A wedding day!

Our friends got married today, and I decked out in my retro finest for the shindig.  The weather was cold and windy and rainy, but thankfully the catering hall had an indoor chapel area for just such an occasion.

I dyed my hair the wildest red I could find, and slept in pincurls the night before, with a pink scarf tied around my head.  Bear gets total credit for not laughing himself to sleep.

The ceremony was lovely, and I cried.  Bear was asked to do a reading, and he performed it with dignity and grace.  The wedding was a noon affair, so during the reception we could see right out the huge dining room windows to the ocean - the grey, windy, rain-swept ocean - and it felt rather as if we were partying on a huge ocean liner!  The hall was so close to the water you couldn't really see land outside the windows - a nice effect.

I was thrilled that the vintage earrings I'd bought on Etsy from a nice lady in Minnesota arrived in time for me to wear them to the wedding. They were just the right shade of blue!  I wore my Nana's pearls, the same ones I wore at Bear's and my wedding back in 2002.

A good time was had by all.  Another one of the really nice things about an early afternoon wedding is that we got to come home (a mere three blocks from the wedding venue), put on our sweatpants and tee shirts, and kick back for a nice relaxing evening playing on the computer and watching movies together!  It sure beats staggering in at two in the morning, knowing you'll be completely shot the next day.

Cat happenings

Our beautiful boy has recently been experiencing some difficulty in eating his crunchy food.  I thought it was a jaw problem, possibly age related.  He is going on thirteen years old, after all, and while that's not ancient it's getting on up there.

Of course I did the wrong thing before taking him to the vet, which is: I looked up "aging cat jaw problems" on the Internet, and was subsequently terrified that he had some terminal illness caused by my poor choice of diet for him.

I took him to the vet yesterday, and the very very good news is that he is NOT ill, and his diet is FINE.  The not so good news is that he has a dental condition that will require oral surgery and about $1500 to fix.  The good news is that we have room on the credit card to cover this, because it really does have to be seen to or it can cause other health problems for him.  The bad news is that they will have to anesthetize him to perform the procedure.  The good news is that all his blood work and heart test and exam came back saying that he's super fit and healthy and will come through this procedure with flying colors.  When I expressed concern about the procedure because of his age, my vet said "old age is not a disease... it's the health of the animal that counts."  Made me feel a lot better!

So, all in all it's not the worst that it could have been, but I'd still appreciate it if all my friends out there in the blogiverse could just send up a little mental hug for my furry friend here.  He goes in for his procedure this Tuesday morning, and we should have him home with us again by 6PM that same day.

Keep yer paws crossed everything goes purrfectly!

My vacation so far

 

Yesterday was cool and rainy.  Since I was already pretty much expecting it, I only left the house for a minimal trip to the drugstore for necessaries.  Then I donned my exercise clothing and put our new CD changer on "random shuffle", and chose my hit list of dance tunes. 

I danced for as long as I could - about half an hour, I think.  I danced to several Janet Jackson songs, a few Madonnas, and some La Bouche.  There's something funny about dancing as exercise, in that thinking about doing it makes me not want to do it, but the moment a song starts, I can't stop myself.  I love to dance, but it's definitely the music that gets my feet moving.  I suppose as we age, the brain leans more toward a good book and a glass of wine when thinking about a good time.  I'm glad the magic in the music is strong enough to overcome that. 

After that, it was pretty much "Rosemary & Thyme" episodes and popcorn until Bear got home from work.  I even snuck a nap in there somewhere, and re-set the episode I slept through to the beginning again when I woke up.  All in all, a pretty relaxing and restful day.

This morning, the sound of driving rain and booming thunder woke me up at 5AM and had me running around shutting all the windows, which we'd left open for the cool night breezes.  I'd planned to try and get the hedges trimmed and the lawn mowed today, but that's right out the window.

The bride and groom whose wedding we're attending on Saturday are planning to have their wedding photos taken in our garden that morning, but I'm wondering if she's really going to want to drag the hem of her gown through wet grass and dirt before the ceremony... and what will her wedding photos look like with an overgrown, hairy garden as a backdrop?  I hope they've come up with an indoor "plan two" for their wedding photos...

Bear is coming home early from work today in order to participate in a company-wide virtual meeting on the computer, so at least I don't have a long dreary day alone ahead of me.  I was going to put "read a good book" on my plans today, but as I've finished the ones I got from the library recently, I'll have to go back out this morning and find another.

I joined the "Goodreads" website the other day (a wonderful site where you can rate the books you've already read, and it suggests other books along the lines of the ones you loved that you might like to read), and the library had my first two favorite picks:  "The Casual Vacancy" - J.K. Rowling's new novel for adults, and "The Obituary Writer" by Ann Hood.  I enjoyed both, although Rowling's book had me scrambling back to the beginning to see who was who - there were a lot of characters in her story with similar names, and it was hard to keep them straight in my mind as I read.  "The Obituary Writer" was absolutely fabulous, made me cry twice, and the very minute I closed the book I ran to my computer, pulled up Amazon, and bought a copy for my mother.

So now I shall revisit Goodreads, and see what's on my "want to read" list.  I'll pop over to the library and see which of them are in.  I should probably get in some dancing this morning, too.  We'll see...

Also on the list for today is coloring my hair.  I've got a super-vibrant shade of red that I've been dye-ing to try!  Should be fun!

The forecast for my first week of vacation, because God hates me, and right about now He's not exactly on the top of my list, either.

Wednesday

Mostly cloudy. High of 68F. Winds from the SSE at 5 to 15 mph.

Wednesday Night

Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain after midnight. Fog overnight. Low of 55F. Breezy. Winds from the SSW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Thursday

Mostly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm and rain. High of 72F. Breezy. Winds from the SSW at 20 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 20%.

Thursday Night

Partly cloudy with a chance of a thunderstorm. Fog overnight. Low of 54F. Breezy. Winds from the SSW at 20 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 40% with rainfall amounts near 0.3 in. possible.

Friday

Overcast with a chance of rain. High of 70F. Breezy. Winds from the SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 60%.

Friday Night

Mostly cloudy with a chance of rain. Fog overnight. Low of 50F. Breezy. Winds from the NE at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%.

Saturday

Partly cloudy with a chance of rain. High of 68F. Breezy. Winds from the ENE at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

Marcheline's sweet revenge!

The other day, when Bear and I were driving around enjoying the gorgeous sunshiny afternoon, we passed a Victorian house with clouds of lovely lilac colored phlox and a white picket fence, and I commented on it.  Bear immediately launched into the history of the various breeds of phlox, citing one "Edward Giez" as the botanist who discovered how to make them different colors.  He ended the rant with, "They call them... 'Phlox of Giez'."

At which point I would have hit him with a frying pan, except that a) he was driving the vehicle we were in, and b) I didn't have a frying pan on me at the time.  Note to self: larger purse needed.

 I know I've mentioned that we are going to get a hognosed snake sometime soon... as far as we know, the clutches of eggs at the breeder's have yet to hatch.

Excited as we are, though, in preparation for the arrival of our wiggly wee bundle we've prepared a lovely tank, complete with a hollow hiding rock, for his arrival.

Yesterday I stopped by the drugstore on the way home from work to pick up some necessaries, and was standing in line waiting to pay.  Right there next to me was a display featuring three-foot-long candy "gummy snakes".  One of them was almost the exact same color as the hognose snake in the above photo.

You guessed it... I coiled the gummy snake in the cage, with its head under the hiding rock entrance as if it was just going inside.  When Bear got home I told him there was a surprise in the computer room.  Just as he got a glimpse of the tank and his eyes popped out, I went over and lifted the lid on the cage, reached inside and yanked the snake out and bit its head off.

I figure that was pretty good revenge for "Phlox of Giez", what do you say?

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Here's a big Happy Mother's Day wish to those moms, like mine, who are able and willing to stay home with their kids when they're young.  To limit their TV-watching, video-game playing time and increase their trips to outdoor gardens and parks, beaches and forests.  To teach them the names of the flowers and trees, to sit down at the kitchen table with pads of blank paper and colored markers, to color and hide Easter eggs.  Here's to moms who refuse to let their kids turn in school assignments that are misspelled and grammatically incorrect.  Here's to moms that teach their kids to respect their elders, to respect all living things, to respect the earth.

Here's a big Happy Mother's Day wish for those women, like me, who never had children of their own, but who care for animals, plants, and other people's children.  Surely that's a kind of mothering, isn't it?  Here's to moms who adopt kids that other people gave away or didn't want.  Here's to moms who take in stray animals and give them a loving, wonderful home. 

To good mothers of all kinds, all over the world - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Garbage You Can't Refuse: A short story

So my tenants bought a new box spring and mattress.  Instead of taking the old ones to the dump, they leaned them up against the street sign in front of the house, at the curb.  Not sure if they called the village waste management to schedule a pickup or not, but in any case that turned out to be a moot point.

I was driving home from a day shift last week, and as I got closer to my house, I saw the mattress portion of the duo apparently dancing around on my front lawn by itself.

Not really believing what I was seeing, I slowed down as I approached my driveway and stuck my head out the truck window to get a better look.  The boxspring was still leaning up against the street sign, not moving.  The mattress, however, was definitely doing the mambo... all over my little yew bushes in the front yard!

I whipped my truck into the driveway, at which point I could see that the mattress had not, in fact, come to life, but rather that there was a small hispanic guy wrestling with the mattress.  And losing spectacularly.  It was interesting to note that while he was staggering around my front lawn underneath the enormous mattress, he kept hold of a bicycle with one hand.

Taking a huge breath, I leapt out of my truck and yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  GET OFF MY BUSHES!!!" at the top of my lungs.  At this point the dude stopped moving.  He was still standing on my front lawn, holding his bicycle, and the mattress was still leaning on his head, but he was no longer moving.

I ran around to the front and hauled the mattress off the dude - and my bushes - and leaned it back against the street sign with the boxspring.  I said, "PLEASE GET OFF MY LAWN!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"  

Dude wheeled his bicycle off my lawn and onto the sidewalk next to the mattress, and pretended that he was brushing dust off the bicycle.  I suppose he thought that if he acted like I didn't exist, that I'd just go away and let him resume the mattress foxtrot, round 2.

Finally I calmed down a little and looked at the bicycle.  I said, "You can't take this mattress on a bicycle.  You need a truck."  He just looked at me and shrugged.  But he was not leaving the mattress.  It was like they'd developed an intimate bond, before I showed up and ruined the mood.  It occurred to me that a dude on a bicycle probably lived locally.

I said, "Where do you live?".  He pointed two houses down the road from mine.  I said, "Two houses away?", and he nodded.  I sighed, and pointed to the mattress.  "Get that side."

We had the mattress and boxspring in the back of my truck in two seconds flat, and he rode his bike ahead of me down the road and up his driveway.  In another two seconds, we had the bed components leaning up against his house.  He thanked me profusely, and I went on home.

Seriously... what is it with people trying to kill the plants in my front yard?  One former tenant's daughter split my young redbud tree in half (she was old enough to know better and nearly as tall as me) by swinging on one of its tender branches.  Another tenant parked his car on my lawn during the wintertime, knocking one of my baby boxwoods sideways.  Now a crazy neighbor wrestles a mattress on top of my yew bushes.  The world is such a big place.  There are entire forests of trees and shrubbery to roll around in.  Why my yard?

Now that it's all over and I know that I only lost one small branch off one of my yews, I dearly wish that I had a videotape of the parts of the "dude vs. mattress" match that I missed.  The part I saw was funny enough, but the whole thing must have been freakin' HYSTERICAL.