What I Saw On the Floor

I looked at my phone this morning and there is a memo from my daughter that I had not heard chime in early, as in 3:58 AM. “Mom, she (her girlfriend) tried to leave me down town in Mexico. I have no money. I am super scared. I want to go home” I am now having a heart attack. WTF!!??!!! 

Where are you? No answer. I wait …. Where are you?. no answer. I wait…

I call and the phone just rings then disconnects and I have another heart attack. Then a memo rings in. “I am in the room”. Now I want to throttle them both. Girls!!!

I had gone to the grocery to get a few things when a Journey song comes on through the sound system. I started singing out loud as I was walking through the store. My nephew is looking at me and laughing and trying his best to avoid me but not totally abandoning me. As I round an isle a woman is asking her husband why he will not sing with her. She then in exasperation says in her outside voice “why is no one singing along?”  I am! She looks at me “Right! Who could not sing along to this song?” We both move on. It was like an episode of Glee.

Let me be very clear about this. I do not snoop through my daughter's room, I do not explore through her things. But as I was moving a book and her glasses on her bedside table I heard a light thud on the carpet. As I looked to see what had fallen I found a pregnancy test. 

I left it where it lay but as I was turning my eyes fell upon a couple of condom  (still in wrappers) lying on the floor just under the bed.  Yes, did I mention she told me she washed the sheets? Now while one of these things is good one of them may not be so good. Is it too early for a glass of wine if I add some orange juice and call it Sangria? 

                                          

Mystery of The Key Fob

I am staying at my daughter’s flat while she is in Playa del Carmen. I am dog sitting. 
                                       
Mom, I will scrub the garden tub so you can take a nice relaxing bath she says. She sent me a text memo, Mom, I didn’t get the tub scrubbed but the stuff to clean it with is under the sink in the bathroom. 

Mom, the sheets are clean, the blanket is clean we just did not put the duvet back on the blanket. (I kind of wish they had). 
                                  
I walk in and there are piles and piles of folded and non-folded laundry covering every flat surface in the flat. Another text memo, Mom, we did laundry but did not put it all away. All??? You mean there is more somewhere? She could open a boutique with the amount of clothing I can see. Does she only wash once a month? 

Do you have internet? No Mom, you have to go to the internet café at the Town Hall building.  Which brings me to the next phase of this adventure. 
                                        
My nephew is living here but because of his crazy job schedule he cannot properly care for the dogs. He is up early and roaming the flat like a caged lion. Finally, I guess he has worked up enough courage (am I that scary? He is 27) to tell me he has something awkward to ask me (uh-oh). Can I please leave the flat for about an hour, his girlfriend is coming over for a wee bit before she goes to work? Sure when will she be here I ask as I am about to make a second cup of coffee. In about 5 minutes, he says. I pack up the Gypsy and walk over to the Town Hall which seemed to be about a 3-minute walk but was actually not. 

He tells me as I am leaving that the key fob I use to open the drive in gate will also open the pool gates and entrance gates and cyber café door. So, I try it at the pool gates, nothing, the lounge door nothing. While I was at the lounge door a very unfriendly male creature with a name badge walks by me and enters. I try again and nothing. At the entrance sidewalk gate nothing happened there either so I reach over the top and push the handle from the other side. I am now at the very front of the Town Hall so I try the front door. Locked! I glance at the time. 8:47 AM.  I make a few phone calls to kill time until 9 when I assume the staff will arrive. As I am in the middle of an important call, grumpy face from the lounge door opens the main door and rudely asks me “Is there something you need.” I am clearly on the phone you bumble head!! I excuse myself from the phone call and turn to rude, bollocks grumpy face. He gives a huge sigh and shakes his head as he stares at me with lifeless cold blooded eyes. The Cyber Café? He points, “around the corner first left, hallway, door is marked at the end.” He starts to close the door. I smile and ask how do I get in? Key fob he utters, closes the door with a bang and clicks the lock back into place.  Seriously?? It will be best for him if I assume his woman of 11 years broke up with him last night and I feel pity not this rushing river of rage at his rudeness. 

I cross through another entrance gate, go down the hall and arrive at the door. I click the key fob and nothing happens. I wave the fob over the little black box and still nothing. By now I am thinking that blowing the door from its hinges is the way to go. As I am waving my arms in a childish fit and turning to leave I hear a beep and a click.  I charge in through the door, good thing the only person in there was a very pervy looking dude who did not at all react to my SWAT style entrance. He does not even look around. 

I put my pack, keys and sunglasses on a corner table and march over to the coffee machine to discover that it is empty and needs service. Great! I see Earl Grey tea and a hot water dispenser. Earl Grey it is. Paper cup, tea bag under the water dispenser push and ahhhhh… hot tea, except it is not hot the water was cold. I dislike iced tea. But the aroma of the Earl Grey is enticing and I am thirsty and there is no water in this place. I drink it. 
                               
I get to work. Perv man leans back in his chair, stretches and releases a belch so loud it must have come from a rhino. Bloody freaking hell is there no end to this torture?  At last he leaves. 

What will happen next?

His Name is Lilly

As scheduled I took Mom to her Doctor appointment. 

We got there signed in and waited…and then much to my despair The Voice came on.

 I tried to lose myself in a conversation with Mom but she kept telling me to lower my voice, I was talking too loud. Well of course I was. I had to drown out the peckish chatter of those angry, unhappy, disgruntled, over paid harpies. Who have nothing nice or positive or kind or uplifting, helpful, or feel good to say. But that was not all of it; some woman brought her daughter in and was letting her watch cartoons on a phone with volume turned up so that we all had to endure the selfish, entitled behavior.  I was about to lose my mind when they called Mom back. I dove into a book I had brought along. Rescued at last by men at Zodiac Station.

Mom wanted pancakes for lunch so we went to a pancake place, where we were seated and cheerfully greeted by our server whose name tag said Lilly. We ordered. Mom had the strawberry crepes 

and I had banana, macadamia nut, buttermilk pancakes with a butter rum sauce 

and sausage, hash browns and eggs. (I now have breakfast for today also) Lilly was charming, polite, energetic and wearing light blue sparkly nail polish. 

Deep red hair was artfully twisted and piled into a ballerina bun on the back of her head. Lilly was respectful and responded with joy when I asked for things using terms of endearment. Mom was enjoying her meal and completely clueless. So I said, he is a great server isn’t he? Mom replied, “You mean her, she is a great server.” She is male mom. “No it is a woman” she says. No Mom, she is not female. Bless her heart she looked at me like I had lost my mind. 

Lilly brought me a go box and the check just as Mom poured another cup of coffee. I went to pay while she enjoyed her coffee. I noticed on the way to the register that our server was listed Luke. Wanting to make sure Lilly got the tip I commented on this. I was told that our server was indeed Luke but went by the name Lilly. The check said Luke because she, the manager, could not figure out how to get into the brain part of the cash register to change his name to Lilly. She also told me that he sometimes introduces himself as Luke and sometimes as Lilly but always wears the Lilly name tag. I noticed on the way back to our table that she, Lilly had put a sparkly blue star and a bright pink happy face sticker on the back of the check and signed it Thank you Lilly. 

I informed Mom of what I had learned and after a fleeting moment of shock she smiled and said “She was wonderful and they need to figure out the cash register thing and change her name in it!”

Stick with me Mom I can show you some amazing moments!

More Donuts - Less Gorillas

I have been actively posting and interacting on instagram. I am addicted to the endless stream of photos and visuals. Except… you knew there would be one. Those photos of male at the gym flexing every day, and female taking photos of purses every day, the female having a breakdown over being un-followed (or whatever started her issue, I admit I did un-follow her my self because personal drama belongs on facebook) females and males posting selfies with phone numbers and emails on how to contact them, and donuts. I love donuts and these photos of donuts are killing me.

I am puzzled by something. How many of you will stop where you are going to go into a business that has a giant inflated gorilla on their roof? 
And, why is it they are usually purple or blue? Would you be more or less inclined to stop if it was a giant inflated camel or penguin? I would stop for Thor maybe even Batman.

I was shown a photo of Xylaria polymorpha.

It does not get better, they are also known as Dead Man’s Fingers. 

Because that is what they can look like. It is a fungus or if you prefer a mushroom. When they are young they are very pale with an almost blue tint and as they age they darken turning very dark grey to black and looking like entirely something else.

                                  

They grow near dead trees, stumps, forgotten woodpiles and logs. Unlike most mushrooms that are active for a few hours or days each year the “Dead Man’s Fingers” grow in Spring and will stay active and alive into the Fall.

This morning I am taking mom to a Doctor appointment. This should be fun and a great adventure. You never know with mom what she may want to do.

Just Rock

Dude it is a rock and it has no powers. It cannot bring me peace or love or light. It cannot make me brave or strong or impart special skills. It is a rock. It has no magical abilities.

Maybe you say that because you wish to sell rocks to women who claim to be sacred earth witches or just witches. Maybe you believe a rock can make you a better person. Maybe you need to believe you can become “enlightened” without the power of another human telling you how.

They are just rocks, created by GOD and most of them when polished are amazingly beautiful. Some hold secret worlds of sparkling treasure inside of them. I love to collect them and seashells and other earthly abundance. I keep them in baskets, jars and boxes.

I have a shelf and basket just for my granddaughter to hold what I call treasures. It is something Seamus and I do for her. It is our thing. She loves it and asks me every time she comes over if I have a new treasure for her. Which I do. I hide it on her shelf and she has to figure out which one it is. She is curious about all the things in the tray I keep in the living room.

There are rocks, seashells, sand dollars, crab shells, driftwood, petrified wood, bones, a skull, and a turtle shell. She loves this tray of treasure and explores it.

The rock I purchased from you is just another lovely gift for her. Thank you for making it available. 

Symphony of Rain

I awoke this morning anxious to take on my morning hike but what awaited me was much better than a brisk walk, fresh air and peaceful solitude. Rain. Steady rain tapping the ground, rain bumping a rhythm down through the gutter pipe, the dripping of the rain from the metal rails on to the stone ladder wall beneath it creating the cascading sound of a waterfall.  An orchestra of percussion melted away tension I had not known I had. I just lay here and listened with a smile on my face.

I went to make coffee and as I put on the kettle a flash of light caught my eye followed by the booming bass of thunder. The wind is now blowing. Because my bedroom sets in an alcove the sound of the wind muffled through the leaves of the Crepe Myrtle and shrubs sounds like strings from an other-worldly harp. It is a symphony of some of the most ethereal, melodic and haunting music. I am calm and at the same time I feel so alive and energetic.

I had an adventure to chat about but right now I want to enjoy the beauty GOD has created for me outside.

Peace!

Breakfast Letters: Dagger and the Bird

Breakfast Letters: Dagger and the Bird: I remember when I was younger being fearless.  Taking on ballet in a room full of strangers. Showing up for swim lessons so I could become...

Dagger and the Bird

I remember when I was younger being fearless. 

Taking on ballet in a room full of strangers. Showing up for swim lessons so I could become a mermaid.  Climbing the hill behind my granny’s house every summer despite my cousin telling me there were mountain lions and bobcats. Walking to and from school, riding my bike all over the neighborhood, going to parties without everyone’s parents also having to attend. Walking to the movie theater for afternoon matinees. Riding my horse through the woods, playing golf with my dad, swimming in the ocean. 

Now… thank you everyone who contributed I am fierce and not Tyra Banks fierce.
                             
Mother became confused about the plot while we were watching CSI Miami. I had to explain it to her and in keeping with her norm she doubted what I explained was right.  I later had to explain the Angel Dagger while we watched Castle because she got confused about that. 
                                
Then she wanted to know why some people wore hats and others did not.    
                                        
That became interesting and in case you wanted to know a baseball cap is NOT a hat (according to mom) and hats/caps should be removed upon entering a building and at the dinner table. Yes Mom that is true.

Some woman came cruising around a corner in a parking lot and nearly ran head into me. Why? Because she is under the delusion she is entitled, her life matters more, she is unclear what side of the road she should drive on and she believes she is part of the elite. But most of all because she had her visor down and was looking at herself in the mirror. 
                                            
Dear dog people out in the dog park by my window. Hush, hush voices carry... 


People! please stop driving around with those blue handicap placards dangling from your mirror. Do you notice the notch by the hole 
                                 that allows you to hang that from your mirror ? It is also designed to allow you to remove it for diving purposes when you are done with parking. It is a safety issue. I know your line of visibility is hampered by these things because I used to have one. 
                     

You place it om the mirror upon parking in a designated slot and you remove it when leaving that spot. It is NOT a badge, talisman, or medal you are supposed to display at all times. Stop this madness!!!

While I am on a traffic rant...if you are going to pull rudely onto the road in front of someone then PLEASE use your accelerator to quickly get up to speed so you are in the traffic flow.  Going slow and starring in your rear-view mirror to see if I am going to slow down or even stop to accommodate you is reason enough for me to end you. Be courteous, considerate, kind, you are not entitled, do not disrupt, show some manners. Your need to control other people's lives simply tells me you are weak. Go home!

Since dealing with bad drivers was not enough to fuss me up; as I was walking from the parking lot on the sidewalk was a dead bird.He was lying on a pink painted section of concrete which contrasted in a dazzling way with his sunny yellow throat and milk and chocolate colored feathers. 
                   It was strangely beautiful while it was tragic.  Even now as I write this the morning after the scene haunts me.

Lemon poppy seed raspberry scones for breakfast. 
Enjoy!

Green Hat Lady

Ever just find yourself in a mood. No apparent reason, or maybe it is the result of several reasons? I call them Porcupine Moments, 

Holly Golightly called them the “Mean Reds”. They happen to me about 4 times a year. Well, I am in a mood today. I wasn’t when I woke up. But within minutes of me getting up, the cat (which is still for sale …cheap) puked his guts up in several spots on my carpeted floor. I tried to stop him, grab him and move him to the hardwood floor but as he kept moving from me he kept puking leaving a trail.

 After I got back from my morning walk and was settling in to read my devotional he starts howling in the other room, non-stop yeooow yeooow yeooow 

                 

over and over and over. I finally go check on him because he may be in danger. No, he is sitting at the French door that goes out to the patio looking out. No danger. No murderers. No zombies. No angry hoard of Puritans calling me a witch.

Just him sitting there screaming. I am now offering to pay $20 for someone to take him. He is very grumpy and loves to argue. He would make a great pet for someone who is lonely and craves animated conversation and serious debate. My kids plan on having him stuffed when he dies so I can still have him and not be lonely.  You would be doing me a huge service taking him. I will NOT be lonely when he is gone. Really! I have been taking care of someone since I was 2. I am over it.

Oh good!!! A message from Dropbox claiming that my Dropbox is full.  Well how can that be? I deleted over 1000 items and files from it on Friday.

                                 

I was telling my Mother a story at dinner yesterday about a woman named Catherine who wore a green hat. On and on I went weaving her the tale of what happened and how everyone else reacted and what I did and how it ended and she asked “So what happened to Catherine?” What!!??! I just told you. “You told me about the woman with the green hat but what happened to Catherine?” Mom, they are the same person. Oh she says as she turns and gazes at me with a bemused smile.

She was telling me about a story she heard on the news and as I listened I realized she was describing a commercial. I corrected her and she looked at me like I had grown intolerably stupid. I having been noticing she is easily confused by plots on some of her favorite shows. While this is slightly alarming I have also realized that life with Mom may just be getting more odd, funny and tolerable.

Stay tuned… I am having dinner with her again tonight. 

Anti Zombie Copter

Did everyone survive the Zombie Apocalypse yesterday?              

                             

We did.

  

Apparently my neighborhood was targeted by a swarm of Zombies.  My flat is located in the edge of the children’s glen. An area with a lot of grass, a basketball court, and trike riding trail and a play area with tubes and a climby thingy.

Early yesterday evening a small squad of runty soldiers (children) came running into the glen. They performed a sweep of the entire area wiping out any and all Zombies. They all had weapons,  some had more than one. They were well trained and well-armed. There were handguns,  rifles, shotguns, blasters 

all rapidly firing water at anything not resembling a normal human. As the last Zombie fell one of the little soldiers screamed “To the copter!!!” They all turned immediately and ran for the climby thingy one soldier screamed out “there’s no room!!” as his buddy made a grab for his arm and jerked him into the copter.

What is most remarkable about this whole thing is that moments after they boarded the copter they were gone. Vanished as quickly and as efficiently as they had arrived.  I don’t think the copter is a copter. I think it is a transporter of some type.

Mother told me last night she hates it when parents favor one child over the other. She just thinks it is awful. She then turned, looked at me and asked if I felt she favored my brother. Do you know what I said? I lied. I lied to my mother just days before Mother’s day.  Does this make me a bad child or just the child who knows her mom favored her other child?

I hear the kettle and must go press coffee.

Mother's Day List

Good morning Friends,
It has been a while. I have had a few changes and challenges and trying to gracefully glide through them has been arduous. I have been very still (like Elmer Fudd hunting rabbits).
                                   

That is until I discovered socks this morning on my walk. Yep socks.
                                  

Not even a matching pair. One was a dirty white tube sock and one was a light tan crew sock. Rolled up as though they had been taken off and left lying where I found them on the grass near the sidewalk.

Did some wayward homeless guy take them off while he had a dip in the run off rainwater in the ditch. Did he encounter the craw-daddies that show up after a good rain at a certain tender part of his anatomy and he forgot to pick them up as he ran off in scorching pain.

                                                 
Did some girl put them on Friday morning before school because they were the only socks she could find and then remove them as the school bus was passing by that spot. Is there a trail of dirty laundry strung along the road further out of my sight; dropped strategically along the way to the home of the woman some other woman's cheating man was at. (I say that last one because it is what I would do, have done). Is there some sort of pervert driving around picking up men keeping their shoes but insisting they remove their socks because he has a foot fetish.

                                      
Perhaps those two socks angered their owner and he made them leave. I am afraid it will forever be a mystery. In the mean time my mind is weaving small stories about them. I could write a collection of short stories using each of those scenarios and call the finished book... The Legend of Socks.

I have a list of things I need for Mothers day that is longer than the list for Christmas.

                                                  
Why? Because at Christmas I am too busy shopping for my family that I do not have time to think about what I want. Months later I discover what I need. Or maybe the world I live in just starts to fall apart every May. My daughter has asked me three times what I want for Mom day and every answer I give her she says "Mom! that is not a gift that is just stuff!" Well I need this stuff. My laptop is over 7 years old. It is tired.

                                               
My DVD player has issues and I want to go to Memphis. I need about 9 pairs of new shoes, a massage, a facial, 11 dinners in Italy and a week on a 4 masted sailing yacht.

Speaking of sailing I am sailing on into the kitchen for some breakfast.

What the Stunner?

Mother bought perfume while we were out shopping a couple weeks ago. I thought little of it because her taste in fragrance fortunately is nowhere near mine. I could not at the time have told you what it even was. Today I can. It is Stunner. I do not think of my mom as a Stunner, at least not now. Back in the mid to late 1960s Mom wore these leg hugging, pants that are very similar to leggings. They had a seam down the front and ended either right at the ankle or sometimes had a stirrup. She would top them off with these mock turtle neck sweaters with no sleeves, or ¾ sleeves and flats. She had these spiky heeled black leather booties she bought in Paris when we lived in Dreux 

                                  

that she would wear with them often as well. Her hair was frosted in large chunks and she would have it done every week into this sweeping two-toned beehive looking pile on her head. She was stunning.  Never heard of Stunner? 

                            

It is a knock-off or impression of Victoria Secrets Bombshell fragrance.

Here is what the notes are: STUNNER is a fruity floral scent with a blend of pineapple, strawberry, purple passion fruit, jasmine vanilla orchid and musk. I have not smelled this. I have not smelled Bombshell either. To be honest Victoria’s Secret lost me with their whole angel campaign. 

                              

To dress scrawny women up in underwear, put wings on them and then call them angles is tragic. I could write volumes on how wrong that is. Both for women and angles.

What surprises me is that she bought a cheap impression perfume, that is not like her. My mother wears Joy by Jean Patou 

                               

and has ever sine we lived in France.  So curiosity finally getting the better of me I asked and her answer is she liked how it smelled but not as a perfume. She sprays her sheets with it every night before bed.  She has been sleeping very well she says. I smiled because I scent my sheets also.

I need to know, am I the only one who is offended by the disrespect in that University of Phoenix advert? You know the one with the obviously over entitled female in the library at closing time raising her hand to silence the Security Guard who is just doing his job so that the library staff can go home and the library not have to pay overtime for her desire to keep studying.  Pick up your gear, check out the books and find a coffee shop! You are rude, inconsiderate, selfish and extremely disrespectful of others time and money. The fact that U of P thought this clever and appealing is disturbing.  If your students are being trained to be rude you have it all WRONG!!!!

I have more, like those car commercials that show women driving and men passively, silently, submissively riding shotgun. NO NO NO!!!!! I find those male creatures to be weak and unappealing.  I find the females to be aggressive, entitled, dominating (not in a bedroom fun kind of way) overbearing, demeaning and if driving or buying your vehicle makes me like that you will not sell one to me. Nor will I be interested in the man who owns one. Give me Matthew McConaughey driving that Lincoln.  Yesss…. Sexy, sure of himself, spirit of fun, adventure confidence lays on him like a fine fragrance.  I want that vehicle, that man, he can drive.

                             

But, maybe since I drive a Lincoln myself I am biased or maybe it is just the music.

Hey Mattie I am cooking up breakfast tacos. 

                                             

I have blackberries and champagne….