Yesterday, my friend Traci told me about something they're doing at the Day Spa where she gets her hair done. Spray on tanning. I'm going to be the guinea pig. Ridiculous isn't it?
But, it's like this. Brown fat looks better than white fat and since I burn to a peeling crisp rather than tan, there is really nothing to lose. Apparently it's not all that expensive. About $45 dollars for your entire body. Hopefully, my knees, ankles and elbows won't look like terminal rust has set in. And, never having seen anyone who has had this done I'm going way out on a limb here; so not me. However, after the unbelievably painful sunburn I got two summers ago, building the wall around the swimming pool, anything is worth a try.
It stands to reason that if one has something coating one's skin - the sun won't be able to turn said skin into pork rind. Right? And, I don't actually need my entire body sprayed - who sees anything but my arms and legs anyway?
"Camp Mimi" will open here as soon as we get back from our D.A.V. Convention and I am thrilled to have all five grandkids coming to stay in their usual shifts for most of the summer. But, it also means all day, almost every day, out at or in the pool. Hence my interest in not suffering third degree burns. The kids, bless them, do fine with sun screen as each and every one of them simply tans right through it with nary a burn. I wonder where that gene came from?
The only downside to this summer idyll of sun and family is all of the driving involved shuffling said grandkids back and forth since it's over eight hundred miles one way. It's a pity they can't bottle instant transportation.
You just might get it!
Everyone has heard this old cliche, and like all old wives' tales and other hackneyed phrases there is a grain of truth at the core.
I love rain and as we've suffered from drought here in Alabama for the last three years I swore that I wouldn't fuss if it rained for a straight month. Well, it has. Even though we are thrilled to be officially above the needed rain levels, I'd not stopped to think what all of that rain would mean in real terms.
Example. I have grass up to my knees that I can not mow because it's too wet to take the big mover (a D.R. Field and Brush cutter) out to it. Due to it's weight, that mower will bog down in the mud with me up to my ankles behind it. How do I know? Because I tried it. Not too bright on my part I'll admit but we've worked so hard I don't want to lose ground - no pun intended - in the clean up/clear brush department.
Additionally, grass that was seeded either side of the new sidewalk to the front porch and covered with pine straw is thriving...........in the gravel drive. Before the seed had time to germinate, there was a huge rain storm with tons of wind. Apparently, the rain washed the pine straw from around the sidewalk into the gravel of the drive taking the microscopic grass seed with it. We now have a lovely lawn springing up in the middle of the driveway.
Lastly, poor Dennis has cleaned the pool and adjusted the chemical balance on three different occasions with the end result being immediate torrential rains nullifying the entire exercise.
The good news, my pansies have bloomed since February because the rain has kept it cool enough for them to continue to thrive! I guess mowing can wait.
Today my friend Kim, who has a nursery/greenhouse, gave me the 'sister' to the Lady Bank rose with which she presented me two years ago. I was absolutely thrilled. So, to go with it I bought two red cannas, and English ivy - a very unique variety, the leaves have soft yellow edges and a bright green center. Then, my friend Traci gave me yellow cannas from her backyard. But, the bonus of the day was finding a bright pink-almost-red azalea growing wild, apparently abandoned down by the road in the very corner of our property.
I have no idea where it came from, but I'm darn sure going to dig it up and move it to the guest house. Right beside the porch stairs will be a perfect place since there it will get the filtered light they so love. As an added precaution, I'm going to have my Pal plant it. The irony here is; this is a man who can't tell the difference between a pansy and a petunia, but grew enormous healthy azaleas in the back yard of his house on Norris Circle in Tuscaloosa. He says he just stuck them in the ground. The phrase "dumb luck" springs to mind - we'll see if he can do it again.
Spring fever has a strangle hold on me and I find myself trying to locate the best deer-proof areas in which to plant all of the things I missed so much during my exile out west. I still haven't found a white wisteria locally, but I did find a nursery on-line that sells them.
Kim has hydrangeas at her nursery, they are Nikko Blue which were my first love. However, this time I want Masja (they're red!) but I don't like to ask Kim to order things in specially for me. Because Hydrangeas are my very favorite flower, even more than white roses, I probably won't be too picky if it comes down to a situation of 'to have or to have not'. I've missed growing them so much, I'll take 'have'. In fact, the last time I was successfully able to grow Hydrangea was when I lived here (in Alabama) twenty years ago.
Now, if I can only find a local source for red Double Knock-out roses there will be enough digging and planting to keep me busy until the middle of next month!
It's been years since I had a flower garden. In fact it's been almost eight. And, in that lapsed time I have forgotten everything I think I ever knew about horticulture. But, as I did with my life, I am simply going to start over.
Besides, now that I'm home again in the South, the rules are different. Before it was a matter of finding plants that could survive high desert conditions; freezing winters with howling wind and almost no rain. Now I have the luxury of being able to grow hydrangeas, roses, wisteria, azaleas and crepe mrytle. Not to mention gardenia, Confederate jasmine and honeysuckle...with no real idea how to go about it. But, I'm bolstered by the fact that the Lady Bank rose given to me by our sweet neighbor Kim, two years ago, is thriving after a rocky start.
The grasshoppers very nearly killed it it's first year until my friend Connie explained that there are now rose foods which also act as pesticide. Boy, did that make a difference! This year that rose has visibly grown more than a foot and has been covered with the beautiful tiny yellow roses for which it is famous. In fact, I was so encouraged by it's growth and apparent health that I bought a white crepe myrtle last week. It isn't much more than a collection of sticks in a gallon container at the moment, but with luck and a little bagged planting mix, hopefully it will survive and maybe even thrive.
Easter in Texas was good. I got to see my friend with cancer, probably for the last time. I got to attend two of the three Easter masses at St. Mary's and was able to visit, all too briefly, with a few of the parish friends I miss so much. We were even able to spend a little unanticipated time with our favorite cousins as well as Sissie and the grandkids.
The Parental Units, bless them, treated all of us to lunch at the club after church on Sunday where we ate much too much and even had our picture taken with the Easter Bunny. It's also where we formed our guerrilla army.
Every Easter, the club uses chocolate bunnies for centerpieces on the tables. One bunny for small tables, two for larger ones. The bunnies may be eaten there or taken home as favors. However, we noticed some people, at the end of their meal simply walked off leaving their bunnies sitting forlornly on the vacated table. So Sissie, my Pal, the kids and I decided to reallocate the bunnies to our own use - thus forming the Bunny Liberation Army. The problem of course was beating the extremely efficient wait staff and other bunny hunters to the abandoned confections.
Covertly eyeing each table for abandoned bunnies is a tricky proposition at best in an extremely upscale restaurant. It would be uncouth, not to say downright rude and extremely embarrassing for my parents and everyone else if caught abducting a wanted bunny. So we kept a vigilant watch on each table that we deemed unlikely to take their party favor home. The game made for a lot of silliness during lunch. But it went from being amusing to downright funny when Bird, mimicking Pa's military jargon leaned over and whispered to me..."abandoned bunny; four o'clock".
As it happens, Sissie spied the only bunny we managed to capture and reallocate. It was quickly snagged by Tink as we left to go home. But, to hear Sissie laugh the way she used to was worth any amount of grouchy confusion displayed by poor old clueless Daddy.
There is a very good reason the Farmer's Almanac is still published. That's because it is almost always correct. Unfortunately there are those who having no patience, don't think to check the almanac before planting anything.
Sadly, I find that I'm one of them.
The prospect of finally getting to do some landscaping around the pool was so exciting that I've jumped the gun on planting my really big pots. I assumed the cold front which passed through the south last week was our "Easter cold snap" (at least I absorbed that fact from my farming grandparents). Of course, never having farmed a day in my life, I got it wrong. Now I find that we're going to have two nights in a row of freezing and/or below freezing weather. In fact the high today is 48 degrees. Ugh.
Hopefully I can scrounge up enough tarps, old towels and sheets to cover the prematurely potted stargazer lilies, phlox and caladiums; then just hope that by covering them against the chill, they'll still grow and bloom next month. And since the already blooming pansies are considered cold weather flowers, they're on their own. But, you can bet next year I'll be checking the almanac before I put so much as potting soil in a container!
This is the last Sunday before Easter. There is just this Sunday of nominally Catholic, low church nonsense to suffer through before going home for Easter and a proper Triduum Sacrum. However, that's not really what's on my mind.
I miss my parents.... their poodle, not so much. But I want to see Mama and Daddy and I can't wait to see my daughter.
I haven't seen her in over six months and in that time she's become a completely different person. She looks better and happier than I've seen her in more than five years. In point of fact, she looks and seems like *herself* again. And besides that I have desperately missed my grandkids - the eldest of which was my "time-share baby" as an infant. I am so anxious to get there that I am going to attempt to convince my Pal that it really would be rather a good idea to leave here at three a.m. on the day we're scheduled to travel.
Sadly, things will be a blur for the three incredibly short days we'll be in Texas. There's so much to do, no time to do it and I'm going to have to prioritize, which seems so very unfair.
1) I want to have a four generational professional photograph taken with Mama, Sissie, Tink and myself but it will depend upon Sissie's work schedule and Mama's inability to adhere to anyone's schedule but her own. (That's not tacky by the way, it's just the way she is.)
2) I want to see a dying friend. I've known her all my life (my mother's best friend) and this is probably the very last opportunity I will have to see her alive.
3) I want to spend time with my cousin who isn't well and has recently had surgery, as well as her sweet husband, with whom my Pal instantly bonded when they first met. I love them dearly. Dennis and I both miss them.
4) Lastly, I want to attend as much of the Easter Triduum Sacrum at St. Mary the Virgin as I am able.
Thank goodness most of the solomn rites (church services) for Easter are vigil masses and occur at night after the parental units close up 'the lockdown', the cousins are snug in front of their television set watching sit-com re-runs, and the grandkids are settled at home with their Mom, and because she worked all day is not likely to be able, or willing to go anywhere - much less a two and a half hour Catholic mass!
My job then, for the next four days, is to make certain I get everything done here so that the three precious days we are there won't be spoiled worrying about anything but the need to make certain I spend as much time with the people I love, doing the things I went home to do.
Last night, the ONLY television program my husband and I watch ended......in an absurd, silly, shoddy and completely unsatifying way.
Those of us who have been watching 'Life on Mars' since it's beginning, have had an enjoyable time imagining and discussing just where Sam really was and how he was going to "get home". Was he in a coma? Was he dead and this was his after-life? Would he and Annie become a couple, or would she be an old woman when he got back to 2008? Would he choose to stay in 1973? Was there a reason for the year 1973? Now we know, and the answer was anything but thought out or pertinent.
ABC has a lot to answer for. Not only did they cancel - in our opinion - the only program worth watching in their otherwise lame-excuse-for-entertainment line up; they allowed sophomoric hacks to write the ending. I COULD HAVE WRITTEN A BETTER FINALE. The so-called writers, responsible for the final episode, didn't even follow the basic story writing principles taught in elementary school! Viewers were left with the impression that those hired to write the last episode never even saw the program. They simply threw together a random group of scenes with which to end the series in such a way as to make it impossible to resurrect. In a nod to the actual story line, the writers threw in one or two gratuitous references to it's original plot but no real resolutions. Many of the interesting twists and threads in Sam's story were left dangling in mid air - or should I say space? (Bad pun intended.)
I suppose it's a sad statement of just how small our lives have become when we even care about the outcome of a television program. But, to my mind the sloppy, half-thought-through finale is simply another case in point, illustrating the degree to which craftsmanship and pride in one's craft no longer exist or even matter; hey, it's only about the money anyway, right?
Not every film or program has a happy ending. Such is life. But my Pal and I were truly appalled that writers who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year were allowed to violate all the accepted rules of story telling, and in doing so subject talented professional actors to their excremental dribblings. Personally, I feel sorry for the actors. The new faces introduced to us through 'Life on Mars' proved to be good solid thespians led by one of my old time favorites, and in the end, the script writers made them all look foolish. It is a testament to their professionalism that they carried off the last few scenes of the last episode with straight faces.
I love my alarm clock. It makes me smile.
On some days it even makes me laugh out loud.
No, I'm not completely mad; well at least not yet. The reason I love my alarm clock is that it wakes me with a beautiful melodious British voice saying the most outlandish, ridiculous and funny things.
The clock is voiced by the English actor/comedian/author/director Stephen Fry. For those of you not familiar with this seriously funny lunatic he has been a stalwart of the British screen for at least two decades now. For years, his 'employer' and bane was actor Hugh Laurie of American television's "House" fame. Stephen Fry played 'Jeeves' to Hugh Laurie's 'Bertie Wooster' on a popular BBC adaptation of the Wodehouse novels written in the twenties and thirties...but I digress.
Someone had the idea that alarm clocks don't have to be the irritating harbengers of morning, but instead could wake us with humor. I hope they give that guy the Nobel Peace Prize.
It makes all the difference in the world to be jerked into conciousness by humor rather than some obnoxious noise. For example, yesterday morning "Jeeves" woke me with the following:
"Good morning Madam." "Your physician rang." "He is very concerned for your health." "He advises madam that she needs all new shoes, and if they aren't purchased immediately, he can't be responsible."
What woman wouldn't want to hear something like that first thing in the morning?! I realize it doesn't translate as well on paper (well, computer screen), but the sheer silliness of it, delivered in the lovely voice and measured tones of your own personal "butler" is guaranteed to make waking at a specific time much more pleasant. Who wouldn't love to have someone catering to our every whim instead of the way it really is? And, who wouldn't love to be 'advised' to go shopping - especially for shoes? Additionally, when the button on the front of the clock is pushed to turn off the alarm, the voice then says things like "as you wish Madam"....it cracks me up.
Definitely a better way to start the day.
