Plans, I Got Big Plans

I wandered on down to my local Lowe's today. (Is it my imagination or are there less cars on the road during mid-day?) I was looking for a hanging lamp for the front room as lighting in my house is, well, the word insufficient could be used but I prefer sucks like an Electrolux.

I did not see a hanging lamp that I liked or that would suit my front room corner. I did however, come down with my annual case of garden lust.

My plan is to try some container gardening. I know, I know, technically I'll be 'feeding the raccoons, squirrels and 'possums gardening' but with food prices rising, I figure if things get too bad we can fish and crab out of the creek, use the ten billion wild onions growing in the back yard for seasoning and I could grow some veggies.

So I got some rough figures. I've already got the huge barrel that Jason set up for an herb garden, with the rosemary bush still going strong. I figure I can put some basil, oregano, thyme and sage in there. I had a good crop last summer and was pretty successful in getting it dried for long term use.

I'm thinking for the container garden a couple of tomato plants, cukes, squash or zucchini, some peppers and some beans.

That should be enough to keep me busy. And not expensive enough for me to get too upset if the critters get more than their fair share.

The boyz say: Um, we didn't hear catnip in that list.

Off With Her Head!

Ever since the big Hannah Montana concert ticket fiasco, where I heard tales of parents shelling out hundreds to thousands of dollars for their pre-pubescent girls to go scream themselves voiceless at a concert, I knew it was coming.

Time to knock Miley Cyrus off the pedestal that we allowed our young girls to put her upon. Britney's drama is boring, old news. Lindsey Lohan has dropped off the map. So it is up to Miley to provide fodder for parental righteous indignation so they can feel they are doing their jobs and protecting their innocent young children from such sordidness.

I'm sorry, but those barely crotch covering mini skirts, thigh-high tights and stiletto heels I've seen that girl prancing around in are more offensive to me than a single photograph. But I suppose the point is that one image is acceptable teen sexuality and the other is more adult sexuality.

The horror!

Let your child worship and idolize an overly made up, teased and processed haired strumpet dressed like a child molester's fantasy girl, but a picture of her bare back, oh no! Call out the hypocrite police.

If for some reason this had not made it to the news (and it was brought to us by the mainstream media for the sole purpose of titillating the public and creating a fake controversy - really is Miley's photograph a more important story than people going without food so they can afford gas to go to work?), but if it hadn't been plastered all over the news, would your 10 year old have even seen Vanity Fair?

It is a manufactured, Puritan style outrage story that we just love here, a story older than poor Miley herself: build 'em up, tear 'em down, kick 'em while they're down.


Loki sez: I thought it was an exquisite photograph.

Calling Dr. Freud!

Not really, I think he was a misogynistic prick, but I digress.

Dreams. Last night - or more correctly, this morning - I had a dream that I forgot I was supposed to go to work at 11pm. This makes sense as I am going to work tonight at 11pm and it is not in my normal schedule to do so. Some anxiety over forgetting is understandable.

But after I realized I had forgotten, I called to tell them I'd be a few minutes late, then tried to get in the shower, but it was a shower for little people and I couldn't fit. Then I couldn't find my toothbrush. Then a car that was my "dream car" was parked funny and it took me a while to get it free of the parking space, then it started to rain and my windshield wipers flew off, then some random dream good-ole-boy said he could fix them but it would take a few hours. Then I started ranting and raving about how I was going to be fired because I was already an hour late. Then my mother - my MOTHER of all people - suggested that I take a raft to work.

Now here is where I need some dream analysis. This is not the first time I've had to raft to work. (Technically I didn't in this dream - someone offered to drive me.) But I have had a dream before where I was in Mt. Pleasant and was late for work and had to paddle a raft down the Cooper River, across the harbor, up the Ashley River to Church Creek where I climbed through the mud up the bank behind my house and didn't even have time to take a shower, but had to drive to work with the sweet perfume of pluff mud upon me.

I mean, I live less than three miles from work. My commute is turn right, turn right, go straight, park. And I work nights so I don't have rush hour traffic to deal with. It isn't like it's a hardship to be dreaded, going to work.

And why rafting? Why can't I have a nice cabin cruiser or a Jet Ski, why not even a nice john boat? Why do I have to paddle leaky old rubber rafts to work?


Thor sez: Well, we all know that Freud would think.

Loki Sunday

Loki is a multi-talented artist.

Interpretive Dancer:


Dramatic Actor:


Opera Singer:


Sculptor (favorite medium, cardboard):

Hmmm....I wonder........

"You Know the Place Where Nothing Is Real

Well here's another place you can go."*

We finally got around to brunch at The Glass Onion today. Can you say "yum"? I thought you could.

I was hugely unlady-like in my wolfing down of a ginormous BLT po' boy sammie.

Jason had the Shrimp Remoulade Salad and he said it was very good. Looked to me like one of those meals where ya gotta stop for something to eat on the way home.

But I was hungry.

Two thumbs up and we'll go back again to try more southern cooking made with local fare.


Thor sez: And my kitty-bag is where?

*Glass Onion by The Beatles

Friday Stuff

Today at noon, my Carol Brady shag will be shorn. I've misplaced my Big Book O' Haircuts so I have no picture to show the most wonderful and talented Marguerite who cuts my hair. I love her. She knows I'm an idiot about all things girlie and cuts it so even if I were in a coma, my hair would look marvelous. I'm tempted to just tell her to shave it all off.

Yesterday evening at an event I attended, a gentleman with whom I'd struck up a conversation said something rather condescending. I surprised myself. Usually a snotty remark would bring up all my class anxieties, you know what's a po' white gal like me trying to rub elbows with Charleston elite, and I would have been covered in shame for saying whatever it was that I said to show my inferiority. But that didn't happen. In fact I had to suppress a giggle at him for being a snotty snob when there was no cause to be a snotty snob.

If anyone at the Charleston Air Base just happens to read this, can you request that the Thunderbirds or whoever it is wasting tons of jet fuel....I mean having an airshow this Saturday, can they STOP flying ten inches over my house during practice? Pretty please with things vibrating off my bookshelves on top?

And why is Thor, the God of Thunder, afraid of the jets, yet Loki the drama queen cat just looks up at the ceiling when they pass?


Loki sez: I am not a drama queen!

Thor's Day!

Condescension. Felines invented it.






I know many local bloggers are meeting at the ball game tonight to sit in the heat, swat gnats and eat stadium food, but I'll be swishing around an air conditioned art gallery, noshing on fine food and perhaps sipping a glass of wine while perusing Purse as Art and pretending I fit in with the kewl kid krowd.

Join us if you can. It's for a great cause. I'll be the tired looking gray haired lady with cat hair on my clothes!

Like Deja Vu All Over Again

After work this morning, while loafing on sofzilla and having my 'dinner' of a triple decker PBJ (the most perfect food ever - whole grains in the bread, protein in the peanut butter and fruit in the jelly), I watched an 'expert' on The Today Show tell Matt Lauer how to maximize gas mileage. From tire pressure to tune ups to moderating our driving habits (stop speeding and attempting zero to sixty at every stoplight). Finally he touched on buying a smaller car.

If I had closed my eyes, I could have been transported back, back, back to my mamma's house on Ridgewood Avenue, sitting on the avocado green and gold sectional sofa, my feet propped up on a curvy Spanish-style coffee table listening to Uncle Walter tell us the exact same thing.

Early 1970's ring a bell with anyone? Oil embargoes? Gas prices rising? Gas lines? People screaming and crying about how much it cost to fill up their 20 foot long Continentals and the V8 gas sucking Camaros or Mustangs?

This afternoon, my attention was caught by a headline quoting a woman bemoaning the fact that it cost her $100 to fill her tank. I had an "ouch" moment of sympathy, current prices are hard on the budget, but then upon further reading, I learned that she was pulling a trailer full of Arabian horses that she shows. Spoiled rotten wench. She spends more than $100 a DAY to feed those horses, I'll bet. I mean it wasn't like she was filling up to go to her job at Denny's.

And the American capitalist pig in me says what more do we expect? Are we not a nation of supply and demand? Doesn't the demand set the price? For decades we've been sucking down gasoline like a crack head who found the dealer's stash and expect it to be kept cheap because....why?

Because we don't want to conserve. We don't want to drive economy cars. We don't want to alter our life styles in any fashion. We don't want to be responsible. We just want to get in our cars and go when ever and where ever we please and never give a thought to the cost.

Ethanol from sugar cane, people. It is our salvation.

Energy independence.

Revitalized Southern agricultural economy.

Won't impact corn/wheat production.

Or we can just continue to whine like two year olds.


Loki sez: In the interests of conservation, I'm willing to give up my trips to the vet!

Tower of Babel

I know enough Spanish to hobble together a few words and be understood and to understand.

But my Russian, Portuguese and Arabic are sadly lacking. I know "nyet". And "jihad" but don't think it prudent to work that one into conversation.

Oh but how I envy those who speak a second language. I am told I spoke German when I was two, courtesy of German nannies who worked cheap in exchange for the opportunity to meet single American servicemen while babysitting.

I took two years of Spanish in high school and three in college, but without daily exposure my skills have eroded away. Strangely though, I can still read Spanish well enough to get the gist of it. Usually.

Jason once interviewed a lady who speaks something like ten different languages and can read a ton more, and stuff like Old Icelandic and Ancient Norse, not just normal French or Spanish. I could barely wrap my mind around the idea of having such skill and intelligence.

And I get irked with people who blithely toss off that new immigrants should learn English. Like it's just a day or so of work to do so. Most of them are trying. Trying very hard. But damn, have you ever really tried to learn a language?

It ain't that easy. But then, maybe I'm just dumb.

Thor sez: But you speak fluent Feline!

Lazy is as Lazy Does

I've been worrying that I have just become way too laid back. Seriously. If I have to do more than two errands in a single day, I feel put out and rushed. I had to drive to the bank this morning, okay, this afternoon after I rolled out of bed around 10:30, and since I had to stop for gas (ouch!), I decided to skip my planned stop at Total Wine, because stopping for gas had taken too much time and I didn't want to be too late having my Ladles lunch of a bacon, granny smith apple and cream cheese sandwich (super-yum-O).

See? I'm lazy. Slothful even.

Yesterday, I vacuumed two rugs, swept one floor, dusted three rooms, a-friend-is-coming-over cleaned the front bathroom, and lit a couple of candles. All that work entitled me, in my slothful view, to watch, quite guilt-free three episodes of The Tudors. And, oh my my, weren't they some randy little royals back then?

A young boy once told me, with a heavy sigh, that there were just "too many gotta do's and not enough wanna do's" in his life. He died when he was fifteen.

I'm just trying to do as many "wanna do's" and as few "gotta do's" as I can responsibly get away with.

I've done the whirlwind life style. I've played the full time work, full time mommy, full time housekeeper game. I've done the going to school working mommy. I've run after my own ass for 20 hours a day and gotten up to do it all again the next day.

So I tell myself I've earned the right to be lazy. I've earned the right to slow down and only smell the roses I want to smell.


Loki sez: So basically, you've become a cat.

Loki Sunday

Was anything but low key this morning. A Brown Headed Cowbird spent most of the morning trying to pick a fight with his reflection, never mind the two ferocious felines on the other side of the window pane.





Thor thought if he just hit the glass enough times, he would catch the bird.


Then a sparrow decided to see what all the fuss was about.


Then I decided I'd listened to enough tap-tap-tapping on my window and there was enough bird poop on the window sill to annoy me, so I put Thor's stuffed chipmunk on the window ledge outside. That's working so far.

The Good One

Greeting me upon my arrival home:




Loki sez: It fell over! All by itself! I was trying to pick it up, but I don't have thumbs! You know I don't have thumbs!


Thor sez: Uh, huh. Something smells and it ain't the kitty litter.

Thor's Day!

Again? My, how the world just keeps spinning. And my back-to-work Thursday, not my week off Thursday.

But this isn't about me.

Thor does everything with a Thorbish flair. And that includes sleeping:

Random Stuff

Trivia question: How many claws does a cat have?

Bonus question: How many holes do I have in my flesh after Thor flopped on my lap and almost slid off and I tried to grab him to stop him from falling and that scared him so he had to rocket off my legs like a mad cat?

Answers: Twenty and thirteen.

When I went to find Thor after I'd inspected and cleaned my wounds, this is what I found:



Poor kitten. Hid in the laundry basket.

I didn't get the ceilings painted yesterday (a-hahahaha), but I did order travel guides for South Dakota, Wyoming and Utah. My May birthday trip has been postponed to September for various reasons. I have some insane idea of flying to South Dakota, renting a car, driving to Mt. Rushmore, then to Wyoming and Yosemite and Grand Tetons, then driving to Colorado for Rocky Mountain National Park, then to Utah for Arches and Canyonlands National Parks then flying home from there.

I know, it is insane.

1. It would require at least two weeks and I think your nursing license is revoked if you request more than two days off a year.

2. I couldn't be away from the furbags that long, although right now, with 13 fresh holes in my legs, it doesn't sound that bad.

3. When I told Jason I got one of those looks, like he knows I'm insane but he isn't going to say I'm insane because he knows I'll realize it on my own pretty soon so best just to nod along until such time.

But doesn't it sound cool?

I'm Trying to Behave Myself

I've sworn off the news lately. If I hear the word "bitter" or the initials "FLDS" one more time, my head might explode.

First off, if the networks can get days and days and days of coverage over one freaking word (and, yes, I don't think describing people who have had their jobs shipped overseas by greedy corporations getting tax refunds to do so, people who have had their local, state and federal government fail them repeatedly in bringing good jobs back to their communities, I don't think describing their feelings about this as bitter is all that horrible), then they aren't doing their jobs. I'm sure something else happened on the planet somewhere.

Second off, I'm really sick of the debate over whether the pedophile farm in Texas has had its religious rights violated. Hell no, they did not. Any adult who wants to enter into a plural marriage, any adult female who wants to debase herself in such a manner, needs to be allowed to do so.

But not children. Period. The end.

Notice how there are few boys? I've heard that this cult takes the teenage boys away and drops them off in cities to fend for themselves. So there will more nubile barely pubescent girls for the 40, 50 and 60 year old men to molest. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean to "spiritually marry" and have sex with in some bed in the sanctuary. For real, a special bed in the CHURCH where they rape their 13, 14 year old victims. In the name of their God.

And I'll just stop right there.


Loki sez: Ceiling Cat doesn't believe in the subjugation of women and children, just in the offerings of cat nip and belly rubs!

Stuff I Need to Do

Finish painting the ceilings. (ha!)

Make doctor's appointment. (Fun, on hold for an hour then try to match my schedule with doc's schedule)

Find a new eye brow waxer. I look like Brezhnev. But the last person I went to put a hole in my brow. The person before that barely shaped them up. The person before that left me looking like I'd shaved them and drawn a line back on.

Get a hair cut. I've got the serious Carol Brady shag going on.

Go through books to sort out some collections for Jason to sell on E-bay.

Decide how to spend my economic stimulus bucks (oh and thanks that people who choose to breed, who already get more deductions than I do, so pay less taxes than I do, get more money back than I do.) Choices are: 1. an entertainment center to replace my $50Walmart P.O.S., 2. an efficient and quiet dishwasher - the current one is so old, so water wasteful and so loud that we've been hand washing dishes for close to four years now, which isn't a problem, but sometimes you just don't want to, and 3. a patio for the back porch, a spot to grill and chill.

Or do I just want to stuff the wad o' cash into my savings account and to heck with the economy? Let it stimulate itself.

Get up off my butt and go to the grocery store.

Thor sez: While you are out, I could use a new toothbrush, thanks!

(Note to any newcomers - that is Thor's personal toothbrush, not one of his humans'!)

Loki Sunday!

Bird watching:

Like a Bolt From the Blue

A request for Since I've Been Loving You. Seriously. I'd pretty much forgotten about the submission I made way back so long ago I can't even really remember when it was.

But I had to get up and leave during a scene of I am Legend. Good movie, I love Will Smith, but I sure wish I hadn't known about the puppy before I saw the movie, I might have enjoyed it more without the gut wrenching waiting-for-it tension.

I took the moment to check my email and there it was. A nice note asking to see the entire manuscript. I've been asked to send chapters before, but never a whole manuscript.

Holy Bolts From the Blue, Batman!

So I'll wash her little face, but some clean clothes on my little baby girl and send her off into the big ole world today.


Thor sez: Just fill a book with pictures of me if you want a best seller!

So So Bad

I was so tired when I left work this morning that I probably shouldn't have been driving. Sort of. The thought of going home usually perks me up enough to get home, but I had to stop at the grocery store on my way and ended up sitting for 10 minutes in Highway 61 traffic. Ten minutes. To go less than 1/4 mile. Snore...zzzz.

But there I was wandering the aisles in a semi-stupor looking for white kidney beans and a can of fire roasted tomatoes so I can make my semi-notorious Andouille sausage and white beans for dinner tonight.

Some how I ended up with: two bags of peanuts (for the squirrels), a bottle of wine, a Coke (WTF?), four cans of cat food, a can of store brand almonds, Triscuits, a smoky cheddar and bacon cheese ball, a completely unripe avocado and two bottles of juice.

For real. Many years ago, I got up after sleeping all day and when I peeked in the fridge, I asked the man-child why on earth he had purchased bacon horseradish dip.

Seems I'd purchased it in a similar sleep deprived shopping spree.

It tasted like something from some part of a horse, I can tell you that!

Loki sez: Ah perfect! Even half asleep, you buy the shredded. Almost time to suddenly prefer loaf. Just waiting for you to buy in bulk.

Going International

I've added two new links here. The first is Puddy Down Under, well that's what I call it, the blog name is actually A Byootaful Life. The second is Old Age Is a Bitch, written by a delightful lady named Elaine, a retired nurse in England, hence my dubbing it Elaine in England.

I'm so witty and original.

Check them out.

Thor's Day!

Let there be rejoicing throughout the lands! It is Thor's Day! (sez Thor)

Ear signals:

Out of Whack

Seriously. My brain thinks it is my week off. My usual schedule was bumped around a bit to accomodate a co-worker's vacation time, not a problem, but now my inner time keeper is all discombobulated.

A short story:

Brotherly Love

"Thor, my brother!" "Loki, my brother!"


"I love my brother Thor!"


"I love my brother Loki!"

Chomp!

"Ow! That freaking hurt, you brat!"


"Take that!"


"No! You take this!"


Biff! Baff! Sock!

Five minutes later.


"I love my brother!" "No, I love my brother!"

No I don't have anything better to do, I'm resting up for my 12 hour night shift tonight.

I Really Can't Help Myself

I am usually very good at denying myself selfish little "wants". I have what I need and I usually save cash for the things I merely want. But I couldn't stop myself. I saw, I wanted, I dipped into savings to buy.

But seriously, look:

Before:




And after:




And now to have some of Jason's Sedona Chapel of the Holy Cross pictures enlarged to
11x14 and framed. I think the reds and golds will be perfect.

Bias

A person with whom I was having a conversation told me I needed to get a book titled "Bias" and read it. She said it had "really opened her eyes".

"To what?" I asked.

"To how the liberals always slant things their way." (Note: I have not heard of nor seen this book, this was her review.)

"Ah, did it show you how to recognize your own bias also?"

Blank stare.

"Everyone has bias," I told her, "it is on both sides. Liberals slant things their way, conservatives tilt them their way. The aim is to win people in the middle to one side or another. But you need to be able to see the bias on both sides to make an informed choice."

Glaring stare.

And perhaps it was the glare in the stare that pissed me off, because I was trying to have a reasonable discussion, not a "my side/your side" bashing contest. And I had also ignored her not-so-subtle dig that I (as a liberal) should get some book to show me the error of my ways. So I lost my composure a bit and said, "For instance, I have a bias against anyone who thinks that Bill O'Reilly is an honest and good man. I think people who get their news only from Faux News are stupid for not recognizing the blatant manipulation of news stories presented by that station."

I then went on to inform this person who thought that the sun shone out of Bill O'Reilly's ass in the morning about his comments that an 11 year old boy who had been kidnapped and sodomized for four years must have "liked it" according to her hero Billy, because the boy got to (paraphrasing) "stay home and play Nintendo".

She said she'd never heard anything about that.

I'm sure she didn't. Fox News is sort of biased about keeping it's hate-mongering audience numbers up. Those remarks were a little over the line even for Fox lovers.

But that's just my bias.

And in the interest of fairness, I recognize that MSNBC is trailing a close second to Fox in the whole news tilting business. I used to like Keith Olberman, but find him to be nearly as intolerant as Bill O'Reilly. And over on CNN, Lou Dobbs is beginning to think he is the voice of God on earth.

If you want a good, honest, balanced and fair look at issues, as insane as it sounds, try to catch some of MTV News' various hour long reports on issues. Best reporting of facts on both (or all) sides of an issue, no telling the audience what it means or what to think, but letting the facts stand.

The mainstream biggies should learn a lesson, but let's not forget, all the news biggies have become entertainment channels.


Thor sez: Today on CATV, we look at the myth of dog as man's best friend.

Loki Sunday

Sorry about the kitten picture deprivation. Work was really sucky. When people ask me where I work, they inevitably say, "Oh that must be so much fun!" To which my stock reply is, "Yes, it is, but when it is bad, it is very bad." And we had a very bad.

But a nice lazy Loki Sunday allows us to reflect on the fact that Mother Nature isn't cruel, but that life and death are a natural part of the cycle. Those left behind, puzzled, hurting and shocked, we do our best to comfort them. The ones far, far too young to understand, we squeeze a little closer, we whisper to them words for the future, we shed tears for them.

It's all we can do.