Waiting for Nothing

I'm in a funk.  My cute little car decided to do a bunk and in order to reestablish itself to its usual good natured reliability, it required new tires plus an additional $3000.00 worth of work.  If I house sit for the rest of my life I might be able to repay the loan established to get those repairs done.  On the upside, the car handles so much better now that the shuddering and shaking is gone.  Sort of like going through a 12 step program or methadone therapy or something.  sigh

I swear its true.  The youngest daughter requested my valuable child rearing skills again last Saturday so she and her beloved could go fraternize with friends and drink too much and whatnot.  This time no one melted down until well in to the third hour of my vigilance.  And then only for a little while, though I must say being told to "Leave me alone" from a four year old kinda sucks.  Sadly, the mother did not think it a good idea to prepare a nourishing and healthy meal before she hightailed is outta there. No, she left that little detail to yours truly.  I must be still a little on the defensive from when I used to feed my own brood when they were young and having them tell me that everything was disgusting and so and so won't eat anything green and another so and so won't eat brown stuff the other so and so would only eat processed food.  I used to have frequent nervous break downs and go to my room for a self imposed "time outs".  Anyway, so I was faced with the daunting task of feeding the grand offspring.  The mother suggested hot dawgs.  All I can say is at least they weren't some tofu inspired soy substitute uselessness.  If you are of the leaning to enjoy such stuff, well bully, but hot dawgs are meant to be suspect in their content and that's that.  So anyway I also decided the little darlings should have something green so I nuked broccoli (little trees btw), stuffed sticks through the dawgs for Mila and Silas, squished ketchup on their plates and did not stuff sticks into Jacks, but prepared for him a multi-grain sprouted something or other bun with only mustard, bon apetit" or what ever.  And they ate!  Even the green stuff.  good deal.

I also got to supervise the darlings yesterday!  Do I look like a nanny?  Or even a good person?  Someone should contact the authorities.  In any case I treated the darlings to frozen yogurt with three toppings and then took them off to a park so they could run off the sugar ingested from gummie bears, marshmallows and mini M&M's.  Swell.  So they ran around and gamboled and I studiously ignored any grievous misbehaviour and tried not to think of all the germs that had to be breeding rampantly on the swings and stuff and just closed my eyes to the backed up water fountain that ALL the children were using.  Parks are gross.  The mother arrived, the girl child had a freak out and I left.

I had the opportunity to go to WalMart after my park stint.  You should be particular which WalMart you frequent.  No really.  You should.  Barring that perhaps just not going to WalMart is OK too.  None the less, off to WalMart I went with the sole purpose of buying syringes for the @#%^& dawg who requires twice daily insulin injections.  And some fascinating people watching.   Have you received copies of the WalMart shoppers email?  Tasteful shots of some folks who have no access to a mirror.  It makes its way around annually.  But back to my personal experience, yesterdays winner was the plus sized woman in a HUGE leopard print Sari or something all in black and yellow and gold with a matching (not) head scarf in an understated fluorescent pink shade.  Eyes watering, I made my way to the nearest exit.  You can't leave WalMart in a hurry because then the store police assume you have "borrowed" stuff.  The exit walk has to be fairly precise.  I was safe because I only had one item and I had a receipt for it.  Thank God.  You know I've seen three shoplifting take downs at my neighborhood market in the last year.  I've lived in some pretty shady areas in my life and Vacaville is certainly not the worst of the worst, but three take downs at a relatively upscale market?  Either they have no sense of humor with theft or Safeway just builds  thievery into its working budget.  What say you?  Maybe I just need a life.

None of my valuable work opportunities panned out last weekend.  I had (count them) three gigs to choose from and not even one came to fruition.  See paragraph one.

I've resumed my gym attendance.  In fact I was supposed to go to a yogalates class this morning, but I forgot.  They have new recumbent bikes.  So usually I sit on one of them and pedal furiously for a time and listen to a book and play Mah Jong or Words w/Frenemies.  That way time goes faster and I can ignore the weird little ancient man in the black Adidas who always shuffles in after me and always sits on a bike next to me and pretends to read the paper.  creepy.  The other day I decided to incorporate some weights and other machine torture to my routine and the creepy guy followed me in there as well. ew.  Someone take pity on my and treat me to a nice full body liposuction so I can be safe.  Really.

OK, so I've read the Hunger Games and the sequels.  Go ahead and read them.  But basically the message is Government is bad and corrupt.  Revolution happens.  There are losers, they are punished.  And there are winners.  They might be bad.  Brand new shiny Government is  formed.  Government is bad and corrupt.  Good is bad.  Bad is good.  Rinse, repeat.  You're welcome.

What else am I reading?  Rick Riordan and the Tres Navarre series.  Irreverent private investigator in San Antonio.  Yup Pulitzer material, and entertaining.  Evidently he also writes some fantasy, sci fi stuff, but I don't hang with that genre usually,  so I have no review to share.   I just finished the Dismas Hardy series, by John Lescroat (lawyer in San Francisco, irreverent and a winner.)  If you really want weird, and who doesn't? I recommend the Donovan Creed series and please, start with the first one and read in order or you'll miss a big, important part.  They are written by John Locke.  He also writes a series with Emmett Love.  Also entertaining.  If you like weird and just outlandish.  Katie, you would be a fan because everyone is just a hot mess and I know you like that.  Think Gramma Mazur as the normal one.  You get my drift.

Tomorrow is current #1 son-in-laws birthday.  He's #1 cause he'll be forty.  Lordy lordy.  I should mail him a card with a pithy, witty message.  Perhaps I'll just send him the other #1 son-in-laws card from January that I never sent.  The sentiment is the same for all of them.  Except #3 son-in-law.  The #3 son-in-law is OK with me having my drivers license taken away down the road and being required to ride the seniors community bus to get around.  It will be a very long time till he digs his way out of that nonsense.  Planning my revenge as we speak.

I have to confess that the trip that was planned for a great family outing to Disneyland, the Grand Canyon and Carlsbad/Loving, New Mexico fizzled and died.  I'm not really that chuffed about it, but the newest grandson has not had the benefit of my "special" attention.  And his hair is a mess.

But really, ain't he just the cutest lil thang? 

I'll leave you with that.  Au Revoir mon amis.

Cheers,

Squidgy

While I was on hold this happened...

My mantra for the day is be strong and think positively.  As I was pushing the yard waste bin through the over-growness that is our back yard this afternoon, the aforementioned bin tipped and sent me flying in to the swamp that is the decorative frog spawning pond mentioned some time ago whilst the grandchildren were visiting and shaking us down for money.  I was strong enough to save the iPhone from a drowning and I'm positive I won't be doing any more gardening during the last few pathetic years I have left.  So there you have it.  Happy days.  I might mention that the pond is full of nasty little frog stuff and a great deal of lawn debris courtesy of an abhorrence to gardening on my part and complete and total indifference on the part of the spouse.  I am also positive that I will have a word with the spouse. 

What else  has happened?  The youngest daughter asked me to baby sit her three offspring.   Being a wise mother she did not tell the little darlings who was coming up to visit and in no way warned them that she and her beloved were scampering off for a night of debauchery on St. Paddy's day.  Once the parents made good their escape, little Mila, who only the other day thought I was the very best g'mother in the world (and she would have been correct) while I was squiring her around the zoo, now determined I was the epitome of all that is evil and wrapped herself up in the canopy over her little bed and refused to acknowledge my existence, nay screamed bloody murder at the sight of my visage.  I wisely took refuge in the living room, winced at the sound of the door slamming behind me and the boys and I entertained ourselves with a couple movies, Rio and How to Train Your Dragon if you must know.  I made one more attempt at winning her over that resulted in her squiggling out of my loving embrace and propelling her little unpleasant self back to the sanctity of her dungeon  room, slamming the door once again.  I can take a hint.  I am not a good sitter, but the children amuse me nonetheless.  The girl child finally exhausted herself and fell to sleep.  Of course the two boys were still up and watching the TV when the parental units made their return.  But we all sat around and watched some more TV and finally we all went to bed.  The next morning was a little rough because the boy children had not had their usual allotment of hours in the sack  there were many highs and lows of moods.  The girl child had had way more than usual number of hours of sleep and was gratingly in good humor, though a little hungry.  I made my escape a little after noon when the prospect of ice skating with the little family seemed a disconcerting certainty

I may have neglected to mention that it snowed in Cool too on Saturday.  The children and their mother made a snow man.  Because it snows once in a blue moon in Cool, the children have all the requisite snow garments.  Snow garments have not changed much since I was a child with the possible exception that we no longer have to grow the plant and weave the material to make snow garments.  What I mean is, it took a lifetime to put all the stuff on, find the gloves, put the boots on the correct feet and what not.  Then the little darlings went scampering out to the white coldness and fussed around for awhile only to come back in just nanoseconds later so all the stuff could come off, get hung to dry,a few minutes would pass and the whole process began over again just minutes later.  This just made me tired. 

I am not too old to remember the "getting dressed to go out and play in the snow procedure" happening to my brother and I when we lived in Nebraska (yes Nebraska, I'll tell you all about it later)  and mummy would dress us all up in our wintry outfits and we'd go out for about 3.5 minutes and want to come back in.  My mother was wise to us though and I believe we had to stay out for a certain length of time, probably 20-30 minutes though in Nebraska it probably felt like days and it was dang cold.  Except for the time when I drove my brothers sled in to the concrete ditch and the bottom of the hill and crashed mightily and fractured some ribs and had a concussion.  My aim for the plywood bridge was off slightly.  I was allowed back in the house right away.  And this was before any nosy gomment agency butted in  with child protective services!  The parents became somewhat concerned when all I wanted to do was sleep.  So off to the emergency room it was.  As you can tell, there has been no lasting damage.  lol

I was engaged to watch a horse settle in who had just been imported from Ireland a week ago.  And I spent a good long weekend doing that very thing.  I watched it roll, scamper, buck and frolic.  When I wasn't watching, it jumped out of its paddock and made good its escape.  Awesome.  Happily it wasn't that interested in being free for very long and was soon captured.  I don't know why it didn't continue to jump out, but I am relieved to state that the owners came home way before that could happen again on my watch.  It is a simply charming horse with buckets of personality and I took loads of videos of it that didn't actually get recorded, but I sent them on to the new owners anyway.  No Oscars coming my way for shots of the dirt and the inside of my pocket.  The owners are far too well bred (lol) to comment on my failure to get movies to them.  But they have the same phone and probably know what a challenge all this modern technology is to us.  I'll have another opportunity to watch it beginning next week.  Perhaps I'll obtain a naughty horse cam to help with the watching duties.  jk

I've been told that these attempts at literature have a tendency to be too lengthy.  So to y'all I'll say adieu for now.  Maybe something interesting will happen or I'll remember some snippet that might amuse you, I am not optimistic.

Cheers,

Squidgy

ps:  so slowly I turned...not really.  But the phone slowly made a death spiral and I was forced to replace it.  Note to self.  Buy the bloody insurance.  Dammitall.  I then made my way to daughter Lindseys and assuaged my grief in a nice bottle of Pinot.  Lemonade dears lemonade...

tv post

The spouse watches reality TV shows that originate almost exclusively from Georgia.  This is very disturbing.  Take Auction Kings, please.  It centers around a family of auctioneers in, where else? Georgia.  That would be enough for most people, but I digress.  In the last episode he watched, a shrunken head was on the block.  I mean really.   Really?  Really.  Not good.

Last night he/we watched Toddlers and Tiaras.  Now this is show about mothers who wasted their youth and must now live vicariously through their offspring.  They subject the spawns of their loins to baby beauty pageants.  So very wrong on every level.  So these mothers (and fathers and grandmothers) spend thousands of dollars on little hooker dresses and doll their kids up in false eyelashes, pounds of makeup, spray tans and false finger nails.  If the child has the gall to say lose a tooth, or not have a perfect array of ivory, then false teeth are inserted, they call the false teeth a flipper.  I call it revolting.  The hair styling is probably the most disturbing.  If you would take a look at your pictorial of Marie Antoinette before the beheading, you will get a pretty good idea what the hair looks like.  Simply a.m.a.z.i.n.g.  Not enough to just to have toddlers parade around in their little hooker dresses, some pageants have...bathing suit competitions carefully disguised as "costume of choice".  Ok,  I just got a little sick in my mouth.  But by far the most disturbing of all is what these "mothers" will feed their offspring to get, hmmm oh right their energy up.  One child proudly announced she'd just downed five Pixie Sticks in about two minutes.  A Pixie Stick is essentially fruit flavored sugar in a straw.  Another parent was a little sneakier when she forced her two year old to drink cokes for the buzz.  Where's a cop?  Now I realize that I am being judgemental and narrow focused, but really?  Baby Beauty Pageants?  Excuse me while I go shower.

More?  Of course.  There are the reality cooking shows, not from Georgia necessarily but I know one took place in Texas, close enough.  Anyway, bad manners, foul tempers, lots of tattoos (de rigour iffn you cook evidently) horrible hair and above all terrible shoes.  There are shows where you have to make something edible using all the ingredients in a mystery basket.  Why only just the other night there was the leftover basket.  Pot roast was one of the leftovers.  Dangerously close to being dry and over cooked on a good day, this chunk o meat had long passed its die by date and was a drab brownish gray and begged to be fed to the dog you don't like.  One of the wannabes made Tempura out of slabs of this.  Great idea to fry already overcooked meat. Not.   The judges were not pleased, but it was a good enough, or not as terrible as someone else's, offering to move on to the next level.  Tragic.

Dance Moms is on tap for the recording queue too.  Fat, big mouth dance instructor who badgers tiny ballerinas and puts them in suggestive and inappropriate costumes all the while haranguing the mothers who pay valuable money for the privilege.  Riveting.

One of the spouses most favorites is Dual Survival.  So you take one ex Army ranger type and pair him with a "live off the land pseudo hippy type freak", and drop them both in some inhospitable locale, give them a toothpick or something as their only tool and expect them to survive together in the wilderness.  Hint:  they always get out of it, but sometimes they have to eat worms or something.

Not enough for you?  How about Sons of guns?  Swamp Loggers?  Ice Road Truckers?  Women Behind Bars?  Right now I want all of you to feel sorry for me and buy me that IPad I so dearly must have.  Only one of you responded to my last entreaty and Malcolm?  that your wife would not like it is scarcely an excuse.  Step up man.

I'm going to go make some chocolate chip cookies now and drown my sorrows in butter and sugar.  Tonight we have the Top Chef reunion and I must be ready

One more thing

Dateline One Week Ago:

I was driving to Sonoma yesterday to be the trabajando du jour for HSM when I spotted a telephone pole just lying on the side of the road at a "it just fell there angle".   And I just thought to myself that nothing good could have come from the circumstance of a telephone pole just laying there because it probably had to have fallen off something and since it was still there, either whoever was driving the something didn't notice the pole had come loose and dropped to the ground on a busy road, or didn't care.  In any case eventually someone had to come along behind this situation and therein lies the problem.  So there it was  when I drove in in the morning and still there when I drove by on my way home.   There's a story in there somewhere.  Just like the car with the gigantic, pumpkin sized hole in the windshield.  It had all the requisite spidering that comes with splintered auto glassn and was parked or stopped suddenly on the side of the road on the way to the Two Rock Event Center in  Petaluma.  One time I drove by and there were many cops examining the car, like WTF, and I had to put  my phone down until I passed., but the car stayed there, as a matter of fact it was still there when I made my escape from Petaluma on Monday last.

I lived through the house sitting of two weeks unscathed.  I was neither bitten nor kicked.  Nothing died or ran away which is considered something of a victory to me.  That's not technically true.  A mouse met its end in a trap which completely grossed me out.  I had a day or two of angst debating whether or not to ignore it and its deadness or man up and remove it from the trap and dispose of it.  In the end, I picked it up trap and all with the manure fork and threw it in the dumpster avec trap.  Another day whilst dutifully examining drinking water levels in the containers, I noticed the shadowy outline of something dead on the bottom of one.  That grossed me out too.  I had to dump the water barrel and fork the dead thing  up and toss it in the field.  I couldn't make it to the dumpster because I was gagging.  Oh, it was a rat.  I amaze myself.  And you should be amazed as well.

Dateline A Week Later:

I have survived a weekend of grooming at an event.  It has been a very long time since anyone trusted me with their horses while they are there to see me do my uh magic.  I even braided!  And remembered why, back in the day, I considered it a very good investment to have someone braid for you.  Nonetheless, the mane stayed tied up in knots in spite of the slippery thread used to bind the hairs together.  Good equipment is vital to a professional outcome.   The horses did look pretty good as they went off to do their various jobs of the moment.  There was that rather unnecessary episode of one of the horses taking exception to yours truly and punishing me by tearing the lunge line out of my delicate paws and ripping around with the line flying behind her... twice.  My beloveds comment was less than sympathetic.  He marveled that I wasn't fined or scolded by the judiciary committee of the horse show and subsequently had some sort of sanction foisted on me.  I believe we call this wishful thinking.

I saw my little friends Sue and Linda.  They may be the two people who read this blog and as such have a rather high ranking in my appreciation book.  At any rate we do seem to have a lot in common such as impatience, intolerance and a jaded view of life in general.  I admire that in a person.  Sue is flogging jewelled spur straps, vintage stock pins and new this year, lapel pins in a little cottage industry venture.  Because I am a really fantastic friend and find stuff out, I discovered one of my other friends was in need of a stock pin and brokered a deal to exchange goods for valuable money and therefore have ingratiated myself in to the lofty aura of the babes from So. Cal.  Even to me that made no sense.  But you may take my word for it that she has really groovy stuff and had I a magnificent steed to ride I would be giving her all my money so I could have all her shiny stuff.  I like shiny as you well know.

My little friend Horse Show Mom was my companion at the show.  We got to share a room in the hotel together along with three children, one of whom is the offspring of HSM.  I will tell you right now that I do not find it adorable that she whined piteously about the delicate and infrequent snores I make in my sleep, while she babbles on incessantly in her sleep.  How cute was it that both Mom and daughter won their respective divisions?  The daughter had a mention of her win in the Jr. Training division in a popular Eventing website marveling at her age and all that.  The mother was not mentioned which is somewhat ironic, but you might of had to have been there.  FYI  Novice Horse is not Advanced.  Inside joke, but some of you might get it.

Not that you'll be surprised, but I did make a rather spectacular gaffe in the middle of a lot of people I didn't know.  So I saw this enormous horse trailer with human living quarters as well as horse quarters and lots of awnings and solar panels and pop out rooms and what not parked near where I knew one of my friends was parked.  Thinking she must have just purchased this rolling brothel looking contraptions, I came around the corner and queried, querulously, who owned the rolling house of ill repute.  Well,  it became almost instantly apparent that it did not belong to my friend at all.  No, it belonged to someone I did  not know, nay, never had laid eyes on in my life.  And she immediately demanded to know if I had just called her a prostitute.  I recovered rather more quickly that you'd imagine and replied that if she owned the rolling brothel then that would make her a madam.  She was mollified by that assessment, agreed the trailer could be used for that profession on the side and offered me a drink, which I took, out of politeness only of course, and we got along just fine from there.  Always remember to make lemonade out of your lemons.  And leave after your one polite drink...

I enjoyed a day at the zoo with the grandchillens yesterday.  We also had a picnic and played on the slide and spiderweb, (don't ask - I never saw the point of it, but the little tykes evidently knew what to do so all needs were served.)  We pulled a wagon with our stuff in it, but not with the children in it as was my intention, but they walk now so there you go.  Little Silas wore bright orange Crocs which I know used to belonged to his brother.  That was a long time ago.  They were not cute then, nor are they cute now, but it would seem they have the shelf life of a Twinkie and they do not look any different today than they did years ago.  While a good investment dollar wise, really, they are super awful to look at and the stupid little charms you can spend valuable money on just make them look like really ugly decorated pixie shoes.  Well that was emotional wasn't it?  Back to our adventure at the zoo.  My favorite creature of the day had to be the baby orangutan who was scampering about with a sheet over its body.  It looked like a little ghost and here it was not even close to Halloween.  Seemingly it was important that it be covered as we returned for another viewing after a bit and it had a large piece of heavy paper over its head.  I have a picture, but the IPhone won't share.

I have quite a few house sitting gigs set up which means that I won't have any horse show news for y'all.  What it does mean is I will be earning valuable money which makes the spouse happy and cranky at the same time.  He's very complicated and complex.  And not very tidy.  He has a new cat at work, well not new or probably even young, but new to him.  He likes having his own pet and the cat amuses him.  It (the cat) prefers to sleep on the desk between my beloved and his computer keyboard and tolerates the typing on the keyboard bit of computing but takes some exception to the use of the mouse.  I think the reason for that is obvious, but the spouse doesn't get it.  Do you?  My beloved is somewhat useless in the administration of medication for the creature and it has worms.  I bought a de-wormer for it because worms are disgusting and provided the spouse with the cat piller device, but because he's a man he can't seem to work out how to use it.  We had the same problem with the Starbucks Via coffee this morning.  It's instant dear.  Pour hot water over it.  Voila!  Running out of coffee for the machine is a really bad thing.  And having to demonstrate the making of instant coffee is embarrassing.  Pilling the cat really only has two options of places to insert the cat piller.  The mouth is the right one.  FML  The cat is Siamese and talks a lot.  Naturally the only civilized name for a Siamese cat is Meow C Dung but sadly it has another name, it is pathetic and I won't bother you with it.  Suffice it to say some of the guys at the Fairgrounds named it and it is not descriptive or good.

I take myself off to the land of the privileged tomorrow to put a beady eye on a new horse who arrived from the Land of the Shamrocks the other day.  Seemingly the proud new owners have pressing obligations elsewhere and need someone to blame watch over the new addition that it doesn't take the opportunity to jump out of its enclosures.  It's a jumping horse folks, what do you think it will do if it finds it needs to go somewhere else?  At any rate I seem to have fooled them in to thinking I am knowledgeable or at least alive and can handle the many opportunities for inopportune events.  Naturally I will keep you apprised of the happenings.  Hopefully the most exciting thing to happen will be dinner with friends.  Or drinks.

Remember to "spring forward" on Sunday.  I can't figure if you get more or less sleep, my mind doesn't work.  (that way)  But I assure you it will still be light when you finish your chores at night and that is a good thing.

Cheers,
Squidgy

 

Greetings from Petaluma

It's a misty, rainy day here on the west coast.  I was reminded of England and the fabulous weather one is accustomed to in that clime, but no one is driving furiously on the wrong side of the road and there are few stone walls.  So I'm not there, I'm here and as I said it is raining.  I am gainfully employed for the next ten days or so while the lord and lady of the manor are in Hawaii where they are not cleaning stalls or mucking about in the mud.  Bully for them.  I, however, have cashed the check and have some vague sense of responsibility to perform the duties set forth at the behest of her highness.  Besides which I am deathly afraid to piss her off.

For instance.  A horse arrived here at the Two Rock Event Center for the Equestrian Arts and Sciences and I, foolishly it seems, put a blanket on it at night that looked like it had perhaps come with said horse.  Even more foolishly I mentioned to the lady of the manor when she called for the 400th time that day, that the horse had indeed arrived, settled in nicely and oh by the way it came with a really nice blanket.  Herself was on that in a flash with all the what does it look like (the blanket, not the horse) where was it and on and on and on like that.  Might I mention that it was about 9:30 at night by now?  Anyway, so she finally comes to the conclusion that the blanket in question did not belong to the new horse, but was Killers spare/extra/special/private blanket and therefore sacrosanct, whatever that means.  (see It felt like a bomb went off but there was no noise for the Killer reference. I would have used footnotes but well never mind) In any case it was beginning to sound like I was going to be ordered down to the barn to change that blanket right now in my jammies, but I desisted.  Eventually I got her off the phone, but she then pestered and peppered me with text messages till I  promised that taking that blanket of the new horse would be my only priority the next day, probably before first light.  Happily I was able to call her the next morning  @ 7:00 my time to inform her that the blanket was off the horse, the horse had been scrupulously examined for any sign of skin disease, was found to be clean and oopsie forgot there is a two hour time difference and how did Maui look at 5:00 in the a.m. anyway?  Small victories.

Their highnesses have left behind two dogs and a cat, in addition to the eight horses, and all but one of these house animals must be medicated.  The dog I don't mind as Maxine is mostly bluster and no substance since that unfortunate incident a million years ago when she tried to bite me in the face.  No, it's the cat.  Now I know many of you are cat people and, in fact, I too, like cats.  But pilling a cat is an entirely different story.  And I don't care how easy you think it must be, cats hate to have anything shoved in their mouths.  Not that I blame them, but still...  Since the cat hates the pilling and by extension me, it cowers under the big bed in the master bedroom.  And being a cat it knows to the precise millimeter how far under the bed it must go to avoid being dragged out by yours truly for its twice daily medicine.  So this means I have to go out to get the dust mop and badger the cat till it makes an error in calculation thereby allowing me an instant of opportunity to grab its tail or leg or what ever and drag it out.  Then it just yells at me.  It could be a Siamese cat for all the caterwaltering (lol, I just spell checked that and it suggested grandchildren) it puts forth.  I am happy to report that as of yet it has not scratched or bitten me.  I fear things will go south with an unfortunate rapidity should either of those misfortunes befall me.

The house animal who does not require medication is a Border Collie.  He is intense.  He also insists on constant interaction in the form of a toy, in his case a nasty round Frisbee thing, a ball, a bully stick or anything else that can be thrown.  I am a pathetic thrower and he feels sorry for me.  I don't care and just a few minutes ago I threw the nasty round Frisbee thing in to the shower tub with the glass doors and closed said doors.  He is staring at the shower.  This may go on for the next ten days.  I'm OK with it.

Last Saturday the spouse and I got up at some unholy hour to meet up with the middle daughter and her family so we could drive to some high school to watch the youngest son wrestle in a tournament.  I am troubled by the wrestling outfits.  I am also troubled by the little elf shoes wrestlers wear.  All in all it was a troubling day.  I asked a friend of mine if her kids had wrestled in school as they had done every other known sport.  But she said no, they just liked to wear the outfits.  This too added to the troublesomeness.  At any rate the son wrestled in like four bouts or whatever they call them and then we left and high tailed it back to the sanctity of our little abode and huddled on the couch. 

I have a new phone.  A white iPhone 4s to be precise.  (Designed in California.  Assembled in China)  I feel so modern.  That I can only utilize and/or understand about 1% of  the features is negligible.  Well, to my mind anyway.  I'm pretty sure the spouse will and does have and entirely different take on the matter especially in light of the fact that while I did have upgrade eligibility and a new phone discount I no doubt could have filled my car up six time with gas for what the phone cost.  But I'm pleased and what more could you ask for?  Funny you should mention that ask for thing,  I now want an iPad.  The new one of course.  Surely I will have no need for anything more in my life once that need is satisfied?  Maybe one of y'all will take pity on the spouse and take the burden of that purchase on your own generous self?   Thanks mucho.  Much obliged.  Anyway back to not utilizing my new iPhone to the extent of its capabilities, I just transferred all my contacts (444 btw) via the transfer contacts app (don't ask) and now I have many many duplicates of what I had to begin with.  I understand from looking at the Verizon website, that I may reserve a spot in an iPhone 4 class to be held at my local Verizon store.  This intimidates the hell out of me.  Perhaps I can get the spouse to go for me or barring that with me.  How 'bout it huni buni? xxx.

I fear that it is time to go pester the horses for the afternoon session of cleaning up after them and feeding them dinner.  They are not grateful.  They will, in fact, be rather obstreperous about the timing, quality and quantity of the dinner.  I will be cold and wet, so I won't care.  That's why I get paid the big bucks!

Cheers,
Squidgy

Happy Birthday Liz!

So, I started this birthday missive last week and trust me, it was hysterical and probably best work I've done to date. Sadly, and not unsurprisingly, I hit an errant button and "poof" the entire post vanished in to thin air. Now some of you will want to tell me things never disappear from dataland, but I have neither the expertise nor the will to commit myself to that search. In truth, I will not be able to recreate most of the post and but shall now effectuate the task trying to remember.

So my oldest friend, that is to say the friend who I've known the longest turned 58 another chapter over last week with the celebration of the day of her birth., She will no doubt be quite happy to point out that she is not the age accumulation oldest, nor even as old as me.     My fathers birthday was on the same day, but since he's gone on to the great B-52 in the sky we only celebrate Liz's anymore.

I met Liz at the tender age of 13. 

She moved to Guam with her parents in 1966  during that Viet Nam altercation.  I had already served a year there and had my posse of friends.  I use "I have lived on a small island in the south pacific" line all the time in that fun fun game three truths and a lie.  It never fails.  I digress.  Anyway, Liz's daddy was a mega-giant rank wise in the USAF, sporting one maybe two stars on his shoulders which in any case made him a big shot on the base.  Big enough shot that when he came to Guam he also made a new golf course happen.  Liz will deny this of course, but I maintain it was the scuttlebutt of the day, and who am I to argue with history?  Live with it LK.  So I met Liz at school, Dededo Jr. High, and was so sorry for her with her unfortunate blue, sparkly, bat wing glasses, braces on her teeth and curly hair that I (with my uber cool friends) only managed passing and grudging hellos in the hall.  In Jr. High I was a mean girl.  Still am.  At any rate I was no prize in the looks department, but I didn't have braces or glasses so there.  I was going to include a picture of each of us in those unfortunate days, but my year book has vanished.  tsk. tsk. 

Soon enough I was whisked away from the island to the sultry climes of Louisiana to begin high school.  Not so long after that Liz appeared there as well.  My other best friend, Annette, and I were  chivied off to the "big manse" which belonged to the M. Gen. John Kline to welcome his daughter to the "fold".  Annette had also resided on Guam at the same time as Liz and I.   Annette and I , even then too cool for school, were relieved that Liz had shed the ugly glasses and braces and had managed something respectable with her hair and we considered being friendly with her if only to get the parental units off our collective butts.  Mrs. Kline sat with us for a few minutes then went off to order the help around and the three of us stared for a long time at each other.  Then Liz said, "I'd give anything for a fag."  To which Annette and I, always prepared, said "We've got fags."  and our friendship was sealed.  This is Liz smoking...something...on the hood of my dad's VW.  We used to steal that car all the time.  Finally my dad gave me a set of keys of my own.  Perseverance and all that.

Annette and I had a spot of bother at the local public school, that is to say we hated it and had enrolled in the  spiffier private "academy" run by the Daughters of the Cross.  Liz arrived way too late to join us in the land of school uniforms and nuns and had to go with the proletariat at Airline High.  Meanwhile, Annette and I took the bus to downtown Shreveport to join the privileged in our Catholic education.  Nonetheless, Liz and I grew closer due mainly to the fact that we both had horses and those horses took us away from the ever watchful eye of my mother in the guise of long rides.  And we compared notes about the in crowds at our respective schools and made nefarious plans for our weekends.

Our weekend plans usually involved taking the bus from the base to downtown Shreveport.  Since my parents played golf on the weekends and weren't about, we usually met at my house to put on our hippy clothes and looking really scruffy, ill kept and hip slipped out without parental advice as to what we should be wearing.  Dress regulations are so tiresome.  We always followed the same routine.  We were/are products of a military upbringing after all.  Anyway, we went to a hotel for lunch for ham and cheese sandwiches which we chased with rum raisin ice cream.  Then we would creep around the floors of the hotel which I believe may have been um residential.  At any rate it was all done up in  art deco with round mirrors on the dressing tables and big leafy patterns on the bed spreads and curtains.  Then we would run out and start taking pictures of the local population with our Instamatic's.  What we were really doing was looking for hippies.  This was during the mid-60's and surely there had to be one or two hippies in Shreveport.  Nevertheless we were successful in nabbing a couple of long hairs on at least one trip downtown, I have the picture.  They were members of the Shreveport Moratorium Committee; concerned with that nasty bit of unpleasantness happening in Viet Nam and were collecting signatures of sympathisers to their mission.  Quite happily, Liz and I signed the petition.  What we didn't know was that copies of that petition found their way to the desk of General Kline who was less than pleased to find the signatures of his youngest daughter and her best friend.  To put it politely, we were in deep shit.  It seems when ones parental unit is employed by the great war machine of the age, it is considered non grata for ones offspring to protest said war.  I mean they just could have said that but oh no, a full court high inquisition followed and we were chastened and I was probably grounded for a month or so for that particular sin. 
Eventually I was paroled and our lives continued.  We were quite involved in the local party scene with other tykes our age.  We discovered that Dr. Pepper and Bourbon was a nice mixture and tasted a little like a root beer float when mixed properly.  We also like Colt Malt Liquor and Whiskey Sours all of which were drank bottoms up for as long as we were able.  Malt Liquor was not a friend to Liz as it turned out.  I discovered her in my room one night beating on my mouses cage with a curtain rod because Hector the mouse was running on his wheel and it squeaked.  It was always dangerous to have a party at my house because my parents had an uncanny ability to ferret out any signs of  misdeeds and I always got caught.  Being lively and headstrong had no place in Colonel Marden's house I assure you.  We never partied at Liz's house because along with her dad being a general and like that, her house was also occupied by the "aids"  also known as house slaves as their mission in life was to set the table, fix dinner and rat Liz and I out on our many sins.  There were two aids and they were the generals personal servants, but the Air Force paid for them.  We liked only one of them, but he spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning Gen'l Kline's golf cleats and clubs.  The other was creepy and noticed our footprints from where we had scaled down the wall from Liz's second story bedroom to the tool shed and made our escape at night when we joined the other thugs from the hood to swim in the officers pool at midnight.  Your tax dollars at work.

My senior year of high school we moved.  I had a boyfriend my parents actually approved of.   Annette had flipped out and run off and married this guy named Clyde and Liz and I were closer than ever.  Her parents, for whatever reason, actually invited me to live with them my last year, but the parents were not having any of that.  FYI, if you find that you need to move and one or both of your kids are happy in the high schools they are going to you should not move them.  Just sayin'.  Your kids will be resentful forever.  Anyway, we moved to Abilene, Texas.  Arguably the arm pit of the nation at the time.  I now know that perhaps Fresno has that distinction, but I didn't know that at the time.  Or maybe not on reflection.  It was not a good year.  But Liz dutifully came for a couple visits and I went back to Shreveport for a couple so while it was really really horrible, it could have been worse...I guess. 

The year I turned 20 I went to Greece to stay with my parents for the summer.  Here's a picture of me trying to light my hair on fire on my birthday. 

 Somehow we convinced Liz's parents that nothing would be more educational than for Liz to join me for the summer and after swearing she would pledge the Kappas or what ever in the fall, she came over and we took a foreign country by storm.  We spent a huge amount of time traveling around the Greek islands via ferry and spent maybe 10 days or so on the beach on the island of Santorini during one especially long sojurn. 

Here's a picture of Liz on the beach, nice suit btw. 

And here's the spot we camped while we were there.  Sadly the babe in the picture is me.

And these are the guys we met...Graham and Rick and they were from England so they had accents and thought we were cute.  They had long hair. L-R Liz (with arm up, Rick and Graham)

Eventually,  our visit to Greece ended and we traveled to our respective places, Liz to UT Austin and the welcoming arms of her sorority sisters and me to Chico to try to get an education.  Over the years she has come to visit quite a few times.  I am a bad friend, and she tells me this,  and have never gone to Texas to visit her even though she lives in Austin.  The last time we got together was sad.  We met up in New Orleans to go the wake of our dear friend Annette who died suddenly at age 50 something.  In spite of the gravity of the occasion, we did manage to have a fantastically good time.  It's what Annette would have wanted in any case.  That we partied with her husband and his best friends from his way back machine only added to the weird nostalgia of the thing.  So we drank Manhattans and listened to old music (on records btw) and told stories of our lives.   

So happy birthday Liz.  You are now immortalized in the blog page of my life and forever in my heart.  Peace on You.

 Rush.

Cheers,

Squidgy

Well, hello there!

It is my most fervent hope that you have missed me.  Sadly only a couple of you have suggested I write.  Sigh.  When last we spoke I was in the middle of getting over Christmas and travel and what not.  So I managed to do all of that and now I am sitting patiently waiting for the biiiiiig storm that is not manifesting itself as such.  Instead it is dismal, cold and gray outside, but dry.  The guy at the smog place was crying pitiously yesterday, about the lack of snow so he could not terrorize the slopes on his snow board.  He was also grateful that he'd not bought a season pass.   I too was grateful.  I was also grateful that my car passed the smog inspection with flying colors.  Small thingies.

I went to a schooling horse show over last weekend.  I went with Horse Show Mom and her brood.  I'm not sure how I managed motherhood.  I should query my own brood as to their interpretations/memories, or not.  At any rate it is fun to go hang out with horse people and because it wasn't a "real" show the stress level was waaaaay down.  I took care of the magnificent Kilo of previous writings.  Such a grown up boy he is turning out to be.  He got real tired.  That was good.  When he was done for the day his little nose was in the weeds hanging over his stall door.  He was too knackered to do any of his annoying habits like dancing in place (weaving), biting, striking or neighing.  All of this was good as it gave me ample opportunity to be bossy.  Also, Steve, I didn't clean any stalls so there.  Thanks HSM you were a trooper. 

I also got to be a participant, though a blameless one, in the great police take down as we were driving home from Sushi Saturday night.  It is some mystery why neither the driver of the car or me noticed we drove half way across town without  the head lights being on.   Further mystery why there are still cars that you have to turn your headlights on at all.  Bad luck that the cop parked at Rite Aid did notice that very thing and pulled us over.  He was a cute little thing.  He also did not detect any drunkeness and so we chit chatted awhile and soon enough he told us that he was just giving a warning and let us go.  This was probably the last bit of good luck for the year so it seems prudent to share with y'all.

On the way home from the show one of the dawgs of HSM vomited all over my lap.  May I say right here that I was not amused and may I also say that the brood and the mother were very amused?  It is hardly believable to say you're sorry and are you alright while peeing down your leg laughing?   Exactly.  Then, because horse show mom ain't too bright, she called me up yesterday to ask if I would adopt the vomiter!  What is wrong with you HSM?  Crimenty.  No, I did not take him and not for those reasons only.  There are many reasons.  1.  He's a Jack Russell  2. he's not nearly close enough to death  3.  we have three Jack Russells of our own that we don't like and 4.  We just spent a small fortune on one of the dawgs we do have at the veterinary and fo sho don't need another.

Perhaps I should regale you with my tale of woe at the Veterinary Hospital the other day.  We have a sick dog who needs evaluating from time to time.  So I made a two o'clock appointment and managed to arrive on time, nay, early for the appointment.  They kept me waiting in the lobby just long enough to be assaulted by the  lady who was hawking SPCA t-shirts and since she actually had a 3xxxlt, which is Steve's size I felt obliged to buy one for him and, of course, one for me but not in that size.  That bit of commerce taken care of we were eventually escorted by a student to room and the inquisition began as to the status of the dogs health.  The fact that the dogs chart is easily three inches thick did not seem to concern her, so she asked all the vital questions like what kind of dog, sex, neutered?, weight, age etc.  I patiently answered the obvious and was, as always, simply stunned that the chart wasn't reviewed at a minimum to discover those basic questions.  However, the fun was just beginning though I didn't know it at the time.  So then we progressed through the basic questions like why were we here?  I have a snarky side and it was giving a mighty effort to come out, but I saw no value in antagonizing a student when there are bigger fish to fry.  So I quelled my urge and said that Carlos had to come in every year so the real doc can write prescriptions for his meds and his special hideously expensive prescription diet.  Because she has to see him at least that often to prescribe in good conscience.  I might should mention that when the dog got sick initially, he lived in ICU at this very hospital for about two weeks and our final bill was over $10,000.   It makes me twitch to think about.  So anyway I have tried to explain to the staff, students, residents etc. that the dog is old and sick and we have limited funds so lets not do any expensive magic ok?  At any rate during my interrogation by the student I mentioned that Carlos seems to collapse when he lays down.  All the student heard was collapse.  I also mentioned that the dog seemed to be much more disoriented since his return from the kennel when we took ourselves off to N. Carolina over Christmas.  I also recounted other ailments that this poor dog has like some hearing loss and poor bladder control.   In short, the dog is declining and I thought that was pertinent information.  But as I mentioned, all she heard was "collapse".  After twenty minutes or so of this back and forth about the "collapse" she finally left me alone and went to confer with her "boss" the resident.

Remember that 2 o'clock appointment?  Well at 2:50 the student poked her little head in and said she was sorry about the delay, but Dr. Self Important would be along shortly.  I said I was not amused and when offered an appointment I fully expected that my dog would be seen sometime close to the scheduled time.  So the student got all wide eyed and informed me that this was a teaching hospital and therefore niceties and promptness had no place here.  To which I replied, this would never happen in the real world and that my tenuous hold on my patience was at risk.  So she wisely scooted out and about 15 minutes later the snarky Dr. Self Important came stomping in and thanked me, in that tone, for my patience.  I said I was all over being patient and keeping someone waiting (me) for that long was not respectful and I resented the disregard she/the hospital had for my time.  And then I stared at her.  And she explained to me that I should know that all appointments will take all day.  Then she told me I should have received a letter explaining all this to me.  To which I replied that I'd not received any communication from her/hospital except for bills in the over thirty years I'd been coming to this facility.  And further what was her point?  I was here to have the dog looked at, not to discuss her poor time mangement skills.  Well, Dr. Self Important did not like that one bit, but she agreed the dog's health was the issue and so she then began to ask me about the dog.  She pretty much asked the same questions the student had, but was a little more concerned about the collapsing.  I told her it seemed like a weakness in the hind end, but I was also concerned that he just would collapse in odd places like in doorways and the middle of the hall, not normal for Carlos who really used to like to have cover from the insurgents that were bound to attack at any minute and would always have a wall behind him covering his flank..   No doubt the dog was military in a previous life.  I'm just guessing here that none of what I said had any impact on Dr. Self Important because the next thing I know she's scheduled the dog for about $1000 in blood and urine tests, ultrasounds and x-rays.

It seemed to me that that might be a bit much considering our usual financial status.  So I called Steve and told him what was being proposed to which he said (and I quote) "tell them to f*** off".   And I recommended that he talk to Dr. Self Important and get her take on it and so he did and since he hadn't been sitting in an ugly little room for and hour and a half by this point, he had a lot more tact and patience than I did.  And by time the doc got through with him and guilt tripping him about the dog the testing was approved and Carlos was hauled out of there for his tests.  @#%&*.  The results were that the dog (still) had diabetes and probably (still) had Cushings and all the other stuff was within normal ranges.  So there you have it.  The vet will not call me back, opting, instead, to deal with Steve.  Steve calls her Dr. Girl Friend so you can just imaging how that galls me and I have sworn off going to the vet school alone for the dog and I  insist that Steve always take the damn dog in himself, because afterall it is his dog.  Sucky.  I feel so much closer to you after sharing.

I rode this week.  I do not have a lick of sense so on Wednesday I rode three horses in a row.  The next day I was crippled, but rode one anyway.  Then I left and had my car smogged, bought some coffee beans and some shampoo (which I should use btw) and came home to discover that I could feel my back spasm and my abs scream.  Perhaps I should pace myself.  And go to the gym as often as I think I do.  Whatever.  It was nice to have someone get the horses ready so all I had to do was get on.  I could get used to that convenience.  There is a description of getting a horse ready to ride in a posting I made called "It's Windy Today" if you feel you need clarification.  The long and short of it is you could spend your whole riding time allottment just getting ready to ride and never actually have the chance to get on ride.  

Life is good.

Cheers,

Squidgy