Monthly Archives: November 2011

Nov27

Avoidance baking

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I should be doing ‘stuff.’ I was, in fact, doing stuff a few minutes ago. Now I’m sitting in the sun and writing. It’s too nice out here and I don’t want to go in and cook.

I’m doing Thanksgiving today. We got a turkey for €5 and saved it for the occasion. Turkeys are easy, I’m not worried about it, or the mashed potatoes, or the sweet potatoes.

What I’m not looking forward to is making pumpkin pies.

I’m a pretty poor baker. I always think it will be so easy and fun. Instead I end up with a huge mess, no counter space to work in, and cat hair liberally distributed through the either burned or undercooked dessert. It’s like sewing or knitting: I really want to do it, but some part of me just isn’t up to the challenge. It’s time I accept my limitations, everyone in the house will be happier without hearing me screaming curses at inanimate objects.

The dog leaves the kitchen entirely when I start rattling pans, the poor neurotic girl. Can’t imagine why.

Anyhoo, I have 14 cups of pumpkin frozen from my Halloween jack-o-lanterns. A pie only uses two cups, so I can make seven pies! Yay for me! I’m not making seven today, just two. And I doubt I’ll share with anyone but the hubby because I love pumpkin pie and it is rare to get the gourd here at all.

Wish me luck, I’m going in…unless I can think of a few more things in the garden that need tidying up.

Oh! How crazy is this: one of my blueberry bushes has flowers. This is not good! I hope I still get fruit next summer.

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Nov27
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Steve Nicks, Leather and Lace.

And what a hard time this song is having at driving out my dream. I’ve said before that only very violent dreams are ‘nightmares’ to me. Wow, this one was. One minute I’m in a snowy field, admiring the reflection of trees in a lake. The next, a man is pulling his entire digestive system out through his mouth, hand over fist, and the intestines took a really long, messy time to come out. I don’t know if I’ve ever managed to look away until it was over in a dream before. The sounds didn’t stop, though. Ewww.

Earworm OTD

Nov26

Fun on the Internets

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I had a busy night over on the FaceBook last night. I put up my seahorse drawing, and by the time we were done talking shite, me and two friends racked up 190 comments.

Only four were about the actual drawing.

The rest, well. Bird started it by offering up embarrassing stories. She put up three then asked if I had any. I said I couldn’t think of anything, not like hers, anyway! I suggested that another friend (who had commented on the actual drawing first and was, of course, being notified of these new comments) might remember some dirt on me, as we’ve been friends since I was 12 or 13.
Well, she didn’t have anything on me either. I’m sure I had to have something, but just couldn’t come up with anything I did publically that I found embarrassing.

I have a private, in my own house story, but only one other person ever knew about that one.

Not to say that my history has been boring, oh no. I did things on purpose to mess with people, though. I pierced my ear in class with a huge safety pin, and bled everywhere. More disturbingly, I once sat in class and pricked holes in a finger, then spattered blood all over my desk in pretty patterns. I think I was trying to creep out the only kid in the class that was stranger than I was. I guess I was goth before there was goth. I wasn’t embarrassed, and I didn’t get in trouble for either incident.

I did get in trouble for painting one eye – just one – in heavy black and white professional clown makeup. I can’t recall if they made me wipe it off or not, but I do know I irritated the powers that be.

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It was a bit like that.

Once I borrowed a dress from a friend and put it on before school. Maybe I was way taller than my friend and therefore showed too much leg, but the school administration stopped me cold and wouldn’t let me go to class. They called my mother to bring me ‘proper’ clothes. While I was waiting for her, I could hear the women in the office talking about me. They called me a whore, and made nasty comments about what I probably had been doing with my boyfriend before school started. It was the first and last time I ever wore a dress to school.

Still, I was ANGRY, not embarrassed. Sorry that my mom had to leave work and bring me clothes, too. Ya know what? I’m still a bit pissed off.

My sister told me recently that when I was very young, I would hiss and growl like an angry cat. At other kids who picked on me on the schoolbus. Yeah, a bit odd.

I just went back to the FB comments; we spent three hours talking! Too funny. Two of us in Ireland and one in Florida, and what great craic. The best part of it all was how much it helped them both. Bird because she’s had it really rough lately, and has had huge life changes to deal with. But, a listing of embarrassing moments made her remember what a free spirit she is at heart, and that she doesn’t need a ‘bucket list’ because she has lived. My other friend because she’s a bit lonely and isolated out in the sticks of Florida; her son is grown and gone and her family lets her down too often (but she keeps trying, what a massive heart she has). She said she laughed and snorted through the whole three hours.

You never know what will come from a simple post on the ‘net, do you? I think I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on that topic for another time, though – too much to tack on to the end of this one!

So, go on, what’s your embarrassing story?

Nov25

Seahorse has been Brushed!

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Good morning! Here’s a seahorse out of my head. Completely fanciful: I made the tail curl the wrong way! By the time I thought to Google one for real and found that the tail curls under, I was too far along to easily fix it. Oh well! I’m trying to do a few drawings for kids, this is one.

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Nov24

Oh yeah… it’s a holiday today, isn’t it?

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No Oirish Tirsday this week. Sniffle. Socks has her near and dear ones gathered around. I plan to get a bit tipsy and then ring my dad – sis rang me before I had much booze on board. Must have been a change for her…

I’ve had a muscle jumping in my right knee all day. It makes me CRAZY. I went nutso a few hours ago and added to the bruises by beating my own leg in an attempt to make it stop. Yes, I’m one of those people who goes insane when hiccups last more than, oh, say, 2 minutes.

For those who would like a few Thanksgiving tunes, my hubby loves to do a theme radio show and of course, toikey is the one tonight. My second plug… Go to radio23.org channel A, he’s live right now on the air and will be for the next two hours. You’ll get to hear an Irishman with an American accent – its a bit of fun. XE

Nov23

Bengal games

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My Bengal Spot is trying to train me, again. I’m fighting it, but it is sooo hard…

He is nine- I think? -I’m not good at keeping track of these things. But he doesn’t act like it, he’s very playful and healthy. It’s just that he gets bored easily. When that happens, he plays games with his humans.

The easy game is ‘I want to sit with you, but I’m going to make you beg me to do it.’ It’s a long game, so he likes it a lot. It has two parts: in round one he stands on the coffee table and stares at the prime lap position he wants. Human talks to him, pats couch, makes kissy-noises, offers the best place under the blanket. He leans in, looks like he’ll come and lie down…then turns tail and walks away. Repeat 2-3 times. Round two of the game involves circling the living room doing bad things in order to get yelled at. He always goes clockwise and hits the same forbidden places in the same order: going behind the TV where the wire soup is dangerous, standing on the rickety DVD tower trying to push it over and/or reach my Peace lily, then back to the coffee table or the arm of the couch where he can leap onto the top of the bookshelf. He does these things deliberately to get our full attention. All we do is shout no at him, but that’s enough for him to be very happy and come trotting back with a smile on his face to sit on the coffee table and repeat round one. This goes on until I get sick of having to pay so much attention to him and not what I’m trying to watch on TV, and I grab him. Ah, the win goes to Spot every time. I’m rough with him; I grab him, shove him under my elbow, and pretty much sit on him to keep him there. Which is what he wanted all along. He loves being squished. The purring is deafening. Weird cat.

I recently tried grabbing him right away instead of letting him have the full game. At first, it seemed a brilliant solution. He was sooooo happy. So very happy that he got up and left within a few minutes so I would do it again. And later that night he was unbearable, wanting the new game over and over. Sigh.

He’s added in a new part to round two lately, and it is even more annoying. It consists simply of going into the kitchen and howling at the sliding glass door. Repeatedly. I am not amused. He sounds like he is in pain! It’s the most pathetic, woeful sound. The only time he sounds worse is when he has a nightmare – that is terrifying. I’m only guessing about the nightmares, actually. We did catch him twice waking up from a sound sleep and immediately screaming, so that’s our best guess. He never acted as if anything hurt, or ran to the toilet or any other indication of physical pain. But wow, it was scary – he only did it a few times in the space of a few months then stopped.

But the one that I’m fighting so hard against is the 2am ‘come play with me’ caterwaul. He wakes up, his cat-brother and dog-sister and both humans are asleep, and he’s bored. What to do? Wake ’em all up, of course!

Mwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow! Mrrwow. Mrrwow? Mrrwow. Mrrwow. Mrrwow? MMMMWOW! MMMRRROW! MMM-GURGLE-ROW!

By now, we are all awake, staring unmoving at the ceiling, and hoping against hope he’ll stop on his own.

He won’t.

My solution is to go downstairs, shut the living room door, go into the kitchen, shut that door, fill the nearest receptacle with water and then trap him in the living room to throw the water all over him. He never tries to get upstairs, and lets himself be trapped. He appears to enjoy it when I chase him around trying to corner him in a place I don’t mind getting wet. He doesn’t even really mind the water, but he has to shut up for a while to dry himself off.

I’m really hoping I’m training him this time, and not the other way around. He does it less and less, but I have a harder and harder time getting back to sleep.

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Look at him there, all innocent as he tries to smother his brother to death in his sleep. I’m not falling for that one, either.

Nov22

Cerys has been Brushed!

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Ooo, I have a special drawing tonight!

Please meet my beautiful niece, Cerys. Isn’t she just adorable? She has the loveliest blonde curls and the biggest blue eyes ever. She’s not quite one and a half here, right after her first haircut. So much personality in such a tiny package! The last greyhound I did, Rua, is her puppy.

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Nov21

I feel like I’ve been in a car wreck…

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Oh what a night. Saturday, that is. iDJ and I had to go out to meet a friend. He doesn’t live here all the time, so when he’s home we can’t tell him no. It’s a little hard because we shouldn’t be spending the money we don’t have in the pub. However, it’s such a huge part of Irish culture that not going is an insult.

Luckily, we spent a good few hours at our friend’s place before the pub. We also went back there after closing hours to continue the session. It was the same as the night I turned 40 – everybody dancing in the house, making a mess, having a great time and eating caviar. It was black caviar this time, which I found out I like a lot more than the red. His house is a great place for a house party: no close neighbours to complain, and last winter the house flooded so there’s no carpet to worry about, just concrete.

It was (again) a great mix of people, different ages and different lives. I tell ya, we 40+ ers can really par-tay. It’s almost as if the booze is a stimulant, and we go bonkers when the music starts.

It’s not just us old farts that get down n boogie, though. One of my friends is 24, and she and I were hamming it up in the kitchen. The way I remember it is that she jumped into my arms… I held up for about .0003 seconds, and then down I went. Knees first. On the concrete. Carrying my weight and hers (thank goodness she’s a little thing). She snapped forward and smashed my nose, then backward and smashed her head on the dishwasher.

I was more worried about her. I can be very protective… Once we confirmed that we were both okay, we carried on. I didn’t look at my knees, but my nose was bleeding out of both barrels. Pretty. I’m glad I bothered to put on mascara before we went out.

Having loads of liquid painkiller in me, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Probably didn’t even check to see if I had blood all over my face or not – I don’t think about my looks often. The walk home hurt a lot, though. My knees weren’t happy…

So yeah, I have a blue and red nose, and some gorgeously colourful knees. Especially the left one, it looks like a sunset and is rather swollen. I can’t go down the stairs unless I go backward, it hurts too much the normal way.

My back is fine, though. Lift with your knees, not your back…land on your knees, not your crooked tailbone.

Here’s the gore:

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