Finally

Today the humidity got down to 54% so we made a meringue skeleton. Four people and a Chihuahua in my kitchen. Oy. Benny squeezed meringue out of the plastic bag onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Sadie watched the mixer beat eggs. Lydia saw to it the the result resembled a human skeleton. Porque Choppe worried. Ahno turned the mixer on and off. Then Lydia took two of the cookie pans home to bake some of the skeleton in her own oven. Benny stayed at Ahno's house to play Spyro: A Hero's Tale while more of the skeleton baked in Ahno's oven. Ahno deviled the rest of the eggs and made more origami locusts for Sunday's lesson on the plagues. A good day.

Skeletons, etc.

Gotta put on a rain poncho and splash out to the garage. I must find the big Halloween skeleton for Benny. Also, I forgot that today is make a meringue skeleton day with Benny. Bad, bad meringue weather. Too much rain and humidity.

Last night somehow I accidentally set the upstairs TV to Fox News at bedtime and was too sleepy to notice. Then at 5:00A.M. when I woke up and began to listen, at first I was glad to have the news on so that I could hear about all the rain. However, I soon got fed up with other "news" except for the part about the Israeli soldier that is the center of all the fuss. Boy, oh, boy. One thing you must say for those Israelis, they do not take it lightly when even one person is lost. This whole war over the last few days is about one teen-aged soldier. If I were his mother, I'd be thankful that the top brass has a policy of nobody gets left behind/nobody gets kidnapped. The US marines say that's their policy, too, but I don't know if the entire US military would go after one scared young kidnapped soldier like the Israelis are doing right now. This seems fair in a country where every single able-bodied teenager, boy or girl, must do a stretch in the military. Anyway, I'm really rooting for Israel on this one. I want them to get that boy back. Suspense. Drama. Reminds me of that little, story kids tell at camp, "I Want My Bone," where someone comes across a skeleton and takes a little bone. Then that night in the dark, far away a small voice is heard saying, "I want my bone." The bone thief shivers and hides under the covers of his bed as successively the voice gets closer and louder until finally, unable to stand the suspense any longer, the thief holds the bone out from under the covers and yells, "TAKE IT!" I'm hoping the kidnappers do that with the boy held prisoner as Israeli forces close in on them, shove the kid out into the street and yell, "TAKE HIM!"

Diet Day 2

Breakfast; Yesterday's supper was Shedd's Crock Mac 'N Cheese. Breakfast today was the left overs and 2 Xenadrine pills.
Projects for the day are to make a kazillion little move their mouth when you pinch the back origami frogs for Sunday. Also, must print out and cut out a page of sticker boils for Sunday. And I need to print out a page of little flies separate from their wings, then cut out all pieces, and glue the wings on, shape them as if flying, this to glue on frog tongues on Sunday. Also, this is answer the mail day. Furthermore this refried rain has made some of my staked sunflowers and tomatoes fall over, so I have to go out, rehammer the stakes, and tie them up. Later if I feel ambitious, I have library books to return and a book I need to return to a fellow veggie club member.
Lunch is going to be tuna salad with lettuce from home. Dinner is going to be eggplant in pasta sauce.

All this rain is just crazy. I need to check the garage to see if I have materials to start building an ark. The sump pump ran nearly non-stop last night. Every time we get an extra-big gush of rain, the yard two away fills with water until their back-yard storm drain can handle it all. They have been keeping the storm drain lid propped up and no doubt sticks and leaves will get in there and any minute now that drain will refuse further water...this end of the street is going to turn into a lake.

Lunchtime...

A key lime pie-flavored Breyers Light yogurt with 100 calories and a plate of cut up pieces of cauliflower with two tablespoons of blue cheese dressing to the tune of 150 calories for a total of 250 calories. Also two more Xenadrine pills amd some diet Mountain Dew. In a little while Benny will be here and I'm going to make umpteen origami moving-mouth frog heads for the lesson this coming Sunday on the plagues of Egypt. Should keep my mind off food for a while.

Diet

I absolutely must without fail succeed at a diet calculated to reduce my current tonnage, 168 lbs. So here's what is going to happen; starting today, not tomorrow, I'm going to do the following...
1)eat at the table only, no eating on the sofa or in front of the computer, etc, just at the table,
2)eat off dishes, no more eating out of plastic microwaveable containers,
3)make myself something really good once/day, no more eating chips because cooking for just me is too much trouble,
4)write down everything I eat, in this blog.

I'm going to treat this blog as if it were one of those 12-step meetings for fat people. Here I go. My name is Ahno and I am a fat person. I need everybody to help me be positive and stay on the weightloss wagon until I get down to 110 pounds at which point I can once again start munching my way back up into heart attack territory. Since I've got to lose 58 pounds, I count as morbidly obese, and I'm all properly, justifiably humiliated about that.

For breakfast I ate shredded carrots and cottage cheese mixed together. It was about 150 calories. I drank a cup of hot liquid as follows; water, a pinch of crushed hot pepper, a couple of squirts of real lemon, a half teaspoon of maple syrup, all of that microwaved. It adds up to less than 50 clories. With that I took two Xenacdrine pills.

Yay.

Just when I give up on life, just when I decide I've been there and done everything and there's no point in waking up each A.M., just about that time some crazy loon of an idea comes along to cheer me up. Lydia's friend Kristen got Lydia interested in something fun called geocaching. It's about using your GPS device to find stuff that others have hidden, taking something out, putting something in, rehiding the container, and moving on with your life. I was reading the associated site, geocaching.com, when I came upon the little story of a couple who do this and they found a plastic garden gnome bearing a note, "Help me get to Nome, Alaska." And there I was; hooked. How delightful.

So now it is my goal to hide things for Benny to find on his daily dog-walks. This will be hard because all the terrain they pass is private property, i.e. people's yards. Benny refers to geocaching as "treasure hunting" and likes to try to find something his little sister might want, which will show you what a dear little person he is. Which makes the decision easy, the one about what to hide. Sadie loves gaudy, sparkly jewelry. Every time she visits my house, she drags out all my old jewelry, the things I keep mostly for her sake, available in containers easily accessible to her. I'd geocache all those pieces except that each one of them is not only an example of very bad taste; it also goes with an outfit I wear at least once/year. So now I have a reason to look for garage sales and flea markets, the proper venue for the sort of jewelry Sadie appreciates. You see how one thing leads to another...and, of course, I happen to just love sales of junky things. Much as I adore garage sailing and flea marketing, I wouldn't ever go to one of them on my own behalf. This need for geocachable items appealing to Sadie, however, allows me to give myself permission. Elaborate, roundabout, but it's going to work for all parties. So there I am, all set with something new and entertaining to think about.

At geocaching.com I found that there are several hidden treasures right here in Colonial Place, on my dog walking route. From the comfort of this chair I already more or less located one of them...even without the help of a GPS device. Then I called Lydia and found that she and Benny have actually found this one, opened it, taken something, added something, and rehidden it. So now I'm going to take a bath, get dressed, then Porque Choppe and I will go to see if we, also, can spot this container. Lydia says that of the ones she's found, all are quite difficult to see, well-camouflaged.

So that's one reason to wake up today. Here's another. I've got to brush Porque Choppe's teeth. At the vet's I bought special chicken flavored dog toothpaste as well as a little brush that fits over my index finger. I expect that I'm going to get bitten because Porque does not tolerate anything she interprets as disrespect. Be that as it may, today's the day. I've got to soldier on to teach Porque something new and useful. since she's finally beginning to act like a dog over whom someone has toiled in the effort to teach the word, "Sit," it's time for a new challenge.

Last new and different activity for today...at last, finally getting started with Porque Choppe on using her litter box. I've allowed her to defeat me over this and that's gotta stop. I make excuses, my favorite of which is that it's not right to interfere with a dog's moral code if the dog is really living up to her beliefs. What beliefs? Well, Porque Choppe believes it's her duty to go potty upstairs in the front corner of my office on the papers I leave there for her. She trudges upstairs without fail even when she doesn't want to. For instance last night we slept downstairs in front of the TV because I was watching a back-to-back series of shows, on TLC, "Real Housewives of Orange County," and fell asleep somewhere along the way. I woke up briefly between 3:00 and 4:00 A.M. and so did Porque. She sat up, yawned, looked around and jumped down on the floor. She stretched. Looked all around at the dark house, clearly considered the possibility of being bad and just pottying on the floor downstairs , wearily abandoned that naughtiness and then all by her tiny self went upstairs in the dark to go potty in the right place. Now, that's living the life, walking the walk. I tell myself that this small dog has a code and she follows it and I shouldn't get between her and her dogly little conscience. But then I remember the litter box and also I remember that last time Lydia was here she carried on about how my house smells like a dog toilet and it's so bad that she can barely stand to come in the door....99% of which has got to be hyperbole since I can't smell what she's talking about and since I never allow any doggy business to accumulate, pick it right up and dispose of it. But maybe I'm senile; they say that your sense of smell is the first indicator of creeping senility; when it starts to go, you're headed for full-blown Altzheimers. On the outside chance that I'm going out of my mind and can't smell that my house is a dog toilet, I plan, today, to get cracking on the next big confrontation between Porque Choppe and civilization; the litter box.

The list;
1)find a garage sale/flea market where I can buy junk jewelry to geocache,
2)brush Porque's teeth and get my finger bitten to the bone,
3)make Porque go potty in the litter box.

Off To The Farm

The following words caught my attention, "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before..."

It's the secret of our Western economic success. We push ahead. Recently I read that as compared with the European workforce, a US worker takes far fewer vacation days/hours. Unbelievably many Americans go for years without ever seeing a day off the job.

We're going to "the farm" tomorrow to stay for a while...the first time in three years. I've avoided that place because sad and depressing things that happened there. Philippians 3 tells me to look ahead, reach out, and start running. What do you think?

Love It

This morning, peering through the salty sweat that dripped into my eyes, hanging onto Porque Choppe's leash, toiling along in the heat, it suddenly struck me, "I love my home." I'm very blessed to live where I do in Colonial Place in Norfolk.

Ordinarily I'm all about what's wrong with my life, but this morning I saw the bright side. Yes, I had to walk the chihuahua in weather ninety degrees hot at 9:00 A.M. Yes, that's hard for someone of my physical dimensions to do. However, I live in a wonderful place. This is just the greatest neighborhood. Every house is interesting. If there's a place on earth that repays daily inspection, it's Colonial Place. The magnolias in bloom, the gardenias in bloom, the enormous old trees. Flowers on every lawn and on every corner. The quiet. Evidence that almost every single big old home is loved and maintained with pride. Some houses look like they got the benefit of a pretty good income aimed their way. Others seem to run on sweat and effort. Almost all of them looked lovely this morning.

Faith Without Works

There's a vast gulf fixed between mental assent to a good idea and behavior that demonstrates genuine belief. I'm talking about being fat, here. Every single time I read an article about good health practices such as exercise and dietary restraint, I agreed whole-heartedly. When on television I see skinny people, I say to myself, "Well, there you go. Do like that." And then shortly I find myself somehow situated in front of the screen with an open bag of chips in hand. At meal time I do not choose to eat lettuce, cauliflower, a glass of water, a straw, and a toothpick. I eat something lip-smacking good. So I think that if I were to be honest, I'd have to confess that I truly believe in being fat. Mental assent is worth nothing. I am a practicing fat person.

You know, I'm probably a complete reprobate from good sense if I were to conduct a morality audit. The fact that I 'm not an enthusiastic practitioner of every possible vice probably has more to do with lack of energy/inclination/opportunity than with high personal standards. I'm completely uninterested in crack or in pornography or in actual promiscuity, gossip sounds boring, the very idea of gambling is a yawner, see no point whatsoever in smoking, could not possibly be less attracted to any of that. So it's not a credit to me that I don't fall into those ways to be bad. I'm not tempted. Macaroni and cheese, however, oh, yeah. Mashed potatoes and gravy, wahoo. A double cheeseburger, mmmmhm. Big sack of wavy potato chips/dill pickle chips/cheetos/salt and vinegar chips/doritoes, absolutely.

Once I heard a sermon during which the minister said, "The greatest part of this congregation would not lose a second of opportunity to castigate one of the church's young people for misbehavior such as partying and promiscuity. A kid caught doing either of those things would never live down the shame nor would his/her parents. This needs to stop. Reason? The only explanation for the fact that you old folks are not out and about raising hell on weekends is that you are too tired, lumpish, inert, and just plain unattractive." Had a point. Given that my moral fiber is not sufficient to carry me past potato chips, I'm in no shape to point fingers of scorn toward those tempted in other ways.

Crazy Crazy

Life is always a surprise. Yesterday I opened the mail and a box of cards fell out. The other day I sat at the car dealership waiting for service and got into talk with my fellow waiters as we watched Fox News together. Clearly my fellow waiters were passionate Republicans. So in the interest of peace and goodwill I moderated my usual discourse from flaming expressions of disgust for the present administration. Having nothing good to say, I said almost nothing. Then on the TV something was said about those packs of cards which came out along with the early days of the "War on Terror," the cards with the pictures of prominent terrorists we wanted to arrest. I said that I regret not buying one of those card packs while they were still for sale. One of my fellow waiters handed me paper and pen and said, "Give me your address. I'll give you a set." Come to find out, he's in military intelligence. No, I didn't tell him that the words "military intelligence" are oxymoronic. He said that he had lots of those sets and would be glad to give me one. I wrote out my address and forgot the whole thing. Then yesterday, there were the cards. Gracious sake. Imagine. A whole, complete and total surprise.

Second surprise...today on the neighborhood e-list, a woman said that yesterday when she and family got home from church, one of her kids noticed a woman in a tree beside their house. Her husband rushed out but not fast enough to catch the woman who escaped in an old car. The woman had disturbed things in enough places to give them the impression that she'd had lots of time to look for what she wanted, but actually had not stolen anything by the time they got home. Imagine. A grown woman climbing down a tree to escape from your house. Crazy.

Beat Down Senior Stupidity

Everyone needs to do his/her bit and I will certainly cintribute my share of suffering to the cause; as much as possible we must minimize that dreaded stupidity of old people which each senior citizen sees peering out from the mirror more and more audacioucsly each day. Methods? Well, fortunately, I just read about the completion of two studies. In one, lab rats, surely the very archetype of the human race, lab rats were fed 70% of the food which they, the rats, considered necessary to keep body and soul together. After six months of this misery, those rats were killed as were the happy, fat control group rats. Rats autopsies revealed this fact; those starved rats had outstanding kidney, lung, and liver function as well as tippy top brain function that showed none of the awful signs of aging found in the brains of the fat rats. Second study; people who did a sickening amount of exercise each day were found to have splendid brain function as compared with happier people who mostly just sat around watching TV. so, in order to stay smart, people should practically starve themselves as well as force themselves into brutal exercise. After six months of this, the hungry fit elderly person is smarter than the average oldster...and likely to live longer so as to be abole to enjoy even more self abuse.

I may be fat and unexercised but I get the idea. If I want to be sentient versus somnulent, I must get hungry and I must sweat. I'm doin' it. Don't nag. I'm doin' it. For breakfast today I had a cup of water into which was poured a teaspoon of maple syrup and a few tablespoons of lemon juice and a pinch of hot pepper prior to the whole thing going into the microwave long enough to get good and hot. With that, I ingested two vitamin pills guaranteed to jack up my energy level to previously unimagined levels. And now I'm shutting down the cocmputer in order to go outside and walk my fat chihuahua around the neighborhood.

Cheffing

When I cook, I like to go off in a direction I have not previously visited. So I just did two new dishes and who knows how they'll taste when finished.

Flounder
I rolled each fillet in cornmeal/salt/pepper, put all the fish into a roasting pan and over the fish I poured this mixture...cut up red pepper/a minced onion/about half a cup of fresh lime juice/about a third of a cup of soy sauce. That's all baking right now.

Side Dish 1
Julienned carrots, apple chunks, dried apricot bits, glazed walnuts, minced celery, grapes cut in half.
Into that I mixed about 3/4 of a cup of light mayonnaise and some salt and some Splenda to which I added about half a cup of lemon juice and about half a cup of orange juice.

Side Dish 2
In a few minutes I'm going to make little rolls. I'll get all the ingredients wrapped in phyllo dough and then bake. The ingredients are crumbled and cooked chorizo plus corn plus an egg plus some sour cream plus some salsa.

Ten I'm going to boil some bow tie pasta to add to side dish 1. Finally, I'll microwave some bacon super crisp and crumble that on top of side dish 1.

A three-dish dinner. I hope that some of it is good.

Big Whoop Dee Doo

This morning I attended a celebration for the fifth-graders at Monroe School, the ones who will be promoted. What a sight. Those poor,little children were dressed to death. All the girls had on what looked like prom dresses or maybe wedding dresses, white from head to toe. The boys wore suits with white shirts and ties. Where they got money for clothes like these I can't imagine. They looked fabulous. The school staff wore all-white from head to toe, also. Some interesting outfits. Kids were dressed way better than the teachers.

It was a beautiful ceremony. The children sang wonderfully, conducted by the music teacher. They sang two parts and it was lovely. They pledged allegiance to the flag, they prayed. They marched in to Pomp And Circumstance. Everyone was terribly serious. The parents were excited, waving cameras and calling out to their children to smile. First there was a speaker, a state senator who gave a truly magnificent speech, "Say Yes To Success." She talked about the nuts and bolts of success, how to go about getting it, what to do, what to avoid. A killer-good speech.

At time for awards, the prizes were real money as well as plaques. Each of the children who did extraordinarily well, got a check for $100.00. Quite a few students were honored for doing well on the standards of learning tests. Several had made perfect scores and received letters of commendation signed by the President of the United States...which bombed because parents booed heartily when George Bush was named. I guess that audience is still mad at him for the way he responded to Hurricane Katrina. He may not care, but I don't think the Republican Party is going to get votes from the Monroe School precinct.

After the ceremony, there was a pie and ice cream social. I didn't have any but it looked good.

My feeling is that Monroe School is as good a place as a child can hope to be for six hours every school day grades K-5. The teachers and administrators really love those kids and do their best for them. If I had Bill Gates' income, I would have come home and written a check for each of the staff, enough to give them a really great summer vacation. They work long and hard at a discouraging job and they do their work very, very well.

Bad News /Good News

Bad...
Has anyone besides me noticed the ghoulish, creepy joy manifest in the news re. the killing of this Al-Zarkawi? I was very offended when a US plane went down and Iraqis danced around it happily becuse Americans were dying in there. That was just disgusting. "What kind of savage, violence-oriented people are they?" I thought. Well, it seems to me we're being just as bad over this A-Zarkawi thing. However horrible he was, he was a human soul, and now he's gone to his eternal reward, whatever that may be. Not exactly a happy prospect for him, I fear, given the way he lived and died. Maybe he had to be killed, but now that he's dead, we shouldn't whoop it up and dance in the streets. It's a solemn thing to take someone's life. A terrible responsibility. In my opinion, anyone jumping for joy is no better than those primitive, dreadful Iraqis who laughed it up when Americans were dying in front of them.

Good...
I figured out how to rig up my solar lights. They now sit in four flower pots on the steps up to my porch. It was easy.

Proposed Constitutional Amendment

Re. this recent brouhaha in Congress, the fight over an attempt to amend the US Constitution in order to forbid nontraditional marriage...I notice that major opposition to nontraditional marriage comes from people of conscience who hope to be God’s hands punishing those whom they believe have disobeyed God’s rules.
I’d like to point out something to this group of "God's punishers"; the only person I ever knew to be hit by the proverbial bolt from the blue was a kid at Scout Camp running across a field in a thunder storm. To punish people on God’s behalf is presumptuous, absurd, and short-sighted. God clearly is not busting anybody and He could if He wanted to. I've read the Bible, many times. I know all about those passages where God opened up the earth to swallow someone, rained fire on others, sent a great flood to eliminate others.

Is God doing those maneuvers nowadays? Apparently not because most of the world is doing wrong with both hands and nobody's getting zapped. Shouldn't some righteous soul rise up and scourge the rest of the planet back onto it's knees before God? No. God can handle any scourging that He feels should happen. My God is not an action figure that needs me to pick Him up and make Him do His moves. I have no sense that poor little God relies on me to punish all the wrong doers who disrespect Him daily in word, thought, and deed. Here's the bottom line; each of us has only so long here on this planet. My time may be brief and I haven’t enough energy to do all the good I know to do. I don’t need to waste any of my remaining time on Earth bashing people on what I imagine to be God’s behalf. Suggestion; anyone who’d like to punish a sinner should start with himself and see if it does any good.

Wrecch Manor

Lydia and Dan are house shopping. Perennially. They're never NOT house shopping. Is their house a little ugly one? Not at all. They have a nice, big house in the historic district. However, they want a nicer, bigger house in the toniest neighborhood of them all. Now, after endless trips to see this and that house, they finally made an offer and put down earnest money.

So what's the house like, the one they want to buy? It is horrible beyond hope.
The roof not only leaks. It has holes. Rain actually has poured down through three floors of house into the basement. Since it rained today, there was rain water everywhere. The floors are all wiggly and wobbly and sag underfoot. Mold is visible everywhere, thick, black mold.

In each room, one sees dreadful dingbats of furniture/appliances/the stuff of daily life. Whoever lived there, just walked out and left his clothes, computer, everything. Who is this guy? He's the anchor for Channel 10, WAVY News. ????? Hmmm.

So why would anyone try to buy something like this? Because it is a house of great, romantic charm. It drips...oops...with character. Once all fixed up, it would be a magnificent home. Bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms, offices, sitting rooms, play rooms for one and all, delightfully arranged...although leaking and moldy just now.

Playin' Trains With Sadie Grace

The train was for Benny. He ignored it for months, though, so I put it away. Last week he dug it out of the closet and set it up, played with it. The train seemed to experience of renaissance of fashionableness. Benny plays with it by the hour.

Then the other day Sadie disappeared. Couldn't find her anywhere. Heard the little telltale clicketty clack. My my. There she was. Little tiny girl playing with Benny's train. She'd figured out how to make it go forward and backward, how to add and subtract cars, how to put people on the train and take them off. How to roll lumps of coal down into a train car. She was deeply into it at age two.

This morning as soon as her mother and Benny left for Benny's violin lesson, small Sadie Grace said to me, "Tummon, Ahno. Fowwow me," and she stumped upstairs, calling over her shoulder, "Porque!! Tummon, baby dog." To my surprise, Porque obeyed, dashed up the stairs and sat waiting for Sadie who paused to pat little dog and say, "Dood dog. Sit. Stay," as she moved on trainward.

Once in a while she precipitates a terrible accident and then sits there, the image of mock tragedy, throws both hands out to the side, shuts her eyes and throws back her head as she wails, "I tant DO it!" I always say, "Sure you can. Fix the trains and use the controller." She always replies, rolling her eyes dramatically, shaking her nead, "No, Ahno. I tant DO it." So I go ahead and fix everything, ask for the controller, turn on the train and Sadie shrieks joyfully, " I DID it.!"

By now Sadie is in her second hour of train play. She sends the little cars this way and that, runs them off the track and shrieks, "Oh, NO! Wait. I'll det it. LemME fix it." She puts everything back on the track and holds up the controller, "I dot it. I dust LOVE it." She hugs the controller to her heart.

Crime

We live at the mercy of evil overlords who come by night to smash out door glass, accumulate electronic tools and toys, remove them. Two weeks ago the house across the street met this fate. Last night it was a house behind me. Leaving me, uneasily, in the middle.

A couple of nights ago, three streets behind me a gang of bad guys went down the middle of the street slashing tires to their right and to their left. Got every single car on the street. How do I know the perps operated from center-street? A little old lady saw them at it.

The community e-list begs us, "Please, keep your porch light on all night. Also, install solar, motion-detecting lights." Why? Because in this historic neighborhood, the street lights are faux gas lamps which provide about as much illumination as a jar full of fire flies.

Day before yesterday I was out doing my water and weeds thing. A young fashion statement approached the house across the street where I knew the occupants to be away at work. This lad wore those pants that make it almost to the wearer's butt crack. Also he wore the ghetto-obligatory, too-big t-shirt and baseball cap. Worst, he seemed uneasy, looking to his right and left, around and around, clearly scoping out the environment. I didn't have a cell phone with which to call the police. If I had abandoned my yard job and gone indoors to get a phone, the effort would have taken at least twenty minutes since I'm old/slow. My heart pounded, "I shouldn't just let that kid do whatever he's about to do, but how can I stop him?" The young man surreptitiously approached the door, looking over his shoulder. He had something in his hand, but not a key. Was it a credit card to use on an easy lock? At the last second before he disappeared indoors, I shrieked, "HEY!!! YOU!! Whadaya think YOU'RE doing?" He jumped guiltily, looked all around, failed to see me, and dashed down the sidewalk, out of sight. Whew! Close one.

All of which qualifies this street for a little sign down by the light on the corner, "Warning. This street protected by irate senior citizen." Oh, yeah. I have a chihuahua, too.

Popularity

I suppose there's such a thing as being too popular. How do you know if you're in the danger zone? You're there if every time Mom and Dad show up to get the kids, there's howling and crying, if they argue about going home, want to stay. That's no fun.

Why would children act this way? Because Grandma spoils them rotten, that's why. If every time a child asks for something, Grandma coos, "Of course, sweetheart, whatever you want," that's spoiling the little darlings with both hands. Grandma's house means unlimited sweet treats, video games, movies, anything requested. Grandma is the one who buys the entire Walter, The Farting Dog series, the Compleat Captain Underpants body of work. Grandma's house is where the word, "NO," does not happen.

Do I spoil Benny and Sadie? Darn right, and that's the way it's going to be. Period. I feel no responsibility whatsoever to teach children about healthy choices. At my house, a balanced meal might include oreo sticks with frosting dip, ice cream cones, and cheetos. The other day I heard about a grandma who always keeps carrot sticks and celery for the kids. HAHAHAHHA! What a sap.

No, it isn't nice at the end of a visit, to hear sobs and pleas of sweet little, adorable little ones trying to avoid going home to sanity and the rule of law. But I'm not about to change. I'm more than aware that the road to my house is the road to ruin, and that's how I like it. Maybe once/year children get a trip to Disney. All the rest of the year, though, they have Grandma, doyenne of the true magic kingdom....her house.

Recital

A good music recital happens when at least one child makes a donkey of him/herself, misbehaves. Another good thing is where the children perform poorly, stumble around, start and restart, get all sweaty and stressed. Today's recital, by these standards, was a failure; all the children behaved and they all played very well. Everyone and everything was just lovely. Yawn. I miss the bad old days when Benny created awful disturbances, jousted with his violin bow, yelled cheerily at his parents who cowered in the cheap seats, turned his back on the audience at time to play, put down his violin, laid on the floor and waved his feet in the air. Today Benny played wonderfully and was a gentleman. Such a shame. End of an era.

Saturday

Once in a long weary while I wake up having actually slept. Today was that day. Wahoo! I slept for at least seven straight hours. This is so nearly mythological that it required celebration, sacrifice, and libations. First the celebration; I jumped out of bed. That's big for me; I usually crank myself into sitting position; a slow, unwilling process accompanied by whines, groans, similar expressions of negativity. Next the sacrifice; I pulled on yesterday's clothes, combed my hair with my fingers, hitched up the chihuahua, and clomped forth to walk...except, oops, rain. Went back for a poncho. Down the sidewalk again. Porque tolerated the rain only long enough to pump herself out then turned for home, winching me along. She would have continued on this "walk" if I carried her under the poncho but what's the good of that? I just do these walks for benefit of the dog; I, myself, radiate the sort of fitness valued among the terminal decrepitude community. Finally, libations; I made myself a big breakfast salad and offered two little pieces of lettuce to the floor. Maybe under-sink rodents will eat the lettuce and maybe I'll just have to tidy it after a while, but I put it where, well...I put it. So, I slept and then expressed appropriate appreciation. Now, after a three-tea-bag cup of caffeine, I need to iron an outfit, take a bath, and dress. Big violin recital this morning. The Great Bennini will perform.

Loitering in the Mall

I have a very small appetite for the mall, but once in a while is good. Today we took baby Sadie for new sandals. Then Benny needed a summer, boot-camp-style haircut to keep his brains cool. Then I wanted new cheapo sandals, so we went to Payless and bought a pile of stuff on sale. Paused for a moment of respect for the passing of beloved April Cornell, now bankrupt and gone. Then we accidentally went into The Children's Place and bought each child a killer outfit. I see why that company's stock has done so well recently. Great, great merchandise. The choices are truly fabulous. After that we let the kids run their legs off at the mall play area while we drank lattes and ate biscotti. Then we took Benny's dog, Leroy, to the dog park so that he, too, could run his legs off. Finally Lydia had to deliver something to a guy who lives an an unspeakably seedy part of Norfolk. Made me feel on arrival at my own domicile that I pretty much live at Windsor Castle. A gratitude enhancing experience, you might say. Then at last back home. The mailman had been here in my absence and he left me the July issue of Gourmet Magazine, my favorite. All good. My payless sandals look great with the newly painted toenails.

High Class Nail Job

This morning for the first time in my life, at age 62 I got my nails done, both hands and feet. It took about an hour and a half. First they set me in a gigantic vibrating chair with a hot tub for my feet. The hot tub with massaging jets of bubbles rushing around and between my toes felt tickly but good. I probably sat there for twenty minutes before the work began. An extremely spoil-the-customer process designed to make me feel fussed-over and relaxed.

This was a no-decor sort of place, low key. A mother and daughter own the business and do all the work. There was a TV up in the corner, a couple of unimpressive plants, a sofa, and all the rest was bare except for work stations. From what I could see, it was an old-lady clientele. I had the first appointment. Next to arrive was a retired neurologist and his frail elderly wife. They both got pedicures. Since they, like me, are chihuahua owners, we all talked dogs, particularly since the shop owner is also a chihuahua enthusiast who just lost her dog to old age. The phone rang constantly. Before 10:00 A.M. all available time slots were taken for most of next week. Busy. Busy.


After the doctor and his wife left, next to arrive was an extremely old woman who had been given a gift certificate by one of her kids. Apparently she hadn't used the certificate and her kids pestered her so this was an alright-alright-I'm-doing-it situation.

Once work began on my toenails, the technician asked to see my choice from the color line-up. I held up the bottle. She shrieked, "No! No! Bad for you! Not good at all. Ugly color. Give me that! I go now and pick good color. You like it very much." She was of some oriental ancestry and language. The color I'd chosen was a sparkling gold. The technician chose instead a pinkish cranberry.

As she toiled away using this and that tool and device, I asked, "Is this one of those salons where you do the little designs and pictures and embed rhinestones, etc?"

She literally shuddered, looked like a person halfway between throwing up and eating a lemon...between puckered and puking. Clearly my question affected her deeply. She breathed dramatically, raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead and replied sternly, "My clientele is not of the sort to appreciate things of that, uh, caliber."

I suggested, "By things of that sort, you mean flash and trash, the Las Vegas effect?"

"Exactly," she affirmed, "Nothing like that in THIS shop."

So after a while I found myself on the way home, my nails all nicely done in a style and color suitable for grandmas.

It was fun to get my nails done. I'm going to make it a regular thing, but next time, I'm getting an appointment at one of those er, uh, more, um, well...at a place more likely to do rhinestone designs, if you know what I mean. I may be old, I may be sick, I may have both feet on the proverbial banana skin at the edge of the grave, but I like flash and trash.