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….

Don't Make Me Sarah Connor You!

Stuck in traffic on a beautiful day. Light was red and I had been cruising, listening to One Republic, windows down just grooving or so I thought. I hear that loping sound a healthy older mustang can make so I looked over and who did I see? Granny and another Granny riding shotgun, windows are down and they are listening to Patsy Cline go walking after midnight. Their cool factor was off the charts! That is who I want to be when I grow up.

         

Here I am living all relaxed in my new flat not a giant cuckaraoacha in sight for months until today.

               
                                              Because no one really wants to see a cuckaroacha....

 I opened the cabinet under the sink in the guest bath and something black goes running scarring me to death. I go get the Termination spray. I go all Sarah Connor on the thing.


             
 There is no way it could have survived. I wait for the cupboard to dry from the poison saturation. I decide to clean my office and as I finish and am turning around guess what is crawling across the wall behind my desk. Yep. I am once again freaked and still not recovered from the last freak out in bathroom. I am about to think it is a different one when I realize this one is walking rather wonky. “Please GOD, let it be the same one.”

          
                                                   Wouldn't you rather see a cute kitten?

I was going to take a bath tonight but now…I am not so interested in a relaxing bath. I have had one of those bastards swimming in the tub with me before when I was 11 and it was extremely traumatic and I am still not recovered from it. So I grab the spray again and go after it soaking it in a hailstorm of poison. I captured it under a heavy glass jar and notified my son-in-law. He just left with the body in a bag. Now I am as jumpy as a cat………rocking chair……… you know.
               
             Baby goats really are sweet!

Last night was so long and I was constantly having the heebie-jeebies. My peaceful home is once again a haven for terror. It was a blissful 6 weeks and I almost had taken down my defenses. I apologize to all of you who must look upon me and my body’s coping method. I used to be beautiful. Back when my only terror was an abusive husband.

             
                                                       Baby Penguins are so peaceful.....

I have fought epic battles in many wars and I look it.  Did you know I have also been attacked in the shower by one of those bastards? Don’t ask about the day I was ambushed by a scorpion in my eye. My life is not for the weak or faint of heart.

Now where did I put that bottle of Ortho?  

You Harlot or The Story of The Idle Rogue

I woke up this morning fussed up about something a male creature said to a boyfriend of several years ago. It bothers me because I want to rant at him, thank him, and what he said was wrong and a matter of him attempting to tarnish my integrity, honor and innocence.

This is for sword vendor creature. I shall call him sven. You made a comment in passing or on purpose to my then boyfriend while he was in the company of a married female friend of his. You said, “this one is much better that the harlot you were here with last year.”

He was with me that last year you refer to.

I do not even know your name and you do not know mine. We have never been together. I have no idea where you make port or call home. You know nothing of me. Where I live, where I have been, who I am or what I do. You know nothing of my morals or my beliefs. You do not know my fears, prayers, hopes, or dreams. You do not know my eye color or hair color or height. You have never met anyone I have ever had a relationship with except for that boyfriend.

I challenge you. Bring me one, just one man from any fair or from any game I have been at that has had me in such a way that you can justify calling me a harlot. Bring me one man I have had sex with from your world.

You can’t.

The dictionary says a harlot is a prostitute, a whore and promiscuous woman (none if which I am). But the origin of the word comes from a word meaning male vagabond, an idle rogue, the word latter used to refer to jesters 

        

                         "Touchstone the Jester"  - John William Waterhouse.

and latter to actors (is that what you were referring me to, an actor?), It has vague roots in Germanic with the word hari meaning army and it morphed into camp follower. Let me clear that up for you also. I was not a camp follower I was a member of the camp. I was also an actor with that camp.

In the Bible the word harlot is used to describe a woman consecrated to prostitution with the worship of Asherah. 

          

Let me clear you up on this. I am not Syrian and I do not worship Asherah. I am not consecrated to her nor do I go to her temple.

I am not a harlot. Calling me one is a lie. Therefore, you are a liar. You lack integrity and honor. Your goal with that comment may have been to slander me, it may have been to compliment the woman he was with but the reality ended up being you were a tool used by GOD to start an ending to a relationship that was not good, or healthy for me.  Thank you for your cooperation in HIS endeavor to move me from the clutches of that boyfriend. Your seed, that you planted took deep root and it thrived on the poison of his own sick mind. He nourished that thought and fed it and showed it to others so they could also help to feed it. Because when he was playing and feeding and nurturing something or someone else he was not tormenting them.

I do not wish you ill. I wish you would apologize but then you were just performing a part that was meant to help me.

And now, I need to eat some Lucky Charms because they are magically delicious!