Sunday, June 28, 2009

350 pounds and growing

"I'll have the feelin' puhleeze", and " I'll have the 12 pack of Cheeikan" were the words I heard all day today. Well, that's not entirely true, in the morning I heard things like "I'll have two sausage and bacon Beeiscuts, puhleeze".

Most of these people weighed about 350 pounds, well, maybe some weighed about 300 but you git the jist.

Where on earth was I to hear that stuff all day? Oh, I was at the local grocery store deli. I got hired yesterday and started work today. Pay and hours aren't bad, busy atmosphere, the day mostly whizzed by. I was given an hour-long lunch break. In the morning I wondered just what would I do for a whole hour, but after working for 6 hours I was more than ready for an hour to chill out and get off my poor screaming feet.

The deli served breakfast and lunch, all fatty stuff, fried stuff, eggs, sausage patties, the greasiest bacon I've ever seen, and lunch was fried chicken, chicken filling, or, as the locals call it, 'feelin'. I had to quench the urge to say something like, "feelin? you ain't gettin' no feelin here, I don't feel people!" And "You really don't need to eat fried food, how about some green beans?"

But the customer is always right, go ahead, eat yourself to death. At least I have something to do now. And I'm getting paid for it! That's always a good perk.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Alfred Hitchcock in real time

Remember the movie 'The Birds', where all these crazy black birds attack a town and wreak havoc? I don't remember what set Alfred's birds off but I know what set my yard birds off and I'll tell you.

The darned cat caught a little baby birdy. Ok, the cat does stuff like that, he's a cat, fer cryin' out loud. But he just happened to pick on the meanest bird-family in the yard. These little creatures, no more than a handful, are grey with white spots on the tops and undersides of their wings. You can only see the spots when they are in flight.

They have a very distinct vocabulary; Chirp, Chirp, trilllll, Chirp, trilllll, Chirp, and so on. And they're mean. Oh, I did say that, didn't I? I have seen them dive-bombing crows, and the crows run like hell, which is weird, since crows are at least 3 times bigger than these little buggers, and crows are WAY louder, 'CAW, CAW'! But for all their big-ness and loud calls, they still run like hell.

Well, guess who else runs like hell? I do. Back to the innocent little baby birdy. The cat has this little creature captured in his mouth under the porch and two of these little killer birds are having a FIT. Flitting all over the porch, sitting on the rails, chairs, Chirping and trilling.. I came out to see what all the racket was about and got dive-bombed by one of them.

I extracted the un-injured baby birdy out of the cat's mouth, banished him to the inside and released the innocent baby birdy onto the grass. Baby birdy flies away, problem solved, right?

WRONG!

Several hours, I say SEVERAL hours later, I went out the back door, opposite side of the house from the bird incident, to get my laundry off the line. "Chirp, Chirp, Trill", I find the talking bird on the edge of the roof. "Chirp, Chirp, Trill", I see the other one on a pole behind me. The cat walks across the lawn to lay at my feet, good little kitty, and on the way towards me one of the killer birds dive-bombed him. Straight out of the air, zoooooom, pecked at the cat's tail on the way by. Now don't tell me those birds remember!! ?? I started to wonder about me, I had my grubby little hands on cute little baby birdy too.

Sure enough, they set up, one on each side of me, and started calling back and forth, and, to my surprise, calling in back-up troops. Now I had 4, that's FOUR killer birds Chirping and trilling, surrounding me and making a plan of attack.

As I reached up to the cloths line to take an item down, two of them swooped down off the roof and buzzed between my arm and my head, screaming all the way.

I don't know what kind of birds they are, or how long they remember that the cat and I murdered their cute little baby birdy, but I think I'll stay in this evening. Man, I hope they forget!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Restaurants and Grief




This is the Maternal Figure, you know, the one who inspired most of my blogs. Well, ok, some of them were a little on the grouchy side, and this blog might get grouchy too, I'm not sure yet.


Read on!


I have been kind of out of sorts this weekend, I hate weekends anyway, nothing to do, things aren't open, can't make any phone calls, and it's been too hot to breath outside. So I've been stuck in the house, bored out of my mind.


But wait! Don't just sit around and feel sorry for yourself, DD, go DO something. Yeahhh, why didn't I think of that hours and hours ago? Oh, that's right, it was too hot outside to breath. But as nature will have it, (after all, it's not nice to fool mother nature anyway), it cools off in the evenings. Well, a little, anyway.


So I decide to get in my car and GO somewhere, Oh, how about the state park? Ah, yes, go see the river. So I gits out my bug spray, pour a thermos of homemade ice tea with a touch of rasberry flavor and goes out to start the car. Vroom, vroom, come on, AC, cool this buggy off!


The park was nice, they must have just mowed, everything was neat and tidy. And nearly devoid of any human presence. I found some people swimming in the river, and moved on. I took a road that looked like it would go forever in the woods, 'camping this-a-way' 'no dumping' and 'port-a-potties that-a-way' , the signs directed and announced. I saw some deer, shooting accusatory glances at me as they scuttled off the road. I parked in an empty lot near a play ground and walked to the river, wondering if I would be bitten by a poisonous snake or murdered by a woods-bum that might look a bit like Sasquatch.


Of course, I'm home typing this, so I survived the trip, (in case anyone was wondering). Well, I sort of survived the trip :(

I decided to stop at a little cafe in town, the one where the one-and-only hotel is. I ordered a delicious Chicken Scampi and sat back to enjoy the old guy who was playing blues and singing. I remembered that the last time I was in that restaurant and there was entertainment (better the last time, btw), I was with the Maternal Figure. She had the Catfish and ate like a hog. She shared her pecan pie with me. She sat right over there... Ok, I'm ok with that, just a nice memory. I chews my chicken, listens to the old guy croon, all is well.


A young woman, (ha ha, young, she was about my age!) came up to sing with the old crooner, all is well, she was good. She finished a song, I clapped, then she introduces her Mother, who was up from Florida on a visit. (Mama was small and frail, just about the same size as my Maternal Figure). "And Mama's favorite song is 'over the rainbow' and she's gonna sing with me, so a big hand for Mama!"


The old thing hobbled up to the mike and they sang together, arms around each other and looking at each other, smiling, singing, The old lady was really out of tune but it was clear the daughter was relishing every sour noted moment with her Mother.

I must be allergic to 'Over the rainbow' because for some strange reason I noticed that the room was getting blurry. Uh Oh, I realized I was going to do something embarrasing in a restaurant like CRY. I wolfed one more bite, found my waitress, paid the bill and sniffled my way out to the car. 'Geez', I was thinking, 'when is this grief crap going to be over?' Oh, what the hell, I'm in the car, I'll let the tears do thier thing. I told the car to take me home but it had other ideas, it took me to the cemetary. Ok, geez, I'll do the right thing and cry at her grave.
The picture you see before the Maternal Figure is my Pekingese, Kelita. She died in 'o6. I never thought I would grieve as hard as I did for Kelita. Maybe I was wrong..



Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Playing Tag

Cricket and Lady, this is my '10th' pic in my documents. I rescued Cricket first, she's the paint on the left. Sweet, sweet horse, about 10 years old, good rider, really nice horse. When I brought her home she was starved to bone, no, really, she was skin and bones. I had never seen such a skinny horse until I met Lady, the one on the right.

It turned out that Cricket and Lady were stable mates in their other life, they knew each other and were glad to be back together. After kissing and nickering to each other, Lady fell into the leadership role she obviously played before she came to me. She (Lady) is a pure Mustang, complete with the tattoo showing that she was rounded up from the wild somewhere out west.

Lady was also a sweet horse, I think she was a barrel racer or perhaps a roping horse in her other life, when I got on her for the first ride she went right to work, looking for something to go around or round up. Once I got her settled down into 'gentle riding horse' mode, she became a true pleasure to ride. It was hard to decide who to ride, they were both so willing and gentle.

I fed them as much grain and hay as they wanted and each put on the additional 100 or so pounds they needed to be normal looking again. I sold them to a young couple with small children. When they came to look at the horses the decision to buy was an easy one for them. Lady took to the young wife very well and the husband fell in love with Cricket. Job well done, the horses survived a year of so of starvation, learned to trust people again and now have a great home. That's my 10th picture and I'm sticking to it! Who's next?

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Back to school,

There is a movie called "Billy Madison", starring Adam Sandler. It is a silly movie about a rich, spoiled kid who's father owns a huge Hotel chain. Billy is (supposedly) an adult, out of school, but spends all his time drinking around the pool with his two loser buddies.

Daddy worked hard his whole life building the Hotel chain hoping to pass the business on to his son, but decides to give the chain to one of his employees as the son is nothing but a drunken loser that acts like a total goof and chases imaginary penguins around the mansion riding in a golf cart.

Billy gets a wake-up call when he discovers he's about to lose his inheritance, thus promising 'Daddy' he will go back to school, starting with first grade, all the way through to 12th. He promises to attend each grade for two weeks, passing each one without 'Daddy' paying off the teachers.

It's a silly movie with some toilet humor, some sexual content, (of course), and some off-color language. After some naughty school-boy behaviour, Billy settles down and graduates, his father throws a big party, Billy hooks up with his third grade teacher and gets control of the Motel Chain.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, I'll just tell ya! I have been taking some practice ACT tests online, and found that I TANK in math. Ok, I worked on it, got a little better, but still have questions. What the heck are all those 'x's, r's and y's' anyway? And how the heck can I know how old susie is if she is 5 years older than joe and johnny is 6 years older that susie and the total age is 41, how the heck old is everyone? Yeah, a lot of work to do here.

So I decided to go to the grammar exam, make myself feel good with a passing grade. WRONG! Tank, flush and drain away. GEEZ. (Just read this and see what I know about grammer!)

So I goes over the exam and discovered that I know a bunch of the stuff, I didn't PAY ATTENTION to the details in the questions. Like if the words 'math, english and science' are all in a sentence, and they all are written in LOWER CASE letters, than that's IT. So, don't go and correct the dumb sentence by putting a capitol letter in front of one of them.

So after stomping around the yard muttering to my imaginary penguin, I decided to put my nose back in the game and PAY ATTENTION. Brains, anyone, brains? Send some my way please!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

How big is the party gonna be?

Well, funeral day is here. I went to have my 'private viewing' yesterday. guess it's some kind of southern thing, or maybe I just don't know because I haven't had the pleasure of gazing on a dead body in, oh, about 3 decades or so.

So I goes to the funeral home, the guy offers me a look-see. His query, 'do you want some private time with yore Mama" sounded more like, "Here, I'll show you where she is 'cause I know you wanna go gawk at her". He sat back in one of the chairs, looking like the man he was trying to be, 'it's ok, suhweety, I'll hold you when (not if, WHEN) you collapse cause it's so hard to lose your Mama".

"How does she look?" What a question. She looks dead. How's she supposed to look? I just wonder why they made her so hard and cold. So mean old me says, "a bit much on the makeup, lipstick? I requested no lipstick". "Oh, honey", (don't call me honey when I'm having a bad day); "Oh honey, her lips were discoloured. and her skin needed a little touching up". Ok, why did you make her smile/grimace? "Oh, honey, her mouth was hangin open, you didn't want that, did you"? Ok, ok, leave it alone, she's gone, it's just a shell, I'll never look at her grimace again, forget it.

"I washed her pretty hair, blah blah" the guy was rambling on. Know what I wanted to ask? I wanted to ask how did he suck the brain out, did he use an old Egyptian method?

Geez, I'm so weird. I didn't ask.

So Kid # 1 isn't here, work work work. (guess it could have been me stuck in California on a load and someone else doing this crap, Oh, I'm not that lucky)!

Kid #2 decided to have a temper fit, not answer his phone, not return my call. Instead he called Kid #4 and ranted about how he wants that money and I refused to allow him and his wife to stay at my house for the funeral. What a jerk, (bless his heart), I never told him he couldn't stay here, it was never even discussed. Supposedly he's not coming but I bet he sneaks in at planting time. Did I say What a Jerk? Yeah, I think so, but I'll say it again. Sheesh.

Kid #4 decided not to come, too much tension between Jerk, oops, my fingers slipped; Kid #2 and myself. Oh, and the guy he had to see to get travel rights closed 8 minutes before he got there. He still could have made the trip but he's got his own thing with anger and confusion. He wants pics of the funeral. Icky, but ok.

So that leaves Kid #3, me, mahself and I, bless mah heart, an Uncle, Aunt and one cousin. And half the neighbor hood, hospice, nursing home staff, maybe a few crows and, if we're lucky, an armadillo or two. Cat has to stay home, poor creature, he's been a mess. How do cats know, anyway? Oh, and maybe a raindrop or two might show up, who knows?

So, goodbye, Mom, see ya on the other side.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Another day at the nursing home

Well, yesterday marked the end of one phase and the beginning of a new one. Sort of, kind of I guess..

Ok, well, the funeral stuff is all arranged, I wish it was tomorrow and not the day AFTER tomorrow. Just want to get it done.

Yeah! I can sleep now with both ears closed, not wonder if tonight will be the night-of-the-fatal-phone-call. So why am I awake? SHEESH!

I took the wheel chair back this morning, guess I'm not ready to use it myself and I was tired of looking at it anyway. I'm glad the nursing home thing is over. Yesterday an old man caught my attention, calling to me and holding his hand out. Dumb dumb here reached out towards him and he lunged for me and grabbed my wrists, pulling me in towards me. Aw geez, old man, don't make me slug you, he had a grip that was strong enough to almost drop me to my knees. (And I'm not going to my knees for any old dirt bag, let me tell you!)

I pried myself loose, I didn't care if I had to walk away with out anything past my wrists, let the old geezer have my hands, but LET ME GO! Dirty old slob, that'll learn me to reach out to some old fart that looks weak. I said something to the nurse, she said no woman there dares get too close to him unless they know he's sleeping. Good grief. Bless his heart...

I went out to the patio as I waited for Maternal Figure to become an angel or what-ever, and I heard one of the nurses talking, no, gossiping about another. "She shore is fond of being late for work, bless her heart," one said. Another said, "Yay-ya, and she shore is puttin' on, Bless her heart". (Gaining weight, is what 'puttin' on' means). Bless their hearts...

Ok, I couldn't stand it anymore, what's up with this gossip followed by 'bless her heart' anyway?
The ladies giggled and snickered. Come to find out, an insult or gossip followed by 'bless her heart' makes the bad talk ok. After all, asking for some kind of blessing is a good thing, right?

Yeah, but, (I can't leave stuff alone, had to push the parameter), I heard someone say my Mother is SO sweet, bless her heart..... So do you say Bless her heart no matter what or is my Mother really not such a sweet thing after all? They giggled, and said, "Oh, bless your heart".

So I guess bless your/her/his heart is just an ending, like a period. "That guy's a jerk. Period". Or, said in southern-ese, "That guy's a jerk, bless his heart".

So, Y'all have a goodun, C'mon back now, ya hear? Bless your heart.