Sites of note

"While I was web-surfing at 4:30 this morning," she casually started, "I ran into something pretty cool: a goldfish bowl with an office in it." Don't believe her? Here is the pic:

It's only $25 at www.fredflare.com. How did I find it? Well, I was on a writers' site looking at different magazines participating in a writers' conference, when I saw the editor of O magazine was going to be there. O is "o"wned by the Hearst Corporation, who doesn't usually use free lancers, although there are a few of their smaller magazines who do. I had had the notion that O did not. So I clicked over to O magazine's website to look for writers' guidelines. Did not see them, but did see the cutest little stapler for only $6 that does not use staples. One of Oprah's Favorites. So of course I clicked on the hyperlink, which took me to fredflare.com, where I found this little gem. Cute, huh.

On a similar safari, I ran into the website for a gal who is co-writing Chicken Soup for the Twenty-Something Soul. They are looking for writers for short stories of the Chicken Soup genre. Upon entering her website, the traveler is met with her self-description: Life Coach. Author. Speaker. Then the traveler notices her picture on the right: She is twentysomething! How the, ahem, heck, can she be a life coach? She has barely tasted life! She's a baby! Here is the link: http://www.christinehassler.com/books.php

What would I want a life coach to look like, if I were pitiful enough to hire one? Maybe like Jane on the Beverly Hillbillies? Sort of taciturn and dry? Naw, wrong image. Too skinny, not enough fun in her demeanor. How about, um... Cameron Diaz? mmm, no, too perfect. Hey! Got it! Ina Garten! "Who the heck is Ina Garten?" you ask. She's The Barefoot Contessa on the Food Channel. She's breezy, fun, slightly overweight, attractive without being uber, good humor, confident but not too, and just generally fun. She's always fixing some sort of food for all her friends. Yep, if I were in a situation to hire a life coach, that's what she'd need to be like, certainly NOT some young blonde thing. But hey, to each his own.

Confessions of a Food Page Writer

OK, sigh, so I write the food page for our local paper, and ~true confession~ I am not that good a cook. I've done 2 food pages so far, and one of them was an interview, which I must say I am better at than actually cooking.





So I am conducting research -- lots of it! -- to try to do the best job I can, especially considering, I am not that good a cook.





Add to that, I am a vegetarian, have been for about 14 years, with the occasional fish and a few chicken meals 2 years ago, and I am a bit limited on what I can actually make for the photos. Well, I can make things, but as far as being able to taste them and see if they are tasty, that's another story. And, I would like to put in recipes that I know myself are pretty good, and easy to prepare, as everyone but me seems to be in such a doggone rush these days.





Today, I was studying online and found a website different from those I usually check. My usual ones are the common ones like allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com, you know. Today I found http://www.fabulousfoods.com/, which had holiday recipes in it.





I have already written and had photo shoot for September so now I am in the process of trying to develop October. So of course, I clicked on the Holidays link, then Halloween. No kidding, I found this cake:
It's kitty litter cake, a regular cake iced with icing, then sprinkled with cookie crumbs with a little green food coloring mixed in. The, er, solid items, are mini Tootsie Rolls. Note the one artfully draped over the edge of the pan. The recipe did specify to use a NEW litter pan and NEW scooper.

I will not be including this on the food page.

Last One

I have written several odes to this cat since beginning the blog two years ago. Tonight will be the last one.

I have been warning DH about her imminent demise since we began dating 13 years ago. The warnings reached a point of ridiculosity when finally a year or two ago, he turned to me and said, "That cat's going to outlive you. She will outlive us all."

The last year or so has been the first we've seen of her showing signs of age. However, she has continued to eat a little and drink a little every day to the end.

She did not become ill or have any external injuries. To the contrary, we realized she had not shown up for her water, nor screeched at us from the bed to come join her, and I got up in the night to go look for her. I had to really look, searching her traditional hiding places, until I found her. When I did, I thought perhaps she was asleep, and called loudly to her, as her hearing has left her in recent months. Finally, I reached for her, and realized she was gone.

We think DS2 was about 9 the year he brought her home to save her from the cold and certain death. DS2 turned 30 last year which would make this dear old cat 21 at that time. We named her Frances, after the little girl in the Frances books by Russell and Lillian Hoban. Only in the past 10 years or so have we altered the name to Francie.

The picture you see at the top of this page looks like a kitten, but it was taken last fall; she was somewhere around 20 years old.

She survived life with other cats: Jennifer, the sleek black cat we had in Virginia. Jennifer died the day after DS2 left for Boot Camp. (It was a tough week for me!) Molly, the giant white powder puff DH had when we married. Ever see the move Lady and the Tramp? There's a pair of cats in that movie that remind me of Molly. Molly passed away shortly after we moved into this house 10 years ago. Unfortunately we attended a large Christmas Extravaganza in Nearby Large Town the same day, and I'll be darned if there weren't Pet Portrait booths at every turn. I felt so so guilty and sorry for DH who kept his game face on to the end. She has co-existed with Daniel now for about 3 years. Daniel is a giant but gentle as a ....well, as a kitten. He has deferred to her so nicely.

She has survived about a zillion moves. We almost lost her when we moved from VA to NC. The movers freaked her out and she ran for it. Fortunately, ex-H, who had zero affinity for cats, continued to search for her for 4 days and drove her to NC when he finally found her. Yes, he's a pretty nice guy.

I remember the night she turned on a lamp and we asked her to turn it off. She did. I clearly remember DS2 on that Sunday morning, standing there in his Glen plaid suit, framed in the large doorway of our Virginia house, holding her in his suit jacket. Her eyes were matted and closed and her chest rattled and wheezed as she struggled to breathe.

She slept with me when my mother died, when my earlier marriage failed, when a child ran away from home, when DS2 joined the Marines. She sensed when I did not feel well, and knew whether to cuddle close or to gve me space. Like me, she adored to be petted, and purred louder than any cat I've ever known when we did take the time to pet her.

We worked hard to save her life, that first week in Virginia, and in many ways over the years, she has returned the favor for me. Good night, Francie.

Great Image

I was exploring our little garden early this morning: looking for new veggies, pulling up a weed here and there, checking out all the little bat-ropes our cukes have thrown up since we caged them last weekend. I was also checking for vandalism. I scared away a blue jay yesterday when I drove in the driveway, and earlier, when I was on the phone inside, I saw our neighborhood rabbit scampering away from the garden. Thankfully, I did not see any damage.
We do have about 5 new yellow pear tomatoes forming, the tiny kind. They look like tiny light bulbs. Zillions of cucumbers, a couple of tiny beefsteak tomatoes starting, and buds are forming on the beans. Two of the pepper plants have lots of buds on them, but I believe they're the hot pepper plants. The bell pepper plant is not too prolific. The herbs are all doing well. We have 3 sage plants, parsley, 2 basil plants, dill, lemon thyme, cilantro, and of course our hardy rosemary bushes. They are at least 5 years old and take over the place. I keep hacking them back and they come back stronger than ever. Oh yes, and the also-hardy mint! A neighbor asked for some in the spring, and I had to warn him: be careful what you ask for. It's the next generation of kudzu.
As I was exploring the garden, the bees were buzzing around, busily collecting pollen from the blooms. I saw the most amazing image and doggone, did not have a camera handy. The image was so transitory I knew that I did not have time to run for one.
You know how the sun can strike a bloom and the petals just glow? As if they were illuminated from within? Well, a couple of the cucumber blooms were in the sunlight at just the perfect angle so that the yellow was just vivid. And there, inside one bloom, was a bee, doing his thing. His shadow appeared on the outside of the bloom with such detail, it was amazing. I just froze, there, leaning over, my hand still grasping a weed in the ground. He left the one bloom and entered another that was just as lit up as the first, and again, I had this grand shadow-movie of his activity inside the bloom.
I am trying to describe it as I am much better with words than with cameras anyway, but this may be one of those things you would just have to see. Take my word for it, it was breathtaking.
I always try to be a person who appreciates small pleasures, and this was surely one.

Cool and Beautiful Morning

Ah, the sun is shining and the birds are singing. The air is cool and dry. What could be better? I just won a game of spades on line and DH is practicing his violin. He likes it better than the guitar! ...but he, ahem, plays the guitar with a little more skill. He'll get there! I am amazed how on earth he can find the notes on the violin. There are no frets, and the angle of the bow, and the pressure, seem to make a difference. Too complex for me!

In case you haven't seen it, I wrote an homage to my dad on Father's Day in our little local paper. You can read it here. I wrote two additional articles for Father's Day for that same edition; all three were about following in your father's footsteps. The other two are here and here.

LO is at Youth Conference for church with the twins and our Youth Pastor. I talked with the YP yesterday and she reports LO is having a grand time. She had just seen LO in a canoe on the lake with the twins going around in circles, laughing her head off. She has tennis camp at the local college next week and art classes the week after.

The garden is doing well. We have enjoyed the veggies of our labor and more is to come. It appears to be a good thing we like cucumbers; there are a thousand blooms.

DH and I have a day ahead of us with no one else around, and no work to get go to. I can't remember when that has happened. Will we paint something? Will we fix something? Or will we hang out? Think I'll go find out. ...Til next time, bye.

Dear Nephew and Fam

We traveled on Saturday to visit our Dear Nephew, his lovely wife and two precious girls. DN deploys to Iraq, dammit, this week, and we made the journey to have time with them and say goodbye to him before he goes. It was a 2hr, 45 minute trip each way, and definitely worth any trouble and time it took.

Their little house is just great. The girls love their room and it is all decorated just beautifully. It's bright and sunny. Niece-in-law is very capable and just does a great job making it a home for their fam.

They cooked hot dogs and hammies (including a not-hammie for moi!) on the grill, and we also had salad, corn, beans, chips, and pickles. Wow. Homemade cheesecake an hour or two later and we rolled home.

We got lost on the way home, navigator problems, and decided to go home via the southern route rather than the northern route. It was 1/2 hour quicker and much more pleasant.

We got home tired but happy. More good news is DH helped with housework on Sunday and we finished sososo quickly.

The cam is somewhere and I will post the few photos we took soon.

Of Hairballs and Other Delights of Spring

We believe our cat Francie is about 22 years old. She's so old, we just can't remember. I believe DS2 was about 9 the day he brought her home to save her. A tiny kitten, on the coldest day in a raw Virginia winter, eyes still shut, lungs rattling as she strove to breathe. And save her he did. We kept her in a shoebox with an electric light above, and fed her warm milk with an eyedropper. DS2 gave her lots of love, and to this day, she recognizes him and readily sleeps with him when he comes home.
Francie has always been phobic of strangers, hiding in a closet or a drawer or even jumping up on a bed under the quilt. Many a time we have given friends a house tour with an unseemly lump in the guest bed.
The changes in Francie as she aged have been gradual. She moves a little more slowly now, and has become more assertive with the other pets. Her tummy is a little more tender than it was before, so it is my pleasure to clean up bloops where her "hairball relief" cat food lies in a puddle of water and bile. After all, how old is 22 in cat years? She has jumped to the bathroom lav every morning that we've had her, for her morning drink. It is my habit to turn the lav water on to a little trickle so she can drink while I take my shower.
Francie's leap to the lav has become slower and more intentional than in days past. She used to bound effortlessly up to the top of the lav. A few years ago, she began to jump on the john, then turn and jump the rest of the way up to the lav.
Now, she stands beside the john, back paws on the floor, front paws on the john, and thinks for a long time. She stands there, looking at her intended goal. I imagine she is thinking, "Can I make it?" or perhaps, "Push with the back ones, push hard." Many days I just scoop her up and place her on the rim of the lav for her drink. She always scolds me as if to say, "I could have made it myself."
Yesterday was just such a day.
I was in the shower washing my hair when I heard Francie winding up for a good old hurl. "Rrf, rrf, rrf," The stomach muscles were working to push it out.
Now sometimes I can catch her before it happens and hold her over the open john. (We keep our johns closed so that Daniel, her nemesis, won't drink john water.)
"Franceeeeeeeeeeee," I called as I swept the shower curtain open, wet, and covered in shampoo lather. I reached for her just as she neatly barfed all over a stack of clean, white, folded towels. A hairball as big as your thumb lay neatly in the middle of it all.
Sigh. I love that cat.

On a lighter note, we cooked weenies over the fire last night, again. We are doing so again, tonight. Guests who were invited last night had a little one under the weather and asked for a rain check, but LO had already invited a gf over so we went ahead last night and planned a repeat performance for tonight. I'm getting pretty good at packing baskets with just the right stuff to carry outside. It's a good, wholesome time. The girls swing on the giant swing and chat and catch marshmallows on fire. The birds sing to us till they settle down for the night. The fireflies come out and then we gather all our stuff and head inside.

What is it?

The lady who lived in our house first was named Helen, and legend has it that she was quite the gardner. Even though our little veg garden lies where her rose garden stood, we have a giant *something* from her legacy. One neighbor told us she grew elephant garlic there. We are uncertain what it is. It comes back every spring, blooms, and ebbs away. We enjoy watching it but it has never multiplied. Here is a shot to show you how tall it is:

She is a little over 5' tall, so the plant must be close. To the left, you can see our spinach, a little kale, and peas. The tomatoes are sort of behind the iris. And 4 pepper plants are behind Little One.

After we came in, she was hanging out in the b.y. with our ndn's. Here is a picture:

It's a beautiful day and we are all enjoying it. LO leaves for youth group soon and DH leaves for work in just an hour. Then it's all over for another week!

Planting at the Park

Not sure where I read it, and of course I can't find on the web right now, but someone, somewhere, said you live longer if you live in a place where people have a strong sense of community.

We had a great showing today for our second Planting Saturday, the first having been 2 weeks ago. About 30 folks came out for the work, including kids, and we worked hard for 2 hours. I am so glad I did not wear my contacts as the salt in my eyes was blinding.

The very large guy standing at his truck is the landscape architect. Don't let his size fool you. He is a work-HORSE. He does the work - and sweats -- for 3 or 4 guys. The lady in black pants with her rear to the camera is the Parks Director. These folks don't usually DO manual labor -- they have people who do that. But they came on their own personal Saturday morning and worked HARD. Why? I am not sure, but it has something to do with our neighborhood partnership. They have surely shown their commitment to us. We gotta do something nice for them when this is all over.

The Kids' Committee met while we planted, and made their final selections for the playground. The Parks Director measured the playground out on the ground, 17' in diameter, and the landscape architect used his wheelie-spray-paint-thingie to mark the circle on the grass. It's getting exciting, to see the park start to develop. I had the idea only 2 years, 4 months ago, and we have already developed the partnership with the city, raised most of the money, (all of the money for phases 1 and 2), had the whole park designed (patterned after F.L. Olmstead's designs -- he was doing this 100 years ago when the neighborhood was built--) cleaned it up, planted beautiful grass, put up the sign, built one bridge over the creek (thank you Eagle Scout candidate) ordered pavers, installed the sign, selected the playground vendor, and designed the playground. Now it is gaining real momentum. They are ordering the benches next week and the playground will go in, in about 8 weeks.

The weather was beautiful this morning -- sunny, clear and warm. The mockingbirds serenaded us as we laughed, grunted, worked.

The plants we put in on the hill were in 3-gallon containers, so we had to dig those holes rather large, not so easy on a steep incline. On my third bush, my shovel kept clinking on something. I gingerly tapped my shovel into the ground around it. Clink, clink. "Believe I've got concrete slab here!" I called out. "Oh don't be such a priss," retorted my gf. (Only she could get away with such a comment.)

A fellow who lives somewhat behind us came over with his shovel. Clink, clink. He found the edge, and dug up a 16"x28" piece of concrete, 5" thick. I helped pry it up and we rolled it down the hill. Joyous, I looked over at gf. " Priss," I said. We laughed and laughed. Boy, was I glad it was legit, or I really would have looked like a priss.

We had bought a couple cases of water with neighborhood money, and it was well-chilled in a cooler. We all worked, sweated, drank water, and dug some more. The park is coming along!

We are already thinking ahead to the party we will have when it opens.