Ms. Yakkity-Yak

I was always a pretty good kid. Never got into any real trouble. Kind of shy, still in the generation who feared/respected authority and never mouthed off to adults. Except when I was a teenager, that is, but that's to be expected. I mean I was a pretty normal kid, after all. Not too goody-goody. The only problems my teachers ever had with me was talking in class. And I sure did a lot of that. My report cards bear witness to it.

Well, would you believe after all these years, I got in trouble AGAIN for talking in class? Water aerobics. We had a substitute instructor who's a lot harder on us than our usual trainer, who puts up with lots of yakking and laughing from all of us. Well, I just had a quick message to relay to one of the women, sidled over, got busted, and had to do an additional 10 crunches - after we had just finished 100! "Okay, everyone relax, except for YOU. Another 10 crunches for TALKING!"

Yeesh. Punished! Guess I'll never learn that lesson. Oh well ...

Oh Give Me a Home ...

...where the buffalo roam. Today in Pikesville, a town down the road a piece from Finksburg, a herd of nine buffalo jumped the fence of their pen and made havoc with the village locals. Seems their owner had decided to ship them off to the slaughterhouse. Well, they must have gotten wind of the plan and decided to high tail it out of Dodge. After trekking down the road about 5 miles, the police/cowboys eventually corralled them inside the tennis court of an apartment complex. Next step was to try to coax the beasties into a trailer truck backed up to the tennis court door. Now, these guys are huge. Apparently they weigh about 2,000 pounds apiece and stand six feet tall, yet they were gracefully leaping over the tennis net like lambs over a style. Definitely didn't want to be corralled, and flattened the improvised lawn chair barricades like they were made of balsa wood. After much hand waviing and jumping jacks, the officers finally managed to corner the herd and they all trooped into the truck. Door slammed. Show over.

Maryland is such fun.

Scared by the Boogey Cat

We had a visit the other night from the neighbor's cat, Linc. Now, Linc is a pretty big cat, but lots of it is fur. Nonetheless, he's a lot bigger than Ball. Ball was walking by the front door side window and got a shock when he saw this big face in the window looking in. YIKES! Cost him one of his nine lives. Earsplitting cat scream from Ball. And I mean loud. His scream was so loud it sounded like a room full of cats. Huge tail and fur sticking out all over. What a woos. Linc just stood there passively looking in, not at all ruffled by Ball's hysteria. Ball tried growling and hissing and more screaming, and Linc sat there blinking. Linc is a very easy-going cat and comes to visit every now and then, but usually during the day. He stayed at the window and didn't even leave the porch when Jim opened the door. Wouldn't go home til Jim clapped, hollered, and chased him away. Now THAT's an alpha cat.

This is our Ball, who thinks HE's the alpha cat. So what do you think?

Birthday pending

What a beautiful day it was today. Temperature in the high 80°s. Unreal for spring. It's as if we skipped right into summer. Even the kitties thought it was hot and came inside where it was cool for their afternoon snooze.

My birthday is next week. Last week Jim wanted to know what I would like for a present. Told him I didn't really know. Tried to think of what we needed. All I could come up with was more mulch. Having a birthday in spring lends itself to gardening type gifts. One year it was a small rototiller. Actually very practical. We used it several times last year in our veggie/flower garden and it should be very fertile for this year's crop. The soil here is pretty bad unless you work stuff in. This week he asked again. Said I'd better let him know pretty soon 'cause right now it stands at compost. I'm thinking ...

One Ringy-Dingy, Two Ringy-Dingys ...

Today we made our final break with California to be totally Marylandized. We've been using our cell phones with California area code and phone numbers for the past two years, much to the confusion of locals who wonder who the heck is calling them from La Jolla. We made a phone-buying date to meet at the local mall, but failed to specify where. My phone rang. Jim.

She: "Where are you? I just came through Boscov's"
He: "I'm over here."
Huh?
She: "Over here? Over where??"
He: "Turn around, behind you."

Mad waving in the distance. It struck me so funny. Telling someone over the phone to look over here. Guess you had to be there. Anyway, on to the Verizon store to pick out spanking new flip-open camera phones. Makes our previous models look prehistoric. Text messaging? I don't think so. Reminds me of passing notes in class. Then on to the paperwork phase of closing out the deal. I've been to escrow closings that took about the same amount of time. Sheesh!

Stopped at Olive Garden on the way home for an early dinner. Haven't been there in quite a while. Have you had the new Stuffed Chicken Marsala? Oh. My. God. It is fantastic. Doubly good to me because I can finally taste again after a week or more of a sinus cold that cut out my sense of smell and taste. Delicious!

Once home, Jim broke out his new phone and started pushing buttons. Long story short, before he had made the first call, the screen froze up and said data corrupted. He called the store and the sales guy said "Uh, oh. Sorry. It's defective, you'll have to bring it in for a replacement."

Well, mine is working. Now on to the instructional CD and 127 page User's Guide.

Blogging on the Porch

Guess where I am right now?



Here! with my iBook, blogging. Isn't it great? We have a wireless internet connection, and I get a kick out of being able to go outside if I want to and still be connected.

Here is where the hungry riding mower lives, along with assorted pieces of gardening equipment and tools, and serves as storage for out of season patio furniture and cushions.

Jim insists it is not a cottage - it's a SHED. Hmmmm....let's see. Six foot slider in front, double-door-windowed side entry with ramp, porch with roof and railings, interior loft, windows on two sides. Sounds like a cottage to me. We had it dropped in place last fall fully built. That was an amazing feat of maneuvering through the trees.







It was nerve wracking to the nth degree. I think I must have held my breath the entire time. I have to hand it to the driver. He pulled that whole thing off without having the truck or the bed touch anything, even if he only had an inch to spare!





This is our water view from the front porch of the little cottage. Pardon, I mean Le Shed. It's the reservoir near our home. I think I've found heaven. Right now it's in the low 70's, birds are singing, lawn mowers buzzing around nearby, hardly a breeze blowing. An amazing day. Perfection. Think I'll toddle on in and refresh my drink.

Love to Eat Them Mousies ...

Mousies what I love to eat.
Bite they little heads off,
Nibble on they tiny feet.
--- B. Kliban

Pong had a great time today. For the first time this year, he hunted down a mole. After dispatching the ill-fated rodent in traditional catly manner, he spent the next 15 minutes tossing him up in the air, flipping him over his shoulder, and using him for a hockey puck. Very proud of himself and shared the fun with the other two Tonks.





He may terrorize the local rodents, but Pong is actually just a big old marshmallow who wants to be cuddled and petted and purrs big time.

De-Mise of De Hat

Today was gorgeous day here, and Jim spent a few hours on the riding mower on our nearly 2 acres of lawn. Well, one of those playful breezes yanked Jim's hat off his head and kicked it around a bit. Before he could catch the hapless chapeau, the greedy old lawnmower had gobbled it up and spit it out.




So, what do you think? Time to break out the sewing machine?

Mushroom Cousins

I love looking at other's people's photos. Flickr is great for this pastime. Saw this beautiful photo from selva at Flickr:



and it brought me in mind of a photo I took in Ireland in a Japanese garden at the National Stud. A little army of mushroom umbrellas:



Nice, huh?

April 15th -Uncle Sam's Payday

What a draining day. Finished up the tax paperwork on TurboTax, then found a couple of things I needed to add, so started a new tax form as a double check. All of a sudden the figures changed from owing big to big refund! Happy dancing with the printer. Just about to sign on the dotted line when I discovered I had hit the wrong buttons on my calculator on a final entry and made a major goof in addition. Major. Oops. Checkbook, please?

Well, I've calmed down ...

...since last night when I had my tantrum. It is so frustrating to me to lose something I've spent a lot of time on with the computer. I've taken the precaution of first writing my blog entry in my word processing application. I'll save it, then post it to the blog. If it goes through, okey dokey. If it disappears into cyberspace, then nah nah nah - I'll repost it from my saved file. Assuming I remembered to save it.

I think I had been lulled into a false sense of security on Blogger. Although remembering my early-on blog site meltdown where I had to recreate the whole bloody mess from scratch, I should have been aware there are pitfalls lurking. But after that first disaster, everything was going along swimmingly, and I assumed life would be kind. But we all know what happens when we assume ... we make an ass of u and me.

I know, I know - that was tres lame. Enough grousing already.

What I had been repeatedly trying to post was an account of my bus trip to Washington D.C. with my fellow Red Hatters to see the cherry blossoms. Once in Washington, we boarded this futuristic-looking vessel called the Odyssey for a leisurely float down the Potomac.






It was wonderful. Tres posh. They fed us very well, there were two live bands, windows galore for blossom-watching, and the weather couldn't have been nicer. A great day all around. We were all decked out in our purple and red finery and made ourselves noticed, as we always do. Great fun.

As fun as this blogging is, I have to quit now and go back to the taxes. They're due tomorrow and I don't want to wait til the last minute. Wink, wink.

Someone is playing with my sanity ...

I can't believe this, but this is the THIRD time !!! I have attempted to post a blog tonight. Don't know if there is a bug on Blogger or not, but the first time I wrote a (very, very long) entry, saved it as a draft. When I previewed it, nothing there! After saving it! Gone. Totally. Tried to recover it, but no way. Being the patient person I am, I spent the next 2 hours rewriting the entry, complete with 5 photos after uploading them into Flikr. Previewed it and hit publish post. Would you believe, the only thing that published was the TITLE? AARRGGGHHH!!!!!! It was GONE - again. That one had also been posted first as a draft.

I am so bummed I can't begin to redo this tonight. It's making me crazy. I have a roaring headache. I think I'll go eat some worms.

Rabbit, Rabbit ...

I had a friend who always made it a point to be the first to say "rabbit, rabbit" on the first day of the month. Apparently you'll have good luck all month if the first words you utter are those. And you get extra good luck if it's your birth month. Well, RABBIT RABBIT everybody. And since April is the month I was born, I'm claiming all the good luck for myself. Besides, it's my blog and I get to do what I want.

I like having my birthday in April. I think it's a beautiful time of year, very fresh and new and springy. The flowers are in their earliest stages, and the weeds haven't had a chance to take hold. The earth is all spongy and smells - well - earthy, I guess. A good thing. It's so pastoral. Love that word. Evokes images of Bo Peep tending her sheep, floppy bonnet, full skirts, petticoats, staff.

Pastoral:

adj 1: of or relating to a pastor; "pastoral work"; "a pastoral letter" 2: relating to shepherds or herdsmen or devoted to raising sheep or cattle; "pastoral seminomadic people"; "pastoral land"; "a pastoral economy" [syn: bucolic] 3: used of idealized country life; "a country life of arcadian contentment"; "a pleasant bucolic scene"; "charming in its pastoral setting"; "rustic tranquility" [syn: arcadian, bucolic, rustic] 4: suggestive of an idyll; charmingly simple and serene; "his idyllic life in Tahiti"; "the pastoral legends of America's Golden Age" [syn: idyllic] n 1: a musical composition that evokes rural life [syn: pastorale, idyll] 2: a letter from a pastor to the congregation 3: a literary work idealizing the rural life (especially the life of shepherds)

[Source: WordNet 2.0. 2003 Princeton University]

Serenity now!