I just realized ...

... that I've lost my head. er. I've lost my header, right? You guys can't see it? It's just a big square with a question mark in the middle, right?

This explains a lot ...

How did it come to this?

Our country is in danger of continued religious bullshit oozing from the White House, into the Supreme Court, and what's left of our personal freedoms. I thought we'd had enough of this already.   

Oh Noes!

In another a rare fit of stupidy, I switched my comments thingy over to Haloscan, completely forgetting that it would wipe out all my precious Blogger comments! Woe is me. Woe, I say, and thrice woe! I was only trying to get rid of evil spammers, not all of your wonderful, sweet, precious comments.

I sorry. Please comment me. Please? I won't disappear them no more.

CRS

Yep, that's about right.
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Making an impression

A friend sent me this joke:

Texas Happy Hour

A cowboy is driving down a back road in Texas and he sees a sign in front of a restaurant.......

Happy Hour Special

LOBSTER TAIL AND BEER

"Lord almighty," he says to himself, "my three favorite things!!"


This reminds me of the first dinner I had with my prospective in-laws...

We went to a restaurant called Dick's Last Resort. The waitress asked if we wanted "breasts, thighs, or crabs," while pointing to her own breasts, thighs, and genitalia. You know how in some books the author describes a character as having a smile frozen on their face? That actually happened to my mother-in-law. You know how people say they were so mortified that they nearly died? That actually happened to me! Tomcat and my father-in-law, however, thought it was hilarious.

Then there was the second dinner I ever had with my prospective in-laws...

We were at the Dixie House restaurant. Everyone ordered southern fried chicken. As I'm munching away, I look around the table and realize that Tomcat and his parents are eating fried chicken with a knife and fork, while I, the rube, am holding a chicken leg with my hands in front of my face. Did I mention that Tomcat and his folks are from Buffalo? Only Yankees would eat southern fried chicken with a knife and fork. Even if they knew that, it wouldn't matter, and I realized in that instant there was nothing I could ever do or say to dispel the impression that their son was marrying a barbarian.

Then there was the time I cooked the Thanksgiving turkey upside down...

Welcome to my world

This is our new cat, Shadow, who curled up next to Scruffybutt yesterday (on a gorgeous afghan made by my mother-in-law) while Scruffybutt pretends that this is not happening.

Shadow was given to us by Grace, the artist, because we will keep him as an indoor-only cat. He started climbing up on her neighbors' roof. And staying there. Until her husband had to get the Really Long Ladder, climb up, and coax Shadow back down. Repeat. Repeat again. Then the neighbors started complaining. Grace, the artist's, husband pointed out that the hole in the neighbors' roof was attracting the cat. So, the neighbors had the hole patched. With Shadow inside. For three weeks, while everyone could hear him crying up there. The neighbors refused to do anything about it, saying they had "no access" to the attic. One day, Grace, the artist, found Shadow outside, evidently finally set free by the neighbors.

After his rehabilitation, Shadow needed a home where he could stay indoors. That's where we came in. This little guy is so affectionate! Have you ever heard of a lap cat before? I hadn't. I had no idea they existed. He wants to be in my lap Mostly All The Time. When I'm typing, his head pops up, attracted by the clicking noises from the keyboard. Then he starts trying to catch my fingers with his paws. It's adoramous.

Our other cat is Katy. We inherited her with the house. She used to have a roommate, so we thought she would get along with Shadow. We were wrong. She thinks Shadow is the AntiChrist.

This is Katy enjoying her morning saucer of Half 'n Half. (If she doesn't get her morning saucer of Half 'n Half, someone will have to deal with cat shit in their shoe when they least expect it.)



This is Scruffybutt again, helping her daddy get dressed this morning.



She's not so scruffy at the moment because she went to the groomer's recently. I took her picture through the glass. Her groomer's name is also Candace. (This was taken with a real camera instead of the camera phone, btw.)



Have a good day, everyone!

Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Bushes plan to move to Dallas

09:49 PM CDT on Saturday, September 8, 2007

By SHERRY JACOBSON / The Dallas Morning News
sjacobson@dallasnews.com

Even the dog walkers in Highland Park seem to know where George and Laura Bush will be moving when they leave the White House in early 2009.

"They're building a house on a piece of property around the corner," said a young woman, pointing south of Beverly Drive as she struggled to control two oversized golden retrievers.

"It's going to be a big pain in the neck with the Secret Service there all the time," she predicted of the president's future abode. "When Dick Cheney visited a home in the neighborhood last spring, even the owners couldn't get to their houses."

***

The location of the president's future home has become the biggest guessing game in town.

"We've been told five or six locations by people who leave cocktail parties, where everybody is talking about it," said George Patterson, Highland Park's top administrator, who professes to know nothing.

***

The White House, of course, wouldn't speculate on future presidential housing.

The only public confirmation that the Bushes will move back to Dallas comes from a simple quote attributed to the president in a book released last week.

"We'll have a nice place in Dallas," Mr. Bush told Robert Draper, author of the book, Dead Certain, which also noted the president's plan to run a "Freedom Institute" in Dallas that would promote democracy around the world.

***

Of course, it's entirely possible the Bushes have not even started their search for a new home in the Dallas area, which means that this guessing game has only just begun.

Reality check

I got a catalog from Mary Maxim Needlework and Crafts, touting Over 400 New Items! plus 21 Pages of Exciting Christmas Crafts! There was a time when this would have set my lil ole heart to pitt-a-patting, but today? Not so much. No, it isn't because I'm now an atheist and therefore the Christmas holiday hasn't the same meaning it once did. I still "do" the holidays. It's just that my interests are changing. No, no - that's not it, either. It's that ... I've had to narrow my interests down to what can actually be accomplished in Real Life. (Oh, and that reminds me of a great cartoon I recently StumbledUpon. This will only be funny if you've spent any time in VR... But I digress.)

I used to have a craft room full of stuff, with hundreds of projects tabbed and indexed in hanging files. I used to have boxes of patterns for clothes and drapes and Christmas projects. I used to have tons of fabric and yarn. I used to spend summers crafting everything from afghans to ornaments, from decoupaged footstools to clocks.

Then, several things happened. One, I started writing, and that took up a lot of my crafting time. Actually, now it's like everything takes up my writing time.

Another thing was a bit of arthritis in my hands, so I had to give up thread crochet - no more lacy bookmarks for friends at Christmas. Then I had to give up all but Q-hook crochet - that's the huge hook that can be held comfortably, but you can only make afghans with it, and after a while, meh.

Here's the thing. I'm getting older. Not old, mind you, because that doesn't happen to us Boomers. No, it doesn't. Stop laughing - it does not happen to us! See, I'm getting older ('course, not as old as Hoss), so I'm more aware of the fact that chances are, I'll never get around to doing those hundreds of craft projects. I didn't come to this realization just now - that was a year ago when we were going to sell Maxwell House and make our alleged move to North Carolina - hah!

It was back then when I realized that instead of packing all those nicely-indexed projects and craft supplies, I should face reality and only keep the things that I (1) enjoy doing the most (and can still do), and (2) that I might actually get around to finishing.

That left ... needlepoint.

And writing.

I and my creative muses will be perfectly happy concentrating on those two things. See, when you're young, you believe you really can do it all because you're not thinking about practical things like time. And maybe some of you overachievers (like my in-laws) out there actually do get it all done. I applaud you as I mutter under my breath.

So, the Mary Maxim catalog goes into the recycling pile, and until the day that I do the same, I'll be here happily writing and needlepointing (hmm, there might even be a way to do those at the same time...)

Shh - Don't Tell Scruffybutt

These little darlings belong to Grace, the artist's, daughter.

No.

Hip-Hop is Rock 'n Roll, and Hall of Fame Likes It

No.
No. No.
No-No. No.
No, no, no, no, no.
No.




No.

I've just spent at least an hour perusing this website: Boomer Girl. I even bookmarked it.

Help me.

Bits and Pieces

Did you ever stay up late, then oversleep the next morning, and then you wake up, look at the clock, but before you can say "OMG" you realize you absolutely positively have to get to the bathroom or else, and then while you're in there, the phone rings, and they don't leave a message, so then you wonder who the hell called you at that precisely inconvenient moment in time instead of earlier, when you needed to be awakened and weren't in the bathroom? Me neither.
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I'm glad I'm married to a man who, while we're stopping by the store for ice cream cones, will pick up a package of little catnip mousie toys, then come home and gleefully hide them all around the house for Katycat to find on her nightly hunt.

And who also makes Bluebell Homemade Vanilla ice cream cones for us every night.
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Are you going to watch Bush tonight? Me neither.
Actually, I'm going to get the details later on CNN and then email Senator Cornyn (Tex.), who was on CNN yesterday trying to sound supportive of Bush's plan even though he admitted it was a long shot. (That's a gambling term, only he's gambling with lives.)
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Tomcat and I choose a book every once in while to read together, and this time it was Hannibal Rising, Thomas Harris' prequel to Silence of the Lambs. It was excellent, as one would expect from Harris. One of the members of my writers' group has a wonderfully evil character in the novel he's writing, and last week we critiqued a chapter which delved into the character's childhood. I mentioned to him that he might want to read Hannibal Rising for comparison. We all had an interesting discussion about whether a chapter like this was even necessary. One member said that kind of evil cannot be justified. But I don't think either my critique group friend or Thomas Harris was trying to "justify" their characters' action. It was just interesting to read about the events that led the characters to express their inherent evil in a certain way. ("Evil" meaning "sociopathy.")
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My friend Grace, the artist's, daughter turned 14 yesterday. This is not happening. She is wearing makeup. She has her hair highlighted with red and yellow. Red and yellow as in primary colors red and yellow. That's because her father won't let her get blue and purple highlights. This is not happening, either, because in our g-g-g-generation, hair was a huge issue that we used to upset our parents, and now this man is saying okay to red and yellow, but getting upset and putting his foot down at blue and purple. Dear Boomers, don't you remember what we all used to say? IT'S JUST HAIR! But then, as someone once pointed out (I don't remember who), if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there.
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That's all for now. Oh, if you ever call me and don't get an answer? Leave a frickin message already.