won’t be deliberately showing them off to anyone just because they’re prettier now?

Maybe the colors and prints aren’t for others, you say. Maybe they’re to build the self esteem of the wearer. Hmm. Maybe. Whatever works, I suppose.

I guess it all depends on your point of view.

Something in the air

My house apparently sits directly under the flight path from Baton Rouge (our state capital) to the oil-challenged Louisiana Gulf Coast. This year, along with the usual summertime sounds of chirping birds and buzzing insects, we regularly hear the whup-whup-whup of helicopters overhead. I don’t know whether the frequent flyers are government officials or news reporters, only that so many of them fly over each day that Butch and Kadi no longer pay the slightest attention to them.

Of course, this isn’t the dogs’ first exposure to the whirlybirds. The many helicopters that flew overhead during hurricanes Katrina (2005) and Gustav (2008) may have desensitized them to the sound.

To me, though, that sound is still a little unsettling, especially when two or more helicopters are traveling together. It isn't the noise that bothers me; they fly high enough to keep from creating a disturbance. It's the sound itself. Somehow, in my mind, the clacking of those propellors has morphed into an aural symbol of suffering and urgency, and I feel just a little bit anxious every time I hear it.

It’s been a rough five years here in Southeast Louisiana.

Favorites: a matter of taste

I keep a loose list of things to blog about; otherwise, I'll forget them. Apparently, that practice isn't too helpful, because a recent review of old posts proved I've already written about some of the things on my current list of blog ideas.

Okay, so I'll scratch 'em off. For now. I can't promise some old theme won't show up again.

I did discover, in going through the old posts, that some of them feel special to me, and I decided to list them as "favorites" in the left sidebar, underneath the archives. It wasn't too difficult to differentiate between the posts I "phoned in" and the ones I really wanted to write. But it was tough choosing favorites. So many old posts seemed as comfortable and familiar to slip into as the old pair of sandals I'm wearing now.

I made a long list and winnowed it down to twenty-five, not at all sure I'd come up with the same list if I were to do this exercise again. These posts are "favorite" only because they're special to me in some way. Some of them are about feelings or experiences, some make me nostalgic. Some were just plain fun to write, and some wouldn't be special at all except for the wonderful comments left by you, dear readers.

I tried to list these posts chronologically, with the oldest posts at the top so there wouldn't be any spoilers, but Blogger doesn't seem to offer that option. So, they're in alphabetical order, which, I guess, turns out to be pretty random after all.

I know that the fact these are my favorite posts doesn't mean they'll be yours. But maybe, if you're new to this blog, you might enjoy some of them. Or, if you're a long-time reader who visits here on a day when I haven't posted anything fresh, instead of hurrying to click the back-button, maybe you'll read something you've forgotten and give me a pass.

Will I ever be mature enough to control inappropriate laughter?

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the floater that had suddenly popped up in my right eye. It was annoying, but I wasn't worried about it.

On the night after I wrote the "floater post," I started experiencing flashes of light -- tiny, moving, macaroni-shaped lightsabers -- when I'd go from a bright room into a darker one. The flashes weren't particularly bothersome, so my initial plan was to ignore them. But it was the weekend by then, there was plenty of time to nose around on the Internet, and almost every article I read said something to the effect of, "It's usually nothing to worry about, but if you don't get immediate medical attention, there may be dire consequences."

On Monday I called a retinal specialist (I have early-stage macular degeneration and had been to this office once before) and ended up there again on Tuesday. That appointment went well. The doctor said he couldn't see any signs of a serious problem but wanted me to come back again in two weeks and then again in a month. "Sometimes these things take a while to appear."

I was fairly perturbed about having to go back for follow-up exams. Because they dilate my eyes at every appointment, someone has to go with me to drive me home.  This means one or the other of my daughters has to take off work, which, while it makes all the waiting-room time more interesting for me, makes me feel guilty for wasting a big chunk of their time.

Anyway, this past Wednesday was the two-week follow-up.  I expected we'd breeze in and out fairly quickly. Instead, the doctor found a little retinal tear. He explained the significance of it, then told us he'd need to do a laser procedure to "spot weld" the area to prevent a retinal detachment. Fortunately, he could to do it that day, right there in his office.

So, we waited again. We waited a long time, and then another long time after that.  At one point, Kim said, "I wonder what's taking so long."  I replied, "Hmmph. He's probably sitting in his office reading up on laser procedures." Kim instantly put her hands in the typing position and said aloud as she typed in the air, "How... to... do... laser... surgery... on..."

Maybe you had to be there to appreciate the humor, or maybe it was because I was a little nervous, but the air-Googling struck me really funny. I laughed out loud, then Kim did, and it turned into one of those moments that grew funnier the longer we thought about it.

Right then was when the doctor came in, and his first words were, "I'm sorry you've had to wait so long." A wave of humor hit me again. I was sitting in the exam chair, my head was tilted waaaaay back, the doctor was standing right beside me with the laser instrument in his hand, ready to go, and my lips were clamped together so tightly that my smile must have looked like a maniacal grimace. Just as the doctor leaned in over my head, I couldn't hold it any longer and let out one short burst of laughter.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "We were talking about something funny just before you came in, and I need a second to regain my composure."

The doctor chuckled, too, presumably because laughter is infectious.  "That's okay," he said.  "I expect you'll stop laughing as soon as we begin."

He was right. But as soon as we were safely back in the car, it got funny all over again.

My purpose in life...

...at least from the perspective of Butch and Kadi, has been made clear to me: I am their maid.

Judging from their recent behavior, it's a good thing I retired when I did. They adapted so quickly to my being home all the time that I suspect they may have had previous discussions about their need to hire additional staff. Part-time help just wouldn't cut it anymore.

For example, Kadi has always loved to have her belly scratched, and I've always loved to do that for her.  But she used to wait until I'd sit down on the sofa to roll over at my feet and expose her belly.  Now she's just as likely to race past me when I walk through the house, hurl her big body across my path, flop onto her back right in front of me and stretch all four legs into the air as if to demand, "Stop! Scratch me now."  I don't think this has as much to do with the itchiness of Kadi's abdomen as it has to do with my increased availability.

An issue that's bigger than the belly-scratch-tripping-hazard is the way they manipulate me for treats.  Especially Butch.  Years ago I thought it made sense to give each of them a treat when they came back in the house after taking care of their doggy business in the yard.  I wanted them to be happy to come in quickly when I called them.  This was especially important when I was working and their outside time was often a quick trip in the morning or sandwiched into a lunch hour.

Once I retired, though, Butch, began asking  to go outside many, many, many times a day.  He's always had a bladder like a bathtub.  Unlike Kadi, he still does.  So I've tried to ignore him when I know he's been out only a short time ago.  But he's persistent.  He'll stand at the door and scratch it every ten seconds or so for as long as it takes to wear me down.  My daughter suggested that if I let Butch stay outside longer, he might not ask to go out so frequently.  But for Butch it's not about being outside; he's an inside dog through and through.  The whole bunch of us can be outside, and Butch will ask to go in by himself. It's all about coming back in. It's about the treat.

It's hard to relax with all of the extra interruptions.  I mean, come on, Butch doesn't just pop outside and pop back in again.  He's blind.  It takes him a while to find the perfect spot to squeeze out two or three drops to prove he needed to pee and another little while to find the back door again.   I often have to stand in the door and clap my hands to help him navigate. I'm trying to figure out how to communicate to Butch that it would be easier on both of us if he'd just learn to ask for a treat and stop the whole fake in-and-out thing.

I know Butch is faking it because I can predict when he's going to do it.  Example:  Both dogs stand at my knees while I eat my meal, and usually, if it's something that isn't bad for them, I will give the last two bites to them.  Kadi considers her bite a treat.  Butch considers his an appetizer.  He'll wait about one minute before he goes to scratch on the back door.  Every. Single. Time.

But maybe Butch is getting tired of the charade, too.

The other morning I woke up about five-thirty and let the dogs outside. As soon as they came back in, I gave them each a dog biscuit, then went back to bed.  Usually, they'd go back to bed, too, and maybe they did, for a while.  All I know is that just before seven I heard a little whine and there they both were, tap-dancing eagerly beside my bed.  I knew they couldn't possibly need to go outside again so soon, but I stumbled out of bed and headed to the back door anyway. I opened the door and stood waiting, finally realizing I was alone.

I turned around and there were Butch and Kadi, twenty feet behind me, standing side-by-side with their noses stretched upward to the package of rawhide chews I'd left on the dining table. Because they did this together, I can only assume they had discussed their plan beforehand and agreed between themselves that it was perfectly fine to wake me up to to give them rawhide.

If I'm being honest, the unnecessary interruptions bother me, but it's the manipulation that bothers me more. It's the fact that Butch thinks he's so much smarter than I am.  And Kadi probably is smarter than I am, but it hurts my feelings that she uses that against me.

Seriously, although I've groused about some of their annoying habits here, I am loving spending more time with these two old dogs.  Butch turned twelve in March, Kadi will be thirteen in June, and I'm no spring chicken myself.  I consider it a privilege to grow old with these two sweet souls.

Even if they do take advantage of me.  

Beware of deceitful Flemishallies

During the time I was AWOL from this blog, I found plenty of activities to keep me busy. Some of them were things I chose to do, but at least one tedious task was a result of switching from a PC to a Mac.

Some of you know that genealogy is a passion for me, one that began when I found some notes my grandmother left behind when she died in late-1988. The genealogy software I used for for all those years was Family Tree Maker. It did a wonderful job of organizing family records and creating interesting reports, and I couldn’t have been happier with it. What I didn’t know until I’d decided to buy the iMac is that Family Tree Maker isn’t available for Macs.

So, based on online reviews, I purchased Reunion genealogy software for Mac the same day I bought the new computer. Reunion, too, does a fine job, and it was really easy to transfer my family file from Family Tree Maker to Reunion. All the names, dates and places made the move flawlessly. The notes, however, were a different story. Those pages and paragraphs of narrative attached to many of the names didn’t make the transition as smoothly. All the words of the notes were transferred, but many of the spaces between the words didn’t make it.

After more than 20 years of research, there are 6,787 names in my genealogy database now, and I had to go through them all one by one, read every word of every note, and insert spaces as needed. It was extremely time-consuming but, most of the time, not too difficult.

Then came a sentence that stumped me: “He was betrayed by his Flemishallies.” What? What the heck are Flemishallies and how did they betray him? A quick second glance made it obvious I needed to insert a space: "Flemish allies."

Everything in the database is back in order, which pleases me immensely. Still, I must admit that thinking about Flemishallies pleases me almost as much, in a whimsical way. I imagine them as some kind of magical, mildly malevolent creatures of the sort Harry Potter might have encountered in the woods around Hogwarts.

I think that in the future, on those days when one thing after another seems to go wrong, I might choose to blame it on the Flemishallies. It would take some pressure off me, and, after all, it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve caused trouble for my family.

A Brief History of an Early Romance

I thought he was a handsome prince
Who'd take me to his castle.
Turned out he was a vagabond
And something of an ass'le.

One more eye-doctor story...

...before I forget to tell you:

It had been more than five years since I'd had my vision checked, so when my daughter said she needed to get her eyes examined, I went with her.

The beginning of the exam was fairly typical of what I’d experienced in the past. I pushed my face into the giant-goggle machine and rested my chin on the cold metal bar. First, the doctor darkened the room. She looked at the inside of my eyes while I looked first in one direction, then another. She caused little puffs of air to blow onto my eyeballs. Then she asked me to read several rows of letters on the light box on the far wall. That went fairly well.

While the room light was still off, the doctor went to the far end of the room and fiddled with something I couldn’t see. (My face was still pressed into the machine.) When she turned back to me, the following conversation took place:

Doc:     “Can you see this?”

Me:      “Yes.”

What I saw was a large, dark area that almost totally obscured the light box.  On the dark area I could see a red rectangle and a neon-green rectangle, both kind of shadowy, and both with something written on them in a large, unfamiliar script.

Doc:     “Okay, read what you see.”

Me:      “Well, I can see it, but I don't know if I can read it.”

Doc:     “Just try to read whatever you can.”

Me:      “Okay. ‘You. Are. Something something something. To God.’”

Doc:     “Uhhhh, okay, wait a minute.”

She leaned in to the machine and made some adjustments.

Doc:     “Okay, let's see if this is better.”

Me:      “It’s still not very clear, but I’ll try: ‘You are. Never. Something something to God.’”

At that point the doctor shook her head as if she were totally confused, then turned around to get another look at what I was reading. That’s when she burst out laughing and announced that she’d inadvertently left a cabinet door open. The large, dark shape I saw was the inside of the cabinet door, which opened directly in front of the light box. The red and green rectangles were brightly colored sheets of paper taped to the inside of the door, each one bearing a handwritten affirmation.

Apparently, when I was saying, “You are something something something to God,” the doctor was hearing, “U-R-something-something-something-2-God.” To her, it sounded like letters and numbers. She said later she had thought I must be “blind as a bat,” and she couldn’t imagine why I kept saying “God” after I messed up.

The rest of the exam proceeded normally, except that neither of us could restrain an occasional fit of giggles.

Float like a butterfly, er, mosquito

When I went to get my vision checked in November last year, the optometrist referred me to an ophthalmologist to check out "some things going on" in my eyes.  Both doctors mentioned the presence of "floaters." Since the floaters weren't in my line of vision, and since the doctors told me they were very common, I wasn't the least bit concerned.

All that changed late Thursday night.  A new floater popped up, one that appears to be hovering about three inches in front and just to the right of my right eye.  It's a group of little black "threads" that have joined together to look like a side view of a fairly large mosquito.  I've known a couple of other people who have had floaters, and they've told me, "Eventually, I got used to it."  I'm counting on that.

In the meantime, it's driving me insane.  I never realized how many tiny eye movements are involved in the routine business of life, but there are thousands of them. And with each little upward or downward or left-to-right flicker, this bug-thing darts in front of me.  Have you ever used a computer mouse that wasn't adjusted correctly so that the slightest movement of the mouse made the cursor jump clear across the screen?  That's how this floater moves.

It's distracting when I read, although its position keeps it from blocking the words I need to see.    If I'm reading the left-hand page of a book, the floater flutters around on the right-hand page.  If I'm reading the right-hand page, the floater crawls around on my hand.  It flies all over the place when I'm looking at the computer screen.

Yesterday, after drinking a cold Diet Coke, I glanced into the glass and saw a "bug" sitting on the pile of ice cubes.   I moved my eyes and, in my peripheral vision, saw it fly away.

The floater is much less noticeable when I watch TV as it seems to get lost in the motion.  I noticed the same thing yesterday when I was driving; it didn't bother me at all.  Maybe I need to do more things that involve movement.

Or maybe I'll just wait and see if I get used to it.


SPEAKING OF EYES...
Doctors who advertise on television fascinate me.  They are probably quite competent in the performance of their professional services, but often their amateurish commercials make them seem to lack confidence.

On the other hand, there's one local eye surgeon who speaks with assurance of his abilities and of his experience:  "more than 20,000 Lasik surgeries."  He makes me believe he's  probably quite good at what he does.  Still, there's just something about him...

I can't let March slip away...

...without announcing the birth of John Owen Hoover, born on the 16th day of this month to my granddaughter, Kalyn, and her husband, Adam.  I am in love with this tiny, sweet boy.

The photo above was taken by his Aunt Michelle about an hour after his birth.  Now, at two weeks old, Owen is fine and healthy.  So is his mother.  I'm so proud of his mom and dad, the kind of home they've made for their son, and the kind of parents they're already proving to be.

I realize that this event officially makes me a great-grandmother, and as old as that sounds when I say it, I can't think of any new title I'd be happier to hold.

I think my daughter Kelli feels the same way about becoming a grandmother.  If her feet ever touch the ground again, I'll ask her, just to be sure.

(Thanks, Michelle and Kelli, for the use of your photos.)

It's harder than it used to be

Blogging, that is. And dealing with changes, too.

My retirement gift to myself was a new computer. Having nearly pulled my hair out over repeated virus problems at home and at work, I took my daughter Kim's advice and bought an iMac. I'm very satisfied with the computer itself, but what I failed to realize was that some of my favorite software isn't available for Mac systems.

I like to write my blog posts in a word-processing program (where editing is easier) and transfer them to Blogger for posting. There used to be a version of WordPerfect (my old favorite word-processing standby) for Mac, but there isn't anymore. When I bought the new computer, I had to decide between Pages and Microsoft Word. I knew I wasn't nuts about Word, so I chose the less expensive Pages. So far I've been able to do everything I've needed in Pages, but it's always taken longer than it would have in WordPerfect. (Maybe I need to read that manual I bought instead of relying on the trial-and-error method.)

Also, the little keyboard that comes with iMac, streamlined and quiet as it is, isn't as comfortable for me as an older style keyboard. The keys are full-sized on the new keyboard, but they're closer together, too. The problems were worse because the arthritis in my right hand has increased during the last year. When I hold my hand flat and try to put my fingers together, there's a distinct "V" space between my middle finger and ring finger from the fingertips to the second joint. That made it very easy to type a semi-colon instead of an "l" on the closely spaced keys. For example, if I'd had the holiday spirit, I might have typed: "Deck the ha;;s with boughs of ho;;y; fa ;a ;a ;a ;a ;a ;a ;a ;a!" Fortunately, Kim came up with a spare, older-model keyboard that has made it much easier to keep my fingers where they're supposed to be.

Today I decided to do a little blog housekeeping and clean up the sidebar. Much to my surprise, somebody apparently broke Blogger while I was gone. The "drag and drop" page elements neither drag nor drop. I was able to edit existing elements, but I couldn't add anything to the sidebar, and I couldn't move anything from one spot to the other.

Have you experienced this problem, too? Do you know of other things that have changed about Blogger in the last year? Any good new features I might enjoy? Or bad things I may not have discovered yet?

Any tips will be appreciated.

2009: Spectacular in its suckitude!

Come on, Ryan Seacrest and the rest of you New Year’s revelers, let’s send up some balloons, throw bags of confetti, and fill the midnight sky with fireworks. Whatever we need to do to escort 2009 to the exit door, let’s get on with it. Let’s kick this past year to the curb, dust off our hands and heave a big sigh of relief. Goodbye and good riddance!

Okay, I’m forced to admit that a few good things happened in 2009, but if I actually took the time to make lists, my list of good things would be shorter than my list of bad ones. I suspect that’s true for many of you.

On the good side, our family was blessed with two new babies (Jaydon Cole in June and Henley Blake in November), and another baby boy, my much anticipated first great-grandchild, was conceived and is scheduled to arrive in March of 2010. I couldn't be happier about that.

We’ve had a couple of serious illnesses in our human family this year, but we’ve survived them. Illnesses would go on the bad list, but I guess they’d be balanced by survival on the good list.

Definitely on the bad list are the losses of two prominent members of our fur family this year. BeBe, my mother’s dog that was adopted by my daughter Kelli following Mother’s death ten years ago, died this summer. BeBe suffered from epileptic seizures her entire life, nearly 15 years, and almost every time she went to the vet in the last eight years, they predicted her imminent death. Somehow she held on until this year. Then, just days before Christmas, my daughter Kim’s little Yorkie, Winston, whose funny, furry face you’ve seen on these pages before, died suddenly from anaphylactic shock following an injection to relieve a bout of back pain he experienced occasionally. This was a hard loss, one that will sit heavily on our hearts for a long time. It might have been BeBe’s time to go, but I can’t believe it was Winston’s.


On the good list (knock on wood), the rest of our fur-babies, including my beloved Butch and Kadi, are doing well.

A couple of the prior posts I’ve managed to eke out this year referred to my retirement. Retirement has definitely been a good-list thing, though it hasn’t been the smooth sailing I had expected it to be. I never thought I would spend so many hours sitting in doctors‘ offices while they tried to pinpoint the origin of confusing blood test results. First they knew exactly what the problem was; now they’re not so sure. As an unexpected trip to the emergency room yesterday confirmed in my mind, the treatment thus far has been worse than the disease. I was feeling pretty good before all this medical speculation began and still feel very well most days, though I’m now identifying strongly with that poor, maligned creature, the guinea pig. The unexpected medical infringement on my time lies squarely on the bad list.

I’d be neglectful if I didn’t add a couple of other minor items to the good list:

• We finally got a traffic light at the scary intersection near my house. It feels wonderful to be able to travel the shortest route home without taking my life in my hands.

• I’ve only bought three tanks of gas since I retired at the end of July and still have more than three-fourths of the third one.

• The parish is building a brand-new branch of the library about a mile from my house. Since my retirement income won’t support my book-buying habit, this is great news.

• There’s been a big increase in the number of flocks of ducks and geese flying over my yard this year, and I've loved seeing their V-formations and hearing the wildness of their calls. Despite a couple of avid hunters I still consider friends, these birds in flight symbolize hope and freedom to me, and I cheer them on to safety as they fly.

Back to the bad list, we've had week after week of constant rain. On the good list, I didn't have to get up and go to work in any of it.

2009 got off to a good start, I thought, with the historic inauguration of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States. Even as I put this on my good list, I have to wonder if President Obama is still putting it on his. He may have some doubts by now.

There isn’t enough time left in 2009 to list all the bad stuff I’ve seen on the news this year, and I know from reading your blogs that some of you have struggled fiercely to climb your own mountains. I must say I’ve been impressed with the dignity with which you’ve faced your challenges and the honesty with which you’ve shared them with us, your readers. Your problems go on my bad list, but your courage and humanity go very near the top of the good one.

My blogging productivity (a grand total of nine posts for 2009, counting this one) was so pathetic that I may have to start a third list, a list of bad things that are also embarrassing. Way up on the good list, though, will be the fellow bloggers who kept me on their blog rolls in spite of my poor performance.

I’m thankful that the year is over and hopeful that someday I’ll be able to look back and remember some sort of valuable insight I may have gained in 2009. Right now nothing comes to mind.

I do know I’m happy for the chance to begin again in a new year, a new decade even. I’m ready to pull my head out of the semi-dark place where it’s been hibernating and take a fresh look around.

Next year I’ll tidy up this neglected old blog and tell you what I see, okay?

Happy New Year!

I'm not the only one getting older

The granddogs have been staying with me since last Thursday afternoon, when Kim and some of her friends took their Harleys and left for Sturgis, South Dakota. Her little dogs and my big ones are used to being together during the daytime, but it’s been interesting to watch them adjust their nighttime routines to accommodate each other.

My Kadi stopped sleeping with me about six months ago, preferring to sleep on the cool floor of the hall just outside my bedroom. Kim’s Lucy, on the other hand, thinks sleeping in the bed with me is a great idea, and Kadi isn’t willing to let Lucy have the spot that used to be hers. What neither Kadi nor I knew was that things have changed in the last six months.

Kadi can no longer jump up on my bed. She tried twice and failed both times, hanging on with the nails of her front paws while her back feet tried to gain some purchase to help her pull herself up. The expression on her face when she couldn’t do it made me feel sad for her.

So, for as long as Lucy is here, and longer if Kadi wants, our bedtime routine has changed. After the goodnight treats, after the last drinks of water, I climb into bed and Lucy jumps in after me. Butch makes a few circles on his bed, then settles down in the middle of it. Winston searches over the entire bedroom, trying one spot, then another, before finding the perfect Yorkie-sized nook beneath the window. Kadi stands in the hall, watching everybody get comfortable. Only then does she approach my bed and focus intently on my face. That’s my cue to get back out of bed, put Kadi’s front paws on top of the mattress, hook my arms together under her Big-Bertha butt, and boost her up.

She doesn’t stay long, half an hour maybe; the hall is still her favorite place to sleep. She just needs to be in my bed long enough to make her point, and I need to put her there so she’ll know she doesn’t have to handle her infirmities alone.

Retirement: beginning the settling in phase

Retirement feels weird so far. As much as I've looked forward to it, now that it's here I feel like I'm cheating. Playing hooky. Shirking responsibilities. There's just something about the concept of never going to work again that's mind-boggling.

Maybe this is just a transitional phase, a rare period of time in which the final paycheck overlaps the newfound freedom. Right now I'm not experiencing any consequences of walking away from a perfectly good job. Maybe in a couple of weeks, when penny-pinching becomes my full-time occupation, I'll struggle at least enough to feel as if I'm paying a fair price for the privilege of being a woman of leisure.

I have big plans for the month of August. I'll schedule appointments with the dentist for a cleaning, the women's clinic for a mammogram, and the orthopedist to see for sure if I need knee replacement surgery. My family doctor urged me to take care of those last two items way back in March, and I no longer have an excuse not to do it. I'll also drag my reluctant behind to the gym to explore the idea of setting up a series of exercises to strengthen my upper leg muscles in case the knee surgery becomes a reality. I'm not looking forward to any of those things.

One immediate project that does excite me is the plan to clean out and totally restock my pantry so I can start cooking and baking again. Years ago, when I was a stay-at-home mom, I enjoyed the creativity of planning interesting, tasty meals, and I think I'll enjoy it again. Cooking for one won't be the same as cooking for a family, but it's bound to beat the frozen and take-out dinners I've become used to in recent years.

Prolonged grocery shopping (or shopping of any kind) does a number on my knees, so the plan is to break down the grocery list into several parts and string out the shopping over several days. One day I'll buy canned goods, the next day I'll buy spices, the next will be baking ingredients, and so on. My theory is that shopping this way will allow me to go to a single location in the store, gather up the items on my abbreviated list, and check out in the 20-items-and-under aisle. Today was dogfood-and-treats day (because we were out of rawhide strips), which has made me fairly popular with the pups this afternoon. I'll let you know how the rest of this plan works out.

There are some long-term projects that excite me, too, but they'll have to wait until some of the more immediate stuff is out of the way.

And there was one more goal, an important one and a big motivator in my decision to retire, that I hoped would be an easy one to achieve. Since it's after six p.m. and I won't be going out again tonight, I think it's safe to consider it already accomplished: I've made it through this entire day without once feeling the urge to call someone an a$$#ole.

Hmm. Maybe I can get used to this.

Sad goodbyes and new beginnings

As of quittin' time today, I am officially retired. It seemed like this day would never come until about two weeks ago, then time started snowballing so fast it was hard to find time to take a breath.

Even in those last two speedy weeks, every time I thought about retiring I was all "Yeeeee-haaaaaw!" That was the way I felt when I arrived at work this morning, but half an hour later everything changed. My head was still excited, but my heart jumped up and demanded to express its own opinion, turning on the tear ducts in the process. I hate saying goodbye.

The people I work with are my good friends, my confidants, the ones who are first on any given day to sense what kind of mood I'm in and help me shake off any cranky ones. I would miss them terribly if I let them slip away, and I'm determined to stay in touch. We've been a good team.

And, speaking of missing friends, I've missed some of you folks in the blogosphere more than you could ever imagine. It's going to be a really busy weekend (lots of loose ends to tie up), but near the very top of my list of Things to Do in the Retirement Years is dusting the cobwebs off this old blog.

I'll be back here Monday to try to shake some life into it. See you then.

Forgive me, Blogger, for I have sinned

It's been three months since my last confession post.

Holy crap! I cannot believe the time has flown by so quickly, but I hope the next 74 days will pass at the same warp speed.

My last post was written on the day I told my boss that I plan to retire at the end of July. I didn't want to be specific when I posted about that decision, because I wanted him to have time to process my unexpected announcement privately, so he could think about how it would affect his own plans. After a few weeks of weighing the pros and cons of each of his options, he has decided to retire at the same time I do.

I had always thought my boss would be ready to retire by this year (he's a couple of years older than I am), and I'd planned to stop working when he did. Instead, he just kept plugging away with no talk of stopping. When the image of the Energizer bunny began popping into my head every time I looked at him, I knew it was time for me to make the first move. My decision wasn't sudden. I'd been having happy thoughts about the idea of retirement for at least three years, as this short post written in January of 2006 demonstrates.

Anyway, even with five and a half months' notice, the process of getting ready to do the actual deed has kept me in some kind of an A.D.D. whirlwind. There are so many lists in my head, things I have to do at work, things I have to do at home, that I can't think straight enough to write a blog post in one sitting. Reading, a favorite activity, takes more concentration than I can muster for more than a few pages at a time. About the only thing I seem to be able to do easily these days is watch TV; then, if I'm distracted by the mental lists, I can just hit the rewind button and try to catch the story line the second time around.

My bad knees have also become a blog deterrent. After sitting at a desk all day with my knees bent, it's hard (and painful) to straighten them out when I want to stand up. Adding a couple of evening hours at the home computer desk makes walking afterward extremely difficult. Obviously, something had to give. Choosing between the job and the blog was almost a no-brainer, but until the job ends, I'll have to put the blog on the back burner.

In the meantime, I'll make a conscience effort to write at least a short post every now and then to let you know I'm still alive and kicking. Except for the knee thing, I'm fine, as are Butch and Kadi, whose status as elder dogs is one more reason why I'm looking forward to staying home.

I miss all of you and try my best to keep up with you by reading your blogs. Thanks to those of you who have reached out to me through comments and e-mail; it means a lot to know you've noticed my absence, and I'll try to make it up to you with better posts somewhere down the line.

Testing, testing, 1, 2

Tonight I feel like the performer who arrives late and steps onto the stage after the show's over, the lights have been dimmed, and everybody's gone home. I'm standing here alone, squinting my eyes to see all the way to the cheap seats. Is there anybody out there?

In the month since I last posted, I've been engaged in an internal struggle, the origin of which I couldn't readily identify at first. Introvert that I am, I had to circle my emotional wagons and mull everything over by a slow-burning mental campfire until I could sort out specifically what was bothering me and figure out what to do about it. It isn't anything I can talk about yet, but I did reach a decision.

My second husband (the good one), told me early in our marriage that his father once told him to remember the following words of wisdom: "Over 35, do; under 35, don't." As much as I distrust generalities, this advice has proved through the years to be reliable. I'm way over 35, and today I did it. Not all the way yet, but at least I set things in motion.

While I was deeply ensconced in the "should-I-or-shouldn't-I" mode, a fellow blogger unwittingly gave me a little nudge. That would be Patsy, who posted this cartoon. Thanks, Patsy, I needed that.

I already feel a hundred pounds lighter.

Yes we can -- feel the magic

If I am fortunate enough to be spared the ravages of Alzheimer’s in my last years, I will remember the events of the next few days always. We live in an amazing time. History is being made, and I can sense it in the very air around me.

This morning I watched the first legs of President-elect Obama’s train rally from Pennsylvania to Washington. It was good to see him standing tall and smiling as he and Joe Biden waved from the back of the train to throngs of people who waited at the station, but it wasn’t he who inspired me today. Today I was moved to tears by the faces of all those people, young and old, black and white, bundled up in hats and coats and waiting for hours to share one brief moment of hope and promise.

Journalists on the train reported passing through rural areas, places where there was no obvious sign of habitation, only to spot one person standing by the edge of the woods or two on a barely visible rooftop, waiting for the train to pass. Those people waited for nothing more than to experience this moment today and share it with their children and grandchildren through all their tomorrows.

*******

Near noon, I rode into Baton Rouge with my daughter to take Lucy and Winston to the groomer. At the exit ramp where we left the interstate, a familiar figure sat on the grass to our left. He’s a thirty-something white man, shabby but not desperate looking, who has been somewhere near that underpass nearly every time I’ve been to Baton Rouge in the past year. Whenever I see the man, I also see his big, brown dog, the faithful companion who stays so close beside him that some part of the dog always touches some part of the man.

The man keeps long hours in his open-air workplace, displaying the kind of hard work and dedication that would earn him a good living if he were to apply the same effort in the business world. I don’t know his circumstances. I won’t judge him.

My daughter and I waited in the right-hand lane to make our turn. In the left-hand lane, nearest the man with the dog, a late-model SUV pulled up to the red light and stopped. In the next instant, our attention was diverted by someone running past us.

The driver of the SUV had left her vehicle with the door wide open and was running in high heels back toward the man. We couldn’t see her face, but she seemed to be a young person. She was nicely dressed and had long, straight black hair and skin the shade of brown that made me think she might be of Hispanic or middle-eastern origin.

When she reached the man, she handed him some money, but she didn’t do it in an impersonal way. She stopped and petted the dog, then reached out and hugged the man before she ran back to her car as the light changed.

High as I still was on the passion of all those people on TV who waited for a glimpse of Barack Obama, I burst into tears again. I wish that young woman knew how much she moved us today, not by her donation to the homeless man, but by her acknowledgment of his humanity.

**********

The new administration has requested that Americans consider Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a day of national service. I love to think about how much we can accomplish as a nation when we all work together. There's even a website (www.volunteermatch.org) to help us locate agences in our own communities who can use some help.

I checked out what’s available near my own zip code and found a few things even an older lady with bad knees might be able to do, but nothing I’m ready to commit to on a long-term basis. What I can do for this Monday, though, is go through my closet and pull out some of the perfectly good clothes I never wear (too small, mostly), clean them if they need it, pack them in the nice set of luggage I never use, box up a couple dozen hard-cover books that are taking up space, and drop off the whole kit and caboodle at the local Goodwill store. It may not reach the level of personal sacrifice a lot of people will make, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Domestic disturbance

It was the kind of incident that, had they been famous, the paparazzi would have loved to capture on film and sell to the tabloids: a sudden flare-up of violence behind the closed doors of a home where love and peace are the norm. The fact that it may have been born of frustration repressed for years does not excuse the assault.

Those of us in the family have been aware for a long time that she has a tendency to mind his business. We've seen her manipulate him to get what she wants. We've watched her lord it over him occasionally, and even, once in a while, make no attempt whatsoever to hide her embarrassment at his overly friendly interactions with others. We've talked about these things behind their backs, and we pretty much all agree that she doesn't behave this way out of malice. It's just that she has a strong personality, and she's always absolutely certain that she knows better than he does what's right and what's wrong.

Maybe he got tired of it. The thing is, though, he's never given us the slightest indication that her dictatorial nature might get on his nerves. He's an easy-going guy. He's always seemed to tolerate her affectionately, leaving those of us who know them well to admire his "don't-sweat-the-small-stuff" attitude.

There was no sign of tension between them at bedtime, when they passed by one another with scant notice as we all performed our nighttime rituals. Nor did anything seem out of the ordinary when I accidentally woke them at four-thirty in the morning. I got out of bed and tiptoed to the bathroom, hoping not to disturb them, but by the time I was finished, they were wide awake. They answered nature's call, too, then poked around looking for something to eat. I was ready to go back to bed, but instead I gave them cookies.

She got comfortable and nibbled her cookies leisurely. He ate his quickly, standing up all the while, then moved amiably toward her to see if she had anything left that he might eat. I didn't specifically see or hear her reaction, but I'm guessing she expressed her unwillingness to share in a way that pushed him over the edge. All I know is that something I didn't see or hear sent him into a rage.

Instantly, he was standing over her, menacing her, threatening her in his loudest, angriest voice. I can't quote him directly, but the essence of what he screamed at her was, "I am SICK and TIRED of all your CRAP, and you'd better WATCH OUT, B----!"

It was surreal. I screamed at him, "Stop it! STOP it!" and he did stop it, just as quickly as it had started. He walked away to the other side of the room, but I could tell the fight was still in him. He stood tall, shoulders back and head held high. He didn't say it in words, but his body language said quite clearly that he wasn't sorry at all. "She had it coming," his posture seemed to say. "Enough is enough."

As soon as he backed off, I turned my attention to her. She had no physical injuries, but her feelings were hurt, and she was obviously shaken. She sat erect, her body trembling, for several long minutes. As I spoke to her in what I hoped was a soothing voice, her wide, fearful eyes locked onto my own. She looked at me pleadingly, as if to ask silently whether I'd witnessed what had just happened and whether I would have believed it in a million years if I hadn't seen it for myself. I felt really sorry for her. She seemed so shocked, so confused.

I talked to both of them -- to each of them -- trying, I guess, to reassure all three of us that the anger had dissipated enough that we'd be safe to go back to bed. Finally, he headed off to sleep where he always does, and she climbed into my bed, seeking refuge. It took a while for my heart to stop pounding, but once it did, I drifted off to sleep. I imagine they had a hard time getting to sleep, too.

The next morning, before I left for work, there didn't seem to be any major tension or hostility between them, though she did snap at him once. Fortunately, he had the good sense and self-control to leave her alone. I worried about them the whole time I was away, but when I got home from work, they acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.

Maybe they've mastered the art of living in the moment, but I can assure you that I haven't forgotten the incident. I find myself watching them more closely now, looking for undercurrents of emotion that might erupt in another explosion of violence. I never want to see that again.

I hope they can put the hard feelings behind them. After all the years they've been together, it would be devastating if their relationship broke down at this late stage of their lives. Kadi is 11 now, and Butch is 10. They've always had each other to count on, ever since they were puppies. This was the first time I've ever seen them fight.

2009 and life is fine

The holidays have been wonderful, though I'm not sure I could keep up this pace for another day. Fortunately, as my daughter pointed out earlier, this particular day that feels like a Sunday is actually only Thursday, and we have three days left to recuperate before returning to work.

The time off from work would have been much more restful if it weren't for all the people who celebrate the season with fireworks from Christmas Eve through New Year's Day -- and maybe a few more days if they haven't managed to use up their stash. So far that's nine straight nights of trembling, terror-stricken dogs who have refused to go outside from dusk until sometime in the wee hours of the morning, long after the last pop or boom. The quantity of sleep has been sufficient, but the quality of it has been poor.

There have been several days lately when I haven't even turned my computer on. Though I've checked in a few times to read my favorite blogs on the fly, I haven't stayed long enough to leave comments. I regret not having had the time to tell you individually how much I appreciate you, and I hope to spend more time with all of you in the coming days and weeks.

In the meantime, I hope your Christmas was all you wanted it to be, and I wish you the happiest 2009 possible. I have a feeling it'll be one we'll all remember.

Happy New Year. It's a wonderful world.

And so this is Christmas

I cannot believe it's Christmas Eve already.

The Christmas shopping is done, the house is clean, the fridge is full of food -- and I had help with all of it, thank goodness. If I'd had to do everything by myself, I never would have made it to this point. If there'd been an extra minute to write something here, I'd have told you about some of the following:

How my central heating system chose our snow day to break down and blow only cold air.

How a good friend and his daughter-in-law ended up in the emergency room on the same day, one with a mild heart attack and one with a brain tumor. (Both are doing well.)

How annoying it is when stores allow customers to stand twenty-deep at the three open checkout registers, while five other registers are closed.

How I went to the coat sale too late and only ugly coats were left in my size.

How my big, long winter coat stayed at the cleaners throughout our cold spell.

How the temperature here ranged from 28 degrees to 84 degrees in a one-week period.

How thrilled I am that my brother and his family came for a visit. (It's been six years since I've seen them.)

How Butch and Kadi reacted to having company.

How this is the first Christmas season that hasn't been sad for me since my mom died the day after Christmas in 1999.

How my mom's spirit went shopping with me yesterday, and we got some good stuff! (And, yes, she found me a close-up parking space.)

How Kim has made batch after batch of cookies, and I'm eating them as fast as she makes them.

How we just got back from the video store, where we selected seven -- count 'em, seven -- DVDs to watch in the next week.

How much I look forward to spending Christmas Day at Kelli and Troy's house with my kids and grandkids.

How, counting today, I only have to work two days out of the next twelve. Now, that's what I call the twelve days of Christmas.

And, since I have so much time off, I hope to be back here soon to fill in the details of at least a few of those topics listed above. In the meantime, I hope all of you spend a safe, happy Christmas with the people (and animals) you love.

Peace and blessings,
Velvet, Kadi and Butch

Southern surprise

My phone rang at 6:30 this morning, fifteen minutes after the alarm had sounded but before I'd managed to crawl out of the warm bed. It was my daughter, Kim, whose first words when I answered were, "Look out your window; it's snowing."

Local weather forecasters had predicted we'd have a "wintry mix" this morning, so I expected to see a few tiny flakes in the air. Instead, the ground was frosted white and the flakes were big, fat, fluffy ones. I've been in Louisiana for 30 years and have never seen more than a very light dusting of snow here, so this was exciting.

I couldn't wait to show it to Butch and Kadi. As I put on shoes and threw a coat over my bathrobe, I was sorry Butch wouldn't be able to see it and wondered how long it would take him to discover that something was different. Not long, it turned out. He hadn't taken more than three or four steps outside before he felt the snowflakes kissing his cheeks, pointed his nose skyward, wagged his tail, and turned around a few times with his head in the air.

Kadi, of course, noticed the white blanket and the falling flakes as soon as the door was open and raced outside into the thick of it. She played a while longer than usual before asking to come back inside.

After our first venture in the snow, we had to wait another hour before there was enough daylight to take pictures. Here's what my backyard looked like then:



A few minutes later, the snow still falling fast, I walked back through the house and out the front door. Here's the little patch of woods across the road:



The pretty tree at the right of this photo is my neighbor's pear tree:



By 1:00 in the afternoon, the snow had melted off of all the roads, a lot of the lawn, and most of the trees. This is how the backyard looked then:



If you look at Butch's footprints in this early afternoon shot, you can tell that we'd had at least two or three inches:



In fact, back near the garden shed, the snow was all the way up to Kadi's belly:

Hodgepodge

For the past week my thoughts have been scattered, flipping rapidly between operational budgets at work and Christmas shopping lists at home, leaving me with little blogging time and no well-thought-out topic to post about. Instead, I'll share with you just a few scraps of things that have crossed my mind:

When do the comments commence?
Last week I discovered that Blogger has a new option which reportedly allows comments to be embedded at the end of a post instead of on a pop-up screen or a separate page. The notice about the new option stated it's easier for commenters, and, as it's a feature I've admired on Wordpress blogs, I was tickled to select that option. Apparently they haven't worked all the kinks out of it yet. After getting a couple of e-mails letting me know readers were unable to leave comments, I switched it back to the old, tried-and-true method. Nothing good comes easily.

**********

Verifiably nutty
Speaking of comments, when randomly generated word-verification letters pop up on my monitor, I jot down the interesting ones for my own amusement. Here are some recent ones, along with potential definitions:
1) zeolzens -- Mary Kate and Ashley in Paris
2) placeta -- A location, like a "place-ta" hang your hat.
3) voidists -- People who disregard everything you say.
4) kabal -- A conspiracy of diners at the Kountry Kitchen.
5) latedly -- How birthday cards I send tend to be.
6) bradys -- Mike, Carol, Greg, Peter, Bobby, Marcia, Jan and Cindy.
7) motortil -- Common phrase in the auto repair industry: "I won't fix your motortil you write me a big check."
8) sesanati -- A big city in Ohio.
9) merbopp -- A popular mermaid dance in the 1950s.
10) fadedine -- The condition of trying to eat when you're about to fall asleep.

**********

Something fishy
Sometimes words offered up by spell checkers play tricks on unsuspecting posters. I saw the following comment on a political blog recently: "Obama is right, war is a salmon decision." Um...a solemn decision, maybe?

**********

One way to love a dog
Because Butch gets frequent ear infections, I have to clean his ears weekly with an antiseptic solution, a process which he hates. To try to make it just a little easier for him, I've been holding the squeeze bottle of solution between my thighs for the past 45 minutes.

**********

New use for an old household item
Have you read that some people are smoking duct tape these days? It's true. In fact, here in Louisiana you can't buy duct tape without proof of identification showing that you're over 18 years old. At the grocery store last week, the guy in line next to me wanted to buy a roll of duct tape and a bottle of motor oil. When the cashier explained why she'd need to see his ID, he shoved the items toward her, said, "Tell 'em they can kiss my a$$," and stormed out of the store. I hope his car didn't fall apart in the parking lot.

Senate seat for sale
I can't go to bed tonight without commenting on Illinois's governor, Rod Blagojevich, who was arrested today for reasons that included an attempt to sell Obama's vacated senate seat. Following a political season that made me think politicians' egos couldn't get any bigger, this governor proved me wrong. This is so outrageously appalling that it strikes me as really funny. Maybe I'm just laughing in relief that, for once, it isn't a Louisiana politician making this kind of news.

Flipping my lid

This has been a fairly productive day. Work was busier than usual but still manageable, which gave me a sense of accomplishment.

After work I stopped to buy groceries on the way home. By the time I got to the deli at the grocery store, they had two plates of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy left, so I bought one of them.

When I got home, I put the groceries away, took the garbage out to the curb, sorted laundry, and put one load into the washing machine, all the time eyeing the meatloaf that would be my supper. It smelled so good. Finally, I was ready to warm it in the microwave.

I couldn't get it open. After a couple of fruitless attempts, I pulled really hard on the clear plastic lid and managed to get it off, sliding the plastic plate of meatloaf off the counter in the process. It landed upside down on the floor. There went my dinner.

Butch and Kadi were both tap dancing excitedly nearby, but the meatloaf was full of onions, so I couldn't let them have it. They did get to lick up a bite or two of potatoes and a few good slurps of gravy before I could clean it all up.

I ended up eating hot dogs, their only appeal being speed of preparation. That was a couple of hours ago. Now I'm thinking about having the bread pudding that I bought at the same deli. But it's in the same kind of dish.

Maybe if I spread a sheet on the kitchen floor first...

Thirty-six consecutive days

With the completion of this post, I will have blogged every day for 36 consecutive days, the goal I set on the 26th of October after a long, dry spell. My literary hat is off to those of you who regularly blog on a daily basis. I don't know how you manage to do it.

Holly, also known as Creekhiker, did this along with me, and I greatly appreciate her company. Those of you who read both Holly's blog and mine may have noticed that she posted something worthwhile each day, while I often posted, well...crap. Many evenings I sat down and typed several paragraphs about nothing. It was a method that worked much better for Jerry Seinfeld than it did for me.

Tomorrow, unless something happens that I can't wait to tell you, I plan to give myself a break, and after that, until the end of the year, I plan to be here regularly but sparingly. That's because I did my last book review at "Velvet's Bookstacks" all the way back in June, and I'm gonna do my best to catch up between now and the end of the year.

Things are so much easier when I don't let myself get behind.

Night owl

Last night, only a couple of nights into the holiday weekend, I read until nearly one o'clock in the morning. Today I got up at six-thirty to let the dogs out, then we all went back to bed until almost ten. This is the kind of schedule I naturally gravitate to, the schedule my body fights against during the entire work week.

Even if I go to bed at ten o'clock and sleep a full eight hours, getting up at six in the morning is torture for me. Even if I get to work at eight-thirty, I don't wake up fully until late morning. I can talk and I can work, but I'm doing it on autopilot.

This is on my mind because it's after eleven as I write this. I'm recognizing the weekend trend of staying up late on Friday night and even later on Saturday, only to go to bed early on Sunday and lie awake for hours. With this being a long weekend, I'm postponing bedtime later each consecutive night, and I know that Monday will be a day of reckoning.

Part of me is sitting here with pursed church-lady lips, disapproving of my lack of discipline. Another part of me is pumping a fist skyward and shouting, "Yessss! I love this time of the night."

When I think about all the things I'll do when I eventually retire from work, one of the things that excites me most is the idea of being able to dispense with the alarm clock and wake up only when I'm good and ready. In fact, I think about that a lot. I didn't realize how much I think about it until I got all the way down to this fifth paragraph and it started sounding familiar. A quick little blog search shows me it's only been eight days since I wrote wistfully about waking up without an alarm.

So, now we all know that my memory is slipping. When the day arrives that I can sleep late every morning, I hope I can remember to appreciate it.

Quickies

It's late, so I'll just post a couple of short items tonight:

1. There were no deviled eggs at our Thanksgiving dinner. It was as if the shells of those boiled eggs were superglued to the whites. I ended up doing as I thought I might, chopping up the whites I could salvage and stirring them into the yolk mixture, making a deviled-egg salad. It wasn't as festive as deviled eggs would have been, but it tasted just as good. Plus, it traveled a whole lot better.

2. The rest of the dinner was wonderful. I ate too much at lunchtime and then did it all over again for supper, and everything was just as good the second time around. I was so miserable after consuming all that food that you'd have thought I'd learned a lesson, but I woke up this morning craving another helping of sweet potato crunch.

3. Lucy and Winston spent the night last night. At one point this morning, all four dogs were on the sofa with me. It wouldn't have been comfortable for long, but for the ten minutes it lasted, it was pretty special.

4. Speaking of the dogs, Butch does something that drives me batty. He comes up to me while I'm at the computer and uses his nose to knock my right hand off the mouse. If he does it several times, I give up, stop typing, and get up to let him outside. The minute I stand up, he hurries to his food dish and starts eating, so I have to stand there and wait for him. I wish I could convince him to eat first and then let me know he needs something.

5. I'm behind on reading other people's blogs and leaving comments, as well as responding to comments on my own. I'm also behind on answering e-mails. If I owe you, I'm sorry, and I'll catch up as soon as I can.

That's it for now. Good night.

In times of plenty and in times of need...

...we still count our blessings and appreciate the goodness that's ours to enjoy in this lifetime. Today I will be with my family. I'll fill my stomach with wonderfully prepared foods (except for my failed deviled eggs), and my family will fill my heart with joy, pride, and gratitude that I am lucky enough to be part of this particular group of people.

While I'm counting my blessings, dear readers and fellow writers, please know that you're among them. The stories and feelings that you share so freely have enriched my life and made me feel connected to a much larger world than I was before I discovered the blogosphere.

I hope you are safe and warm today and with at least some of the people you love. Happy Thanksgiving from Butch, from Kadi, and from me.

The devil is in the details

I'm only contributing one dish to tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner, a simple dish that I've made dozens of times: deviled eggs. I ought to be able to do it in my sleep by now, but everytime I make them seems like a new adventure.

Are the eggs too fresh? If so, they'll be harder to peel, so I'd better boil extras to make up for the ones that end up with big chunks out of the whites. And what about the timing for boiling the eggs? I know that if I put the eggs in cold water, bring them to a rolling boil for one minute, then take them off the heat, leave them covered for 20 minutes, then flush with cold water, they'll be cooked perfectly. That's worked for me for years, but my new glass-topped stove is different. It takes forever for the water to begin boiling. Should I allow for the extra minutes that the eggs were in very hot water that was almost but not quite boiling?

It's anybody's guess. The good thing is I know they love me. If I show up with beautiful deviled eggs, deviled-egg salad (a distinct possibility), or empty-handed, I'm pretty sure they'll let me in and feed me.

Chinese, please

I worked late this evening to get a head start on things that'll need to be done immediately after the holidays. I struggle with Monday mornings all the time; there's no sense making the Monday after a four-day weekend even harder than it needs to be.

When I finished up, I looked at the clock and realized I could reward myself for the overtime. I'd worked late enough that my favorite Chinese restaurant was open.

I used to stop there to pick up dinner once a month or so, but my work hours are slightly different now, and I usually arrive home five or ten minutes before the restaurant opens. As much as I like the food, I don't like to wait or to drive back there later.

Tonight I had sesame chicken (yum!), egg rolls, fried shrimp, and crab rangoon, with enough food left over for tomorrow -- all for under $10. The leftovers are two completely different dishes, so they won't even seem like leftovers.

With a bargain like that, I guess it's unrealistic to expect that the fortune in the fortune cookie will make sense. The one tonight read, "A business trip will bring you excellent results." Hmm. I don't take business trips. Unless I find money someone dropped in front of the courthouse or the post office, I'm guessing this fortune cookie was intended for someone else.

Long lost playmate

Every year on November 24th, I think about one little girl: Jean Lee Benning. Today is her birthday, and I remember it because it's very close to mine, a fact that felt like a special bond when we were classmates and playmates.

There weren't a lot of kids in our neighborhood, but Jean Lee (I always called her by both names) lived close enough that we were allowed to walk between her house and mine. She was one of my first friends from school.

Jean Lee had brown hair that she wore in long, neat braids. She played the violin. It was because of her that I begged my mother to let me take violin lessons, too. (Mother, who was correct in her assessment that I'd soon lose interest in it, said no.)

I couldn't begin to tell you what we played when we played together. I mostly remember us walking from one house to the other together, and I remember that inside her house was the narrowest, steepest staircase I'd ever seen, so steep that climbing the stairs was a little bit scary.

We were little when we played together, first or second grade, probably, and then her family moved away. I've often wondered what happened to her, and I wonder if she has any idea that once a year for sixty years, someone has thought of her and wished her happiness.

Maybe someday, if she idly Googles her own name (we all do that, don't we?), she'll come across this post, and it'll make her smile.

Eavesdroppers

I'm not one to spend a lot of time on the telephone, but apparently there's enough of a pattern to my phone chats that Butch and Kadi have learned all the signs. I've noticed in the past that they always ask to go outside as soon as I hang up, but I've assumed they were just getting up because I did. That might have been part of it, but I learned tonight that it's not the whole story.

Earlier this evening I had a long phone visit with my sister, during which Butch and Kadi both slept on the sofa beside me. Near the end of the conversation, I told my sister I'd enjoyed the visit and asked her to "give my love to everybody there." I hadn't moved, and I hadn't said goodbye, but both dogs leaped up simultaneously, jumped off the sofa, and stood excitedly in front of me, wagging their tails in anticipation. I have no idea what words or behavior signaled them.

My sister was still on the line, so I told her what was going on. "You should see them," I said. "They know the call is ending."

My sister laughed. "There's no telling how many secrets they've heard you tell. If I were you, I wouldn't let them talk to the neighbor dogs for a few days."

Potatoes, potahtoes

At work the other day we had a brief discussion about deception. The consensus was that it isn’t a good thing, but, in the course of conversation, I confessed to an ongoing act of deception when I was much, much younger.

My husband (first one) worked late when my children were small, so I usually fed the children early, then kept his dinner warm in the oven. Since it was difficult to cook and care for two hungry toddlers by myself, I took shortcuts, one of which was the use of instant mashed potatoes.

One evening when my husband came home earlier than usual, he saw me using instant mashed potatoes and said, for the first time, that he didn’t like them. He said he didn’t want anything but real mashed potatoes in the future, ones that would have to be peeled, cubed, cooked for 45 minutes and then mashed. As he was the nominal head of the household, I fully intended to comply with his wishes and cook the potatoes the way he liked them. At least that was the plan.

A few days later, while I still had dry instant potatoes in the house, the children fussed about being hungry. To hurry their dinner along, I decided to cook them something quickly and fix something else later for my husband. I pulled out the instant potatoes again.

Unfortunately, I used too much water, and the potatoes were a little soupy. I tried to thicken them by adding more dry potato buds. That made them look like they should, but it also made them lumpy. None of the potato buds I'd added in the second go-round had absorbed enough liquid.

That’s when my husband walked in, early again. Before I could stop him, he stuck a fork in the bowl of potatoes and took a bite. “Mmm,” he said. “Now, that’s more like it.”

Quickly assessing my options, I kept my mouth shut. We were married for about two more years after that, during which almost all of the mashed potatoes I served him were lumpy instant ones. He never complained about them, not even once.

So, I ask you: do you blame me? What would you have done?

Friday night freedom

I haven't decided for sure, but I've been thinking about it this evening, and Friday night just may be my favorite time of the whole week. Here are some reasons why:

1) Work is over and I don't have to think about it for two whole days.

2) I have Saturday and Sunday to take care of shopping and other weekend chores, so I don't have to do any of them -- or even think about them -- unless I choose to.

3) I can go to bed early or stay up as late as I want without worrying about how I'll feel in the morning.

4) When I do go to bed, I can read until I'm sleepy. There's no pressure to make sure I sleep for a certain number of hours before the alarm goes off. In fact, there won't be an alarm.

When Saturday morning rolls around, I'll still be able to choose how I spend my time, but Saturday feels like the beginning of something. It's the start of a two-day slice of time that slips away all too soon. Friday night isn't like that.

On Friday night time feels suspended. The work week has ended, the weekend hasn't officially begun, and I can float through those few hours in between.

Tonight I had a good dinner with my daughter. I've snuggled with Kadi and Butch, read for a while, and watched a little TV. When I finish writing this, I'll crawl into bed between clean sheets and read some more. Later, just before I go to sleep, I'll say a silent prayer of thanks for my family, my furbabies, my home, my job, and for the sense of fulfillment that I feel intensely almost every Friday night.

Might as well talk about the weather

Ho-hum. The weather here is cold. No, wait, it's hot. Or is it? I haven't been outside in two hours, so I have no idea.

The outside temperature has dropped below freezing in the past couple of days, but it's also been up in the 70s. To keep the temperature in my house at the most comfortable level, I first have to decide whether to turn on the heat or the air conditioning. At bedtime it's a big decision, because I have to project whether the house will get colder or warmer before morning.

During the day I'm dressing in layers, knowing that I like the office a little on the cool side but a couple of others like it toasty warm. It's easier to peel off a sweater than to sneak the thermostat back five degrees every couple of hours.

We're supposed to have a cold spell this weekend, but I'm not sure what that means. Below freezing again? Or just colder than 70 degrees? Is it possible for a cold front to move in overnight, followed by a warm front around lunchtime?

For all I know, the weather may have changed in the short time I've spent writing this post, but one thing didn't change in that time: the subject is just as boring at the end of this as it was at the beginning.

Dragging out another old poem

After work this evening I had to make a dreaded stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a few things -- pet items at one end of the place, grocery items at the other -- so now I'm ready to just kick back and put my feet up.

In the interest of posting something that wouldn't require me to engage my brain tonight, I hit the old-poem folder again. This time I pulled out a poem I wrote for a friend in 1989, just a few words of advice when I thought she was about to take a flying leap off the deep end. Let's just say it was an expression of a lesson I'd learned the hard way.


CLIMBING IVY

Passion fades.
The rose blooms only briefly
till its petals fall and leave behind
the memories and the thorns.

Cultivate the ivy.
No bold flowers there,
but one small sprig whose tendrils
reach a solid structure
grows to cover, brick by brick,
the tallest tower wall.

The rose’s scent seduces,
but its flower wilts when touched;
the ivy touches roughness
and discerns a place to hold.

Passion fades.
Love grows leaf by leaf.

Cake art

At some time while I was doing assorted things that kept me from getting here until late this evening, I was flipping through TV channels and came across "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. I love to see the creativity of these master bakers and cake decorators. What could be more appealing than edible art?

Anyway, the show reminded me of a cake we commissioned for a co-worker's birthday a few months ago. The birthday guy is something of a Mr. Fix-It on the side, so we requested a toolbox cake. And the talented lady who baked it? Baking cakes is her sideline; in her day job she's an attorney.

Here's the cake:


Pretty cool, huh?

You show me yours...

...and I'll show you mine.

Patsy posted a beautiful picture of a squirrel today, and since I happened to catch a squirrel in my camera lens recently, I thought I'd join her in a little squirrely show and tell.



This guy was hanging out in a tree above the bench where my younger daughter, Kelli, and I rested a few weekends ago when we spent a delightful afternoon touring the grounds and gardens of Houmas House Plantation.



Evidently accustomed to visitors, he was watching us as intently as we watched him. He moved slowly through the tree from one vantage point to another, keeping a curious eye on us the whole time. I'm guessing he may have encountered visitors with edibles once or twice in his life.

Patsy wrote about having squirrel for dinner, and I know there are avid squirrel hunters here in Louisiana, too. I remember sampling squirrel stew one time in the late '60s, but when I was taking pictures of this pretty squirrel, it didn't occur to me to think of him as a menu item.

I hope I never do begin thinking of squirrels as food. I have a hard enough time looking cows in the eye.

The compliment of his trust

It's standard procedure at my house that when the dogs come in after going outside to take care of their business, they get a little treat. As long as they don't take advantage of us by asking to go outside over and over solely for the purpose of the treat (which one dog tried), they can depend on it.

One recent night after Kim had worked here in her shop until late in the evening, she let the dogs out before heading for home. Lucy, Winston, and Kadi were glad to go. Butch, however, was way too comfortable. I was leaning back on the reclining end of the sofa, and Butch was lying beside me, his head on my chest. His ears perked up when Kim asked, "Who wants to go outside?" but he didn't move.

Five or ten minutes later, when the other dogs came back inside, Kim got out the dog treats. I could hear her handing them out to each dog individually, so I'm sure Butch could hear it, too. He still didn't move.

Immediately I could hear Kim's footsteps coming toward the living room where Butch and I snuggled, and as she came through the doorway and turned toward us, Butch simply raised his head a few inches and opened his mouth really, really wide. And Kim placed a treat on his tongue.

Kim and I were both moved to know how confident Butch was that he wouldn't be left out. It's a great feeling to be trusted.

In Charlemont

It's late Saturday night. I've been sitting here poking around on the computer, trying to think of something to write, and was coming up empty until the cast of Saturday Night Live started singing a parody to the tune of "Ode to Billie Jo." Instantly, I was transported back 40 years.

A check on Wikipedia shows that this song was released in 1967, but I associate it more with the following year. Early in 1968 I met the man who would become my second husband only four months later. A couple of weeks after we married, we packed up my two daughters and moved into a beautiful home.

We bought the house from a man whose company was relocating him and needed him to move fast. They were going to reimburse him for any loss on the sale of his home, so he was willing to accept a low down payment. That made all the difference, because the steep price of $28,500 for the house was just barely within our means. The monthly mortgage payment was a whopping $128.

We had good times in that house. It was in a nice neighborhood and our neighbors were wonderful. On many weekend nights our neighbors joined us in our den for music and dancing. The kids danced with us until well past their bedtime, then we bundled them all into bed together and didn't mind if they stayed awake and listened to the music. "Ode to Billie Jo" was definitely on our play list.


That was the house we lived in when I fell and broke my knee, the knee that gives me such fits these days. That happened the week my older daughter started first grade, and the neighbors picked up my slack and got her to school for six weeks until I could drive again.

That's where we lived when my new husband taught us how to pick the sweet meat out of boiled crabs after catching the crabs earlier in the day with nets and chicken necks tied to string.


It's where my girls' new daddy became their hero when he marched down the street to get their peanuts back from the kid who took them away.

It was a house full of promise. I thought we'd live there forever.

Separation anxiety (mine)

I left work a little bit late this afternoon, made a quick stop at the post office, then found myself unable to make a necessary left turn in the rush-hour traffic. After throwing in the towel, I turned right instead, intending to go to the second traffic light, where I could turn left with a green arrow and double back to the route I wanted to take.

It wasn't so easy. Roadwork blocked off the route I knew, and I was forced to zigzag my way through an unfamiliar neighborhood until I found a through street.

Running late wouldn't have been such a big deal except that I knew Butch and Kadi would be concerned. They like their routine, and they seem to have a pretty good handle on what time of day certain things are supposed to happen. Also, they'd been alone all day. Kim and her pooches are normally at my house for part of the day, but today they didn't come over. Yep, I thought, Butch and Kadi will be waiting anxiously.

I drove under the carport about twenty minutes later than usual, parked the car, locked it with the keyless-entry fob that causes a short honk, and noticed as I unlocked the house (noisily) that I didn't hear my dogs. In fact, it was so quiet I felt an immediate pang of concern.

I flipped a light switch, dropped my purse on the coffee table, and rushed toward the den where I'd left the dogs at lunchtime. That's when I saw Butch on the futon. He raised his head and pointed his nose in my direction. Kadi, on the dog bed nearby, lifted her head then, too, and blinked at me like a deer caught in the headlights.

I woke them up.

Bless their little hearts. They were obviously so anxious about my tardiness that they forced themselves to go to sleep to keep from worrying, right?

Monday's washday -- but that's not cast in stone

My grandmother used to clean house according to a schedule. Monday was washday, on Tuesday she did the ironing, and so forth. I think I remember reading or hearing somewhere that most women followed a similar schedule back in the "olden days," but I don't remember ever knowing how that schedule got started. Who decided Monday would be washday, and how did that person get the rest of the women to go along with it?

I don't have a cleaning schedule. I clean when the spirit moves me, which may or may not be when it needs to be done, or when I think someone who'd care might be coming to my house.

Did your mother or grandmother clean according to a schedule? Do you? Does it make it easier? I've heard there are women who actually enjoy cleaning house. I don't even aspire to enjoyment; I'd just like to know something that would make me hate it less.

Intellectually, I think a schedule would be helpful. I've read the FlyLady website more times than I can count, and all of it sounds wonderfully efficient. I read it until I begin to think about the big results I could achieve by making a number of little changes in my daily routine. Usually that's enough to give me a warm glow of possibility and make me tell myself I'll start first thing tomorrow. So far that glow has never survived the REM sleep.

And, speaking of sleep, I do have a schedule for that, at least during the work week. Good night.

Ambition?

The Country Music Awards ceremony is on TV as I sit here and look at this blank Blogger screen, and right now Reba McEntyre
is singing with Big and Rich. I don't even care what they're singing; I'm just delighted that the sight of Reba reminds me of something I can write about tonight.

In the early '90s, when I worked in human resources, a young man came to my office for a job interview. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Reba McEntyre. To break the ice, I asked, "So, are you a big Reba fan?"

"Well," he answered, "I'm trying to be."

I ended up hiring him. At least he had some kind of a goal.