Don't Eat Yellow Tomatoes

Here it is, almost 6 p.m., and I'm sitting down to blog.

Yes, I should be fixing dinner. Hamburger is in the refrigerator at this very moment calling out my name. I have some sort of Mexican casserole conglomeration in mind that will come together as I make it, much like most of the other meals around here. A little meat, a few beans, some rice, a handful of cheese, some tomatoes and onion.

Because I am nothing if not a Gourmet Family Chef.

After dinner I plan to transplant the four tomato plants I bought this weekend. The Farmer's Almanac says this is the perfect time, so we should have loads and loads of wonderful Better Boy tomatoes shortly after Father's Day. Unless, of course, the squirrel fathers get them before the human father in this household does.

The last time I raised tomatoes the squirrels got a bumper crop. I tried peppermint oil on tongue depressors stuck in the ground all around the plants. I tried sprinkling red pepper flakes around the plants. The only thing I didn't do, and refuse to do, was to sprinkle...um...human liquid waste around the plants.

That would just be too gross for words. And the neighbors would keel over from shock.

And you are so very welcome for that mental picture.

I realize I could procure the necessary substance another way and simply pour it around the plants, but really...who would want to eat the tomatoes after that?

Gack. Uck. Ptooey.

So, if you have any other ideas for squirrel deterrents that don't include peeing in the flower bed, please do let me know. I'm always up for new gardening tips and ideas.

Because somehow, some way, we're going to have home-grown tomatoes this year.

And Then I Slept Some More

It's been a real snore fest around these parts lately.

Oh, not that there wasn't a lot to do. Far from it. There are floors to mop and things to dust and laundry, blessed laundry, ever-present laundry to do every moment of every day. But for the past few days things have come to a standstill. Why?

Because Momma had a migraine.

Not JUST a migraine, but one of those three-day pain parties that just keep on giving. From Wednesday through Friday I was pretty much out of it. Even went to the doc to get "THE SHOT" on Thursday, which only succeeded in knocking me out fifteen hours straight. Friday was back to the same old grind in the head.

Saturday offered some relief, but I couldn't sleep for beans. Until around 4:30 a.m., when I managed to catch twelve more hours.

Talk about sleeping your life away...

Today is the first day I've actually felt human in over five days, and I guess that's a good thing. I actually made it in to work again. And, even though the shop that carried my antique leaded glass window supposedly closed for good last Friday, they actually were around today and let me buy it at a deep discount! There are a couple of cracked panes in it, and some of the leading needs to be replaced. I called Eldest Son, who took some classes in the art of stained glass, to see if he could repair it. He'll be by later on to take a look.

Of course, when I got it home Hubster saw no beauty in it whatsoever. Ditto The Boy. The Girl thought the old broad a bit wacko fo buying it in the first place. However, I think it has character and history and elegance of a bygone era, and hang on my wall it will.

They'll get used to it. After all, they eventually got used to me, didn't they?

In the meantime, we're having a hard time trying to find an estate sale company to help us out with the remainder of the stuff in Mom's house. Seems as though we just don't have enough to sell. Right now we're looking into an auction house that takes small lots to be auctioned off, hoping they'll take what we have and combine it with other lots for auction. Neither of us can face all the work it will take to organize, price and man a sale at her house, not to mention the emotional problems we'd face seeing her things being pawed over by strangers. I hope this pans out!

I called the monument company today to see how they're coming on Mom's headstone. We should hopefully see some proofs within the next week or so. They're still working toward getting it up before Memorial Day, which would be dandy with both me and Sis. Mom has lain anonymous for too long.

Tomato plants have been purchased for the annual Feed The Squirrels event. Hopes are high that we may actually get one or two this year for human consumption, but that remains to be seen. I'll have to check with the Farmer's Almanac to see when the sign is right for transplanting.

And then? I think I'll take a nap.

Of Having A Pain And Being One

Ugh.

That's been about all I've been able to utter the live-long day, due to the migraine that landed on the beaches of my headbone at zero dawn thirty this morning. Hubster understood it to mean "Call my boss and tell him I won't be in today and why" because he reads me well after these gazillion years we've been married.

God bless his little pointed head.

I slept until around 1:00 p.m. with my friend Mr. Hot Stuff the heating pad wrapped around my head. Yes, I thought about getting up to go downstairs and shuffle through my purse to find the Imitrex to take. But thinking was about as far as I got. It was just too much to handle, and by the time I woke up the second time it was too late for it to do much good anyway. I'd much rather lie on the couch with my head wrapped in a heating pad on an 80-degree day.

Let's just say it was a character-building exercise and leave it at that.

Hubster was gone all day running errands with his mother, the kids were at school, and it would have been a really great day to have the house all to myself if I'd felt like doing anything. Instead, I enjoyed several movies while in my prone position - when I could see past the plaid cover of the heating pad - and napped. After all, it was obvious I was sleep-deprived after only fourteen or fifteen hours of sleep the night before.

Long about 7:00 p.m. The Girl and Boyfriend came in and started playing Scrabble. I've had a Scrabble set that has remained unopened since the dawn of time because I could never get anyone to play it with me, and it finally got its first use tonight. Thankfully, the Migraine Marines had retreated somewhat for the evening, so I joined in one of the games.

Let me just say this - SOMEONE was soundly trounced. And it wasn't me.

Look THAT one up on your cell phone dictionary, Mr. "Xi isn't a word!"

Not that I would ever gloat.

Ahem.

It is now 11:55 p.m.

I am celebrating that fact by taking up my bed and walking (well, walking anyway) downstairs and having a coffee cup full of Yago Santgria.

Because Interpeeps, the insomnia, it is keeping me awake nights.

In addition, I'm celebrating the homecoming of my cyber-child from the CHINH. Nephew was able to diagnose and repair what ailed it, but from what I hear it may not be long until yet more of the insides emit the magic smoke that makes the computer run.

I can't tell you how that excited me.

So we'll just talk about other things and pretend Dear Computer isn't dying a slow, and we hope not very painful, death. Because half the fun of having a problem is ignoring it.

On to the happenings over the weekend, which were myriad.

__________

First there was the house clean out at Mom's. You know, you'd think after all this time there would be inches and inches of dust all over everything, but it isn't so. I actually think Mom's ghost is there in the house, still scaring away all the dirt even now.

Sis and I got the collectibles cabinet divided up. Lots of Lowell Davis, Maude Humphrey, Hummel, etc. It took us practically all morning to do just the cabinet.

After that it was off to the hairdresser to be with The Girl as she got her up-do for the big Prom date Saturday night. Right after she got done there we headed to the nail shop. I got the usual pedicure, but she got both manicure and pedicure. Then it was home to dress.

Boyfriend picked her up around 4:30 p.m. to take pictures at his house, then they came back to our house for pictures.

Just so you know, that dress gave me flashbacks to the 70's in a BIG WAY.



And this photo makes me cry. They're both so...GROWN UP. (sniff)



From here they went to another friend's home where they left their cars and picked up the limousine they'd rented for the evening.

This was taken at the home where they picked up the limo.

I was going to throw in a couple of photos of each of them by themselves, but really, there is such a thing as OVERKILL here, people. I think you get the idea.

It was Prom. There was dressing up. There were proud parents and beautiful and handsome children who are almost not children anymore. There were sighs.

________________________

In the ongoing search to find something to decorate the bare walls in the living room, I have come upon this...

It's a 28" wide antique leaded glass window pane. Call me crazy, but I think I'm going to paint the frame a rust color to go with the furniture, then hang it on the wall with the yellow showing through the panes. Either that, or I think it already has a dark stained wood frame on the other side, so that would eliminate the need to paint. I think it's beautiful.

It's at an antique/decorating shop a few blocks away from where I work that's going out of business, so they're unloading everything at great prices. Now, if it only sticks around until payday....

And with that, I'm calling it a night.

The DTs - Weekend Two

The computer, God bless it, has been taken by ambulance to CHINH (Computer Hospital In Nephew's House) to be operated upon. Hopefully we will hear back sometime this week that the surgery was successful.

We decided to go this route rather than having the computer doctor at my workplace labor long and hard on the repairs because (1.) I don't have health insurance that covers my computer, even though it has become like a member of the family, and (2.) my nephew IS a member of the family and thereby much cheaper than the guy at work.

However.

This will be the second weekend I've been without. Frankly, it's driving Hubster up the newly-painted walls of the living room.

You see, he's used to having his own "space" - his own little area in which to do what he wants. To watch whatever television show he wants to watch, to put his shod foot upon whatever new piece of furniture he wants without fear of retribution, to eat chips upon the aforementioned furniture without being called down.

With me unoccupied elsewhere (read: on the computer) he can usually accomplish all of the above. But let me be without, and he suffers. He suffers mightily.

So we're both hoping he'll be able to sweet-talk nephew into a rush - although very safe and competent - job on the computer.

Our marriage could hang in the balance....or my neck in the noose.

Idiot-syncrancies And The Opening Door

I believe I may have mentioned once or maybe even forty three times my tendency toward strangeness.

This is becoming more and more evident as I age. It ventures forth from the hidden closet of my mind more than it ever has in previous years. The door seems to open wider and wider with each tick of the clock.

Take, for instance, the Spring ritual.

At least once during the first part of Spring it was my habit to take one or more of the children on a nighttime ride in the car. During this ride we'd roll the windows down, turn the radio up as loud as it would go, and sing and dance our way to whatever destination we decided to grace with our good mood. I remember pretending the car was a space ship with Cutie's dad, bouncing up and down in the seats and doing some wild stoplight moves with the younger kids, and actually having all of them enjoy it!

Until they reached the dreaded age of eleven.

That's when I had to go underground to have my fun. When I attempted to sing along with the radio, even under my breath, I was told to STOP! because it was EMBARRASSING! and THEY COULDN'T STAND IT! I couldn't even nod my head in time to the music.

And the door opened even wider...

That's when I first noticed the accents.

Oh, the kids have told me about them for years. About how I'd develop the dialect of whatever part of the country we were in or whatever person I was thinking about. But I didn't believe them. I speak normally all the time. I never lapse into a southern accent or any other kind of accent. No matter who I'm with or where I am.

At least that's what I thought. Until I started to THINK in accents.

Huh?

Yup, welcome to my convoluted world. If nothing else it's entertaining. My own little idiot-syncracies, here for the world to see.

I think in accents.

Sometimes British, sometimes French, sometimes Spanish, sometimes Swedish, sometimes German, sometimes Southern, sometimes Russian, and yes, sometimes Scottish. And for kicks I might throw in a good ol' American accent every now and then.

I have no control over it. It comes and goes as it pleases, this little quirk of mine. But it makes life a little more interesting on a gloomy day and puts a smile on my face when I'm bored.

So if you see some old, fat lady waddling down the street laughing quietly to herself in a Scottish accent on a rainy day, just chalk it up to the door opening a little wider as she ages.

Or you could ask her to "beam you up."

But be careful. She just might.

Where There Is Comfort, Work Ceases

The furniture is in place. The television is hooked up.

And it seems as though all work has stopped for the time being on the living room.

I was afraid of that.

Oh, it isn't all Hubster's fault. I'm falling down on the job as well. I still need to get the area rug, the window coverings, the things to hang on the walls to make it more homey. He still has trim pieces to nail in, shelves to varnish, paint to touch up, wiring to do.

But it's just so nice to SIT and do NOTHING.

Of course, the office is full of furniture that needs to be hauled to Mom's for the sale. There's sheetrock dust an inch thick over every other object in every other part of the house. Neither the telephone nor the answering machine in the living room is hooked up yet, so we play Rock, Paper, Scissors every time the phone rings to see who has to get up to answer it.

We are a sad lot, we are.

But oh, it is so very nice to actually HAVE a place to sit and do nothing after so long without!

And if I can ever make up my mind on window treatments, rugs and other decor, I might actually let you see it.

Maybe.

Can You Get The DTs From Computer Withdrawal???

THREE DAYS.

I've been three whole days without the use of any sort of computer. Not even an abacus. I stopped cold turkey out of necessity, and now I can say I have licked that demon.

Kind of.

Which means I still don't have a computer at home, but I have one here at work. Seems as though not only was the motherboard shot, but the power supply as well. Hubster thinks we should replace both rather than purchase a new laptop at this crucial juncture (BLAST!), so we're waiting on parts to arrive.

Which means I'm without for at least another week.

Bah. Humbug.

In other news, The Girl seems to have come down with some sort of galavanting fever and cough that is leaving her miserable. She's been feeling so unwell that she's even tolerating ME.

However, that didn't stop her from having Boyfriend over for dinner yesterday, and The Boy invited Girlfriend as well. We had the traditional Easter ham, creamed new potatoes and peas, fresh asparagus, and corn. For dessert there was homemade shortcake with fresh strawberries and ice cream.

Boyfriend earned his place at the table when, over dessert, he exclaimed, "This is AMAZING!" and then uttered not another word until his bowl was licked clean.

We then retired to the new living room to watch movies. The new living room which is not completely decorated yet, but will be soon, and photos will then be posted.

That is all for today. Carry on.

Jailbird

The verdict is in, and it isn't looking good for the alleged perpetrator.

It seems as though the motherboard did it. It is suffering from bulging capacitors, whatever that is, and was likely to blow at any second. Thank goodness we got the hard drive out alive. It was a hostage situation I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Thankfully, the hard drive is now backed up on a different computer at an undisclosed location we like to call the "safe house" and it is in no further danger at the moment.

It was a close call, folks.

And all the more reason to go shopping...for a laptop!

Partly Cloudy With Scattered Showers

That was me yesterday.

I was a mess most of the day. Thank goodness The Boss was out of the office a good deal. It left me alone to blubber in solitude.

Sometimes I wonder if this is the normal progression of grief, or if I'm truly one of those gone-over-the-edge-never-to-return-to-sanity type of people.

Granted, the weekend was hard. Two separate sets of people came and picked up things from Mom's house. One set made both me and Sis angry and made both of us feel as though Mom's memory had been reduced to vulture-ism. But that's over and done with, and we'll move on.

We also went through the Christmas things - the decorations for the tree and boxes. The boxes were hard because the same ones had been used for so many years. The tree decorations weren't as difficult, except for one that she saved for each of us.

Sis made a tree ornament of a girl's face out of yarn when she was in grade school that Mom saved and put on the tree for forty-some-odd years. For me, it was an angel I made out of a styrofoam ball, a pipe cleaner, a paper doily, straight pins, felt and sequins. I was all of eight years old when I created this masterpiece, and it hung on the tree every year since. Mine was missing a sequin eye and Sis' was unraveling, but by golly, they were there.

To be honest, I didn't care if there was nothing else related to Christmas in that house. I had my angel, and that's all that counted.

And yea, the tears fell like rain.

I haven't yet been to order Mom's headstone. I keep saying I'm going to go, but never have. I don't know why I've put it off...probably for the same reason I've put off filling out the papers to get my share of her life insurance. To be honest, I haven't even looked at them. I just can't bring myself to do it.

But this Friday at least the first part of that will change. Mom deserves to be marked. So I will travel the 250 miles to the place where I will order her headstone, and then I will turn around and come back home to celebrate Easter with my family.

But not before I scatter a few more showers at the cemetery, along with some flowers, for Mom.

The Computer Ate My Blog

My computer is dying.

Every few minutes it reboots, telling me there is some dire error of some sort. Me being me, I ignore the dire error message and plod on, cursing the demons that caused the error in the first place, laying hands on the keyboard and invoking them to depart from the computer.

However; being as there are no swine for them to inhabit nor a pond for them to drown in, they choose to remain in my computer and laugh at me.

And the crashing goes on. Every 3.4 minutes, or sometimes just as soon as I boot up from the last crash.

This, children, causes foul and obnoxious words to emit from my mouth which should not be uttered by grandmotherly types such as me, nor by little mouths such as yours.

So today I am relying on my work computer (shhhh!) to update you.

Film at 11.

In Which The Chicken Marsala Does Me In

Heartburn has become my close companion these days, mostly due to extremely advanced age and lack of discretion when eating. By that, I mean I tend to eat what is placed in front of me, be it a single egg or a mountain of hashbrowns, gravy, a half dozen eggs, biscuits and a whole smoked pig thrown in for good measure.

With decaf on the side, of course.

Which brings us to this evening.

The Girl has been craving Chicken Marsala for an eon or two. She's been whining and nagging and pleading and begging and doing anything else annoying that she can in order to get me to make it to get her off my back. Which is, in and of itself, a backhanded compliment of sorts. In some weird parallel universe somewhere, another mother is really liking all the whining and nagging and pleading and begging and annoying stuff because it means her daughter is doing it because she loves the other mother's cooking so much she'll do anything to get it.

I, on the other hand, look at it as The Girl doing everything EXCEPT what it would take to get me to cook what she wants. I mean really, would offering to do the dishes afterward put her into some sort of galactic tailspin? Instead, when I offer that as a trade for my services I get the ever present heavy sigh and rolling eyes, hand on jutting out hip and the "Why can't you just DO IT???" that I've come to expect.

It's a proud moment in the kingdom of motherhood.

At any rate, tonight dreams were made reality and Chicken Marsala was served. However, the chef forgot that the chickens whose breasts had given their all for the dish at hand were of the steroid-fed variety. The stinkin' things were so thick they took FOR.EV.ER. to cook. Had I had my wits about me I would have pounded them into some semblance of uniform thickness instead of standing there for an hour waiting for the pink to turn white.

Live and learn, that's my motto.

The meal was finally ready around 7:30 p.m., at which time The Girl was able to barely drag her starved and sunken frame to the table. After she called Boyfriend and invited him to join us, that is.

The thing about Boyfriend is that he can eat three out of the four people left in my home UNDER THE TABLE. Boyfriend can flat PUT IT AWAY. Thankfully, I knew ahead of time he'd probably be here, so I cooked extra chicken, extra pasta, extra everything.

And he did not disappoint.

We rented a small crane to lift the actual chicken to our plates, loaded up on pasta and French-cut green beans, then dug in. The Girl ate as though she hadn't seen actual edible food in a week. Boyfriend and The Boy just never stopped once they got started. Apparently Boyfriend had never had Chicken Marsala before, and he just didn't want it to end. I had to call a halt after the second humongo-breast and third helping of pasta, because it hurt MY stomach to see that much food being put away - even if it was someone else doing the eating. I could just see the boys going into the office and sinking down into one of the many chairs there, turning on the tube to catch some ball and leaning back in the easy chair while they belched.

It was not a mental picture one would wish to have seared into one's memory.

So I made The Girl and Boyfriend do the dishes as I came in to let you know what transpired here tonight. Also so I could let you know that I am now suffering from a stellar case of heartburn due to the lateness of the hour we ate.

But hey, anything for The Princess. Anything at all.

The Joke's On Me

The new furniture arrived yesterday. I fell in love with it at first sight. The Boy apparently did as well, and even The Girl pronounced it "not as bad as I thought it would look." We all sat on it and tried it out, albeit on top of the plastic sheeting in which it's still covered.

Because my furniture, for which I have been longing lo, these past three months, is sitting in the garage.

I have been down to visit several times, assuring it we are indeed not going to leave it there, that there are better plans and a better place for it, hallelujah, and it is coming soon. In the meantime, I try to hold my tongue as the remaining three home-dwellers decide that yes, we do indeed need to do at least two coats of polyurethane on the newly discovered hardwood floors in order to "make them POP!" even though the Orange Glow treatment worked for me just fine.

But I don't want floors that "POP!" I don't even want them to snap or crackle. I don't care if we have super-shiny floors. I just want my living room back, and I want it NOW. Sitting on super-shiny floors is uncomfortable. I want furniture.

In the meantime, I am up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 a.m. because thoughts of decorating permeated my sleep. I hate when that happens. I still need to purchase lamps and an area rug, we need to pick up the end tables from Mom's and get glass tops put on them. The mantel for the fireplace is being built by the same man who built the bookshelves/entertainment center, trim has to be put back up, some kind of lighting has to be decided upon, a little more sanding and painting have to occur, and the glass needs to be added to the doors of the bookshelves/entertainment center.

Really, if we tried hard enough we could drag this out into the summer months.

So it looks like I'll be visiting the furniture in "stir" for the next month or so.

Maybe we could move the television and computer down there...