Aside

Tennessee Ernie Ford, Sixteen Tons.

This one is all your fault, Sled. I’ve been waiting on this song to show up.

Quite irritating, too. Not the song, I like it, but the way it started playing.
I woke up, looked at the time, decided it was late enough and I should get up. I did a back-pain inventory and realised I was lying a little crooked, and hoped I hadn’t messed myself up for the day. I put my knees up to do my back strengthening exercise, and then remembered that I’d had really interesting, long dreams, the ones that are more like movies with proper plots. I love those, so I tried to recall the last one…and it was like watching someone drop the needle on the record. “No, you cannot watch a brain-film in bed! You must listen to ‘you load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt’…” Arrrgh.

Earworm OTD

Grrr

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A short one. I’m cranky. I’d written a long post about cooking, etc, last night, but realised a lot of it was off topic, even for me, so I was going to cut the middle out and save for another post. Well, the WordPress application doesn’t have my draft. Gone, poof, sayonara. Again, I chose WordPress because I could blog from the iPad, and I’ve been let down. I’m going to have to use Pages, I guess, or at least copy paste everything into Pages in the future before posting and especially when I don’t want to post right away. There aren’t any forums mentioning this issue. Just me…

Portrait of a jealous dog

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It was cold last night. So cold that Spot didn’t budge all night from his place on the couch documented in the first pic of the previous post. He didn’t get up until about a half hour ago. Of course, he’s now full of stored energy and takes it out on us by going into what I call ‘Super Love-Me Mode.’ This involves lots of head butting, leg rubbing, dog annoying, lap jumping, and purring that can be heard from the next room. Only two things satisfy him when he’s this wound up – a good brushing, or a car trip.

I asked iDJ to take him for a drive, as I needed smokes. He grumbled but agreed, as long as I gave him the last of the coffee. Deal! Spot had to be carried around the house as iDJ got dressed, because otherwise, he leaps into iDJ’s arms or stands on his hind legs and paws at tender places…neither action one that makes it easy to get anything done. Spot knew well he was going for a drive! (I should explain something to my US readers. I carefully avoid the word ‘ride’ because that word has a totally different meaning in Ireland. I’ve been conditioned not to use it due to the snickers and giggles I heard when I first moved here.)

Off they went. Lokii couldn’t care less, for him the world on the other side of window glass doesn’t even exist. Neko, however, was jealous. She watched them leave, and then waited at the front window for their return.

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How…why…I wanted to go, too…

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They’re home! Why aren’t they coming in? Why wasn’t I invited?

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Hurry UP!

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Hi! You’re home! Now come inside. Is that bacon in your pocket?

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Poor dogeen. We torture her so.

Waking up Lokii

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Lokii-monster was being cute last night, and I tried to get a few pictures.

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Napping with his brother.

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Yawn…I’ve woken him up. Normally, not a big deal. Sleeping is awfully important, especially on a lovely warm hand-crocheted blanket by Auntie Socks.

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Nope, I’m apparently more interesting. He’s Siamese, he talks. This is one of many, many times he was saying, “Hi! Hi! Hi!” Ugh, my table’s a mess. iPhone, booze, iPhone, tissue box, peanuts, pumpkin seeds, National Geographics…is that my used dental floss? Eww, I’m a slob.

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He wasn’t amused by my lack of interaction, or the big iPad blocking his view of my face. So, he stood up on me for a stretch and to make sure I was paying attention.

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He’s a big boy, and can sink his claws into my collarbone from this position. Time to put the technology down and hug a kitty.

I have more legs than usual, or, My blog is named appropriately today

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Two days in a row it has been lovely enough to sit outside for hours. It’s chilly, so I’m not in shorts and sports bra like I would like to be, but I have my sleeves pushed up and my sweatpants pulled up over my knees. At least my shins are getting some sun. It feels fantastic. I’m a sunshine junkie and I follow it around the garden from March until the winds drive me inside for the winter.

This will be my sixth winter in Ireland, and the angle of the sun this time of year still surprises me. We are so much higher in latitude than anywhere I’ve ever lived before. At 9 am, the sun was glorious coming through the windows of the house – but only the upstairs windows. The neighbouring houses block the sunshine from the ground floor. The sun just wasn’t high enough yet. Currently it is almost noon, and the length a shadow cast is twice the height of the object casting it. Weird for someone who grew up in Florida, where noon means no shadow at all.

There’s not a cloud in the sky, either, which is very unusual. Here, I’ll prove it:

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That’s the sun! Funny warm yellow thing in my sky, please stay a while.

I’m surrounded by happy bees and wasps and bluebottles, all recharging themselves after the cold night. They are all trying to drink my coffee and sample my pumpkin seeds, too. I don’t mind until I have to fish a corpse out of my cup.

I’m also grateful that I actually do like spiders, because I am covered in them. The sun has brought out all the tiny baby spiders to send their parachute lines up into the breeze and carry them off to a new home. Which is me, quite often. I’ve picked three off me since I started writing this, and my shins are ticklish with the webs stuck to my stubble. My beloved Coleman folding camp chair (beloved because it has two cupholders) is covered in fine webs, and I just took a break to watch a spider the size of a full stop tilt her bottom into the air, spin, and launch from the arm. Amazing wee things.

One of my blueberry bushes looks like a Christmas tree sparkling in the sun: green and red leaves bedecked with silvery webs. I’m glad the berries are done, it is a bitch to clean the webs off berries, especially when dog hair sticks to the webs. Beware my blueberry pancakes, they might have extra keratin.

If I shade my eyes, the whole back garden is adrift in spidersilk. I can catch an aviator or two in action if I watch for a while.

Oh, that was a good one – I assisted another spiderling to launch, she was on my thumbnail and I expected her to spin. Instead she started crawling straight up in the air on a web I couldn’t see. I raised my arm, but she was still climbing straight up. I brushed the web free of my thumb and woosh! up, up and away!

Just had another land on my iPad as I was going to get up to see if I can photograph the blueberry bush. Probably was in my hair.
No picture. The crappy iPad camera can’t do it justice. And I had to check my seat before I planted my arse back down.

Sorry if I’ve freaked out any arachnophobes. I like just about all critters, with a few exceptions. I can’t hate anything without a reason, and spiders never gave me a reason. Quite the opposite, in fact, I’m having a great morning sitting here watching a free airshow.

Socks has a (large) Raspberry!

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Howdy! Oirish Tirsday was back on Thursday again, so another marathon phone call took place.

After we got my job-interview sagas out of the way, I asked how Halloween went at her place, as this is the first one she’s had there. She was tired, but manned the door for the eve.

Best Costume was won by a dad who was dressed as Bob Ross. Ya gotta love a man who picks Ross as a costume! She’d love to know, are they artists? Or was he just a quick thinker with an Afro and a palette sitting around?

Second prize went to a small boy dressed as Mario of SuperMario fame. She offered him the candy bowl and his response, said in the manner of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons, was: “Oh. Skittles. I have not seen those for a very long time.” Poor little geek-kid. You just know he’s not going to grow out of that voice.

We also talked about how neither of us ever did a trick to anyone. Except, she said, once on her birthday she and her friends toilet-papered a house. But that doesn’t really count, because her dad drove the getaway car, and bought the TP for them to use.

So, on to the baby-growing update! She’s still in fruit stages of development, and this week BabySocks is a large raspberry. I can’t help wonder what the book is going to say when she is further along…will they be brave enough to say cantaloupe? Watermelon? Don’t tell me, Socks, I love the giggle every week when you tell me the new fruit.

Raspberry now has a head bigger than the body and looks less like a lizard. It is growing hands, knees, elbows, lips, nose, and eyelids. There’s some twitching movement, too, but nothing she can feel.

Speaking of feel, the container BabySocks is growing in is now the size of a grapefruit, but she can’t feel any bump or lump yet. Seems like you would, doesn’t it? I asked if she is in the habit of sleeping face-down, because that would probably have to change. But she doesn’t, so sleeping will still be comfy.

Socks is still nauseated, and/or has a sour stomach. Food is becoming an annoyance – not a big deal, but eating has to be thought out in advance. Things that sound really, really, good turn out to be ‘meh’ when on the plate; the happiness of mealtime is a bit lacking. Even her home-cooked mac n cheese was “Not as awesome as it sounded on paper.”

She’s still tired, too, and can see a difference when she doesn’t get enough iron in a day. Zzzzz. Bear took her on a drive through the country to look at the autumn leaves, and she slept through them all. She was hungry, out of snacks and feeling ill from lack of food. But the restaurant he had planned on stopping at was closed. She said she felt terrible that she was spoiling the day by feeling sick and sleepy and didn’t want to tell him. As usual, more worried about others than herself.

All in all, not too bad, really! When she told Bear that she felt pretty good, and was surprised given her family’s pukey history, he leaned back, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and said, “I’m a cattleman. I can pick out a good breeder.”

And she not only let him live, she laughed.

A month old…

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I believe this thang is a month old today. I’m too lazy to scroll through the 74 posts I’ve put up since I started! I never thought blogging could be so addictive, or so much fun. I certainly didn’t think I would be so prolific – and I’m nowhere near to being out of things to babble about!

Today has seen my most hits ever, thanks to Jimmie Chew and the loyal band of followers he has. Thank you, everyone, for visiting! I’d be happy to try to draw things for others, just ask. I’m not brilliant, but who doesn’t love their kitty, pup, or even their own lovely face hand-drawn? Well, finger-drawn 🙂

Now, I have to go and write another Socks update!

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(that’s a cake. that is also what I draw like without a photo!)

Jimmie Chew, Fin and Darnell have been Brushed!

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A lovely young cat visited my blog and liked my finger paintings enough to request a portrait. How could I ever say no?
This is Jimmie Chew, he has a photo-diary blog of his own where you can follow his busy day, from nap to car trip to glamour modelling.

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Jimmie is the star and narrator of his blog, but he has two feline ‘brothers.’ I didn’t want them to feel missed out, so here is Fin, a lovely grey gentleman:

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And this is Darnell. He is all black and seriously challenged my abilities. I need to figure out how to paint in reverse.

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As always, I am happy to have handsome, willing models to draw. I learn more with every picture. Thank you, boys!